Posts
Just a test of windows live writer without capturing anything.....just to see how it worked..... Teaching a workshop on Blogging and RSS Feeds soon and wanted to test it......
You may now resume your life...............
Monday, November 17, 2008
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Planning Reference Extract
"Something to look at ... in the near future" -- HSM
About Reference Extract
Reference Extract is envisioned as a web search engine, like Google, Yahoo and MSN. However, unlike other search engines, Reference Extracts will be built for maximum credibility by relying on the expertise and credibility judgments of librarians from around the globe. Users will enter a search term and get results weighted towards sites most often referred to by librarians at institutions such as the Library of Congress, the University of Washington, the State of Maryland, and over 1,400 libraries worldwide. This grant will support planning for Reference Extract and building the foundation necessary to implement it as a large-scale, general user service.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Wikipedia:WikiProject Librarians - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wikipedia:WikiProject Librarians - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Might need for a project in development -- This along with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Contributing_to_Wikipedia
We'll see - had an idea that might be more fun.....Stephen
Wikipedia:WikiProject Librarians - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
About AoA
Pull down menus for topics dealing with aging especially helpful for research or personal use -- Stephen
Welcome to the “About AoA” section of the Administration on Aging website. In About AoA you can access information about the agency, its mission, budget, and organizational structure. In addition, you can learn more about the Older Americans Act, the federal legislation establishing the AoA and authorizing a range of programs that offer services and opportunities for older Americans and their caregivers.
About AoA Sub Navigation:
Digital library of illuminated & illustrated books online – Pinocchio - Attilio Mussino.
Digital library of illuminated & illustrated books online – Pinocchio - Attilio Mussino.
One of the many books on this site.....Stephen
Pinocchio
Digital library of illuminated & illustrated books online – Pinocchio - Attilio Mussino.
Newseum | Today's Front Pages | Archive | Gallery View
Newseum | Today's Front Pages | Archive | Gallery View
Fun new source -- esp for journalism to look at the coverage of major events from around the world.....This from Nov 5th -- day after the 2008 US Presidential Election. -- HSM
Today's Front Pages > Wednesday, November 05, 2008. 730 front pages from 66 countries.
The Newseum displays these daily newspaper front pages in their original, unedited form. Some front pages may contain material that is objectionable to some visitors. Viewer discretion is advised.
The Anniston Star
Anniston, Ala.
The Birmingham News
Birmingham, Ala.
The Decatur Daily
Decatur, Ala.
Dothan Eagle
Dothan, Ala.
TimesDaily
Florence, Ala.
The Gadsden Times
Gadsden, Ala.
The Huntsville Times
Huntsville, Ala.
Press-Register
Mobile, Ala.
Montgomery Advertiser
Montgomery, Ala.
Opelika-Auburn News
Opelika, Ala.
The Tuscaloosa News
Tuscaloosa, Ala.
Anchorage Daily News
Anchorage, Alaska
The Dispatch
Casa Grande, Ariz.
The Arizona Republic
Phoenix, Ariz.
Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Ariz.
Log Cabin Democrat
Conway, Ark.
The Morning News - Fayetteville
Fayetteville, Ark.
The Sentinel-Record
Hot Springs, Ark.
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Little Rock, Ark.
The Courier
Russellville, Ark.
The Bakersfield Californian
Bakersfield, Calif.
Imperial Valley Press
El Centro, Calif.
North County Times
Escondido, Calif.
The Fresno Bee
Fresno, Calif.
Press-Telegram
Long Beach, Calif.
Daily News
Los Angeles, Calif.
La Opinión
Los Angeles, Calif.
Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles, Calif.
Manteca Bulletin
Manteca, Calif.
The Appeal-Democrat
Marysville, Calif.
Merced Sun-Star
Merced, Calif.
The Modesto Bee
Modesto, Calif.
The Herald
Monterey, Calif.
Oakland Tribune
Oakland, Calif.
Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
Ontario, Calif.
Record Searchlight
Redding, Calif.
The Press-Enterprise
Riverside, Calif.
The Sacramento Bee
Sacramento, Calif.
The Salinas Californian
Salinas, Calif.
The Sun
San Bernardino, Calif.
British Museum - Search object image
British Museum - Search object image
Just an image from the British Museum collection to remember this source. HSM
papercut
AN293699001
© The Trustees of the British Museum
Department: Asia
Registration number: 1987,0201,0.1.dp-ds
Thursday, September 11, 2008
DataPlace
Demographic data -- HSM
DataPlace provides easy access to data at geographic scales ranging from the neighborhood to the nation. The site currently contains data from the 1990 and 2000 Censuses (demographic, economic, housing, and social characteristics), Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (home mortgage applications and loans), Section 8 Expiring Use database (neighborhood- and property-level data on federally assisted housing at risk of loss), and Consolidated Plan special tabulations (data on housing needs by household income level). DataPlace's data library will expand in the coming months to include information on topics such as business establishments from the Census Bureau's ZIP Business Patterns database and Low-Income Housing Tax Credit developments from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Maps
DataPlace provides a powerful yet simple mapping tool that allows you to produce colorful thematic maps with just a few clicks of the mouse. You can customize a map's appearance by selecting different color schemes or interval ranges for your themes and save the results to a PDF file. Future enhancements to the mapping tool will allow you to define your own market area by selecting groups of census tracts, counties, or states and upload your own data for mapping in conjunction with data already provided on DataPlace.
Free Online Course Materials | MIT OpenCourseWare
MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) is a web-based publication of virtually all MIT course content. OCW is open and available to the world and is a permanent MIT activity.
What is MIT OpenCourseWare?
MIT OpenCourseWare is a free publication of MIT course materials that reflects almost all the undergraduate and graduate subjects taught at MIT.
- OCW is not an MIT education.
- OCW does not grant degrees or certificates.
