Cool Tools is a repeating Internet Librarian session, and always one of my favorites. Darlene Fichter and Frank Cervone do a great job and who doesn't want to know about cool tools! By the way, the usefulness of many of these sites and/or utilities aren't limited to web masters.
There were plenty of good tips to be had in this session on redesigning your library web site. But the most interesting idea was to include a "surprise!" link. They included this link on one of the library web sites (sorry, I don't remember which one) and apparently a lot of people click on it, and are happy with the tidbits of information about library services that they find there. It probably wouldn't work for lawyers, I don't think they tend to like surprises, but it's a fun idea, nonetheless.
This program was a whirlwind. Unfortunately, the speaker, Tom Reamy, ran out of time and didn't have a chance to cover enterprise tagging in any detail, which was the topic I was particularly interested in.
Recommended by speaker:
The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing Our Culture
You'll find my notes under "Continue reading" below.
I could be in trouble. Steve Cohen talks really fast. So bear with me. I'll type as fast I can. Wait, I don't need to take notes. Here's Steve's presentation - http://stevenmcohen.pbwiki.com/IL2007 I'm just going to sit back and listen. Thanks, Steve!
I'm SO behind on my blogging Internet Librarian. The conference is almost over, and I haven't posted a thing and I have lots of stuff to share. So I'm going to try live blogging. That seems to be my only hope. Please excuse typos, grammatical errors, etc. I'll fix later. Be forewarned, this will be fairly stream of conciousness.
Luckily, the Steinbeck Forum is the BEST place to blog. Good wireless connection, comfortable seats, and even a little desktop. Can't ask for much more.
Live! From Internet Librarian!
There's been a lot of talk about social networking sites, including Facebook. So just for fun, here's a video posted by Darlene Fichter at today's mashups program - Facebook Song
You may not think that mashups and twitter have any relevance to your life. Okay, I'll admit, I've been having a hard time thinking of practical uses for twitter, myself. But when you're threatened by fire, there's no such thing as too much information. I'm not in a fire area this time around, but just about anyone who lives in California knows someone who is. Forget hourly updates, when fire is involved a minute by minute account can be critical. With so many fires in such large areas going on all at once, watching the news for information on evacuation areas and fire perimeters can be decidedly unsatisfying. TV news can't report on every fire in every neighborhood when there's so many burning at the same time.
But when KPBS, a local San Diego public radio station, combines information collected by their reporters with the detailed geographical details offered by Google Maps, you end up with a very valuable example of a mashup that shows detailed information on evacuations, shelter locations, and as of 57 minutes ago, a Metrolink shut down. Icons show evacuation centers for displaced people and animals, and areas that are safe for return.
The L.A. Times offers a similar mashup showing the fires currently burning in Los Angeles, Orange and Ventura Counties, some of which are threatening homes, but not getting as much air time as the huge conflagration in San Diego.
The KPBS Twitter feed logs short, random bits of information, allowing the dissemination of up to the minute news including reports of blocks where homes were destroyed and roads closed, making the twitter feed a social networking tool with a serious purpose.
Traditional news leveraged by quick and easy web applicaitons can have an significant impact in desperate times.
If you provide any kind of remote support, the ability to to take a picture of your screen is essential. It's typically not easy to explain an online task over the phone or email without visuals to go with it. Think of it as an important way to deliver "just in time" training. Live remote support, by connecting to a user's PC, is preferable, but if that's not an option, you need a good screen capture utility.
As I've mentioned before, my favorite such program is SnagIt. You can use SnagIt to capture an entire window or just a section of the screen. You can even record videos, a capability that can be tremendously helpful it you've trying to explain a process. Just attach the video and send.
The nice people at TechSmith, makers of Snagit and Camtasia, are also experimenting with what they call the Jing Project. I spotted an entry about Jing on Inter Alia, and decided to give it a whilrl.
Once you've installed Jing, a gold globe hovers rather unobtrusively at the top middle of you computer screen, just waiting for the moment you decide to do a screen capture or video. To start the process, click on the globe, select the capture icon, define the area of the screen you wish to capture, then choose image or video. You can even include audio in your video captures. For more details, watch the video tour on the Jing Project web site.
When you've completed your capture, you can save it or post it to Screencast.com. If you post to Screencast.com, you're provided a URL that you can share with others. Screencast.com normally requires a monthly fee, but Jing users are provided with free access for the time being. Free is unlikely to continue indefinitely, however.
Posting your images and/or videos to Screencast.com has several advantages . You don't have to email large attachments, which may or may not make it to the recipient, and if you want to send the same video to others at any time, it's easy to do so.
On the other hand, I wouldn't feel comfortable using Screencast to store anything related to firm resources, software or data. Security is a concern. For that reason, you may want to store the video to your hard drive instead.
Whether Jing suits your fancy or not, make sure that you have some kind of tool to quickly and easily grab screenshots and create short videos. Remote support is a requirement in this day and age, and you need to be able to deliver in the most effective way possible. And, after all, a picture is worth a thousand words.
SnagIt is my screen capture program of choice. Once you've used Snag-It, you can never go back to ALT-PRINTSCREEN again. I use it to grab a quick image of a screen, or region; it can even be used to create short videos. When providing support to people in the next office, or next state, a picture is definitely worth a thousand words.
Those busy people at TechSmith have been experimenting with a number of fun things SnagIt related. New SnagIt Outputs were announced just last week.
So far my favorite is SnagIt Notes which let's you easily create sticky notes from SnagIt screenshots, and place them on your desktop. This gives you a tidier option than the REAL sticky notes that populate many monitors and desks.
Other outputs offer ways to easily share screenshots on your blog or via Skype or Flickr. These outputs/accessories require the latest version of SnagIt (8.2.3) , which may give you a good reason to upgrade. Thankfully, new versions are quite reasonable.
Watch for a future entry on another TechSmith experiment, the Jing Project.
In a previous entry I said that Webex didn't offer a convenient method of recording the audio/video of their web conferences. I stand corrected. As of October 2006, Webex has offered Network Based Recording (NBR) . I love the fact that the recordings can be converted to WMV files, making them editable by a number of different editing software packages out there.
Keep in mind that if you're utilizing a Webex reseller, they may not offer this same service.
