Marcus P. Zillman, M.S., A.M.H.A. Author/Speaker/Consultant Internet Happenings, Events and Sources

Saturday, January 31, 2004   Internet Speaker Marcus P. Zillman, M.S., A.M.H.A. http://www.InternetSpeaker.net/ Internet Consultant Marcus P. Zillman, M.S., A.M.H.A. http://InternetConsultant.BlogSpot.com/ I have been asked by many associates, potential clients and friends to create some informational blogs on my Internet speaking and consulting services. I have just created the above URLs that offer additional information on my current activities in Internet keynote speaking, association speaking, and consultation services. posted by Marcus | 9:26 AM   American Mathematical Society: Probability Web http://www.mathcs.carleton.edu/probweb/probweb.html The Probability Web is maintained by a professor in the Mathematics and Computer Science Department at Carleton College and offers links and resources for researchers, teachers, and others interested in probability. Links to an abstract database, book lists, conferences, jobs, journals, newsgroups, teaching resources and other miscellaneous online resources are included. In some cases early chapters of books are posted and some journals are free. Also interesting is the alphabetical listing of People in Probability, which includes links to mathematicians' websites. Another section provides favorite quotes on probability submitted by visitors. [The NSDL Scout Report for Math, Engineering, and Technology, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2003] posted by Marcus | 5:30 AM   My Service Bot http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/01.15.04/work-0403.html My Service Bot from Techsploits column by Annalee Newitz in Metro."[Peter] Plantec's book is a guide for creating what he calls V-people: social bots that businesses can use to replace service workers or game players online. Programmed Ask Jeeves-style to answer questions in a way that sounds natural and to deploy friendly facial expressions at the right moments, V-people are the bank tellers and customer-service reps of the future. According to Plantec and researchers like Cory Kidd at MIT, people warm up to V-people fairly quickly after their initial moment of disbelief that the person talking to them and smiling is just a program. Kidd conducted a series of psychological experiments last year showing that people respond to animated and automated creatures in almost exactly the same way they respond to humans..... Plantec writes in his book that his main concern about the ethics of using V-people in customer service situations is that users tend to credit machines with more honesty and innocence than they do their fellow humans. In trial runs of his V-people, he reports that users 'took what the V-person said as truth or error but never considered that the character was trying to deceive them. ... After all, how could a virtual human have ulterior motives ... how could they have any motives at all?" [Metro 01-15-04] posted by Marcus | 5:26 AM   MarketLeap Link Popularity Check http://www.marketleap.com/publinkpop/ MarketLeap Link Popularity Check – This tool allows researchers to gauge the popularity of a website in comparison to a maximum of three websites. Once URLs are entered, MarketLeap Link Popularity Check will generate a report detailing the amount of hyperlinks that are available on different websites according to various search engines. Rankings are assigned to the URLs to indicate the level of traffic which a specific URL generates. posted by Marcus | 5:21 AM   Effective Security Practices Guide http://www.educause.edu/security/guide/ This month the EDUCAUSE/Internet2 Computer and Network Security Task Force released the "Effective Security Practices Guide" for the higher education community. "As a primer to establishing a comprehensive IT security program on campus, the guide contains resources on 'where to begin,' including awareness, policies, and risk assessment and detailed descriptions of tools for implementing a security strategy. Topics covered include network and host vulnerability assessment, security architecture design, network and host security implementation, intrusion and virus detection, incident response, and encryption and authentication. The guide also links to more than 30 effective practices and solutions contributed by members of the higher education community." [CIT Infobits January 2004]. posted by Marcus | 5:15 AM   The Next Big Thing? http://www.economist.co.uk/business/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2352183 The Next Big Thing? bases its vision of the future on two "unglamorous technologies": "web services" software that resides on a server that other servers can share and "grid computing," which involves sharing and combining the processing power of huge numbers of computer systems into a single, giant virtual microprocessor. [CIT Infobits January 2004 The Economist, January 15, 2004] posted by Marcus | 5:05 AM   FTC Warning Puts Onus On Computer Users http://apnews.excite.com/article/20040130/D80CSQ6O2.html The Federal Trade Commission and regulatory agencies in 26 countries have sent out letters to hundreds of thousands of computer users, warning them that spammers are lurking in cyberspace, waiting for the opportunity to hijack their servers and route junk e-mail through them. Spammers often use unsecured computers to disguise the origin of their messages. "Recipients may think the spam comes from your system," said the FTC's e-mail message. "Securing your server will help you protect your system from being misused." Don Blumenthal, coordinator for the FTC's Internet lab, admitted the agency did not attempt to verify that each computer targeted by the warnings was actually vulnerable to hacking, but said the message urged recipients to visit the FTC Web site for more information on properly configuring their software. posted by Marcus | 5:01 AM   Hubble Telescope Gets a Reprieve http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1165_1.asp The battle over the future of the Hubble Space