- OCW does not provide access to MIT faculty.
- Materials may not reflect entire content of the course.
Foundation Center - Knowledge to Build On
Foundation Center - Knowledge to Build On
The Foundation Center's mission is to strengthen the nonprofit sector by advancing knowledge about U.S. philanthropy.
Established in 1956, and today supported by more than 600 foundations, the Foundation Center is the nation's leading authority on philanthropy, connecting nonprofits and the grantmakers supporting them to tools they can use and information they can trust. The Center maintains the most comprehensive database on U.S. grantmakers and their grants — a robust, accessible knowledge bank for the sector. It also operates research, education, and training programs designed to advance philanthropy at every level. The Center's web site receives more than 47,000 visits each day, and thousands of people gain access to free resources in its five regional library/learning centers and its national network of more than 340 Cooperating Collections
American Women's History: A Research Guide
American Women's History: A Research Guide
American Women's History: A Research Guide
Focus on: Ellis Island Photographs, 1902-1913
I. Subject Index to Research Sources
II. State Index to Research Sources
III. Research Tools: Finding Primary Sources
IV. Research Tools: Finding Secondary Sources
Shortcuts to Popular Sources:
- Digital Collections of Primary Sources: Subject Index
- Digital Collections of Primary Sources: State Index
See Also:
- American Women Through Time (timeline with 800+ links)
- American Women's Letters and Diaries: A Bibliography
Newser - Current News - Breaking Stories | Newser: Know More. Search Less.
Newser - Current News - Breaking Stories | Newser: Know More. Search Less.
Newser gives you more news in less time. We search for the best and most important stories all over the web, read them for you, and deliver concise and sharp summaries—along with links to the full text. Newser provides a way to stay on top of an ever-expanding horizon of news and opinion—politics, sports, business, trends, technology, personalities, crimes, and controversies. Newser keeps you not just better informed, but, with our signature graphic interface and smart condensed format, more enjoyably informed.
Newser - Current News - Breaking Stories | Newser: Know More. Search Less.
InfoLit Global
The Information Literacy Section of the International Federation of Library Association and Institutions (IFLA) has created this database to record information literacy materials from different parts of the world, on behalf of UNESCO.
Librarians, educators and information professionals are invited to participate. If you have developed information literacy materials and would like to share them with the world community, please submit the required data.
Consumer Reports WebWatch: The leader in investigative reporting on credibility and trust online
Consumer Reports WebWatch: The leader in investigative reporting on credibility and trust online
Consumer Reports WebWatch is the Internet integrity division of Consumers Union, the non-profit publisher of Consumer Reports Magazine, ConsumerReports.org, the Consumer Reports on Health and Money Adviser newsletters, BestBuyDrugs.org, and a variety of sites advocating consumer rights in the marketplace.
We assist Consumer Reports' editorial division in evaluating the credibility of Web sites, we investigate and research Web sites on behalf of consumers, and we advocate for consumer-focused Internet policy and governance. Consumer Reports WebWatch accepts no advertising or outside funding, other than from non-profit foundations.
Through research, the promotion of guidelines for best practices and other means, we seek to improve the credibility of content on the World Wide Web. Through research and analysis, we have developed guidelines for specific sectors of the Web. These sectors have included travel Web sites, search engines, auto insurance sites, and health sites.
Consumer Reports WebWatch: The leader in investigative reporting on credibility and trust online
Green Your Home Through Low Impact Living – www.lowimpactliving.com
Green Your Home Through Low Impact Living – www.lowimpactliving.com
Low Impact Living, is designed to lower the environmental impact of your home and your daily life. To do that, we help you find the best green products, practices and service providers to help you achieve your environmental goals. And we will also help you understand the environmental benefits and economic trade-offs of your choices. In short, we want to be your One Stop Green Shop™.
Green Your Home Through Low Impact Living – www.lowimpactliving.com
World's biggest Open Access English Language Journals Portal - OPEN J-Gate
World's biggest Open Access English Language Journals Portal - OPEN J-Gate
What is Open J-Gate?
Open J-Gate is an electronic gateway to global journal literature in open access domain. Launched in 2006, Open J-Gate is the contribution of Informatics (India) Ltd to promote OAI. Open J-Gate provides seamless access to millions of journal articles available online. Open J-Gate is also a database of journal literature, indexed from 3000+ open access journals, with links to full text at Publisher sites.
World's biggest Open Access English Language Journals Portal - OPEN J-Gate
Welcome to Citizendium - encyclopedia article - Citizendium
Welcome to Citizendium - encyclopedia article - Citizendium
"What is the point of the Citizendium," you might ask, "when Wikipedia is so huge and of reasonably good quality? Is there really a need for it?"
There is a better way for humanity to come together to make an encyclopedia.
To put it forcefully: there is a better way for humanity to come together to make an encyclopedia. So we make this appeal to you. If we can do better than Wikipedia—or more positively, if we can pioneer a truly effective way to gather knowledge—then shouldn't we?
In response to this, a critic might argue: but you can't do better than Wikipedia. It has millions of articles, it is ranked #8 in traffic, it has thousands of very active contributors, and Nature did a report saying the accuracy of its science articles was not far below that of Encyclopedia Britannica. As the saying goes, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
But to make our case, we don't have to say that Wikipedia is broken. While different Citizens have different views about Wikipedia's merits, we agree on one thing: we, humanity, can do better. But why think that the Citizendium, in particular, can do better?
The Wellcome Library
Collections of books, manuscripts, archives, films and pictures on the history of medicine from the earliest times to the present day.
Artcyclopedia
About the Artcyclopedia
Our mission is to become the definitive and most effective guide to museum-quality fine art on the Internet:
- definitive: We have compiled a comprehensive index of every artist represented at hundreds of museum sites, image archives, and other online resources. We have started out by covering the biggest and best sites around, and have links for most well-known artists to keep you surfing for hours. Update January/2006: We have now indexed over 2,300 art sites, and offer over 95,000 links to an estimated 180,000 artworks by 8,200 renowned artists.
