How mobile are you?

The Pew Internet and American Life Project conducted a survey in April of this year and asked if respondents had ever accessed the internet using a wireless device.  Their findings which can be found here: http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2009/12-Wireless-Internet-Use.aspx?r=1 state that 56% of Americans have accessed the internet via some kind of device other than a computer.

So my question is, are you one of the 56% of Americans who access the internet from your cell phone or some other device? Then my next question is do you use a “Smartphone?” I recently bit the bullet and got an iPhone and am now completely addicted to accessing the internet with this handy little device. In the past I had tried to access the internet on my former phone (a Motorola Razr) but found it cumbersome, difficult and frustrating.

I just recently added a version of our online catalog to our website that is text-based and ADA compatible. If you’ve had trouble viewing the catalog from your mobile device, please consider selecting the ADA version that is now available, and feel free to send comments. — Jill

What Browser are you using?

Jason Toff, Associate Product Marketing Manager for Google just posted an interesting little site about web browsers.  http://www.whatbrowser.org/.

If you are not sure how you are accessing the internet and even what a browser is, check out this site.

When it comes up on the left side of the screen will tell you what browser you are using.

Watch the video, look at the useful tweaks and try a new browser if you are feeling brave. The information Under The Hood is technical stuff you can ignore – although the timeline for web browsers is interesting. — Jill

Slacking Off on Blogging

Okay I admit it, I’ve been slacking off – only when it comes to blogging though! As the Durham County Library webmaster I have been busy the last two months adding all kinds of new things to our website.  Some highlights:

Whatcha Reading – this fun site has videos of folks all around Durham telling us “What they are reading!”

Online Storytime – Miss Tanika from our East Regional Branch is now performing stories that can be viewed from the comfort of your home computer!

Durham Reads Together - Starting October 3 and running to November 1st the DCL is asking the community in joining us to read the book Something for the Pain by local author and doctor Paul Austin.

Invest Your Best: College and Beyond – This two-year grant funded project is designed for parents to learn how to start investing for their children’s college education. The workshops are for everyone, but the focus is on college savings.

Durham County Library YouTube Channel – Since we started adding all this new great video – it only seems right that we now have our own YouTube Channel.

Facebook - You can also find us on Facebook and become a fan.

I will be continuing to add tips and tricks for your computer now that there seems to be a lull in the new content for  our web pages, please stay posted. — Jill

Keyboard Shortcuts

I love a good keyboard shortcut. Here is a list of keyboard shortcuts for highlighting text from the Lifehacker Website

Universal Key Combinations

These key combinations should work in most every application:

• Ctrl+Shift+Left/Right arrow: Select text by whole words. (Swap Alt/Option with Ctrl for Mac users.)
• Shift+Up/Down arrow: Select text by entire lines
• Shift+Page Up/Page Down: Select one screen’s height of text
• Shift+Home/End: Select all the text from the current caret position to the beginning or end of the current line. (Mac users, try Cmd+Shift+Left/Right arrow.)
• Ctrl+Shift+Home/End: Select all the text from the current caret position to the beginning or end of the document. (Mac users, Cmd+Shift+Up/Down arrow should do the trick.)
• Ctrl+A: Select the entire document (Swap Cmd with Ctrl if you’re on a Mac.)

Microsoft Word Specific

Once again, Word shines when it comes to text selection, offering more than just the standard key combinations:

• Ctrl+Shift+Up/Down arrow: Select text by paragraphs. (Cmd+Shift+Up/Down arrow on Mac.)
• Ctlr+Shift+F8: Begin selecting a rectangular block of text—use the arrow keys to size the rectangle; cut, copy, or press Esc to exit this selection mode. (Does not seem to work on Mac.)
• F8: Press repeatedly to expand the selection from the current word to the current sentence, then the current paragraph, and finally the whole document (Shift+F8 will shrink the selection); cut, copy, or press Esc to exit this selection mode. (Does not work on Mac.)

Give them a try — Jill

Google News Timeline

Do you love a good timeline? I know I do, I am a visual learner and I love to see my information in a graphically organized manner.  This said, I have a great site for other folks like me – Google News Timeline.   This is Google’s blurb about the timeline:  Google News Timeline is a web application that organizes search results chronologically. It allows users to view news and other data sources on a browsable, graphical timeline. Available data sources include recent and historical news, scanned newspapers and magazines, blog posts, sports scores, and information about various types of media, like music albums and movies.

This is so fascinating! Once you get to the site go in and “Add More Queries.” You can select what sources you want to look at, such as every Time Magazine cover since 1924. I ran on search on Soap Operas in the TV Show category  after I saw an entry for All My Children. I had no idea there were so many soaps that had come and gone from TV.  Just clicking on the Artworks category took me to 1507 and Mona Lisa.

