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edbilodeau

@[email protected]

🌱 🇨🇦 Respectful of others, mindful of this existence ▪︎ libraries ▪︎ academia ▪︎ work ▪︎ technology ▪︎ music ▪︎ ottawa

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@edbilodeau@mastodon.social avatar edbilodeau , to random

I’m hoping that when spring arrives it will mean the end of me always feeling worn out and achy.

@edbilodeau@mastodon.social avatar edbilodeau , to random

Toby and Iago. St-Lambert. February 24, 2006.

They had somehow made their way onto the top of our mattress that was propped up against the wall for some reason that I can't remember now. Those two were always up to something. Miss them both.

Two black-and-white cats peering over the edge of a mattress, looking down at the camera.
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@edbilodeau@mastodon.social avatar edbilodeau , to random

Preparing for the meeting I'm chairing on Tuesday morning...

@edbilodeau@mastodon.social avatar edbilodeau , to random

"[President and CEO of Algonquin] Brulé said once the college receives more information about its own allocation of the provincial funds, it will complete a full assessment of its programs."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/algonquin-college-postpones-decision-cuts-after-province-lifts-freeze-9.7088566

@edbilodeau@mastodon.social avatar edbilodeau , to random

Apple's fix for the Finder scrollbar issue is sloppy: "Without the path bar, the columns are now taller, but the vertical scrollers remain the same height as before, leaving vertical gaps, a ridiculous amount of space between the bottom of the scrollers and the bottom of the columns, looking silly and amateurish."

https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/2026/2/4.html

@edbilodeau@mastodon.social avatar edbilodeau , to random

That big companies (ex. Microsoft, Google, etc) are spending ad dollars to promote their products (ex. AI) is not the smoking gun you appear to think it is.

@danielleganza@glammr.us avatar danielleganza , to random

Does anyone know how something like this is calculated and/or generated? As much as I hate justifying a public good, we're in an unending timeline where $$$, or the lack thereof, rules all and this is an interesting nugget in the "well, actually..." battle.
https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/s/OVbbBs5wqm

edbilodeau ,
@edbilodeau@mastodon.social avatar

@fskornia @adr @danielleganza One thing to keep in mind is that while we may have a way to ensure that a patron's privacy is protected, sometimes features like this surprise patrons my making it seem like they are tracked when they thought their activities were private or anonymous. You can explain it to them afterwards, but restored trust is not always as strong as the trust that was damaged.

@edbilodeau@mastodon.social avatar edbilodeau , to random

Yesterday we went out to run errands and, unintentionally, neither one of us brought our phones with us. We realized once we got to the sidewalk, and after a brief moment of panic on my part ("I mean, how will we...???"), we decided it would be fine. And it was.

@edbilodeau@mastodon.social avatar edbilodeau , to random

Moving the a channel's files from one Team to another is veeerrrryyy sssllllooowwwwwww...

edbilodeau OP ,
@edbilodeau@mastodon.social avatar

I thought moving these files would take a few minutes, running on the side. Instead, it looks like it will require my direct attention for the rest of the afternoon.

@edbilodeau@mastodon.social avatar edbilodeau , to random

In meetings all morning... what did I miss?

@edbilodeau@mastodon.social avatar edbilodeau , to random

I've reset my "kettle is done" timer five times now so I should probably get up and make that cup of tea...

@edbilodeau@mastodon.social avatar edbilodeau , to random

The first time I encountered the column view was with the File Navigator that shipped with WordPerfect 5.1 for Windows (1991). I thought it was interesting, but not better overall than the native File Manager. Anyone here a heavy WPWin user back in the day?

Image source: https://winworldpc.com/

Screenshot of a vintage Windows File Manager window showing multiple panels with directory listings for drives and folders. A WordPerfect document titled ‘MACRO.DOC’ is open in a viewer pane at the bottom, displaying text about macro information sources. The interface features classic grey window borders, menu bars, and buttons typical of early 1990s Windows.
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@edbilodeau@mastodon.social avatar edbilodeau , to random

Our library website does not have an RSS site for news. I looked a few others and noticed the same. Is this no longer a thing?

It seems to me that with the fragmentation and reduced reliability of social media to share news it might be useful to still publish an RSS feed.

