... the IT man in LibraryLand
(246 Alternate Title: Thing #11 LibraryThing)
I've skipped ahead in the 2.0 stuff as I finished another book during the week and I thought I'd tie my review into the LibraryThing task.
I actually stumbled across LibraryThing about 3 months ago thanks to someones email sig. I had a little play with it and then moved on to other things.
So anyway, The Blood Debt is Book 2 of the books of the Cataclysm and follows on as a sequel of the books of the change and only a minor way as a sequel for the First book of the Cataclysm.
I enjoyed this one much more than the First book, mostly because it fell into the easy flowing prose of the Books of the Change. The characters and setting are all wonderfully evocative of the Australian-esque landscape and I am eager to gobble up the rest of the series.
I've added the books that I've read this year, which luckily happens to be five, to my LibraryThing shelf. Copying them out of my Bayside Library Book Journal - the 0.0 way of keeping track of these sorts of things.
... the Week of Free Lunches
What a long and busy week it's been.
I've spent most of it Training up on the new Library Management Software at our suppliers HQ in the city. Four days of catered lunches and far too many lollies from the bowls on each table! Supervisor S was with me all week and we had guest appearances from Mr Prada, Sonja Roster Queen, Miss Amanda, Genealogy Jane, chanlib, Vikki, Sister Serials, Ms Magpie, Devil's Advocate and a few others.
At the same time I was dealing with settlement on the current house and pre-settlement non-disclosure of upcoming costs on the new flat. It's going to be such a holiday when the property stuff is over and I can relax with the major system upgrade at work.
Thursday night's soccer was a wonderful flashback to my childhood career as the heavens opened up and we were lashed with rain for about half of the game.
The final day of training was topped of with a night of farewell drinks for Jemima from the IT Helpdesk. CC was there as was The Polster and another Canadian CC acquaintance with a J name, coincidentally drinking CC (Canadian Club). Many xx and cokes were consumed but I made it home fine and the ice in the drinks kept my hydration levels at a safe level.
In four days of Train Travel I managed to be affected by a Connex Train delay every day - the worst was 35 minutes sitting at one station on my way in to drinks last night.
I've spent most of it Training up on the new Library Management Software at our suppliers HQ in the city. Four days of catered lunches and far too many lollies from the bowls on each table! Supervisor S was with me all week and we had guest appearances from Mr Prada, Sonja Roster Queen, Miss Amanda, Genealogy Jane, chanlib, Vikki, Sister Serials, Ms Magpie, Devil's Advocate and a few others.
At the same time I was dealing with settlement on the current house and pre-settlement non-disclosure of upcoming costs on the new flat. It's going to be such a holiday when the property stuff is over and I can relax with the major system upgrade at work.
Thursday night's soccer was a wonderful flashback to my childhood career as the heavens opened up and we were lashed with rain for about half of the game.
The final day of training was topped of with a night of farewell drinks for Jemima from the IT Helpdesk. CC was there as was The Polster and another Canadian CC acquaintance with a J name, coincidentally drinking CC (Canadian Club). Many xx and cokes were consumed but I made it home fine and the ice in the drinks kept my hydration levels at a safe level.
In four days of Train Travel I managed to be affected by a Connex Train delay every day - the worst was 35 minutes sitting at one station on my way in to drinks last night.
... The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
We watched The Treasure of the Sierra Madre last night. It was worth the watch as I have now seen the source of the Stinkin' badges quote.
The film itself was also quite good although there were a few strange turns in the plot and character behaviour - and Bogy played a semi-bad guy!
The film itself was also quite good although there were a few strange turns in the plot and character behaviour - and Bogy played a semi-bad guy!
... the Nearby Gamers
In the spirit of 2.0 I've just added myself to a little mash-up website called, surprise surprise, NearbyGamers.
It uses Google Maps to show where people are, tagging to show what they play, and a wiki for all the profile information. One person created it but the community is editing the tags and tag descriptions to make it more meaningful and to quickly do the work that it would take the creator many months to do.
It uses Google Maps to show where people are, tagging to show what they play, and a wiki for all the profile information. One person created it but the community is editing the tags and tag descriptions to make it more meaningful and to quickly do the work that it would take the creator many months to do.
... the Rollout from Hell
Egads! It's been almost a week since I posted. I will try to return to my regularly scheduled tales.
I've been up to my neck in computer rollout and trying to get New Library Management Software to play nice with Old LMS. Add to that the need to fiddle around with adapters to get some of the equipment to work correctly now that there are only USB adapters on our PCs and it's taken about twice as long as usual to set up each new computer.
On the 2.0 front, while I haven't had time to progress any further it is good to see now that The Big List is actually fairly heavily populated.
I've been up to my neck in computer rollout and trying to get New Library Management Software to play nice with Old LMS. Add to that the need to fiddle around with adapters to get some of the equipment to work correctly now that there are only USB adapters on our PCs and it's taken about twice as long as usual to set up each new computer.
On the 2.0 front, while I haven't had time to progress any further it is good to see now that The Big List is actually fairly heavily populated.
... the GOAL!
Thursday night soccer saw the momentous occasion of my first goal. I intercepted a stray pass and went one-on-one with the goalie and easily shot it past him into the back of the net.
I've also been doing some other library IT stuff to do with our upcoming upgrade of Library Management System to version 8. Uncovering some unusual problems with installing the new client programs on the same machine as the old ones - still to be sorted out on Monday. I hope it's not one of those problems that I bang my head against for most of a day and just have to uninstall and not even try to have it working the way I wanted.
