What I Learned Today...

Today’s Bookmarks 09/09/2010

Nicole — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 00:35:37 +0000

24 Impressive Blog Plugins You Should Consider

tags: ['wordpress' 'plugins' 'opensource']

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Today’s Bookmarks 09/05/2010

Nicole — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 00:37:10 +0000

Spree
Open Source E-Commerce for Ruby on Rails. Spree capitalizes on the dynamic nature of the Ruby programming language to provide the most flexible commerce platform available. Spree has been designed from the ground up to be as open and extensible as possible. You no longer have to be frustrated with the limited set of choices provided by most platforms.

tags: opensource rubyonrails ruby ecommerce e-commerce

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Gmail Priority Inbox

Nicole — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 12:07:31 +0000

I read a few tweets yesterday about people using the new Gmail Priority Inbox and was very jealous. Today I see that it has been activated on my Google Apps account (but not my Gmail account yet).

This new feature is about organizing your inbox more efficiently. Google tries to determine what types of messages are important to you and which are less so. Having this enabled on my work account isn’t really that helpful because everything that comes through there is important – but I can’t wait to see it on my personal email box where I get all kinds of messages from mailing lists and unsolicited sources.

I’d love to hear what others are experiencing with this new feature – and if you’re still not a Gmail user, I highly recommend you jump in and give it a whirl!

Today’s Bookmarks 09/03/2010

Nicole — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 00:35:58 +0000

Pinguy OS
This OS is for people that have never used Linux before or for people that just want an out-of-the-box working OS without doing all the tweaks and enhancements that everyone seems to do when installing a fresh copy of Ubuntu or other Linux based Distro’s.

tags: opensource ubuntu operatingsystem os operating system
WooThemes Free WordPress Themes

tags: wordpress themes Webdesign theme
Templatic Free WordPress Themes

tags: wordpress themes Webdesign theme
Padd Solutions
Free wordpress themes

tags: wordpress theme Webdesign themes
BlogBooker
BlogBooker produces a high-quality PDF Blog Book from all your blog’s entries and comments. Archives can be generated from any blog running on WordPress, LiveJournal (and derivatives) or Blogger.

tags: blogging books wordpress opensource ebook pdf
Anthologize
Use the power of WordPress to transform online content into an electronic book.

tags: wordpress opensource ebook blog blogging books

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

New Librarian Q&A Site

Nicole — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 21:04:22 +0000

I received an email the other day about a proposal for a new Q&A site for librarians to communicate with each other. The explanation I got was:

Stack Exchange was previously a paid service that was changed to free, and this Libraries proposal is based on an existing site operating on the old platform called Unshelved Answers. (It was created by the people behind the Unshelved library comic strip.) The existing site has a whole range of questions about things like policies, programming, software and other tools. There are a bunch of interesting questions trying to figure out book titles from snippets of plots and other book details. All of the user content on the site is licensed under a Creative Commons license and will probably be imported into the new site if it succeeds in getting enough people to sign up.

It took me a little while to understand the point of the site, but I think I finally get it! Basically librarians would sign up and post questions and answers to their colleagues on topics such as policies, technologies, or general fun things like ‘what are you reading?’ I see a great potential to build a knowledge base using this tool and it seems like something you’d all be interested in maybe signing up for.

Right now the site is in the vote gathering phase. This means that we need the commitment of 100% (but I can’t find how many votes will equal that percentage). If you’d like to see the proposal and possibly commit to it, you can do so at this site.

No more Facebook Profile Boxes

Nicole — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 11:08:03 +0000

I’m not really heart broken over this change – but I also don’t understand the why behind it. Facebook has decided to remove all third party applications from our profiles. According to Facebook:

Profile Boxes are the third-party applications that are featured in boxes on your profile. You can now add a “bookmark” to the left side of the Facebook home page for these applications.

What will happen to my Boxes in the future?

