Time  Nick    Message
11:54 shaun   hi owen and kados, you might like to know that my design for the website is reaching proof of concept stage - I should have something functional and attractive by tomorrow evening.
11:46 kados   (that's the goal anyway)
11:46 kados   so the searches will run fast (like Google fast)
11:46 kados   the problem I'm working on now is optimizing this indexer
11:45 kados   so it's easy to order by title or author
11:45 kados   as well as the 'title' for instance
11:45 kados   because we get the whole list at once
11:45 kados   yep ... the good news is that with plucene it's a snap to reorder stuff
11:44 owen    Just look at Koha's member search for an example of that!
11:44 owen    Handling paged search results is always a pain...
11:44 kados   for instance, if you search for something with 1000 results you'll get all 1000 back at the same time ;-)
11:43 kados   and nothing fancy
11:43 kados   with no optimization
11:43 kados   it's just a 'basic' title index
11:42 kados   it's really slow unfortunately
11:42 kados   http://search.athenscounty.lib.oh.us/cgi-bin/koha/plucene/search.cgi?query=cryptonomicon
11:42 kados   I've got a sample of chris's plucene stuff running
11:41 kados   :-)
11:41 owen    You were bug squashing and I was watching ;)
11:41 kados   are there any major bugs left?
11:41 kados   well we were bug squashing iirc
11:41 kados   hmmm
11:35 owen    kados, was there something left over from Friday that we were going to discuss?
11:33 kados   I can take a look
11:33 shedges not getting all of them, I suspect
11:33 kados   I thought your script fixes that problem ... or maybe it's not getting all of them?
11:32 shedges right, but they couldn't edit or delete the item because the 952u tag (itemnumber) was missing in marc_subfield_table
11:31 owen    So they weren't having a problem with the barcode form at all. It was pulling up the item record just fine?
11:31 shedges yeah, it was the old missing itemnumber problem
11:31 owen    If that's what's going on, then their description of the problem threw me completely off.
11:30 kados   could be
11:30 shedges I think the fixitemno script just wasn't catching all instances of missing item numbers
11:29 shedges the item(s) they can't delete was still missing an itemnumber in the MARC record
11:09 kados   not that I know of
11:09 owen    I don't suppose anyone besides 'cataloging' has seen the problem firsthand
11:05 owen    It works fine for me.  I've tried it here, I've tried it from The Plains.
11:04 kados   but it's working for everyone else? ... just not them?
11:04 owen    Sounds like that form isn't working.
11:04 owen    Maybe I'm misunderstanding their problem, but it doesn't even sound like they're making it to the items screen.
11:02 kados   owen: any more ideas why the catalogers can't delete barcodes? I thought it was related to the missing item number but if they are still having problems it can't be that (since it's fixed -- unless it isn't)
03:13 hdl     paul_away
03:12 hdl     paul
03:07 Sylvain hi
02:07 indradg hdl, hi
02:07 hdl     hi
22:19 Nick    catch y'all later.
22:18 Nick    maybe not.
22:18 Nick    (visions of zodiacs buzzing around a server...!)
22:17 chris   :)
22:17 Nick    some consider a running MVDMBS an endangered species.
22:17 chris   thanks
22:17 Nick    and be careful you don't get protested
22:17 Nick    good luck with that.
22:16 Nick    http://www.maverick-dbms.org/links.html has links to other options.
22:15 Nick    dunno how mature that is yet.
22:15 Nick    http://www.maverick-dbms.org is the open source one.
22:12 chris   cool
22:09 Nick    also, if you poke around, IBM's got a deeply useful whitepaper on the Nested Relational idea, come to think of it.
22:07 Nick    equally useful:  online docs for Universe.
22:07 chris   ahh cool
22:07 Nick    Engineering version of CS, working on Master's in same.
22:06 chris   what degrees did you do again?
22:06 chris   nod
22:05 Nick    about a year to go for second degree.
22:05 chris   must be nearly finished school?
22:05 chris   :)
22:05 chris   alien oughta sort that out
22:05 Nick    Work.  school.  sleep. repeat.
22:05 Nick    Runs on redhat.
22:05 chris   what are you up to these days anyway?
22:04 chris   thanks nick
22:04 Nick    Nod.
22:04 chris   then i can break it with no fear
22:04 Nick    http://www-306.ibm.com/software/data/u2/universe/
22:04 chris   maybe i can run up a copy of it, and get there data in that
22:04 chris   cool
22:04 Nick    Big Blue still offers the "personal edition" of universe.
22:03 Nick    You're in luck.
22:03 Genji   eh, just looking at a Pick database/os website. Old......
22:03 Nick    The "bigger" versions  dealt with the total lack of standards by supporting each others variants after a point.  Thereby netting legacy transition business.
