NEW RESOURCES

The American Numismatic Society (ANS) has started a digital library. “Beginning now, the collection of electronic theses and dissertations hosts international doctoral work on numismatic themes….Over the next few months, the ANS will begin to share freely its scanned auction catalogues as well as ebook versions of its monographs and series on this Digital Library platform.” The ANS is also offering to host relevant theses and dissertations at no cost under a CC license.

The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) has launched a metasearch for its 19 databases. MegaSearch? Really? How 1997. “Known as MegaSearch (http://megasearch.azdeq.gov/megasearch/), the tool allows customers to enter search criteria such as a facility’s name and address or its unique ADEQ file number to view a list of relevant environmental records and files of interest. Once identified, the files may be selected from the results page and emailed to the ADEQ Records Center for retrieval and viewing. By conducting their own independent research, customers can save time by eliminating the need to wait for results from a traditional records request with the help of Records Center staff.”

USEFUL STUFF

Apparently Wired has a fairly regular feature called The Instagram Rabbit Hole. A fun explore.

From Fast Company: 5 Great Free Apps for Automating Mundane Tasks. I’m not on Android, but that Trigger app sounds great.

Jack Schofield has a review of FindBigMail, a free service that identifies the largest e-mails that are taking up your GMail. He also shows how you can do the same thing without FindBigMail, though it’s a bit slower and clunkier.

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Google is having an event on September 29th. Stuff will happen. “While Google has eschewed events for Nexus devices the past few years, we’re expecting two new Nexus handsets this year.”

Interesting: What’s up with Periscoping in Turkey? “The past-midnight Turkish live-streaming is no anomaly. The country seems to always be Periscoping, an assertion that’s backed up by the numbers. Turkey is the second most active country in terms of Periscope streams, according to social analytics company Sysomos. And three of its cities — Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir — are among the top 10 cities with the most Periscope users, according to Twitter.”

Business Insider takes a look at Facebook Mentions. “The News Feed is just like the normal app’s, but every verified profile or page has a blue tick next to it. That helps you scan through and spot your famous friends. The screenshot on the left is normal Facebook (no blue ticks), and the image on the right is Facebook Mentions.”

SECURITY/LEGAL ISSUES

Yikes. Apparently Google Chrome can be crashed with just an URL. “You can crash the latest version of Google Chrome with a simple tiny URL. Just rolling your mouse over it in a page, launching it from another app such as an email client, or pasting it into the address bar, will kill either that tab or the whole browser.”

Poor security practices, negligence, or just general stupidness has caused a huge leak of millions of medical records. “Police injury reports, drug tests, detailed doctor visit notes, social security numbers—all were inexplicably unveiled on a public subdomain of Amazon Web Services. Welcome to the next big data breach horrorshow. Instead of hackers, it’s old-fashioned neglect from companies managing data that exposed your most sensitive information.”

UC-Berkeley has released the first-ever university transparency report. “Colleges aren’t exactly tech companies—but they aren’t so different, either. Like many higher-ed institutions, UC–Berkeley essentially functions like an Internet service provider unto itself. It has more than 37,000 students, 77,000 active university email accounts, and the potential for upward of 100,000 devices connected to the network at any one time. Unsurprisingly, the school occasionally fields requests from law enforcement for data.”

Apparently a WordPress malware attack is turning into a real issue. “The malware is called VisitorTracker, and its aim should be self-explanatory. Sucuri said that incidents of infection have had a sharp uptick in recent days, and the firm – which reported on it just two weeks ago – hopes that its reprise and update of the information will inform WordPress and encourage it to take action to mitigate the problem.” Good morning, Internet…

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