NEW RESOURCES

A huge library devoted to philately (that’s the study of postage stamps to you) is going online at the end of the month. “The major philatelic library built up by the 26th Earl of Crawford will be made available online at the Global Philatelic Library from May 30 (subject to some copyright constraints), according to a press release from the Royal Philatelic Society London….The Crawford philatelic library comprises more than 1.3 million pages and represents approximately 95 percent of the world’s published philatelic knowledge at the time it was created. James Ludovic Lindsay, the 26th Earl of Crawford, was born July 28, 1847.” You can see the Society’s press release here. It’s PDF.

A new Web site hopes to aggregate information on people with very rare genetic disorders. “The site, called MyGene2, went live in March and now has more than 100 profiles posted by families, researchers and clinicians — with more added daily. It’s one of the first advanced, searchable platforms that makes it easy to share clinical and scientific information about genetic mutations that may underlie unknown conditions.”

Findmypast has released over 5 million Yorkshire records. “The Yorkshire Digitisation project was first launched in October 2014 and has resulted in the creation of the largest online repository of Yorkshire family history records anywhere in the world. The final phase, released today, includes parish baptisms, banns, marriages, burials, school records, university records and a variety of other documents held by the East Riding Archives and Local Studies Service, the Borthwick Institute for Archives (University of York), the North Yorkshire County Record Office, Teesside Archives, Sheffield Archives and Local Studies, and Doncaster Archives and Local Studies.”

TWEAKS & UPDATES

The bad news is that Windows 10 upgrades will cost money after July 29th. The good news is that the upgrade nagging will stop about then, too. “For Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 users who have resisted the move to Windows 10 it means the upgrade prompts will disappear. Third-party apps have allowed many to disable the notifications, and system administrators can kill the process for business machines. A giant Windows 10 upgrade prompt appeared during a weather forecast last week, providing some unusual comedy.”

USEFUL STUFF

From Hongkiat: 10 Better Ways to Manage Your Facebook Feed.

Snicker. You can also manage your Facebook ad preferences. Cheese puffs?

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

There’s a big asterisk to Microsoft’s decision to end the Windows 10 free upgrades on July 29, but don’t worry: it’s a good asterisk. “As you may have heard, the free Windows 10 upgrade offer for customers running Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 is set to end on July 29, but we want to clarify that that deadline will *not* apply to customers who use assistive technologies.”

SECURITY/LEGAL ISSUES

PC World has an overview of the Google / Oracle trial over Android, which starts today. “Oracle wants a whopping $8.8 billion in damages from Google, much more than the first time around, making it one of the biggest copyright cases ever, and it’s anyone’s guess which way the jury will go.”

In Thailand, one word on Facebook can put you in prison. “The mother of a pro-democracy activist faces up to 15 years in prison after acknowledging that she had received a private message on Facebook that the police say insulted Thailand’s monarchy.”

RESEARCH AND OPINION

Startling data from Hank Green, writing in Medium: Theft, Lies, and Facebook Video. Obviously I can’t quote the whole article at you, but if you want some idea of how bad the video piracy problem is on Facebook, and how much more reach native-upload video gets than YouTube links, read this. “Facebook is an interesting, emerging platform for us. Reaching an audience is valuable, even if there’s no way to turn that value into money. So I’m excited about the potential future of Facebook as a video platform. But there are a few things that make me wary, not of their ability to grow my business, but of whether they give a shit about creators, which is actually pretty important to me. Let’s go through them one by one.”

The most popular social media in Ireland — at least in terms of daily use — is Twitter. “The new data showed that popularity of LinkedIn, a social network for professionals has dropped by 3 percent. The number of account holders on Facebook meanwhile increased to 64 percent and on Twitter to 39 percent. However, the data revealed that about 4 percent users accessed Twitter on a daily basis, while only two percent used Facebook daily.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

I love this! A young man took his lawn-mowing money and started his own museum! “A 10-year-old kid in Maine finds an iMac G5 on Craigslist and arranges to trade a minibike and a snowblower for it. The computer was supposed to be for games and homework. It instead proved to be the first piece in what is becoming one of the most significant private collections of Apple devices in the United States.” Good morning, Internet…

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