DrWeb's Domain

Moreover opens its RSS feeds to the public - ZDNet UK News

Moreover opens its RSS feeds to the public - ZDNet UK News

News > Internet > Web Services

Moreover opens its RSS feeds to the public

by Stefanie Olsen
CNET News.com, September 27, 2004, 12:00 BST

Moreover Technologies has reintroduced its free RSS feeds, having added contextual ads

Moreover Technologies has introduced a free, advertising-supported service that lets Web surfers set up a personalised collection of headlines from news outlets around the Web.

San Francisco-based Moreover licenses technology that aggregates headlines and makes news searchable for Web visitors to partners, including Microsoft's MSN. This week, Moreover opened up its Really Simple Syndication (RSS) news aggregation feeds to the public, reintroducing a service it once shelved for lack of a profit scheme.

Disabilities Act doesn't cover Web, court says | Tech News on ZDNet

Disabilities Act doesn't cover Web, court says | Tech News on ZDNet

Disabilities Act doesn't cover Web, court says
By Declan McCullagh CNET News.com
September 27, 2004, 10:19 AM PT

Web publishers are not required to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, a federal appeals court has ruled.

Acting largely on procedural grounds, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday upheld a lower court's decision from October 2002, which concluded that Web sites cannot be required to comply with the 1991 disabilities law. An advocacy group for the blind had sued Southwest Airlines, seeking a redesign of its Web site.

Still, the three-judge panel noted that a future case could provide a vehicle for exploring the question in greater depth. "In declining to evaluate the merits of this case, we are in no way unmindful that the legal questions raised are significant," wrote Judge Stanley Marcus.

If the case had turned out differently, the outcome could have had far-reaching effects by imposing broad new requirements on companies hoping to do business online in states in the 11th Circuit, which includes Alabama, Florida and Georgia.

The New York Times > Business > Media & Advertising > O'Brien to Succeed Leno on 'Tonight' Show

The New York Times > Business > Media & Advertising > O'Brien to Succeed Leno on 'Tonight' Show

O'Brien to Succeed Leno on 'Tonight' Show
By BILL CARTER, Published: September 28, 2004

NBC announced yesterday that Conan O'Brien would succeed Jay Leno as host of the "Tonight" show when Mr. Leno's contract expired in 2009, cutting off early efforts by competitors to steal away Mr. O'Brien.

Mr. O'Brien, the host of NBC's "Late Night'' for more than a decade, signed a new contract early yesterday morning at NBC's headquarters in Rockefeller Center. The deal guarantees Mr. O'Brien will serve at least two years as host of "Tonight," still the leading show in late-night television, when he takes over from Mr. Leno at a yet-to-be-determined date in 2009.

The New York Times > Books > Hemingway Bullfight Tale From 1924 Turns Up

The New York Times > Books > Hemingway Bullfight Tale From 1924 Turns Up

Hemingway Bullfight Tale From 1924 Turns Up
By ALAN COWELL, Published: September 27, 2004

LONDON, Sept. 26 - Eighty years after they were written, a previously unknown story and a handwritten letter ascribed to Ernest Hemingway have surfaced to stir a literary and legal dispute between people who want to see them published and people who don't.

At present, the opponents of publication - notably the custodians of the Hemingway estate - are winning, according to several people on both sides of the debate. But that has not detracted from the long, twisty tale of the documents themselves: a two-page letter and a five-page slapstick account of a bullfighting incident written in 1924. Not only do the documents offer an insight into the personality of a young Hemingway, scholars say, but they also illuminate the powerful appeal exerted by even modest discoveries of previously unknown writing by literary giants like Hemingway, who died in 1961.

IHT: Written by Hemingway, closed to public

IHT: Written by Hemingway, closed to public

Written by Hemingway, closed to public
Alan Cowell/NYT NYT Monday, September 27, 2004

LONDON - Eighty years after they were written, a previously unknown story and a handwritten letter ascribed to Ernest Hemingway have surfaced, stirring a literary and legal dispute between people who want to see them published and people who do not.

At present, the opponents of publication - notably the custodians of the Hemingway estate - are winning, according to several people on both sides of the debate. But that has not detracted from the long, twisty tale of the documents themselves, a two-page letter and a five-page slapstick account of a bullfighting incident written in 1924. Not only do the documents offer an insight into the personality of a young Hemingway, scholars say, but they also illuminate the powerful appeal exerted by even modest discoveries of previously unknown writing by literary giants like Hemingway, who died in 1961.

