Books - Sorting And Reference

I had visited to the Denver Public Library last weekend as I wanted to do some research on Ravi Varma for a write up at KalaaLog. That was when I happened to take interest in the way the books are numbered and sorted. The librarian there was helpful and gave me few pointers that got me searching on Dewey Decimal System and ISBN.

As there are a lot of books on various subjects, there needs to be a systematic approach to sorting these books so that they can be easily accessed. There are quite a few systems for doing this established by different organizations or institutions.

Library full of books

Also, all the books published need to be referred - from a commercial perspective. Each book that is published gets assigned a number that uniquely identifies it.

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World Book And Copyright Day - 2007

April 23, is the day that UNESCO has chosen to be the World Book And Copyright Day.

By celebrating this Day throughout the world, UNESCO seeks to promote reading, publishing and the protection of intellectual property through copyright.

The initiative has been started by UNESCO since 2003. A excerpt from the UNESCO portal for the even, sheds some light on the history behind the event:

The idea for this celebration originated in Catalonia where on 23 April, Saint George’s Day, a rose is traditionally given as a gift for each book sold. The success of the World Book and Copyright Day will depend primarily on the support received from all parties concerned (authors, publishers, teachers, librarians, public and private institutions, humanitarian NGOs and the mass media), who have been mobilized in each country by UNESCO National Commissions, UNESCO Clubs, Centres and Associations, Associated Schools and Libraries, and by all those who feel motivated to work together in this world celebration of books and authors.

I read books and read them voraciously.  In the present day, when we are not bothered enough to spend effort on reading book - and we just scan through headlines on our feeds - I would urge each and everyone to pick up a book and read it.

How often do you read books?  What book will you read on April 23?

About Rationalizing Copyright Infringement

I thought I would not write about it again for quite some time, but I feel compelled to. It is about copyright owned by artists, writers and others over the works they have created; and about other people using it without permission. It also got a comment at Digg, stating that “copyright infringement is not stealing“. I had replied, stating my disagreement and left it at that.

Today, something else caught my eye. Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, had something to say on the act of copyright infringement being stealing. And I was amazed by the number of varied comments that he got. I was amazed, not just for the sheer quantity (it can be a good example for Web 2.0 phenomena) of user generated content, but by some of the absurd rationalizing that people did to justify the act of copyright violation.

I do not call it copyright violation - I call it stealing.

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External Mouse For Laptop

Those who have used laptops - did you ever find it irritating to navigate with the touch-pad navigation given at the lower part of the keyboard?

I had been using laptops given to me to work at home by the company I work in. Lately, I even bought myself a Dell Inspiron. I must tell you - I love my laptop, but the touchpad was really becoming a nuisance.

The two main problems I faced due to the laptop touchpad:LX5 Logitech Cordless Optical Mouse

  • Maneuverability - It is not versatile enough. I find more control with a mouse - even a old trackball one. (Call me a old timer if you want).
  • False Clicks - It really irks me out when I would be typing something in a text box or in a word processor, and due to the unintentional touches of my thumb on the touchpad, the focus goes else where and it is a big mess.

These were the two main reasons that I thought of getting myself an external mouse. (Another reason was that at office, my mouse had gone faulty and it was a long process to get it replaced).

I got myself one - LX5 Logitech Optical Cordless Mouse. It is a cheap one, without any frills. I have seen better mouses but this one served my purpose.

It does act strange sometimes but I am way better of than using the touch pad. This mouse comes with a interface that needs to be connected to a USB port, and also the mouse itself requires two ‘AA’ batteries.

I was wondering - have you made a similar choice and used a external mouse for your laptop?

PS: No. This is not a paid review. Logitech or any of its affiliates have not paid me for writing this post. It just goes along with the other posts about things I have bought ( and feel like showing off), and that is the sole reason I write this post.

Blogging Frenzy

I am not sure what has made this change here at Splat, but if you noticed a procrastinating person like myself have been able to do something like post every day for more than a week now.

There have been 10 post in past 9 days.  Now, it is not a great feat.  There are many bloggers who do better.  It is an ongoing discussions of how many is too many and all things related to frequency of posting in blogs.  Anyway, I intend to keep this up as long as possible and provide with useful splats of information.  Both here and at a slower pace at KalaaLog.com.

Anyway, the actual point of this post, excluding all the above rants, is that I will be working on Udantak, hoping to capitalize on my new found energy.  Bloggers out there, please proceed to Udantak Blog and have the feeds subscribed.

Udantak is an effort to help out two categories of people that use the Internet - the bloggers/publishers and the readers/consumers.

XML (Roundup)

For the past two weeks, there have been quite a handful of basic posts on XML here at Splat. Here is a round up and links to all of them.

About XML

XML Applications

In terms of XML application, I could just keep going on. Some of the other things that are worth a look are WSDL and SMDL. WSDL or WebSerivce Description Language is a major key player already even though it has not yet become a W3C recommendation yet. SMDL, Standardised Music Description Language is for marking up musical notation. It is presently a ISO standard. As I said, there are a lot of applications of XML and you can visit the Wikipedia page for it to get an exhaustive (and volatile) list.

Blogs and Sites

Let me know if you would like to know more or anything in particular about XML. You just need to leave a comment.

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