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Is Finding Your Retirement Income With An Online Estimator Worthy?

Thursday, 24. July 2008, 17:48:43

This week the Social Security Administration revealed that they have a new Retirement Estimator on their website.

The Retirement Estimator produces estimates that are based on your actual Social Security earnings record. They will vary slightly from the actual benefit you may receive in the future because: your Social Security earnings record is constantly being updated...

Because the estimator works with your real social security record, when you enter the site you are asked to provide your social security number, date of birth and even mother's maiden name.

I always get very very cautious if anywhere on the Internet I have to reveal so much personal information and wonder if the Social Security Administration can make the estimation without asking for so much private info. If anyone gets a hold of your private info, they can steal your identity, open credit cards, buy cars and really ruin your life.

You can pretty much get the same information for free, without using the estimator, if you read the annual statement send every year to you by the Social Security Administration.

Via: Resourceshelf
http://www.resourceshelf.com/2008/07/21/new-tool-for-estimating-social-security-benefits/

Google Improves Gmail, Related Searches, Displays Code And Uses Voice With Maps

Wednesday, 23. July 2008, 17:55:35

One of the hardest things to do for a blogger is keeping up with all the changes and innovations around Google. We haven’t talk about Google lately, so let me briefly mention what have happened with search engine №1

A month ago Google announced that they have improved "related searches" and now hyperlinked suggestions for additional searches pop up on the top of your search. Get more from Search Engine Land.

Image reprinted from Search Engine Land blog

Later bloggers at Tech Crunch discovered that Google is now displaying in search results code from Google Code Search.

Blackberry owners of the following models (Pearl 8110, 8120, and 8130) in the US got lucky because now they can use their voice to search Google Maps on their cell phones. Google Mobile blog has the details.

Using your voice to search for businesses is super useful in situations when you can't type, when the name of the business is long, or when you're not sure how to spell it.

And the last improvement that Google did was for Gmail users by rolling out an account activity information, which helps user with security by pointing out to recent activity history with (partial) IP addresses and also gives you the option to sign out your account if it is used some where else. Go to Google Blogoscoped for more information.

Visits To Public Libraries Increased 10 % From 2002 to 2006

Tuesday, 22. July 2008, 18:16:45

Public Libraries

"Visits to libraries nationwide increased roughly 10 percent between 2002 and 2006 to about 1.3 billion", this is what journalists from Salt Lake City Tribune discovered when they analyzed data from National Center for Education Statistics.

*-Circulation, which measures how often library visitors check out print or electronic materials, increased nationwide about 9 percent, from 1.66 billion to 1.81 billion, between 2002 and 2006.

*- The number of Internet-capable computers soared 38 percent between 2002 and 2006 - from about 137,000 to nearly 190,000.

*- Rural states in the Midwest and New England had the highest numbers of Internet-ready computers per capita, according to the 2006 state numbers.

For materials and staffing libraries spend around $31.65 per person in 2005, with District of Columbia, and local governments in Ohio and New York spending the most - $50 per capita and local authorities in Mississippi, West Virginia, Arkansas and Tennessee spending the least – around $17.

The survey done by journalists in Salt Lake City confirms once more that libraries are vital part of their respectful communities all over the US. I wonder how do the futurists who predicted the decline of libraries almost 10 years ago, fill now, when they read these materials.

Via: Stephen's Lighthouse
http://stephenslighthouse.sirsidynix.com/archives/2008/07/li

National Public Radio Offers Free Mashups With IPA

Monday, 21. July 2008, 18:28:51

Social Networks are not the only Internet services that opened their API,("API is any interface that enables one program to use facilities provided by another, whether by calling that program, or by being called by it. Westlake Mobile Glossary ), now the
National Public Radio ( NPR) also declared that they are willing to do it.

NPR has introduced an API that it says will allow developers to serve up mashups that include audio, images, and full text articles from the non-profit media organization’s archives that go as far back as 1995.

To find out more details on how the API works, please click here. The NPR archive
has over 250,000 stories that are grouped into more than 5,000 different aggregations.

Via: Tech Crunch
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/16/npr-launches-api-that-serves-up-13-years-of-content/

Policy Archive Stores Research From Philanthropic Foundations

Thursday, 17. July 2008, 17:24:00

Government & Nonprofit Sources

Library Blog Buzz tries to keep you updated with the new government and non profit internet sources for research, because they are usually very precise, thorough and free of charge.

In the past, at the blog you have discovered government sites for vendors in New York, fuel economy, mobile info for THOMAS and USA.gov, drugs, forms and disability.

The last non profit source that caught my attention is Policy Archive, which has the ambition to collect and archive all the research done in institutions, libraries and databases on behalf of philanthropic organizations.

