In this issue:

• What Google thinks you are interested in
• Google Images rolls out Bing-like results
• London Workshop: Advanced Google Searching
• Top Search Tips – 14 th July workshop
• Business Links to go
• Top Business Search Tips

The China Full Directory Kit includes:

• China Foreign Enterprise Directory 11th Edition 2010 (CD-ROM)
• China Enterprise Directory 2010 (Book and CD ROM)
• Top Global 500 Companies in China 2009-2010 (CD-ROM)
• China Government Organizations Directory 2009-2010 (Book)
• China MICE Guide 2010-2011 (Forthcoming) (Book)
• China Financial Services Directory 2010-2011 (Forthcoming) CD-ROM
• China Logistics Guide 2010/2011 CD-ROM
• China IT Directory 2010 CD-ROM
• China Manufacturing Directory 2010 CD-ROM
• China Media Directory 2010 CD-ROM
• China Industrial Zones Directory 2010 CD-ROM

Full details can be found at  http://www.dataresources.co.uk/

1. Marketingfile http://www.marketingfile.com/ Collection of business to business and consumer mailing lists. Free to search and reasonably priced pay as you go purchase options.  Buy as many or as few records as you need or as dictated by your budget.

2. Directionlessgov http://www.directionlessgov.com/ Having problems finding information on UK government web sites or on DirectGov? Then get thee hence to this Google custom search engine from the people behind They Work for You (http://www.theyworkforyou.com/), What do they know – make and browse Freedom of Information Requests (http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/) and FixMyStreet (http://www.fixmystreet.com/)

“We got so fed up with the general uselessness of the multi-million pound shambles otherwise known as the Direct.gov.uk portal, that we decided to build something better in under an hour. Sadly, we ran catastrophically behind schedule, but we still finished before lunch.

Google results are shown on the right hand side of your results screen and you can compare them with the DirectGov results on the left hand side of the screen. There seems to be intermittent problems at the moment when clicking on the Directionlessgov search results; you are sometimes taken to the Directionlessgov home page instead of the page in the results. Nevertheless, still worth using as the results are far superior and you do at least have the details of the web site and document.

3. Companies House http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/ The official companies register for the UK. There is a free companies and disqualified directors search available under the Webcheck Service. At the time of writing the link was in the middle of the right hand part of the home page. You can search the database for free and free company information includes name, registered company number, registered address, status, date of incorporation, nature of business, date of accounts, previous names. Documents can be purchased on a pay per view basis.

4. Kompass http://www.kompass.com/ Worldwide directory of products. Search by keywords, company, products, classification codes. Basic search is free of charge. In order to use the advanced search and view full company profiles you will have to purchase a subscription or  ‘credit units’. The minimum number of 50 credit units costs EUR120 or USD 170

5. StatsWales http://statswales.wales.gov.uk/ Forget about the ONS  – if you need data and statistics on Wales this is the place to go. “StatsWales is a free-to-use service that allows visitors to view, manipulate, create and download tables from the most detailed official data on Wales.” Email alerts and RSS feeds are available.

6. Business support, information and advice | Flexible Support for Business Wales http://fs4b.wales.gov.uk/ Everything you need to know about setting up and running a business in Wales.

7. D&B UK small business centre for business reports and company financial performance tracking http://www.do-business.net/sbc/.  Provides reports on over 3.3 million UK companies. Report content varies depending on whether you need a customer, competitor, supplier or a partner report. Prices start at GBP 7.50 and there are sample reports to give you an idea of what each includes. The supplier report, for example, gives star ratings for overall condition of the business and how it compares with other business in the same industry sector, size of the business, names of the directors, significant legal proceedings/events such as County Court Judgements.

8. FITA http://www.fita.org/ Founded in 1984, FITA “fosters international trade by strengthening the role of local, regional, and national associations throughout the United States, Mexico and Canada”. In addition to services for members, there is a very useful collection of Web resources for International trade. There are over 8000 annotated links. Categories include country or region, legal resources, doing business in another country, International market research and business directories. The business directories are subdivided into industry specific, global and country directories. The links are in the menu on the left hand side of the screen.

9. UK Trade and Investment http://www.ukti.gov.uk/ “UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) works with UK-based businesses to ensure their success in international markets, and encourage the best overseas companies to look to the UK as their global partner of choice.” There is information on industry sectors and business opportunities in other countries as well as help for new and experienced exporters.

