Since its inception until today, this blog was powered by code I had written myself. Some people thought this took a lot of work; to be honest, it was just a few days of simple coding. As I noted at the beginning of this series on “Creating a Blog from Scratch,” rather than using existing software or services, such as WordPress or Blogger, I wanted to write my own blog code so that I could experiment with the form of the blog. In general, I found it to be a great exercise that I would highly recommend. It helped me understand the genre of the blog, challenge long-standing assumptions of form and function (like the tyranny of the calendar, now gone on most blogs), and think about ways one might customize a blog to fit academic needs.

But starting today, this blog will be powered by WordPress, not my own code. Am I a hypocrite? Well, yes and no. Yes, in that by switching to WordPress I have had to abandon some quirks of my original blog that had made it unique and that represented the accumulated wisdom of writing my own code. No, in that I feel I’ve learned enough in the process of the last two years that I can bend WordPress to my will enough to satisfy my need to customize and adapt.

More important, I had other needs that I just didn’t have enough time to implement by writing more of my own code, and there were other features of WordPress–a terrific open-source project–that I really wanted:

• It took two years, but I’ve decided after initially disparaging comments (sentiments echoed recently by some well-known bloggers), I actually do think they are important to a blog and that my critics were right that the blog suffered without them. So starting today I have comments at the end of each post. (My old posts will remain free of comments since I have left them in their original format.)
• I had also worried that the blog comments would be a haven for spam, but after the release of the wonderful reCAPTCHA system–which helps the Open Content Alliance transcribe digitized books while preventing spam–I felt that relatively spam-free commenting was possible.
• As successful open-source software, WordPress has engendered a universe of helpful plugins, modifications, and documentation. For instance, this blog is now Zotero-compatible, thanks to the WordPress COinS plugin by my colleague Sean Takats. And of course reCAPTCHA came with a plugin for WordPress too.
• WordPress’s system for drafting and editing posts is far more advanced than the basic screens I created. Writing this post is taking me about half the time it would have taken in my old system.
• For the past six months I have been using ma.gnolia to add small posts to my feed (and to the sidebar of my old blog under “Briefly Noted”). I now can do this just as quickly using WordPress, and plan to post much more frequently starting in September.
• Despite my best efforts, my old blog code failed to output valid XHTML, which I believe is increasingly important in a world where non-computer devices (such as the iPhone) are browsing the web and RSS feeds. WordPress automatically writes pages in XHTML.

I suppose I should rip off of my sleeve the badge of honor from my home-grown blogging software. But I like to see the switch to WordPress as just another step in the continual improvement of this blog, and look forward to many more years of writing in this space.

After two years of using blogging software I wrote myself (what I’ve generally referred to as “my lousy 200 lines of PHP”), I’ve moved this blog to WordPress. If you’re reading this post, I’ve been successful in doing so. I’ll write a longer post soon about why I abandoned my own code, but for now I just want to give a very big thanks to Jeremy Boggs for helping me make the switch (and for doing much of the work). Thanks, Jeremy!

I’m excited to announce the launch of Digital Campus, a new podcast that explores how digital media and technology are affecting learning, teaching, and scholarship at colleges, universities, libraries, and museums. In the inaugural podcast our feature story covers the controversy over whether Wikipedia is a useful or problematic resource for students. In the news roundup, we wonder if the launch of Windows Vista has any significance, ponder the rise of Google Docs as an alternative to Word, and cover recent stories about Blackboard’s patents and their social bookmarking site, Scholar.com. And at the end of the podcast, we share links to the best wiki software and sites on digital maps and books.

I share the virtual roundtable with Mills Kelly and Tom Scheinfeldt, and we’ll be sure to draw from the vast talent at the Center for History and New Media and other digitally savvy domains in subsequent episodes.

Interested? Take a quick listen, or go ahead and subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or your favorite podcatcher.

