In downloading to Google Docs the graphics and italics were lost. The table remained intact and the bullet points became plain dots.
As long as you only want to retrieve the content of your document and not the artistic presentation then this is a great way of getting around a lack of the same version of software on different machines.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Monday, August 16, 2010
Specialist Search Engines
Blinkx claims to be the world's largest video search engine and I believe it! My advanced search on 'hiking new zealand' brought up lots of wonderful videos from Youtube. I like the continuous short exerts that play. It is all so much more interative than the straight Youtube search.
My searches on Time Magazine gave only the context of the words because the articles I found were in copyright.
I did a search of the magazines re global warming. There were some 4,000 hits. The oldest loaded was 1989. This search facility could be useful when looking for an article in a 'popular' magazine. By using the Advance search I could limit my search to more recent articles and cut down the number of hits.
My searches on Time Magazine gave only the context of the words because the articles I found were in copyright.
I did a search of the magazines re global warming. There were some 4,000 hits. The oldest loaded was 1989. This search facility could be useful when looking for an article in a 'popular' magazine. By using the Advance search I could limit my search to more recent articles and cut down the number of hits.
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Google Web Searches
The various google seach options are great for narrowing down the number of articles or images you might want so that your search is as relevant as possible. Having the choice to only look at the latest is particularly useful for students who are looking for current information. The Wonder Wheel simple arrangement of relevant and related search results gives another search mechanism that might be easier for a lot of people. Not every topic has a Wonder Wheel but this number will grow. Again the Timeline is a format that appeals but it does often pick up irrelevancies when it thinks a number is a year.
My search for immunisations across the various search engines showed many differences in the results. On BING the results were very biased to the U.S. Dept Health and I only got a quarter of the search results that YAHOO gave me until I changed the s to a z in immunisations. Using Bing's Images I was able to limit them to all colour or just faces.
YAHOO gives you a page to take notes, a nice touch I thought. It also gives you a link on the left to the official bodies or journals/newspapers responsible for the articles so you can go just into them e.g.New Zealand Medical Association or NZ Herald. All NZ relevant if spelt with an s. Had to change to a z to get other relevant articles from overseas.
Exalead differs greatly in giving a graphic illustration of the front page of each website. Again I had to change the spelling to the American to get maximum number of hits.
All search engines were intuitive of my being in NZ and gave me articles from NZ first.
My search for immunisations across the various search engines showed many differences in the results. On BING the results were very biased to the U.S. Dept Health and I only got a quarter of the search results that YAHOO gave me until I changed the s to a z in immunisations. Using Bing's Images I was able to limit them to all colour or just faces.
YAHOO gives you a page to take notes, a nice touch I thought. It also gives you a link on the left to the official bodies or journals/newspapers responsible for the articles so you can go just into them e.g.New Zealand Medical Association or NZ Herald. All NZ relevant if spelt with an s. Had to change to a z to get other relevant articles from overseas.
Exalead differs greatly in giving a graphic illustration of the front page of each website. Again I had to change the spelling to the American to get maximum number of hits.
All search engines were intuitive of my being in NZ and gave me articles from NZ first.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Google alerts
I chose alerts for homoeopathy, swine flu and all whites soccer. I had to edit the swine flu topic and limit it to news items because it was inundating me. Not so much happening with the All Whites at the moment. Should have chosen to search the Black Sticks! The homoeopathy has so far turned up books for sale and a few blog comments which haven't been very enlightening. I should have perhaps gone for alternative health but that would probably cause a landslide. Maybe I should try using the spelling homeopathy without the second o which most people use. Google alerts is a great way of following a current topic or maybe a group/singer you are passionate about.
My Proquest feed with articles on xenotransplantation has produced a substantial list! This paper caught my eye ! Huh?!!
My Proquest feed with articles on xenotransplantation has produced a substantial list! This paper caught my eye ! Huh?!!
| 6. | Susceptibility of recombinant porcine endogenous retrovirus reverse transcriptase to nucleoside and non-nucleoside inhibitors M Wilhelm, J A Fishman, R Pontikis, A-M Aubertin, F X Wilhelm. Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences. Basel: Dec 2002. Vol. 59, Iss. 12; p. 2184 |
Monday, August 2, 2010
Topic 3 - RSS feeds
Soooo frustrating! Whenever I go into MyAccess Science it just takes me back to the Library web page. To top it off we have gone back to dialup here at home.
Tried the Proquest question but no luck there either. When I tried dropping the URL into my Bloglines account it gave me something completely irrelevant. Will have to move on and do this question at work with some input.
(5 minutes later)
Have just gone into my gmail and found that last nights gobbledygook worked!!! I have a feed for xenotransplantation. Yay! Now I just have to sort out MyAccess Science. Not sure I'm ready to roll this out to the public. Perhaps I better have another go when we get broadband back!
