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Watching for email to your old address

Looking

 

Did your library migrate to Office 365?

September... October... November... December... JANUARY!

We've started the countdown to the retirement of the @scls.lib.wi.us email addresses.

Five months may seem like a lot of time, but January will be here before you know it.

Watch for email sent to your @scls.lib.wi.us address
If you've configured your Office 365 account according to the instructions provided by SCLS, email to your old address will automatically be put in your "@scls.lib.wi.us" folder.

Take action on email sent to your old @scls.lib.wi.us address
Notify the sender of your new address, update your blog or email list subscriptions so they are sent to your new address, or remove yourself from mailing lists you no longer want to receive. Be sure to also update your email address with vendors so you don't miss any important bills or subscription renewals.

By January, all of your non-spam email should be going to your new address. At the end of January, the SCLS email server (and all of the @scls.lib.wi.us addresses) will be retired.

Two heads are better...

Recently, I was working with a colleague on a problem when I happened to notice that they had some rather unique Windows PC desktop wallpaper. Each of their two monitors had a different image associated with it. Even more interesting, the images were two halves of a larger image, thus forming a wide panoramic view across the pair of monitors. I'd had no idea that was an option, at least not an obvious one.

Brian credited Michael with showing him how this can easily be done by choosing a Panoramic theme for Windows (thanks, guys!), then he showed me how too:

  1. Right click the Desktop.
  2. Choose Personalize....
  3. Choose Get more themes online (this link is near the center right hand side of the window).
  4. Choose Panoramic (dual monitor).
  5. Pick from a wide variety of panoramic themes.

Awesome sauce! Yet at the same time, not quite good enough. Where's the ability to pick one's own images for this feature? After a little more snooping around on the Interwebs and I found my new favorite toy: the Dual Wallpaper tool, part of the open source Dual Monitor Tools package.

These tools do not require installation, so anyone may use them (no help desk call required). Just unzip the package and double click. Once you've got the Dual Wallpaper app running, then:

  1. Select one or both monitors.
  2. Click Browse... to select an image.
  3. Choose a Fit method.
  4. Click Add Image to apply the adapted image.
  5. Repeat as needed for the other monitor.
  6. Click Set Wallpaper.

You can set up either one large panoramic image that spans both monitors, or choose two completely separate images, setting one on each monitor.

Address bar command

I figured out something really cool all by myself (accidently) a few weeks ago.  If you hit Ctrl + Enter on the keyboard after typing the name of a website in the address bar of your browser it will automatically enter www and .com for you.

Virtual Reality for Everyone

We all know that Google is always coming out with cool new technology, like Google Glasses.  Well, they have done it again and came out with a virtual reality visor that you can make yourself.  All you need is some cardboard, two lenses, a magnet, velcro, a rubberband and a smart phone.  MacGyver has nothing on the folks that came up with this idea.  You can read the CBS article entitled Google Cardboard puts virtual reality in everyone's reach to find out more about it.  If you're interested in how it works then take a look at the below YouTube video that is found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxAj2lyX4oU.

 

If you want to build it yourself you can download the plans from this website.  If you need help building it then take a look at the below YouTube video, found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPHVjHxEqAo, that walks you through the making of your own Google Cardboard.

 

I think that this would make an awesome MakerSpace project.

Your library is a portal

Ingress_LogoYour library is very likely a portal. Resistance and Enlightened team members are hacking it, deploying resonators and mods, and linking it to other portals to create fields. And they're doing it from inside or just outside of your building using an app and their GPS-enabled device.

Intrigued? The game is Ingress, an "augmented reality massively multiplayer online GPS-dependent game" from Niantic Labs, a startup within Google. Whew! That's a mouthful. 

People all around the world are participating one giant game using their mobile devices. They download an app, create an account, pick a team, and join the fun. There's a back story for the game that gets quite complicated, but it all boils down to some basic tasks: capture and control portals, link them up to make fields and control territory, earn points and badges, and increase your level and score both individually and for your team. Players can also submit new portals as long as they meet the criteria. As stated in this article, Ingress "is like a combination of geocaching and capture the flag," and it's incredibly addictive.

Baraboo Public Library in IngressWhere does your library come in?

You're probably a portal. From Wikipedia: "Portals are typically associated with buildings and landmarks of historic and/or architectural significance such as sculptures and other public art, libraries, post offices, memorials, places of worship, public transit hubs, parks and other recreational or tourist spaces."

You may see some unusual traffic. You may see cars outside your building at odd hours with the drivers' faces lit up by their cell phone screens or see people with their cellphones furiously hitting a "fire" button to blow up the other team's resonators so they can take over the library for their team. In any case, there are folks who may be non-library users who are now very aware of where the library is.

There may be some programming possibilities. I found one library that even held an Ingress-themed program for Teen Tech Week.

Personally, I've found Ingress to be a great way to easily find points of interest when I venture to a new town. Public libraries, historic landmarks, interesting public art, and sometimes even unique local businesses --- it's great to hack and explore at the same time! (and a very clever way for Google to get the low-down on all of the cultural points of interest in a city!)

Managing spam

NigerianPrinceYou probably get a lot of spam -- confidential business propositions, special deals on "blue pills", a member of the Nigerian royal family asking for help transferring a large sum of money, and other fantastic offers. Most email programs have junk filters to help filter out the spam. If you're not-so-lucky, you may have to manually mark messages like these as Junk to help train your junk filter. If you're lucky, your junk filter is already pretty smart and will automatically dump the spam into your Junk mail folder.

So what's the catch with Junk filters?

Sometimes legitimate messages are mistakenly marked as Junk, so it's important to periodically review your Junk folder to make sure nothing slipped through the cracks. Most programs have a way to mark the legitimate mail as "not junk." If legit email continues to be marked as Junk, most programs allow you to change your settings to specify that certain senders are always handled as "not junk."

If you use Office 365 for email, you can use this info to help you manage your Junk email:

For other programs, consult the program's Help resources to learn more about handling Junk mail.

Suspend Holds Now Available

One of the most common complaints that I hear about Wisconsin's Digital Library is that patrons can't suspend their holds. And, it never fails that all their holds become available at the same time or while they're on vacation. The wait is over - patrons can now suspend their holds!

SuspendHoldsWhen a patron clicks on the drop-down menu next to Options, they'll see four options: Edit email address; Suspend hold; Auto checkout; and Remove hold.

HoldOptions

Patrons can suspend their holds for 7, 14, 21, 28, 60 or 90 days. During the suspension, the patron's position in the hold queue will continue to advance.

Another cool feature is Auto Checkout. If a patron uses this feature, when a title on hold becomes available it will automatically be checked out to them. No more missing the 72 hour window for checking out your holds! When a patron places a hold, the option to auto-checkout the title can be set. Patrons can also change this setting by accessing their holds list.

You can read more about these and other features released this past Monday on the WPLC blog.