December 21, 2006

espresso means books?

I just got my weekly American Libraries Association (ALA) email, which always has some interesting news, and was very interested to read this piece about a print on-demand machine called Espresso. The Espresso machine was funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation (which you've heard of if you listen to NPR) and was developed by On Demand Books LLC. Apparently the World Bank is the first entity to own an Espresso, which it's utilizing because of the varied demands for their publications. The lack of predictable demand has led to storage issues, where a large amount of already-published books sit in a warehouse, destined for the pulper. Of course, eco-friendliness is only one of the advantages of the machine. The machine is extremely versatile, able to publish in any language and can even print the book for right-to-left and back-to-front reading cultures. The potential to publish any book no longer under copyright restrictions allows unfettered access to a multitude of books--and it costs under a penny per page. This initiative has a correlation to the e-books movement, where the publishing industry is not hampered by traditional production methods--but it also trumps the movement, where the machine central to the product is not owned individually, rather collectively. As the e-book reader is limited to those individuals who can purchase it, so the e-book is limited as well. Hey, digital isn't everything.

December 19, 2006

she said yes!

Samantha and I had a wonderful weekend and I'm sorry for not posting this earlier. It ended up being such a busy weekend that I needed a day of rest. To start off with, Sam knew it was coming--she had conceived the design of her ring, and had tricked me into telling her which weekend the proposal would be on--so the only surprise I had in store was where we were going and what we'd be doing. It took me a while to figure that out myself. There's so many places to go in this area that I had several ideas before settling on a weekend in the Berkshires. The draw to the Berkshires is that, in the area where we stayed, there is a renowned art college--Williams College--that houses a wonderful museum, as well as the largest contemporary art museum in the States, Mass MOCA. An added bonus was my finding Eric Carle's Museum of Picturebook Art in Amherst, which was a 1 & 1/2 hour drive away. So it was a weekend filled with museums but they were small and very specific museums, which made it like going to a very large and encompassing museum over a two-day period. All of them were great fun.



Sam says I faked her out on how she thought I'd propose. I had a box of chocolates where she thought the ring would be hidden, but it was really in the menorah case. After I proposed we took some pictures of Sam showing off her new ring, which she can't get her eyes off of. Since there were a lot of pictures we took, I'll link to them here so I won't take up precious blog space.





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December 14, 2006

neglecting the blog

Sorry it's been a few days since I posted anything. I've been real busy getting ready for this weekend, where I'll be proposing to Samantha. I picked up the ring last night and it is amazing. I've been so excited about it that I just can't help looking at it every few hours. Beyond sneaking peeks at the ring, I haven't had a minute to myself today. It's a culmination of our car being in the shop, last-minute shopping for Hannumas, preparing for our weekend away, and working on job applications--oh yeah, and I have to polish our menorah. Can't forget about that, as Hannukah starts tomorrow at sundown. I probably won't be posting any more, as I have class tonight and tomorrow morning, but I'll write all about our engagement after we return! I hope to have a picture of the ring as well, which was custom made (Sam had a hand in its conception, which is great).

December 11, 2006

the beginning of the greatest blog ever?

I wanted to give a mention to my friend Jess Boldt's new blog called "Drunk Like Leaves". Not sure what that means and haven't had the chance to ask him about it (he started the blog yesterday) but I'm sure he'll give the reasoning behind it at some point. In the meantime, look forward to Jess linking to some obscure and hilarious stuff (the Mr. T song from this post is great), and poking his finger in the eye of society.





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Blues by an Irishman?

Sure, the Irish have a lot to be blue about--however, I've only heard one who can play the blues as well as those Delta acolytes. Rory Gallagher is a guitarist I've been listening to ever since last Thanksgiving. Due to my job I was forced to stay in Melrose, while Sam went to visit her parents. I ended up celebrating with my neighbor at the time--Brendan--who is about as Irish as you can get. After dinner, darts, and some poitín, Brendan brought out a video of Rory that just blew my mind. If you enjoy this clip, there's more to be had on YouTube. Be patient, it may take a minute for the video to load.

December 8, 2006

Have you ever been experienced? Well, I have . . .

I never expected to see a cartoon with Jimi Hendrix in it but should have seen it coming . . . and it's pretty funny too. It's done by a guy who apparently hangs out in Harvard Square a lot. Here's the link.



