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).

Search Engines, Search Strategies, workshops

Another workshop – another Top 10 Search Tips

March 10, 2010 Karen Blakeman 2 Comments

The participants at the latest advanced search workshop were all from the public sector and had very strong views on some of the new developments in search. They were definitely not impressed by Google automatically enabling web history with a view to “personalizing” search results. (See Your Google results are about to get weirder
http://www.rba.co.uk/wordpress/2009/12/17/your-google-results-are-about-to-get-weirder/). (The workshop participants are switching off Web History as soon as they get back to the office!) There were several sites and search features, though, that did impress them. This is their list of Top 10 Search Tips.

1. The Google Wonderwheel was the clear winner of the day with this group. When your results page appear on screen, click on “Show options” just above the results and to the left of the screen. Then select Wonderwheel from the list on the left of the page. (For further details see Google new search and display options
http://www.rba.co.uk/wordpress/2009/10/05/google-new-search-and-display-options/)

2. Google’s Timeline was a close second in the popularity stakes. This is also under Show options in Google when you do a default web search and is also available in Google News. It shows the distribution of your articles over time and gives you an idea of when something started to become a “hot topic” and how a story has developed over time. It is not 100% accurate but is good enough to give you an overall picture of how interest in a subject has waxed and waned.

3. LGSearch http://lgsearch.net/ They liked this one a lot! This a Google Custom Search Engine (CSE) set up by Dave Briggs (http://davepress.net/) that searches UK public sector web sites in one go. On the results page you can, if you wish, narrow down your search further to Local Government, Central Government, Health, Police & Fire, LG Related or Social Media.

4. Slideshare http://www.slideshare.net/. A site used by many people and organisations to provide access to PowerPoint presentations. Search for presentations on any topic or by a specific person then view online or download the original if the author permits. Once you have selected a relevant presentation Slideshare also shows you a list of other presentations containing similar content. No registration required if you just want to search.

5. Try something else other than Google. As well as giving Yahoo or Bing a go, try and think about the type of information you are looking for: news, video, statistics, what people are talking about. Then use the appropriate search tool for that type of information.

6. Twitter search http://search.twitter.com/ You may not want to indulge in Twitter yourself but it can give you an idea of what people are saying about a topic. It is also an essential part of reputation monitoring and competitive intelligence: what are people saying about you or your products and services? You do not have to have a Twitter account to search Twitter, just go to search.twitter.com.

7. Google Blogsearch (http://blogsearch.google.com/) and Blogpulse (http://www.blogpulse.com/) Blogs are another useful source of views and opinions on every topic imaginable. Blogpulse has a “trend this” option on the results page that displays a graph showing you how many blog posts mention your search terms over time.

8. Zuula.com (http://www.zuula.com/) for quick and easy access to a wide range of search tools covering different types of information. Enter your search once, click on the tab for the type of resource (video, images, reference, news), and then work your way through the list of search engines.

9. Google Custom Search Engines (CSE). We looked at several Google CSEs, LGsearch.net and Directionlessgov (http://directionlessgov.com) being just two of them. You can, though, set up your own CSE at http://www.google.com/cse/. Useful if you search the same web sites day after day. You will need a Google account or Gmail account to set up a CSE but you can host your CSE on your own web site or on Google. CSEs can be made public or kept private.

10. University of Auckland Official Statistics (OFFSTATS) http://www.offstats.auckland.ac.nz/ This set of web pages provides information on Official Statistics on the Web and is an excellent starting point for official statistics by country and subject/industry.

CILIP

Event: CASH – a Current Awareness Service for Health

March 7, 2010 Karen Blakeman

CILIP in the Thames Valley evening event

Date: Tuesday 6 April 2010

Time: 18.00 for 18.30

Venue: Great Expectations, 33 London Street, Reading, Berkshire RG1 4PS
www.streetmap.co.uk/newmap.srf?x=471801&y=173139&z=0&ar=Y

Chrissy Allott: CASH, a Current Awareness Service for Health

From a local to a national current awareness and alerting service; from primary care to mental health and secondary care, the aim of CASH is to provide a nationally managed and coordinated current awareness service to ensure that all health care staff are kept up-to-date.

