Virtual Dave…Real Blog

OK, those of you know me that I have worked hard to earn my gadget boy status. So please excuse me as I take some space here to talk about a new cool gadget – the Tablet PC. I’ve been doing a lot of web development recently and I’m a Mac user. The problem is that what I do looks fine on a Mac in Safari and Firefox, and even Firefox for the PC. However, invariably, it will break Internet Explorer for Windows. IE is not just evil, it is old. Microsoft realizes this and is busy working on a newer version to conforms to more recent standards (like Cascading Style Sheets). Anyway, the point is, I really have to see the sites I develop on both a mac and Windows. My colleagues were getting tired of me kicking them off their machines, so I decided I needed a Windows machine to do development (Virtual PC is too slow and too much of a space hog).

Mike Eisenberg had been gushing about his tablet PC for two years now, so I decided I might as well try it while getting a testing machine. I went with the HP tc4200…it is GREAT. It would be better if it didn’t have to run Windows, but it is very cool. Understand that I have a Bachelors of Fine art, and grew up wanting to be an illustrator, so there is nothing better than a tablet I can draw on. It comes with a pressure sensitive pen, so it really is like drawing on paper. I knew it was for me when I was drawing a picture, flipped over the stylus to erase a line and then….ready…brushed my hand over the erased are to brush away the debris…like on real paper.

I still have my Mac as my main laptop, but this thing is what I have in my hands for note taking and working out ideas. Add OneNote and you have an awesome scientific notebook.

Required software if you get one: Microsoft OneNote, Alias Sketchbook pro and the free Tablet PC Expansion set.

Apple PLEASE MAKE A TABLET!

Here are some examples of notes. Did I mention you can search on hand written notes.

Lankes has joined an advisory board for an IMLS project at Rutgers University. From the project abstract:

Rutgers University School of Communication, Information and Library Studies and OCLC Online Computer Library Center will research and evaluate the sustainability and relevance of virtual reference services (VRS). VRS are human-mediated, Internet-based library information services. The increasing use of VRS by the public has increased the demand on libraries to provide reference services online, and this project aims to improve libraries’ ability to respond to the demand. The project will develop a theoretical model for VRS that incorporates interpersonal and content issues and will make research-based recommendations for library staff to increase user satisfaction and attract nonusers. It will also make recommendations for VRS software development and interface design and produce a research agenda for user-centered VRS.

Sorry for the long time lag. So as we are continuing our StoryStarter (Kathy is working on cleaning up the data structure, and revising the PHP code for a first public beta) we’ve been percolating an interesting idea. Once we’re done with the first beta of StoryStarters, we’ll take that code base an begin transforming it into OpenQA for distribution at VRD (feature requests very welcome).

The interesting idea? Tamal Guha, a visiting Fullbright at the Institute has started work on a multilingual version of StoryStarters. He is currently translating StoryStarters into Hindi! We’ve been kicking around the idea of creating a multi-national project to support the development of a multilingual open source digital reference system. The idea would be to emulate the quality study we did with Chuck McClure and Melissa Gross where we identify the project (developing OpenQA) and then seek sponsors for the project. International organizations could join at various levels (right now we are thinking as a function of size and what how much say in the direction of the project). Join at one level and you get a hold of the software and source. Next level you pay for a language adaptation. Next level you drive the software features (we want chat, etc).

This is still fuzzy, but it seems to resonate with folks here. The end result would be an open source, low cost or free digital reference packaged built for multinationals. It would also focus on building software, not consortia or content, hopefully by-passing legal issues.

We’re in the process of sprucing up the StoryStarters prototype for first beta. Cathy is working on the final database schema.

The plan is once the database schema is in place we finish the StoryStarters beta.

Then we take this code base and re-task it for OpenQA Builder (shh, but we’re working on a release for distribution at this year’s VRD).

Stay tuned.