December 7, 2006

Marketing & Controlling "Bob Dylan"

After my last post, I listened to the Rolling Thunder Review concert that is on Wolfgang's Vault and noticed that someone was conspicuously absent--that is, Bob Dylan's set was missing. Nothing they had written about the show indicated it was gone--in fact, a third of it was dedicated to describing Bob's set. So was it put up and then taken off? It seems like that might be the case. Or possibly Dylan owned it outright and they didn't put it up at all, but the archivist didn't know and wrote the review anyway. Just four years ago, Dylan's Bootleg Series volume 5 was released and it covered this very time period, using songs from the concerts they have available on Wolfgang's Vault. And Dylan's people are so good about staking claim to his recordings that I wouldn't be surprised if they beat Wolfgang's Vault to the punch. Or, if this isn't the case, then they made the Vault take the files down. See, Dylan's people aren't schmucks--they're very bright businesspeople. He's looked at the bottom line ever since he began his career--his first manager, the notorious Albert Grossman, was the kind of guy who talked about money when all the folkies were discussing socialism and hippies were gushing about free love. Even Dylan described him as "a Colonel Tom Parker figure."

Now the title of my post isn't meant to be facetious. Rather, I was wanting to demonstrate that Dylan had a keen eye on his legacy and he's going to control what people see of the marketable figure "Bob Dylan" through the years. You can read this blog about how his deal with XM Radio was struck, in which the producer of the show (an XM employee) talks about how impressed he was with Dylan's operation. Another example is the massive archives of music that Dylan must have, which he's begun to open recently with the Bootleg Series. There's so many periods of his career, and so many albums whose outtakes haven't been heard, that the 6 volumes (coming to 13 CDs of music) that have been released don't seem enough to Dylan fans. After all, there is the holy grail of all bootlegs, regardless of artist--the so-called "Basement Tapes" that he recorded with The Band during his period of recovery and renewal in Woodstock--that has yet to be released, if they ever will be.

I think it's masterful, the way Dylan is keeping his fans waiting--it's just like how a great artist knows how long to wait before the encore--releasing just enough that he can't be accused of holding out, but not releasing so much that the market is glutted and the music loses its significance. This has happened to other bands who have a large amount of recordings in their vaults--two notables being The Dead and Pearl Jam. Both have released so much that it doesn't matter anymore when they release another (I mean, what's Dick's Picks up to now--volume 30?--oops, I'm wrong, it's volume 36). I mean, I was just blown away when Dylan released his memoirs, the Scorsese documentary Don't Look Back, and the 6th volume of the Bootleg Series in the same year--what some bands might find happening once every five years or so, Dylan's done just once in his career. While some people complain that Dylan isn't giving enough, I think he's giving just enough to keep things interesting.

December 6, 2006

Bill Graham's vaults open . . .

Bill Graham, legendary concert promoter and owner of the Fillmore venues, had some amazing concerts archived. A company, Wolfgang's Vaults, came along and bought them up and now offers them in streaming audio online here. It looks like the site has just started and will undergo some changes, most notably offering the concerts in a downloadable format. While the company states that they're licensed to do so under BMI, ASCAP and SESAC (which are the big names in music licensing and royalties), Rolling Stone reports that artists are considering lawsuits (I would have a link to the article here, but rollingstone.com seems to be having connectivity issues). Regardless of what the future may hold for the website and their offerings, the present situations allows you to listen to Muddy Waters' 1966 concert at the Fillmore West, to hear Hendrix at the Winterland in '68, catch Springsteen in '78 at the same venue, hear Dylan's Rolling Thunder Review play Madison Square Garden in '75, catch the Clash debut in Cleveland in '79, rock out to some Sabbath in '75 at Asbury Park (great line from Wolfgang's vault about Sabbath: "Zeppelin might have made the mold, but Sabbath crushed the mold into a fine powder, snorted it, and proceeded to scare the hell out of everybody"). It really is some amazing music, and you're foolish if you don't check it out. You do have to register to use the site, but some of us would sell our soul for the pleasure of listening to these gems.





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December 5, 2006

CRM gone wrong at Amazon

Looks like some fun things are going on with Amazon's recommendation system, according to this post. There are other good examples but I thought this one was pretty good.



