Knowledge Handler

Information Sources & Information Sifting Techniques

My Photo
Name:
Location: Independence, Ohio, United States

I am a retired librarian, most recently serving at Indiana Wesleyan University's Cleveland Education Center.

Thursday, February 28, 2013

Markdown and MdPress Presentation Software

Konrad Lawson shares some alternative presentation software - Markdown and MdPress - which are alternatives to PowerPoint, Keynote and Prezi. The featured alternatives are free, but require programming skills to use.

Lawson today ran a follow-up article on Markdown.

-DD

Labels: , ,

Profs Fail iEtiquette 101

Laurie Essig reports on how professional incivility seems to have increased with the availability of iPads and smartphones at meetings. In response to "Profs Fail iEtiquette 101", several commentators report they are thankful that these devices allow them to be productive during "useless"e; meetings.

-DD

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Academic Writing Blog

Lucy Ferriss maintains a blog on language and writing in Academe.

-DD

Labels: ,

Business Intelligence Analysis Conducted in the Cloud

Jaspersoft is providing cloud-based business intelligence software to allow companies to analyze their customer service data for an hourly rate."

-DD

Labels:

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Open Access To Government Research

The US Government is establishing that there will be open access to federally funded (and unclassifed) research results.

-DD

Labels: ,

Saving Paper With Technology

Sarah Jacobsson Purewal provides a slideshow on "Fifteen Tablet Apps For Ditching Dead Trees." These apps allow users to store and retrieve information without using paper (technologies such as Skydrive and Dropbox, for example).

-DD

Labels:

Monday, February 25, 2013

Online Sales Tax

Grant Gross reports the U.S. Congress is lurching toward requiring web sites to collect online sales tax. With the myriad taxing districts in the nation, this will require companies to develop (or contract for) tools for tracking tax liabilities. In my opinion, a single federal tax would make life easier for the small business owner, and could be justified on the basis of interstate commerce infrastructure support.

-DD

Labels:

"Fair Use" and Student Document Retrieval

At my university librarians instruct students and faculty on how to obtain articles from databases. Upon request, librarians suse tools within the databases to provide permanent links to specific database articles. However, unless the university has contracted with the publisher/copyrightholder, the university does not provided PDFs of the articles themselves to groups students. A major reason for this is the limited nature of the legal concept of fair use. The university's purchase of database access allows faculty and students to print documents for their own scholarly use, but the purchase does not include the right for one individual (or a library staff member) to distribute hundreds of copies of an article. An additional contract with the publisher is required to distribute an article to an entire class.

Widespread distribution of article PDFs is the premise of many e-reserve systems. If the library distributes multiple copies of the same article PDF, the library needs to have a contract with the copyright holders, or it runs the risk of a lawsuit.

-DD

Labels: ,

Sunday, February 24, 2013

Bandwidth

Andy Gottlieb notes that bandwidth needs are increasing each year due to new communication modalities.

-DD

Labels:

Saturday, February 23, 2013

Social Media Use In The Classroom

Cathy Swan has located statistics on social media use by educators, and provides them in the article "Being Social: How Social Media Can Transform Your School Classroom." While there is a focus on secondary education, many resources would apply to younger children or lifelong (adult) learners.

-DD

Labels: ,

Free Security Tools

Ellen Messmer has written about fifteen free security tools.

-DD

Labels: , , ,

Friday, February 22, 2013

K-12 Top Tips

K-12 Blueprint provides Top Tips for public schools.

-DD

Labels:

Learn Math Easily

Learn Math Easily houses free videos on math skills. However, it appears that many resources rely on Google Groups, and I was unable to access these materials.

-DD

Labels: ,

Thursday, February 21, 2013

Yahoo Webpage Renewal

Sharon Gaudin reports that Google is revamping its home page.
The comments on the article indicate that user reviews are mixed on the upgrade.

-DD

Labels: ,

As Seen On TV

Lucian Constantin reports that the Emergency Alert System Devices Vulnerable to Hacker Attacks, providing the example of an emergency broadcast system announcement of zombie attacks in Michigan.

-DD

Labels:

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Student Readiness

George Clark responds to blogger Kenneth Bernstein's piece "A Warning to College Profs." The comment stream on Clark's piece, dealing with standardized testing and class size (with implications for a university's mission) I found fascinating.

-DD

Labels: ,

Office Time Killers

Keith Shaw posted fascinating survey results on "The Ten Biggest Time Killers At Work." I found it sad that 16% of the surveyed workers admitted to spending more than two hours each day watching television shows at work, and that 80% of respondents spent one to two hours daily on shopping or other web sites.

-DD

Labels: ,

Financial Lessons for Kids

Francisca Duffy shares on her education blog that financial lessons for kids are being developed both by the US Treasury and Advisory Council on Financial Capability.

-DD

Labels: , ,

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Memory Card Technology Videos

Lexar has produced some informative videos on using memory cards. As is typical of media produced by a supplier, the videos promote the purchase of memory products they can supply.

