Monday, October 26, 2009
Crash Blossoms and the Garden Path
I found the following article on MSN today; we love to talk about ambiguity and the garden path in my linguistics classes, so I thought I would link it here:
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Over helping: the Wal-Mart experience
Since starting to investigate the ways that people conduct reference interviews and fill information needs, I've become a little hyper-sensitive to the ways that businesses conduct themselves when interviewing/helping clients.
One such experience involves every time I walk into a Wal-Mart. Every single employee will ask "Can I help you find something? Are you finding everything okay" This is a good thing--but generally after the 5th or 6th time I get asked, it's getting pretty old. I've noticed that some employees will not even stop what they are doing while voicing this offer. They will continue walking right on by you, or stocking, or whatever they happen to be doing. Has anyone else noticed this trend? --It almost seems to me that they know you've been asked a handful of times, and expect the "No, I'm fine, just looking" response.
One such experience involves every time I walk into a Wal-Mart. Every single employee will ask "Can I help you find something? Are you finding everything okay" This is a good thing--but generally after the 5th or 6th time I get asked, it's getting pretty old. I've noticed that some employees will not even stop what they are doing while voicing this offer. They will continue walking right on by you, or stocking, or whatever they happen to be doing. Has anyone else noticed this trend? --It almost seems to me that they know you've been asked a handful of times, and expect the "No, I'm fine, just looking" response.
After mulling this over for a while, I have to wonder what the science and statistics of this scenario are for large corporations. They have to know that the bulk of their employees are paid too little and generally don't stay long enough to warrant a level of training that would make for high-quality interviews every time; in the same breath, libraries seem to handle this just fine, and the pay isn't always great (and is sometimes non-existent). They unmeaningful "can i help you" gets on my nerves after five mumbles in a 10 minute period; I find myself avoiding the large chains because the insincere question drives me mad. After reading about the science that goes into grocery stores in 804, these places must have a motive to make every employee ask, no matter how little actual intention may be behind it.
Does an insincere, unenthusiastic offer of help really help sales? Or does it drive customers (like me) away?
I've had discussions with others in this class about how the reference interview seems so over-done in the literature we read because it seems so intuitive: ask, listen, clarify and confirm, research, dialog, repeat if necessary. But I'm starting to wonder if it isn't as intuitive as I have previously assumed. Of course one needs to stop and make eye contact during an interview, right? I've received a whole new appreciation for the researchers that went after this one after starting to pay attention to some of the interviews that happen in my life on a daily basis. I would love to see more literature, even, on the interview and approachability.
For example, what makes an interviewee want to voice their problem when asked? Is a librarian's approachability created in part by the reputation of the profession? If so, why have other service professions (i.e. sales reps) failed to develop this reputation to such an extent?
I've had discussions with others in this class about how the reference interview seems so over-done in the literature we read because it seems so intuitive: ask, listen, clarify and confirm, research, dialog, repeat if necessary. But I'm starting to wonder if it isn't as intuitive as I have previously assumed. Of course one needs to stop and make eye contact during an interview, right? I've received a whole new appreciation for the researchers that went after this one after starting to pay attention to some of the interviews that happen in my life on a daily basis. I would love to see more literature, even, on the interview and approachability.
For example, what makes an interviewee want to voice their problem when asked? Is a librarian's approachability created in part by the reputation of the profession? If so, why have other service professions (i.e. sales reps) failed to develop this reputation to such an extent?
Just had to share this...
Fellow librarians (and some of my linguistics buddies as well will be amused),
A friend sent this to my email, and I had to share:
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/10/15/radical-militant-lib.html
How cool is that?
A friend sent this to my email, and I had to share:
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/10/15/radical-militant-lib.html
How cool is that?
Why I favor online data back up methods over flash drives
Hi again all!
So, after 2 hard drive crashes and Dell sending me a new drive (free under warranty! thank you for your prompt response, all you wonderful people at Dell) I am now able to upload my backlog of blog entries. Expect to see all those things I been talking about posting with all of you since early October pop up in the next few days. :)
After some discussion on this topic in class, I would now like to post my opinion on why I don't trust flash drives as back up storage devices. It's because I've had them stolen, lost on loan, and erased by computer error. The computer error is what did it for me.
My husband, who was much better versed than I in security years ago, warned me not to use flash drives as the standard backup device. When you tote around the contents of your computer, you have to worry what's on that device--your name? Copies of bank statements? A list of (even encrypted) passwords? Any other personally identifying information? Anyone else's identifiers, like their grades or private college papers? --It's one thing to put these items on an external hard drive that hangs out in your office, but to keep this information in your pocket or purse is quite another. Things do get lost, and there's no guarantee that the person who finds it will return it. Chances are they need to look at the drive to even figure out who you are, unless you've printed your information on the tiny exterior.
I had a drive stolen out from a computer station on a college campus once, stepping away for 5 minutes to see something a friend wanted to show me on her screen. I lost the 3 pages of term paper that I had been working on, not to mention the 20-30 other copies of documents that were on there. Thereafter I had to follow up with professors to warn them that if suspiciously familiar term papers started cropping up, it wasn't because I had sold them on the black market. That was fun. People get up and forget their flash drives all the time, too, and it's really a shame these tiny and easily lost or forgotten devices don't come with a built-in password protection program.
The one time I had a drive erased, it wasn't a school paper (thank goodness, right? --not so much). It was a novel I was writing. Picture this: I'm 50 pages into writing the 4th book in a planned 7 book series, cruising along and happy as a lark with my progress. I've forgotten some mundane detail of something and need to recheck my details in the previous book. I pull it up on my flash drive and open the document, check the details, fix a misspelling, and go to close. Word asks me if I want to save the changes, so I click yes--and then my virus software pops open and the save freezes. There's been an error--"Continue with save?" I click cancel, it was only one misspelling, and I don't want to tie up the RAM if the virus software needs it. Well, when I clicked cancel, my virus software (it's a mainstream brand offered by one of the largest PC providers out there) scrubs my flash drive of the open file. Book 3, gone. Because it was in save and linked to the backup copies on the flash drive it scrubbed those too. Not even a readable temp file in sight.
