Mainstream Music!
I participated in a focus group tonight for a local radio station and based on the song selection, I’m 100% sure it’s our classic rock station. The songs ranged from 80s hair metal to 60s protest songs, with singer/songwriters from the 70s, Southern Rock and New Wave all thrown in for good measure. I’ve done this type of focus group before but not for this particular station. Having been a young child in the late 70s and being a mid 80s teen, many of these songs brought back a lot of memories about good friends and good times. I found myself giving the highest ratings to songs from The Eagles, U2, The Rolling Stones, Jackson Browne, Steely Dan, Fleetwood Mac, James Taylor, David Bowie, Queen, Tom Petty, and Heart for starters. Most of the songs fell somewhere in the middle of my ratings, which meant that I didn’t overly like or dislike them. For some reason I found myself tired of hearing songs from Elton John, Eric Clapton, and The Beatles. I’m not sure why. There was a total of 900 songs and we listened to “the most representative” 8 second sections of each. I’m not sure if it was the most effective way to gauge users musical tastes and preferences, but hey, I still got paid for the time! 
Here’s a muxtape I’ve put together which represents some of the songs that were sampled. And like Steely Dan asks, are you reelin’ in the years? 
New Position/Role!
As of today I am the new Emerging Web Technologies Librarian for Boatwright Memorial Library at the University of Richmond! This is the type of work I’ve been eager to focus on for a longtime now. I’m entering this job after being in the access services world for 11 years, beginning with serving as the Stacks Supervisor at Z. Smith Reynolds Library at Wake Forest University as well as Head of Access Services at Virginia Commonwealth University and here at the University of Richmond. My new priorities focus on serving as the library webmaster as well as exploring service delivery through web 2.0 tools, mobile devices, etc. This means I get to play with and test all of the cool stuff that’s constantly being released on the web! The more beta/open source, the better!
My initial priorities will be preparing to move the library website to the university’s new CMS - Cascade Server from Hannon Hill. I’m also finalizing a wiki that our customer services group will use to organize all of the procedures and policies that desk staff need access to. We’re also going to re-examine our IM service over winter break and see if Meebo might be more suited to our needs.
Anyway, I’m really excited about the new possibilities that exist in this position and I’ve got a long list of people out there to talk with about their experiences with various technologies and platforms, so don’t run if I come calling!
TwitterMosaic!
I was alerted that my twitter avatar/icon (along with many, many others) has been included in the newest TwitterMosaic! What’s so cool is that it’s a re-creation of the original Casablanca movie poster, which is one of my favorite old movies! Before kids, my wife and I liked nothing better than curling up with some popcorn and watching some of the best movies Hollywood has ever produced. See the mosaic here. I’m the fourth one down on the very left!
New Levels of Spam
At work we have recently been discussing the problem of spam sent through our web forms (formmail.pl). Apparently somewhere people are paid to sit and fill out web forms in order to submit unwanted advertisements. Now let’s take it a step further. Below is something that was submitted as a question via the internal eBay messaging system regarding an item I’m auctioning:
dear friend:
We are www.superll.com. we are distributer,we have many wellknown
products such as dell,ibm,sony,panasonic,philip,samsung,nokia,nikon,olympus,canon,
fujifilm and so on.
there are many sorts of digital products in stock for sale.
they are original and in good condition,also one year international warranty with
the manufacters.
We do business such as drop ship and wholesale.
if you are interested in our product please have a look on our website
and contact us by following means.thanks.
Web address : www.superll.com
Email : superll8@hotmail.com
Msn : superll8@hotmail.com
thanks.
After a quick Google search, it appears that others have received this as well. What’s funnier is that the spammer’s eBay account purchased two (very cheap) items in June in order to gain a small amount of legitimacy. Oh well, they probably wouldn’t be doing it unless the occasional person fell for the scam.
Unfortunately spam appears to account for 80 - 90 percent of all email traffic, depending on the source. Due to this, many are predicting an eventual transfer of messaging to a combination of IM and social networks. However, I’m sure spammers will only come up with a more sophisticated solution. It’s the web’s version of the Cold War.
Updates!
Wow, so much has happened both personally and professionally over the past few weeks! I’ll be covering them in soon in new blog posts. In the mean time, the Pew Internet and American Life Project told me that I’m an omnivore :lol: , which I guess is a good thing… Anyway, you can see my results here, and be sure to take the survey yourself!
CIL 2007
I am currently in Arlington, Virgina attending the Computers in Libraries Conference. It is in it’s 22 year and has the most attendees this year than any previous conference. So far most of the sessions have been interesting, and a few inspiring! Regardless, all of this is tainted by the events yesterday at Virginia Tech. I know a few librarians who work there and read in a report from the Roanoke Times that Newman Library became a temporary shelter while the campus was on lock down and can only imagine the worry and fear everyone was experiencing. My heart, thoughts, and prayers go out to everyone involved and the families who have been affected by this senseless tragedy.
We Heard an Owl Last Night
Last night was the second time in my life that I recall hearing an owl in the wild. Not that suburban America is “the wild,” but you get my point. Anyway, after listening for a while I was able to determine that it was a Barred Owl (also known as a hoot owl) by researching North American owls online, and sampling a few audio clips (listen below). Special thanks to the Owl Pages for the audio clip and the Wildlife Center of Virgina for the image. I also really like this picture from Wikipedia.
Updating…
The time has come and I’m trying to get all of the content from my old university hosted site to AndyMorton.org. Based on my Google Analytics data, I was getting quite a few hits on my previous site, so I’m going to redirect those links to this site via an .htaccess file. It’s interesting to review the content I was linking to, as it was all very web 1.0, including my own site!
Documentary: North Korea - Children of the State
As you’re enjoying this holiday season with friends, family and food, please remember that there are many, many others less fortunate than you…
Re-launch!
Welcome to the re-launch of AndyMorton.org! I’ve been experimenting with multiple blogging platforms, plug-ins and such for quite some time. It’s time that I get serious about this and use these tools to enhance both my work and personal lives! I’ll be posting commentary related to work and libraries, new and interesting technologies, and tell you about personal developments. Feel free to comment on any of my posts or send me an email using the contact form linked at the top of the page. Also, I’ve been overhauling my personal website (www.richmond.edu/~amorton), which is now in it’s version 7. I created version 1.0 while working at Wake Forest University back way back in 1996. My goal is to post a screen capture of each version showing the development of the site over the past 10 years. Enjoy!
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About
Professional and personal ideas, thoughts, and comments from your favorite tech-brarian. Actually, that's probably not a valid term, but hey, I'm not sweating the small stuff!
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