This is a free event followed by refreshments and a chance to network with your colleagues from the local area. An invitation is extended to anyone with a professional interest in the topic.

Please advise Norman Briggs, Events Co-Ordinator, Tel: 0118 987 1115 or nwbriggs@pcintell.co.uk or Chrissy Allott, Chairperson Chrissy.Allott@berkshire.nhs.uk if you plan to attend.

Date for your diaries

Tuesday 4 May: CILIP in the Thames Valley & South East Branch Joint AGM 2010

The South East branch will hold a joint AGM with the CILIP in Thames Valley sub-branch on Tuesday 4 May at the Town Hall, Reading, from 1.00pm. Further details of speakers and events will be announced soon.

collaborative tools

Yammer offers collaboration to broader communities

February 26, 2010 Karen Blakeman 1 Comment

Yammer (http://yammer.com/) has announced that it is opening up its microblogging service. It will allow people from different organisations and even families to use the service for collaboration. At the moment only people with email addresses on the same company domain can connect within Yammer using the free account, but you can already add “external members” using one of the priced plans. The new Communities will enable less formal organisations to use Yammer and I can see this being a useful way for diverse groups of people working on projects or events to connect.

The pricing plans for Yammer Communities will be the same as the “corporate” version: it will be free to use with priced plans for more advanced features. The service will launch on March 1st.

Exalead, Search Engines, Search Strategies

Exalead changes filetype commands

February 25, 2010 Karen Blakeman 1 Comment

If you are a user of Exalead (http://www.exalead.com/search/) and use the filetype command you will need to make note of some changes to the file extensions. If you are looking for Excel spreadsheets you will now have to include ‘filetype:excel’ in your search strategy, for PowerPoint it is ‘filetype:powerpoint’ and for Word documents type in ‘filetype:word’. I assume that the changes are to ensure that the ‘new’ Microsoft Office 2007 extensions pptx, docx and xlsx are picked up. Alternatively, you could run just a keyword search and select the filetype from the menu down the right hand side of the results page.

In Google you have to run separate command line searches if you want to pick up both ppt and pptx files. The advanced search screen file format drop-down menu options only search for pre Microsoft Office 2007 file extensions. Bing does not seem to recognise the newer file extensions at all but you can search for them in Yahoo using the ‘originurlextension:’ command. Like Google, Yahoo’s advanced search screen file format box does not pick up the 2007 extensions.

Most people who use Microsoft Office 2007 generally convert files to 97-2003 format before uploading them to the web, but Office 2010 is well into beta testing and the new extensions will start to become more commonplace. It will be interesting to see if and how Google, Yahoo and Bing manage search for these new filetypes.

CILIP, Presentations

Presentation: Citizens Advice – what we really do

February 24, 2010 Karen Blakeman 1 Comment

A free evening event organised by CILIP in the Thames Valley

Date: Tuesday, 2nd March 2010
Time: 18.00 for 18.30
Venue: Great Expectations, 33 London Street, Reading, Berkshire RG1 4PS
Speaker: Chris O’Hare

Chris O’Hare is manager at Henley & District CAB. Chris will consider the transferable skills from the information industry, the challenges and joys of working in a small local charity? If you are interested in volunteering, moving into the charity sector or the work of CAB come along and find out more.

Chris has worked in the information industry for more that 20 years, most recently on a freelance basis at Yell. Previous roles include Information Manager for Business Gateway in Aberdeen, Senior Lecturer at London Metropolitan University and Information manager for the Consumer’s Association. Chris is trainer for TFPL. Her book Business Information Sources: A Beginner’s Guide was published in 2007 by Facet.