Essentially, the story - a thinly fictionalized sketch titled "My Life in the Bull Ring With Donald Ogden Stewart" - and the letter cannot be published without the permission of the Hemingway estate, which has withheld it. But they can be sold, and will be auctioned in New York in December, according to Christie's, whose officials said the documents were expected to bring $12,000 to $18,000.

INFO CONNECT: Union Catalogs of the World.

INFO CONNECT: Union Catalogs of the World.

Union Catalogs of the World

Most of my library work career in the U.K. and overseas has been as a cataloguer, database searcher or library website manager. One of the useful tools for a cataloguer is 24-hour access to union catalogs locally or internationally. Among university and public libraries around the world, union catalogs providing access to the collections of least over 50 libraries is not widespread but gaining popularity, as more and more are constructed and announced.

At present several huge union catalogs, library catalog networks and consortiums (based on Z39.50) are on going projects around the world, and thier popularity is widespread, not just for catalogers but library users as well. In London, there is a big effort to finish up a union catalog that will provide a single combined access to all the individual catalogs in the 32 London boroughs!

At present there is only one big global union catalog, the famous Worldcat, which is part of OCLC's First Search servives. Over 40,000 libraries in over 76 countries, can be accessed with Worldcat.

During the research work of my latest book, Library World Records, I used both Worldcat and several European union catalogues, in my search for specific books, because I travelled to several European libraries, and being able to know if a particular book(s), for my book project, was in a library I was visiting, proved invaluable and saved me a lot of time searching individual catalogs.

I am now adding all my saved data on European union catalogues, for this web page, as well as some other union catalogues from other continents. But of course I ask readers and librarians to send me URLs of any union catalogs not listed here, so that I can add them to this growing list.

As long as the union catalogs submitted provide access to at least 15 libraries, all will be added to this web page. The libraries can be part of a town, city, consortium, state, province or country.

The New York Times > Movies > New DVD's: 'Star Wars,' With Even More Digital Tweaks

The New York Times > Movies > New DVD's: 'Star Wars,' With Even More Digital Tweaks

NEW DVD'S

'Star Wars,' With Even More Digital Tweaks
By DAVE KEHR, Published: September 21, 2004

'The Star Wars Trilogy'

George Lucas has taken his own sweet time preparing "Star Wars" for DVD, but most fans will find the results worth the wait. Coming out today from 20th Century Fox Home Video, the four-disc "Star Wars Trilogy" box set presents faultless transfers of the first three films in Mr. Lucas's continuing trilogy of trilogies, otherwise known as "Episode IV: A New Hope" (1977), "Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back" (1980) and "Episode VI: The Return of the Jedi" (1983).

The New York Times > Travel > Escapes > 36 Hours: In Wilmington, N.C.

The New York Times > Travel > Escapes > 36 Hours: In Wilmington, N.C.

United States > North Carolina

36 HOURS

In Wilmington, N.C.
By CHRIS DIXON, Published: September 24, 2004

IN autumn, when the withering tropical heat has faded and the beach crowds have disappeared inland, the storybook oak-lined streets of Wilmington are cool and quiet. Though at night the bars may teem with students from the local campus of the University of North Carolina, the pace is relaxed in the shops and restaurants. Out along the Atlantic, there is plenty of sand between the beach towels even though the waters, warmed by the Gulf Stream, are still inviting. Over 250 years ago, a band of fortune seekers and opportunists braved the un-air-conditioned heat — as well as the mosquitoes, alligators and bears along the banks of the Cape Fear River — to create Wilmington, which in time became the northernmost hub of the Southern rice culture. Now it makes its living as a resort, a busy port and an aspiring movie capital. In 1983, Frank Capra Jr. found Wilmington a good place to shoot his film "Firestarter," and now his Wilmington studio, EUE/Screen Gems, says it is the largest film production facility east of California. Downtown this fall, you might find the cast of the WB network's "One Tree Hill" among the contented tourists in search of antiques, a night at the theater or a bowl of ground white hominy — better known in these parts as grits.

One of my favorite places, haunted but modernish and coastal barrier island place, Wilmington.. my sister lives there, and loves it.. might be a place to settle later on...

MSNBC - ‘Seinfeld’ gang to reunite for Thanksgiving

MSNBC - ‘Seinfeld’ gang to reunite for Thanksgiving

TV COMEDY

‘Seinfeld’ gang to reunite for Thanksgiving
NBC special will air two days after the DVD release of the series
Updated: 11:18 a.m. ET Sept. 24, 2004

LOS ANGELES - Jerry Seinfeld is returning to NBC, along with TV pals Elaine, George and Kramer, for a special Thanksgiving Day retrospective on the smash hit “show about nothing”, the network said Thursday.

