The Evergreen MARC editor uses abbreviations in the interface for fixed data. I was having a hard time figuring out what the abbreviations meant and page at OCLC appears to have most if not all of those abbreviations.
Evergreen-ILS Research: SIP2 media types
25 January 2010 – 5:41 pm
I’m working on a migration to the Evergreen ILS and encountered a sip2_media_type field in the config.circ_modifier table. It’s a text field but the example data in the schema file has numeric codes like ‘001’.
There didn’t seem to be any reference to what the valid values might be for this field, or what the codes indicated. I’m pretty sure this field is used for interfacing with self-check machines which is a function that won’t be used with the catalogue I’m working on. However, I figured it might be useful to know in any case so I went looking for a reference.
I was able to find a list of the 3M media types on this PDF document at the Library and Archives Canada website.
Valid values from the 3M Media Type scheme
000 Other
001 Book
002 Magazine
003 Bound journal
004 Audiotape
005 Videotape
006 CD/cdrom
007 DISKETTE
008 Book with Diskette
009 Book with CD
010 Book with audiotape
MTS, Rogers shared wireless network looks promising
17 September 2009 – 11:05 pm
I missed this story when MTS and Rogers first announced their deal to co-operate on 3.5G wireless, but they’ve recently received regulatory permission for the plan. According to the original MTS release, MTS’ investment in the partnership will be about $70 million and the new network will cover “the majority of the population” by the end of next year. Of course, in Manitoba the majority of the population can mean greater Winnipeg which already has HSPA coverage from Rogers according to the Rogers website.
I still have some questions, particularly about the scheduling for rural areas given the use of vague terms like “majority of the population”. I’m also curious about tower coverage and how that may or may not effect the holes in coverage of both MTS and Rogers. There are some areas where both networks have poor or non-existent coverage (especially in the border areas) and more where one or the other has poor coverage.
Such questions aside, this looks like a very promising development. The official word on this will emphasize new technology and higher speeds which is all good, but I’m also hopeful the shared infrastructure will improve simple coverage in at least a few of the problem areas. The mobile networks in my area are not as good as they could be, and it seems obvious that building an excellent shared network is a better solution than building multiple not-so-good ones.
New Ubuntu User Interface
Almost all of my personal computers run Ubuntu as the main system software. As the next version of Ubuntu will be released soon, I have been running a test install in a virtual machine.
I’m really not sure what to think about this release. There are some interesting initiatives from the projects commercial sponsor, and some other things I haven’t learned about in detail yet. The most significant change appears to be the new branding and themes.
The new branding materials look nice, but I’m struggling with the new theme. The change that appears to have received the most attention is the relocation of the windows controls (close, minimize, maximize). I personally don’t have much issue with the change, but the new controls are very small and thus difficult to hit with the pointer. (The “x” on the close button is also obscured by the light effects, but that’s a minor issue.)
Ubuntu has a new set of colours, the warm brown/orange scheme has been replaced by purple with a bit of orange. The overall colours are very dark and Gnome menus are kind of monochrome. In application windows the menubar and the titlebar are now the same colour which doesn’t appear to change when a window is inactive.
I don’t know how to explain my problem with the new theme colours. If I’m looking at the screen for longer than a few minutes my eyes begin to feel sore, and I can’t quite focus on things. I’m not sure if its contrast (like this bug) or something else. The same colour menu and titlebars do seem to make distinguishing where the menu is much more difficult. The old Ubuntu brown themes were criticized, but I always found them easy on the eyes. Or, as easy as a computer screen will ever be.