Re: [CODE4LIB] Linux Public Computers - time and ticket reservation system
On Tue, Dec 30, 2008 at 3:37 PM, Darrell Eifert deif...@hampton.lib.nh.us wrote: a small program to set folder permissions may be able to lock down a Gnome or KDE desktop to prevent users from changing icons, menus, or wallpaper. Option 1: Why lockdown?. Simply make a snapshot of the desktop As You Want It, and everytime someone logs in, overwrite the dotfiles with the stock ones. Everyone gets the default desktop everytime they login, no matter what. Unix is all text files; take advantage of it. Option 2: Why lockdown? If you have persistent user identifiers of any sort, *stash* the user's desktop at logout and *restore* it at login. If someone horks things beyond repair, log 'em out, nuke their config set, and they get the default on next login. Everybody gets *their* desktop, everytime they login, no matter what. Unix is all text files; take advantage of it. -- Shawn Boyette (feeling contrarian) sboye...@gmail.com
Re: [CODE4LIB] LOC Authority Data
Individual facts or datum are not copyrightable, but collections of facts -- particular expressions of data -- are. This is what makes phone books, databases, and the like subject to copyright. P.S. N.B. IANAL On Wed, Sep 24, 2008 at 9:59 AM, Jonathan Rochkind [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Interestingly, outside the US it's somewhat more possible to claim copyright on factual data than inside the US, Europe for instance has types of IP and copyright protection for databases that the US does not. But basically, the answer is that nobody knows for sure, not even the lawyers. Jonathan Bryan Baldus wrote: On Tuesday, September 23, 2008 4:17 PM, Nate Vack wrote: Huh. They claim copyright of these records. I'd somehow thought: 1: The federal government can't hold copyrights The page [1] states: Copyright Records in the MARC Distribution Services originating with the Library of Congress are copyrighted by the Library of Congress for use outside the United States. Subscribers are granted copyright permission to selectively redistribute records outside the United States; contact LC prior to any distribution. So, in the U.S., they are not copyrightable, but outside the U.S. some copyright claim might be justified. 2: As purely factual data, catalog records are conceptually uncopyrightable For the most part, personally I would agree with this, at least for individual records (though some parts of the record, like the 520 summaries, might contain enough original creativity that could be considered copyrightable). Others might believe otherwise, at least as it pertains to the collection of the records as a whole--for example, OCLC's copyright claims on their database of records. ## On the Fred 2.0 records, aside from their age, I wish they were available in MARC 21 format rather than XML with NFC encoding. When I tried to use MarcEdit to convert the files from XML to MARC 21 (January 2007), I ran into issues with character encodings. The files also seemed to lack header lines like: ?xml version=1.0 encoding=UTF-8? collection xmlns=http://www.loc.gov/MARC21/slim; [1] http://www.loc.gov/cds/mds.html#lcaf Thank you for your assistance, Bryan Baldus Cataloger Quality Books Inc. The Best of America's Independent Presses 1-800-323-4241x402 [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Jonathan Rochkind Digital Services Software Engineer The Sheridan Libraries Johns Hopkins University 410.516.8886 rochkind (at) jhu.edu -- Shawn Boyette [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [CODE4LIB] what's friendlier less powerful than phpMyAdmin?
I don't think he was asking about *programmers* creating or modifying *schema*. On Wed, Jul 30, 2008 at 11:07 AM, Tim Spalding [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This gets religious quickly, but, in my experience, programmers who learn on a framework miss out on their understanding of database necessities. They may not matter much when you have a low-traffic, low-content situation, but as your traffic and data grow you're going to want an understanding of how MySQL optimizes queries, what's expensive and what's not, and so forth. Although anyone can learn anything, experience is the best teacher, and, in my experience, frameworks encourage you to avoid that experience. For example, the Ruby programmers I've worked with have been unaware that MySQL only uses one index per table per select, causing them to index far more than they need, how joins work across different MySQL data types, the advantages of ganging your inserts together, etc. This stuff adds up fast. Of course, the same arguments could be leveled against PHP in favor of C, against C in favor of assembly, etc.. Abstraction always has merits and demerits. Tim On Wed, Jul 30, 2008 at 10:46 AM, Cloutman, David [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This is why most Web applications have to implement CRUD interfaces. PHP is definitely for the uninitiated. Along the lines of CodeIgnitor, I would suggest using another framework Symfony. It's a very powerful, yet easy to learn framework, and it will autogenerate the CRUD for you. Really, some framework is probably the way to go for this, regardless of which you choose. - David -Original Message- From: Code for Libraries on behalf of Ken Irwin Sent: Wed 7/30/2008 6:35 AM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: [CODE4LIB] what's friendlier less powerful than phpMyAdmin? Hi folks, I have some straightforward MySQL data tables that I would like to be editable by some of my less-techy colleagues. I tend to think of phpMyAdmin as a perfectly serviceable and reasonably interface for updating database tables, but I'm told that it's kind of intimidating to the uninitiated. Are there alternatives that are meant for non-admin-types? I'd want something with read/write permissions, but that could be targeted at just a few tables, wouldn't have any of the more potent tools (drop, empty, etc.). In the ideal world, I might like something that would prevent users from doing things like accidentally changing primary key data and things like that. I've thought about writing something, but I suspect that would be reinventing the wheel. Any ideas? Thanks, Ken -- Ken Irwin Reference Librarian Thomas Library, Wittenberg University Email Disclaimer: http://www.co.marin.ca.us/nav/misc/EmailDisclaimer.cfm -- Check out my library at http://www.librarything.com/profile/timspalding -- Shawn Boyette [EMAIL PROTECTED]