This is a whole lot of fun, but I do recommend double-checking the sources to make sure they can be used as a primary source if you plan on using this to help write a paper. — Jill

Blogs, Blogs and More Blogs

I love a good blog.  Some of my favorites are Life Hacker, The Consumerist, Remix Radio, and of course the DCL Blogs.

Today, however, I found a list of official blogs that are very informative…they are the Blogs from the U.S. Government.  Being a librarian I of course started at the Library of Congress Blog, but was then intrigued by the Middle Class Task Force Blog.  Some of these blogs are brand new like the FDA Transparency Blog and the White House Open Government Blog.

There is a whole lot of good and interesting information on these blogs and I could spend hours looking around and becoming more informed.  I hope you too can find something of interest from this list. — Jill

Online Videos

I’m sure if you are like me, you often find yourself looking at YouTube videos. It’s almost impossible not to get links from friends and family these days with the latest craze that is showing up in this online video venue … even my 79 year-old father sends me links to videos!

This weekend I finally checked out a video on Hulu. If you are unfamiliar with Hulu you might have seen their commercial during the Super Bowl with Alec Baldwin as an alien – you probably didn’t even know what the product was! Anyway, I had been meaning to watch Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-Long Blog for some time now and finally watched it on Hulu. It was better than I expected and I loved it! If you haven’t checked out Hulu you should.  Here is Hulu’s own blurb about what they offer:

“Hulu brings together a large selection of videos from nearly 150 leading content companies, including FOX, NBC Universal, Comedy Central, Lionsgate, MGM, MTV Networks, National Geographic, Paramount, PBS, Sony Pictures Television, Warner Bros. and more. Users can choose from more than 1250 current primetime TV hits such as The Simpsons, 30 Rock, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Office the morning after they air; classics like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The A-Team, Airwolf and Married…with Children; movies like Revenge of the Nerds and In the Line of Fire; documentaries like Super Size Me, Crawford and I Am Because We Are; and clips from Saturday Night Live, Friends and other popular TV shows and movies.”

There is something for everyone on Hulu, so go find something to watch and have some fun.

[Please do not get yourself in trouble at work for watching videos if it isn't permitted on a company computer!] — Jill

Time/Life Images on Google Image Search

Back in November, Google launched a new photo archive of images from Life Magazine. This collection has photos and etchings prodcued and owned by Life Magazine dating all the way back to the 1750s.

http://images.google.com/hosted/life

You can totally get lost in here! — Jill

Internet Explorer 8

The latest version of Internet Explorer came out last Friday and I’ve spent some time looking at it.

There are some excellent new features in IE8, and some questionable ones. Like every upgrade to a browser there will be things you like and things you don’t like.

Some of the things I like; Zoom – allows you to zoom in on a web site without changing the font size. I like this a lot, especially as I get older and it feels like text keeps getting smaller! Another thing I like are the add-ons. Firefox has had this option for a while, and now you can add-on functionality in IE8.  My best example is Foxmarks…this is a service that you add-on to your browser so that all of your bookmarks are synchronized on all of your computers.  Accelerators are a new option in IE8 that I also like. One of the accelerators is the mapping feature. Highlight an address on a web site and a little box appears that you can click on – you can select a mapping tool and it will automatically take you to a map using that tool.  I changed mine to Google Maps and liked this function.

IE8 boosts new safety features which are readily available from your toolbar. You can conduct what is called “InPrivate Browsing” where no trail will be left behind (no cookies, no browsing history), however, some functionality is lost with this option.

One more feature I would like to mention is the Compatibility View. When Microsoft moved from IE6 to IE7 webmasters around the world cringed because the design of our web pages no longer looked the same.  With IE8 if a page doesn’t look right (alignment is funky, or text seems off) you can select the Compatibility View option and the page will look as the web designer planned for it to look.

When you go to download IE8, there are lots of explanations of the newest features. If you are going to download, spend some time looking before you make the leap to the new version. If you are still using IE7, I highly recommend downloading IE8. If you are still using IE6, you can completely avoid IE7 and move right on over to IE8…but if you really want the best browser, I still recommend Firefox.  — Jill

Google Desktop Library Gadget

I am happy to announce that you can now add the Durham County Library to your Google Desktop.

First of all you need to download Google Desktop if you are not already using it. http://desktop.google.com/

Once you have installed Google Desktop you can install the Library Gadget http://desktop.google.com/plugins/i/librarygadget_5879.html?hl=en

Once that is installed you will see the options window. (Image on right)

Find NC and Durham County Library and select it. In the top type in your name, your library card number and your PIN number. Click on Add Account and OK.

You should now see on your Google Desktop Toobar a person sitting in a chair reading a book with the number of items you currently have checked out.

Mouse over the gadget and you will see a navigation bar. Select the down arrow and click on Checked Out. You will see a list of what you have checked out. If you have a yellow symbol with an exclamation mark, it means something needs renewing, and you can renew it from the Checked Out window.

Another fun thing you can do with Google and the Durham County Library. — Jill