22:02 Nick    Nod.  depending on age, it may have a pick pick emulation mode.
22:01 chris   olwen, she did a lot of work on the original koha
22:01 chris   :)
22:01 chris   (she knows pick pick .. not this new fangled universe)
22:01 Nick    (as in, anyone I know?)
22:01 Nick    Who's the expert?
22:01 chris   well not captive, but one we could persuade to help us out
22:01 Nick    (financial community here liked it for a long time, and they have Lotsa Money...)
22:00 chris   yeah, we have a captive pick expert we can call on too
22:00 Nick    if push came to shove.
22:00 Nick    Chris, there is a reasonable sized (but not necessarily cheap) set of Pick speakers out on the net.
21:59 Nick    if it is dynix, it is probably something proprietary-ish underneath.
21:58 Nick    with old stuff, one never knows what maintenance may or mayn't have been done, either.
21:58 chris   yeah, ill only be doing it well outside library hours
21:58 Genji   eewwww.... what we talking about here? a 386?
21:58 Nick    or: software just cranky.
21:58 chris   or even worse, computer not fast enough to allow software to throttle requests
21:57 Nick    I suspect Chris et al will ask to have it freed up entirely to them, if it is reeaaallly reallly old.
21:57 Genji   something like that?
21:57 Genji   computer not fast enough to run software. software not inteligent enough to throttle requests.
21:57 Nick    or it crashes the os, and it don't come back after reboot (unhappy memories there...)
21:57 Genji   software issue, not hardware issue.
21:56 chris   not a nice look if you are tryig to issue books or something :)
21:56 Genji   ahh...
21:56 chris   probably just make it not responsive until the load drops
21:56 Nick    nah.
21:56 Genji   ohhhh.... frying the bus?
21:56 Nick    ... in this instance.
21:56 Nick    Asking for more I/O than it can handle.
21:55 Genji   how can someone blow up a box?
21:55 Nick    hehehe
21:55 Nick    if the ugly road must be taken, I'm sure I'll hear the screams from up here....
21:55 chris   ill let you know how we get on
21:55 Nick    Betcha there's a z39 for it somewheres....
21:55 chris   im sure we'll get it out
21:55 chris   yeah
21:55 Nick    (equally old technology! wheee!) just, you know, query your way out of it over the network and pray you don't blow up the Sco box.
21:54 Genji   http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/reports/4408/1/ contains a report on Koha in Nelsonvile....
21:54 chris   :)
21:54 chris   "Pay someone money"
21:54 chris   i think the answer is
21:54 chris   theres a question
21:54 Nick    Random thought: could you attach a Z39.50 server to it instead?
21:54 Nick    there's actually an opensource MV DB out there. Maverick I think it is called.
21:53 chris   strings and perl u reckon :)
21:53 chris   ahh right
21:53 Nick    MV/Pick-land stuff orig. thought of itself as an OS, and (supposedly) had a file like notion.
21:53 Nick    if you were feeling brave, you might (emphasis might) just be able to extract that out....
21:52 chris   i think
21:52 Nick    and some sort of definition file somewhere.
21:52 Nick    it's internal format should have a "findable" set of reserved characters marking out what's going on.
21:51 chris   ahh thats indradg's blog
21:51 Nick    Chris:
21:51 Genji   hmm.. mention of Koha in india, in a Blog. http://sankarshan.blogspot.com/2005/01/this-and-that.html
21:50 Nick    (one of my fav things about a certain 3 ltr company, no matter HOW old it is, if they own it, there Is A Price Point to get service)
21:50 chris   oh for a universe_dump utility like mysqldump :)
21:50 chris   getting that on their old sco box would be the fun job
21:49 Nick    or, at least, the possibility of getting one.
21:49 Nick    Universe'll have a modern toolset for it.
21:49 chris   maybe we can jsut let olwen loose on it
21:47 chris   http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:-ZkfH8teomsJ:lists.webjunction.org/wjlists/web4lib/1997-July/010789.html+dynix+universe&hl=en&start=1&client=firefox
21:45 chris   that sounds like it
21:45 chris   http://computing-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Dynix
21:44 chris   it may actually be built on universe
21:43 Nick    http://freshmeat.net/articles/view/307/ ... actually an article.
21:43 chris   we had to monkey around for HLT too
21:43 chris   so i think it will involve some monkeying around, which wasnt unexpected
21:42 chris   for anything other than the day to day running of the library stuff
21:41 chris   si: the manual pretty much says "pay ameritech money"
21:41 si      which might be a way of getting all the data out
21:40 chris   it just doesnt have a nice "export to MARC"
21:40 Nick    ...I think they even have a "personal version" download of one of them.
