All posts by Karen Blakeman

I have worked in the information profession for over twenty years and have been a freelance consultant since 1989. My company (RBA Information Services) provides training and consultancy on the use of the Internet, and on accessing and managing information resources. Prior to setting up RBA I worked at the Colindale Central Public Health Laboratory, and then spent ten years in the Pharmaceutical and Health Care industry before moving to the International management consultancy group Strategic Planning Associates. I edit and publish an electronic newsletter called Tales from the Terminal Room. Other publications include Search Strategies for the Internet. I am a Fellow of CILIP: The Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, a member of the UK eInformation Group (UKeiG).
Google, privacy

What Google knows about you(1): check your dashboard

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Many of us are well aware that the search engines track how we search and what we click on. This information is used to build up a profile of you and provide a personalised service, not only for the advertisements that are presented on your results page but also for search results. Google in particular is an expert in personalisation. At the end of last year Google announced that it would store your search history on your computer by default. (See “Your Google results are about to get weirder” at http://www.rba.co.uk/wordpress/2009/12/17/your-google-results-are-about-to-get-weirder/.) There are much more obvious ways, though, in which Google can build up a picture of your online habits: Googlemail, Google Reader, iGoogle, blog and news alerts to name just a few. But can you remember what you have set up on your Google account? Check out your Google Dashboard and be prepared for a few surprises.

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.

Business Information

Updates to Company Registers page

For those of you who need to track down official company information, the following updates have been made to the RBA Official Company Registers page at http://www.rba.co.uk/sources/registers.htm :

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.

health care, social media, Web 2.0, workshops

Social media in health care libraries – wikis and Netvibes win

I recently ran a version of my social media workshop for a group of health care librarians and information professionals in Liverpool. The group were LIHNN (Library and Information Health Network North West) and HCLU (Health Care Libraries Unit). (For further information about them see their web site at http://www.lihnn.nhs.uk/). I was forewarned that many of them have limited access to social media. Several confirmed that Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and blogs were all blocked in their workplace, yet most of them came from organisations who had set up YouTube channels, Twitter streams and Facebook pages! This raises an interesting question: if they receive a query about, for example, an event listed on their Facebook page or the content of a video on YouTube how are they supposed to respond if they are not able to check the content at the time of the enquiry? I find this mass blocking of social media web sites by organisations totally bizarre and ludicrous. The blocking is not even consistent. Slideshare may be blocked but other presentation sharing sites are often accessible. Add to this the antediluvian technology most of them are forced to use – in particular IE6 – and we end up with organisations that are out of touch with their users and communities, and have no idea what is being discussed or said about them.

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:

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

Presentations, Search Engines, Search Strategies, workshops

IFEG Advanced Search, Statistics & Market Research

I have now uploaded the slides for my workshop at the Information for Energy Group (IFEG). As usual, I have uploaded them to several different web sites in case one or more are blocked by corporate firewalls. If you have problems accessing any of the locations, let me know and I’ll sort out some other means of getting the presentation to you.

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

Presentations, social media, Web 2.0

Presentation: A day in the life of…

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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

Government, mashups

Tweetminster maps turnout in UK election

Tweetminster, Channel 4, The Guardian and the New Statesman are teaming up to map voter turnout in the UK general election today (6th May 2010). See http://tweetminster.tumblr.com/post/568070812/help-us-map-voter-turnout-on-may-6th for details. Twitter users are being asked to tweet #ukvote followed by the first half of their postcode and the information will be plotted on a map in real time at http://tweetminster.co.uk/. Voters do not have to reveal who they voted for.

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

Online Information Conference

Online Information 2010 – call for speakers deadline extended

The deadline for submission of papers for the Online Information Conference 2010 has been extended to Sunday. May 9th.

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

Statistics

Volcano watching

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For those of us with friends and families stranded away from home because of “that volcano” in Iceland, and those who had been planning to travel through Europe in the next few days, volcano watching has become a way of life. There is a myriad of resources providing information on volcanoes in general, the progress of ash clouds, and links to live volcano web cams including Eyjafjallajökull – the current villain of the piece.

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.

London VAAC Images

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

mashups

Flightradar24 – watch air traffic live

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Flightradar24.com shows live aircraft traffic in the airspace above Europe, of which there has been very little over the past few days. It is a mashup of Google Maps, airport locations, broadcast air traffic data and photos of some of the aircraft.

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.

Flightradar24 Map
Image courtesy of Flightradar24


Flightradar24 plane and flight information
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!

Techie Stuff, Twitter

TwInbox – Use Twitter from Outlook

http://www.techhit.com/TwInbox/twitter_plugin_outlook.html

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.