As someone keenly interested in the possibilities of digital scholarship as well as nineteenth-century British and American intellectual history, I’m delighted to hear of the official launch of NINES (Networked Infrastructure for Nineteenth-century Electronic Scholarship), which allows researchers to search, organize, and annotate over 60,000 texts and images. A screencast of how to use Collex, their powerful web application, would be helpful for new users.

For those who haven’t heard yet (it’s amazing how quickly the word spreads through the blogosphere and beyond): On October 5, 2006, at 10:47 p.m. ET, the public beta of Zotero went live on our spiffy new site. In addition to releasing the software to all comers, we’ve also expanded the documentation and set up areas of the site for Zotero users and those who want to build upon the software. If you have a question or want to discuss Zotero, we have some forums too. A few other release notes:

Remember that you’ll need Firefox 2.0 to run Zotero. Fortunately, Mozilla has just posted release candidate 2 of Firefox 2.0, which means that the final version is imminent and there’s virtually no reason not to upgrade. (If you have other Firefox extensions that don’t work with Firefox 2.0, the creators of those extensions had better get to work.)

Already, coverage of the launch has been fairly extensive, with some early reviews going up on blogs. Check our our home page for a live (and unfiltered) feed of what people are saying.

If you want some behind the scenes discussion about Zotero, check out Dan Chudnov’s podcast interview of me, Josh Greenberg, and Dan Stillman. The podcast has several exclusives, including the other names Zotero could have had (and why we went with an Albanian word).

As a beta release, Zotero still has a few rough edges, and undoubtedly it won’t please everyone on every matter. But we think it’s pretty darn good for a 1.0 beta and the basis for even better releases and features in the near future. And more important, as our unofficial motto from Voltaire at the Center for History and New Media asserts, “The perfect is the enemy of the good.” Had we gone for perfection, no one would be using the software today (or even next year). Zotero is actually shipping, and it’s free. So give it a try and tell your friends.

More here soon.

Regular readers of this blog know that over the last year I have been trumpeting our forthcoming software tool for research that will enable vastly simplified citation management, note taking, and advanced scholarly research right within the Firefox browser. Over the past year, I have called this tool SmartFox, Firefox Scholar, and Scholar for Firefox. The domain for the original name was already taken, and the latter two names were too confusing (”Is that the same as Google Scholar?”). Last Friday, a final name was given to the project, a website launched, and a lucky group of people received the first beta. The word that will be on everyone’s lips this fall: Zotero (zoh-TAIR-oh).

I’ll write much more in this space about Zotero over the coming year (and beyond), since I conceive it not just as a free EndNote replacement (actually, it’s already much better than EndNote in only its 1.0 release), but as a platform for new kinds of digital research. The best place to begin to see what Zotero can do is by heading over to the site’s home page and the quick start guide.

But I wanted to devote this first post on Zotero to those who did the incredible job of developing the software: Dan Stillman, Simon Kornblith, and David Norton. While several of us at the Center for History and New Media thought deeply about what such a tool should look like, Dan, Simon, and David brilliantly executed our plan—and added countless touches and ideas of their own. When you see how amazing the results are, you’ll really appreciate their work.

Even though we’ve been relatively low-key about promoting Zotero as we fix some last-minute bugs, I’ve gotten dozens of messages over the last few days about the project. My blanket answer: we’ll have a public beta by the end of September 2006—thanks, of course, to Dan, Simon, and David.

Stay tuned to this blog and I’ll explain some of the more innovative features of Zotero. I’ll also show how researchers can best use the tool, describe how other software developers can extend it and link it to other web tools and services, and drop hints about our ambitious long-range plans.

This month the Center for History and New Media moved into a wonderful new space on the campus of George Mason University. We couldn’t be more delighted; it’s a tremendous new building (provisionally named “Research I”; if you have several million dollars lying around and want a building named after you, please contact GMU). CHNM takes up about half of the top floor, where we are neighbors with the ominously named “Autonomous Robotics Laboratory.” Perhaps the most amusing part of the building is the sign in the lobby listing the other tenants. Needless to say, we’re the only historians in the building.