Thoughts?

@edbilodeau@mastodon.social avatar edbilodeau , to random

I fully expect that spammers and threat actors will adopt AI tools to help them write their messages, and we'll no longer be able to rely on poor grammar to identify spammy or malicious email messages.

... or will grammar errors become a sign that the message may have actually been written by a human and might be authentic?

@edbilodeau@mastodon.social avatar edbilodeau , to random

"The need to sever indexing and evaluation of scholarly activity from corporate control dovetails with the need to regain a degree of control over the entire scholarly publishing enterprise."

The last time we looked at Open Alex it was found slightly wanting compared to the corporate offerings. It may be time for a fresh look.

https://acrlog.org/2026/01/26/openalex-and-values-aligned-tools/

edbilodeau OP ,
@edbilodeau@mastodon.social avatar

While I think it is worthwhile to explore and implement alternatives to the current corporate scholarly publishing model, as long as tenure and promotion committees as well as university rankings rely on and privilege corporate metric and publications, our ability to bring about significant change will be limited. Our goal then is to build a parallel model that provides a viable alternative for these stakeholders to switch to.

@edbilodeau@mastodon.social avatar edbilodeau , to random

One thing that drives me a bit nuts about Threads is the lack of links to content being shared. Example below.

I'm guessing that posts with links that take the person outside of Threads are not favoured by the algorithm, and that posters are reacting to that.

A social media post warns that a Windows 11 update is causing Outlook issues, shown above a large Outlook app icon.
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@edbilodeau@mastodon.social avatar edbilodeau , to random

If your org is an MS Teams org, I recommend skimming and bookmarking this page. it covers things like max number of teams, channels, file sizes, characters and phrases that channel names cannot include, etc.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/limits-specifications-teams

@edbilodeau@mastodon.social avatar edbilodeau , to random

"An appropriate technical analogy for docx is a network protocol. A coder cannot just decide to stop serving their web application over HTTP. Doing so would disconnect their application from the web and render it useless. The same goes for lawyers vis-a-vis docx. Docx is a protocol for defining legal commitments across a decentralized network of legal entities. Opting out of that system is not viable if the lawyer wants to stay in business."

https://theredline.versionstory.com/p/on-the-immortality-of-microsoft-word

@edbilodeau@mastodon.social avatar edbilodeau , to random

Updating to 26.2… time enough to change into my shoes and make some coffee

@edbilodeau@mastodon.social avatar edbilodeau , to random
@edbilodeau@mastodon.social avatar edbilodeau , to random

If implemented properly, you could use AI to flag and forward incidents for a human operator to review and make a decisions on if and how to respond.

https://capitalcurrent.ca/crime-preventing-ai-could-soon-watch-over-oc-transpo-riders/

@edbilodeau@mastodon.social avatar edbilodeau , to random
@edbilodeau@mastodon.social avatar edbilodeau , to random

New: when I print an email from Outlook/Web (Edge/MacOS), I get the following error. If I save the message as a PDF and print it, I get the same error.

(I know that the web printing probably converts to PDF before sending to the printer, but I thought it was worth a shot.)

Workaround: print from the native Outlook client :/

edbilodeau OP ,
@edbilodeau@mastodon.social avatar

Dec 8: Still getting these errors when I print from Outlook/Web/Edge/MacOS...

@edbilodeau@mastodon.social avatar edbilodeau , to random

While I am on FB, threads (read only) and to a far lesser extent Instagram, I do so knowing these are not spaces I can trust. https://mas.to/@evedazzle/115506125247136852

@edbilodeau@mastodon.social avatar edbilodeau , to random

Call for proposals: Canadian Journal of Academic Librarianship (CJAL) special issue on Libraries, Humans, Machines. Deadline, December 18. 2025

https://cjal.ca/index.php/capal/announcement/view/1015

@edbilodeau@mastodon.social avatar edbilodeau , to random

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! 🍂

@edbilodeau@mastodon.social avatar edbilodeau , to random

Highly aspirational vision from MS Design grounded in the following idea: "In our new era of adaptive, intelligent agents, workflows are a cage. As design tools, they are rigid, overcomplicated, and limiting; when we design with workflows, we create interfaces that are also rigid, overcomplicated, and limiting."

https://microsoft.design/articles/designing-loops-not-paths/

edbilodeau OP ,
@edbilodeau@mastodon.social avatar

MS Design's vision is based on an exaggerated idea of how competent AI software is at performing any task. To accept this vision, we would need to accept that the quality of the work being done will be of varying and in some cases unacceptable quality. And if this vision isn't going to produce better quality work, then what problem are they trying to solve here?

