It's been a long time since I tried this and it was good to be reminded of how to do it. The process is simple but very handy to know how - when I first received the attachment and clicked on the 'open as a Google document' there was a cheerful yellow smiley person but when I saved it to my desktop and then uploaded, the smiley face had gone. However, the rest of the document was basically the same.
A good exercise and will keep the file convertor notes in a safe place so that I can play with it later and try some more.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Monday, November 23, 2009
Sunday, November 22, 2009
specialist search engines
Google Book search is fantastic and it is something that would be great to use - especially when looking for material from older books. The magazine search is really useful although limited obviously to what they have there. I searched Old House Interiors and looked through a 2005 issue. How handy to be able to find articles or photos from a magazine that is out of print or withdrawn from the library. A great information tool for finding material related to hobbies or more general topics.
I have never looked at Blinx before and really liked it. While I often search on youtube it is messy with lots of added bits that are not related. On youtube I looked for the TV programme 'The Wire'. It came up with 77,500 hits, many of which had nothing to do with the programme. The pages on youtube have so much on them that you need to hunt around to find the right links. Blinx, on the other hand is really clear and straightforward. When I repeated my search for 'The Wire' immediately there came an overview of the programme with clear links to the different episodes.
I have never looked at Blinx before and really liked it. While I often search on youtube it is messy with lots of added bits that are not related. On youtube I looked for the TV programme 'The Wire'. It came up with 77,500 hits, many of which had nothing to do with the programme. The pages on youtube have so much on them that you need to hunt around to find the right links. Blinx, on the other hand is really clear and straightforward. When I repeated my search for 'The Wire' immediately there came an overview of the programme with clear links to the different episodes.
discovering search engines
Had a look at Google, Yahoo, Bing and Exalead. The first search I did was for the topic 'Maori archives' and Google gave me the best results, particularly in the timeline. It gave an excellent overview starting from the Treaty of Waitangi showing how Maori archives began to evolve. The initial results from Yahoo were not as good( they seemed to be more commercial) but when you clicked on to their 'related concepts' a list of good search options came up. This also happened in Yahoo with my other search for information about manuka honey. However, Google gave the most accessible results and for manuka honey I used the wonder wheel which gave good search alternatives. I'm not mentioning Exalead because I didn't really enjoy using it.
I found the site a bit messy and uninviting.
I found the site a bit messy and uninviting.
being alert
I created 2 alerts - one for Xmas recipes and the other for daily horoscopes. The Xmas recipes worked out really well, exactly what I wanted; but not too many. Through one of the alerts I also found a link to a site that personally really appeals called the ' shabby chic cottage' which is a site( American) dedicated to lots of vintage finds.
The other alert for daily horoscopes didn't work out quite so well. It was too general and I ended up getting articles about the idea of horoscopes etc without the specific so will either change or delete that. The idea of creating alerts is a good one although one or two at a time would be enough otherwise it could be quite time consuming.
The other alert for daily horoscopes didn't work out quite so well. It was too general and I ended up getting articles about the idea of horoscopes etc without the specific so will either change or delete that. The idea of creating alerts is a good one although one or two at a time would be enough otherwise it could be quite time consuming.
Friday, November 20, 2009
rss
Enjoyed searching through AccessScience -looked at 'clouds' and found some beautiful images which I saved. Saving the images and creating a search history is very easy. It is a good student resource - easy for them to retrace their research.
Proquest was interesting and I searched for articles on writing web content. There was lots of interesting articles and it would have been fun to add them to my Bloglines account which I've been using regularly since 23 things - unfortunately the copied link wouldn't work, even after deleting suggested parts. Tried a few times and even did a different search but it wouldn't go through. However, the process of doing it is quite simple - if only it had worked!
Realised I could save it as an alert instead of an RSS feed. It would have succeeded but it was taking so long and it was nearly midnight so left it for now.
Proquest was interesting and I searched for articles on writing web content. There was lots of interesting articles and it would have been fun to add them to my Bloglines account which I've been using regularly since 23 things - unfortunately the copied link wouldn't work, even after deleting suggested parts. Tried a few times and even did a different search but it wouldn't go through. However, the process of doing it is quite simple - if only it had worked!
Realised I could save it as an alert instead of an RSS feed. It would have succeeded but it was taking so long and it was nearly midnight so left it for now.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
public libraries and twitter
http://sites.google.com/site/whytwitterstls/what-can-public-libraries-do-with-twitter
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