The planned Nov. 25 broadcast, highlighting the origins of “Seinfeld” and the early years of the mega-hit comedy that ran on NBC for nine years, is timed for two days after the DVD release of the series.

Washington Square News: NYU to make archive software

Washington Square News: NYU to make archive software

Issue date: 09.22.2004

NYU to make archive software
by Lindsay Greene, Contributing Writer

NYU's library system has announced plans to develop software for an intercollegiate database that will make archival processing more efficient, a library official said.

The system, called "The Archivists' Toolkit," will allow universities and other research institutions to compile their archives into a online database, making the scholarship available worldwide.

Let the writers' sniping begin

Let the writers' sniping begin

MOVIES

Let the writers' sniping begin
Guild members rant about Hollywood executives on an anonymous website.
By Rachel Abramowitz, Times Staff Writer

One Hollywood exec is described as a "nightmare" who engages in "endless lying." Other movie bigwigs are labeled "obnoxious," "gutless" and "afraid to express any opinion for which she might be held accountable." It gets even nastier: One producer is accused of abusing female staffers, and of another, it is said: "instead of putting money on the screen, he puts it into his pocket."

Hollywood writers have long suffered at the bottom of the Hollywood pecking order, the only members of the filmmaking establishment who are so routinely fired and replaced. But no longer are their complaints confined to rants at Writers Guild of America meetings or over the pastrami at Canter's Deli.

A private website, WriterAction.com, lets guild members air their feelings about the executives and producers who hire them. It's a sort of Zagat guide to power in Hollywood, where WGA members post anonymous evaluations, grading Hollywood suits on qualities including honesty, story sense and clout.

About a year old, WriterAction.com is still in its infancy. It is open only to verified Writers Guild members, and so far, just 400 out of 9,000 members have registered with the site.

LA Times is free to read, but you have to register...

The New York Times > Arts > Art & Design > Exhibition Review | 'Jewes in America': Jews in the New Wilderness

The New York Times > Arts > Art & Design > Exhibition Review | 'Jewes in America': Jews in the New Wilderness

EXHIBITION REVIEW | 'JEWES IN AMERICA'

Jews in the New Wilderness
By EDWARD ROTHSTEIN, Published: September 24, 2004

"Jewes in America: Conquistadors, Knickerbockers, Pilgrims and the Hope of Israel" is in the Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III Gallery of the Humanities and Social Sciences branch of the New York Public Library, Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, (212) 869-8089, through Nov. 13.

The New York Times > Technology > Circuits > State of the Art: Making Windows More Secure

The New York Times > Technology > Circuits > State of the Art: Making Windows More Secure

STATE OF THE ART

Making Windows More Secure
By DAVID POGUE, Published: September 23, 2004

...

With 90 percent of the computer market, Microsoft didn't have to fix Windows; more secure operating systems are certainly available, but corporate America shudders at the expense of switching. To its credit, though, Microsoft spent over a year building a jumbo security patch for Windows XP called Service Pack 2, known as SP2.
By the end of October, Microsoft will have offered this 70- to 270-megabyte download to anyone who turns on the Windows feature called Automatic Updates in the Start menu. (You can also download SP2 or order a free CD by mail at www.microsoft.com. Shipping takes six to eight weeks.)

I still haven't installed SP2, though I'm getting closer to knowing what it will do, and how to do it.. thanks, David...

frontline: sacred ground | PBS

frontline: sacred ground | PBS

Companion site to a Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) Frontline
program that "tells the inside story of the first stormy year in
the struggle to design the Freedom Tower, the signature skyscraper
to rise on the site where the World Trade Center once stood."
Provides essays and slide shows on the designs, profiles of
stakeholders, information about the architects, a chronology of
the project, video clips, a bibliography, and related links.

Source: Librarians' Index to the Internet entry

Cruiseships.org.uk

Cruiseships.org.uk

Welcome to Cruiseships.org.uk, a collection of websites dedicated to Cruise Ships of yesterday, today and tomorrow. This site contains our database of ships in service today. Each ship has its own page featuring a brief history of the ship, a photograph and a brief run down of her specification. Other sites in the group deal with liners and older ships, ships of tomorrow and webcams, the ultimate way to track ships down and visit in real time some of their ports of call. We also have a site which provides links to ship builders and cruise line websites.

Thanks to LII.org New This Week for the link...