"Wouldn't it be great if you could have your voice mail e-mailed or texted to you instead of having to call back in to your number?"

"What if you could leave customized greetings for people in your address book?"

These are the questions asked - and answered - by YouMail, a free external voicemail service with some pretty powerful features including:

• Customized voicemail greetings for people in your address book - complete with "ditch" feature
• Voicemail notification via e-mail, web, and text message
• Voicemail to text transcription sent to your phone

Right now it is only available in the US and works on AT&T, Nextel, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon and more. See MakeUseOf.com for a full explanation of the features.

Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 10:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"TimeMachiner is a new mini-app that lets you email people in the future. Use it to remind yourself to do something that you'll more than likely forget, keep your future self on the straight and narrow, even wish your friends happy birthday...the possibilities are endless!"

Source: MakeUseOf.com

Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 12:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last month I reported that street views of Milwaukee were available in Google Maps. Well, now Madison street views are available as well. Check out the interactive view of the UW Law School below.

View Larger Map

Simply do a Google search for an address in Madison and click on the "Street Views" link in the resulting map. You'll see a panoramic view from the street like the one above. Notice that you can pan, rotate and zoom, as well as, move forward or backward down the street.

Source: Dane101
----------
Update: 4/2/08
It appears as though street views of much of Dane County are available, not just Madison. And yup, there is my house, although the address is wrong. See the report from Channel 3000.

Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 11:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From MakeUseOf.com:

FreezePage lets you take snapshots of web pages and store them for later reference. What makes FreezePage different from other screenshot capture tools is that in addition to screenshots it also saves the exact date and time, page size and more. Thus it can be used as an independent third party tool to provide evidence on web copyright issues. Whether someone is stealing your content, illegally distributing your images, using your logos ... you can just freeze the page and use it as an evidence.

Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 12:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Here are a couple of useful tools for sending and receiving faxes from you computer at no charge:

• To Send: FaxZero
  Simply enter your name and email, the recipient's name and fax number, upload the document to fax, and send. There is no cost for this service, however there will be an ad on the cover page. The pages of your document will bear no extra marks.

• To Receive: JConnect Free
  Sign up for your own personal phone number you can use to receive voicemail and faxes as email attachments.

Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 2:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Determining if and how a Web site has changed can be an important factor in litigation. Many of you probably know about a wonderful tool called the Wayback Machine which archives sites and displays them as they were at various points in time.

But, but did you know that there were other tools that do this as well? I didn't.

Search Engine Showdown has compiled a handy chart for Finding Old Web Pages. In addition to listing each tool, the chart notes how far back the archive goes, and how to search it.

Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Have a dissertation looming in your future and don't know where to start? Check out the Dissertation Calculator developed by the UW Madison CIMC (Center for Instructional Materials and Computing).

Simply enter your start date and target end date. The calculator breaks down the dissertation process into manageable deadlines and provides you with important resources and advice. Using this tool can help you develop your specific process in collaboration with your department, advisor and others.

Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 9:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I just learned about a sneaky little device called the SnoopStick which allows you to monitor and control access to computers and laptops from anywhere, anytime. It is available for $60.

According to the web site:

• Simply insert a SnoopStick device into a USB port on the computer you want to monitor.
  
• Run the 60 second setup program. This installs the secret monitoring systems on the target computer.
  
• Remove the SnoopStick and take it with you. You can now use your SnoopStick device to monitor and control that computer from any other computer, anytime you like.

Here's more:

The SnoopStick monitoring components are completely hidden, and there are no telltale signs that the computer is being monitored.

Any time you want to see what web sites your kids or employees are visiting, who they are chatting with, and what they are chatting about, simply plug in your SnoopStick to any Windows based computer with an Internet connection and a USB port. SnoopStick will automatically connect to the target computer.

Monitor both sides of IM conversations in real time or tell SnoopStick to display recent activity. Check the sender and recipient of every email sent or received. View the websites your kids or employees have been visiting. Call up a screen capture any time to see exactly what they were (or are) looking at. You can even log the user off, disable internet access, set time restrictions or even turn the computer off. All using your SnoopStick from any computer.

Oh my goodness - this is really scary. I can just imagine all sorts of unscrupulous uses for this, which SnoopStick acknowledges:

SnoopStick was created primarily to help parents supervise their kids online activities. We realize however, that there are possibilities for abuse.

