Oct
9
Libraries, and many other institutions, have a difficult time leveraging the ability to allow customers access to communicate with them easily, using one of the most popular online communication tools available: Instant Messaging.
There are many problems, such as:
- Multiple Protocols (AIM, ICQ, YIM, GIM, Jabber, IRC, MSN, etc...)
- Inability to transfer conversations to another staff member more capable of handling a question or issue
- Software compatibility
- Operating System compatibility
- Web-based communication tools for these protocols
So what's left out there?
Continue reading "LibraryH3lp - A communication gateway for Instant Messaging"
Posted by Brendon Kozlowski
Jul
18
An interesting question came up on the Web4Lib daily-digest today. I replied directly to the author (I think, never understand how listservs work) but I thought I'd share this anyhow as it's not a hugely sought-after solution. Note: there are probably other, better ways to do this. Comments and other solutions are welcome. I am under the assumption you are using Windows XP (if anyone wishes to make alterations for Vista or another OS, you're more than welcome in the comments - if Linux and not using the shell, please specify which distro).
The question:
Has anyone tried to network an internet connection that involves a Verizon PC card in a laptop. Ideally I would like to be able to have 2 or 3 laptops sharing that one connection, but I have no idea where to start!
Hopkins County - Madisonville Public Library
My response:
You would need 2 other components:
- 1 crossover cable (it's a CAT5 cable with slightly different wiring)
- 1 "splitter", so a hub, switch, or router.
If you use a wireless router, you'll only need the one cable. If you use a hub, switch, or regular router you'll need a standard CAT5 cable for the other computers to connect to.
- Connect the crossover cable to the LAN port on the back of the laptop.
- Connect the other end of the crossover cable either in to a single computer, or the "splitter"'s "INTERNET" port.
- In Control Panel, go to "Network Connections".
- CTRL+CLICK on the two network connections you want to be sharing (the Verizon, and the Local Area Connection).
- Right click on one of the two, choose "Bridge Connections". (I can't verify what to do to finish the bridge as I only have one connection on my PC at the moment. A quick internet search could probably tell you.)
- If the "splitter" you were using was powered on, you may have to wait a moment for it to get an IP address, otherwise you can always power cycle it to renew its IP. The same goes for the PCs if you don't know how to force it to get a new IP.
I *think* that should do it. If I missed something from memory of when I did internet sharing, you can just do an internet search for examples or tutorials on "network bridging winxp". Switch out "winxp" for whatever OS you might be using if otherwise.
I hope this can help someone looking for a solution - or at the very least, get them on the right track. I am assuming here that the cell provider is not using the LAN port (either a USB or PCMCIA port).
Update: I believe I've enforced some stricter SPAM filtering on my blog (i.e.: any at all). At the very least, I guess I'm now more popular?
Sorry for any inconvenience. Comments are enabled once again.
Posted by Brendon Kozlowski
Jan
31
While using
Mon.itor.us to monitor the uptime of my websites' uptime, their IM messaging has not worked for me for quite some time now. They offer SMS messages for a fee as an alternative, but that's no fun considering it costs me $0.15 per SMS as it is. I just came across Pingie, a FREE service that will send an SMS to your phone when it encounters new posts from any feed. Lo and behold, Mon.itor.us provides an alerts feed. Yay.
Pingie.com
Posted by Brendon Kozlowski
Jan
27
OpenID, a way for website visitors to easily identify themselves without giving up personal information, has been adopted by Yahoo, and one of Yahoo's subdivisions in Flickr. If you own an account at any Yahoo or Flickr site (mail.yahoo.com, Geocities, Flickr, Yahoo! Stocks, etc...), you can now use these accounts as an OpenID server!
What's this mean, exactly? Well, I won't get in to the technical details (or the "cool" factor), but it means, to me, that most likely other competing companies (Microsoft, Google, and a few more) will be jumping in on the bandwagon to provide OpenID (and hopefully OpenAuth) functionality. Microsoft's Live database would be easily used for this, and we all know the think tank at Google will have this soon enough - I'm actually surprised Yahoo! beat Google to the punch.
Regardless, this is good news all around.
Source:
http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/009856.html
Posted by Brendon Kozlowski
Oct
2
Yup, still doing design work - but I'm not dead to the world, especially the
world wide web. Because of that, I have run across quite a few interesting links to share - some are web programming related, some are helpful day-to-day applications (written for the web), and some others are just interesting.
Notable links with similarities to those above:
Vista GUI with CSS
Paid-for Financial Tracking
Posted by Brendon Kozlowski