- most effective: The Artcyclopedia's custom search engine is already the fastest way to search the Net for information about fine artists. Period.
- museum-quality: There are scads of artists with home pages on the Web, many of whom are extremely talented. But we can't list every site, and we really don't want to set ourselves up as arbiters of who produces "quality" art and who doesn't - making such a judgment is impossible over the Internet in any case. We feel that fairest approach is to rely on the worldwide network of museum professionals to make that call. So our general policy is, if an artist is in an arts museum collection, then he or she is qualified to be listed in our database. See our Information for Artists page for more specific information.
What is and is not in the Artcyclopedia's database?
We only provide references to sites on the World Wide Web where artists' works can be viewed online. For calendars of real-world museum exhibits, try a resource such as Gallery Guide Online, or Traditional Fine Arts Online, or the Art Museum Network's ExCalendar, all of which seem to do an excellent job.
The vast majority of the fine artists in our database specialize in painting and sculpture. Note that we are primarily oriented to searching by artist name, although we intend to add more and more access by artistic movement, nation, timeline and medium. At the moment we do not have entries for artworks by unknown artists. This includes works with such attributions as "follower of", "workshop of", or "school of" given artists. We do have entries for certain notable individual artists whose names have been lost (for example, the Master of the Saint Bartholomew Altarpiece).
Wiktionary:Main Page - Wiktionary
Wiktionary:Main Page - Wiktionary
Welcome to the English language Wiktionary, a collaborative project to produce a free-content multilingual dictionary.
Designed as the lexical companion to Wikipedia, the encyclopaedia project, Wiktionary has grown beyond a standard dictionary and now includes a thesaurus, a rhyme guide, phrase books, language statistics and extensive appendices. We aim to include not only the definition of a word, but also enough information to really understand it. Thus etymologies, pronunciations, sample quotations, synonyms, antonyms and translations are included.
Wiktionary is a wiki, which means that you can edit it, and all the content is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. Before you contribute, you may wish to read through some of our Help pages, and bear in mind that we do things quite differently from other wikis. In particular we have strict layout conventions and inclusion criteria. Learn how to start a page, how to edit entries, experiment in the sandbox and visit our Community Portal to see how you can participate in the development of Wiktionary.
Online Searchable Death Indexes, Records & Obituaries
Online Searchable Death Indexes, Records & Obituaries
Online Searchable Death Indexes & Records
A Genealogy Guide
This website is a directory of online death indexes listed by state and county. Included are death records, death certificate indexes, death notices & registers, obituaries, probate indexes, and cemetery & burial records. You can also find information here about searching the Social Security Death Index online.
NDLTD: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations — NDLTD
The Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD) is an international organization dedicated to promoting the adoption, creation, use, dissemination and preservation of electronic analogues to the traditional paper-based theses and dissertations.
This website contains information about the initiative, how to set up Electronic Thesis and Dissertation (ETD) programmes, how to create and locate ETDs, and current research in digital libraries related to NDLTD and ETDs.
NDLTD: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations — NDLTD
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Sources And Methods: SAM Goes Back To School, Part 2: Top Firefox Add-Ons For Intel Studies Students
2 tools to look at once I upgrade to ff3 -- hsm
Morning Coffee. This add-on allows you to bring up a whole menu of websites with a single click. It is particularly useful if you are working on a project and want to monitor a number of sites routinely and simultaneously.
Sources And Methods: SAM Goes Back To School, Part 2: Top Firefox Add-Ons For Intel Studies Students
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Why Are Senior Female Scientists So Heavily Outnumbered by Men? | Wired Science from Wired.com
Why Are Senior Female Scientists So Heavily Outnumbered by Men?
By Aaron Rowe
May 31, 2008 | 11:25:50 AMCategories: Letters to WiSci
Why Are Senior Female Scientists So Heavily Outnumbered by Men? | Wired Science from Wired.com
There is some funny math in the world of academic science.
Take my graduate school for example: My class was made up of eight people -- seven women and one man, or 7 to 1. He was Snow White and we were the seven dwarves -- each with a remarkably appropriate nickname. I was Grumpy, should you be curious to know.
Snow White and at least four of the dwarves have continued on to postdoctoral research jobs. That is a 4 to 3 ratio of women who went on to do a post-doc to those that chose alternate career paths.
Everything is adding up so far, right? Lots of women are around. Lots of science is being done. All is well.
The next set of numbers is slightly puzzling, however. That is the ratio of female to male professors in our department, at a well-respected academic institution, is 48 to 7 men to women.
Interesting reversal, isn’t it? We go from 7 to 1 in grad school to roughly 1 to 7 in professorships.
Clearly, something does not compute. Where did all the women go? What is happening to all the women en route from graduate school to professorship? Where is the leak? Then again, is it a leak, or more like a pressurized stream? What is applying this pressure to force women out of a career in science? Is it societal pressure to be a mom and take care of the family? Have generations of both men and women perpetuated the belief that in a fist fight between family and work, one or the other has to crawl away a loser? Do some women lack self confidence and convince themselves that they don’t have what it takes to succeed in academic science?
It is perfectly acceptable, even commendable if women make the choice, which is rightfully theirs, to stay at home, to choose careers outside of science, or to choose, well, anything at all.
It would be all right if the scientific community is still paying catch up with the rest of society in accepting women into their midst and the ratio will equalize in the next decade (not sure there is evidence either for or against this, but I feel compelled to present it nonetheless).
It is not acceptable if women are forced to choose between a family and a career in science.
It is not acceptable if women are feeling unwelcome in the male-dominated, and occasionally inhospitable, scientific community.