Research I

The other side of the building, with the observatory (our conference room is just below, in the tower)

CHNM’s main computer lab

The “West Wing” of CHNM, where my office is

The lobby sign

I’ll be away from my blog for the next two weeks, so until then, here’s a look back at what I consider to be my best posts from the last six months. As I explained when I started this blog, my goal has been to try to avoid adding yet more echo to the echo chamber of the blogosphere, and instead to try to write mostly longer pieces on the intersection of computing, scholarship, and the humanities. I haven’t always succeeded—I have occasionally succumbed, like so many others, to mindlessly blogging about the latest moves of the Googles and Microsofts—but for the most part, I’m pleased with most of what I’ve written, especially the following list. More importantly, I hope you’ve found this blog helpful.

My series on creating this blog from scratch (includes thoughts about the nature of blogs, RSS, search, and other topics):
Part 1: What is a Blog, Anyway?
Part 2: Advantages and Disadvantages of Popular Blog Software
Part 3: The Double Life of Blogs
Part 4: Searching for a Good Search
Part 5: What is XHTML, and Why Should I Care?

Practical discussions about using web technology in academia and elsewhere:
Using AJAX Wisely
Search Engine Optimization for Smarties
Measuring the Audience of a Digital Humanities Project

Thoughts about the nature and uses of digital works:
The Wikipedia Story That’s Being Missed
Wikipedia vs. Encyclopaedia Britannica for Digital Research
Wikipedia vs. Encyclopaedia Britannica Keyword Shootout Results
The Perfect and the Good Enough: Books and Wikis
When Machines Are the Audience
What Would You Do With a Million Books?
Rough Start for Digital Preservation

The impact of the web on learning, teaching, and testing:
The Single Box Humanities Search
No Computer Left Behind
Mapping Recent History

On copyright and related matters:
2006: Crossroads for Copyright
Impact of Field v. Google on the Google Library Project
Clifford Lynch and Jonathan Band on Google Book Search

Roy Rosenzweig and I had a terrific time on The Kojo Nnamdi Show today. If you missed the radio broadcast you can listen to it online on the WAMU website. There were a number of interesting calls from the audience, and we promised several callers that we would answer a couple of questions off the air; here they are.

Barbara from Potomac, MD asks, “I’m wondering whether new products that claim to help compress and organize data (I think one is called “C-Gate” [Kathy, an alert reader of his blog, has pointed out that Barbara probably means the giant disk drive company Seagate]) help out [to solve the problem of storing digital data for the long run]? The ads claim that you can store all sorts of data—from PowerPoint presentations and music to digital files—in a two-ounce standalone disk or other device.”

As we say in the book, we’re skeptical of using rare and/or proprietary formats to store digital materials for the long run. Despite the claims of many companies about new and novel storage devices, it’s unclear whether these specialized devices will be accessible in ten or a hundred years. We recommend sticking with common, popular formats and devices (at this point, probably standard hard drives and CD- or DVD-ROMs) if you want to have the best odds of preserving your materials for the long run. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) provides a good summary of how to store optical media such as CDs and DVDs for long periods of time.

Several callers asked where they could go if they have materials on old media, such as reel-to-reel or 8-track tapes, that they want to convert to a digital format.

You can easily find online some of the companies we mentioned that will (for a fee) transfer your own media files onto new devices. Google for the media you have (e.g., “8-track tape”) along with the words “conversion services” or “transfer services.” I probably overestimated the cost for these services; most conversions will cost less than $100 per tape. However, the older the media the more expensive it will be. I’ll continue to look into places in the Washington area that might provide these services for free, such as libraries and archives.

For those who have been asking about the article I wrote with Roy Rosenzweig on the reliability of historical information on the web (summarized in a previous post), it has just appeared on the First Monday website, perhaps a little belatedly given the name of the journal.