As part of our ongoing efforts to improve the user experience and promote consistency across the site, soon Facebook will no longer support profile boxes from applications. In order to access your favorite applications more easily, you can bookmark them.

To learn more you can visit the help page on this topic. Like I said, this really doesn’t matter much to me, but I know many other people with a lot of these such boxes that will now be going away.

Today’s Bookmarks 08/31/2010

Nicole — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 00:35:47 +0000

OpenVBX:
OpenVBX is a web-based open source phone system for business.

tags: opensource voip phone
The Guide DB
TheGuideDB.com is a Search Engine. Search millions of guides. Find your guide to any topic.

tags: search tutorials guide database documentation
Yamli Translate
Automatically translate as you type.

tags: translate translation
Your Twapper Keeper
Archive your own tweets

tags: archive twitter opensource

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Visual Search for Flights

Nicole — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 16:07:51 +0000

I have just been playing with Hipmunk – a new air travel search engine – and I have to say I’m impressed. I don’t know for sure if I’m getting the best prices (and can’t tell you that until I use it for a while) but what I am getting is a new way to visualize flights. As most of you know I travel a lot (an understatement) and sometimes I spend hours trying to book travel efficiently and cost effectively. Hipmunk displays flights the way I think – graphically.

I did a search from my two local airports to LAX (for my trip to New Zealand this fall), they were split between two tabs so I can jump back and forth easily (something other sites do not make easy) to compare times, airlines and prices.

I’ll keep trying Hipmunk before my upcoming trips and if I find something else worth mentioning I’ll be sure to share!

Today’s Bookmarks 08/30/2010

Nicole — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 00:35:17 +0000

FishMemory
Create multi-level ToDo lists. Set email reminders. Share, print or export your lists. Add tags and notes.

tags: lists todo productivity
Open Access Journals Bibliography
This bibliography presents selected English-language scholarly works that are useful in understanding open access journals.

tags: journals bibliography open_access library
Archon: The Simple Archival Information System
Archon is award-winning software for archivists and manuscript curators. It automatically publishes archival descriptive information and digital archival objects in a user-friendly website. With Archon, there is no need to encode a finding aid, input a catalog record, or program a stylesheet. Archon’s powerful scripts will automatically make everything in the system searchable and browsable on your repository’s website!

tags: opensource archives library
The Ultimate jQuery List
A really big 1-page list of plugins & examples for jQuery

tags: jquery javascript tutorials programming ajax plugins

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Deals & Freebies

Nicole — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 13:18:52 +0000

Yesterday I was stumbling around the web and came across a site I hadn’t heard of before called 101 Free Tech Books. They have a raffle once a month and give away print tech books (not e-books) to the winners. If you’ve bought a book on programming or computers lately you know that these books can add up in cost pretty quickly. I haven’t won anything yet, so I don’t know how easy it is to snag one of these books, but it seems like a pretty awesome idea and worth giving it a try to get free books!

This second site isn’t so much technology related, but I have recently become a fan of a pretty cool deal site called Groupon and thought that some of you might find it interesting. Basically you sign up to get deals in your area, called Groupons (like coupons for a group) and if enough people promise to buy the Groupon the deal is on. I recently got a Groupon for $110 worth of photobooks for only $25 (a technology-ish type deal).

Finally and most awesome – if you want to learn more about finding deals and saving money you should checkout my friend Rachel and her awesome Mashup Mom site & her newest book Point, Click, and Save.