Telescope has taken a turn for the better, at least from the perspective of the observatory's supporters. The conflict began on January 16th, when NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe shocked astronomers worldwide by announcing that there will be no more Space Shuttle missions to maintain and upgrade the orbiting telescope. Five days later Senator Barbara Mikulski, whose home state of Maryland hosts both the NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center and the Space Telescope Science Institute, sent a letter to O'Keefe asking him to reconsider his decision. In the week thereafter, her request was bolstered by a huge outcry from professional astronomers, backyard stargazers, and the public -- including many SKY & TELESCOPE readers who wrote to express their concerns. Apparently bowing to all this pressure, O'Keefe has now agreed to reconsider his decision to abandon Hubble....[S&T's Weekly News Bulletin 01-30-04] posted by Marcus | 5:00 AM Friday, January 30, 2004   Countdown Begins for Government Agencies to Develop Web Site Taxonomies http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2004/0119/web-taxonomy-01-20-04.asp http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/24669-1.html All federal agencies are under a mandate (Section 207 of the 2002 E-Government Act) to develop overall taxonomies of their Web sites by the end of 2004. Thus begins a mad dash to develop thousands -- millions -- of word, letter, number and combination classifications of documents, e-mail messages and other information within specific hierarchies. Experts say the trick to organizing all these documents is to build taxonomies around central objectives. Although information technology workers are often given the task to do this job, it's important to bring domain or business experts onboard to work on classifications and vocabulary. Categorizing is the largest task in building a taxonomy -- taking up about a third of the work. To cut development time, agencies can modify taxonomies already developed by others, such as the Taxonomy Warehouse at http://www.taxonomywarehouse.com. Watching this formidable process unfold -- which some experts say many agencies may be underestimating -- will be important to other industries, because while government agencies are the first to mandate taxonomies -- and though many taxonomies are already in widespread use -- commercial enterprises are sure to follow suit. posted by Marcus | 5:26 AM   I have seen some excellent mozilla resources lately from MozDev: MozPoint http://mozpoint.mozdev.org/ MozPoint is a presentation library (of CSS and JS) that can be used to make simple but elegant presentations using the browser as a platform for rendering presentation content. PubMed http://pubmed.mozdev.org/ The PubMed Toolbar increases your ability to search for information in the NLM Medline database through the PubMed interface. NeedleSearch http://needlesearch.mozdev.org/ The NeedleSearch toolbar lets you bookmark search engines. NeedleSearch can handle ALL search engines, the information can be posted too. These tools will allow you to do some niched searching in a more efficient and competent manner...... posted by Marcus | 5:25 AM   Taxonomy Warehouse http://www.taxonomywarehouse.com/ Taxonomy Warehouse is a free service (free to users and free to vocabulary publishers) provided by Synapse, the Knowledge Link Corporation (on the web at www.synaptica.com) for the benefit of the information and knowledge management community. The Warehouse aims to provide a comprehensive directory of taxonomies, thesauri, classification schemes and other authority files from around the world, plus information about taxonomy references, resources and events. The Release 1.0 site, launched in April 2003, is considered a "Beta" version. It has approximately two hundred vocabularies, but our researchers are busy identifying and listing other vocabularies and hundreds more will be added to the service over the next few months. posted by Marcus | 5:22 AM   Maximizing Research Impact Through Self-Archiving http://jekyll.sissa.it/jekyll_comm/articoli/art07_01_eng.htm Researchers and their universities are beginning to realize that the online era has made it possible to enhance the impact of their research dramatically. It's no longer necessary to mail or e-mail reprints of peer-reviewed articles for them to be cited in others' research. Research can now be publicly self-archived in a university's Eprint Archives, making it instantly accessible to all would-be users worldwide, without the need to make or respond to reprint requests. Researchers, of course, have long since posted their papers on their own Web sites. But searchers had difficulty finding them using conventional search engines. Now, thanks to the Open Archives Initiative, the infrastructure for maximizing university research impact is already in place or at least available. Needed now are institutional policies and computational tools designed to create and fill the university Eprint Archives quickly. Stevan Harnad of the University of Quebec at Montreal says universities need to adopt a self-archiving policy that extends their existing "publish or perish" policy to "publish with maximal impact." A potential model for such a policy, along with free software for creating a standardized online university CV, can be found at: http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/archpolnew.html. In addition, Harnad urges university libraries to help with the first wave of self-archiving, doing "proxy" self-archiving for those researchers who aren't already doing it themselves. posted by Marcus | 5:20 AM   The OpenURL Framework for Context-Sensitive Services http://www.niso.org/standards/standard_detail.cfm?std_id=783 The OpenURL Framework for Context-Sensitive Services: Standard In Development: Currently at Ballot Z39.88-200x The proposed OpenURL standard is syntax to create web-transportable packages of metadata and/or identifiers about an information object. Such packages are at the core