Webinars from MaintainIT Cookbooks

If you haven’t yet seen the two cookbooks put out by MaintainIT, you should take a look.  In addition to these resources, they have started a series of free, monthly, 30-minute webinars on topics pulled from the cookbooks.

The first was today, April 16th — Notes from a Laptop Circulation Program.  It is archived, so you can see it anytime.  The next is May 21st and its on Wireless Acceptable Use Policies.

[from WebJunction]

CAPTCHAs Have Been Broken

CAPTCHAs are a test that is supposed to identify you as a real person as opposed to a computer program.  Here’s an example from Google’s Blogger:

Until lately, this seemed to be working.  However, some of these CAPTCHAs have been cracked — those from Windows Live Hotmail and Gmail.  Websense Security Labs also states that there is a method for breaking the Windows Live CAPTCHA that allows the computer program to decipher the text and make a guess within 6 seconds.  Since they are right 10-15% of the time, technically, they could guess correctly once a minute.

[from Ars Technica]

LinkBlip

Ever want to know if your friends and colleagues actually click on the links you send them?  LinkBlip will let you know.

This could be really helpful.  You give the service your email address and the address of the web page.  LinkBlip gives you a new URL to use in your email, blog, website, etc.  When someone clicks on that link, you are notified with the time they clicked on it, as well as their city and state.

[from Buzz Out Loud]

Flickr Now Allows Videos

Flickr, a photo-sharing site, now will allow you to upload videos!  A couple of caveats:

• You have to be a Pro member ($25 per year)
• Videos cannot be more than 90 seconds in length
• Videos cannot be more than 150mb each
• Only safe or moderate content is permitted (no restricted content)
• Only videos you have created yourself

By the way, Flickr is also increasing the amount that can be uploaded per month:  20mb per photo for Pro members and 10mb per photo for those with free accounts.

[from Flickr Blog]

Virginia Mandates Internet Safety Classes

The State of Virginia is the first state to have mandated Internet safety classes for public schools. Apparently this law went into effect this school year, so I’m guessing that schools have been integrating this curriculum throughout the year. Yahoo Tech found this PDF from the Virginia Department of Education which provides ideas on how to provide information on Internet safety throughout the curriculum — not just in a stand alone course. Each course area provides ideas for elementary, middle, and high school courses.

It’s interesting that this has been in place for this entire school year, but we’re just hearing about it now. I’m hoping we will hear from Virginia teachers and school librarians on how it went.

[from Yahoo Tech]

Website Tune-Ups Courtesy of Jeff Wisniewski

At the Computers in Libraries conference, Jeff Wisniewski discussed some small things you can do to your website that will make it better and easier to use for your patrons.  They are all excellent suggestions.  I haven’t yet found his handouts, but the Librarian in Black has an excellent summary.

Raine’s Stats on Internet Use

Lee Raine of the Pew Internet and American Life Project spoke at the Computers in Libraries conference.  Always interesting, he provides us with more information to consider as we look at libraries and their place in our communities:

• 2000: 56% of adults used the Internet, 5% had broadband at home, 50% owned a cell phone, and none connected wirelessly to the Internet
• 2008: 75% of adults use the Internet, 54% have broadband at home, 78% own a cell phone, and 62% connect wirelessly to the Internet
• Cell phone users are more likely to be from lower-income households, have lower levels of education, and be minorities.
• 62% of young adult users have uploaded photos; 34% of all users
• 58% of online teens have created a profile on a social network; 33% of adults do
• 26% of young adults have created webpages or blogs for others; 13% of online adults have
• 33% of college students keep blogs and regularly post; 12% of adults have a blog
• 54% of college students read blogs; 35% of online adults do
• 19% of online young adults have created an avatar; 6% of online adults have

He cited an IMLS study and provided these statistics:

• 53% of American adults have been to the library within the past year
• 62% of ages 18-30 have visited the library within the past year
• 60% of online teens use the Internet at the library

There are other great stats in this overview of his presentation.  Take a few minutes to look it over!

Unicode 5.1

A new version of Unicode is now available.  Version 5.1 contains:

• the enabling of ideographic variation sequences which are needed for Japanese, Chinese, and Korean.
• changes to properties and behavioral specifications, which primarily deal with Polish, Portuguese, and Tamil and other languages.
• 1,624 newly encoded characters

[from Cafe con Leche]

Heated Pools Thanks to Data Centers

In Switzerland, a data center sits next to a local swimming pool. Keeping the equipment in the data center cool requires pushing cold air in and pushing hot air out. Instead of losing the hot air by pushing it outdoors, this data center is using it to heat the next door pool.

One of the major tech trends identified earlier in the year was “going green.” This project is a great example of using the cast-off hot air from computing to heat a community resource — the pool. The town helped fund some of the cost of the equipment to connect the two buildings, but is getting the warm air (and warm water) at no charge.

[from Techworld]

Google Has an Age Requirement

Apparently, the Google Terms of Service includes an age requirement.

• Section 1 — The Terms of Service document is used with all Google’s “services and web sites (referred to collectively as the ‘Services’) . . . “
• Section 2.1/2.2 — You must agree to these Terms in order to use the Services. You can accept the terms in two ways:
  1. clicking to accept the terms, if given the option before use of a Service;
  2. using the Services.
• Section 2.3 — “You may not use the Services and may not accept the Terms if (a) you are not of legal age to form a binding contract with Google, or (b) you are a person barred from receiving the Services under the laws of the United States or other countries including the country in which you are resident or from which you use the Services.”

The legal age to form a contract in Texas is, I believe, 18.  So does this mean no one under 18 should use any of their services?  Blogger, GMail, their search engine?

According to CNET, they asked Google to clarify and Google sticks by the Terms as stated.  So, should we stop using Google as a tool in the K-12 schools?  Public library childrens and young adult programs?