It is not acceptable if their being female is detrimental to their careers.
So what is the solution? Let women make their own decisions whether to stay or to go. Remove as many obstacles and pressures as possible and let the choice be theirs. Isn’t that the whole point of the much-maligned term, feminism? Institute reasonable day care at universities. Allow for extended maternity leave and the option of paternity leave. Don’t cut women any breaks. They are no less inherently able to achieve than men, regardless of what certain Nobel Prize winners and heads of major Universities may say. They don’t need pity or hand me downs. They just need the freedom to choose.
Anna Kushnir, PhD
Anna Kushnir recently earned a doctoral degree from a top academic institution. She is also the creative force behind Lab Life, an excellent blog on the Nature Network.
Update: These statements are reflective of her experiences and opinions, but they are backed by exhaustive studies: The proportion of female faculty in her department, 14 percent, is exactly equal to the overall average from the top fifty US chemistry departments.
Wired Science is quite interested in covering other issues at the intersection of science and culture. Feel free to send us your letters.
Photo: Akash K / flickr
Why Are Senior Female Scientists So Heavily Outnumbered by Men? | Wired Science from Wired.com
Monday, August 25, 2008
vfowler blog » soul searching on the web - in the clouds « Blog Archive
More citation stuff to look at.....HSM
vfowler blog » soul searching on the web - in the clouds « Blog Archive
For citations, I’ve been using a few great tools. First, I rely on the wonderful and easy to use CiteMachine to generate standard bibliographic and in-text citations. Second, to automate the citation process as much as possible, I’ve recently been trying out Zotero which works alone on your computer.
In addition, for online reference management, I’m experimenting with CiteULike which is designed for scholarly papers, thanks Janette Treanor for pointing out this one; and thanks to Fiona Stace’s thread post, Connotea. Given the nature of the medium and the subject content, why anyone would record this information on their own computer beats me. Are we rocketeering towards cloud computing? (What is cloud computing? - on YouTube)
Finally, now it should be easy enough for me to access, retrieve, understand, contextualise and recall why I saved these resources any time in the foreseeable future. In my next post, annotations of the best 3 results sourced from my search query “winter dreaming” film screening. For evaluating sources of information, check out a later post.
References
- The Ohio State University Libraries, (2007, September 19). Web Search Tools.
- Retrieved August 22, 2008, from net.TUTOR website: http://liblearn.osu.edu/tutor/les5/
- Cohen, L (2008, January). Boolean Searching on the Internet.
- Retrieved August 22, 2008, from Internet Tutorials website: http://www.internettutorials.net/boolean.html
- Google, (n.d.). Google Scholar Help.
- Retrieved August 22, 2008, from Google Scholar website: http://scholar.google.com.au/intl/en/scholar/help.html
vfowler blog » soul searching on the web - in the clouds « Blog Archive
Tools for collecting, managing and sharing citations « KOnnect
Tools for collecting, managing and sharing citations « KOnnect
Tools for collecting, managing and sharing citations
Our KOOLTools wiki includes an evaluation of an application called Piggy Bank, a plug-in for Firefox which acts like an extended bookmarking system, allowing you to gather rich metadata for any number and type of web-based resources, linking related items automatically via shared metadata values, or via user-entered tags. Piggy Bank is just one product among many developed under the Simile project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Exhibit
Exhibit is a web application from the same stable as Piggy Bank. Exhibit supports the collation and presentation of collections of resources on specific topics, like this research database on musical composers. Since Exhibit was first released in late 2006, thousands of examples have been developed. When reviewing them, the Simile developers noticed that many were little more than lists of publications or bibliographies. Since Exhibit requires a modicum of tinkering with HTML code, they decided to build another application which could be used for bibliographies and citations straight out of the box by non-technical users. The result is Citeline, whose release has just been announced.
Citeline
Citeline is a web-based WYSIWYG edit-search-and-display application allowing the sharing of citation
collections from any existing citation application which can exort in the BibTex format. Citeline is a freely available service designed and developed by the SIMILE Project and run and maintained by the MIT Libraries. It is open for anybody to use, inside and outside the MIT community and it’s intended to provide a path for the publication of citation data on the web in a structured and re-usable way. Citeline can be found here where there are a couple of examples to explore.Zotz
Simultaneously with Citeline, the Simile folks have announced Zotz, a Firefox add-on which adds Citeline
exporting functionality to Zotero, allowing you to publish your Zotero library of citations (or only a
subset, if you wish) on the web. The Simile Blog elaborates: “And not in a static boring HTML table like
most BibTeX->web software out there, in a highly interactive page, right from your own web site but without
having you to install (or convince others to install) additional software on the server.” If you’re wondering where the name ‘Zotz’ came from, see the next item.Zotero
While Exhibit, Citeline and Zotz are all in the ‘interesting’ category, first impressions of Zotero lie somewhere on the borderline between ‘impressive!’ and ‘Wow!’. Zotero is a free, easy-to-use Firefox add-on which helps you to collect, manage and cite your research resources. If you undertake research of any kind on the Web, then view this quick tour. Chances are, you’ll be downloading it straight away, as I am going to do now.
If you would like to review Exhibit, Citeline, Zotz or Zotero for KOOLTools then please post a comment here.
Tools for collecting, managing and sharing citations « KOnnect
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Maxima, a Computer Algebra System
Maxima, a Computer Algebra System: "Maxima is a system for the manipulation of symbolic and numerical expressions, including differentiation, integration, Taylor series, Laplace transforms, ordinary differential equations, systems of linear equations, polynomials, and sets, lists, vectors, matrices, and tensors. Maxima yields high precision numeric results by using exact fractions, arbitrary precision integers, and variable precision floating point numbers. Maxima can plot functions and data in two and three dimensions."
