Now you too can watch the magic of code4lib2009 via the interwebs. Videos of the presentations can be found here: http://code4lib.org/conference/2009/schedule
Videos of the Lightning Talks can be found here: http://code4lib.org/conference/2009/lightning
And video of me can be found here 8min and 40s into the video.
http://dl.lib.brown.edu/code4lib/lightning_day3.html
Yes I am that vain.
I really wanted to write a blog post for Ada Lovelace Day but I couldn’t think of who to write about. Its hard in a profession filled with men to find that woman that you feel makes a difference. And then I saw Dorothea Salo’s post on Bess Sadler and I thought how it was nice that her post was really about her friend Bess. And then my mind immediately went to Jodi Schneider.
According to Jodi’s publications and talks pages she knows math and FRBR, two topics that are beyond me and makes me even more impressed with her than I was before. And while this alone deserves a post, the real reason I chose Jodi is because she’s the best cheerleader ever.
I first met Jodi at the New England Chapter of Code4Lib meeting held at the Boston Public Library. I talked about cloud computing and how I hate applications on desktops because they require me to have a specific browser or computer to use. I was worried I had offended her (she was discussing Zotero), but later she emailed me to ask about the book on cloud computing I was reading.
I then re-met Jodi at the Annual Code4Lib conference. She was very open and inviting in the IRC chat room, in the real room, and eventually she encouraged me to do my lightning talk. Jodi made getting involved with an organization that I was timid about getting involved with much easier (note: I was only timid because I’m a girl and girls and IT aren’t known to go together).
Since then Jodi has sent me delicious links, tweets, and anything else on cloud computing that she comes across. She doesn’t know it but she has pushed me to become more involved in my areas of interest. I strive to know more and more about cloud computing because she takes an active interest in my area of interest. I’m attending different cloud computing events because they are good opportunities and I should take advantage of them (where before I might have wasted the opportunity).
So thanks Jodi for being my cheerleader and making me work harder at my job.
At Code4Lib I saw Becky Yoose give a lightning talk on AutoIt, a cool tool that is supposedly faster than Macro Express (but much more complicated in terms of writing the programs).
So while that was great, what was even better for me was that she used Jing, a free screencasting tool from TechSmith. It allows you to create screencasts (in .swf format). You can save the screencasts to your computer (and make an endless supply) or upload them to http://www.screencast.com. You get 2GB of space with a free screencast.com account but if you upgrade to the pro account you get 25GB.
I’m hoping to rework the library website and would love to have tutorials that use screencasting. And since it’s so simple to use I think our librarians might actually like to utilize the tool. I also think that some of the faculty technology liaisons will get some use out of it while working with faculty members.
Now I’m wondering if there is a Moodle block or plugin that plays .swf files…..