To that end, they've developed an "inoculator" program that you can run on your computer to guarantee that no one will be able to install SnoopStick without your permission. If someone does try to install it, the installation will fail and you'll be notified of the attempt via email.

Source: Internet Guide for the Legal Researcher, July/Aug 2007

Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 1:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Legal abbreviations are not always easy to decipher. Fortunately, there are several good reference tools to help you do just that. Bieber's Dictionary of Legal Abbreviations is a print publication (also available on Lexis) and Cardiff Index to Legal Abbreviations is available free online.

With both sources, you can either search by abbreviation to get the full title, or search by title to get the abbreviation.

Thanks to Virtual Library Cat's Eye View for the reminder about Cardiff Index to Legal Abbreviations.

Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 10:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When trying to explain a how to use a computer application, a screen shot (still photo) is worth a thousand words. A screencast (video recording) is worth a million. Librarians have been using screencast applications like Camtasia for a while to produce wonderful tutorials on database searching, etc.

I've often thought about trying my hand at one, but the cost of the software and the production time was too prohibitive. Well, not any more. I've just tried a new, free application called Jing and I just love it.

With Jing, you can record what's happening on your screen and either save it to your computer or share it. If you choose to share it, Jing uploads the video to Screencast.com and gives you back a URL which you can share with anyone.

Or, if you don't need a video, you can capture a still screen shot. Jing has built in arrow, text, and highlighter tools - much faster than editing it in Photoshop or Fireworks.

I tested it out and made a screencast of my own. This 29 second video of a me performing a search in our Wisconsin Briefs database took less than one minute to create - 29 seconds for the actual recording and about 15 seconds to begin and end the recording.

Of course, Jing isn't as full featured as applications like Camtasia. If I wanted to produce a high quality video with audio and annotations, I'd probably break down and buy Camtasia. But for simple screencasts, Jing works great.

Because it's so fast to create and share content, Jing seems ideal for reference librarians. Say I'm working with a patron via email or IM and I want to walk them through a database search. I simply record myself doing the search (like I did with the WI Briefs example above) and send them the link to the recording. Not only can I probably do all this faster than I could type out the instructions, but it will be much clearer to the patron.

I'd love to hear from anyone else using Jing, particularly librarians. Please share your experiences in the comments.

Source: Inter Alia

Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 1:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

From Check It Out @ the Madison Public Library:

Traveling to another country and want to dine out or shop? You need a Language Translator! Madison Public Library now has a variety of hand-held translators to help you with on-the-spot translations. Just type in a word or phrase, and the translator will find the correct translation!

Choose from:

• English/Spanish
• 5-Language European (Dutch, English, French, German and Italian)
• 12-Language (Czech, Dutch, English, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Turkish)

Features include: conversational phrases grouped in these categories: Doing Business, Travel & Directions, Eating & Drinking, Shopping, Hotel and Emergencies; games and exercises to enhance your grasp of the language; currency converters; and a world clock.

Contact a librarian at any one of the Madison Public Library branches to reserve a translator.

Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 11:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This morning I had the opportunity to use a conference call service called FreeConference.com. As the name implies, it's free to use the service. You will, though, probably have to dial long distance since you don't get a toll free number. Normal long distance charges would apply - there is no markup.

We used the Reservationless Standard system and it worked great. There is nothing to set up at all and no registration necessary. Just choose one of their dial in numbers and an access code, then communicate this info with all parties. At the appointed time, just dial the number and enter your chosen access code.

You can also use the Web-Scheduled Standard system if you prefer to schedule the call and invite participants. For this you'll need to register for an account.

Both systems can support up to 150 callers.

FreeConference.com has received a slew of awards from such organizations as Small Business Technology, PCWorld and others.

Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 1:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As part of its Litigation Support Guide, the Wisconsin Law Journal explores the use of wikis in the legal environment. The article is available in the August 27th print edition and will eventually make it's way online.

I was interviewed for the article, along with librarian and wiki expert, Debbie Ginsburg from Chicago Kent College of Law Library. The article lists several wikis of interest to legal professionals, including:

• Wex
  
• TaxAlmanac Wiki
  
• Wikocracy
  
• Lawrence Lessig's Code v.2
  

Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 10:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Law.com has an intriguing article on lawyering in Second Life, an online simulated universe with more than 8 million users.