of context-sensitive or open link technology, which has recently become available in scholarly information systems. By standardizing the syntax, we will enable many other innovative user-specific services in this and other information fields. posted by Marcus | 5:10 AM   2004 IEEE/WIC/ACM International Conference on Intelligent Agent Technology (IAT'04) http://www.maebashi-it.org/IAT04/ The 2004 IEEE/WIC/ACM International Conference on Intelligent Agent Technology (IAT'04) will be jointly held with the 2004 IEEE/WIC/ACM International Conference on Web Intelligence (WI'04). This joint conference is sponsored and organized by IEEE Computer Society, Web Intelligence Consortium (WIC), and ACM-SIGART. September 20-24, 2004 Beijing, CHINA posted by Marcus | 5:10 AM   Technology-Assisted Education Clearinghouse http://www.utoronto.ca/cat/clearinghouse/index.html Technology-Assisted Education Clearinghouse resource centre for academic technology from the University of Toronto includes links to Organizations, Conferences & Events, Funding, Instructional Design, Journals & Research, UofT Resources, and Web Development Tools. This will be added to my Education and Distance Learning Rersources 2004 Internet MiniGuide. posted by Marcus | 5:00 AM Thursday, January 29, 2004   AwarenessWatch™ Newsletter V2N2 February 2004 http://virtualprivatelibrary.blogspot.com/Awareness Watch V2N2.pdf Awareness Watch™ Newsletter http://www.AwarenessWatch.com/ The February 2004 V2N2 AwarenessWatch™ is available as a 19 page .pdf file from the above URL. The AwarenessWatch Featured Report covers niched blog search engines, blog directories and web based news aggregators available currently on the Internet. The AwarenessWatch Spotters cover some excellent just released research resources as well as new identified Internet sources. posted by Marcus | 8:52 AM   The Standard Blog http://www.TheStandard.com/ TheStandard.com covers the news, analysis, trends and events that shape the everchanging Internet Economy day in and day out. They look at the companies that impact the direction of the Internet market. They follow the people who drive change. They cover the trends that today's Internet leaders need to know in order to stay ahead of the curve and now it returns as a weblog!! Truly interesting times and the blogs continue on ...... posted by Marcus | 8:30 AM   One New Thing http://nlrp.blogspot.com/ Weblog of Lynette Reville, a new librarian in Australia, who is on a library-like quest to find One New Thing to learn every day. Her companion website is the New Librarian's Resource Page . Both are resources that you need to visit. I will be adding One New Thing to my eCurrent Awareness 2004 Report. posted by Marcus | 8:22 AM   Yearbook of Experts, Authorities & Spokespersons® http://www.yearbookpdf.com/ Here's where you can download and print the Yearbook of Experts, Authorities & Spokespersons® as a .pdf and it is free of charge! The Yearbook is Volume XXI Number IV and is 268 pages. I will be adding this to my Subject Tracer™ Information Blog Internet Experts. posted by Marcus | 5:15 AM   Robot Automates Science http://www.trnmag.com/Stories/2004/012804/Robot_automates_science_012804.html Scientists would seem to hold one of the last occupations threatened by automation, given the brainpower and education involved. But equipping a laboratory robot with artificial intelligence software makes for a fair approximation of a scientist. Faster gene and drug discovery could result. posted by Marcus | 5:00 AM   BlogWise http://www.BlogWise.com/ BlogWise ia site bringing you a collection of categorised blogs from around the world. Whatever your taste, interest and culture - there's bound to be a blog out there written by a person just like you. posted by Marcus | 4:52 AM Wednesday, January 28, 2004   Search Engine for Marketers http://www.SearchEngineForMarketers.com/ Larry Chase has created a directory of marketing sources that does a nice job of showing directory resources for the various niched areas of marketing. He has titled it a Search Engine even though at first glance it seems to be a directory/index of resources. It does a good job as a marketing directory and I will be listing it in my Subject Tracer™ Information Blog DirectoryResources as well as Business Resources 2004 one of my nine 2004 Internet MiniGuides. posted by Marcus | 2:10 PM   US-CERT http://www.us-cert.gov/ US-CERT, a partnership between the Department of Homeland Security's National Cyber Security Division (NCSD) and the private sector, has been established to protect our Nation's Internet infrastructure. It will do this through global coordination of defense against and response to cyber incidents and attacks across the United States. US-CERT's objectives are to aggregate available cyber security information and provide it to individuals and organizations in a timely and understandable manner. US-CERT also provides a mechanism that allows citizens, businesses, and other institutions to communicate directly with the United States government regarding cyber security information. US-CERT has created the National Cyber Alert System, which is America's first cohesive national cyber security system for identifying, analyzing, and prioritizing emerging vulnerabilities and threats. The system provides credible and timely information on cyber security issues for both technical and non-technical users. posted by Marcus | 12:09 PM   BuyTelco Broadband Index (BBI) http://www.buytelco.net/bbi.asp When during the week is the demand for broadband services highest? Which states have the highest and lowest demand? How does demand breakdown among demographic groups? The BuyTelco Broadband Index (BBI) answers these questions and more with its monthly roundup of connectivity trends for high-speed Internet including DSL, cable, and satellite across the USA. In the month of December 2003 we find that demand is highest at the beginning of the week, with demand peaking on Tuesday. On a state-by-state basis, we find highest demand for broadband in Utah, and lowest