10 LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/ Useful professional networking site for biographical information on people (if they are members) and for identifying contacts within companies.

And the eleventh is Business Information on the Internet (Compiled by Karen Blakeman) http://www.rba.co.uk/sources/, business resources organised by type e.g. statistics, market research, company registers.

I have several problems with Google’s new image results layout. The first thing that struck me was that the images are all crammed in side by side to neatly fill the rows. Have the images been cropped to obtain the desired effect or have they been selected by dimensions, rather than relevance, to fill the ‘mosaic’? Bing has four images in each row regardless of their relative dimensions so there is more white space between the images, which is easier on the eye. Google’s display makes me feel as though I’m in a jam-packed standard class commuter train carriage: Bing is the more spacious, relaxed first class.

Neither Google nor Bing display by default image information, but you only need to hover over the image in which you are interested to see further details. The information is almost the same in both but Bing has an additional option to look for more sizes. The size option is great if you want to use an image but do not want to have the trouble of re-scaling it for your particular application. But not all images are available in ‘more sizes’. It depends on whether or not other web pages have reproduced the image with different dimensions. If you own a particular image with strict copyright protection and you know you have only posted a specific size on one page, this can be a useful tool in tracking down copyright violations.

When it comes to scrolling down through your results, Google seems to have lost the plot. Work your way down through the results on Bing and the display smoothly unfolds. Google’s is stop start stop…….start, stop. And it is so sloooooooow. I can almost hear the cog wheels clanking. Another distraction in Google is that batches of images are separated by the text  ‘page 2′, ‘page 3′, ‘page 4′ etc. Why? The whole point of continuous scrolling of results is that there are no pages of results.

As a comparison, here are Google’s results for an image search of Blackpool Tower:

Here are Bing’s results:

Bing is so much faster, smoother and slicker.

When it comes to clicking through on an image Google almost wins. Google gives you a background of the web page and superimposed upon that is the full size image. To the right is information about the image with the warning “This image may be subject to copyright”.

Bing’s does not have the same initial impact, but it does display a scrollable list of thumbnails of your search results to the left of the screen. This is very useful if the image you have selected turns out not to be exactly what you need and you want to review the alternatives.

Who wins? It has to be Bing. It is much faster, easier on the eye, has equally relevant results and  has an extra ‘more sizes’ option. And finally… it just feels right.

]]> http://www.rba.co.uk/wordpress/2010/07/24/google-images-rolls-out-very-slowly-bing-like-results/feed/ 3 http://www.rba.co.uk/wordpress/2010/07/22/london-workshop-advanced-google-searching/ http://www.rba.co.uk/wordpress/2010/07/22/london-workshop-advanced-google-searching/#comments Thu, 22 Jul 2010 10:31:04 +0000 Karen Blakeman http://www.rba.co.uk/wordpress/?p=1191 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 and how to focus your search to obtain better results.

Topics covered include:

• recent developments and new services from Google
• how Google personalises your results
• how Google is incorporating social media
• essential advanced search commands
• how to use the new options to narrow down your search for more relevant results
• how to access and use the specialist tools
• image, video and news search
• build your own Google Custom Search Engine

This workshop is suitable for all levels of experience. The techniques and approaches covered can be applied to all subject areas.

Please note: this workshop concentrates on Google and does not cover the same topics as my recent UKeiG “Changing Landscape of Search” session.

A booking form is available at http://www.rba.co.uk/training/AdvancedGoogle.htm

Exactly. Not well known in the literary circles we move in. But let’s go back to the beginning…

This all started with numerous tweets about “I write like” (http://iwl.me/). Just paste in some text from a blog posting, article or essay that you have written and it tells you who you write like. It told me that one of my blog postings was in the style of Dan Brown, and a second blog posting and an article for Information Today’s Online magazine were in the style of David Foster Wallace. Phil Bradley tweeted that his style was reported as being akin to DFW. Like me he had never heard of the fellow (http://twitter.com/Philbradley/statuses/18723367233).

This is where I have to play around with the chronology of events because I want to get the frivolous stuff out of the way before moving onto the seriously worrying aspects of this website. So, first I shall regale you with some more “you write like” pronouncements.

