Library Voice

Char has posted some problems we’ve been having with using Pidgin and Meebo.  I personally log into all my IM accounts and my Meebome widget with Pidgin, and it works just fine.  I’m able to get all my IM’s and meebome conversations in one single place.  It’s also very nice to change my status in one place, and have that reflected in both the IM and meebome status notifications.  So, for individual use, Pidgin and Meebo are still like Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. 

Unfortunately, when I try to log into our departmental accounts with Pidgin, I often find myself in the middle of a rather painful crash loop.  I can only speculate that this is the result of some compatibility issues with Meebo, as Char theorizes as well.  I can only assume that there may be some lag between when a user logs out of and IM sevice or widget in Meebo and when the connection is severed at the server.  I haven’t really had a chance to fully study this, but I assume that Meebo sort of hangs on to the connection just long enough to prevent me from connecting to the account in Pidgin.  Since we rotate IM duties on the hour, this hesitation can cause problems.  However, I wonder if everyone used Pidgin, would we still have this problem? 

The problem here is, I don’t know if this setup is reliable enough to convince our staff to switch to another client.  However, some standardization is needed, as with the addition of our Meebome service, things have gotten a little more complicated.  Some colleagues are still staffing the IM accounts with Trillian, while also logging into Meebo me to access the widget.  Others are simply logging into all accounts and widgets in Trillian.  I’m still not sure of the best approach with this.  While I really like Meebo, there are definitely benefits of a desktop client (more audible notifications for one).  I also hesitate to put all my eggs in one basket with a web-based service.  If all services are staffed through Meebo and it happened to go down, all of our services would be disrupted.  However, if we still staff our services with a desktop client, our IM services would still be up and running.  We’re not talking mission critical services here, but you know those students like to ask their questions and not be inconvenienced. 

If anyone has run into these problems and has a solution, please leave a comment on this post.  Otherwise, Char and I will continue to play with Pidgin and Meebo, and hope that we can get the chocolate and peanut butter mixed just right. 

Bike Radar has a humorous article about justifying your new bike.  It offers several suggestions for convincing your spouse/significant other/self that it’s okay to buy a new bike.  One suggestion is as follows:

It’s less expensive than a humongous HDTV.

This
will take a little bit of preparation, but is well worth it. For about
three weeks, don’t mention the new bike you want. At all.
Instead, with increasing intensity and frequency, begin talking about
how you’re thinking about getting a giant high-def television. And a
Blu-Ray DVD player. And a subscription to high-def cable/satellite (or
both!). And a serious sound system to go with it. Be very, very open
about how much this will cost — about three times as much as the bike
you want.Argue convincingly (not too convincingly, though) and loudly about why you ought to get this massive entertainment system.

About
the time your boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse/parent is at wit’s end,
capitulate. Right in the middle of an argument, act like a light’s just
come on in your head. “You know, you’re right!” you say,
catching them off-guard. “It’s outrageously expensive and it would just
rot my brain, especially when a new bike would cost me less than half as much!”They’ll
be so relieved — not to mention pleased at having clearly won an
argument with you — they’ll just let that remark go. Next day, you come
home with the new bike, as the two of you agreed.

Bonus:
It’s possible this technique will backfire on you and your significant
other will really get into the idea of buying a home theatre system.
That’s the beauty of this technique: even if you lose, you win!

When I was out for lunch today, I took a few pictures with my Treo.  The one below shows the bike racks in front of our student center.  Note how empty the bike racks are. 

The library is literally about 100 paces from the student center’s door.  Take a look at the picture of the bike racks in front of the library below:

Note that there is barely room for another one or two bikes.  Also, the bike rack on the other side of the fountain (out of focus in the picture) is nearly full as well.

So what does this say about the library?  Here are some wild theories:

1. Bicyclists like to visit the library
2. Lots of librarians ride bikes (my rig is the one on the very left)
3. The bike racks at the library are way cooler than the ones at the student center
4. All the cool bikes hang out at the library
5. Bikes become smarter by hanging out outside the library

My theory for the moment, which is largely unscientific, is that the library is more of destination than the student center.  Students simply visit the student center to eat or pass through on their way to class.  In contrast, the library may be a destination (in many cases a first destination) where students may spend a great deal of time.  Students may go to class, or go eat lunch, or even go to the student center, but their bikes stay at the home base—-the library.  They know that regardless of where they go during the day, they’ll likely end up back a the library at some point, so it makes sense to keep a prime parking spot for their bicycles.   A more scientific study, perhaps by taking pictures of the bike racks at several times during the day might offer more to validate this wild theory.  Could this be material for the library literature?

Not me, but this guy.  Noah chronicles his year of bike commuting on his KC Bike Commuting blog. He offers some good points about bike commuting, including the health benefits, environmental friendliness, and the cost savings. 