demand in Alaska. posted by Marcus | 10:01 AM   Parsing OWL in RDF/XML Published http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/NOTE-owl-parsing-20040121/ The Web Ontology Working Group has released "Parsing OWL in RDF/XML" as a Working Group Note. The OWL language is used to publish and share sets of terms called ontologies, supporting advanced Web search, software agents and knowledge management. This document describes a strategy for OWL-RDF parsers. Read about the Semantic Web. posted by Marcus | 7:32 AM   Keeping Found Things Found on the Web - A Research Project of the Information School at the University of Washington http://kftf.ischool.washington.edu/projKFTF.asp http://kftf.ischool.washington.edu/publications.asp The goal of this study is to understand better the ways in which people manage information for subsequent re-access and re-use. The study focuses on the management of information found on the Word Wide Web. Follow-on studies will look at similar problems and practices of personal information management for other information types including email and personal files (electronic and paper-based). The classic problem of information retrieval, simply put, is to help people find the relatively small number of things they are looking for (books, articles, web pages, CDs, etc.) from a very large set of possibilities. This classic problem has been studied in many variations and has been addressed through a rich diversity of information retrieval tools and techniques. A follow-on problem also exists which has received relatively less study: Once found, how are things organized for re-access and re-use later on? What can be done to avoid the need to repeat the entire search process? We refer to this as the problem of Keeping Found Things Found. The current study addresses this problem in the context of World Wide Web use. The study focuses on use of the Web by managers, researchers, librarians and other information specialists. But it is expected that the results of the study will be relevant to most users of the Web. posted by Marcus | 7:27 AM   PubSub Concepts http://www.pubsub.com/ PubSub Concepts provides real-time, content based publish and subscribe systems at internet scale. This site is a Beta version of their home page, which will provide a PubSub interface for weblogs and other information sources. PubSub.com reads over 100,000 weblogs in real time, and generates new feeds containing information specific to particular issues. posted by Marcus | 7:22 AM Tuesday, January 27, 2004   The Internet Courses - Weblogs http://www.hi.is/~Eanne/weblogs.html An excellent resource by Dr. L. Anne Clyde of the University of Iceland. The site includes links to the following resources on Weblogs: Information and Articles About Weblogs, Weblog Software and Resources, Directories and Guides to Weblogs, Other Weblog Resources, Examples of LIS Weblogs, Examples of Other Weblogs, Weblogs About Blogging and RSS. posted by Marcus | 8:48 AM   MyDoom Mass-Email Worm http://xforce.iss.net/xforce/alerts/id/161 MyDoom Prevention and Cure http://reviews-zdnet.com.com/4520-6600_16-5118738.html ISS X-Force has detected the aggressive propogation of a new Internet worm that spreads via email. Known as MyDoom or Novarg, this worm harvests email addresses from your hard drives and will mail copies of itself to addresses that it finds. It spoofs the "From" address to confuse victims as to the source of the virus. MyDoom spreads as an e-mail attachment that is either in an executable or zip archive format. Impact: Aggressive propagation of mass-email worms have been known to cause localized email outages due to the load placed on email servers. MyDoom has been spreading very aggressively and is a serious threat to certain networks. It is also believed that this worm contains a proxy that may allow the infected computer to relay "spam" email. posted by Marcus | 8:24 AM   International Journal of Web Services Research: An official publication of the Information Resources Management Association http://www.idea-group.com/journals/details.asp?id=4138 http://www.idea-group.com/downloads/pdf/jwsr.pdf Web services are network-based application components with services-oriented architecture using standard interface description languages and uniform communication protocols. Due to the importance of the field, standardization organizations such as WS-I, W3C, OASIS and Liberty Alliance are actively developing standards for Web services. The International Journal of Web Services Research (JWSR) is the first refereed, international publication featuring only the latest research findings and industry solutions dealing with all aspects of Web services technology. The overall scope of this journal will cover the advancements in the state of the art, standards, and practice of Web services, as well as to identify the emerging research topics and define the future of Services computing, including Web services on Grid computing, Web services on multimedia, Web services on communication, etc. In conclusions, the JWSR provides an open, formal publication for high quality articles developed by theoreticians, educators, developers, researchers and practitioners for professionals to stay abreast of challenges in Web services technology. A complimentary copy of the inaugural issue can be downloaded from the second URL listed above. posted by Marcus | 5:15 AM   Orkut http://www.orkut.com Orkut is an online trusted community web site designed for friends. The main goal of their service is to make the social life of yourself and your friends more active and stimulating. The community site allows friends to virtually come together, find common interests, share relevant information, and organize social events. The community will, in essence, create a closer and more intimate network of friends. The mission of orkut is thus to increase the overall satisfaction of social life and provide the necessary tools for a more efficient and intimate environment. Orkut is an affiliate of Google™ and could prove to be an interesting