Of course, recommendation systems aren't perfect--especially if you haven't built up a large base of books for them to offer recommendations for. Since I buy from Amazon maybe three or four times a year, most often when buying gifts for other people, I get some recommendations that I really don't care for--after all, what I buy for you isn't necessarily what I want. I've had an Oak Ridge Boys Christmas CD on my recommendation list for the past five years, due to me buying two of their CDs for my Grandma Mack. God bless her, she loved them but I don't have much use for their Christmas CDs. The only Christmas CD I have is Ron Spector's productions, which are pretty good. I think I might buy Frank Sinatra's too.







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December 4, 2006

My wandering mind

Don't let anyone tell you that you can't have fun when you're in grad school. When a particularly entrancing three-hour lecture is failing to make its mark on me I tend to let my fingers do the walking. These are a few drawings taken from my notes from Reference (a study of sources available to, and the theory of, reference). Unfortunately, that particular class is taught in a very uninspiring way that is well-suited for doodling.

This is my number monster series. My favorite is the number two on the right-hand side, and the number eight that's on fire and running down the highway.


Sometimes I like to make patterns. The worm pattern is one I have repeated a few times, this one being the first, and best, example.


Sometimes I just begin to draw a squiggly line and follow my subconscious thoughts of what it is. This time it turned into a lion (I think it was because I had watched Calder's Circus, which I had bought for Samantha's birthday the month before). I added to the menagerie with an ostrich.


This one started off as a series of high-rise buildings and turned into an odd party hat for the birthday boy. You might have noticed that the face is like those of the squid people in my last post. It's a really nice, easy way to abstract the face and draw attention to other embellishments, like the dancing radio.


So if you're wondering what I'm spending $10,000 a semester on, consider it an art studio that produces librarians. I had the idea that I might do a weekly post where I gather my doodles and put them on my blog but, thankfully, I've done more learning than doodling.

Oh the weather outside is frightful . . .

It's the first snow of the year in the Boston area, and it's a pretty one. Started off as sleet and now it's big, wet flakes that are drifting down. I went outside to get a picture . . .


It's amazing to think that, just last Wednesday and Thursday, it reached almost 70 degrees.
This weekend Sam and I decorated for the holidays, which mainly consisted of Christmas decorations. We have a couple of menorahs but that's about it that you can do for Hannukah--Sam complains about how our 7 foot tree makes the menorah seem insignificant, but I hope to get an electric-light menorah for the window so it can pose a challenge. Oh wow--I just decided to take a look on the internet to see how much it would cost and I found a blow-up lawn menorah! The best thing is that it's already sold out at this web site. So it's not only the Christians that have bad taste . . .

So this is our tree. Mom, you might notice the guitar and percussion decorations are on it this year.


After putting up our decorations, Sam and I did a little shopping for gifts and we made our holiday cards on Snapfish, which is a really great deal. To end the weekend, we drew in Sam's scrap book and watched The Librarian, which was a like a nerdy Indiana Jones who likes to remind you that the library can be cool. Oh yeah, he also gets busy with a girl, so he's cool like that too.



Here's what I was drawing . . . I had started a few months ago, and added the Nativity scene last night.

December 2, 2006

. . . and folksonomies, oh my!

I've already posted about the basics of folksonomy here but I have promised to go into the idea further. A refresher on what folksonomy: folksonomy is the language of free-tagging, which is what social bookmarking utilizes. Lost already? Good.

Social bookmarking is a service like del.icio.us, which works somewhat like the Favorites section of Internet Explorer. If you find a web site that you want to keep for later, there's a button that del.icio.us adds to your browser that lets you "tag" the web page. When you choose to tag a web page, del.icio.us gives you four fields you can fill in: the URL (already filled in), description (the name of the web page, which is already filled in), notes and tags. Notes are just another space where you can write more about the web page. When filling in the "tags" section, you use single words that you think describe the "aboutness" of the web page. For an example, let's use a favorite of mine--BeerAdvocate. If you go to the Beer Advocate web page, you see that it's about beer (really?), reviewing beer, beer festivals, people talking about beer (online communities), among other things. You may come up with other ideas of what it's about, or different ways of saying the same thing (synonyms). So, we take it's "aboutness" and begin to construct single-word terms--beer, reviews, fesitvals, community. That's folksonomy, those terms that you have used to describe the "aboutness." It's taking traditional taxonomies and turning the idea on its head.

