I know it's in accord with the Federal Campaign Finance laws, but it's kind of creepy that I can so easily see what the political contributions are of people I may know. NH is a small State, so one is bound to recognize a name or two as you dig down using this tool: http://www.fec.gov/DisclosureSearch/mapApp.do This is incredibly powerful. I can think of several applications at PSU that could use a tool like this.
Monthly Archives: June 2007
P2P and Functional Area shadow systems, aka, spreadware.
We need to insure that staff and faculty who have legitimate access to sensitive information are not both creating their own databases or spreadsheets on their local systems AND running P2P networking software. Here's how it burnt Pfzier: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9024491
Ideally, we need a comprehensive security and reporting strategy that both protects sensitive information and allows functional offices to deliver services.
3D Browsing - Wow!
Well sorta. The demo at the site was impressive. Looking at it, I had those "but of course" or "why didn't I think of that" thoughts. Unfortunately, there were some problems getting it to run on my Vista system. Just as well. Better to wait until they release 1.0 and a few more of the bugs are worked out and see if it gains more market traction. This UI could literally change the face of searching.
Check it out at: http://www.spacetime.com
Colleagues Report
My colleague Casey Bisson continues to do produce good work:
http://www.techsource.ala.org/ltr/open-source-software-for-libraries.html
Copyright on Campus
Apparently the US Congress thinks colleges and universities have nothing better to do than police networks for file sharing violations and expel student violators. It wouldn't bother me as much, if the pursued with equal vigor the violators at commercial ISPs.
http://www2.universitybusiness.com/newssummary.aspx?news_date=2007-06-08&news_id=2984#top