NEW RESOURCES

Action News Jax: Florida Department of Law Enforcement creates cold case database. “One local man’s push to create a statewide database for cold cases is now a reality. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement announced Wednesday it launched an online database featuring more than 400 unsolved homicides.”

Broadway World: New Website Will Honor Irving Berlin’s Legacy
. “The family of Irving Berlin, in conjunction with his publishers Concord Music (North America) and Universal Music Publishing Group (rest of World), has announced the launch of a new website to honor Irving Berlin in celebration of his 130th birthday. Created to pay tribute to Berlin’s life and legendary works, this is the first time a dedicated digital resource has existed online for the man epitomized by Jerome Kern’s famous maxim: ‘Irving Berlin has no place in American music – he is American music.'”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Digital NC: Additions to The Duplin Times out of Warsaw, North Carolina. “New issues of The Duplin Times Progress Sentinel dating from 1962-1985 are now available on DigitalNC courtesy of Duplin County Library. These join previously digitized issues from 1935-1961. The Duplin Times Progress Sentinel is a weekly newspaper that serves Duplin County and surrounding areas including southern Lenoir County. Established in 1935, The Duplin Times Progress Sentinel, now called The Duplin Times, currently has offices in Kenansville, Albertson, Beulaville, Deep Run, Pink Hill and Warsaw, and continues to be available in print at these locations as well as online on a weekly basis.”

USEFUL STUFF

Boing Boing: MS Paint, redone in Javascript. “Isaiah Odhner has recreated MS Paint in javascript. JS Paint! You can try it out here — and the code’s on his Github account.”

How-to Geek: All the Ways You Can Still Upgrade to Windows 10 for Free. “Windows 10’s free upgrade offer is officially over. But, unofficially, free copies of Windows 10 are still available. There are a few ways you can still get Windows 10 for free, without using a pirated license: you can install Windows 10 with a 7 or 8 key, or install Windows without a key—it will work just fine, save for a small watermark reminding you to purchase a license.” This is an article from September 2016 but it’s been checked and updated.

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

GeoPoll: The rise of Facebook groups could be a threat to Jumia’s e-commerce dominance in Africa, new poll finds. “Informal transactions through Facebook groups are threatening the success of e-commerce giants in Africa according to a recent straw poll on the impact of the Black Friday sale promotion on this fledgling industry. According to our Black Friday Straw Poll, which ran in December 2017 among 2,031 respondents in Nigeria, South Africa, and Kenya, Jumia still remains the most preferred e-commerce vendor. Fifty-six percent of our poll respondents have shopped on Jumia before. Interestingly, a significant number of online shoppers utilize Facebook groups. ”

Harvard Law Today: Documenting the Nuremberg Trials. “The Harvard Law School Library uniquely owns and manages approximately one million pages of documents relating to the Nuremberg Trials: thirteen trials conducted just after World War II to prosecute leaders of the Nazi regime. To preserve the contents of these documents—which include trial transcripts and full trial exhibits—the library has undertaken a multi-stage digitization project to make the collection freely accessible online. This video offers a brief glimpse of the project and its dedicated staff.” The video is a little less than six minutes long.

SECURITY & LEGAL

TechCrunch: WTF is GDPR?. “The General Data Protection Regulation (aka GDPR) was agreed after more than three years of negotiations between the EU’s various institutions. It’s set to apply across the 28-Member State bloc as of May 25, 2018. That means EU countries are busy transposing it into national law via their own legislative updates (such as the UK’s new Data Protection Bill — yes, despite the fact the country is currently in the process of (br)exiting the EU, the government has nonetheless committed to implementing the regulation because it needs to keep EU-UK data flowing freely in the post-brexit future. Which gives an early indication of the pulling power of GDPR.”

The Independent: Facebook top choice for Philippines wildlife traders: monitor. “Facebook has emerged as the top site for wildlife trafficking in the Philippines, a watchdog said Friday, with thousands of endangered crocodiles, snakes and turtles illegally traded in just three months. Monitoring network TRAFFIC said Facebook had not done enough to shut down the trade, which saw more than 5,000 reptiles from 115 species put up for sale on its discussion groups from June to August 2016 alone.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Vice: We Are Only Just Realising That Facebook Has Lost All Meaning. “The problem with the new Facebook is that there is simply not enough meaningful content being generated by users to fill the gap left by brands and publishers. Granted, every now and again there is an engagement announcement, a “SUMMER 2017″ film developed, an incredible thread after someone quits their job and does a 600-word status on how bad the toilets were. But mostly it’s just people asking for accountants or holiday recommendations. Most of us stopped handing over our real selves to Facebook a while ago, and let publishers take over. Now they’re gone, there are no meaningful social interactions, just a dull bulletin board.”

British Journal of Social Work: Tweeting Social Justice: How Social Work Faculty Use Twitter . “Social media are considered useful tools for academic purposes. Our exploratory study offers insight into the use of Twitter by social work faculty in the USA. Employing an online survey, this study investigates Twitter usage among a sample of social work faculty (n = 274) from the top-fifty-ranked MSW programmes in the USA. Slightly more than half of the participants had Twitter accounts, the majority of whom use Twitter as part of their academic work. The most common motivations for using Twitter include promoting one’s research, raising awareness about an area of research and engaging in networking with peers. This study contributes to the literature by describing the prevalence and patterns of Twitter usage among social work academics and lays a foundation for future research, investigating its effectiveness in increasing awareness and promoting changes related to social justice issues.” The whole article is available for free at the URL provided.

From Pew (pew pew pew pew pew! and an extra pew for Robert M.!): Very liberal or conservative legislators most likely to share news on Facebook. “The most ideological members of Congress shared news stories on their Facebook pages more than twice as often as moderate legislators between Jan. 2, 2015, and July 20, 2017, according to a new Pew Research Center study that examined all official Facebook posts created by members of Congress in this period. The analysis included links to national news websites that members of Congress linked to at least 25 times overall in the time studied.” Good morning, Internet…

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