Neil Ford (Twitttername: @neiljohnford) tweeted “just cut & pasted a few paragraphs from A Christmas Carol into “I Write Like” and it told me I write like Stephen King!” (http://twitter.com/neiljohnford/statuses/18769020129).

And thanks to Tom Roper for “I Write like Dan Brown « LRB blog” http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2010/07/15/christopher-tayler/i-write-like-dan-brown/. Do read the comments as well.

Phil Bradley then tweeted that he had “Pasted in some Hamlet, and told it was like James Joyce.” (http://twitter.com/Philbradley/statuses/18769523421). Phil did not say which part of Hamlet he used but I can believe that a computer analysis of the text could come up with Joyce. What is odd, though, is that I would have expected “I write like” to recognise a famous Shakespeare play. I tried paragraphs from A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations. They came back with Charles Dickens as I would expect. But would it recognise a lesser known work? I dug out a few paragraphs from The Wreck of the Golden Mary, courtesy of Gutenburg (The Wreck of the Golden Mary http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1465/1465-h/1465-h.htm)  and Charles Dickens was transformed into Jack London.

And more great news for me. I pasted in the  bullet points from my recent workshop on the Changing Landscape of Search and I am a budding Charles Dickens. I have pasted below the text that I used so that you can all appreciate my true literary worth:

• what’s new in Google, Bing and Yahoo and how to get the most out of the new features
• how social media is being incorporated by the “big three” into their standard search results and does it work?
• why social media is important as a part of the search strategy
• specialist tools for subject/industry searches and the hidden web
• image, video and audio search tools – new technologies, new search techniques
• news services, blogs and twitter
• tools for searching social and professional networks, people search tools
• setting up your own customised search engine

Charles Dickens, eat your heart out.

How does this work?

According to the “I write like” blog:

“Actually, the algorithm is not a rocket science, and you can find it on every computer today. It’s a Bayesian classifier, which is widely used to fight spam on the Internet. Take for example the “Mark as spam” button in Gmail or Outlook. When you receive a message that you think is spam, you click this button, and the internal database gets trained to recognize future messages similar to this one as spam. This is basically how “I Write Like” works on my side: I feed it with “Frankenstein” and tell it, “This is Mary Shelley. Recognize works similar to this as Mary Shelley.” Of course, the algorithm is slightly different from the one used to detect spam, because it takes into account more stylistic features of the text, such as the number of words in sentences, the number of commas, semicolons, and whether the sentence is a direct speech or a quotation.”

But writing style is more than that. It is the vocabulary, the sentence structure (and that is not just about the number of words, commas and semicolons) and the subject matter. When I told my husband what I was blogging about he confessed that he had tried it out on a couple of his articles. The results were Conan Doyle and David Foster Wallace (him again!). I had a go with two pages of his novel University Shambles and it came back with H P Lovelock. Rather a come-down he thought as one reviewer had described his masterpiece as “very David Lodge”, but that was probably referring more to the treatment of the subject matter rather than the writing style.

Harmless bit of fun?

At the top of the “I write like” blog there is a reference to another blog posting ”Are you Tolstoy or are you Dan Brown? Ask ‘I Write Like.’ Then disregard answer – Lewis Grossberger”  http://trueslant.com/lewisgrossberger/2010/07/16/are-you-tolstoy-or-are-you-dan-brown-ask-%E2%80%9Ci-write-like-%E2%80%9D-then-disregard-answer/ Do read this.

For most of us it is just a bit of fun. We play with it, we move on. But when it has analysed your text and told you how marvellous you are there is a prominent invitation to subscribe to download a free copy of ”Short Story Writing: A Practical Treatise on the Art of the Short Story By Charles Raymond Barrett, Ph. B.”

Although its says “We respect your privacy: email addresses are never sold, and you can unsubscribe at any time.” I decided to play safe and use a disposable Spamgourmet email account. [If you want to investigate disposable emails Phil Bradley has an excellent list at http://www.philb.com/iwantto/email.htm]

I haven’t yet read “A Practical Treatise on the Art of the Short Story” – I’ll report back later – but it does sound rather learned and dry. Much more exciting and enticing is “Do you want to get your book published?”. Of course you do! And the ultimate “Learn how to secure a book publishing contract!” This is it. You are going to be famous. Both of these links take you to “eBooks: Writing a Winning Book Proposal”  at http://michaelhyatt.com/products/ebook-writing-a-winning-book-proposal. It looks as though “I write like” is an affiliate of Michael Hyatt’s website, which offers two publications on writing “winning” proposals for fiction and non-fiction books.  That means “I write like” earns commission when people click on the links on “I write like” and make a purchase on Michael Hyatts publications page.