Mrs. Mecomber’s Scrapbook » Blog Archive » Great Educational Freeware
Mrs. Mecomber’s Scrapbook » Blog Archive » Great Educational Freeware
Great Educational Freeware
educational programs, free stuff August 17th, 2008It’s back to school time! Software has made incredible leaps and bounds since my daughter began her elementary classes with Windows 3.1 and DOS. Wow, that seems like eons ago! Here are some good free software I’ve compiled for your scholars of all ages. Be aware that I have not tried all these programs, but they are all freeware at this writing, and they all come with good reviews from sources like C|Net.
Graph
This is sophisticated but simple software that enables you to build coordinate graphs for mathematics.Zotero
A Firefox add-on that helps you collect, manage and cite resources and references from the Internet. It looks like a great program for any kind of writing assignment. I’m going to have my daughter try it out.Owl & Mouse Games and Maps
Some of the best freeware educational programs are here. They are still favorites with my older kids- I wrote a detailed review of these free programs here.Hulu TV
This is a website with loads of documentary and educational videos, all free of you have the Internet speed to run them. There are also “regular” TV shows, so you may need to monitor Johnny to make sure he’s not watching Gilligan’s Island.iCue
Another free video website, done by NBC. It’s a compilation of old and new NBC news videos and specials.Flashcards Friends
A nice website with loads of virtual flashcards. It’s has a lot for children, but it also has a lot of educational stuff that interests adults, too.Merriam Webster’s Concise Dictionary
Yep, the whole dictionary, downloaded in a searchable program. I used it for a while until I got a small search bar add-on for Firefox. But this is very handy for those times you are not online and if you don’t use Firefox browser.I’ll keep the list short for now. I’m on the prowl for more stuff, so stay tuned for further posts on this topic!
Mrs. Mecomber’s Scrapbook » Blog Archive » Great Educational Freeware
Monday, August 4, 2008
Incoherently Scattered Ponderings
Incoherently Scattered Ponderings
Do your job badly
I recently attended one of those career-development lunches for junior faculty organized by university administration where they tell us how review process works, how the door of the dean is always open, etc. Typically those are quite boring and I walk away not getting much out of it, except free lunch and maybe meeting another jr. faculty member. But this latest one was quite entertaining - we had one of the panelists, who happens to be pretty high up - tell us in very simple terms the "truth".
Basically - spend as much of our time and efforts on research, do good job teaching, but avoid spending all the time on teaching. For example, developing a whole new graduate course is very time consuming, but doesn't help one's tenure case. Teaching an existing course well (at least well enough to get good student evaluations) will not consume nearly as much time, and is a better bet.
One of the junior faculty complained to this panelist that she was overwhelmed with service component. To which the panelist (unexpectedly) replied - well, if you can't say no to the chair, just do your committee work well, but just barely enough, or even do it badly! That would prevent you from serving on too many committees.
Of course, at this point other panelists rush to wrestle his mike away to tell us that service is very important, and that we should all do our best and be active in committees, etc. But I think the brutally honest advice given by this first panelist was quite refreshing to hear. Saying that research, teaching and service are all equally important and we should do all three equally well is a politically correct lie. The truth is that we all need to prioritize, and our "extra" efforts in areas of service or even teaching are not transferrable towards service.
So if I already have 92% approval rating in student evaluations, it may take me herculean efforts to get up to 98% or 100%, maybe even impossible. "Just barely" doing my committee job will leave me plenty of time to focus on research, advising graduate students and writing grants. Trying to be exceptional at committee work, and trying to be exceptional at teaching will have a serious negative impact on my research. What is "barely good enough" is debatable, and one has to walk a fine line, but it's clear that one could be serious about their responsibilities on, say, library committee, without allowing it to negatively impact their research efforts.
Friday, August 1, 2008
10 Ways to Save Money on College Textbooks
10 Ways to Save Money on College Textbooks
The average college student spends nearly $1,000 on textbooks every single year. But it doesn't have to be that way. There are lots of different ways for students to save money on college textbooks. Here are ten of the best.
10 Ways to Save Money on College Textbooks
1 Buy Online
Shopping at the campus bookstore can be expensive. You're much better off shopping online where it is easier to compare prices. When you buy online, you can also take advantage of coupons, free shipping and other perks. Barnes and Noble provides new coupons to their customers every month; Amazon has free shipping on orders of $25 or more.
2 Buy Used
Buying brand new books isn't practical for most people. Since the books will only be used for a short time, it is also a waste of money. If you buy used, you can save an average of 50 percent, and in some cases, as much as 90 percent. Used books can be found through ads on campus and through online booksellers like Alibris or Half.com.
3 Look for Free Books Online
The growing cost of college textbooks has led to a number of free book sites. Rice University's Connexions is a good example. Professors at Rice, Ohio State and other colleges are using the free books that are available on the site in the classroom. Students can read the textbooks on their computer screen and print off the assigned materials for free. You should always scan free book sites carefully before you spend any money on textbooks. You never know what you might find.
4 Sell Your Used Textbooks
If you are a second, third or fourth year college student, you can raise most of the money you need to buy textbooks by selling all of your old textbooks. Often times you can sell the books to other students or to the campus bookstore. There are also several sites online that buy textbooks or allow you to sell textbooks in their marketplace.
5 Buy International Editions
One of the best kept secrets in the college textbook industry involves international editions (textbooks that have been printed outside the United States.) When you buy the international edition of a textbook you can save as much as 90 percent. The best part is that international editions almost always contain exactly the same content as U.S. editions.
6 Rent Textbooks
Renting college textbooks has become one of the easiest ways to save money from semester to semester. You use the book for as long as you need it and return it when you don't. Most textbook rental sites work a lot like Netflix. There are no shipping costs or late fees and rental costs are reasonable. Some places even allow you to make notes in the margins.
