OCLC, the organization that sits at the center of the structured data that is the foundation of most of the libraries in existence, at least in North America, has revised the terms for licensing the data it has collected from libraries. Librarians everywhere are not amused. Stefano Mazzocchi has posted a good summary of the situation (via jessamyn).

OCLC has decided to try to maintain its relevance not by innovating or providing good/better service to librarians, but by asserting ownership over data. Any organization that relies on legal means to maintain its existence is not likely to be around for long. As Mazzocchi suggests, the opportunity for innovation is there: OCLC has arguably the most detailed and accurate collection of structured metadata on published materials. They have already done a good job (I think) of making that information available to the public. But I'm sure they could do more.

It was inevitable. Ars Technica covered it back in 2005. Apple has started to implement High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) in its products, something necessary for the viewing of DVDs and other hidef content that has been locked down by producers. The new MacBook Pro's seems to be the first place this is cropping up. Of course, users are not happy.

You might remember that MS got slammed for including HDPC in Vista, with arguments that it was extra code that would only make the system unstable, etc [deeper analysis]. Now, no one talks about it, and folks (at least those that have invested in the proper hardware) happily watch their HD content with no hassles.

So for Apple, this too shall pass. Mac users are just getting to the party a bit late.

Update: Boing Boing post on the subject

U.S. Republican politician Mitt Romney argues that the government should let the automakers go bankrupt, because only then will the needed changes come about. What kind of changes? Well, to start:

First, their huge disadvantage in costs relative to foreign brands must be eliminated. That means new labor agreements to align pay and benefits to match those of workers at competitors like BMW, Honda, Nissan and Toyota. Furthermore, retiree benefits must be reduced so that the total burden per auto for domestic makers is not higher than that of foreign producers.

Crisis points are always ripe with the potential for change, just not necessarily in the right direction. Take 9/11, for example. However, there is a reality behind Romney's ideas that we can't ignore. We've enjoyed one side of globalization (lots of cheap stuff to buy) for quite some time. Globalization has also persistently eroded key sectors of our economy, undermining our ability to maintain the quality of life to which we have become accustomed. The current economic crisis will provide ample excuses for governments, banks, and other companies who are no longer interesting in subsidizing our lifestyle.

Change will happen. The nature and direction of that change, the as well determination of who will benefit (people, governments, or corporations), will be determined by both our values as well as our political will to see justice done.

Ziff-Davis is closing down the print version of PC Magazine. The online version will go on, however.

Back when I started paying real attention to PCs (early 90's), PC Mag was the place (or one of the main places) to go for info and reviews on the latest hardware and software. Today, I have a hard time putting money down for any print computing magazine, since I know (a) I'm not likely to read it all anyway, and (b) I can get all the content online. (The exception to this recently was CPU Magazine, but I haven't found it on the shelves since returning to Montreal.) I guess I wasn't the only one with this problem.

Having said that, it is still very hard to find reliable review information online. Most search results for hardware or software are really storefronts or thin reviews. Authoritative, reliable sources are hard to find. Shopping for a new laptop recently was a lot harder then I expected. Even the companies themselves do a poor job of selling their wares.

Apple is probably the best of the bunch. Given that their storefront can be observed and studied by anyone, I don't understand why other companies have been unable to duplicate or surpass that experience. Their loss.

I've made a small change to the layout of this site, doing away with the inline titles for posts.

The problem was that these titles were not the actual titles from the database, but rather duplicate text that was simply bolded. I can't remember why I started doing this: probably didn't have time to code it properly. Whatever the case, I'm paying for it now, since I now have extraneous text at the beginning of each post.

The result was that I had duplicate titles for each post. My temporary solution for this is to use the first-child pseudo-class to select the first bold/strong element in the entry and hide it. If you dig through the archives you'll see that this mostly works, except for the fact that I typically placed a space and a period outside the 'title'. These now appear at the beginning of most of my posts, and will stay there until I get around to manually cleaning them out of all my posts.

Also, since first-child isn't supported in IE <=6, the double-title problem will persist for anyone still using those browsers. An acceptble tradeoff for my personal site, but not something I would try at work.

User's of McGill's web publishing system now have an easy way to add mailto forms to their pages. While this is far from being new technology, having it available in the WPS is great, since it now makes it easier for site admins to build feedback channels into their web sites.

The main limitation I can see is the limited types of input: text, text area, select and checkbox. Attachments would be great, esp with an virus scan built in. Hopefully that is on the drawing board for a later version.

Today my new laptop arrived: an HP Elitebook 8530p. From what I've read, its a solid latop that should serve me well as my main machine. The only slight concern I have is running Vista with only 2GB... we'll have to see how that goes.

Unfortunately, I was so busy today that I didn't get to open the box! It just sat on the corner of my desk, distracting me until I finally put it on the table behind me. Tomorrow, though, I should be good to get it setup and configured. I'll be sure to post my impressions and experiences, along with a few photos if I can.

Originally I was going to downgrade to XP, mainly because McGill doesn't yet recommend running Vista on PCs on campus. I spoke with someone in the know today who informed that that restriction is due primarily to an incompatibility between the Banner client (~the university's ERP system) and Vista. However, as the fates would have it, I have nothing to do whatsoever with the Banner client, and so have nothing to worry about. I've been using Vista at home, and have had very few problems with it. I'm looking forward to using it exclusively.

For the record: I did originally opt for a similarly configured MacBook Pro, but that request was denied. The MBP is slightly thinner and lighter, but overall, you're still paying a few hundred dollars extra for the Mac, which was ridiculous, esp since I was going to be using it to run Vista almost exclusively. The new T series from Lenovo were similarly priced out of my budget.

There is a lot of stuff installed on my current machine, things that I will need to migrate over time to the laptop. Eventually, it will become my One Machine, although I expect that will take a few weeks to make happen.