The Links of Love are in Your Eyes

I still haven’t written my post-ALA-post. I slid from ALA into the holiday weekend after being on the road for nearly a month, and I’m still catching up — plus I plunged into car purchasing mode (I believe my green Prius is turning into a gently-used Honda — a more sensible choice, financially, though I do want another sunroof). But ALA was a fabu conference and it was so much fun to work in a booth (to the extent I was there, between meetings and whatnot). Haven’t done that since California!

(I think I am now measuring ALA by all the people I didn’t get to chat with — Jackie G. and Chrystie H. and Lisa J. and Bob D. come to mind, as do others. ALA is both too long and too short…)

So as I finish an article, pay bills, and get ready for a week of work, here are some links that struck me.

I wrote my first posts to the blogs for esilibrary.com and open-ils.org. Go me!

People are always asking me how to get people to read their blogs. Here’s a tip: be a major DVD-sharing company and announce you are eliminating a feature “only” used by a small percentage of passionate users. Wow, 1287 comments! Good job, Netflix. Now grow a brain. (They eventually reversed course on this incredibly dumb decision, but I loved the email they initially sent Sandy and other primary-account holders, claiming they were doing this for OUR benefit.)

Twitter made the front page of the New York Times, though not in a nice way. Hello, scalability? I’m on Friendfeed as well (http://friendfeed.com/kgs) which picks up my posts to sundry social networking sites. I don’t love Friendfeed the way I love Twitter, but as Rochelle wrote earlier, sometimes love is not enough.

Close to 4,000 developers have worked on Linux since 2005. Wowza. (Thanks, Z!)

One of my LITA Top Tech Trends (ignored in all but one write-up, as far as I can tell) had to do with the threat to small literary journals of rapidly-rising postage and other costs. I repeated my point that we librarians often do not curate what we do not own. We could be helping them move online, but again, literature? Not our problem. (Oh, and don’t get me started about the logistics for TTT…biting tongue)

Editorial Ass shares a jaw-dropping story about a writer who ruined his own book deal. (Thanks, E!)

I learned I can create itineraries in Google Maps and put them on my Garmin GPS.

Speaking of which, for the Tour de France, Garmin offers amusing icons and a tour guide. I have been using a pirate ship for my navigational icon (arrrrr) but I shall now show my support for Team Garmin. (Yes, I am spending a lot of time tinkering with my GPS, thanks for asking…)