7 Make Copies
Although it can be incredibly time consuming and less than practical, making copies of someone else's textbook is one way to save money--especially if you only need a few chapters. If you don't know anyone who has the textbook you need, ask the professor for a sample copy or borrow one from the library.
8 Purchase Electronic Textbooks
Electronic textbooks are great for students who don't mind reading off their laptop. Ebooks save trees and could allow you to save at least 50 percent on your college textbook costs. There aren't a ton of places that offer full-text electronic textbooks for download right now, but this market will probably begin expanding soon as more students struggle to buy the books they need.
9 Trade Textbooks
Trading used textbooks is another good way to save money. There are several sites on the web and a number of different schools that offer free textbook exchange services to college students. Taking advantage of these services could save you a bundle each semester.
10 Comparison Shop
Comparison shopping is the only way to make sure you are getting the best deal. There are a lot of different sites that are set up to help you comparison shop. The three shown above are just a small sampling. Visit a few and pick the one you like best. Then, start punching in titles and ISBNs to see what you come up with.
Bonus
Not sure where to shop? See a list of 10 Places to Find Cheap College Textbooks Online
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Bibliographies - the lazy way « Gillian’s Learning and Qualifications Blog
"Need to look at the free versions of noodlebib, easybib and bibme" -- HSM
Bibliographies - the lazy way
Remember when writing essays, articles and academic papers meant last-minute chasing round the desk, the library and the kitchen drawer for that vital reference you quoted at least three times? Bad temper, tears, kicked cats - all that has gone. Or it should have gone. These days, you can even hire someone to do all your citations for you at a very reasonable number of cents or dollars per page.
NoodleBibs Express is one of the best free sources of help for occasional references but you can also sign up to their main service for under a dollar a month. EasyBib and BibMe are also useful for pre-degree-level work.
For more advanced academic work, most researchers will be gratefully aware that EBSCO now permits automatic export of citations - so all you have to do is remember to check the box to spare yourself hours of wondering which ‘Smith’ published that most helpful statistic on which you based your best paragraph. You can also use free tools such as CiteULike, Zotero, KnightCite, or Citation Builder. Of these, Zotero is particularly useful for Firefox users as it sits in the browser.
More commercial and sophisticated products such as RefWorks and EndNote do exist although, if you are interested in lazy ways to get your bibliography done, you probably don’t need these. As tools they are solid, but for most people brought up in an era of Web2.0 tools that make bookmarking, tagging and electronic ’sticky notes’ part of their lives, they are perhpas best used only if provided as part of a ‘free’ university library package.
Bibliographies - the lazy way « Gillian’s Learning and Qualifications Blog
scaffold [Zotero Developer Documentation]
need to look at this ..... to see if I can /want to look at creating any translators for Z0tero....HSM
Monday, July 21, 2008
Just for Fun....
NASA RESEARCH ANNOUNCES DISCOVERY OF A NEW ELEMENT
The heaviest element known to science was recently discovered by GM
Research physisists. The element, tentatively named Administratium, has no
protons or electrons and thus has an atomic number of zero. However, it
does have 1 neutron, 125 asistant neutrons, 75 vice neutrons, and 111
assistant vice neutrons. This gives it an atomic number of 312. These 312
particles are held together by a force that involves the continuous
exchange of meson-like particles called morons.
Since it has no electrons, Administratium is inert. However, it can be
detected chemically as it impedes every reaction that it comes in contact
with. According to the discoverers, a minute amount of Adimnistratium
caused one reaction to take over four days to complete when it would have
normally occuered in less than one second. Administratium has a normal
half-life of approximately three years, at which time it does not actually
decay but instead undergoes a reorganization in which assistant neutrons,
vice neutrons, and assistant vice neutrons exchange places. Some studies
have shown that the atomic mass actually increases after each
reorganization.
Research at other laboratories indicates that Administratium occurs
naturally in the atmosphere. It tends to concentrate at certain points such
as government agencies, large corporations and universities and can usually
be found in the newest, best appointed and best maintained buildings.
Scientists point out that Administratium is known to be toxic at any
detectable level of concentration and can easily destroy any productive
reaction where it is allowed to accumulate. Attempts are being made to
determine how Administratium can be controlled to prevent irreversible
damage, but results to date are not promising.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday, July 14, 2008
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Nikki Finke’s Deadline Hollywood Daily
Update from Film Library -- HSM
20th Fox Responds To Outpour Of Anger: "We Are Passionate About Film History"
Do read the furious but also informative comments from Hollywood folks who say that, contrary to 20th Century Fox's claims, the studio's film research library was and is constantly in use by both Fox lot personnel and outsiders. I hear Clint Eastwood is unhappy, too, because research for his Flags Of Our Fathers was done there. Also, the comments have some very interesting background info about the history of studio film research libraries in general. See my, What A Damn Shame. Meanwhile, everyone should know that the Warner Bros Research Library is alive and well and open, and I'm told by co-manager Steven Bingen that the studio's "management here, in all honestly, has always been very supportive of what we do. I wish my friends at Fox could be so lucky."
UPDATE: Fox gave me this statement tonight: "Contrary to implications, we are passionate about film history and about our fox history in particular. That's why we maintain one of the best and most costly photo archive departments in the business and keep comprehensive prop, art and film item archives from our films. It's why we organized the benefit for the motion picture home a couple years ago with Swann curating even our old contracts. That, however, is not what the research library is. Rather, it contains a number of general reference, broad interest books and periodicals, like a public library. That collection will be donated to a proper, curated library at a university or a guild, etc., where the public will have even greater access than they do now. The material will be taken care of in a first-class manner. As to the nostalgia that people feel for the days when studios were in many such non-movie specific businesses, we share it, too, and wish the world were still that way, but it's a muddling of points to lump this change into laments about lost film history, as it's not what it is."