The ebooks aren’t free but neither are they that expensive:

“…I decided to offer these eBooks for just $19.97 each. I may raise the price later, but for right now, I would rather make these eBooks available to as many people as possible at an affordable price. In addition, if you are considering both fiction and non-fiction, you can buy both eBooks for just $29.94—a $10.00 savings!”

I have no idea if the books are any good, but I’ll find out soon. Yes, reader, I have bought them. Watch this space for reviews.

What worries me about this type of set up is not so much that people are being asked to part with money – it is a relatively small individual amount – but that it raises hopes. My husband’s first novel, University Shambles, has been published and is doing well. It took him 18 months to write but 3 years to find a publisher. Many in the publishing industry have told us that he was lucky to find a publisher so quickly or at all! It is easy enough to write a formulaic winning proposal but that won’t guarantee that it will be even glanced at by the publisher. Most are filed straight away under WPB.  We are living in tough economic times and there are bound to be many who will be putting pen to paper or dusting off a manuscript in the hope of hitting the virtual shelves at Amazon or even a real physical shelf at Waterstones. Writing the book is nothing compared with the long hard slog of finding a publisher. The only real winners in this set up is Michael Hyatt and his company Thomas Nelson Publishers.

By the way, this posting is written in the style of H P Lovelock.

1. Set up your own Google custom search engine (http://www.google.com/cse/) for groups of sites that you regularly search and use. It is quick and easy to do, and you can keep them private or make them public.
2. Docjax (http://www.docjax.com/) for searching Google and Yahoo for file formats ppt, doc, xls, pdf
3. Use Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/) to keep up with what people are saying about your organisation or industry, and to find out what is happening at conferences.
4. Nearby Tweets (http://nearbytweets.com/) for monitoring tweets on a subject and from a geographical location
5. Save tweets and Twitter searches if you are using Twitter for competitive intelligence or reputation monitoring/management.
6. Try out the the Google Wonderwheel to see connections between concepts and to change the direction of your search. Run your search, open up the options in the menu to the left of your search and click on Wonderwheel. This had mixed reviews from the workshop participants and even its fans said that it does not always help with the search. Nevertheless, worth trying if you are stuck in a rut and fed up with seeing the same results again and again.
7. In Google  use the menu options to the left of your search results to help you focus your search and for more relevant results.
8. Separate real time and “traditional” web search. Google, Bing and Yahoo incorporate real time and social media results into the main search results. These results are not comprehensive and give a superficial, biassed view of the topic. Use the specialised real time search tools for searching social media.
9. Slidefinder (http://www.slidefinder.net/) for locating individual presentation slides that contain your search terms. There is an Advanced Search that enables you to search specific areas of a slide, for example title, text, notes. You can also limit your search to a university. There are browsable lists at the bottom of the page but they do not list every institution: there are only 47 for the UK!
10. View the cached page version of a document in your search results to see where and how often your terms occur. Useful for very large documents.
11. Biznar (http://www.biznar.com/). Real time federated search tool covering selected business sites, some of which are not searched by Google et al.
12. Google Timeline to see the distribution of pages and documents over time. Remember, though, that the dates are not always when the content was published. A date or year might just have been mentioned in the text or Google mistakenly interpreted a number as a date.
13. Use  double quotes “” around phrases to find specific names or titles. This one is a golden oldie but one that is often forgotten. Works in nearly every search tool.
14. Try alternative names or change a single term to expand your search results, for example BP oil spill vs. BP oil leak. See what the search engine suggests as you type in your strategy and in Google look at  the Related Searches option in the menu to the left of your search results.
15. Add the year to your strategy when searching for somebody or something from a particular year. A simple, obvious trick but another one that is often forgotten. This will only look for the number in the text and does not run a date search, but it does significantly narrow down your search.
16. Try using non-UK and non-US versions of Google, for example http://www.google.com.ar/ or http://www.google.es/ if the information is likely to be in Spanish.
17. When using Google, click on ‘similar’ to find related information and sites similar in content and type.
18. Bing for images. No need to keep clicking the next page for more images, just keep scrolling down. Some also commented that the quality of the results and the layout are better than Google.
19. For video archives try BBC Motion Gallery – BBC Archive at http://www.bbcmotiongallery.com/gallery/home/archives.do and NewsFilm Online at http://www.nfo.ac.uk/
20. Social Mention (http://www.socialmention.com/). Great for monitoring mentions in the social media about a person, company or topic.

