#20 - A/S/Laway

I've used Askaway as part of a project on Web 2.0 during my 1st year in SLAIS. I'm sorry if one of you folks had the misfortune of having to deal with me.

Conceptually, it's a great service. But the people who came up with it must've forgotten to account for one of the most pervasive and cosmic laws of the internet. Here, lemme Common Craft it for ya.



The internet's great, but without any pesky social norms to get in the way, people will be tempted to ask questions that they won't otherwise ask another human being face-to-face. Add to the fact that many Askaway users seem to only be half aware of the service's intended function, and you've got...

Well, you've got the internet in all its user-driven glory.

Not too long ago, I sat in with a co-worker during one of her Askaway sessions, and heard a lot about the horror stories. And even bore witness to one!

Is it perfect? Well, no. But I bet it's great fun.

return of the attack of the son of Office II: Officemaggeddon!

Attempts to teach library patrons how to save their documents in the new Word has also proven to be a harrowing exercise, and not the fun kind of harrowing, like I don't know, skydiving, or owning a handful of extremely violent kittens. Observe:

Librarian: "Just click on that button here."
Patron: "Which button? The File button? I don't see it."
Librarian: "No, that button up in the top-left."
Patron: "That button? What do you call that?"
Librarian: "I--er, I think--I don't know. It's the Office Logo, I guess?"
Patron: "My God, what is that thing? It's hideous! I think it's pulsing!"
Librarian: "Don't make sudden movements! It can smell your fear."
Patron: "It's coming straight for us! Nooooo!"

Is it a conspiracy that the functional (if not very pretty) File menu has been replaced with an indescribable, unpronounceable symbol that defies comprehension, sort of like another indescribable, unpronounceable symbol that defies comprehension? I say yes, and that we are all doomed.

#19 - dataz! bases!

Philip's Atlas of the Universe
Today at the children's desk, I fielded a lot of questions about the solar system. I wouldn't recommend Philip's to those kids, but the material there is certainly suitable for Grade 7's to high school ages (it doesn't pull any punches in describing orbital matheminucia, chemical compositions, etc.) seeking more numeric facts about a particular cosmic entity. What's best about this eBook is the browsable table of contents interface.

However, the keyword searching has a few quirks. First, the tiny 'check within this publication' radio button is not checked by default, and can lead to users unwittingly searching the whole Gale database instead of the publication that they clicked on.

As well, Gale's keyword search results does not allow for a sort by Relevance, and defaults to a Sort by Document Title. This could be confusing for first time searchers weaned on Google, as a query for 'Jupiter' brings up 'Asteroids' as its first article. Users will have to be instructed that the first article is not necessarily the most relevant one!

Shakespeare for Students
Another publication hosted on the Gale databases; has all the keyword searching quirks mentioned above.

Now here's something I wish I had when I was going through my BA. Plot synopses of every major play! Act-by-Act summaries of the action! Tons of useful analysis! None of those boring soliloquies to sift through! None of that hoity-toity literary scintillation to get in the way! Also useful are the list of Media Adaptations of each play, highlighted in a purple text box where applicable; great way of pointing lazy readers to audio and DVD renditions of these plays. Sadly, the write-ups are wonderfully concise and approachable reads. And by sadly, I mean that might make them prime candidates for plagarism. Do kids still do that these days? Is it still 'with it'? I don't know anymore.

#18 - Word? ew, no.

Word: Ugh. That sums up my first impressions of MS Word 2007—like Vista, it seemed at first glance like an ill-intentioned attempt to fix that which ain’t broke. (After the second, third and fortieth glances, nothing has changed.) Colorful comments made during the first two minutes of exploring Word included:

“Where is my File menu?”
“Why is everything in tabs now?”
“Ew, they’re ugly!”
“What, I can’t Save As?”
“Why the hell is this over here now?”
"What’s wrong with where it was before?”
“#*$&*%#@$” [abridged].

For me, the proliferation of cryptic buttons laying out all the features of a particular tab (Home, Insert, Page Layout, etc) right in front of you doesn’t seem particularly organized, nor is it strikingly user friendly. And it sure as heck can’t be efficient if I can’t tell what these hieroglyphs mean at a glance (check out the ‘Clear Formatting’ button… an Aa festooned with what looks like a white marshmallow speedbump? What?).

Otherwise, it seems like Word with plenty of new features along with all the old ones. ONLY NOW YOU CAN’T FIND ANY OF THEM.

Outlook: On the other hand, the new Outlook email wrangler seems very nice. I like the horizontal window layout as opposed to the old vertical one. And unlike Word, all your basic necessities for life are easily laid out with both icons and text, and in a fashion that does not take up half the screen, omg. The Find feature is a particularly welcome addition, as is the ability to quickly export your emails or contact list to a folder on your hard drive.

#17 ze outlook calendar

Some neat features on the Outlook calendar, but so far it seems that most folks prefer the direct human-to-human email exchange when setting up meeting times, and I do too. It seems more personable--though most of my meetings have been between myself and one other person. The Outlook setups might indeed be a boon to larger group gatherings. But I can forsee problems that may arise when the person you're trying to schedule a meeting with has not been using Outlook to track his/her other appointments, and their schedule will shows up blank. Which may not necessarily mean 'available'... Hm. Maybe I should update my calendar.

And it is handy to be able to peek and see what meetings are taking place up at the Boardroom, or other spaces.

#16 am i in ur base?

Good reminders about net security. This is interesting enough to teach people in the email basics class! But not uninteresting enough to make this an official blog post. But I will make an exception just this once.

It was good to find out about spear phishing, the form of phishing localized to internal members of a company near you. Good, but depressing. Stupid humans!

After reading through all this, though, it still seems that the best defense against online account predation is a healthy dose of paranoia.

But who will defend us from the ninjas?



PS: Looks like I scored a 9/10 on the Phishing IQ; that's what I get for erring on the side of phishing!

helloes.

Hello. This is a blog. This is where blogging happens. This is my first posting. Hooray! Except that I haven't yet had lunch today. Which means this isn't much of an inaugural blog.

Isn't this fun?