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After much deliberation, I updated my WordPress theme. I am using the Carrington CMS theme platform for WordPress. The Carrington Framework was developed by CrowdFavorite.

Smithsonian Institution

I’m VERY excited about this one…

http://ischool.syr.edu/newsroom/news.aspx?recid=1130

VIEW THE FULL REPORT HERE

Like many others, I have concerns about how the forces around (and inside) me affect my performance in various events as well as my day to day well?being. To date, I have kept track of my well?being using a rating system which I have developed, a grocery list, and my memory. There are effective elements of this system and elements that do not carry enough data or create enough influence to be effective.

Although the system has highlights (the rating system) the other elements fail and the system needs complementary components to capture more data and turn that data into a useful information system. The present system is essentially a failure and has been long in need of an intervention.

I took the opportunity of this field study to do a comprehensive analysis, restructuring, and reinvention of the information system. I initially had concerns that a week wouldn’t be long enough to properly test and make appropriate refinements to the system, but after only two days I experienced significant and startling results. Given that my observations and reactions were so marked, I stayed with the study and tested it until the morning of Tuesday, March 29, 2011, at which time I began to compile all my notes, inputs and observations to create this report.

VIEW THE FULL REPORT HERE

MCCALL'S MAGAZINE, WOMAN IN FLOWERED HAT HOLDING COMPACT

For some completely unknown (to anyone) reason, the eSLib site (which I carved out all day Sunday October 3 to migrate and test thinking it might take me the day, at most, but would be officially up on Monday) stopped permitting uploads.  Lame. I spent the next 2 hours changing passwords, testing files, clearing out the caches on my assorted browsers (and on my laptop – command line prompts, baby!)  and whatever else I could think of all to no avail. I’ve worked on websites, intranets, blogs, all sorts of CMS (content management systems) from the front-end to the back-end and everywhere  in between (yes I did teach myself a bit of PHP, HTML and MySQL) and I’ve never had an issue like this.

I ended up repeating this process several times over until I just had enough. I contacted Dr. Qin (the PI on the eScience project) who was understanding but, understandably, wasn’t too happy, who in turn contacted the iSchool Systems Administrators. The next 3 days we all banged our heads against the wall, computers and whatever else was within distance. Nothing. Then finally Lisa Pawlewicz, Systems Administrator extraordinaire, rewrote the php.ini file and everything worked. I really have to hand it to her as she really tried everything and was terrific about helping out. So much time was lost/spent on trying to fix the thing but now it’s finally up.

As if on cue, as soon as the site gets fixed, my blog goes kerplunk. I’ll spare you the details, but my awesome interview with Thomas Mann of the Library of Congress would not load. No not the WordPress entry the ACTUAL interview. I cut and pasted and created new entries (literally, embarrassingly) all day long and I could not post more than the first paragraph. Every time I tried, I got the dreaded 404 page. I beat my head against the wall again, upgraded my hosting, uninstalled plug-ins one by one, troubleshot everywhere I could, read forums and nothing worked. It still isn’t solved. I eventually uploaded the content via the SQL table, but even there I couldn’t add Categories or Tags. Strange.

What I find to be the worst thing is the massive loss of time. Hate it. Especially with so many bigger things to work on (umm classes?).

So I say all this to say…eBooks? We’ve been talking about it off and on and would I hate to be at the end of some gripping novel only to have the thing fail on me. I’ll get one sooner or later, but outside of fire or flood, a book isn’t going anywhere fast.

And what pray tell does this image have to do with anything I’ve written about? I went to the Flickr Commons (a great place for stock photos with varying levels of copyright/ownership per Creative Commons), typed  ‘crazy’ into the search box and this was the first image that came up. In an odd way it’s pretty fitting as I probably would have driven myself nuts looking for an image that was, well, of a person looking like they had driven themselves nuts.

If there’s anyone out there who actually follows my blog, I’m really sorry for the mess over the past day. I have no idea what happened to the site. Some kind of poltergeist I guess.

My sister Heidi runs the Development Department at Hudson River Sloop Clearwater (Americaís flagship environmental organization). Clearwater’s mission is to preserve and protect the Hudson River. Clearwater believes its innovative environmental programs, advocacy and celebrations will continue to inspire and energize the next generation of environmental leaders.

A recent project of theirs, Power of Song, involved students writing new lyrics to ‘This Land is Your Land’ and they created this video using clips from the America’s Great Outdoors Initiative Listening Session which was organized by the Department of the Interior and was held in August. It’s modern and powerful. The students are really inspiring and have some pretty evolved ideas about environmental impacts and how to mitigate them.

Much more can be found HERE.

5 email accounts, 56 RSS feeds, NOTHING in the inbox. Scrubbed clean. Not even read mail. This took me a couple hours to complete, but was well worth it. Take a look (click for a better view).

Clean Inbox