Tried the Proquest question but no luck there either. When I tried dropping the URL into my Bloglines account it gave me something completely irrelevant. Will have to move on and do this question at work with some input.
(5 minutes later)
Have just gone into my gmail and found that last nights gobbledygook worked!!! I have a feed for xenotransplantation. Yay! Now I just have to sort out MyAccess Science. Not sure I'm ready to roll this out to the public. Perhaps I better have another go when we get broadband back!
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Twitter and libraries
Our National Library use Twitter with a great deal of humour. Their tweets are short and pithy and when you see the photos they are commenting on you find that they have enhanced what is often quite a dated boring image. They caught my interest so that I would want to follow them.
The British Library uses their Twitter account to communicate with their followers things like their annual report being published and up and coming exhibitions. URLs in their tweets often link to a more in depth article about the topic. They have lots of followers who contribute. Some amazing photos.
Dunedin Public Libraries uses their Twitter account to inform the public of what is happening in the libraries. They have now over 500 tweets. The lighthearted comments make it an attractive account to follow.
The British Library uses their Twitter account to communicate with their followers things like their annual report being published and up and coming exhibitions. URLs in their tweets often link to a more in depth article about the topic. They have lots of followers who contribute. Some amazing photos.
Dunedin Public Libraries uses their Twitter account to inform the public of what is happening in the libraries. They have now over 500 tweets. The lighthearted comments make it an attractive account to follow.
Monday, July 26, 2010
TWITTER - topic 2
In Twitter Search I used the term geocaching, something that has always intrigued me but I haven't actually tried it yet. The results only showed in one chosen language at a time. There were lots of tweets in the last hour and even one 2 minutes ago. The same search in ChirpCity gave quite different results. The first column shows tweets from the Official Global GPS Cache Hunt Site. The second column has tweets containing the word geocaching and they were in a huge variety of languages.
I tried Auckland in Twitter Search and got tweets about the weather, the food festival and all sorts of personal asides. In ChirpCity there was only one tweet in the 1st column from the Auckland Saas Special Interest Group and I recognised a lot of the same tweets in the second column that were the same as in Twitter Search.
It's often hard to make sense of a comment on its own because it is short and can be very personal. . To use Twitter to maximum effect you need to follow people's comments over time to build up a picture. The tweets linked to fuller articles on individual topics are most useful.
I tried Auckland in Twitter Search and got tweets about the weather, the food festival and all sorts of personal asides. In ChirpCity there was only one tweet in the 1st column from the Auckland Saas Special Interest Group and I recognised a lot of the same tweets in the second column that were the same as in Twitter Search.
It's often hard to make sense of a comment on its own because it is short and can be very personal. . To use Twitter to maximum effect you need to follow people's comments over time to build up a picture. The tweets linked to fuller articles on individual topics are most useful.
I looked at John Key's Twitter. It is obviously done by his PR people. It gives a very positive image of our PM and some great photos of overseas trips and sporting contacts.
NZ History Online is very different. Much more academic with a snippet of history for each day of the year. When you go into individual articles you get a full "this week in history" at the end of the entry. There was a recent entry for Maori Week which gave 365 useful words and phrases in te reo Maori. Lots of variety in the tweeting! Nothing very exciting when I put in my birth date in history. We lost a cricket match in 1955 with the dismal number of 26 runs! and we signed a CER agreement in 1983.
I did set up a Twitter account the first time round with Web 2.0. Small talk is not my thing so so I haven't bothered using the account. People like Stephen Fry have a great reputation cos they love to tweet and people love to follow celebraties.
NZ History Online is very different. Much more academic with a snippet of history for each day of the year. When you go into individual articles you get a full "this week in history" at the end of the entry. There was a recent entry for Maori Week which gave 365 useful words and phrases in te reo Maori. Lots of variety in the tweeting! Nothing very exciting when I put in my birth date in history. We lost a cricket match in 1955 with the dismal number of 26 runs! and we signed a CER agreement in 1983.
I did set up a Twitter account the first time round with Web 2.0. Small talk is not my thing so so I haven't bothered using the account. People like Stephen Fry have a great reputation cos they love to tweet and people love to follow celebraties.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Creative Commons
The Creative Commons licence conditions for this Web 2.0 learning programme and the image that I looked up on Flickr happen to be the same. They both leave you free to share and remix, provided the user attributes the work to NSL or the photographer, and neither allow commercial use. These conditions can be waived if you get permission from the owners.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/markandmikeabroad/2977204503/sizes/o/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/markandmikeabroad/2977204503/sizes/o/
OpenID
Interesting that I already have several OpenIDs with google, blogger and MySpace . I can see the convenience of it, not having to fill in all the paperwork each time you need a user id and password, but I don't think I'll be using it anytime soon. Most of my internet use at home is banking and social networking.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Online Privacy and Security
Yes the content in this module has had great relevance to my household of internet surfers.