American philanthropic foundations spend over $1.5 billion a year on research. Spread out across the nation among diverse libraries, institutions, databases, and websites, this valuable research can be difficult or impossible to identify and obtain

Research on Policy Archive can be found by browsing different topics, or particular author, funder, or publisher and by using the advanced search form.

More than 250 institutions currently participate in the archive with more than 12,000 documents.

Via: Resourceshelf
http://www.resourceshelf.com/2008/06/30/resource-of-the-week-policyarchive/

Google Closes Librarian Central Blog And Opens It As a Newsletter

Wednesday, 16. July 2008, 17:44:57

Google once opened a blog called Librarian Central to facilitate communication with librarians and now decides to close the blog and open it as a newsletter.

This is what Phil Bradley discovered and you can read his comments on the blog.

Communicating with the library community is not a priority for Google and definitely not one of the company's forte but the search giant needs to be a lot more careful when communicating with librarians because they are the only ones that have to explain how Google works to the public and this is actually part of the duties for almost every public librarian.

Otherwise the newly created Librarian Central newsletter has info on Google Book Search, Google Sky and Google Health. .

Lets see how often Google will update the newsletter and how current the info in it will be.

100 Useful Sites For Writers & More

Tuesday, 15. July 2008, 18:12:17

Laura Milligan from the College@Home blog posted about "100 Useful Niche Search Engines You’ve Never Heard Of".

The list is quite extensive and includes search engines for quick answers, travel, shopping medical, reference, business, law, jobs, photos and other interesting topics.

Most of the search engines on Laura's post are familiar to researchers and librarians. The only one that I didn’t see ( an it is one of my favorites) is the travel search engine SideStep.

A few days ago Laura Milligan posted another list with "100 Useful Web Tools for Writers",which I find interesting.

I was especially amuzed by Story Starter, which lists 345,935,040 creative ideas for writers and PingMe, a service that will send reminders via email and text messages.

Check Your Free Miles With ExpertFlyer

Monday, 14. July 2008, 17:25:54

I am not much of a flyer, but for $ 5 a month a website called ExpertFlyer is ready to check the seat availability on over 400 airlines, the rewarded frequent flyer miles on 6 US airlines ( Alaska, Airlines, American Airlines, Delta, Frontier, Northwest, United ) and 11 international airlines (Aer Lingus, Air Canada, Air China, Air France, Air New Zealand, Air Tahiti Nui, British Midland, CSA Czech Airlines, Qantas, Shanghai Air and SWISS Air ) .

ExpertFlyer was designed for the frequent flyer, and those who use ExpertFlyer know exactly what flights to take, what fares to pay, where to sit on the plane and how best to use and maximize their frequent flyer miles and elite upgrades.

In addition you can also set up an alert for availability of award tickets, look up
real-time seat maps for over 100 airlines and check fare info with complete rules and restrictions.

Via TechCrunch
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/02/summer-travel-tip-check-if-those-frequent-flyer-award-seats-are-available-on-expertflyer/

Yahoo Opens Its Search Technology With BOSS, Google Explains Search Behind Scenes

Thursday, 10. July 2008, 17:37:54

Search is the fighting arena for Yahoo, Microsoft and Goggle and who ever is dominating in Internet searches is the master of the Internet.

Recently Microsoft introduced Search Together (collaborative search on the net) , and now Yahoo is trying something even more daring - opening its search technology for web developers.

With BOSS ( Build your Own Search Service ) " developers, start-ups, and large Internet companies can use BOSS to build and launch web-scale search products that utilize the entire Yahoo! Search index. BOSS gives you access to Yahoo!'s investments in crawling and indexing, ranking and relevancy algorithms, and powerful infrastructure." More details are available from TechCrunch.

Google also explained recently how they master Internet searches behind the scenes.

"For example when a user in San Francisco enters a query like google.com/search?q=blogoscoped, the user’s browser first completes a DNS lookup mapping www.google.com to a specific IP address. At this stage, Google’s DNS load balancer determines which cluster of computers at which of Google’s 36+ data centers will process the query."

Once the search query arrives at the correct data center, another load balancer determines which one of the hundred servers will process the request. Then the search goes to a Google mixer, which strips the question into smaller info requests and sends them to the servers, and later assembles all finished information pieces and posts them back to the data center.

Google Blogoscoped has more info, if you want to find out more about how Google handles searches.

National Institute Of Health With New NIH Senior Health Site

Wednesday, 9. July 2008, 17:34:01

The National Institute Of Health has a new health website for seniors called NIH Senior Health.

"

NIHSeniorHealth features authoritative and up-to-date health information from Institutes and Centers at NIH. In addition, the American Geriatrics Society provides expert and independent review of some of the material found on this web site.

The site is arranged in four sections: alphabetically arranged health topics, health videos, exercise stories and training material.