These meetings are free and open to all.

Refreshments provided afterwards.

Please advise Norman Briggs, Events Co-Ordinator Tel: 0118 987 1115 or nwbriggs@pcintell.co.uk, or Chrissy Allott, Chairperson Chrissy.Allott@berkshire.nhs.uk if you plan to attend

Presentations, Search Strategies

Slidefinder

February 21, 2010 Karen Blakeman 1 Comment

Slidefinder (http://www.slidefinder.net/) was recommended to me way back in August 2009 and I have been using it ever since to track down information inside presentations. PowerPoint presentations can hold a wealth of information: corporate structures, strategic plans, research activity, statistics, industry information etc. Using the advanced file format search options in the general search engines is one way of locating relevant presentations and there are also searchable presentation sharing sites such as Slideshare (http://www.slideshare.net/) and Authorstream (http://www.authorstream.com/). Slidefinder (http://www.slidefinder.net/) is a similar service but locates and presents you with individual slides that contain your search terms. This means that you do not have to wade through the whole file to find the information you want.

It covers publicly available PowerPoint presentations that are on the web but does not include services such as Slideshare or Authorstream. The default simple search is straightforward. Type in your search terms and relevant slides are displayed as thumbnails. The advanced search enables you to search by slide title, text, notes, presentation name, keywords, language and site. To see a larger version of a slide and any notes associated with it move the cursor over a slide, or you can download the entire presentation if you wish.

There are also options to restrict your search to university sites. These are listed by country in regions (Europe, North America, Oceania and Asia) but it is not comprehensive. Once you have identified the university you want you can either browse the title slides or keyword search the available presentations. Phil Bradley has already reviewed the service and he commented that no UK universities were listed. This is obviously a part of the service that is under continual development and I note today that two universities have been added to the UK list since I last looked. It is not clear how the universities are selected for inclusion (there are only 47 for the UK) and many major institutions such as Reading University are missing from the list.

Slidefinder is powered by Slide Executive (http://www.slideexecutive.com/) and is a showcase for Swedish company Novatrox’s desktop and enterprise presentation management tools. They are essentially search tools for presentations stored on your own computer or networks but they also enable you to build new presentations from existing slides and manage “libraries”. There are a range of products depending on the number of users and how you wish to create and organise your files. They are all priced but you can download free trials. I am currently looking at the single user desktop edition and although I know my own presentations inside out and their location I am finding Slide Executive very useful for presentations given to me by co-workers and colleagues. The question for me now is whether or not it is worth 249 Euros. Possibly not, but the free Slidefinder is definitely worth adding to your search toolkit.

Google

Google testing new options interface?

February 18, 2010 Karen Blakeman

Twitter followers of @daveyp and myself may have spotted a brief exchange of tweets between us and Phil Bradley (http://philbradlel.typepad.com/ Twitter name @philbradley) about additional icons appearing on Google results pages when ‘Show options’ was selected. An example of what @daveyp was seeing is at http://www.daveyp.com/blog/stuff/google.jpg . He was using Google.com, the “search provider” box in IE and running IE8.0.6001 on WinXP SP3. It did not matter whether or not he was signed in to a Google account.

Phil Bradley and I attempted to replicate this on our various machines, operating systems, browsers etc but could not and neither could anyone else in @daveyp’s twitterstream. Phil Bradley wondered if @daveyp had stumbled upon some unique, bizarre experiment. In the mean time I had turned to the email discussion list of the AIIP (Association of Independent Information Providers), one of my professional networks. One hour and fifteen minutes later, fellow member Donna Fryer responded with a link to http://blogoscoped.com/forum/163640.html, which suggests that Google are testing a change to the format and layout. The posting also refers to http://searchengineland.com/google-streamlines-search-options-30143 . By this time @daveyp had reported that the icons had disappeared and the layout returned to normal!