Today’s Bookmarks 08/29/2010

Nicole — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 00:37:27 +0000

OpenScholar
A full-featured web site-creation package solely for the academic community. Scholars create web sites in seconds and can easily manage everything themselves (for free)

tags: academic drupal opensource CMS
CoLab | Open Source Science
Designed for open and massively collaborative science.

tags: science open opensource
Lightspark
Lightspark is a modern, free, open-source flash player implementation.

tags: media opensource
Boxee
Movies, TV Shows and Video from the Internet on your TV.

tags: media mediacenter tv opensource
Contacts for Firefox
With Contacts, we’ve enhanced your browser by making it aware of your online contacts and friend lists. You can then search and browse your contacts in the browser, and a website can ask for permission to access them through an API.

tags: mozilla contacts opensource firefox
KompoZer
KompoZer is a complete Web Authoring System that combines web file management and easy-to-use WYSIWYG web page editing capabilities found in Microsoft FrontPage, Adobe DreamWeaver and other high end programs.

tags: opensource web-development web-design webdesign webdev

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Today’s Bookmarks 08/28/2010

Nicole — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 00:35:34 +0000

Opencast
The Opencast Matterhorn project is an enterprise-level, easy-to-install open source podcast and rich media capture, processing and delivery system.

tags: podcast opensource

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Today’s Bookmarks 08/27/2010

Nicole — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 00:35:58 +0000

Chocomize
Personalized Chocolate Bars

tags: chocolate gifts shopping candy

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Today’s Bookmarks 08/25/2010

Nicole — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 00:35:44 +0000

OpenDocMan
OpenDocMan is a free PHP document management system (DMS) designed to comply with ISO 17025 and OIE standard for document management. It features web based access, fine grained control of access to files, and automated install and upgrades.

tags: opensource document documentation management

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Facebook Privacy: Location Checkin

Nicole — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 12:16:42 +0000

So, it looks like Facebook has done it again – they have released a new feature and opted us all in by default. The new feature is called Places and acts like Foursquare – except that Foursquare lets me pick who I share with and what I share. If you, like me, want to disable this by default Lifehacker has a great guide for you.

Basically this backs up what I keep saying in my Facebook classes. Make sure you check your privacy settings often – it’s hard to keep up with all the new things Facebook is doing, but it’s easy to keep your privacy settings up to date just by checking them once a month or so.

Today’s Bookmarks 08/23/2010

Nicole — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 00:35:24 +0000

SQL Buddy
Web based MySQL administration

tags: mysql database web

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Today’s Bookmarks 08/19/2010

Nicole — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 00:35:48 +0000

Cinefx
Cinefx is a suite of open source, cross platform media playback, encoding, visual effects and editing digital content creation tools.

tags: opensource video editing
OpenShot Video Editor
Open Source Video Editor for Linux

tags: ubuntu linux video editing opensource

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Today’s Bookmarks 08/12/2010

Nicole — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 00:35:42 +0000

ActiveInbox
Gmail plugin for organized email management

tags: plugin email gmail

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

New Gmail

Nicole — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 19:14:50 +0000

I just logged into Gmail to find that things are changed – not much, but changed just the same.

Things look a bit cleaner and I love that my contacts are now at the top of the screen (before they were below my ton of labels). I’m also checking out the changes to contacts which were much needed for someone like me who uses my Google contacts for everything.

Today’s Bookmarks 08/10/2010

Nicole — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 00:35:56 +0000

GETideas.org
An open, online community for education leaders

tags: education community social
paper.li
paper.li organizes links shared on Twitter into an easy to read newspaper-style format. Newspapers can be created for any Twitter user, list or #tag.

tags: twitter newspaper socialmedia news stream

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Off Topic: A Review of StarCraft II

Nicole — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 19:06:49 +0000

I posted this on my husband’s game blog, but I’m a bit annoyed and this site has a wider reach Maybe I’ll get some good support if I post in multiple places.

First thing you need to know about me. Before meeting Brian in college the only games I played were minesweeper, solitaire and Oregon Trail (the original). I am not a hard core gamer, and when I play games I play them over and over. When I met Brian I used to sit with him in his dorm while he played on his computer. The game he was playing most often Freshman year was StarCraft and I asked him to teach it to me. Soon after I surpassed him in StarCraft and became totally addicted. Since then I have played many other real time strategies and have loved most of them.

