TGIF

[altivo]

Today's achievements, some may be dubious:

• Cataloged a pile of books, which may sound ordinary but these days it's anything but.
• Checked and found that the VPN tunnel is still live.
• Found that my suggestion that we use IRC for interlibrary quick communication has been taken seriously. A test IRC server is now active, though it needs configuration.
• Managed to dodge a line of severe thunderstorms by closing the library a few minutes early and running like heck.
• Installed the WATFIV language compiler on my IBM mainframe simulation early this morning.
• Resisted the temptation to send scathing and contemptuous letters to various high profile individuals at Six Apart (this last one was difficult.)

The IRC thing perhaps deserves some background details. The evil managers of the Big Messed Up Consortium had decreed that all of us had to install and run DBabble to permit quick announcements and communication between institutions. DBabble only runs on Windows. Obviously, I was unimpressed, and got the usual runaround when I complained: "No one else has complained." So when I was asked for suggestions, I pointed out that IRC can be obtained and installed for free, is supported by clients that run in just about any environment, and can be made more than secure enough for our small needs. In this very different group, my words were taken seriously it seems.