I subscribe to the Blogscoped RSS feed but had completely forgotten about the posting. In a follow up tweet Phil Bradley echoed my own thoughts when he pointed out that the Blogscoped article was written in November 2009 and asked why they had started testing again now. The answer may be in the Search Engine Land post: “the cleaner display may be launched across Google after the New Year.” So keep your eyes peeled for a new layout in Show Options.

As well as alerting me to a potential change in the Google results layout, this whole exchange reinforced to me the power of networks and social media when one is faced with a problem – and I include the good old-fashioned, traditional email discussion lists. One person reports an oddity on their preferred social network (in this case Twitter). Members of that person’s network pick it up, investigate and pass it on to members in their preferred networks (in my case the AIIP discussion list). Suggestions, advice and information are passed back to the original enquirer and problem solved!

Techie Stuff

IE 6 – DIE!!!

January 30, 2010 Karen Blakeman 4 Comments

Google has announced that from March 1, 2010 it will start to phase out support for Internet Explorer 6 in Google Docs and Google Sites. IE 6 users who have visited YouTube (owned by Google) over the last 6-8 months will already have seen notices telling them to switch to a more up to date browser but now that policy to stop supporting the browser is spreading to Google’s other services. Microsoft has said that it will continue to support the browser with updates until 2014 (BBC News Microsoft backs long life for IE6), which hardly encourages organisations to upgrade. Hopefully, Google’s announcement will sound the death knell for this antique.

I am still gobsmacked by the number of organisations that still use IE6. About 20% of the in-house workshops I do have to be run on computers using IE6. Many people highlight local government as the major culprit but there are major international corporations who are still using it. The most common excuse I am given is that in order for them to use bespoke internal databases they have to program an interface between the browser and the databases. Changing the browser means rewriting the code. The scariest set-up I have come across was in an international investment bank whose CIO told me that the easiest way for them to connect a browser to a key database was to make use of a security loophole in IE 6, which means that they can’t install security updates!

You may think that removing IE 6 support from Google Docs and sites won’t affect the general user. Check the results from your Google searches over the next few weeks. I bet there will be formatted files such as PDFs, spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations in the mix. If you want to preview the file before downloading the HTML option is still there for some, but an increasing number are being previewed in Google Docs. And when it comes to accessing web sites it is not just Google services and applications that suffer under IE 6. Forget about fancy Web 2 applications: I am finding in my business information workshops that essential features of many web sites are not displayed in IE 6 .

For the web to move on and integrate new technologies IE6 really must die

Presentations

Web 2.0 – the truth behind the hype

January 29, 2010 Karen Blakeman

CLSIG is re-running the popular Web 2.0 event it held last year in London. Both Phil Duffy and I are presenting again but this time it is to be held in Birmingham. Details are as follows:

Event: Web 2.0 – the truth behind the hype

Date: Monday 1 March 2010, 6.30-8pm. (Doors open 6 pm)

Venue: Hammonds, Rutland House, 148 Edmund Street, Birmingham B3 2JR.

What is web 2.0 and what isn’t it?

In this seminar Karen Blakeman, Independent Information Trainer and Consultant at RBA Information Services, and Phil Duffy, Information Services Manager at Hammonds LLP will debate the pros and cons of using web 2.0 tools and technologies. This event was sold out and highly rated by attendees in London earlier this year.

There will be a networking reception after the event.

Booking Details

All seminars are £10 for CLSIG members, £15 for non-members and half-price for the unemployed. To book or for more information please email events@clsig.org.uk. Cheques should be made payable to CLSIG and sent to Irena Valouchova, Denton Wilde Sapte LLP, One Fleet Place, London, EC4M 7WS or DX242 City. Please note that refunds are only available up to a week before the event. Travelling details: http://www.hammonds.com/Default.aspx?sID=259&cID=952&ctID=11

CLSIG website: www.clsig.org.uk

Karen Blakeman's Blog