The year 7 and 8's at my daughter's school have just done a module on internet security and the school put on a seminar by NetSafe. I now know my daughter is using McAfee security software - thought we all had Norton. Have also noticed that she ignores the security updates if she doesn't want her current windows to close so we have had some wisdom from me about that.
What can I tell our patrons. I'll be more emphatic about password security. We have a number of patrons who would benefit from a KeePass account. Would recommend the Netsafe video on cyberbullying to parents and kids alike. We should promote this sort of info in the Homework Learning Centres. I do think we have an important role to play in educating our users to keep themselves cybersafe.
The year 7 and 8's at my daughter's school have just done a module on internet security and the school put on a seminar by NetSafe. I now know my daughter is using McAfee security software - thought we all had Norton. Have also noticed that she ignores the security updates if she doesn't want her current windows to close so we have had some wisdom from me about that.
What can I tell our patrons. I'll be more emphatic about password security. We have a number of patrons who would benefit from a KeePass account. Would recommend the Netsafe video on cyberbullying to parents and kids alike. We should promote this sort of info in the Homework Learning Centres. I do think we have an important role to play in educating our users to keep themselves cybersafe.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
# 23 Things
My pseudonym 'trailingbehind' referred to my lack of tramping but became synoymous with not keeping up with Web 2.0. Now I'm finally there I'd like to do the other 23 things! This has been an awesome exercise. I have embraced social networking with my Facebook page and have plans to set up my own blog to document my tramping. The blog feeds I now have are keeping me in touch with topics daily and I feel like I have a new hobby. Great that these skills transfer to my professional life and have helped me gain some rapport with my own teenagers as well as our library patrons. I particularly enjoyed the creative outlet the blog allowed, the adding of photos and a favourite Youtube video. I thought that the enthusiasm of some of my colleagues was particularly motivational. The whole exercise has had the unexpected benefit of networking about topics that wouldn't normally get discussed during the course of a day and I think most of us feel a great sense of achievement.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
# 22 Social net-working
It's true, at North Shore Libraries we're not moving fast enough into social networking. There are some 96 million profiles on MySpace. We should be more proactive and join in. By using blogs, MySpace or Bebo we could reach many more teenagers than just those who come in our front door. Teens can make the library one of their friends and then they are reminded of the library whenever they log into their space. They can interact with us in a familiar envirnoment that would allow constructive dialogue There are some brilliant ideas to be shared on library blogs. Teen Zone - The Blog had posts about video gaming evenings, The Loft@ImaginOn allowed me to chose the background music as I trawled through photos of library events, book reviews and author site links. The interactiveness of such sites is very attractive and we shouldn't hestitate to tap into these social networks.
# 21 Facebook etc.
My daughter showed me her Bebo site and took me through some of her friends sites. It's such an attractive medium for today's youth that we should be communicating this way with our teenage patrons. Rotorua's bebo site is awesome and very attractive. I had a look at My Space but it didn't gel for me.
I set up a Facebook account several weeks ago in anticipation of communicating with my son's College facebook while he is in France. It has worked out really well as I have been able to write on their wall and view photos that they have downloaded. Now I discover there is a NSL facebook and in the meantime I have made contact with several old school friends. The networking potential is incredible.
I set up a Facebook account several weeks ago in anticipation of communicating with my son's College facebook while he is in France. It has worked out really well as I have been able to write on their wall and view photos that they have downloaded. Now I discover there is a NSL facebook and in the meantime I have made contact with several old school friends. The networking potential is incredible.
Monday, October 6, 2008
# 20 E-books
Searched for an English version of Victor Hugo's Les Miserables (1862). Translation copyrighted 1887 it was readily available on Project Gutenberg. Only released 22/6/08 it was available in HTML or Plain text formats. The complexities of copyright make such books the obvious choice to publish on the net. The increasing digital access to the world's most prestigious libraries is awesome.
It's not surprising that some of the e-book software providers for books in copyright make you use their own make of e-books so that they can have a piece of the market. No doubt we will be subscribing to many e-books in the near future but I don't believe the portability and pleasure of curling up with a book on the couch will ever be superceded. If anything, people's awareness of publications on the net will increase the demand for our services.
It's not surprising that some of the e-book software providers for books in copyright make you use their own make of e-books so that they can have a piece of the market. No doubt we will be subscribing to many e-books in the near future but I don't believe the portability and pleasure of curling up with a book on the couch will ever be superceded. If anything, people's awareness of publications on the net will increase the demand for our services.
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