Social-Bookmarking for Libraries and Information Professionals
Posted on | October 2, 2009 | 4 Comments
Briefly, social-bookmarking is a method by which internet users may archive, organize, search, share, and explore web-based resources–principally websites but also sometimes formatted documents themselves. These services allow users to save links, attached with subject-identifying tags, to their personal accounts. From within their accounts users may customize the way they organize or share their links. These services generally offer users a means to search not only their own links, but the links of users within the service community as well. Most of these services provide content feeds, a way for individuals to receive automated RSS updates of additions to a particular profile or a means by which a collection of links may be shared externally on external webpages.
Though the social-bookmarking concept initially took root in the mid-90’s and flourished for much of that decade, the dot-com bubble-burst brought an end to many notable startups. In 2003 Del.icio.us launched, bringing innovation to the field through its use of a tagging system for cataloging links with user-select keywords. In the following two years a wave of new social-bookmarking services emerged, such as Stumbleupon, CiteUlike, Furl, Connotea, Ma.gnolia, Simpy, ClipMarks, and Diigo. Each of these services have their own unique features, but for its ease of deployment, popularity, and overall great design, we’re going to look at Del.icio.us.
Many attribute the popularity of Del.icio.us to its intuitive interface, ease-of-use, and memorable name. While the domain name has been simplified in recent years to delicious.com, the original domain, which is still in use, employed a clever twist of the country domain .us and a del sub-domain to stand out from the crowd; gimmicky, but arguably affective for its time. The minimalist user interface and site design, which may be attributed to the popularity of Google’s own stripping-down of the UI, presents users with a graceful and practical means by which to navigate the dizzying variety of links, tags, notes, lists, bundles and more.
Tongue-Eating Isopod
Posted on | September 12, 2009 | No Comments
Yes, just as frightening as it sounds, this little creature climbs into a fish’s mouth, eats its tongue, and takes up residence in the place of the tongue to live on as a parasite. You probably see a variety of rather harmless, yet somehow creepy, isopods at home in your yard or in the tide-line or surf at the beach. This new discovery, however, is the kind of critter that inspires nightmares, science-fiction, and spontaneous creep-outs. As bad as imagining the isopod is, imagine being the fish!
Original story comes from the BBC, by way of io9.
Personalizing Your Desktop: Working With Wallpapers and Widgets
Posted on | September 11, 2009 | No Comments
It goes without saying that a lot of us spend a significant amount of time working on or around computers at our jobs or at home. While we’ve all found ways to personalize our workspaces throughout the years with photos, souvenirs, gadgets, and more, your desktop offers a variety of options for setting up your own creature comforts. Whether it’s a relaxing landscape or a family photo as your desktop background, or a desktop widget that delivers your local news or weather reports, there’s bound to be something out there that works just right for you.
Here are some of the ways you can make this somewhat impersonal space more your own. Read more
keep looking »
Recent Movies- Recent Music
- Recent Books
Recent Photos
