BookQueue is a Movable Type plugin which manages a queue or collection of books. It allows you to store the queue in a database and later retrieve the items for display in your Movable Type weblog.

It uses MTAmazon to retrieve product information for each book from Amazon.

BookQueue decodes barcode scan output from the CueCat, making it easy to quickly add many books to your queue. (If you weren't fortunate enough to have received a free CueCat from Radio Shack, you can probably find one for a reasonable price on ebay.)

Download BookQueue: BookQueue-1.01.zip.

Older versions available here.

For more information on BookQueue, see the README file and the Template Tag Reference. Also check out BookQueue's entry in the Movable Type Plugin Directory.

Last night I attended an entertaining reading/booksigning by Cory Doctorow at BookSmith. He read from chapter six of his excellent first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (which I happen to be reading currently--I'm on chapter five, so his reading made for a nice preview), and also from his upcoming book Eastern Standard Tribe.

I asked Cory what inspired his use of the word Whuffie for the currency in the reputation economy of Down and Out. First he discounted the theory someone had suggested to him that it's a contraction of Whit Diffie--a plausible explanation since Whuffie must have some kind of inherent crypto system. Then he explained that when he was in school 'whuffie points' were used like 'brownie points,' which he later came to beleive came from Arsenio Hall's 'woof woof.'

Cory has published Down and Out under a Creative Commons license, and has made it available as a free download. I hope this model of publishing works and that many authors follow his lead successfully. I bought a hardcopy, but knowing I can always grep for passages gives me a warm feeling inside.

Google's purchase of Blogger is exciting news for blogdom even if it raises concerns about how the move might affect the extra-Blogger blogosphere and steer the direction of the blogging phenomenon as a whole. The burning question is what does Google have planned for Blogger? How will this move shape the future of blogging? of searching? of the general flow of information on the Internet? Will amateur journalism overshadow mainstream media (will Dave Winer win this bet)?

A couple of interesting takes:

I recently spent two glorious weeks in my native Santa Fe, where two pairs of friends tied the knot: congratulations to Gina and Peter Schreiner and to Brenda and David Vigil. See pics.

After using FreeBSD and Linux as my desktop operating systems of choice for about four years, and becoming more and more intrigued with Jaguar over the last few months, I've finally made the switch. Yesterday my new TiBook arrived, and it was a happy day. I have set up a page dedicated to Ti and OS X, where I will be keeping a journal of my experiences with them. You can find it here.

My photos from Floating World are here.