b.cognosco

I've read the tales of woe, cried the tears of the downtrodden, felt the fears of the huddled masses. But it's over now. The blogoshpere's prodigal InfoMaven has returned. Welcome back, Jenny.

A Very Shifted Library. Thanks to Lori Bell, I've been scanning the Memorial Hall Library's web site (they're located in Andover, Massachusetts). They do a great job of providing remote access to their databases, live online chat with a librarian, a browsable catalog (instead of just a searchable one), and they're even circulating Gemster ebooks . Lori led me there, though, because the MHL is yet another library circulating Audible MP3 audiobooks . What I found interesting, though, was that... [ Source: The Shifted Librarian]

Harvard Frontline Strategy Conference

9:10:33 PM

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Another interesting conference to add to the futures list. Let's see what JR has to say after it's done.

I am going to be blogging the Harvard Frontline Strategy Conference at the Ritz-Carlton in Boston on the 17th. Bennis, Davenport, and Siebel will be speaking. Should be fun and there are seats still available. If you are interested in attending, let me know. [ Source: John Robb's Radio Weblog]

Web Builder Conference and Web Builder Tools

8:44:26 PM

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Personal note: catalog Scoble's Web Builder Conference for future reference. I'm looking to change the focus of shows I attend -- go more toward genuine conference/seminars (sort of like my very first Seybold Seminars in Boston around 1989 or so) vs trade show/expos where the conference is often an afterthought. The Web Builder Conference sounds like it fits.

Personal note Numero Dos: I didn't realize Scoble was with Thunder Lizard (or may be is Thunder Lizard.) I used to know some guys there years ago when they first started out doing QuarkXpress seminars -- at least I think it's the same company. The world keeps getting smaller.

Scoble's endorsement may convince me to buy TopStyle. I've used HomeSite for several years and it ships with TopStyle Lite. I got to messing with CSS a couple of weeks ago with some new templates, realized how woefully inadequate my CSS knowledge was, and nearly bought TSPro on the Spot. (No, I can't bring myself to use Dreamweaver or any other snazzy editor that costs $350-$400 to do the simple, basic, occasional HTML pages I do.) I'm really teetering now. One positive comment from the peanut gallery will put me over the edge.

Getting back into Weblogging. Thanks to Chris Pirillo for snapping me out of my blog-free rut that I've been in.
I had dinner with Chris and Gretchen on Saturday night and Chris showed me some stuff that just got me fired up about this industry again.
[...]
What did he show me? Moveable Type for one. I'm pretty impressed. Although I didn't see enough to make me move off of Radio.
And a tool called Top Style which lets you build standards-based Web sites. I've been playing with it the past few days and it's awesome for building CSS and XHTML-based Web sites and templates.
Which brings me to standards and Web sites.
You all might know that I planned the Web Builder conference that happened last week in Las Vegas. What fun. I got to hang out with Jeffrey Zeldman, Molly Holzschlag, Jason Kottke, Meg Hourihan, Dori Smith, Scott Johnson, Marc Canter, and many other geeky Web types. [...more] [ Source: Scobleizer Radio Weblog]

Learning to Make Better Decisions

10:55:31 AM

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James Vornov is a director of clinical research for a pharmaco, and part-time faculty member in the Neuroscience department at Johns Hopkins. He's launched a project weblog, On Deciding...Better, dedicated to his learning about Decision Theory and the practice of Deciding. Here is just one excerpt from some of his introductory pages:

I intend this website to be a tool to help myself and others learn how to make better decisions. There's a philosophy behind the site that I began to document in The Project, but its an unfinished work.
About a year ago, through some contacts at my work, I started exploring Decision Theory.
By the way, I tend to talk about Decision Theory, the abstract concepts of deciding rather than Decision Analysis, which generally refers to a more applied field of analyzing situations.
To start, I recommend two books which were my start, Making Hard Decisions by Clemens and Thinking and Deciding by Baron. Both are very readable college/graduate level textbooks that will take you through the field.
After that, the kind of problems you face will dictate what kind of tools you need.

James showed up in my referrer logs, but let's not confuse this with one of those "you link to me, I link to you" return-the-favor things. Far from it. Where am I ever going to cross paths with a Baltimore-based clinical research director, or hobnob with faculty at Johns Hopkins? I'm not. Not through any normal channels.

This is one more example of the weblog phenomenon blasting away the barriers to discourse and knowledge sharing. Already in my brief blogging career I have shared conversations with men and women of exceptional intellect and accomplishment, people whose understanding and knowledge far outstrip my own. If I can give back but a tenth of what I gain, this weblog will be a success.