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Nikki Finke’s Deadline Hollywood Daily
The quote by Joni Mitchell seemed appropriate.....HSM
"Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till its gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot"
WHAT A DAMN SHAME! 20th Fox To Close Second-To-Last Studio Research Library
UPDATE: I'm receiving a lot of emails and comments from Hollywood folks who say that, contrary to 20th Century Fox's claims, the studio's film research library was constantly in use by both Fox personnel and outsiders. I hear Clint Eastwood is unhappy, too, because considerable research for his Flags Of Our Fathers was done there.
EXCLUSIVE: I have confirmed that 20th Century Fox is very quietly shutting its film research library after 85 years in existence, the second-to-last such facility at a Hollywood studio making available books, drawings, photographs, scrapbooks, samples, and other one-of-a-kind materials. (The other studio libraries have been closed or sold off except for the Samuel Goldwyn Research Library, owned and managed by Lillian Michelson, and housed on the DreamWorks Animation lot.} "This is film history used and recycled everyday and also Los Angeles history," an insider tells me. "Once this goes, it's gone." I'm especially surprised by this decision not only because Fox Filmed Entertainment chairman Tom Rothman considers himself something of a film historian, but also because I'm told the cost of keeping the library open is negligible. But what the film community loses is priceless access to archive material by art directors, costume designers and film historians. "I cannot tell you how serious this is to the below-the-line people and creatives around town," another source tells me. "There used to be wonderous film reference libraries at each studio. A designer could walk in, ask about damask curtains and get reams of data. Now there is none. I implore you to take up this matter." Still another insider complains, "I guess Fox has to tighten its belt -- or is it a noose?" However, 20th is claiming that the library is not used enough to justify its cost, and its "contents should be transferred to a more public resource so these materials are available to the entire film community rather than just confined to those on the Fox lot".
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Two new toys for writers
Command line searching of Google! -- HSM
Goosh
I want to take a moment to plug two new tools for writers and researchers. The first I found thanks to Slashdot. It’s called Goosh. Goosh replaces the standard Google web page interface with a simulated command-line shell. As much as I like graphical interfaces, I have found that there are certain tasks that are more efficiently done by using the command line. If you use Google as much as I do, I think that you may find that investing the time to learn this shell saves much time when doing actual searches instead of slogging through endless Google web pages. On my (very) old computer, I find that I can do my Google searches in about 1/10 the time that I can using standard Google.
Here’s is how Goosh works. When you start Goosh, it defaults to web searches. To search the web, all you have to do is type the keyword on the command line. It then shows four results. To see more results, just hit enter. To go to one of these results, type the number of the result that you want and then it will open in a new tab. (It may open in a new window on your machine, since I have Firefox set to automatically open any new window requests in a new tab, unless I tell it to do otherwise.)
Blog searching is just as easy. While your prompt says /web, you have one of two choices. You can change the default search to “blog search” by typing the word “blog”, or if you just want to do a single blog search while leaving the default set for web, just type “blog” followed by your keywords, like so:
blog anarchismThere are a lot more commands available, and a brief summary of them is available by typing “help” at the Goosh prompt.
Goosh is not for the casual Googler, since it requires a little bit of a learning curve. I wish that it had a little more documentation and tutorials than the “help” command. But if you are a hard-core Googler, and are comfortable with command-line interfaces, you might find that it’s a big time saver. As a matter of fact, I am thinking about making Goosh my default start-up page. I’ve only been using it for a couple of days, and I wish that I’d found it years ago.
SansBlogue: Backup Zotero!
Good information on backing up Zotero until the commons gets up and running -- HSM
For those who have not backed up their Zotero databases. Zotero is brilliant, but one feature it needs is an easy way to backup the data. No one wants to have to recreate the database for a whole thesis or book! Till the wonderful people who program Zotero get that fixed here's how to DIY a backup (with a video for those who like to SEE how:
In "Documents and Settings" under "Application Data" and hidden under "Mozilla" in the "Firefox/Profiles" directory is one for "Zotero" just COPY that to a CD or memory stick and you are safe(r).
LibX and Zotero: Firefox Extensions for Librarians and Library Patrons
Need to look at LibX....Good place to start....HSM
LibX and Zotero: Firefox Extensions for Librarians and Library Patrons
Around the Corner - MGuhlin.net : VLC Media Player Tutorials
Around the Corner - MGuhlin.net : VLC Media Player Tutorials
"need to take a look at these" -- HSM
Around the Corner - MGuhlin.net
http://mguhlin.netMonday, June 09, 2008
VLC Media Player Tutorials
For a long time, I've wanted to compile my VLC Media Player tutorials--a series of steps on how to convert video/audio, etc--using this awesome, free open source tool that works on Mac, GNU/Linux and Windows. Clay Burell finally broke me down with the final straw via a tweet at 11:00 PM or so at night (past my bedtime).
So, for fun, I added some tutorials for using VLC Media Player to accomplish the following...only one of them has screenshots, but I'll add those as time allows.
As time allows, I'll add more tutorials to this page.
Around the Corner - MGuhlin.net : VLC Media Player Tutorials
Monday, May 19, 2008
The Sloan Career Cornerstone Center
Book from the NSF.....
Girls In Engineering - PDF book which makes recommendations on how science and engineering should be taught so as to increase the number of women and minorities in the scientific and engineering workforce.
The Many Uses of Vodka
Interesting tips--- HSM
The Many Uses of Vodka
By: Dahlia Rideout (
View Profile)
Aside from being a fantastic drink, vodka has many uses which you may not have known about. Since vodka is one of the world's most popular drinks, many of us have a bottle handy in the home. And since its typically filtered and pure, it makes a handy liquid to have around.
Here are a few uses:
- To remove a bandage painlessly, saturate the bandage with vodka. The solvent dissolves adhesive
- To clean the caulking around bathtubs and showers, fill a trigger-spray bottle with vodka, spray the caulking, let set five minutes and wash clean. The alcohol in the vodka kills mold and mildew.