The training section offers tips on how to search the Internet, NIH Senior Health, Medline Plus and evaluating health websites.

NIH Senior Health is a useful research tool for all the seniors that visit public libraries and are interested in health research. I am sure that reference librarians will also be tempted to use the page for reference questions.

Lexis Nexis Starts Library Express For Public & State Libraries

Monday, 7. July 2008, 19:20:30

At the end of last month Lexis Nexis started Library Express, a brand new product designed to help customers of public and state libraries with their business, legal and news research

Library Express provides access to more than 6,000 news, business, and legal sources. News and business coverage encompasses newspapers, periodicals, television and radio broadcasts, newswires, blogs, corporate directories, and financial information. It features national and international news sources that date back to the 1970s, depending on the paper. Business sources include financial information, market research, industry reports, and SEC filings. Legal content includes case law, statutes, codes, regulations, patents, and law school directories.

The news sources include full-text of more than 350 newspapers US and international newspapers, more than 300 magazines and journals, over 600 newsletters, broadcast transcripts from the major television and radio networks and wire services, updated daily from Associated Press, Business Wire and PR Newswire.

Some of resources incorporated in the business file are Standard & Poor's Corporate Descriptions, Hoover's Company Reports, Disclosure Reports, International company and stock reports, and SEC filings and reports like SEC 10-Q Reports, SEC 10-K Reports, SEC 8-K Reports, SEC 20-F Reports, SEC Annual Reports to Shareholders.

Legal sources are also very well presented with U.S. Supreme Court decisions from January 1790 to present (searchable by majority opinion, minority opinion, concurring opinion, counsel, or headnotes) ; U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decisions;
U.S. District Court decisions from 1789 to present; decisions from Bankruptcy Courts; U.S. Court of International Trade; Tax Courts; Courts of Customs and Patent Appeals and Veterans, Commerce, and Military Courts.

This looks like a very thorough and interesting reference database, the question is whether public libraries will be able to afford it.

Via: Information Today/ News Breaks
http://newsbreaks.infotoday.com/nbReader.asp?ArticleId=49727

Using Firefox On Public Computers?

Wednesday, 2. July 2008, 17:11:28

Public Libraries, Browsers

We all know that Internet Explorer is not the safest and most reliable browser, so why not offer Firefox as an alternative to our library customers?

That is what Brian Herzog from Chelmsford Public Library is suggesting in his Swiss Army Librarian blog.

Firefox is just cooler. It lets us have more control over how the browser functions, and lets us offer more tools integrated right into the browser. Better for us, better for patrons.

To make that happen libraries need to download some Firefox add-ons like:

Public Fox to block browser changes and downloads, Menu Editor to remove items from the Firefox general menu, Greasemonkey to customize other website's coding on your home page and Add To Search Bar to add items ( library catalog for example) to Firefox's menu.

I am a fan of the Opera browser, I find it more intuitive than Firefox, but offering more choices to customers is definitely going to improve services and make the library more user friendly, so I am 100% for it.

Via: Tame The Web
http://tametheweb.com/2008/05/11/using-firefox-on-public-computers/

Edmunds Green Car Guide Will Save You Money

Tuesday, 1. July 2008, 16:49:36

Library Blog Buzz frequently covers websites and services oriented towards fuel economy in an effort to save money to the readers of the blog and ultimately to
all library customers.

The latest site that I found is Edmunds Green Car Guide, which covers the development of the new fuel efficient cars.

Here you can read about the Top 10 Most Fuel-Efficient SUVs of 2008 and the Top
10 Most Fuel-Efficient Sedans of 2008.

The site also has sections on alternative fuels, hybrid cars, trucks and SUVs and tips and tricks on how to improve your gas mileage.

Sign Up With RingCentral For A Virtual Phone System

Monday, 30. June 2008, 17:33:31

New Websites, Public Libraries

Small to medium size libraries who cannot afford big telephone bills can sign up with RingCentral for a virtual phone system and improve their telephone services and presence.

The RingCentral virtual phone system with a Toll Free 800 Number delivers all the power of a “big company” system but with no hardware to buy and nothing to maintain.

Now you can answer calls on your existing mobile, home and office phones, or even on your PC. You can also use RingCentral to send and receive faxes, automatically route calls to any member of your team regardless of their location and provide callers with an auto-attendant (e.g., “Push 1 for sales, 2 for shipping, 3 for billing,” etc.) and a dial-by-name directory.

For $49.99 subscribers can have up to 20 extensions and 1000 free minutes and for $99.99 up to 100 extensions and 2500 free minutes.