And while Second Life might initially seem like make-believe or child's play, the firm [Greenberg & Lieberman] is filing real trademark applications, landing real clients and making real money through the virtual world. By Lieberman's reckoning, the firm has pulled in nearly $20,000 in revenue from its Second Life office in the past year. Not exactly enough to make the D.C. 20, but impressive, given that overhead is almost nil.

The office is staffed by attorneys, sort of. Every living, breathing person who enters Second Life acquires an alter ego, a digital character called an avatar that can look like pretty much anything....

People in Second Life act pretty much like people do everywhere. They just might do it in the form of a fuzzy, tangerine-colored fox. And, of course, even fuzzy, tangerine foxes have legal problems.

Landlord-tenant issues, contract disputes, intellectual property problems. Second Life is a lawyer's dream world in more than just the figurative sense.

"There's real money changing hands, and there are real disputes that people have in-world over real creations," says Benjamin Duranske, whose avatar, "Benjamin Noble," created the Second Life Bar Association. "It just happens to be represented digitally."

Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 10:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There is an interesting article in the New York Times about the Espresso Book Machine which can, on demand, print and bind a book in less than fifteen minutes. The machine will be at the Science, Industry and Business Library in New York until early September, producing free books from a small list. The two other machines in existence are located in Washington, at the bookstore of the World Bank, and in Alexandria, Egypt, at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina.

The book machine is a demonstration project of On Demand Books, which is pitching it principally toward the nation's 16,000 public libraries and 25,000 bookstores. The machine, which may eventually sell for $20,000 or more, can produce a 300-page book for a costs of about $3. A bookstore or library could then sell it to customers or library members at cost or at a markup.

So whats the point of such a machine?

According to Dane Neller of On Demand Books, the machine "is for the 'far end of the back list,' those books that are out of print or for which there is so little demand that it would be too costly to print a few hundred copies, let alone one... With the machine, anything available in a portable document format, or PDF, including Grandfather's memoirs and Ph.D. dissertations, can be printed in minutes as long as a computer can read it. Books that are copyrighted and require royalties would need a negotiated fee before they could be published."

This is a very cool idea, but I wonder if it will take off. I don't see too many libraries as being able to afford it. Large bookstores would seem like the more realistic option.

There is a press conference video from the World Bank bookstore which shows the machine in action (see the last five minutes or so).

Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 9:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I recently learned about Zotero, free, easy-to-use Firefox extension to help you collect, manage, and cite your research sources, and I must say that I'm impressed. It is product of the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University.

Basically, you download a little extension for Firefox (sorry IE folks) and Zotero becomes embedded in your browser. Then whenever you come across a web page or citation you want to save, just click a small icon in Firefox's location bar (to the right of the URL) to save the citation and link in Zotero (see image). You can organize your sources into folders and subfolders. Add notes if you want.

Zotero works automatically with most online catalogs and a handful of databases, including a few law-related ones: HeinOnline, GPO's e-CFR, Supreme Court cases from Cornell's Legal Information Institute, and patents from the USPTO. And they are working on making it compatible with Westlaw and LexisNexis. For now, you can always manually add citations if no automatic translator is available.

Similar to EndNote or RefWorks, you can easily compile a bibliography with your citations in Zotero. Although it doesn't current support the Bluebook citation style, I've been told that they are working on it.

To learn more, check out the video tutorial.

Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 11:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

There is an interesting article entitled "Are You Podcasting: Current Uses of Podcasts in Law Libraries" in the May issue of AALL Spectrum. Although they haven't caught on as quickly as blogs have (there are currently 116 law library blogs), some law librarians are experiment with podcasting. The article highlights the podcasting projects from numerous libraries, such as audio tours, recording courses, providing supplementation to regular coursework, special event recording, FAQ and research guides. Insights from the podcasters is also offered.

Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 4:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There is an interesting article on The Fourth Amendment and Privacy Issues on the "New" Internet: Facebook.com and MySpace.com in the Fall issue of the Southern Illinois University Law Journal.

Abstract:

Facebook.com and MySpace.com are two of the most trafficked Web sites on the Internet. These Web sites form a "new" type of internet where users can create profiles and share information like never before. With the exploding popularity comes the usage by law enforcement of these Web sites to investigate criminal offenses and the corresponding privacy concerns of citizens.