The slides for the day can be found on Slideshare at http://www.slideshare.net/KarenBlakeman/changing-landscape-of-search

Mark Prisk went on to say “The regional Business Links have spent too much time signposting and not enough time actually advising.” and that he envisages a “21st Century service” co-funded by the private sector and delivered online. The interview has been picked up by numerous blogs and the regional press, and comments have been both negative and positive. Some people have nothing but praise for their local Business Link whilst others report that the advice they received was useless and a waste of time. This reflects the mixed feedback I get from people who attend my business information workshops: the quality of the service varies widely depending on which Business Link you use and who you speak to.

Also worth reading is Real Business’s analysis of Business Link at “Business Link: never fit for purpose” at http://realbusiness.co.uk/leadership/business_link_never_fit_for_purpose.

So what is going to replace Business Link if anything? Mark Prisk is reported as saying that he envisages private-sector business support agencies, such as those linked to their local Chamber of Commerce, taking on a bigger role in providing face-to-face advice and networking. In addition the “21^st century” approach will include an improved and easier to use desktop and mobile online service and a call centre that will provide “that little bit of extra advice”.

Oh joy! We can now look forward to being held in a call centre queue for half the day before we reach a “consultant” who then works through the mandatory script. Some questions are easy enough to pre-package and include in an FAQ, for example where to find information on a company or the latest changes in VAT regulations. But, to be honest, if you do not already know the answer to either of those the chances of your business surviving are slim. Would the call centre be able to handle more complex enquiries, though? How about explaining why information on a particular company is NOT available at Companies House and should you be worried that it isn’t, or where to find a list of the 100 best selling books on mind, body and spirit for the years 2005-2009?

I must admit that I have never used Business Links myself. They were not around when I started my business in 1989 and as I have worked in the information industry for over 25 years I know where to find the main sources of reliable business information. More importantly, personal and professional networks play a significant part in my intelligence and news gathering activities as they probably do for many other business people; and the use of social media is increasing. I wonder, then, how much impact if any the demise of the Business Links will have on SMEs and UK business in general.

It does not matter whether or not you are logged in to your Google account because the information is stored in cookies associated with your browser. If you use more than one browser, each will have their own set of preferences that have to be viewed from within the browser. This has implications if you conduct confidential research and others have access to your computer. You might be deleting your search history but it is still possible to get a general idea of what areas you are working on. Your ad preferences also affect advertisements that Google shows on other websites for which it provides advertisements, for example YouTube, news sites and blogs.

You can remove or add an interest category, or opt out altogether from Google’s targeted advertising. My Firefox ad preferences mostly reflect the type of research I carry out, although I was puzzled by the inclusion of Local -Regional Content – Africa.

To opt out of  behavioural or targetted advertising run by other services the Network Advertising Initiative at http://www.networkadvertising.org/ lists about 50 members and allows you to opt-out of all or a selection. The list will also inform you whether or not you currently have an active cookie from that service. When I looked at my listing there were about fifteen I had never heard of and amazed that I had active cookies on nearly all of them. This is big business!

NAI member companies set a minimum lifespan of five years for their opt out cookies but if your browser is set to automatically clear cookies after a certain time period you will have to go through the opt-out procedure again. Note that opting-out does not mean that adverts will no longer be displayed, it just means that they will not match what Google and other services believe are your interests.

The source of the story? The man himself: Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced the possible recall last night via his Twitter account @ceoSteveJobs. There’s just one teensy weensy problem. The ‘bio’ for @ceoSteveJobs clearly states:

“I don’t care what you think of me. You care what I think of you. Of course this is a parody account.”

Perhaps the Daily Mail does not understand what parody is? Or maybe the ability to read is no longer a requirement for Daily Mail journalists?

Checking the authority and veracity of a source is an important part of research as those of us who do this for a living well know. It can be a time consuming and long-winded process but in this case it was clearly stated on the Twitter account that the source was A PARODY ACCOUNT. How difficult is it to read the profile on this account?