project. posted by Marcus | 5:00 AM Monday, January 26, 2004   This edition of Current Awareness Happenings on the Internet by Marcus P. Zillman, M.S., A.M.H.A. (January 26, 2004 V2N4) is dedicated to a number of selected sources for finding people. Click on the below audblog link to hear an audio describing these sources that I have just recently created a Subject Traver™ Information Blog. These resources are available from the following URL: Finding People Resources and Sites on the Internet http://zillman.blogspot.com/2004_01_01_zillman_archive.html#107486696308594301 audblog audio post posted by Marcus | 5:20 PM   Microsoft Launches Search Toolbar http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/01/26/HNmstoolbar_1.html Microsoft Corp.'s MSN Internet division has developed a search toolbar that users can add to their Web browsers via a free download. The MSN Toolbar's main feature is its search form, from which users can perform Web searches. It also provides shortcuts to MSN services, such as the Hotmail e-mail service, the MSN Messenger instant messaging service and the My MSN customizable home page for the MSN Web portal. Google, then Yahoo and now Microsoft...... posted by Marcus | 2:45 PM   Amazon Peddles Politicians http://snipurl.com/432k http://www.amazon.com/gp/misc/flag.html Amazon shoppers now have something new they can spend their money on -- the presidential candidates of their choice. The new feature, which allows visitors to make contributions of up to $200 to their favorite candidate, is an effort "to take the friction out of grassroots contributions to presidential candidates," according to the Amazon Web site. For that reason it is not endorsing any candidates and is charging each campaign its usual processing fees, which will be donated to a nonprofit, non-partisan group. "For us, we think this is an interesting but natural extension of what we do every day. Our goal here was to make it as easy for people to make contributions to presidential campaigns as it is to buy the latest Harry Potter book," says an Amazon spokesman. [Reuters 24 Jan 2004] posted by Marcus | 12:13 PM   Business Journals http://www.uflib.ufl.edu/businesslibrary/journals/journals.htm An excellent resource of business journals is available from the Business Library of the University of Florida. posted by Marcus | 11:53 AM   World Language Portal http://www.nsls.info/community/language/ Find information to help you work with world languages, including vendors, translators, and catalogers. This site is under development and one should revisit as it looks to become an excellent resource. posted by Marcus | 9:44 AM   LibDB http://www.disobey.com/noos/LibDB/ An open-sourced Perl/MySQL library and asset management system based on and inspired by the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records, triples from the semantic web, and "the end-user doesn't, and shouldn't, need to know this stuff". In English, this means that you'll be able to smartly and easily catalog your movies, books, magazines, comics, etc. into your own computerized "personal library". LibDB and its data will always be free. posted by Marcus | 5:00 AM Sunday, January 25, 2004   Arming Computers with Tools for Self-Defense http://www.nsf.gov/pubsys/ods/getpub.cfm?tip040115b R.C. Sekar and colleagues at the State University of New York, Stony Brook, are working on self-defense tools to help computers protect themselves from common types of cyber attacks. The most common cyber attacks exploit application errors to burrow into a computer’s memory. To deflect these precision strikes, the Stony Brook team developed “smoke screen” that confuses and misdirects the memory attacks, dramatically reducing their effectiveness. The smoke screen has been applied to several common server applications, which the lab uses and has made available for download. According to Sekar, they expect to eventually provide tools to add the so-called “address obfuscation” technique to any application. posted by Marcus | 3:58 PM   NOVA : Infinite Secrets : Archimedes http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/archimedes This website is the companion piece to the PBS NOVA broadcast of "Infinite Secrets," a documentary relating the discovery of the oldest of Archimedes' extant treatises. The treatise was bought at auction, with none knowing that hidden under the 13th Century prayer manuscript was a copy of an Archimedes work. The site details the history of this palimpsest, the efforts undertaken to do imaging and scanning of the badly deteriorated and scraped Archimedes treatise, and the mathematical implications for the find, as the palimpsest indicated that Archimedes was working on the concept of calculating infinity; a precursor, in the minds of the scholars who worked on this project, on the road to the calculus. posted by Marcus | 3:52 PM   Ancient World Mapping Center http://www.unc.edu/awmc The Ancient World Mapping Center at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill aims to bring cartography and GIS into a position of greater importance in studying the Ancient World. News articles, links to other mapping resources, and an archive of past feature stories are available. Digital maps are provided free of charge in the "Maps for Students Map Room." The maps are of Rome, Greece, Ancient Italy, Egypt, the Northern and Western reaches of the Roman Empire, and the Iberian Peninsula. Clicking on a map displays versions available for downloading, in several formats, including different resolution JPEGs and Adobe PDF. posted by Marcus | 3:50 PM   Places Online http://www.placesonline.org The Association of American Geographers has gathered an array of websites that depict environments, people and life around the world. There is a high standard for inclusion in the site: the sites must be image and content heavy, and must be "primary" sites, as opposed to sites that only direct users to a list of links. Places Online is searchable, and also can be navigated by using an interactive map; the first level is by