In the spirit of getting 2010 off to a good start,* I drafted up an article on net neutrality today for the magazine of the Canadian Library Association. Down the road, I am also going to be putting together a presentation for the Canadian Library Association conference in Edmonton this year. Last year, I did a poster session at the conference and doing a poster session is a lonely place but in 2010, I get to deliver a full hour long talk on the topic this year. If you attend the conference, come over and say hi.

In an effort to boost productivity and adopt a J.J. Jacobs (I read his new book The Guinea Pig Diaries last week and really enjoyed it) style experimentation attitude to life, I used the JDarkRoom application to do some writing. It is a stripped down word processor that eliminates everything from the screen – it reminds me of writing assignments using Word Perfect 5.1 on a DOS computer. It is a bit clunky, or rather there is a a learning curve to it if you are used to Open Office Writer or Microsoft Word. It would be difficult to use the application to do writing where you need to refer to the Internet for research, but it works well for other things.

* I kicked off 2010 in Montreal this year and there is something special, for me anyway, of starting a new year in a different place. It aids reflection. It is also nice when you get to walk past a large library and archives on your way to the Metro every morning.