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Tuesday, March 23, 2004 |
Game for Messaging. InfocomBot for AOL Instant Messenger
"If you have an AOL Instant Messenger account, send an IM to InfocomBot or InfocomBot2.
I set up an automated bot to play classic Infocom text adventure games
from your favorite IM client, T-Mobile Sidekick, or any other device
that connects to AIM. It supports "save" and "restore" commands, so you
don't need to lose your place.
If you've never played a text adventure game before, Brass Lantern has a great introduction to basic gameplay. There are hints for all of these games on the InvisiClues website." [Waxy.org, via MetaFilter]
So I can query Google via AIM, talk to SmarterChild via AIM, and now play text games via AIM, but I still can't search a library's catalog. Are there any ILS vendors working on this type of open functionality? [The Shifted Librarian]
8:38:33 AM  Google It!.
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Raising the Bar for Toolbars.
- "Dogpile Toolbar has launched its newest toolbar, which comes with an an RSS Tool
for grabbing RSS and Atom-syndicated content. The Toolbar can display
feeds constructed in RSS .91, .92, and 2.0 formats. The Toolbar also
supports the Atom feed format." [Lockergnome’s RSS Resource]
- Index and Search Your Computer, RSS Feeds, and the Web With New Desktop
From an overview article that that I've co-authored with Barbara Quint, 'Lycos has launched a free toolbar
search product [IE, Windows 98, ME, 2000 or XP] from HotBot, their
search service,which is 'the first product to integrate traditional
desktop search with Web search within the browser.' The same search
tool can now reach the Internet, e-mail folders for Outlook or Outlook
Express, and user documents stored on a hard drive. The free
application does not even require registration. It also incorporates a
blocker for pop-up ads and an RSS News Reader syndication. Searching
reaches six file types: MS Office, PDF, RTF, and text. Indexes created
to track e-mail and user files remain stored locally to protect user
privacy.' " [Resourceshelf]
So toolbars are continuing to evolve, with library services nowhere
in sight. I'm more intrigued by the Hotbot toolbar, with its ability to
index my hard drive. I love the Lookout search toolbar for Outlook,
so combining that functionality with searching my RSS feeds could be
incredibly efficient. I'm confused as to what list of RSS subscriptions
the toolbar indexes, though. Hopefully it's not a second list that
needs to be maintained separately from any existing user aggregator.
I'll have to find time to give it a whirl, especially to see if I can
add SWAN to its list of search engines.
Oh, and an important note from Gary's article: "Indexes created to
track e-mail and user files remain stored locally to protect user
privacy," and it's Windows only. [The Shifted Librarian]
8:31:23 AM Google It!.
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Robots Invade San Francisco.
Robot creators and fans from around the world converge on San Francisco
for a weekend of fighting, climbing, wrestling and teaching at the
first Robolympics. By Lore Sjöberg. [Wired News]
8:24:21 AM Google It!.
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Archives seek to nullify "effectively perpetual" copyright term. Yesterday Brewster Kahle and Richard Prelinger filed a suit
in a federal district court in California claiming that the Berne
Convention Implement Act (BCIA) and Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA)
together create an "effectively perpetual" copyright term for a certain
category of works, and therefore violate the U.S. constitution. The
affected works were published after January 1, 1964, and before January
1, 1978. Kahle, Chairman of the Internet Archive, and Prelinger, President of the Prelinger Archives, are represented by three attorneys, including Lawrence Lessig, from the Stanford Center for Internet and Society. (Thanks to BNA's Internet Law News.) [Open Access News]
8:09:01 AM Google It!.
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© Copyright 2004 Bruce Landon.
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