Google has created a Privacy Channel on YouTube (YouTube – Broadcast Yourself ) where it has 23 videos on how to protect your Privacy on some of the Google services and products. (Stop laughing at the back!). Seriously, these are worth viewing as they do provide useful tips and information on how to change your personal settings and protect your privacy. Again, thanks to Phil Bradley for the heads up on this one.

The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) has announced that Inspec Direct, a new web-based version of the Inspec database, will be available directly from the IET in January 2008. Inspec provides an index to literature in physics, electrical and electronic engineering, computer science, information technology, manufacturing, production and mechanical engineering as well as interdisciplinary areas such as materials science, oceanography, nuclear engineering, geophysics, biomedical engineering and biophysics.

The IET press release says that the new Inspec Direct platform will feature a “user focused design” that will support all levels of scientific and technical research in the corporate, industrial, government and academic sectors. The Inspec Direct platform will be commercially available on January 1, 2008, but researchers and information professionals are invited to trial the new platform for free. For a free trial or further information about Inspec Direct, go to www.theiet.org/inspecdirect

Those of us with friends and relatives in Australia, New Zealand and in other countries on the Pacific rim are well aware that earthquakes regularly hit the region. Many of them are minor but recently there have been more serious events, most of which are not picked up by the UK or European press. A Google News alert will pick up those that make the headlines in the regional press that are local to the quake, but aftershocks are not always reported. Search engine Ask has a map showing recent earthquakes and their magnitude on a map at http://www.ask.com/earthquake but there is no email or RSS alert option so you have to keep going back to the site to see the latest news. The US Geological Survey has detailed information and alerts on earthquakes at http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/. In addition there are two RSS feeds: one is for earthquakes with a magnitude greater than 2.5 (http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/catalogs/eqs1day-M2.5.xml) and the second for those with a magnitude greater than 5.0 (http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/catalogs/eqs7day-M5.xml).

If you are a Firefox user there is an eQuake add-on at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2239 which uses the USGS data. It alerts you with the basic information (date, location, and magnitude) of each earthquake but you can specify a lower limit for the magnitude, for example 4. By default your browser will ‘shake’ proportional to the earthquake magnitude but you can configure the alert methods. I have only just installed it so I’m not sure how disruptive the quaking browser effect is going to be …… and as I write this an earthquake of 4.9 has just hit the Santa Cruz Islands region! And having just spell checked this article a 6.8 quake has occurred off the west coast of the South Island of New Zealand. If nothing else this is an interesting way to demonstrate the frequency of earthquakes.

I am having a grand clear-out in the office and at long last have decided that my archive of telecoms software and manuals has to go. Before I sort the paper, binders, books and disks into the relevant piles for recycling I offer them free of charge to anyone who might be interested for historical reasons, research or whatever!

The list is on http://www.rba.co.uk/telecoms.htm

You do not have to take the whole lot – you can take an individual item. Email me at karen.blakeman@rba.co.uk if you are interested in any of them. Closing date 5th October 2007. After that date, they will be irrevocably recycled.

This is a blog tag game and I blame Phil Bradley for sucking me into this this, who blames Danny Sullivan, who blames …. I have no idea. The game is that having been tagged (by Phil!) I have to tell 5 things you didn’t know about me and ‘tag’ five people to do likewise!

So, the 5 things you possibly didn’t know about me are:

1. Phil claims to have run the first Internet course in the UK in 1994 but in late 1992 I ran an Internet course for people working in the commercial sector. We spent hours struggling with telnet, veronicas, archies, and gophers and got nowhere very slowly. At the end of the session I uttered the immortal words “Don’t worry, this Internet thing will never catch on” .

2. Chris (my husband) and I have walked the Thames Path twice during the last four years. 184 miles from its source in the Cotswolds to the Thames Barrier in Greenwich. Brilliant! Our greatest challenge was identifying public transport that could get us to and from various points along the walk.

3. I am a fervent vegetable gardener specialising in growing tomatoes, aubergines, courgettes, peppers, garlic, and chillies that blow your head off. If you are interested in growing really tasty vegetables, especially tomatoes and peppers, try Simpsons Seeds.

4. We have a tartan tortie cat called Jessie. She is a rescue cat adopted from Thames Valley Animal Welfare and has us well trained. Remind me – why are we getting up at 5 am in order to feed this animal?

5. I am a Thunderbirds fan. F.A.B . Need I say more?

I now tag:

Tom Roper. Great blog that as well as information related topics has racing tips!

Brian Kelly. Well I have to tag him don’t !? We all teased him mercilessly at Internet Librarian International this year about being the only web 2.0 speaker without a blog. So he immediately set one up. And very good it is.

Chris Armstrong. This is the fellow to contact about managing e-books. He is also very active in CILIP council and has been involved in the Review of Groups and the Governance Review. Anyone who recommends axing the incomprehensible, hierarchical panel, board, standing committee structure of CILIP gets my vote every time!

Chris Rhodes. My husband who is involved in environmental remediation and energy issues. His blog has interesting but sometimes seriously scary stuff concerning climate change and ‘peak energy’.

Christine Baker. Christine does not have a blog but I want to tag her anyway, and she gets out of having to tell and tag. She is the UKeiG (UK eInformation Group) admin person who keeps the whole group running and on its toes, and we all love her. More importantly, she is and has been a great friend to me for many years.

Fubra, who run and maintain the OurProperty.co.uk and PetrolPrices.com web sites, have launched the Fubra Passport. This is a single login system that will be valid for all existing and future Fubra web sites and consists of your email address and just one password. You no longer need your user name.

Fubra say that the benefits will become obvious as they launch more sites over the next few months, but no clues from them yet as to what those sites are likely to be. So far, I have been very impressed with Fubra’s sites. I use regularly use OurProperty, which repackages Land Registry data, and friends and colleagues reckon that PetrolPrices, which gives details of local petrol prices, is excellent. (We gave up our car 15 years ago as an experiment and are still managing to survive and travel with out it!). Fubra also run Compare Airport Parking.