The Comment explores Fourth Amendment jurisprudence beginning with landmark decisions, then discusses Fourth Amendment cases dealing specifically with cyberspace communications, and goes on to discuss how a court faced with a Fourth Amendment issue on Facebook.com or MySpace.com might apply the holdings from prior cases.

Thanks to my UW Madison Library colleague, Amanda Werhane, for the tip.

Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 4:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sabrina Pacifici with help from the team over at Justia has launched a redesigned LLRX. They've done a great job of spicing up the look and feel to highlight the first rate content for which LLRX is so well known. Kudos all around.

Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 11:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I know I've mentioned it a couple times before, but I wanted to give another plug for Current Law Journal Content (CLJC) from Washington and Lee Law School. With CLJC, you can search and subscribe to current tables of contents from over a thousand law journals (including Wisconsin Law Review, Wisconsin International Law Journal, and Wisconsin Women's Law Journal). Search results include the article citation along with a link to the article in Westlaw (password required) and WorldCat (which will show the nearest library that has the journal).

You can also elect to receive customized alerts by email and RSS. To create an email alert, you must create a profile. Just click on the journals that you want and enter your email at the top. By clicking subscribe, you'll receive a weekly email with the journal table of contents.

With RSS you can customize even further, although it is fairly complex. You can customize your RSS feed by journal, country, author or search terms. [A BIG thanks to John Doyle for recently developing those last two!!]

You do need to construct your own feed - here are a few examples:

• For articles from a specific journal: http://lawlib.wlu.edu/CLJC/xml.aspx?issn=1052-3421 [insert your own ISSN] -or- http://lawlib.wlu.edu/CLJC/xml.aspx?title=wisconsin+law+review [insert your own journal title]
  
• For articles by a specific author:
  http://lawlib.wlu.edu/CLJC/xml.aspx?search=au(john smith) [insert your own author name]
  
• For articles matching your keyword search:
  http://lawlib.wlu.edu/CLJC/xml.aspx?search=criminal [insert your own search term(s); note: multiple terms will be "anded"]

If you are a RefWorks user, you'll be happy to know that John has recently created a special RSS feed format for importing into RefWorks. Just paste "&outformat=refworks" on to the end of your feed. For example, http://lawlib.wlu.edu/CLJC/xml.aspx?search=au(john smith)&outformat=refworks

At the UW Law Library, we've been working with RefWorks to develop a faculty bibliography. Being able to not only receive notification of new articles by our faculty, but to have the citation information directly imported into RefWorks via CLJC will be a time-saver.

----------
Update: Customized RSS feeds just got a lot easier! Per my suggestion, John has added a RSS button to the search results page. Just do a search and click on the RSS button to subscribe to the results. I LOVE this!

Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 11:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From LibrarianInBlack:

Firedoodle (which I found via eHub) is a Firefox add-on that lets you add white board functionality to any webpage, image, or map. You can mark it up all you want with highlighting, writing, and placemarking.

Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 12:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tony Chan, information specialist at Quarles & Brady LLP, Milwaukee and LLAW Government Relations Committee Chair, has written an excellent article on Gathering Competitive Intelligence for Litigators and Business Lawyers. In the article, which appears in the April 2007 Wisconsin Lawyer, Tony covers:

• Online Sources of Public Records
  
• Background Checks
  
• Finding Company and Industry Information
  
• Opponent or Co-counsel records

Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 11:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Coolexon is a dictionary and multi-language translation software providing results in over 60 languages. It offers users a variety of free dictionaries and translation tools in English, French, German, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese and other major languages in the world. And Coolexon is only 3.3MB.

Coolexon has two key features: cursor translation and text translation. With cursor translation, you can translate words in any places of the screen by pressing Shift and the system will automatically recognize the words selected by the cursor and display results. With text translation you choose which translation engines you want and compare the results generated by different engines. A pronunciation feature is also available.

You can purchase a single license of Coolexon for $35 USD or download a free trial version. See the press release for more information.

Source: LibrarianInBlack

Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 9:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yet another one from the latest edition of Law Library Journal (Winter 2007). In her column, Technology for Everyone . . ., Diane Murley explains Mind Mapping Complex Information.
Abstract:

Ms. Murley introduces mind mapping as a technique for handling complex information, discusses its application to some functions of law librarians, and lists some of the software that can be used to create mind maps.