What are the benefits of folksonomy? One of the major benefits is that folksonomy allows something previously uncatalogable--such as the internet--and applies the assistance of volunteers (the many who are tagging) in cataloging it. Social networks are created around tagging, where groups of people who tag the same things, or use the same terms, can come together and gain information from one another. Say I was interested in the tag "beer." I can go on del.icio.us and find someone who has a vast collection of web sites that they have tagged with "beer," and I can set up an alert (a RSS feed) that lets me see what they are tagging with the term "beer."

Businesses have jumped onto the folksonomy bandwagon as well, with no less of a notable member than IBM taking part in it. For a company that has an intranet, allowing their employees the ability to tag data within it can allow for more effective searching and increase findability. Employing folksonomy allows people to make sense of a system that is not readily accessible to the layman--such as an intranet or a library catalog. Yes, I don't think that library catalogs are the easiest databases to navigate. One of the major problems is the use of subject headings--they aren't logical, but are the result of a hierarchical taxonomy. Catalogs are getting around this problem by making subject headings searchable by deconstructing them and allowing individual terms within the subject heading to be searchable. But if you are to employ a tagging system with a traditional catalog--like University of Pennsylvania's PennTags--then you can begin to approach the best of both worlds.

Alright, I think I've written enough about folksonomy for now. If you're interested, check out del.icio.us. Or if you've had enough of futuristic mumbo-jumbo, go right to the source that will help you forget about it!

Mozilla vs. MSIE

So I wanted to post to my blog last night, because Sam had gone to bed early (I could never blame here--which one of us could deal with 30 different children 8 times a day for 30 minutes at a time?)--but I wasn't able to blog because the new Internet Explorer (release 7) that I had downloaded took a turn for the worse. I was really excited about it at first, as it's a beautiful-looking and very handy browser. Then it started to get cranky. The last straw was when it dropped Java scripts and didn't give me text formatting options (which are Java-based) when I posted this blog. So I went out and downloaded Mozilla's Firefox and everything is back to normal. Thank god Microsoft hasn't taken over the world just yet . . .

As an aside, is Mozilla a contraction of Mothra and Godzilla? Unfortunately, it's not--see the explanation here.

December 1, 2006

Free at last, free at last!

Well, not quite--but I did get through this last week, which was a real bear. I had four papers due, which are where some of the ideas I've blogged about came from. I want to go into the idea of folksonomy further, and will do so tomorrow. Tonight, I'm going to drink some beer, eat a bratwurst and watch some Sopranos. Maybe even Marlon Brando's "The Wild One".

November 30, 2006

Dreams, Schemes, and Themes


Leave it to Bob Dylan to show us how radio shows should be done--it's not enough that he tours most of the year, just released his 44th album, and is working on the second volume of his memoirs. Yes, I'm talking about Theme Time Radio Hour. He's contracted for 50 episodes of the radio show and he's currently at number 31 (the most recent theme was Tennessee). If you're interested in downloading some of the shows, you can get them here. If you're interested in getting your feet wet, I would recommend the following themes--Jail, Divorce, Bible, Time, and Halloween. That said, they're all great (with a few exceptions, such as Flowers, but that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it).


CRM @ the library - students respond

I had to give a presentation for my Reference course yesterday, which the focus was on improving customer service at the reference desk. Before going in, I was wondering if I should go into my idea of CRM @ the library and decided to include it at the end of my presentation. It was my idea that it could generate some feedback, so I could know better what the pros and cons were. My fellow students didn't disappoint me--there were enough people responding to my idea that the professor cut off the discussion, due to time restraints (and she even had some input on it as well).

The response I knew I would get was that some people didn't like the thought of the library knowing about their habits--the privacy issue. After the initial shuddering, someone made a great point--younger people are having trouble understanding privacy issues. Take, for example, the middle and high school students in Massachusetts who have recently been in trouble with the law, because they post pictures and discussions on MySpace about the latest party--where underage drinking was taking place, or a fight broke out. This can be contributed to either one of these cases: that they are ignorant of privacy issues, where information volunteered in a public space can be used against them; or they don't care, thinking it won't be found--an idea known as "security through obscurity." Regardless to say, the point that was made opened up a whole can of worms.