No doubt the Daily Mail will now regale us with tales of how Twitter is riddled with liars, fakes and false information and that it should be immediately banned from these shores.

Time to sing along to that popular ditty “The Daily Mail Song” by Dan and Dan http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eBT6OSr1TI

And as I finish writing this I see that the Daily Mail have pulled the story from their web site. If you are desperate to see a copy of the original I have one here. It will feature in my workshops on assessing the quality of information!

Go to http://www.google.com/dashboard/ and sign in with your account. As one would expect, at the top of your dashboard is your personal information: name, nickname, user name and email address but also included in this group is “Websites authorized to access the account”. Nothing of interest here, I thought, but I had forgotten that a few months ago I had been testing out Mapalist, which is a tool that enables you to create mashups of data with Google maps. I had allowed Mapalist access to Google Docs so  that I could create a spreadsheet within Docs that could then be combined with a Google map. I am quite happy for this to continue as I shall be carrying on with the experiment but it is worth checking this section on a regular basis to ensure no unwanted applications have sneaked in. Also, an application that you are quite happy to allow at the moment could be sold to an organisation that has very different intentions and ideas of how it wants to use your data, and it may not necessarily be to your advantage.

Most of the sections and applications are what you might expect. Alerts are fairly straightforward but it is worth having a clear out of unwanted search alerts. In my account there are Analytics, Books and MyLibrary, Gmail and contacts, Google Buzz and ‘followers’ and ‘following’, Calendar, Custom Search Engines, details of my Google Docs, iGoogle tabs and gadgets, maps that I have created, Google reader subscriptions and Web history (in my case switched off). What came as a surprise to me was that I had two purchases in Google checkout. At first I thought my account had been hacked but as soon as I checked the information I was reminded that 18 months ago I had bought services from Google. Full credit/debit card information is not displayed but it does give the last 4 digits, so you can carry out a quick check if you spot a suspect transaction.

Another surprise for me was Picasa. I was certain that I had never uploaded any images but there were 3 photos sitting in the account. They had been put there by Google when I was playing around with the latest Google customisable home page background image. I vaguely recall Google telling me it was going to do that but did not take much notice at the time. I don’t have any problems with them being there but it is an example of how Google sucks you into services that you would not normally consider using.

And then there is YouTube. In my account this shows my YouTube username, gender, age and post code, all of which I had supplied when I set up the account. Also displayed were my viewing history, favourites, subscriptions and contacts.

The “Other products” section summarises Google products that you are using but which are not yet available on the dashboard. In my case there was my Feedburner account, Google Groups and Google Squared documents.

The Google dashboard serves as a reminder of which Google products you have signed up for and what Google has made publicly available about you. It also highlights how much information you have given to Google about yourself. Google makes a lot of user generated content public by default, for example Maps and My Library, and all the public ‘stuff’ in your dashboard has a small people icon next to it. If you do nothing else, work your way through everything in your dashboard and double check the privacy settings for each application and document. Equally important, it emphasises the importance of signing out of your Google account before leaving your machine unattended. Leave your browser signed in and anyone can come along and see in detail what you have on your Google account.

Austria

Updated link: please use http://dataweb.telekom.at and click on Firmenbuch ‘Details’.

Thanks to Herbert Tischler, Telekom Austria TA AG for the correction.

Bulgaria

Update: an electronic version of the register is available at http://www.brra.bg/, but only in Bulgarian at present.

Thanks to Orlin Nedkov for the update.

Isle of Man

The Isle of Man Companies Registry has changed its web address to http://www.gov.im/ded/companies/companiesregistry.xml

Thanks to Mark Collister from City Trust for the alert.

Panama

Registro Público de Panamá http://www.registro-publico.gob.pa/
The Public Registry for incorporations of Companies and Foundations in Panama. There is a searchable online register but only in Spanish. Click on the white box “Consulta Registral”, which is towards the bottom of the page, and you will then be taken to the register which currently at https://www.registro-publico.gob.pa/scripts/nwwisapi.dll/conweb/prinpage
In Spanish only.

Thanks to Tord Coucheron of Hatfield Oak International for the information.

But health care librarians and information professionals, and  health care practitioners are an inventive lot. There is plenty of evidence of them having circumvented the barriers put in their way. The excellent Liz Azyan published a series of blog postings on social media and health care just before the workshop took place and they provide plenty of examples and support for those putting together a case for access to social media.