- Clean jewelry. Soak the jewelry in vodka for five minutes, then rinse, and dry.
- Clean lipstick from clothing. Rub the stain with vodka, then throw into your regular wash.
- Remove the glue left behind by a bumper sticker. Rub the glue with a soft, clean cloth soaked with vodka
- Prolong the life of razors by filling a cup with vodka and letting your safety razor blade soak in the alcohol after shaving. The vodka disinfects the blade and prevents rusting.
- Spray vodka on vomit stains, scrub with a brush, then blot dry.
- Using a cotton ball, apply vodka to your face as an astringent to cleanse the skin and tighten pores.
- Add a jigger of vodka to a 12-ounce bottle of shampoo. The alcohol cleanses the scalp, removes toxins from hair, and stimulates the growth of healthy hair.
- Fill a sixteen-ounce trigger-spray bottle and spray bees or wasps to kill them.
- Pour one-half cup vodka and one-half cup water in a Ziplock freezer bag and freeze for a slushy, refreshable ice pack for aches, pain or black eyes.
- Fill a clean, used mayonnaise jar with freshly packed lavender flowers, fill the jar with vodka, seal the lid tightly and set in the sun for three days. Strain liquid through a coffee filter, then apply the tincture to aches and pains.
- To relieve a fever, use a washcloth to rub vodka on your chest and back as a liniment.
- To cure foot odor, wash your feet with vodka.
- vodka will disinfect and alleviate a jellyfish sting.
- Pour vodka over an area affected with poison ivy to remove the urushiol oil from your skin.
- Swish a shot of vodka over an aching tooth. Allow your gums to absorb some of the alcohol to numb the pain.
- Soothe a sore throat. Add a tablespoon of vodka to glass of warm water and gargle. The alcohol helps numb the sore throat.
- Eliminate swimer's ear. If you don't have rubbing alcohol, fill an eardropper with vodka, and squeeze it into the affected ear, then let it drain out
Article source: Miss Charming.com. Photo courtesy of Kaishin on Flickr (via Creative Commons).
Monday, May 5, 2008
Ploofle » Software list
For review -- hsm
Software list
Published by Charlene | Filed under geeky stuff
Just for grins, I’ve gone through my computer to see what stuff I use is open-source or free…and here’s what I got. You can just google the names as I’m too lazy to link. But I’ll write a bit about the things I like.
Work
OpenOffice - Does word, powerpoint, excel-like things. Also has a better system for page layout and visio-like drawings in my opinion.
Zotero (with OpenOffice/Word extensions for in-document citing) - A firefox addon that lets you download RDF/DOI data (think autofilling of citation fields) from most places, including PubMed, and store the pdf/article in the database, AND you can tag and it’ll do fulltext searches within both citation info and the pdfs on the fly. The extensions let you cite from it and formats automatically into a lot of typical citation styles with either endnotes or footnotes.
InfraRecorder - Burns CDs, DVD, or makes ISOs painlessly.
Handbrake - Converts video (VOB files) painlessly into various divx formats, including for ipods
VirtualDub - Make simple video edits/effects for AVI files
Audacity - Record or edit sound.
Firefox - You know what this is
Free Download Manager - Very useful here in Mongolia. Supports download resuming without as far as I know putting crap on your computer.
WAMP - An all-in-one package that runs a local Apache web server with the latest versions of PHP and MySQL. Can also be set up to run multiple versions of PHP and MySQL or set up as a “live” webserver. Includes SQLite I believe, but I don’t use it.
OpenEpi - Offline (but browser-based) interface to a lot of common biostatistical/epi/public health calculations, such as sample size or chi stuffs. Also explains decently what these calculations are for.
WeftQDA - Haven’t used it for real, but it’s a qualitative data analysis tool similar to ATLAS.ti
FreeMind - Used for mind-mapping - multi-branched tree-like structures that are great for group work and discussions or medium-sized planning sessions where you want to focus on gathering all ideas then refining/organizing them
Sumatra PDF - Simple PDF reader that will run off a USB drive - also saves/bookmarks the last page you had open of individual files if you do the ebook thing.
CutePDF - “Prints” files to PDF format
CompareIt - Just that. Compares line-by-line two files for changes. Useful if you poorly manage documents or code, as I do.
Fun
VideoLan - Great media player - plays virtually anything and will try to fix corrupted files
Trillian - Multi-platform chat client
QuickPlay with ZSNES, Kega Fusion, Nestopia - Old video games! And Quickplay serves as a management frontend for the various systems and stuff.
StepMania - DDR clone for computers. Many many many songs are available online, and with a laptop with tv-out and a usb-based pad, you have DDR for real.Utilities
WinDirStat - Cool utility for looking at your hard drive’s space usage graphically to identify where you have random large amounts of crap. Also has cool pacman hourglass-equivalent icon while analyzing your drive.
USBVirusScan - Needs some setup, but in the end will execute a program (e.g., a virus scanner) upon insertion of any removable disk.
PuTTY - Blame sourceforge. Used for SSH and telnet-kinds of things. Mostly command-line
Spybot - Malware/web-based exploit protection software. May be becoming obsolete with more virus scanners including this kind of module…
TortoiseCVS, TortoiseSVN - Again, sourceforge. Used on Windows machines for CVS/SVN code management
WinRAR - Shareware. Much nicer interface than Winzip
FileZilla - FTP tool
Firebug - Firefox extension for checking code in browsers and examining CSS.
UW proxy tool - Used with Firefox to toggle on or off UW netid authentication when looking for articles and what-not.Even if that wasn’t interesting to you, now I have it saved somewhere so I can download stuff if I need it later and don’t remember what I have…
Monday, January 7, 2008
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)