Comments on: Midwinter Top Tech Musings http://www.librarywebchic.net/wordpress/2008/01/12/midwinter-top-tech-musings/ Resources for librarians who are interested in the application of web design and technologies in libraries Wed, 07 Jan 2009 18:40:50 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7 hourly 1 By: portable gps devices http://www.librarywebchic.net/wordpress/2008/01/12/midwinter-top-tech-musings/comment-page-1/#comment-53027 portable gps devices Thu, 14 Feb 2008 14:36:45 +0000 http://www.librarywebchic.net/wordpress/2008/01/12/midwinter-top-tech-musings/#comment-53027 <strong>portable gps devices...</strong> Basically, what blue tooth gps does is take the gps device and sends a signal to your blue tooth wireless laptop or your PDA.... portable gps devices…

Basically, what blue tooth gps does is take the gps device and sends a signal to your blue tooth wireless laptop or your PDA….

]]> By: Darren http://www.librarywebchic.net/wordpress/2008/01/12/midwinter-top-tech-musings/comment-page-1/#comment-46106 Darren Tue, 15 Jan 2008 15:47:52 +0000 http://www.librarywebchic.net/wordpress/2008/01/12/midwinter-top-tech-musings/#comment-46106 Your comments about blogging ceasing to be blogging are smart -- the same might be said of wiki, too, in the sense that both are collaborative, Web-based content management systems, that, more and more, are standard web publishing platforms. This is a welcome development in moving beyond the novelty (and FUD) associated with buzzwords. Your comments about blogging ceasing to be blogging are smart — the same might be said of wiki, too, in the sense that both are collaborative, Web-based content management systems, that, more and more, are standard web publishing platforms. This is a welcome development in moving beyond the novelty (and FUD) associated with buzzwords.

]]> By: My non-LITA top tech trends | Terry’s Worklog http://www.librarywebchic.net/wordpress/2008/01/12/midwinter-top-tech-musings/comment-page-1/#comment-45942 My non-LITA top tech trends | Terry’s Worklog Mon, 14 Jan 2008 23:15:58 +0000 http://www.librarywebchic.net/wordpress/2008/01/12/midwinter-top-tech-musings/#comment-45942 [...] Ultra-light and small PCs (Referenced from Karen Coombs)Karen is one of a number of folks that has taken note of a wide range of low-cost computers currently being made available to the general public.  These machines, which run between $189-$400, provide low-cost, portable machines that have the potential to bring computers to a wider audience.  I’ll have to admit, I’m personally not sold on these machines, in part because of the customer-base that they are aiming for.  Companies such as EeePC note that these machines are primarily targeted to users that are looking for a portable second machine and kids/elderly looking for a machine simply to surf the web.  A look at the specifications for many of these low cost machines are celerion class processors with 512 MB of RAM with poor graphics processing.  Is this good enough for web surfing or browsing the web?  I’d argue, no.  The current and future web is a rich environment, built on CSS, XML, XSLT, flash, java, etc.  I think what people seem to forget is that this rich content takes a number of resources to simply view.  Case in point — I setup a copy of Centos  on a 1.2 MHz Centrino with 512 MB RAM and a generic graphics card (8 Mb of shared memory) and while I could use this machine to browse the web and doing office work with Open office, I certainly wouldn’t want to.  Just running the Linux shell was painful, but web browsing is clunky and office work is basically unusable — essentially, surpassing the machine’s capabilities right out of the box.  Is this the type of resource I’d want to be lending to my patrons…probably not since I wouldn’t want my patrons to associate my library’s technical expertise with sub-standard resources.  Does this mean that ultra-portables will not be in vogue this year and the next?  Well, I didn’t say that.  A look at the success the IPhone is having (a pocket PC retailing for close to $1500 without a contract) seems to indicate that users are wanting to and willing to pay a premium price for portability — so long as that portability doesn’t come at too high of a price.  [...] [...] Ultra-light and small PCs (Referenced from Karen Coombs)Karen is one of a number of folks that has taken note of a wide range of low-cost computers currently being made available to the general public.  These machines, which run between $189-$400, provide low-cost, portable machines that have the potential to bring computers to a wider audience.  I’ll have to admit, I’m personally not sold on these machines, in part because of the customer-base that they are aiming for.  Companies such as EeePC note that these machines are primarily targeted to users that are looking for a portable second machine and kids/elderly looking for a machine simply to surf the web.  A look at the specifications for many of these low cost machines are celerion class processors with 512 MB of RAM with poor graphics processing.  Is this good enough for web surfing or browsing the web?  I’d argue, no.  The current and future web is a rich environment, built on CSS, XML, XSLT, flash, java, etc.  I think what people seem to forget is that this rich content takes a number of resources to simply view.  Case in point — I setup a copy of Centos  on a 1.2 MHz Centrino with 512 MB RAM and a generic graphics card (8 Mb of shared memory) and while I could use this machine to browse the web and doing office work with Open office, I certainly wouldn’t want to.  Just running the Linux shell was painful, but web browsing is clunky and office work is basically unusable — essentially, surpassing the machine’s capabilities right out of the box.  Is this the type of resource I’d want to be lending to my patrons…probably not since I wouldn’t want my patrons to associate my library’s technical expertise with sub-standard resources.  Does this mean that ultra-portables will not be in vogue this year and the next?  Well, I didn’t say that.  A look at the success the IPhone is having (a pocket PC retailing for close to $1500 without a contract) seems to indicate that users are wanting to and willing to pay a premium price for portability — so long as that portability doesn’t come at too high of a price.  [...]

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