The postings are:

• Social Media for Medical Practitioners http://www.lgeoresearch.com/social-media-for-medical-practitioners/
• Social networks for medical practitioners http://www.lgeoresearch.com/social-networks-for-medical-practitioners/
• Web 2.0 & social media for patients http://www.lgeoresearch.com/web-2-0-social-media-for-patients/
• Cool Health Related Web 2.0 & Social Media Stuff by and for Patients http://www.lgeoresearch.com/cool-health-related-web-2-0-social-media-stuff-by-patients/
• Slideshare presentation slides for social media and web 2.0 for healthcare http://www.lgeoresearch.com/7-slideshare-presentation-slides-for-social-media-and-web-2-0-for-healthcare/
• E-Learning: Web 2.0 & Social Media examples and quotes for Health Informatics http://www.lgeoresearch.com/e-learning-web-2-0-social-media-examples-and-quotes-for-health-informatics/

The Liverpool workshop participants were equally innovative. During the practical sessions they were able to test out social media for providing up to date information on their services and current awareness to their users. The winners were wikis for creating mini-websites and Netvibes for presenting RSS feeds and current awareness. The NHS Bolton Library wiki at http://boltonpct.pbworks.com/ and Shrewsbury and Telford Health Libraries Netvibes Team Knowledge Update at http://www.netvibes.com/sathlibraries are just two examples. There was also a great deal of interest in Twitter and blogs for at least monitoring “conversations” on health related topics and their own organisations, and word clouds for analysing the content of documents.

Facebook did not win any converts, nor did Second Life.

My PowerPoint presentation for the day is available in several places, and you should be able to view or download it from at least one of them:

http://www.rba.co.uk/web2/2010HCLUSocialMedia.ppt

http://www.slideshare.net/KarenBlakeman/social-media-for-libraries-health-care-information

http://www.slideboom.com/presentations/169731/Social-Media-for-Libraries-%28Health-Care-Information%29

Workshop: Advanced Internet Searching for Energy Information & Market Research
Organised for: Information for Energy Group
Venue: The Energy Institute, New Cavendish Street, London.
Date: Thursday 13 May 2010

PowerPoint Presentation (download from the RBA site – 7.5 MB)
authorSTREAM
Slideboom
Slideshare

Phil Bradley and I are doing a double act on social networking tools tomorrow (May 10th, 2010) at the Dental Librarians Group Annual Meting 2010. My presentation is a run through the tools that I regularly use in my personal and working life. I’ve called it “A day in the life of…” but is really “2-3 days in the life of….”!  Some I do use on a daily basis but I may access others every other day or just once a week, so I suppose it could be one day if I picked the right one.

The presentation can be found on the following presentation sharing sites:

authorSTREAM
Slideboom
Slideshare

You can also download it from the RBA web site at http://www.rba.co.uk/web2/2010KarenBlakemanBDAADayintheLife.ppt

Obviously the map will be biassed as it will only include information from those on Twitter but the aim is to encourage more people to vote and to help get a sense of turnout during the course of the day and across the country. You may recognise the format as being similar to the #uksnow maps, which inspired this initiative.

If you haven’t come across Tweetminster before, this was set up in 2009 to enable people to follow MPs and UK politics on Twitter. You can track the tweets of MPs, Prospective Parliamentary Candidates (PPCs), as well as political journalists, comentators and news sources. Further details of the 2009 launch of Tweetminster can be found in The Independent and Tweetminster team up to launch Twitter-based service

If you have been considering submitting a proposal for a conference paper, a show floor seminar (part of the exhibition) or a  pre-conference workshop, but have no yet done so, now is the time to do it. For information on conference themes, making your submission and review criteria follow the links below:

1. Review Criteria and Submission Requirements
http://email.online-information.co.uk/c/1aYQlbxqT9IvAyDPvae
2. Example Abstracts
http://email.online-information.co.uk/c/1aYQlYMpJXVP14CcanR
3. Conference Themes
http://email.online-information.co.uk/c/1aYQmM1oAM98rAAyPBu
4. Delegate Profile
http://email.online-information.co.uk/c/1aYQnzgnrAmrS6yVuP7
5. Conference Committee
http://email.online-information.co.uk/c/1aYQomvmiozLiCxia2K
6. Guidelines for Exhibitors
http://email.online-information.co.uk/c/1aYQpWZk010o9Eu1uu0
7. Submit your paper online
http://email.online-information.co.uk/c/1aYQqKeiQPdHAaso9HD

