NEW RESOURCES

FindMyPast has put over 911,000 Royal Navy Pension records online. “The British Royal Navy & Royal Marines service and pension records span over 230 years of British naval history from to 1704 to 1934 and contain over 270,000 scanned colour images.”

New-to-Me: an online database of movie spoilers. Pretty much what it says on the tin, though I do need to note that this crowdsourced and apparently not vetted. I searched for Star Wars and did not get the original 1977 movie in my first set of search results. I searched again for Star Wars IV and got the original movie with the note that it had one spoiler, so I clicked on it and… um, let’s just say I don’t think I saw that version of the movie.

TWEAKS & UPDATES

WordPress 4.5RC2 is now available. “We’ve made 91 changes since the first release candidate. RC means we think we’re done, but with millions of users and thousands of plugins and themes, it’s possible we’ve missed something. We hope to ship WordPress 4.5 on Tuesday, April 12, but we need your help to get there.”

Google Fiber is ending its free service offering in Kansas City. “Google has decided to stop the free tier of its Fiber service that it was offering to Kansas City. The tier that was just dropped allowed customers to pay a one-time construction fee and from then on receive a free 5Mbps connection. New customers switching to Google Fiber will have to settle for a $50/month tier which gives customers 100Mbps.” Wow, free 5Mbs? That’s pretty amazing. (And I’m not being sarcastic; there are parts of this state which have abysmal broadband and few options.)

USEFUL STUFF

Data wonks, scraping wonks: The Next Web has a lovely overview of Python and R. “At Springboard, we pair mentors with learners in data science. We often get questions about whether to use Python or R – and we’ve come to a conclusion thanks to insight from our community of mentors and learners.” Yes, it’s a bit commercial, but it’s also packed with information.

Hey! Joyce Valenza’s got a nifty roundup of time-lining tools. “Timelines are a perfect tool for inquiry projects. They force students to see contexts; to make critical decisions about relative importance; to make connections among people, events and movements; to visualize history and processes; to discover patterns and sequences; to examine cause and effect; and to juxtapose content from across disciplines and media.”

Need some help editing your Instagram photos? There’s an app for that. “[Hippo Pics] which is available for free on iOS-only, allows you to connect with some of the best editors Instgram has to offer. You can have them collaborate with you on your photos and help edit them, or you can just browse other people’s collections and learn the tricks of the trade for yourself.”

Lifehacker has a Google Drive / Dropbox / OneDrive smackdown. “Access to decent cloud storage is practically a necessity these days whether it’s for work or play, but everyone seems to have an opinion on which one is best. Let’s break down three of the most popular file syncing services out there and see which one reigns supreme.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Okay, now it’s just getting silly: Sonic has developed a food item specifically for Instagram (PRESS RELEASE). “In a first-of-its-kind partnership, SONIC® Drive-In (NASDAQ: SONC) is collaborating with Instagram celebrity chef, @ChefJacquesLaMerde, and a group of renowned Instagram design influencers to create the SONIC Square Shake inspired by SONIC’s new line of Creamery Shakes. The Square Shake is made for Instagram, designed by Instagram influencers and only available for order through Instagram.”

Yahoo is livestreaming its quarterly results on April 19th (PRESS RELEASE).

SECURITY/LEGAL ISSUES

You may have been hearing about a security issue with Firefox extensions. I’ve seen some stories about it but haven’t linked to it here because none of the stores gave me a decent understanding of what the problem was. Dan Goodin fixed that for me. “NoScript, Firebug, and other popular Firefox add-on extensions are opening millions of end users to a new type of attack that can surreptitiously execute malicious code and steal sensitive data, a team of researchers reported.” I am a big fan of NoScript and in fact require it on the computers at work. Seems to me as long as we install that extension and nothing else, we’re fine…

I have mentioned in the past that Facebook is being used to sell things from guided missiles to endangered species, to rare plants. But don’t you worry. Facebook has promised to go after those bogus clothes dealers! Wait. What? “Facebook is working on new ways to police advertisers whose products are ‘overwhelmingly unsatisfactory,’ after a BuzzFeed News report this week showed a cottage industry of shady online retailers operating openly on the social network and using its advertising services to target users.” I know it’s not a fair comparison. Just thought it was interesting where Facebook is putting its energy. Good morning, Internet…

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