I’ve long recognized that the continous web access and the couple of hundred e-mails each day come at a certain cost. We face so much stimulation from communications that require an instant response that regular work gets constantly interrupted.

Interesting stories prompted by Tim Dowling’s account of the distractions in today’s Guardian – Leave me alone . . .

The Information Age was supposed to provide humanity with access to endless streams of information, carefully organized and readily available to anyone with a computer and a bit of know-how. But how are you supposed to take advantage of such bountiful

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Tous les « slawers » ont lu la semaine passée le billet de Simon Chester (et oui, « billet » est la traduction française du mot « post » selon le Grand Dictionnaire de l’Office québécois de la langue française), billet donc sur l’affaire Joyce (Larry Lessig meets the Joyce Estate) où Larry Lessig a décidé d’intervenir.

Cette chronique m’a fait penser à une affaire qui a eut un certain écho ici au Québec, notamment depuis que la Cour suprême du Canada, il y a environ un mois, en a autorisé appel de la décision . . . [more]

It might be Wanderlust, though that usually strikes me early in the Spring, but in my virtual travelling I stumbled upon a pair of nice Canadian government lists of our embassies and consulates abroad.

The Department of Foreign AffairsThe acronym for the full Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade is DFAIT, which to an English speaker might suggest “defeat,” an unhappy idea. Embassies and Consulates site lists those that have websites of their own. It seems that at a minimum, each site contains some information about the country concerned and a blurb on Canada’s relations with that country. Other . . . [more]

1 2.5 lb head of cabbage1 carrot1 small onion------------Dressing:10 tbs sugar or equivalent sweetner2 tbs white vinegar4 heaping tbs ff sour cream6 heaping tbs ff mayoShred cabbage, carrot & onion.... Chill overnight& enjoy the next day.Yep, it's a recipe for slaw. Mind you, it's one that would put you so far over your daily caloric allowance that it's a wonder they bothered with cabbage in the first place.

Are we ready for a cyber-Katrina? How vulnerable is our electronic backbone?
Serious issues raised in a report released today.
PRESS RELEASES
Release Date: 6.23.06 Contact:
Tita Freeman
(202) 496-3269

Business Roundtable Issues Warning on Lack of Preparation to Recover The
Internet Following A Catastrophic Cyber Disruption

Analysis Finds “Significant Weaknesses” that Could Impact Homeland and
Economic Security

Washington, DC – The United States is ill-prepared for a cyber
catastrophe, with significant ambiguities in public and private sector
responses that would be needed to restore and recover the Internet
following a disaster, according to a new Business Roundtable report
released . . . [more]

Entitled “Hasn’t the Dewey Decimal System Been Invented Already?” the latest instalment of Jim Milles’ podcast Check This Out! was posted last night. In this episode, Jim has a few clips that examine, among other things, the changing role of the librarian. My contribution as “Canadian correspondent” discusses the Ark Group conference on KM held last week. I give an overview of the sessions plus mention a few things I learned. Please note Jim has changed the posting schedule from Mondays to Fridays. Probably because he is so busy travelling to conferences on the weekends!

I’m particularly thrilled . . . [more]

This from Sharon Wang, Reference Librarian at Osgoode Hall Law School:

Last week, a public letter [pdf] was released by CLA at its annual meeting held in Ottawa. This letter was addressed to Minister Bernier and Minister Oda regarding possible amendments that will be made to copyright legislation. In the letter, CLA “recommends caution and reflection.” Any future changes made to the copyright regime should keep the balance among the needs of creators, rights holders, and users.

The letter addressed two important issues: technological protection measure (TPM) and fair dealing. CLA believes that “TPMs present significant barriers to access to

. . . [more]

Opera, the third cross-platform browser, has released version 9. I know how hard it is to move away from what we’re used to in a program that creates and surrounds almost everything we do on the web, but give this thing a try; it’s fast and loaded with features that would make your browsing life easier:

• tabbed browsing, of course, but with the neat ability to show you a thumbnail of what’s behind the tabs when you hover over them;
• session saving, either when you choose it at closing or when you re-start the browser;
• the ability to add

. . . [more]

Shout out to the other Simon for a solid mention in a short feature in June’s CBA National on what to do with all those boxes that are left when your library downsizes or your personal shelf-space shrinks. . . . [more]

I’ve previously posted about Project Alouette on Slaw. Here is an excerpt about the project from today’sChronicle for Higher Education

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

AlouetteCanada Hopes to Pluck Scattered Digitization Efforts Into a Central Portal
By SCOTT CARLSON

Librarians and archivists in Canada are hopeful that a new nationwide online project, scheduled to go live today, will pull together digitization efforts across the country and make them easily accessible to the public.

The project, AlouetteCanada, is named after a French-Canadian children’s song. It is intended to be a portal site for boutique digitization projects at various colleges and museums. . . . [more]

In Deutsche Bank Securities Inc v Montana Board of Investments a the New York Court of Appeals held that a Montana seller (of bonds) fell with New York’s “long arm” jurisdiction statute when selling via IM and email to a buyer there.

See Law.com for an analysis.

[via E-Tips, Deeth Williams Wall LLP] . . . [more]

Here’s one of the better web tips I’ve stumbled across…

Have you ever linked to a webpage that had an anchor in it? For example, the link url would end in ‘something.htm#part1’, and the user would be taken to an exact spot in the webpage. This is accomplished by placing an anchor tag at the desired location of the landing page. Following this example, at some point in the landing page HTML you would find the tag ‘<a name=”part1″>’.

Did you know that you can do the same thing with an Adobe PDF file? Only with PDFs, there are no . . . [more]