It just makes sense that Brian would come home on Tuesday with a copy of StarCraft II just for me! I installed it immediately and proceeded to play whenever I have time. I have to admit I was worried. I thought that Blizzard was going to go the route of World of WarCraft and make the focus on massively multi-player, but I was pleasantly surprised. They were able to keep the old StarCraft feel while still introducing new features. I love that you can now choose which missions to do and in what order. I love the idea of mercenaries and the fact that you can choose your own upgrades and research projects. I love the single player game play in general.

That said, I completed the game this morning and am a bit disappointed to find that the time spent in single player is no where near as long as you’d expect. It took me longer to finish the original StarCraft and I was in college – aka had tons of free time – then. I was re-playing StarCraft before this release, and it took me less time to finish StarCraft II than it did to finish the Terran campaign in StarCraft. So my fears that Blizzard would put the focus on multi-player were not unfounded. Apparently they were hoping that you’d be online playing so much that you wouldn’t realize that you just paid $60 for 3 hours of game play (maybe I’m exaggerating, I didn’t keep track of how long it took me – I will the second time through).

Let’s top all of that with the DRM that Blizzard thought they’d add to the game and I’m wishing there was a money back guarantee. What DRM? Well apparently in order to play offline you must authenticate (don’t ask me to define this) your game on Battle.net. I signed up with Battle.net and registered my game. I signed in and played single player for a hour or so. Then the next day I took the computer with me on the road (with the disk in the drive) and tried to play offline. This was no possible. The game kept telling me to authenticate my copy in order to play offline – but no where does it define ‘authenticate.’ I checked the support forums and the web, everyone says you should only have to sign into the game once while online and then be able to play – but I did this and got no where. I wrote to support and got a form email telling me that I had to authenticate my game every 30 days in order to play offline – once again no explanation of what ‘authenticate’ means. I tried to call support but it was a 45 minute wait and I was not going to waste my minutes on that.

So – final verdict. The game play is pretty darn cool and the improvements well done without losing the real StarCraft feel. The price tag is an insult – and an obvious ploy to get us to play $180 for a full game instead of $60 for all three campaigns in one. The DRM is nothing but trouble and there are plenty of hacks out there I can use to bypass it (legally I might add) but should I have to do that when I paid for the game? Maybe I would have paid $30 for the game and been perfectly happy, but as I said earlier – I’m wishing I had a satisfaction guarantee and could return it.

Today’s Bookmarks 07/31/2010

Nicole — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 00:35:37 +0000

Rssinclude
With rssinclude.com you can publish news feeds on your website quickly and easily!

tags: rss widget tools

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Beau is learning open source

Nicole — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 16:27:23 +0000

I was teaching a webinar this morning on Open Source for Libraries. Before it started, Beau started scratching at my legs for me to pick him up. So I put him in my lap and he decided the laptop was a good place to rest his head.

That’s my baby boy!

Automated content broken

Nicole — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 11:54:20 +0000

I know that some of you don’t like my automated posts from Delicious & Zotero but for those of you that do like them, I’m sorry that they have been missing for a while. I’m not sure what happened, but they seemed to have stopped running. I’ll get to fixing them ASAP.

Open Source CMS Survey

Nicole — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 15:56:01 +0000

This came across with a few of my mailing lists today and I thought you’d all be interested:

I am conducting a survey for my dissertation which looks at the changing role of the public library website. It also explores the role that open source content management systems play in this change. If you work for a public library and have migrated your web content from a static HTML environment to an open source CMS, I kindly request approximately fifteen minutes of your time to complete a ten-question survey. I have been reaching out to a number of libraries directly, so if I have already contacted you regarding this matter please ignore this message.

The survey can be accessed by following this link: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/5VX7F8Q

Further information on the project and the way data will be handled is available here: http://notepad.cc/share/rkeH3HBhOz

Regards,
Michael Pawlus