region/continent and the second level is broken down into countries and cities. Most sites are native to the region that is being explored, thereby giving a local flavor and perspective on the locales, events and experiences displayed. posted by Marcus | 3:48 PM   Computer Creativity Machine Stimulates the Brain http://snipurl.com/41zr An excellent and very self explanatory article in the St. Louis Post Dispatch on Dr. Stephen Thaler's Creativity Machine. Dr. Thaler has been working on this project and concept for many many years and has truly developed an unique resource that will defintely help mankind now and in the future. Congratulations Steve on the perserverance and now the rewards that you so deserve with this technology!! posted by Marcus | 11:20 AM   Swarm Intelligence (SI) http://goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au/~xiaodong/cec04-swarm/index.htm Such systems are made up by a population of simple agents interacting locally with one other and with their environment. Although there is typically no centralised control dictating the behaviour of the agents, local interactions ong the agents often cause a global pattern to emerge. Examples of systems like this can be found in nature, including ant colonies, bird flocking, animal herding, honey bees, bacteria, and many more. Swarm-like algorithms, such as Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and Ant Colony Optimization (ACO), have already been applied successfully to solve real-world optimization problems in engineering and telecommunication. SI models have many features in common with Evolutionary Algorithms. posted by Marcus | 11:09 AM   Goofresh http://www.buzztoolbox.com/archives/000009.shtml Google offers a date-based syntax, but you can only access it via the advanced search, which limits your time options, or the daterange: syntax, which uses Julian dates and is a bit difficult to use. Goofresh is a way to search for sites added today, yesterday, within the last seven days, or last 30 days. [BuzzToolbox Blog:API and Other Tools for Google, Amazon, etc.] posted by Marcus | 9:34 AM Saturday, January 24, 2004   Web Guide to U.S. Supreme Court Research http://www.llrx.com/features/supremectwebguide.htm Trying to navigate the diverse world of websites dedicated to various aspects of legal research can be a bit daunting, even to more adroit users of different online search engines. Fortunately for those seeking to hone their ability to perform online research about the U.S. Supreme Court, this fine online guide to the subject was established in ecember 2003. Authored by Gail A. Partin (an associate law librarian at Penn State's Dickinson School of Law), this well organized web-guide "attempts to overcome the shortcomings of general web searching by providing a selection of annotated links to the most reliable, substantive sites for U.S Supreme Court research." The site begins with a brief introduction, then proceeds to offer a set of organized links and summary descriptions about a host of different sites dealing with topics such as Supreme Court practice, court administration, the history of the Supreme Court, and oral arguments. Beginning law students and those more experienced with the field, will appreciate this online guide to the panoply of compelling sites currently available. [The Scout Report, V10N3 Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2003] posted by Marcus | 5:15 AM   Journal of Biological Chemistry http://www.jbc.org/ Almost a century of the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC) is freely available. Fulltext V1 - V278 (1905 - 2003) searchable and free. The material published in JBC in a calendar year is released for open access on January 1 of the new year. The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) has an Open Access statement available here. posted by Marcus | 5:10 AM   Recognition of Vanderbilt's Hoffman and Novak http://tennessean.com/business/movers/archives/04/01/45707449.shtml?Element_ID=45707449 The Web site ISI Essential Science Indicators says that the Internet research of Vanderbilt management professors Donna Hoffman and Thomas Novak received the highest percentage increase last year in academic citations for business and economics. Hoffman and Novak, co-founders of Vanderbilt's e-Lab (the nation's first center for the study of the Internet), are co-directors of the Vanderbilt University's Sloan Center for Internet Retailing. (AP/The Tennessean 19 Jan 2004) [NewsScan Daily 01-20-04] posted by Marcus | 5:10 AM   E-Print Network http://www.osti.gov/eprints/ Created by the United States Department of Energy, this website allows users to explore online papers that have been submitted for distribution and review among peers; for publication in journals; or for presentations at conferences. Through the E-print Network, advanced students and scientists can search e-prints on many websites and databases, browse e-prints by subject, and find many scientific societies. Although the network primarily contains physics-related documents, e-prints dealing with other subjects such as chemistry, material sciences, and nuclear sciences are also included. [From The NSDL Scout Report for the Physical Sciences 01-23-04, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2003] posted by Marcus | 5:05 AM Friday, January 23, 2004   February 2004 Zillman Column - Finding People Resources and Sites on the Internet http://virtualprivatelibrary.blogspot.com/Finding People.pdf http://www.zillmancolumns.com/ http://www.FindingPeople.info/ The February 2004 Zillman Column is now available and is titled Finding People Resources and Sites on the Internet. This column brings together the many resources for finding people using the Internet. The Internet is the source for literally thousands upon thousands of people finding resources and this column gives you a comprehensive listing of where to find these sources and is taken from my latest Subject Tracer™ Information of Blog. This is a "must" reference for anyone looking to find persons for your