NEW RESOURCES

History Colorado has launched an online database of selected items in its collection. “The database launched with images of 80,000 items and is continuing to grow. This database is an excellent resource for researchers to find primary sources on Colorado’s history.”

It’s not a new resource per se; the new bit is that it doesn’t cost anything. The Cleveland Jewish News digital archive is now available for free. “On July 1, the Cleveland Jewish News unlocked its Digital Archive, making every story, photograph and advertisement available at the push of a few buttons….Issues of the CJN will be made publicly available online 90 days after publication. CJN digital edition subscribers have immediate access to all content as it is published.” I had to provide my name and e-mail to access, but I didn’t have to set up an account or anything.

Japanese internment camp archives held at San Jose State University and other California Universities will be digitized. “Over the next two years, San Jose State and 14 other campuses in the California State University system will be digitizing 10,000 documents into a searchable database called the CSU Japanese American History Digitization Project.”

There’s a new archive available telling the stories of families who went through World War I. “The Army Children of the First World War project was set up as a digital archive to tell the stories of ordinary people who lived through the 1914-1918 conflict. The aim was to inspire both young and old to connect with the events of a century ago. Those behind the site have stuck to their promise of uploading a new image every week and few months on the website is packed with images and postcards written by soldiers on the frontline and sent back to loved ones in Leeds.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Evernote Web Clipper extension can now save GMail attachments. “Popular note-taking service Evernote has released an update for its Web Clipper browser extension which now allows users to save Gmail messages that have attachments to their accounts so that they can easily bring them up later again when required. The update also adds more new functionality to the browser extension making it much more useful, and since it’s available for multiple browsers millions of users can take advantage of the features that it offers.”

USEFUL STUFF

Microsoft has open-sourced WorldWide Telescope. “WorldWide Telescope began in 2007 as a Microsoft Research project, with early partners including astronomers and educators from Caltech, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, the University of Chicago and several NASA facilities. Over the past eight years, millions of people have downloaded and used WorldWide Telescope, coming to rely on its unified astronomical image and data environment for exploratory research, teaching and public outreach.”

From Ubergizmo: How to download your Facebook photos. “Fortunately, Facebook makes it quite easy to download photos. You can easily download a single photo or all of your photos right from your Facebook profile. However, there is always some space for improvement and with the help of Third-party tools you can gain some great control over what you can download. In this tutorial, we are going to show you how you can download a single photo, an Album or all of your Facebook photos.”

Useful-for-a-given-value-of-useful: Google made a tool that trippified photos, then it open sourced that tool. Now thanks to Zain Shah you can try to “Deep Dream” tool for yourself. Note this article warns that the site is very, very slow in responding. I had the same experience; I suspect it’s getting a lot of traffic.

Maybe you’ll find this useful. I will definitely find it useful: How to take a screenshot on a Chromebook.

SECURITY/LEGAL ISSUES

Do you use NoScript to keep Firefox secure? If you do, you need to update it immediately – it has a serious security vulnerability. “The attack works because NoScript has a limited whitelist of trusted domains, allowing the host browser to load commonly-used tools from certain content delivery networks like googleapis.com. This feature tries to preserve websites’ functionality while simultaneously blocking any potentially malicious code.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Wow, Reddit has kind of blown up, with moderators revolting over the firing of an employee and other recent changes to site policy. “The protest has taken place largely in the form of user protests and moderators making several major subreddits private. When a subreddit is made private, only a select few are able to access it in any fashion. This means the subreddit is effectively closed to public and search engines alike, displaying a lockout page not unlike a 404. As the situation is rapidly advancing, the list of subreddits partaking in the protest is bound to change, but the largest and most common subreddits appear to be showing solidarity in the protest. If one were to visit Reddit’s front page right now, you would note the disappearance of /r/Art, /r/gaming, /r/history, /r/science, /r/Music, /r/books, and many others.”

A database set up by the government to provide information on physicians apparently has incorrect data in it. “Most physicians are legally required to get what’s called a National Provider Identifier, a unique, 10-digit number assigned to them by the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, or CMS. Patients can search those numbers in an online database, which also includes physicians’ state license numbers. It’s those license numbers that are the problem: They’re wrong in tens of thousands of cases, an Enquirer investigation has found.” Good grief. Tens of thousands?

From The Guardian: a fascinating story technology, old newspapers, and the race for preservation.. “In the dark void of the National Newspaper Building, the robots are afoot. Towering 20 metres high and stretching far into the distance is an imposing expanse of racks, heaving with trays bearing volume upon volume of newspapers, laid flat and strapped between metal sheets. Suddenly, an enormous autonomous crane zooms forwards, stops abruptly and, with a hydraulic gasp, shoots out an arm. Lifting a large metal tray off the scaffold, it deposits it on a conveyor belt and races into the dark. One of three poised for action, it lurks in the gloom, awaiting a command – robots, after all, don’t need the lights on. The tray and its heavy load are whisked away, making a swift right angle at a turntable, and exit through an airlock. A driverless shuttle car then speeds it to a workstation. Somewhere out there a researcher has put in a request, and the machines are on the case.”

From TheNextWeb: Why I switched from Google to DuckDuckGo. “While its main draw is privacy, DuckDuckGo has another killer feature you may not have heard of. In fact, it should cause you to consider ditching your existing search engine for DuckDuckGo — yes, even Google. I’m talking about bangs.” No, not like hair.

Hey hey hey! Gigablast has hooked up with the Internet Archive (PRESS RELEASE). “Shortly after releasing its web search engine as open source and available for free download, Gigablast, Inc. has inked a deal with the Internet Archive. Gigablast has agreed to provide search for the archive’s 400+ billion web documents. After conducting tests, the Internet Archive found that its users prefer the quality of Gigablast’s search results over the leading open source search engine solutions.”

How-To Geek did a review of Google Cardboard. Not really interested in vertigo and nausea.

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

I’m not reading this because you may never see me again! How to recreate your childhood game library with the Internet Archive. Good evening, Internet…

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