September 2004 Archives

Let's say you're browsing Amazon and find a book you'd like to read. But why not borrow instead of buy? After all, maybe your local library has it. There's a way to quickly find out if they do without going to the library's web site and running a search. Instead, install this handy bookmarklet, click whenever you're on a page that includes a ISBN number, and it will search your library's catalog automatically and let you know if they own it, assuming they are using one of the supported online catalogs. But there's more.

According to Darlene Richter, (Using RSS to Create New Services, Online, July/August 2004) RSS isn't just for Internet content. It can also be a useful way to keep employees within your organization appraised of customized news and intranet content as well. You can display RSS news feeds on your intranet, or, if your audience uses RSS aggregators, offer feeds to alert users of the status of projects, monitor web statistics or otherwise replace the "notifications" that are now sent out as email alerts.

There have been reports of problems with the new 6.0 Adobe Acrobat Reader. I first spotted a complaint from John Dvorak (PC Magazine, September 7, 2004) , but then, he's always complaining about something! I paid more attention when I recently saw comments on Web4Lib .

I've been reading a book on dog training called "Click for Joy!" It's an extremely well organized and well written. But this blog isn't about dog training, so why am I telling you this? Because I was struck by how much the organization and content was influenced by the internet.

Speaking of writing for the web, if you have a LiveJournal, DeadJournal or UJournal blog, you can memoralize all your gems of wisdom in book form by using a free service called LJ Book. It will grab your blog entries and create a PDF file which you can then send to a printer, for a price, to get the actual hardcopy. The same service for Wordpress and Movable Type users is currently in beta.

Taking time off from your email responsibilities can result in big problems down the road. Vacations, business travel, or just a trip across town can make it difficult to monitor your email inbox. Checking email on a regular basis when I'm away from my home computer is a necessity, or things will get out of hand very quickly. But how can you be two places at once? When it comes to email, it can be done!

Continued in [Managing Your Email Remotely, originally published in Searcher Magazine, June 2004]

In IT @ Goodwin Procter: Migrating to a New Philosophy: Teamwork (Law Technology News), Trudy Ernst, Director of Knowledge Mangement describes how they used Sharepoint to build client pages with information pulled from 3 different sources.

Steve Arnold answers some of the most frequently asked questions about implementing an enterprise search engine in his article, 20 Questions (With Answers) About Enterprise Search (Online, July/August 2004). This kind of practical information can be hard to come by.
(The article isn't available on the web in full-text, but you'll find it soon on Factiva or Westlaw's ONLINE database within 6-8 weeks.)

Many of us think in terms of the Google search box as the ideal for providing access to information, but according to Arnold, only about half of Yahoo's users use the search box to get where they want to go. The "other half use a point-and-click approach to content....A search box is not a useful tool for about half of the populations's user." It sounds like there's still a place for a controlled vocabulary and browsable categories even in the age of more advanced enterprise search products.

One of the questions I had after my Adobe Acrobat presentation had nothing to do with Adobe Acrobat at all. Instead, an audience member wondered how I managed to include animated segments in my PowerPoint that made it look as though I was working live with the software.

Another desktop search tool joins the fray. Gary Price reviews Copernic Desktop Search this week in Search Engine Watch.

[Spotted on the Virtual Chase]

I've noted in a previous entry that there is a for-fee RSS alert service available for new SEC filings from Edgar Index, but Inter Alia has found a free one at PubSub.

[Spotted on Inter Alia]

I really enjoyed this short article, 'Knowledge sharing' should be avoided, by James Robertson. KM theory can provide interesting fodder for discussion and strategy. And that's fine, but if you carry that talk to the masses....that is, the people who you're trying to get on board with KM, they're not going to get it. Define tangible, clear projects that meet business needs and improve efficiency, and you may very well accomplish knowledge sharing. Just don't talk about it. :-)

[Spotted on Column Two]

PowerPoint has been getting a lot of abuse lately; it has been blamed for the boredom of millions, and has even been accused of contributing to the shuttle Columbia disaster. Presentations magazine has asked "Does PowerPoint Make You Stupid?" as has CNN. Edward Tuft, a professor of information design at Yale and a dedicated hater of PowerPoint, "believes PowerPoint's emphasis on format over content commercializes and trivializes subjects." He details his reasons for despising PowerPoint in his Wired article, PowerPoint is Evil.

Much of the hostility is directed at bullet points. Luckily for presenters and audiences everywhere, PowerPoint 2002 and 2003 includes a feature that I think may help solve the problem of bullet point overkill.