It could be said it's bad to keep your primary copies on a flash drive, and it was totally my fault in that case that there were no back up copies. I had become used to the convenience of having my work wherever I was, so I just worked my primaries off the flash drive (please, do not ever, ever fall to this temptation). But flash drives are not computers. They do break easily, and they are not for primary storage.
Now I use online back up methods. They go wherever the internet is (which, let's face it, is anywhere there is a computer anymore). They are password protected, and the providing agent makes the back up copies for you--sometimes in triplicate or more. Many even offer off-line desktop versions. Most of them are 100% free. And, it removes the risk that you will lose the drive or have it stolen.
So maybe online back ups are not for everyone; neither are flash drives. Anyways, those are my thoughts on why I do not use flash drives for large scale storage and back-ups.
So, after 2 hard drive crashes and Dell sending me a new drive (free under warranty! thank you for your prompt response, all you wonderful people at Dell) I am now able to upload my backlog of blog entries. Expect to see all those things I been talking about posting with all of you since early October pop up in the next few days. :)
After some discussion on this topic in class, I would now like to post my opinion on why I don't trust flash drives as back up storage devices. It's because I've had them stolen, lost on loan, and erased by computer error. The computer error is what did it for me.
My husband, who was much better versed than I in security years ago, warned me not to use flash drives as the standard backup device. When you tote around the contents of your computer, you have to worry what's on that device--your name? Copies of bank statements? A list of (even encrypted) passwords? Any other personally identifying information? Anyone else's identifiers, like their grades or private college papers? --It's one thing to put these items on an external hard drive that hangs out in your office, but to keep this information in your pocket or purse is quite another. Things do get lost, and there's no guarantee that the person who finds it will return it. Chances are they need to look at the drive to even figure out who you are, unless you've printed your information on the tiny exterior.
I had a drive stolen out from a computer station on a college campus once, stepping away for 5 minutes to see something a friend wanted to show me on her screen. I lost the 3 pages of term paper that I had been working on, not to mention the 20-30 other copies of documents that were on there. Thereafter I had to follow up with professors to warn them that if suspiciously familiar term papers started cropping up, it wasn't because I had sold them on the black market. That was fun. People get up and forget their flash drives all the time, too, and it's really a shame these tiny and easily lost or forgotten devices don't come with a built-in password protection program.
The one time I had a drive erased, it wasn't a school paper (thank goodness, right? --not so much). It was a novel I was writing. Picture this: I'm 50 pages into writing the 4th book in a planned 7 book series, cruising along and happy as a lark with my progress. I've forgotten some mundane detail of something and need to recheck my details in the previous book. I pull it up on my flash drive and open the document, check the details, fix a misspelling, and go to close. Word asks me if I want to save the changes, so I click yes--and then my virus software pops open and the save freezes. There's been an error--"Continue with save?" I click cancel, it was only one misspelling, and I don't want to tie up the RAM if the virus software needs it. Well, when I clicked cancel, my virus software (it's a mainstream brand offered by one of the largest PC providers out there) scrubs my flash drive of the open file. Book 3, gone. Because it was in save and linked to the backup copies on the flash drive it scrubbed those too. Not even a readable temp file in sight.
It could be said it's bad to keep your primary copies on a flash drive, and it was totally my fault in that case that there were no back up copies. I had become used to the convenience of having my work wherever I was, so I just worked my primaries off the flash drive (please, do not ever, ever fall to this temptation). But flash drives are not computers. They do break easily, and they are not for primary storage.
Now I use online back up methods. They go wherever the internet is (which, let's face it, is anywhere there is a computer anymore). They are password protected, and the providing agent makes the back up copies for you--sometimes in triplicate or more. Many even offer off-line desktop versions. Most of them are 100% free. And, it removes the risk that you will lose the drive or have it stolen.
So maybe online back ups are not for everyone; neither are flash drives. Anyways, those are my thoughts on why I do not use flash drives for large scale storage and back-ups.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Delicious and Google Chrome
Most of you have heard by now that I figured out why my computer was acting squirrelly recently. Part of my hard drive (the part you don't want to mess with) went bad last week. The part that went bad was essentially the table of contents--that part of the disk that tells the interface where everything is located. I flipped out for a while because I thought I had lost a bunch of pictures and videos (irreplaceable family camping trips) that I hadn't backed up yet. Thanks to my husband's unceasing ingenuity, we were able to find an old recovery program that located the shadow copy and got all my personal files. We formatted the drive and things have been good since.
Following the loss of all of my cookies and internet history, I've finally started using Delicious. What an amazing difference this has made in my life, even just over the last 48 hours. Delicious is basically an online bookmarking service--you can make your bookmarks public or private, and you take them everywhere with you (even if your computer crashes, even if you are using a machine you haven't before) because it's all online and you just have to log in. Why didn't anyone think of this sooner?
Also, I'm now giving Google Chrome a whirl. I typically don't jump right on the bandwagon when new technologies come out, because there's usually a string of real world errors and problems that need correcting (think new game consoles, most Microsoft software, and the Volkswagen and Audi Flash of Death ). I let everyone else find these and correct them before I spend my hard-earned money. However, my husband loves Chrome and put it on my machine when we did the system restore, so now I'm using it and generally liking it. It's different. The biggest differences are the way bookmarking and favorites work, and the downloads bar that pops up at the bottom of the screen.
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