iNODE

I use the “archive and install” option for upgrades and recommend it over Apple’s default “Upgrade” option. Basically the “A&I” method moves your system and user files out of the way then installs a complete, fresh system. Once that’s done (and without operator intervention) it runs Migration Assistant to pull all user accounts, network settings, and so on over to the new install. I did four upgrades yesterday while doing other things and each went smoothly.

Last night, the fifth one reminded me why the “make a complete backup before beginning” advice you often hear is such a good idea. The install bombed about 4/5 of the way through on an older G5. A helpful little message pane asked if I wanted to try again so I said sure.

What I didn’t realize was that on the 2nd try it would just do a clean install. I sensed things were going wrong when the system asked what I wanted to use for my short user name. Ever susceptible to moronic responses, I gave it my usual user name—which meant that by the time I finally realized that I could run system migration using the “archive” portion of the original “archive and install” sequence that bombed, it was too late. It was able to migrate all the accounts except the one that clashed with the account I’d just created.

For that account, I had to delete my “newly created” version, then run migration assistant from a disk image backup that was a couple weeks old. Took 6 hours to get the data out of the .dmg file but it did eventually finish and everything migrated. This isn’t the time machine that Apple marketing is talking about.

Got Root?

The Netinfo utility isn’t in Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5), so how are you supposed to enable the root user? Most people will just tell you it isn’t necessary but I disagree. While I appreciate the benefits of Apple’s walled garden (things do tend to work better) I also like to poke around the foundations of that wall from time to time. Besides, to use DTrace (new to OSX in Leopard), you’ll need to run your queries as root.

May be an easier way, but here’s one I’ve found that works:

System Preferences -> Users -> unlock the “click lock to make changes”

Then go to Applications->Utilities->Directory Utility and under the edit menu you’ll find “Enable Root User”

Following a link from a BoingBoing post on Mike Wesch’s new Information R/evolution video (which I highly recommend—even though I think it oversells the “everything is miscellaneous” idea), I also found his earlier work The Machine is Us/ing Us available on the net as a downloadable QuickTime film. Looks much better than the YouTube version so I transcoded it for one of our QT streaming servers.

If you are not one of the 3.6 million+ people who have viewed Wesch’s The Machine is Us/ing Us since it appeared on YouTube last January, here’s another opportunity to see in five quick minutes (and better resolution) what Web 2.0 is all about:

The Machine is Us/ing Us

Then be sure to screen the new film, Information R/evolution.

Our development team has been making slow but steady progress on the research portal prototype. I use the word “team” but there are just two of us working on the project a few hours each week—Muzammil Sagheer (our departmental graduate assistant) and myself.

Fortunately, in the coming weeks we’ll be enlarging the circle just a bit—adding a subject specialist librarian to help us map out a taxonomy for our resource database and work with us as we think through different ways to meet user needs and aspirations.

We have a two part goal: build a prototype portal for a particular discipline and then use it to encourage other librarians on staff to adopt/adapt the software to augment (and ultimately replace) the static web guides, handouts, and other resources they currently produce. If we’re successful, we’ll get to the point where our librarians are essentially curators of online information within a discipline and keepers of the “go-to” first stop for researchers.

If you believe as I do that the percentage of users physically entering the library is in continuous and irreversible decline (irreversible at least as long as electricity and networking exist), then doesn’t it make sense to focus our energies and resources on creating a presence on the net where information users still congregate?

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I had the good fortune to start my career at Mason a year after Roy began his–so until today there was never a time I worked here that he wasn’t also a part of what we’re trying to do. Of course, he’ll be a part of what happens at Mason and in digital history for years to come as it takes a long time for the sort of ripples Roy made to dissipate.

We’ve all lost a great colleague and for many of us a good friend.

Roy Rosenzweig 1950-2007

This isn’t new—it’s been around for more than a year—but I can’t spend all my time on the leading edge. Sometimes I have to loop back to catch up on the stuff I missed the first time through.

And now that I’m here, I’d like to encourage any other late-to-the-party WordPress bloggers to take a look at this small plugin.

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A real geek might think the title of this post is 42 (binary) but it isn’t. I’ve never read Douglas Adams.

No, I’m just enjoying a bit of a pun.

Today, October 10th (10/10) Radiohead released their new album (10 songs) on the net. No record company involved.

Instead, they let it be known that fans could go to their website, order a downloadable version of the album, pay whatever they wished, and then await instructions on downloading.

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About a year ago, I mentioned that we would be working on a research portal at some point in the not-too-distant future. Seems like the future finally began arriving early last week.

To recap, we’re hoping to build a series of ‘research portals’ for different disciplines across the university. We’ll start with a single relatively narrow subject area and develop our prototype. Once we’re satisfied with its flexibility, capability and performance, we’ll offer it to our subject liaison librarians as a new (and better) tool for delivering information services to their clientele. Yes, I know it’s futile to try and build a one-stop site for even a single researcher but I think a first-stop site is quite doable and for our public services staff that would be real progress.

The software

We’ve kicked this idea around for some time and have planned to base whatever we build on the software foundation of the Scout Portal Toolkit (CWIS) project from the University of Wisconsin. Today we use a locally-modified version of their CWIS system to power our library’s e-resource listing service. The SPT-CWIS code has proven to be reliable and reasonably robust.

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