I've also been doing some other library IT stuff to do with our upcoming upgrade of Library Management System to version 8. Uncovering some unusual problems with installing the new client programs on the same machine as the old ones - still to be sorted out on Monday. I hope it's not one of those problems that I bang my head against for most of a day and just have to uninstall and not even try to have it working the way I wanted.
... the Day of Delays
Today got off to a great start with and early morning phone call from Svetlana in Eastern Europe - which did delay my leaving for work a little. Hot on the heals of that was a mortgage related call that further delayed my leaving.
Once I was on the road I had to stop for petrol and waited 7 minutes for a spot to open up! What do people do in that little shop?
Next I went to the post office and while I was filling in the postal info for the Svetlana-bound parcel six people came out of nowhere and formed a painfully slow queue that I had to while away my lunch break in.
Continuing the theme of delays I had a phone conversation with fellow 2.0'er Simmone about how we'd both registered the same day as Scully but there is some delay in our blogs appearing on The Big List (actually quite small as I write this).
Once I was on the road I had to stop for petrol and waited 7 minutes for a spot to open up! What do people do in that little shop?
Next I went to the post office and while I was filling in the postal info for the Svetlana-bound parcel six people came out of nowhere and formed a painfully slow queue that I had to while away my lunch break in.
Continuing the theme of delays I had a phone conversation with fellow 2.0'er Simmone about how we'd both registered the same day as Scully but there is some delay in our blogs appearing on The Big List (actually quite small as I write this).
... the Prince of Darkness & Sky Captain
Watched these two movies last night as part of the long weekend relaxation (most of Saturday morning was a write-off after a pub night out with CC and friend Friday).
Prince of Darkness is a John Carpenter slow-build horror which works quite well in an investigative style. It still has moments when you want to yell at the cast to run away but staring at absolute evil as it gathers the strength to consume you is a staple of the genre.
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow was very impressive technically and stylistically. It's maybe a tad too long but is generally a "ripping good yarn".
I have to go now since I'm about to be invaded for an evening of "the wife has the kids and it's a holiday tomorrow" gaming.
Prince of Darkness is a John Carpenter slow-build horror which works quite well in an investigative style. It still has moments when you want to yell at the cast to run away but staring at absolute evil as it gathers the strength to consume you is a staple of the genre.
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow was very impressive technically and stylistically. It's maybe a tad too long but is generally a "ripping good yarn".
I have to go now since I'm about to be invaded for an evening of "the wife has the kids and it's a holiday tomorrow" gaming.
... the Return of MAMILS
I played in my weekly casual soccer game last night (still no goals!) and the left knee MAMILS returned. MAMILS (Middle Aged Man's Injured Leg Syndrome) was first pointed out to me by Supervisor S last year as something that happens to middle-aged men when they take up sport again. Of course since S mentioned it I've been plagued by mystery twinges and tenderness so be aware, now that I've told you about MAMILS you too are vulnerable.
In any case the knee is only slightly tender this morning so I think I've dodged the MAMILS bullet.
After soccer was the Thursday night Super Heroes role-playing game. Quite a good session with my character Jackie returning from other dimensions with news of the repercussions of our actions and getting the team to cross back to try and fix things... or so they think.
In any case the knee is only slightly tender this morning so I think I've dodged the MAMILS bullet.
After soccer was the Thursday night Super Heroes role-playing game. Quite a good session with my character Jackie returning from other dimensions with news of the repercussions of our actions and getting the team to cross back to try and fix things... or so they think.
... Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh
Finished reading this at lunch time today. It was a good read although phonetic Scottish makes it a hard read if your a little bit tired. Luckily my teenage reading of Richard Adam's The Plague Dogs prepared me for accent reading.
Making it harder was the unusual speech quoting style:
- Can you believe this makes it harder to understand? I asked you. Especially with funaytic scoots slung been yused, ya ken? I finished
Having last seen the film a good ten years ago, I'm thinking at the moment that it followed the book quite closely but will have to chase up a copy to find out how faulty my memory actually is.
Making it harder was the unusual speech quoting style:
- Can you believe this makes it harder to understand? I asked you. Especially with funaytic scoots slung been yused, ya ken? I finished
Having last seen the film a good ten years ago, I'm thinking at the moment that it followed the book quite closely but will have to chase up a copy to find out how faulty my memory actually is.
... the Seven and a Half Steps
I've watched and listened to the Seven and a Half Habits of Highly Successful Lifelong Learners Tutorial , with a little judicial fast forwarding to move quickly through the ~70% of it that was in the "read the power-point slide" style of presentation.
The habit that I'd find easiest would be to make use of technology and I'm not really sure which of the remaining ones would be the hardest... maybe setting long term goals?
The habit that I'd find easiest would be to make use of technology and I'm not really sure which of the remaining ones would be the hardest... maybe setting long term goals?
... the Classroom of Doom
So yesterday I had to run a class for the public (well 6 of them anyway) in Your Library @ Home - covering all the library-related things you can do from home through our library website.
While I wasn't particularly under the weather after the post-training day free-drinks socialising of the evening before I was very glad to be sharing the class-taking responsibilities with Mr Prada. He has been a wonder in preparation and execution while I have been swamped with work in the weeks leading up to the class.
All in all though it went well also considering that train cancellation hijinks robbed us of all but two minutes of collaborative preparation time in the morning.
While I wasn't particularly under the weather after the post-training day free-drinks socialising of the evening before I was very glad to be sharing the class-taking responsibilities with Mr Prada. He has been a wonder in preparation and execution while I have been swamped with work in the weeks leading up to the class.
All in all though it went well also considering that train cancellation hijinks robbed us of all but two minutes of collaborative preparation time in the morning.
... the world of 2.0
Well here I go diving deep into the world of 2.0 with the beginning of this blog.
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