business, special interest subject area or personal needs/requirements! posted by Marcus | 9:09 AM   IEEE Releases One-Millionth Online Technology Document http://www.ieee.org/products/onlinepubs/news/0104_04.html The IEEE released its one-millionth online technical document to researchers on 22 January 2004. There are now more than one million full-text technology papers, articles and standards in IEEE Xplore, the delivery system for IEEE online publications. The milestone document, "Novel Frame Buffer Pixel Circuits for Liquid-Crystal-on-Silicon Microdisplays," was published in the January 2004 issue of the IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits. The paper was written by IEEE Members Sangrok Lee and James C. Morizio and IEEE Fellow Kristina M. Johnson. The authors are with the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Pratt School of Engineering, at Duke University in Durham, NC. The paper may be read for free here (Adobe Acrobat Reader required). "This milestone illustrates IEEE's importance as the primary source for current technical literature." said IEEE publications director Anthony Durniak. "The publications of IEEE's many Societies and Councils cover the breadth of today's technology. With IEEE Xplore, we provide high-tech researchers, scientists, engineers and other users with a single, convenient source for access to the papers and technology standards they need to develop tomorrow's technical innovations. The value of IEEE-published information is demonstrated in the four million downloads requested by users each month." The IEEE online collection of technology articles and papers has grown by more than 25 percent over the last 18 months. This includes more than 80,000 archival backfile documents from 1950-1987 added last year. IEEE publishes 121 journals and magazines and more than 400 conference proceedings titles each year and has 900 active technology standards. All of this information is available to researchers as full-text documents through the IEEE Xplore online delivery system. IEEE Xplore also delivers journals and conference proceedings from the IEE, the Institution of Electrical Engineers, headquartered in the United Kingdom. Access to IEEE online documents is available through institutional subscriptions, by individual online article purchase, or through subscriptions available to IEEE members. posted by Marcus | 9:05 AM   eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) http://www.xbrl.org/ eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) brings the publication, exchange, and analysis of the complex financial information in corporate business reports into the dynamic and interactive realm of the internet. XBRL provides a common platform for critical business reporting processes and improves the reliability and ease of communicating financial data among users internal and external to the reporting enterprise. XBRL is an XML-based, royalty-free, and open standard being developed by XBRL International Inc., which is a not-for-profit consortium of around 200 companies and agencies, delivering benefits to investors, accountants, regulators, executives, business and financial analysts, and information providers. posted by Marcus | 8:55 AM   Avoiding a Shocking Experience for the Information Consumer http://www.oclc.org/membership/escan/introduction/default.htm The 2003 OCLC Environmental Scan suggests that, paradoxically, a worthy goal of the library might be "invisibility" -- in the sense that the service is ubiquitous and fully integrated into the infosphere. "After all, technology and services are most welcome in our lives when we do not have to devote much thought to them. We press a switch and light comes or goes. Expecting the information consumer to pay attention to the differences between William Shakespeare the author and William Shakespeare the subject as search terms is akin to expecting Joe Householder to know if the red wire or the black wire should be grounded before he plugs the lamp in -- and expect Joe to go to RedWire.com to figure out what happens if he's wrong. Thankfully, clever people have hidden all this technology inside a box and millions are saved from a shocking experience." posted by Marcus | 8:14 AM   The Library Network http://jolis.worldbankimflib.org/index.html The Library Network - A private library resource serving the World Bank Group and IMF. posted by Marcus | 7:09 AM   Science Tracer Bullets Online http://www.loc.gov/rr/scitech/tracer-bullets/tbs.html The Library of Congress SCIENCE TRACER BULLET SERIES contains research guides that help you locate information on science and technology subjects. With brief introductions to the topics, lists of resources and strategies for finding more, they help you to stay "on target." This Index lists the most recent Tracer Bullets, but they are adding online versions of the older ones as well. Older Tracer Bullets, especially valuable for historical research, can also help you to find current information. posted by Marcus | 5:00 AM   Complexity Digest http://www.comdig.org/ Keeps you abreast of current research in the science of complexity. Includes brief excerpts and links to journal articles, as well as links to other complexity-related resources. [January 23 Neat New Stuff] posted by Marcus | 4:55 AM Thursday, January 22, 2004   Luminary Lectures @ Your Library present Gary Price and Chris Sherman http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/lectures/gpcs.html Gary Price and Chris Sherman will present a lecture entitled, "Web Research: What's New in 2004" at the Library of Congress on Thursday, January 29th, from 10:30am-12:00pm in the West Dining Room on the 6th floor of the Library of Congress' James Madison Building, located at First Street and Independence Avenue S.E., Washington, D.C. No reservations are necessary. All lectures are free and open to the public. This lecture will be broadcast live via the Internet at http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/lectures/gpcs.html on the morning of the lecture, EST, and