The Rubberband man.

November 27th, 2006

The Tech Library is a U.S. Patent and Trademark depository. One of the things I do to pass time is look up some of the ridiculous things people are coming up with…you would be surprised what gets patented. I found this gem on a list of off the wall ideas.

A Rubber Band man? The pages take a while to load..but worth the wait for the excruciating detail on the concept. Explore the site while you are there.

Its started a whole industry apparently. Rubb-Origami.

Rubberband man

Turkey time.

November 27th, 2006

I take it everyone had a good Thanksgiving.

To give new meaning to the definition of Vegetarian: its a paper Turkey, designed in 3d open source software, Blender.

Check it out in MAKE.

One of our favorite past times here at the library is digging for new useful, free software…and giving it a test run. Blender is one of those such discoveries. To accompany your test run of Blender: the documentation: check out this site for other free tech related documents.

Considering Blender is completely free, open source, software its worth the download: Its small in size and runs on many platforms. Compared to other 3d modeling software such as Maya (used in animated features such as Shrek )..it does quite well, but having read various comparisons it sounds there is more room for “experimentation as you go” with Maya. When using Blender its best to already have a well thought out design /plan. Maya allows for more flexibility.

For more on Blender…check out the artists forum.

On the topic of government information.

November 21st, 2006

With election time having just past I’ve found myself caught in the middle of various political conversations. It always pays to know where to go to get up to date government information, don’t rely on your local paper. You have to do some digging, but it’s usually out there and it’s usually free.

FGI recommended blogs/ sites

Marketing links.

November 21st, 2006

Since Im on the topic today, a few informative links on the subject of marketing and libraries:

Marketing Blog 

 Article

Its a library thing…

November 19th, 2006

Enter what you’re reading or your whole library—it’s an easy, library-quality catalog. LibraryThing also connects you with people who read the same things

Library thing

Zamzar : online document conversion made easy.

November 19th, 2006
a free online file conversion site which supports four categories — document,
image, music/audio and video. You upload a file from your hard drive,
use the dropdown menu to indicate which format you want it converted to
and, when it’s ready, you’ll receive an e-mail with a live link you can
click on to download your converted file. The link will be good for 24
hours.
http://www.zamzar.com/