Let’s start with the web cams. Volcano Web Cams – John Seach http://www.volcanolive.com/volcanocams.html has links to some of them including Eyjafjallajökull (http://eldgos.mila.is/eyjafjallajokull-fra-valahnjuk/). At the time of writing, though, the servers linking the three web cams covering Iceland’s bête noire to the rest of the world appear to have been overloaded with traffic and are rejecting connections. A list of US volcano web cams is on the US Geological Survey web site at Volcano Hazards Program Webcams http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/images/webcams.php. For volcanoes elsewhere, Volcano WebCams around the Pacific Ring of Fire and Beyond is at http://www.skimountaineer.com/ROF/VolcanoWebCams.php.

General information and data on US volcanoes is available via the USGS at http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/vhp/observatories.php. If you are worried about supervolcano Jellystone – sorry, Yellowstone – going up, that has its own observatory at http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/yvo. For volcanoes worldwide there is a comprehensive list at the Smithsonian Institution Global Volcanism Program (http://www.volcano.si.edu/) that you can download in Excel format. The list is is also available on the Guardian datablog at “Volcanic ash: how do you spot the next volcano to disrupt flights?” http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/apr/20/volcanic-ash-smithsonian-icao. In addition The Guardian article includes the ICAO map (International Civil Aviation Organization) that shows how flight routes cross volcanic risks.

The London Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre at the UK Met Office issues updated graphics of the ash cloud at http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/aviation/vaac/vaacuk_vag.html.

The Guardian news blog has updated daily blog postings of all news concerning the volcano and its impact on travel. Today’s posting is at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2010/apr/20/iceland-volcano-ash-flights-eruption.

And finally, there are some spectacular and beautiful photographs at “More from Eyjafjallajokull” http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/04/more_from_eyjafjallajokull.html

It uses data a flight information system called ADS-B (Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast) and this data is provided by a network of 100 volunteers equipped with ADS-B receivers, most of whom are in Europe. Not all aircraft are picked up; only about 60% of passenger planes and only a few military and private planes have an ADS-B transponder. A list of aircraft models that are visible and those that are not can be found at http://www.flightradar24.com/about.php.

Major airports are marked on the map with a blue cross and the position of airplanes with – erm – airplane icons.

Image courtesy of Flightradar24

Image courtesy of Flightradar24

Click on a plane and the path that it has taken is displayed. The colour of the trail behind the plane shows the altitude the aircraft had at that position. (An explanation of the trail colours is at http://www.flightradar24.com/about.php).

Additional information on the flight appears on the right of the screen and includes – when available – flight number, airline, the type of plane, altitude, speed, where the flight took off and destination. For many of the Scandinavian airlines’ planes there are also photos and  for some planes you can view their recent flight history.

On a technical note this site relies heavily on the use of  javascript so to get the best out of this site users are advised to use Firefox or Google Chrome.

Other issues to bear in mind are that even for Europe coverage is not 100% and, most important of all, it is seriously addictive!

This free plug in enables you to view and manage your Twitterstream from within Outlook.

Technical requirements are Microsoft Windows 2000, XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7 with the latest Service Pack. Outlook 2003 SP3, 2007 SP2, 2010 (32-bit and 64-bit.). Note that TwInbox does NOT work with Outlook Express.

According to the web page, features include:

• Update your Twitter status directly from Outlook.
• Receive your Twitterstream updates in Outlook.
• Archive, manage, group and search your tweets in the same way you manage your email
• Search and track keywords
• Group tweets by sender, topic, etc using the Search feature
• Manage multiple Twitter accounts
• Assign custom folder and categories to new messages
• Use Outlook’s “Reply” and “ReplyAll” commands to send twitter direct messages and @replies
• Automatically sort new tweets into folders
• Shorten URLs with bit.ly
• See graphs of your Twitter usage statistics

I am still experimenting so can’t yet comment on how easy the above are to set up. I shall probably continue to use Tweetdeck as my main application for managing my Twitter accounts on a day to day basis. TwInbox, though, seems to be a quick and easy way of archiving tweets that contain information I may want to refer to at a later date.