The professor made the point that she didn't like my term "opt-out" but preferred "opt-in"--this was my way of thinking about the program, but I was not using the correct terminology for it. Of course, it would be run as a pilot program that people could opt-in to.

Because of the lack of time available for the responses, I received more criticism than reinforcement--but that was what I expected. You have to get the knee-jerk out of the way before the brain can begin to function--politics speak to that. But the reinforcement I received was very positive, telling me that people are not only open to the idea but enthusiastic about it. So, I will go further into the idea in future posts, such as the technology that can be used to make this idea a reality. (Should I begin to copyright my thoughts?)

November 29, 2006

CRM @ the library?

This will be more of a reminder to me to blog about this idea later, but I'll give you a taste of things to come. Customer Relationship Management has been in the business world for years--it's becoming so entrenched that people are forgetting what CRM stands for. I've heard it referred to as the "customer really matters" by the VP of area operations when I was working in the hotel industry and, while that definition retains some of the flavor of CRM, it doesn't touch on how customer-intensive CRM can be. One of the ideas I've been kicking around is how CRM could be brought to libraries--government institutions are notorious for not adopting helpful business practices, and libraries are right there with them. There's an argument that's been going on for some time on whether to refer to library users as "customers," as opposed to "patrons" and it's very telling of how libraries view their support base.

One of the reasons I see further reluctance to adopt CRM is because one of the cornerstones of CRM is collecting information on your customers, so you can create personal levels of conversation with them. This is anthema to libraries, who have been railing against the Patriot Act and have maintained that privacy is one of their ultimate concerns. It can go as far as creating guidelines, to not mention a book that a patron might like, because you've noticed them checking out similar ones before. But are people really that concerned anymore about keeping what they've read private from an institution? Is privacy from governmental intrusion the same as institutional privacy? The millions of users of Amazon is an example of this idea chipping away at privacy, in order to obtain personalized service. If libraries were to institute a similar program, one where people could opt-out if they wanted to maintain total privacy, would they see an increase in use? I certainly think so, but a lot of my colleagues and fellow students cringe at the idea.

Are you my caucasian?

I've been wondering if another season of Curb Your Enthusiasm was on its way and--gods be praised!--there will be another in 2007. If you haven't seen it or don't know what it is, well, it's the best damn show on television. There's no tres chic metropolitain women discussing orgasms over cosmos, no medical doctors dissing the system, no homicide dramas, no lawyers putting away the disgustingly bad guys (what I like to call "Special Perverts Unit")--just good ol' fashioned bumbling foolishness by Larry David. My favorite episode? Probably the one the title of this post comes from, where Larry meets Wanda Syke's new fiance, Krazee Eyez Killa (a cockeyed rapper). Not only is it great to hear Larry dissecting Krazee's lyrics but it leads into a two part episode of Larry getting something caught in the back of his throat--won't say what it is because that'll ruin it.

For drama, I've been watching The Sopranos, which I'm only into the first season of. Great stuff, though--just saw episode 5 last night, and it was probably the tightest script ever, really well written. It could almost stand on its own, which says a lot for a series.

Beyond that, I can't wait for TBS to play another 24 hours of A Christmas Story!


November 27, 2006

So sleepy . . .

I've just spent the majority of my day finding and reading new resources for my paper on folksonomy for my cataloging course. Folksonomy is a really interesting new way people are creating social circles while increasing findability of items on the inter- or intranet. A quick breakdown of what folksonomy is--do you use the Favorites list on Internet Explorer? How about the bookmarks tool on Firefox? When you do that, you're effectively tagging something--that is, applying terms to it to increase future findability. Tagging is the process of keeping found things found.

In its now-popular form, tagging is where you apply a word or a series of words to a piece of data, say a web site, so you can find it again--or other people can find it by searching those terms. There are services on the web that have communities based around tagging data--users at del.icio.us tag web sites, YouTube contributors tag videos, Flickr tags pictures. As I mentioned, not only is this being used on the internet, but also on the intranet--that is, a network closed to outsiders, used by businesses or government agencies.