21:40 si      if they support any kind of thirdparty report writer, then you can probably get ODBC
21:40 chris   as i said, im confident we can get it out
21:40 Nick    UniData/Universe as I recall.
21:40 chris   yeah
21:40 Nick    They ended up owning some of the old Pick flavored stuff.
21:40 chris   but i havent been at the commandline yet
21:40 Nick    Betcha IBM might have something.
21:40 chris   its running on some form of unix, i think sco in fact
21:39 chris   i dont think so
21:39 si      chris, do you have odbc access to the database?
21:39 Nick    You don't feel like learning the funky Basic-like thing that probably came with it?
21:37 Nick    http://kennethhunt.com/archives/000551.html
21:37 chris   otoh i think we can get the patron data out easily
21:36 Nick    ouchies.
21:36 chris   im sure we will work it out tho, even if we resort to using its reporting features and just running lots of reports till we get the data we need
21:36 Nick    http://directory.google.com/Top/Computers/Software/Databases/Pick/Vendors/
21:35 chris   ie, you have to guess how it stores the data, cos the vendor (even if they still supported this product) wont tell ya
21:35 Nick    er, jdbc like.
21:34 Nick    there may (heavens don't hold me to this) java something or other that'll talk to it odbc like
21:34 chris   its just the lack of documentation that you get with proprietary systems
21:34 chris   perl is great for munging text
21:34 Nick    That bad?
21:34 chris   out to anything text based and id be happy
21:33 Nick    (if only to get more tools to use on it).
21:33 chris   doesnt appear to be
21:33 Nick    Wonder if anyone's put together something to vacuum it out to XML or something.
21:32 chris   yeah
21:32 Nick    Going to be missing the idea that one row/col position is one piece of data I bet.
21:32 chris   heh
21:32 Nick    ...vision of Kapito holding punchcards up to light.
21:32 chris   so i think we just have to come to grips with that
21:31 chris   recall is its query language
21:31 Nick    whew
21:31 chris   descendent
21:31 Nick    or a descendant (hoping for your sake something not THAT old)
21:31 chris   i dont know what it actually is :)
21:31 Nick    so it is is actually Pick?
21:30 chris   and once we have somethng to show and the library is happy im sure they will do a press release
21:30 Nick    Fond coursework memories on them.
21:30 Nick    Always fun.
21:30 Nick    MV databases.
21:30 Nick    Ooooooo.
21:30 chris   so its proving to be a little tricky, im sure we will get there though
21:29 chris   pick based
21:29 chris   old dynix
21:29 Nick    something ugly?
21:29 Nick    what is it?
21:29 chris   (always the hardest bit)
21:29 chris   its in the early stages yet, still trying to get the data out of their old system
21:28 chris   its rangitikei district council, kinda the next district north from HLT
21:28 Nick    Where?
21:26 Nick    fantastic.
21:25 chris   so thats all good
21:25 chris   we are doing our second nz public library koha tho
21:25 chris   and tons and tons of work
21:25 chris   hmm, winter .. although its been pretty mild so far
21:24 Nick    What's up in your half of the globe?
21:21 chris   hmm probably, i think its early morning there
21:19 Nick    Am assuming Paul's asleep.
21:19 Nick    OK
21:19 Nick    chuckle.
21:19 chris   i think hes off watching star wars
21:18 Nick    (as in, awake?)
21:18 Nick    Kados around?
21:18 Nick    heyho
21:17 chris   heya nick
12:42 slef    (when I will try to switch all my mailing list memberships to my new email address)
12:42 slef    biab
12:42 slef    anyway, time to go make tapas
12:42 shedges hehe
12:42 slef    It's a fun way to split UK and US, if Bill Gates is responsible for confusion on that term there, and that spin-off from the Microsoft-backed club is responsible for confusion on "open source" here, isn't it?
12:38 shedges I think we can thank Bill Gates and the dot.com exuberance of the 90's for that.
12:38 shedges (even in the "Land of the Free")
12:37 shedges kados is right -- here it is instantly confusing to talk about a business dealing with "free" software.
12:34 slef    free on its own is ambiguous. There's no denying it. I'm always amazed how ambiguous I'm told it is in the US, though.
12:33 slef    the last two get abbreviated, of course (FOSS and FLOSS)
12:33 slef    AFAIK, the preferred expressions are "Free Software" "Free and Open Source Software" and "Free/Libre and Open Source Software"
12:30 shedges I wonder how this would play in the UK?
12:30 shedges (as least it seems that way to me)
12:29 shedges as soon as you put the word "open" close to the word "free," it's easier to think of "freedom" instead of "free" beer.
12:28 shedges kados: "Free and Open Source ILS" is an interesting suggestion