I’ve been trying to bike to work once a week.  My commute by car is about 3 miles one way, but my commute by bike is about 10 miles round trip.  The difference in distance is due to the fact that I take more bike-friendly roads to and from work.  It’s not the most direct route, but it’s a great ride.  My bike commute takes me through back roads that travel through scenic farmland. On my ride I encounter deer that stare me down in the middle of the road, and cows that look at me like I’m nuts.

I’d love to be able to bike to work more often, but right now it’s just not feasible.  My wife and I both work for the university, and we take our kids to daycare each morning.  Part of my route is along the berm of a major highway, so towing the kids in the trailer is not an option.  There is a guy at the daycare who drops his son off with a bike trailer, and at times I’m envious. 

I can see the importance of saving gas and money by commuting by bike.  However, since our whole family generally rides in one car to and from work/daycare, there really is not much cost savings if I ride my bike.  I’d love to say that I’m doing something nice for the planet by riding to work, but the fact of the matter is I simply ride for the pleasure of riding.  It takes me about half and hour to ride the six miles to work, and another half hour to ride the 4.5 miles home. The ride to work leaves me totally invigorated when I arrive, and I often have a little more spring in my step and a bigger smile on my face for much of the day.  The ride home leaves me feeling a lot more relaxed, as the stress of the day melts away on the bicycle.  Riding a bike does wonderful things for my mental being.  Whether I’m riding the road or a single-track mountain bike trail, my thoughts can range from thinking about everything all at once or thinking about nothing at all.  As a matter of fact, the hills in Southeast Ohio can make a cyclist forget everything at once.  When your legs are on fire and your lungs are burning, the only thing to think about is conquering what is in front of you.  Your head is cleared of all worry, because it takes every ounce of your being to will yourself over some hills.  It’s an awesome experience.

When I plan to bike to work, I take my clothes in the day before.  When I get to work, I lock my bike outside, and go inside the library to get my clothes.  I take my clothes down to my gym, which is a five-minute walk away.  I’m able to shower and dress at the gym and be back to the office in time for work.  At the end of the day, I change back into my cycling clothes in the men’s room at the library.  I leave my work clothes at work and generally take them home on the next day that I drive to work. 

Overall it’s a pretty simple process.  Riding to work does take a little planning, but it’s honestly not that inconvenient.  It’s nice to start the day with an elevated heart-rate, and ending the day with a stress reliever.  If you haven’t tried riding to work, I encourage you to give it a try.  All it takes is a bike and a little bit of planning.  For tips and suggestions on bike commuting, visit Paul Dorn’s Bike Commuting Tips, which is one of the most comprehensive sites on the subject. 

I spent about an hour this afternoon messing with the Share This plugin and installing it on my Business Blog. I got the plugin working just fine, but it does not come with the Facebook sharing feature installed by default.  To install the Facebook feature, I followed these directions. 

Unfortunately, installing the Facebook feature did not go as quickly.  Once I copied the code from the directions above and placed it in the share-this.php file, I got an error at the line of new code.  After further investigation, there is a slight difference in this
 
)
, ‘facebook’ => array(
‘name’ => ‘Facebook’
, ‘url’ => ‘http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u={url}&Title={title}’ 

versus this:

)
    , ‘facebook’ => array(
    ‘name’ => ‘Facebook’
    , ‘url’ => ‘http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u={url}&Title={title}’   


If you can’t spot the differences, look at the apostrophes.   Depending on the browsers or the text editor, the apostrophes may not work correctly or display correctly, or you may actually not be able to tell any visible difference at all.    Long story short, the version copied from the directions in the comment do not work with php, while the second version works. If you copy the above code and it still doesn’t work, delete the apostrophes in your code, and then add back in the correct apostrophes using the key next to your right pinkie. 

After I got that working, I ran into another problem.  I went to http://www.facebook.com/favicon.ico to download the icon to my  local machine, then renamed the file as facebook.gif, as indicated in the instructions.  After uploading the file to my we server, everything appeared to work beautifully, until I tested the application in Internet Explorer.  For some bizarre reason, IE refused to display the facebook.gif file. 

After pulling out a few of my remaining hairs, I decided to start over. I downloaded the Facebook favicon.ico again, opened it in Photoshop, then saved it as facebook.gif.  I then uploaded the new-and-improved file to the server, and magically it worked beautifully.  Something tells me that simply renaming the file wasn’t enough for IE, but the odd thing is, it displayed just fine with the Windows picture application. 

After a little bit of trial-and-error, I did get the Share This plugin customized to my liking.  Now we’ll see if anyone uses it.

So why not install the plugin on this blog?  We’ll quite simply, I need a new WordPress template to run it.  Updating this blog’s template and design is on a long list of to-do’s, so I’ll eventually get around to it.  Perhaps even before WordPress 5.0 is released.