Via: Tech Crunch
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/04/ringcentral-gets-12-million-more-to-help-you-look-like-a-bigger-company/

WebAnywhere Debuts As The First Web Screen Reader For The Blind

Friday, 27. June 2008, 18:29:41

A lot of libraries use JAWS as their screen reader and pay the company licensing fees to allow visually impaired customers to be able to use the Internet and listen to an electronic voice, while they browse a website.

Web Anywhere is the first Internet based program that will let blind and visually impaired people to surf the Internet without any fees to pay, or programs to download.

WebAnywhere is a web-based screen reader for the web. It requires no special software to be installed on the client machine and, therefore, enables blind people to access the web from any computer they happen to have access to that has a sound card.

To see how it works take a look at the video below or read the post from Eureka Alert.

The program was developed at the University of Washington by a Jeffrey Bigham,a doctoral student in computer science and the research was funded by the National Science Foundation.

WebAnywhere is an open source project for anyone , who wants to contribute or host the program on their servers.

Times People- The First Social Network For New York Times

Thursday, 26. June 2008, 17:42:02

Today’s newspapers are ready to try anything to catch the attention of their readers and New York Times is no exception.

Two weeks ago they started Newser and now the top US newspaper is ready to offer the first social network to its users called Times People.

With TimesPeople, you can share articles, videos, slideshows, blog posts, comments on articles, and ratings and reviews of movies, restaurants and hotels.

For now Times People is only accessible as Firefox browser add-on, but later in the year it will be available for all major browsers, without any plug-ins.

To download the Times People plug-in, click here.

Keep in mind that at any time as a member of www.NYTimes.com, web page you can opt out and decide not to share any activities through Times People with other members.

Via: Red Herring
http://www.redherring.com/Home/24367

Find Your Favorite 2008 Gadget

Wednesday, 25. June 2008, 18:03:50

LLRX published yesterday the annual "60 Gadgets in 60 Minutes " presentation by Ed Vawter, Barbara Fullerton and Dina Dreifuerst, which goes over the latest technology equipment.

The presentation is quite extensive: 60 gadgets are reviewed and I am sure that everyone will find their favorites.

If you want to know which gadget is close to my heart it is the solar/electricity powered Millennia HVAC system that uses 50% less energy. " With a 2 to 12 hour backup battery bank capability. The Millennia requires very little renewable energy to run completely independent all day
and night."

To see the 2007 gadget presentation by Barbara Fullerton, Librarian at 10-K Wizard , Sabrina Pacifici, creator of LLRX.com & beSpacific.com and Aaron Schmidt from the Walkingpaper blog, please click here.

Proquets Is Buying Dialog

Tuesday, 24. June 2008, 17:17:22

Proquest announced surprisingly a few days ago that they are going to buy Dialog from Thomson Reuters.

For those that are not in the library business, Dialog is the biggest research database in the world with 900 databases, more than 1.4 billion unique records and operations in 27 countries.

ProQuest said that it would update Dialog’s platforms, renovate existing products, and explore new opportunities .

To find more details about the deal, read the press release from Proquest.

I am happy that the oldest database (and my favorite one) is in the hands of a company like Proquest that truly understands libraries, research and librarians and I am sure that very soon we will see some positive change.

Via: Library Journal
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6569978.html?desc=topstory

RepairPal Provides Free Car Repair Estimates

Monday, 23. June 2008, 17:33:39

With the price of gasoline skyrocketing, I am sure that every website (www.fueleconomy.gov) or software application that can save you money is going to become popular in no time and used a lot.

"RepairPal offers a price estimator for car repairs, a directory of local mechanics, expert car advice, and an online service record.", all in one place.

When you log in, you have to select you car model and make and the problem you are experiencing and RepairPal will give you a free estimate for the repair and most common problems reported for that model. In addition to that, you can find a service shop or keep track of your car service schedule, all your repair records and get service reminders and recalls, if you register your vehicles.

RepairPal will only charge from $9-$30 for experts advice from certified mechanics.

Via: TechCrunch
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/06/12/repairpal-its-like-google-health-for-your-car/

Newser Delivers Top Stories From The New York Times

Friday, 20. June 2008, 05:29:00

Every reference librarian knows how important it is to keep up with current news and read ( or at least browse) the New York Times once a day to find out the major developments throughout the world. Very often customers ask questions related to current events, so having an advanced knowledge is always an advantage.

One new application that wants to help you " know more" and "search less" is Newser, a service from New York Times that provides users with short summaries from the most popular stories of the day.

We search for the best stories all over the web, read them, and deliver succinct, sharply written summaries in a grid format that features photos, video and audio, and links to the original source.

For advanced readers Newser offers RSS feeds for popular sections and a widget with slideshow of current news, that customers can install on their websites and blogs.

Via: E-Content
http://www.econtentmag.com/Articles/ArticleReader.aspx?ArticleID=49518

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