Friday, July 25, 2008

Play, Play Play....and learn along the way!

Working for an team such as I do it is a pleasure because it encourages me to learn and play with new technologies. This mentality is spreading quickly within the organization so much that the leadership team has made it a tactical objective this year to change the way staff members learn about web 2.0 technologies - Its call Learn & Play @CML. There's no need to feel guilty you're learning a new technology while at work anymore, in fact its encourages. See a cool website like Wordle or twitter dive in, join the community. The Internets' are your friend - well most of them :)

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Are Library's naive to website attacks?

I've found myself asking this question over the last few days as I spend my days, and most of the nights, fighting an attack that crippled our websites. When I tell people about our libraries websites being attacked, almost without fail, the first response from the person is "Who would want to attack a library?" or "Why would someone attack us?" as if there is some code of ethics for hackers.

Warning, rant follows:
I would like to think our library and library partners are a microcosm of the library industry and if this is true, the answer to my questions seems to be Yes. It's become glaring evident that we can no longer continue to have this mindset that we're not a target, because we are. Often a website may not even know it has been attacked and is inadvertently spreading some dangerous virus or exploit throughout the world. Libraries often have or are attached to larger networks that bad people can use to spread their malicious software. Patron information could be appealing to hackers. We must consider looking at our software security policies and procedures and add website safeguards to protect your interests. Wake up libraries!!! There are bad people out there who want to use your websites and patrons PC's to do bad things.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Proof Community is important

This a rather long video, but I think you'll enjoy it. This was originally posted on http://buytaert.net/ .