Category Archives: Technology

A Day in the Life of a Branch Librarian

About once a week I work a 10-6 shift instead of a more typical 9-5 one.  With one staff member on holidays and one having called in sick, today happened to be particularly busy day starting as soon as I arrived, an hour later than usual. So I thought I’d do a list of a […]

Friday Fun Link – Copyrighted Books For Free, Legally! (Offer Only Good in Norway)

On top of the recent news that by being excellent stewards of their country’s oil wealth, each Norway citizen was now a “millionaire”* (as opposed to some oil-rich jurisdictions that weren’t quite so successful in this regard), comes this story about the National Library of Norway finding a way to make copyrighted works available to […]

About That Future…

Man, we live in amazing times… 50 Things We Know Now That We Didn’t Know This Time Last Year 10 Best Gadgets at the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show The Future of Technology (Infographic) A Day with Google Glass… …and for a reminder of how far we’ve come…  10 Most Influential Software Packages of All-Time

R.I.P. Peter Scott

When I try to quickly define my blog for people (at least as it currently exists), I often say it’s about libraries, technology and politics (along with cute pictures of my kids of course.) That’s why the passing of longtime University of Saskatchewan librarian, Peter Scott, is so sad.  He was at the intersection of […]

Holiday Visits = Tech Support Time

Went out to my parents’ for New Year’s Eve/New Year’s Day.  As the image above notes, going home often means doing tech support – whether for Shea’s folks, my folks or anybody else I’m visiting. Not that I mind – I always am happy to have something I can contribute and am somewhat decent at […]

1 in 5 Canadians Have Not Used the Internet In the Past Year: Exploring Our Digital Divide

Canada has a digital divide, a demographic that isn’t fully connected to the online world. In the past year, 20 per cent of Canadians haven’t used the internet once, from any location. And that number doesn’t include other kinds of disconnection, like those who don’t own a computer or cell phone, or who can’t use them effectively. […]

Friday Fun Link – Wikipedia’s List of Emerging Technologies

Covering all kinds of sectors from energy to manufacturing to health and more.  Fascinating glimpse at the near future.

YouTube Music Awards

Another big step in the convergence of traditional and new media broadcasting as the YouTube Music Awards – their version of the Grammys/American Music Awards/etc. – happened tonight  with a focus on songs that have been heavily viewed and/or gone viral on YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dG4xaLn2W6s

Friday Fun Link – Wearable Gesture Control

Recently read an article about up & coming Canadian start-ups which mentioned Pebble and these guys whose product looks amazing! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWu9TFJjHaM

Music Monday – “9 was minding his business/Talking to 10 about Gordie Howe’s clothes/Why 7 ate 9 nobody knows”

Pace’s grade one class has access to a site called IXL.ca.  This site has a series of modules on various aspects of math that kids can work through to learn concepts including counting, addition, shapes and so on. There are dozens of modules under various headings, each with escalating levels of difficulty – for example, under […]