NEW RESOURCES

In development: an archive of anonymous Italian design. (Very small at the moment.) “Fattobene is a new archive of Italian objects that have been around forever. It is curated by Anna Lagorio (a journalist) and Alex Carnevali (a photographer) who have traveled all over the boot cataloguing and reviewing local anonymous and ‘timeless’ designs. ‘Many objects made it through two world wars unscathed, but today they are at risk of disappearing. We want to invert this process. We believe that creating a space dedicated specifically to them is the first step in making people aware of these objects and returning them to their glory, especially abroad, where there is great demand for Italian products’, declare the two creators.”

The Ancient World Online blog has a new digital index.. Special thanks to Marsha B., my only Google+ buddy, for sending this my way. “With the generous support of a grant from the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, ISAW has published a new, structured bibliography of ancient-world resources on the world-wide web entitled The AWOL Index. This experimental digital publication, co-authored by ISAW Senior Fellow Charles E. Jones and Associate Director for Digital Programs Tom Elliott, is programmatically extracted from the contents of The Ancient World Online, a blog that Jones has been authoring since 2009.”

The state of Indiana is getting more digitized newspapers. “29 reels of county newspapers dating from the 1850s to the 1930s will be digitized and available on the state’s online archive of historic newspapers, The Hoosier State Chronicles. Some of the papers include the Crawfordsville Journal, the Waynetown Banner, the Montgomery Journal and nine more titles. Though unrelated to this project, there are already 194 issues of the Crawfordsville Record available at the website, newspapers.library.in.gov.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Buffer has launched Buffer for Video. “To get started uploading videos through Buffer, select a video file from your computer—either an mp4, mov, or avi file of up to 1 gigabyte in size. Drop your video into the Buffer composer window or choose the file you’d like to upload, and Buffer will do the rest!” I have used Buffer for both ResearchBuzz and my Real Job for quite a while now, and could not recommend it more. It’s a great product and, to me, well worth the $102 a year that a paid plan costs if you pay for a year’s worth up front. I don’t get a complimentary account; I’m a paying customer. I just really dig them.

USEFUL STUFF

From Digital Trends: 20 Helpful Apps for Teachers and Educators. I bought the creative writing prompts one.

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Yahoo has a new Global Editor-in-Chief. “As an accomplished editor, proven brand innovator and media veteran, Martha adds to Yahoo’s established media business to continue to elevate our world-class products and journalism. In January 2014, we launched our first Digital Magazines and have since built 13 in the United States and 30 globally, which are rapidly rising to the top of their categories. With her proven track record of building successful brands as the founding editor of InStyle and for the growth of People (and People.com) into a globally recognized brand, I’m excited to work with Martha to further grow our Digital Magazines.”

A guy says Google ruined his marriage proposal. Dude, if you didn’t sign in to an account when you’re using a laptop, SIGN OUT. “A man named Alex Denny posted a complaint to Google in the Google Web Search Help forums stating that Google has ruined his marriage proposal. He said that he let his girlfriend use his laptop several years ago. She signed in on his laptop and never signed out. So when he did searches, his girlfriend was able to see all his searches on her own device – since Alex was doing searches under his girlfriend’s Google Account.”

Wikipedia is apparently losing Google traffic. “Wikipedia’s organic search traffic from Google dropped 11% from May to July — a decline of over 250 million visits per month. Traffic measurement company SimilarWeb originally reported on the traffic loss, leading the company’s head of SEO to speculate as to whether Wikipedia is falling out of favor with Google.”

Big science journals are pulling in the dollars. “Emeritus professor Stephen Leeder was sacked by the Medical Journal of Australia (MJA) in April after challenging a decision to outsource some of the journal’s functions to the world’s biggest scientific publisher, Elsevier. This month he will address a symposium at the State Library of NSW where academics will discuss how to fight what they describe as the commodification of knowledge….Some of the 1,600 titles published by Elsevier charged institutions more than $19,000 for an annual subscription to just one journal. The Springer group, which publishes more than 2,000 titles, charges more than $21,000 for access to some of its titles.”

Facebook’s company, Parse, has open-sourced all its SDKs. “Parse, the backend platform for apps Facebook acquired back in 2013, today announced that it will open source all of its software development kits (SDKs). The Parse SDKs for iOS, Android and OS X are available on GitHub now, and the service’s other SDKs for the likes of Windows Phone, JavaScript, Xamarin and React will follow soon.”

SECURITY/LEGAL ISSUES

Ewww. Looks like Lenovo’s in the middle of another crapware scandal. I am actually typing this on a Lenovo, but happy, it’s a Lenovo which was formatted and set up with Linux. Ask me if I’m buying another one. (No.) “Windows 8 and Windows 10 contain a surprising feature that many users will find unwelcome: PC OEMs can embed a Windows executable in their system firmware. Windows 8 and 10 will then extract this executable during boot time and run it automatically. In this way, the OEM can inject software onto a Windows machine even if the operating system was cleanly installed. The good news is that most OEMs fortunately do not seem to take advantage of this feature. The bad news is that ‘most’ is not ‘all.’ Between October 2014 and April of this year, Lenovo used this feature to preinstall software onto certain Lenovo desktop and laptop systems, calling the feature the ‘Lenovo Service Engine.'”

“Liking” a Facebook post means violating a restraining order? “[Justin] Bellanco’s ex-girlfriend April Holland had filed a restraining order against him after he had threatened to ‘shoot her knee cap to watch her suffer.’ The restraining order forbade Bellanco for having any contact with Holland for at least a year, but he was arrested earlier this week after Holland had told authorities that he had liked 22 of her photos and videos on Facebook.” Good morning, Internet…

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