I was introduced to mind maps when I had the pleasure of presenting with Diane at the BlawgThink back in 2005. We were given a copy of MindManager and it didn't take long to get hooked. I've used it a number of times for presentations and find that it really helps me explain complex relationships. Mind maps are great for visual learners.

Diane has shared her legal research mind maps at Law Dawg Blawg.

Although I've not used it, Diane notes that FreeMind offers no-cost open-source mind-mapping software. Definitely worth a look if you want to get started with mind maps.

Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 10:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Citrus (think Cit-r-us) is a new legal citation tool which automatically corrects legal citations in Word as you type. "When you're ready to type a citation, press F2 and make an educated guess. Once you're done, press F2 again, and Citrus will generate a correct Bluebook citation." An individual license is available for $495 per computer.

Citrus cites to cases, federal and state statutes, CFR, Fed. Register, U.S. Constitution, court rules and more. According to the web site, it also includes parenthetical information, "such as whether a decision is per curiam, whether you need to cite the editor as well as the case reporter, or even whether an opinion in the U.S. reporter came from the court or an individual circuit Justice."

Has anyone used Citrus? I'd be interested in learning more about it. Can it handle law reviews and other more complex citations? There is a "tour," but it's nothing more than a couple of screen shots.

A similar tool that I have used is Citation: Legal Edition. Citation, however, is a bibliographic database management system (unlike Citrus which seems to be an add-on to MS Word). You enter (or import) your citations into a database, and it generates the proper blue book cites for you. It seemed to work very well. Great for scholarly research.

I've since moved to RefWorks which is available campus wide at the University of Wisconsin. Unfortunately, it doesn't support Bluebook citation style (which, I've been told, is because it is too complex).

Thanks to Conglomerate for the tip about Citrus.

Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 12:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It often happens that I'm in my car or walking somewhere when I remember something that I'm supposed to do. Or I think of something that I need to reminder my husband about. And I always seem to be without a pen and paper. That's why I'm excited about a free new web service called Jott with which you use your cell phone to leave email messages for yourself or others. Jott delivers both your recorded message and a text transcription.

You set up an account for yourself with your cell phone number and email address. Then you call a (currently toll free) phone number and dictate yourself a message. Jott will transcribe it and send you an email with your message. I've tried a few messages so far and the transcription has been dead on.

You can also set up contacts in Jott by entering the name, email and phone for someone else. Then you call the same Jott phone number, press 2 (for "Jottcast"), say their name, and leave them a message. The message will be sent to their email (along with a copy to yours).

This is one of the most useful applications I've seen in a while. I can envision using it to send reminders to myself and communicate with my husband. I could also see using it when I don't have access to my email and need to contact someone in my office.

You can also use Jott as an online to-do list. All your jots are saved in your account, whether you create them by phone, sending an email to Jot or entering text directly.

Source: PDF for Lawyers

Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 2:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Free Adobe for Legal Professionals eSeminar:

In conjunction with LLRX, Adobe is hosting a free eSeminar on Acrobat 8: Top Features for Legal Professionals. The eSeminar, to be be held on Thursday, January 25, 2007,1:00 PM - 2:00 PM US/Eastern, will cover how to create PDF files from Microsoft Office, the web and other programs, how to turn paper into searchable electronic PDF files, how to comment and annotate PDFs. Also learn best practices for eFiling with Acrobat, using new built-in Bates Numbering to prepare document sets, securely redact both electronic and image-only PDFs, and more.

Adobe Fixes Security Flaw:

From Findlaw -
In response to the discovery of a security flaw in Adobe Acrobat and Acrobat Reader, Adobe has released updates to older versions of the popular PDF viewing and editing software...

Adobe recommends that all users of the Acrobat and Acrobat Reader software upgrade to version 8, which does not contain the XSS vulnerability. For users who aren't able to upgrade, however, the new updates to Acrobat and Acrobat Reader 6 and 7 will plug the security hole. Instructions for downloading the updates are available here.

Sources: beSpacific and Stark County Law Library Blog

Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 9:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The UW Law Library has recently upgraded our IM/chat reference service with a new tool called Plugoo. We've added a text chat box to our home page inviting our students, faculty, and staff to contact us with reference questions. And it was free and easy.

Interested in developing a chat service for your organization? Just get yourself an instant messaging account, register with Plugoo, copy some code into your web page and you've got your own chat service.

This is an awesome tool for libraries. Patrons can contact you in real time right from their computer. They don't need to have an IM account to use it - just type their question into the box. And if you're not logged into your IM account, patrons can email their questions instead.