Now there are two "languages" that can be used to tag--formal and folk. Formal tagging language is known as ontology or taxonomy. It is a hierarchical system of divisions and subdivisions used to categorize and, ultimately, catalog. An example of this is the term mammal. A human is a mammal, but mammal is not a type of human--that is because of a hierarchical system of knowledge. It has its origins in ancient philosophy and, needless to say, very entrenched. Folksonomy, which is a term created by Thomas Vander Wal, is a mashup of the words folk and taxonomy. It is a term that describes a language of cataloging that arises from the individual or a group of individuals. Folksonomy does not have a hierarchical system--I won't get into this, because it's a whole other discussion (but you can find a really cool and interesting discussion of it here). What terms come to mind if you are going to catalog this web site? You put them in and, voila, you have employed folksonomy. Now you or other people can find this site by searching the same terms. And don't even get me started about the social groups that have grown up around this thing . . . you thought World of Warcraft was bad? Let's get together a group of people who tag web sites about designer shoes and see which you think is more interesting . . . .

I hope that helps you guys understand what I've been working on. It has so many implications--imagine how excited businesses were when they realized they could look in on how people view the internet. And it's just begun, so there's so many more things it can do. Oh yeah, and it's really tearing some librarians up. How do you think you'd feel if there were people out there saying the ordinary man on the street is now able to do your professional job?

If anyone's interested, I think I might post a link to the paper I'm writing on the subject. Yes, your excitement about it is almost palpable!

Sunday @ The Museum of Science

Last time Sam and I went to the Museum of Science, we saw the Star Wars exhibit (really cool!). This time we decided to get an anatomy lesson and went to see their Body Worlds 2 exhibit. I really enjoyed reading the bits of philosophy they had on banners throughout--philosophy, of course, relating to the impermanence of the body and death. Regardless of how fascinating it was--the process of plastination, the anatomy lessons, the flayed and butterflied bodies--I couldn't stop wondering how many people passed out while taking it all in. One of the compounding elements to this problem, I thought, would be the fact that it's been cold in Boston recently (no shit?) and it's really warm in the exhibit hall. So, you have all these people, wearing heavy winter coats, packed like sardines in a room of dissected, plastinated bodies. Seems ripe for a fit of fainting, wouldn't you think? Well, I didn't get the pleasure of seeing anyone pass out and fall into a case full of preserved gonads, but I did ask one of the staff from the exhibit how many people passed out while viewing all this. Guess how many? Only 4 or 5 a week, she said. That's 5 people out of, say, 8000 people who view it (a rough estimate). So what does that imply? Well, I've got a couple of preliminary thoughts about it. First, I don't think my mom would have let me see something like this until I was old enough to understand it. But there were so many children there that they accounted for at least a fourth of the people, possibly a third, as a lot of school groups go to it during the week. Also, this is in Boston, so there's a lot of people who work in hospitals or are training to work in one--so they're used to it, or should be. But to go further, is it perhaps that our media overload has something to do with it? I mean, fifty years ago this guy would have been considered to have an abberant personality. Now it's difficult to imagine something we don't have access to hearing or seeing. But I just wanted to touch on that . . . .


After taking a trip through the exhibit, Sam and I went to see something a little more relaxing--the butterfly garden in the Museum. Sam took some pictures, most of which didn't turn out, but I thought I'd post these as well. It was a really small room but it was filled with butterflies.

It's that time of the year!


Well, it's that time of the year again, when Black Friday is in the news, riots break out in stores, and we're constantly reminded of how many shopping days we have left. Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy, right? Well, Sam and I are here to tell you that there's more to the season than shopping--like parties at our house! For those of you who aren't able to make it, due to geographic constraints (I'm talking about you, Hoosiers!), I wanted to show you the picture for our 2nd Annual Hannumas Party invitation cards.

Beginnings

Welcome to my blog! I've been dabbling in all sorts of internet coolness since beginning GSLIS this past September and this is just one manifestation of that interest. Other things I've been doing is creating a personalized Google homepage, tagging at del.icio.us, and cataloging my library online at LibraryThing. When I get some free time, I'll write more about why I'm involving myself in these new internet technologies (which are examples of Web 2.0). Also, I'll be posting stuff about my life, to keep my friends and family up-to-date--because it seems like I don't get enough time to tell them everything that I've been busying myself with. I hope you enjoy it!