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Mozilla Firefox 3 To Be Launched on 17 June 2008

Isaak Kwok — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 05:05:32 +0000

Really looking forward to the release of Mozilla Firefox 3 on 17 June 2008 (18 June in Singapore). Have been using the betas of Firefox 3 (the latest is Release Candidate 3) for the past couple of months and it has been a pleasure to use. The previous version had problems with high memory usage and frequent crashes. But all such problems have eliminated or reduced.

So, remember to click on the logo above and pledge that you’ll download Mozilla Firefox 3 on the launch day!

P.S.: Wished we could use Mozilla Firefox 3 in the office.

UPDATE: Had fun playing around with the new version of Firefox 3. Anyway, if you have downloaded, you can go print your own certificate for participating in the download.

Here’s mine:

Book Rental Fail

Isaak Kwok — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 08:21:10 +0000

Was quite appalled when I chanced upon this screenshot of a question posted in a forum. I guess the person posting it or his sister has never heard of a place called a “LIBRARY”. Or maybe the place where the person stays doesn’t have a library.

I think given the more difficult economic times, it might be a good idea to ‘sell’ to the public to encourage them to come to the library instead of buying books. Just have to remind them to return the books on time to avoid paying overdue fees.

(via FAIL Blog)

Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction 2008

Isaak Kwok — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 05:39:24 +0000

The Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction was awarded on 04 June at London’s Royal Festival Hall to Rose Tremain for her novel, The Road Home (Call No.: English TRE). The Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction is open to only female authors and the books need to be published in English. The award comes with £30,000 in prize money.

The Road Home is a story about Lev, an immigrant from Eastern Europe, who tries to make his way to Britain. In between falling in and out of love, he sleeps in the streets, works in a Gordon Ramsay-style restaurant and picks asparagus in East Anglia.

The other shortlisted books are:

Charlotte Mendelson’s When We Were Bad (Call No.: English MEN)
Sadie Jones’ The Outcast (Call No.: English JON)
Nancy Huston’s Fault Lines (Call No.: English HUS)
Heather O’Neill’s Lullabies for Little Criminals (Call No.: English ONE)
Patricia Wood’s Lottery (Call No.: English WOO)

(via The Guardian | Books)

Books that Publishers Are Pushing To Teens This Summer

Isaak Kwok — Sun, 26 Jun 2005 08:31:26 +0000

The following “Wall Street Journal Article”:http://online.wsj.com/public/article/0„SB111956889635168198-kx6S_u1RWUXCcoHgupKf9N2gYz8_20060623,00.html?mod=public_home_us talks about the books that publishers are pushing out for the teens market that has relatively heavy themes such as binge drinking and incest.

We have some of the titles that are mentioned in the article such as “Gossip Girl” and “How I Live Now”. The latter title won the 2005 “Michael L Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature”:http://www.ala.org/ala/yalsa/booklistsawards/printzaward/Printz,Michael_L_Award.htm. This award is given out by the “American Library Association”:http://www.ala.org.

Though the library have such titles in our library, I always believe that the onus is on the parents to educate their children on the materials that they pick up to read and also educate them on the correct morals.

Bloggers.SG - Date and Venue

Isaak Kwok — Tue, 31 May 2005 04:32:11 +0000

Bloggers.SG’s date and venue has been confirmed. It will be held on 16 July 2005 at National Library Board’s Woodlands Regional Library’s Auditorium. See link for more details.

Isaak’s Links

Isaak Kwok — Tue, 31 May 2005 02:40:52 +0000

From the LS Mailbag
An email informing all about the launch of “tags in their entries and can be searchable by tags (just like Technorati). And they have RSS feeds as well. So, anyone can subscribe to it. Wondering when “NLB”:http://www.nlb.gov.sg would start a blog of its own?! (Source: Library Stuff)

No related posts.

Isaak’s Links

Isaak Kwok — Thu, 05 May 2005 04:59:58 +0000

< ul> Free from 9 to 5 Related posts:Isaak’s Links - Video Games — or Books? and others - 07 June 2006 Espresso Book Machine at New York Public Library Related posts:

Isaak’s Links

Isaak Kwok — Tue, 03 May 2005 05:37:10 +0000

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Laura Bush: First lady of comedy?
A very funny and interesting transcript of Laura’s Bush comments that was made at a White House Correspondents’ Association dinner last Saturday. (Source: LISNews.com)

Robots serving library users in Utah
The Utah State University’s library will be using robotic cranes to retrieve books and materials for its users from shelving units in a five-storey rack structure. Popular books will still be placed in the open shelves. The amazing thing is that you can make requests via the Internet and it’ll be ready by the time you reach the counter. (Source: LISNews.com)

Tiger is on my Powerbook

Isaak Kwok — Sat, 30 Apr 2005 03:48:35 +0000

Tiger was unleashed yesterday evening in Singapore at 6pm. I was the second person at AppleCentre Orchard to collect my copy of Tiger from the cashier. Can literally feel the excitement in the air when I was queuing though there was not fanfare at the store itself, except for a few cameras and Apple Singapore staff. Left the shop immediately after collecting Tiger. But only installed it when I reached home late at night.

Initial feelings about Tiger (though I’ve used it for only about an hour or so) is that it feels quite good and fast. Spotlight, the main innovative feature of Tiger, is quite exceptional. It indexed my hard disk (about 45GB worth of data) in about 25 minutes. As for Dashboard, it is really quite a fun feature to have. I’m able to check the weather for Singapore or any country, search Britannica, check up words in the dictionary, and even play games. Safari has also been given an update and can now support RSS feeds within the browser. Though this is not something new as Firefox has had this feature since last year, it enables those who don’t want to download another browser to read RSS feeds in Safari. For me, this feature is not as crucial as I’m using NetNewsWire for reading RSS feeds. And there’s Automator, but I haven’t used it yet so I can’t comment.

In general, a good update. Worth upgrading.

Isaak’s Links

Isaak Kwok — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 07:24:02 +0000

Marketing Treasures: The electronic newsletter with marketing ideas for information professionals
This is quite a good website done up by a information services marketing expert. The free e-newsletter, which you can subscribe to, gives ideas on how we can use different marketing methods to attract users to make use of our services. (Source: Library Stuff)
Meet the Gamers
An interesting article from the Library Journal about how the PC and console gaming world has ‘infiltrated’ our lives and how the library can actually reach out to this group of gamers. A few interesting points raised were allowing games to be played on the public computers in the library and even having dedicated areas for gaming in the library. In Singapore, I know of the library at Republic Polytechnic having Xbox consoles for students’ use. It seems like a good way for social networking. (Source: LibrarianInBlack)
The Ethical Blogger
Another article from the Library Journal. This article deals with the increasing number of librarians blogging, whether officially or in their personal capacity, and the need to be accountable. Accountable not only to ourselves or the organizations we represent, but also to the world of librarianship. With more NLBians blogging, this seems like a good article for all of us to learn from, whether we are ‘seasoned’ bloggers or just starting out. (Source: LibrarianInBlack)
Blogs Will Change Your Business
Another article talking about blogging and the impact it has on society, particularly in the business world. (Source: Rambling Librarian)
Where the Jobs Are: Librarians Break into Strategic Roles
Changing roles of librarians in the corporate world. (Source: LISNews.com)
A Librarian’s Letter to “Dear Abby”
A director of a small Kansas public library writes to “Dear Abby” in a passionate plea to users to maintain basic library etiquette. Am sure lots of librarians have similar experiences. (Source: LISNews.com)