Librarianly committments + Privacy improvements = Facebook for me?

In my previous facebook post I said it would take 2 things to get me on Facebook (FB): trust and better terms of service (ToS, which FB now calls “Statement of rights and responsibilities”).
Since then, it has become likely that I will end up using FB as part of a KT (“knowledge trnslation,” aka making [...]

Unicorns don’t exist; net neutrality is just distastefully fair

The top story on the CBC News website this evening is “Net Neutrality doesn’t exist, CRTC told.“
Laugh or cry?
Internet congestion is inevitable and net neutrality does not exist, Canada’s internet regulator was told Monday at hearings on how internet providers control and manage internet traffic and speed.
But here’s the best part:
Congestion is a natural occurrence [...]

CIHR using OSS for learning modules

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) recently unveiled three knowledge translation learning modules, the first of their new CIHR Online Tutorial courses.
I don’t know much about the background or driving force behind creation of these modules, but from the website it looks like the plan is to develop learning tutorials in several categories, with [...]

Am I being throttled? Yep.

(Note: I am sick as a dog with the flu, and trying to do something productive by editing and rolling out a few drafts from the past months that never made it to fully-gorwn posts.  Please forgive any grammar atrocities while I type through the fever.)
If you need any more help getting riled up about [...]

What would it take to get me on Facebook?

In a word: Trust.
Nearly every week, I consider making a Facebook account. I get notices about events for which the full details are on Facebook. I hear stories about people connecting with old friends. My old students and old friends are surprised that they are unable to find me.
I love being in touch with [...]

Canadian Net Neutrality Consultation

For people who found this page while looking for info on April’s CRTC  “traffic shaping” consultation, go here.
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The CRTC’s “traffic management” (throttling) consultation is accepting comments from interested individuals right now.
This is the “Net Neutrality” consultation we’ve been waiting for. Many of us have asked the CRTC to hold this public consultation and it is [...]

Finally DRM-free music at iTunes, but…

Apple announced yesterday that they are now offering iTunes Plus songs (News release – there doesn’t seem to be a permalink). iTunes Plus files are DRM-free, so that is nice. The not so nice part is that if you want to convert your previous purchases to this DRM-free version, you’ll need to to pay: 30 [...]

Chief Public Health Officer offers CHN postmortem

Okay, who has seen this? (Non-OA)
Butler-Jones D. (2008). Streamlining How We Deliver Public Health Information Online: From CHN to PHAC. The Serials Librarian, 55 (4): 625-627. DOI: 10.1080/03615260802282559
It came to me via the CANMEDLIB listserv, so I’m sure some of you who have access to to journal have also linked into it and taken a [...]

OLPC Give 1 Get 1 for 2008 launches Nov 17

Tipped off by the Digital Copyright Canada blog, I heard that the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project is gearing up to launch another “Give 1 Get 1″ (G1G1) campaign.
This is awesome, and I think I know a number of folks who were considering getting computers for young people for the holidays and might buy [...]

Making sense of DRM

Here’s a confession: I don’t really ‘get’ DRM. I mean, I can describe what it is, talk about related legislation, and discuss its impacts on intellectual property law and practice, but I don’t really know the extent to which it’s present in my life.
I’m one of those people who total non-techies think is a real [...]