Tales from the Terminal Room

Workshop: How to stay ahead of the game with Web 2.0

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 16:58:22 +0100

Workshop: How to stay ahead of the game with Web 2.0
Date: Tuesday, 7 September, 2010 09:30 - 16:30
Venue: The Learning Centre, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham
Organiser: UKeiG
Presenter: Karen Blakeman
Outline: The term Web 2.0 covers a multitude of sins - and many virtues! The terminology and jargon sometimes inhibits the take up of tools that can significantly improve the effectiveness of your services and the way you work. These tools enable you to share presentations to promote your own and your department's skills and expertise; use RSS to keep you and your users up to date or to publish/republish information; create brief "how to" videos and tours of your library; tap into social and professional networks for research. The workshop takes a down to earth view of how applications can be used in the workplace and participants will have ample opportunity to try out services for themselves.
Cost: UKeiG members £180.00 (£211.50 including VAT); others £220.00 (£258.50 including VAT)
URL: http://www.ukeig.org.uk/trainingevent/how-stay-ahead-game-web-20

Workshop: Advanced Google Searching

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 16:55:28 +0100

Workshop: Advanced Google Searching Date: Thursday, 23rd September 2010 09:30 - 16:30 Venue: Just IT, 7 Sandy's Row, London E1 7HW
Organiser: RBA Information Services
Presenter: Karen Blakeman
Outline: Google is the first port of call for many of us when it comes to searching the Internet, and with more data and services being added all the time it seems the obvious place to start. More information, more search features but not necessarily more relevant results. This hands-on workshop will look at the latest developments in Google and how to focus your search to obtain better results. You will have ample opportunity to experiment and try out the techniques for yourself and Karen will be on hand to help and advise you. Exercises are provided to help you test out the search features but you are free to try out searches of your own.
Cost: £140 + VAT (£164.50)
URL: http://www.rba.co.uk/training/AdvancedGoogle.htm

Top Business Search Tips

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 17:03:53 +0100

At the end of July I was in mid Wales running a workshop on business information. There was a good mix of experience and backgrounds amongst the participants and plenty of time for people to try out ‘stuff' and share tips with each other. At the end of the day they came up with a list of their top 10 business search tips.

Business Links to go

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 17:05:12 +0100

Real Business reports that Business Link is yet another UK government service due for the chop. In an exclusive interview Mark Prisk, the business and enterprise minister, told Real Business "We're going to wind down the Regional Development Agencies, and as part of those, we'll be winding down the regional Business Link contracts"

Top Search Tips - 14th July 2010 workshop

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 17:06:45 +0100

An interesting mix of sectors were represented at my recent UKeiG workshop “The Changing Landscape of search”. With social media becoming such an important part of search, there was a lot to cover in just one day and still include time for delegates to try out search tools for themselves. At the end of these workshops I ask the group to come up with their own top 10 tips. On this occasion we ended up with 13 and then a few people emailed me some more, thereby doubling the number to 20! The list is a combination of simple tried and tested techniques, new services and tools, and new strategies for dealing with the vast amount of information that is returned by the search engines.

London Workshop: Advanced Google Searching

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 17:08:35 +0100

I am running a series of hands-on workshops this autumn in London, and the first is on Advanced Google Searching. It is being held on September 23rd at Just IT, 7 Sandy's Row, which is near Liverpool Street. Google is the first port of call for many of us when it comes to searching the Internet, and with more data and services being added all the time it seems the obvious place to start. More information, more search features but not necessarily more relevant results. This hands-on workshop will look at the latest developments in Google (for example Google property search, statistics and public data explorer) and how to focus your search to obtain better results.

Further details and a booking form is available at http://www.rba.co.uk/training/AdvancedGoogle.htm

Google Images rolls out Bing-like results

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 17:09:26 +0100

Google has rolled out Bing style results for its image search. If you have never used Bing Image search take a look now. Several people in my latest search workshop loved it so much that they included it in their top search tips (http://www.rba.co.uk/wordpress/2010/07/16/top-search-tips-14th-july-2010-workshop/). Bing

What Google thinks you are interested in

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 17:11:21 +0100

You may find advertisements on search results pages irritating but the search engines go to a lot of trouble to ensure that the ads you are exposed to match the content of your search and the sites that you select. Google stores this information in your ad preferences and allows you to view and edit them. You think you don't have any just because you don't click on ad? Then check out http://www.google.com/ads/preferences/.