Check-in

Not a technical post, but a personal update. I promised over a week ago.

I’ve been exceptionally busy at work, we’re beginning to finish up a much needed, much discussed by librarians, redesign of PubMed. We’ve put a ton of user interaction effort into this project, as well as a good sprinkling of graphic design (watch out, I even did some parts!) I think people will be really positive about these new changes.

[Just for the record, if someone happens to stumble upon this from the librarian community, yes, release date is still end of summer, and yes, there will be a Beta period, so no need to worry about a short timeline to update your class or instructional slides. We do listen!]

It’s also been exciting that we’ve brought a few new people on board. Always exciting to have new hires, despite the fact that it’s a lot of work… and all of the trainings I have to do.

What else… I’m planning on attending the DelveUI masterclasses this week in Brooklyn. It will be interesting to see what some of the heads of state have to say about the field. I’m a little excited, this masterclass format isn’t the usual boring no-content fluff that you hear at most conferences. I get the feeling that there will actually be code present! My thanks to the lovely Jina “Sushi & Robots” Bolton for the opportunity for the free ticket.

I’ve been reading… way too many things. I’ve been reading Learning jQuery 1.3, jQuery UI 1.6, and jQuery in Action and you’ll see the reviews of those two books very soon. (Can you tell that we’ve switched to jQuery at NCBI?) I’m a little behind with that reading, but I’ve been working hard on other things. Additionally, I went on an Amazon spree, and started reading Programming the Semantic Web, An Introduction to Lambda Calculi for Computer Scientists, To Mock a Mockingbird, 101 Things I learned in Architecture School, Code Complete 2. Last but not least, I’ve also been reading any photography book that I can get my hands on.

Yes, that is a lot of books, and I haven’t had much time for them. I’ve been working hard at work, and I want to relax a bit when I come home. Once summer ends, things will return to a slightly more regular pace. I’ve been learning so much on the job, that I’m not very worried about falling behind in reading.

Clean room!

Last weekend, I FINALLY had a chance to clean my room, and I’m pleased with the results. Really, though, this post is just an excuse to do one of those “this is my desk, this is my bookshelf” posts that everyone seems to do. 🙂

My favorite books are mostly at the top (actually, there’s no rhyme or reason to any of it). Just looking, I realize that there are a bunch of Ruby books that I almost never look at. The orange book behind the wire on the top shelf is a really good Dover book on Graph Theory.

My monitor setup. I’ve got 3 computers, the laptop, my ‘frankenmac’ desktop, and a pc. The frankenmac is dying, so I am probably going to have to shift things around. I don’t have a plan for which computer will go with which monitor, but the desk is now set, and won’t change. I’ve got my new Griffin Elevator sitting there. I’m happy with it, keeps the bottom of the laptop really cool.

Anyway, it’s been a week… let’s see how clean I can keep it.

Uploaded Photos

My new resolution: learn how to take better photographs, simply to reduce the time I spend editing them!

I’ve decided that once I do that, I will retire my Olympus C-8080, and move on to a Digital SLR. Reviews are mixed (at best) about the E-3, and I may like something better than the E-510. Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself… use the camera I have first!

I was going to write tonight…

but I got distracted uploading a boat-load of photos. Look at them instead.

DC

Photos!

Be that as it may, I’ve been focused the last 2 days, buring through many of them. I’ve got two sets down, with one remaining. I’ve posted the first two to my newly purchased flickr pro account (I ran over the 200 image limit, and want to continue to see the old ones.)

Check out my party/band shots, and my photos of Boston and ALCS game 2.