@edbilodeau@mastodon.social avatar edbilodeau , to random

Poor night’s sleep. I’ll want to take it easy today.

@edbilodeau@mastodon.social avatar edbilodeau , to random

More post-move clearing out via our neighborhood buy-nothing group on Facebook. It's a fair bit of work to coordindate, but worth the effort to keep things out of landfill plus you get to meet your neighbours! :)

@edbilodeau@mastodon.social avatar edbilodeau , to random

The other day I manually launched an MacOS update to run over night so that it would be done while I was away. I thought it had completed but this morning, a day later my Mac launched the install after I logged in so despite my best efforts to avoid this exact situation I’m stuck twiddling my thumbs while I wait for my machine to be ready to work.

edbilodeau OP ,
@edbilodeau@mastodon.social avatar

ahh, the install wasn't the point release of Sequoia (that I initiated) but rather the full install of Tahoe (which I did not request)... so I guess we're doing this today.

edbilodeau OP ,
@edbilodeau@mastodon.social avatar

@djfiander I will say that so far, aside from more rounded corners everywhere and oh-my-what-have-they-done-to-tabs, first impressions are that its fine.

@edbilodeau@mastodon.social avatar edbilodeau , to random

While I’ve managed to figure out how to use iA Writer on my phone to edit files in OneDrive, I can’t get it to recognize my notes folder as a library. Any advice appreciated.

@edbilodeau@mastodon.social avatar edbilodeau , to random

TIL that the View > Zoom feature in Outlook/Web zooms only the content in the reading pane, and not the entire UI, which I find useful.

@edbilodeau@mastodon.social avatar edbilodeau , to random

Considering digging up my old readings on social constructivism to refresh a few conceptual models that might help to make sense of things.

@edbilodeau@mastodon.social avatar edbilodeau , to random

People's availability has stopped showing up in Outlook's scheduling assistant. I can see it if I bring up their individual calendars, so I guess I'll do this the long way...

@edbilodeau@mastodon.social avatar edbilodeau , to random

It is starting! ”[Lindt] announced that it will shift its Canadian chocolate supply from U.S. factories to European production facilities to circumvent additional duties.” 🇨🇦

https://retail-insider.com/bulletin/2025/03/lindt-shifts-canadian-chocolate-supply-to-europe-amid-tariffs/

@edbilodeau@mastodon.social avatar edbilodeau , to random

“An investigation by The Fifth Estate has found there is a shadow war in Canada against libraries and books. Its leading political actors, from small towns to large political parties, are linked to a broader grassroots movement. Steeped in conspiracy theories, this movement has stoked fears about gender identity education, child abuse and teachers.”

https://www.cbc.ca/newsinteractives/features/a-shadow-war-on-libraries

@nixCraft@mastodon.social avatar nixCraft , to random

Microsoft reveals subscription pricing for using Windows 10 beyond 2025, and it's not cheap. Customers will need to pay $61 per device, which will double every year for three years, to remain secure on Windows 10. If you just do shopping or social media you can use alternative os like Ubuntu, Mint, or pop os for your older computer instead of jumping to windows 11. Also regardless of windows 10 or 11 prices you will still get Ads in Windows 😂 Choose wisely

Microsoft reveals subscription pricing for using Windows 10 beyond 2025, and it's not cheap News By Zac Bowden published April 3, 2024 Customers will need to pay $61 per device, which will double every year for three years, to remain secure on Windows 10. https://www.windowscentral.com/software-apps/windows-11/microsoft-reveals-subscription-pricing-for-using-windows-10-beyond-2025-and-its-not-cheap
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edbilodeau ,
@edbilodeau@mastodon.social avatar

@nixCraft I suspect that many orgs will be comparing this cost against the cost of buying new hardware, especially if the portion of their fleet that cannot run Win11 is not small.