Author: elmer

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More Classcaster Sitings

By way of correction, we are not using Shockwave to record podcasts.  We are embedding a Flash MP3 player object in the post to play the audio, but the recording is done using a telephone connection or by uploading locally recorded MP3s.  We are using the open source Musicplayer at the moment, but are developing our own player that is more tuned to playing single MP3s from a blog post.

RSS4Lib:: Shockwave Audio and Weblogs

The Neef Law Library blog at Wayne State University is using Shockwave audio files to record blog content.

Classcaster features an Asterisk PBX on the backend that allows us to record phone calls and then generate a blog post containing the MP3 recording of the call. Blogging services are provided through a modified version of pLog. Taken together these tools allow Classcaster to be a full featured blogging and podcasting platform.

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Oracle to Release FreeDb

Oracle intends to release a free version of its database, a reaction to the growing competitive pressure from low-end open-source databases.The database heavyweight on Tuesday is expected to announce the beta release of Oracle 10g Express Edition (Oracle Database XE), which will be generally available by the end of the year. It is targeted at students, small organizations and software vendors that could embed the Oracle database with an application.

Oracle to offer free database | CNET News.com

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Facebook: A Social Network Success

On the reason why the first generation of social networks failed (as compared to MySpace and Facebook), he thinks that they have not focused on providing a set of utilities to their audience, they were merely about creating connections.

Software Only: The Facebook unplugged at Stanford ETL

This is a great article on the folks behind Facebook and how it is put together.  The above quote makes me wonder: how can CALI create a social network among law students, among law faculty, amng law librarians?  What utilites can we provide that would ignite a community and a social network?

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Blogging the Day Away…

Trade paper AdAge.com reported this week that US workers would waste the equivalent of 551,000 years during 2005 reading blogs, online web diaries and gossip sheets, which have exploded in numbers in recent years.Around 35 million workers — one in four of the labour force in the United States — spend three-and-a-half hours, or nine percent of their working week on blogs, the survey found.

Blogs on the job: US workers waste millions of hours online – Yahoo! News

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MSFT Joins Open Content Alliance

Microsoft announced Tuesday that it planned to join the online book-search movement with a new service called MSN Book Search.
And in a nod to the growing influence of a recently formed group called the Open Content Alliance, Microsoft announced its plans to join it. The group is working to digitize the contents of millions of books and put them on the Internet, with full text accessible to anyone, while respecting the rights of copyright holders.

Microsoft to Offer Online Book-Content Searches – New York Times