Anyone else using Plugoo? If so, please share your comments.

Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 2:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

From inter alia: Remote Printing Made Easy

PrinterAnywhere is an interesting application -- it allows you to safely print documents on any printer, anywhere in the world -- or to have documents printed on your computer from anywhere in the world. It's a free download, but both you and the owner of the other printer has to have the software installed. Once you're both up and running, you can easily print a file to the other's printer with just a few clicks. According to the site, the print jobs are encrypted, so PrinterAnywhere is safe to use.

Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 12:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The ABA reports that the newly released Adobe Acrobat 8.0 contains several new features of particular interest to attorneys. These include redaction, show metadata, Bates numbering, improved forms functions, collaboration tools, and more.

For more, the review in Law.com and the white paper entitled "Adobe Acrobat 8.0 for Legal Professionals" by David Masters.

Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 9:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This morning I learned about two neat collaborative office tools:

• Writely - Word Processor (from Boing Boing):

  Google has re-launched Writely, the online word-processor they recently bought, in public beta. Writely does everything most things Word does, for free -- and saves its output as PDFs and even RSS feeds (subscribe to a word-processor doc!). It features collaborative editing -- multiple editors on the same doc at once -- and can be used as the editor for writing your blog, saving out to a post instead of a file on your machine.

• Gliffy - Diagramming Tool (from Slaw):
  

  Gliffy is a web-2.o cross between writely and MS Visio. Lots of drag-n-drop tools for work flows, wireframes, floor plans. Plus, it's a web application that requires no additional software. The other cool part is the ability to collaborate with others.

  Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 11:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From ABA Site-tation:

Ever wanted a map of counties in the United States? How about Congressional Districts? Areas with Water Discharge Permits? Distribution of monarch butterflies? All this and more can be found at nationalatlas.gov.

Nationalatlas.gov has an interactive map making tool, which allows you to choose parameters by clicking checkboxes. Read more.

Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 9:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For those that occasionally need to make international phone calls but aren't sure how to dial the number, see the International Dialing Codes guide from timeanddate.com

Enter in your location, the location of where you are calling, and the phone number, then click on "Show Dialing Codes". The next page shows you how to dial the number. There is also a link to a world clock so you know what time it is in the country that you are calling. Very handy.

Source: DALL Blog

Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 9:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From Librarian in Black:

Free411 (1-800-Free 411 / 1-800-373-3411) is a completely automated free directory assistance service that works on cell and land lines. I know my cell phone carrier charges $1.50 for each directory assistance call. No longer will I fall for that!

Just call the number, give the city and state, choose whether it's a business, government, or residential listing, and say the listing's name. You'll then start to hear a 12-second advertisement, which you can bypass by pressing a certain key (*cough* 2) on your keypad. The number is given to you twice. I tried it four times with four different listings in four different cities, and the voice-recognition software got each listing correct--even the number for our local library, which is notoriously hard to find for directory assistance. My only criticism is that it doesn't auto-connect you like some of the directory services do. But hey, I'm thrifty enough to dial the numbers myself to save a few bucks.

Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 9:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Are you a visual learner? Does the thought of a text-heavy computer manual leave you wanting? Then check out In Pictures, a publisher of computer manuals which go heavy on the screen shots. And until August 1st, they are absolutely free to download.

Manuals are available in the following categories:

• computer basics
  
• microsoft office
  
• openoffice.org
  
• web layout
  
• web graphics
  
• web programming

Source: Research Buzz

Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 9:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

From InterAlia:

Here's another extension of the Web 2.0-type Office products we've seen a lot of lately -- Create a Graph is a product of the National Center for Education Statistics -- so it's for kids and students, but that doesn't mean we can't use it, too. You can create 2-D, 3-D, or drop-shadow graphs, and you can export them to PDF, JPG, or other image formats. Just fill in the blanks with your data, and you're off.

Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

HTML2PDF is a nifty little tool that converts any HTML webpage into a PDF document. See today's WisBlawg in PDF for example.

I can imagine a few of uses for this tool: 1) To digitally archive a web page as it exists today; or 2) to capture a web page for an off-line presentation; 3) to get a clean print for those pages that don't print correctly from your browser. Any other ideas?

Source: LibrarianInBlack

Posted by Bonnie Shucha at 12:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)