-DD

Labels: ,

Care of Flash Memory Devices

Kingston has a very good guide on "Caring for Your Flash Memory." One tip that is not mentioned, but that I discovered on my own: If your computer offers to correct possible file corruption on your drive, do a backup of your data before running any "repair" utility. I discovered that after I ran the Windows utility, the drive was unusable.

-DD

Labels: , , , , , ,

Monday, February 18, 2013

Online Training

IT training is getting an extreme makeover according to ComputerWorld correspondent Cindy Waxer. She mentions video technology provided by sites such as Lynda.com is now targeting mobile users. She also gave examples of professional video production companies employed in content creation.

In the library field, the American Library Association has become a course provider for continuing education using online classroom technologies, including video. There are many free training videos on the web for user technology training which can be found using search engines.

-DD

Labels:

Sites Focused On U.S. Presidents

Michelle Vance developed a list of resources on the presidents

-DD

Labels: ,

Adobe Acrobat Alternatives

Brad Chacos suggests we "Ditch the PDF Headaches," suggesting three alternate PDF readers that are both secure and faster than the Adobe product.

-DD

Labels: ,

Sunday, February 17, 2013

Microsoft Raises Privacy Concerns About GMail

Gmail is scanned by Google for hints that would guide ad placement on the free service.

-DD

Labels: ,

Saturday, February 16, 2013

Dashboard Cameras Common in Russia

Jay Alabaster writes that Russians frequently have dashboard cameras in their vehicles, allowing dozens of image captures of a freak meteorite swarm.

-DD

Labels: , ,

The Role of MOOCs

Nigel Thrift projects the future role of MOOCs in a Chronicle of Higher Education post. An energetic comment stream follows. My own belief is that if MOOCs are utilized by governments to provide inexpensive university education, then existing universities need to document the added value of face-to-face interaction in the university.

-DD

Labels: , ,

Student Satisfaction and University Mission

Jeffrey Selingo had a stirring post in the Chronicle of Higher Education on institutional mission and student satisfaction titled "Enough With the Talk. Let's Start Fixing It. " The commentary raised by the article I found contained more insights than the article itself, indicating it touched a nerve among faculty.

-DD

Labels: , , , ,

SkyDrive Enhanced

Microsoft SkyDrive has been improved so that users can share documents with anyone who has the URL - a feature that GoogleDocs users have enjoyed for years.

-DD

Labels:

Friday, February 15, 2013

Easy Linux Re-Installation

Bryan Lunduke shares an easy way to configure repetitive Linux installations. A useful tip for someone wanting to teach Linux.

-DD

Labels:

Education Oriented Websites: David Kapuler's Bucket List

David Kapuler's Bucket List: Web resources useful to any educational technologist.

-DD

Labels:

Thursday, February 14, 2013

The Case Against Patents

Boldrin and Levine are economists who have summarized the Case Against Patents.

-DD

Labels: ,

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Data Mining Coming Under Scrutiny

Data mining is coming under increased scrutiny, which may stress some informating handling companies.

-DD

Labels: ,

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Safe Internet Practices Survey

Microsoft's Online Safety Assessment shows that nowhere in the world are people consistently following safe Internet practices. An interview with Jacqueline Beauchere provides background information about the assessment.

In a similar vein, Jim Duffy reports that CISCO did a study indicating that over 70% of Gen-Y workers do not follow security policies, potentially wrecking havoc at their workplaces.

-DD

Labels:

Monday, February 11, 2013

Android Development

Jon Gold has posted Ten Useful Resources for the Fledgling Android Developer.

-DD

Labels:

Sunday, February 10, 2013

Microsoft Office Tips

In today's environment, knowing how to use Microsoft's Office Suite is very useful. ComputerWorld has developed Office 2010 Cheat Sheets for those who need to master that version of Microsoft's Office. Preston Gralla has also penned a review of Office365, and Network World author Howard Wen has written about Office2013 apps.

-DD

Labels:

Saturday, February 09, 2013

Conveying Information In Presentations

Mike Eglan has penned an article for ComputerWorld titled "Give Killer Presentations: Think Like A Writer. He recommends placing alost all of the supporting facts on a handout, dedicating your face to face time to motiving your audience to buy into your message, using timeless rhetorical techniques.

-DD

Labels: ,

Thursday, February 07, 2013

Privacy In the New Age

Gregory Ferenstein posted on the AOL Tech Blog about the heated discussion that occurred when Journalists’ Addresses [Were] Posted In Revenge For Newspaper’s Google Map Of Gun Permit Owners. The comments on this post show diverse the views of the nation have become. My own take on this matter is that the civic benefits of widely available information are limited when citizens have diverse

-DD

Librarians and Your Privacy

Darlene Storm, a ComputerWorld blogger who writes on security issues, notes that "Who doesn’t sell your digital footprint? Your librarian!"

-DD