will be viewable with Real Player software. Gary Price is a librarian, information research consultant, and writer based in suburban Washington D.C. . Chris Sherman is President of Searchwise, a Boulder Colorado based Web consulting firm, and Editor of SearchDay, a daily newsletter from SearchEngineWatch.com. He is a regular contributor to Information Today, Online, EContent and other information industry journals, and a regular presenter at information industry conferences and workshops. Description of the lecture: In a fast paced session, Sherman and Price will discuss the rapidly evolving landscape of web search and its role for the online researcher. They'll cover some of the changes that have roiled the industry over the past year, the "Googlization" of search, and some of the important trends and issues of concern to information professionals. Throughout the presentation the speakers will offer numerous resources and tips for use after the presentation. The Public Service Collections Directorate of the Library of Congress sponsors this speaker series. posted by Marcus | 5:53 PM   Revamping the GPO for the Digital World http://www.gpoaccess.gov/about/speeches/01102004_ala.pdf In a presentation to the American Library Association, Judith Russell, the U.S. Superintendent of Documents, discussed the vast changes that have occurred in the Government Printing Office (GPO) as a result of the digital revolution. The GPO Access site, which provides free downloads of many federal publications online, has grown to draw some 33 million downloads per month – the equivalent of 808 million pages. Simultaneously, the GPO’s sales program has seen revenues fall from more than $80 million to $30 million over the last 10 years. The GPO is now trying to develop a new economic model to recoup some of that lost revenue, although no strategy has yet been agreed on. Adding to the GPO’s challenges is the need to manage legacy collections more efficiently. Toward that end, there is a movement toward shared repositories that would eliminate some redundancies. The GPO has also decided to establish a collection of last resort that will comprise a comprehensive collection of tangible and electronic titles to back up the repositories. Finally, the Association of Research Libraries and the GPO are collaborating to digitize a complete legacy collection of U.S. government documents available in the public domain. (American Library Association Midwinter Meeting 10 Jan 2004) posted by Marcus | 5:48 PM   The Coombsweb - The 10 years online! http://coombs.anu.edu.au/ The Coombsweb - The 10 years online! Congratulations ...a truly excellent resources that I started to link to in 1994 and listed in my first LinkSeries Internet MiniGuides called RefLink. Some of the sites are: COOMBSWEB'S ELECTRONIC JOURNALS & NEWSLETTERS Asian Studies WWW Monitor: E-Journal http://coombs.anu.edu.au/asia-www-monitor.html Est. 21 Apr 1994. ISSN 1329-9778. Currently there are over 3,570 subscribers to the journal's email edition. Pacific Studies WWW Monitor: E-Journal http://coombs.anu.edu.au/pacific-www-monitor.html Est. 12 Apr 2000. ISSN 1443-8976. Currently there are over 800 subscribers to the journal's email edition. RSPAS Print News: E-Journal http://coombs.anu.edu.au/rspas-print-news.htm Est. 01 Jun 1998. ISSN 1440-9127. Currently there are over 1,510 subscribers to the journal's email edition. COOMBSWEB'S MAIN ONLINE RESEARCH TOOLS: Asian Studies WWW Virtual Library http://coombs.anu.edu.au/WWWVL-AsianStudies.html Est. 24 Mar 1994. In January 2004 the Asian Studies WWW VL had a Google search engine (www.google.com) rank no.1 out of the 4,030,000 'asian studies' web pages recorded worldwide. The no.1 Google rank has been systematically attained by the AS WWW VL every month in the course of the past 4 years. Pacific Studies WWW Virtual Library http://coombs.anu.edu.au/WWWVL-PacificStudies.html Est. 21 Jun 1995. In January 2004 the Pacific Studies WWW VL had a Google search engine (www.google.com) rank no.1 out of the 4,160,000 'pacific studies' web pages recorded worldwide. The no.1 Google rank has been systematically attained by the PS WWW VL every monthin the course of the past 3 years. Indonesia WWW Virtual Library http://coombs.anu.edu.au/WWWVLPages/IndonPages/WWWVL-Indonesia.html Est. 03 Dec 1995. Papua New Guinea WWW Virtual Library http://coombs.anu.edu.au/SpecialProj/PNG/Index.htm Est. 01 Jun 1996. Congratulations Dr T. Matthew Ciolek for an outstanding job!!! posted by Marcus | 5:06 AM   ACRL's Effective Practices Clearinghouse http://www.acrl.org/ala/acrl/acrlissues/effectiveprac/effectivepractices.htm ACRL is frequently looked to and contacted for descriptions of effective practices in the academic library profession. The goal of the Effective Practices Clearinghouse is to recognize effective practices in academic libraries in areas such as programs, services, facilities, technology, and initiatives and share them so they are accessible to academic librarians and the entire education community. If your library has an effective practice to share, ACRL encourages you to complete and submit an Effective Practices Form. Your practice will be peer reviewed and considered for this site. The Effective Practices Clearinghouse is a work in progress. posted by Marcus | 4:01 AM   HLAS Online - Handbook of Latin American Studies - Library of Congress http://lcweb2.loc.gov/hlas/ The Handbook is a bibliography on Latin America consisting of works selected and annotated by scholars. Edited by the Hispanic Division of the Library of Congress, the multidisciplinary Handbook alternates annually between the social sciences and the humanities. Each year, more than 130 academics from around the world choose over 5,000 works for inclusion in the Handbook. Continuously published since 1936, the Handbook offers Latin Americanists an essential guide to available resources. More information on the history of the Handbook can be found in a paper written for the Seminar on the Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials (SALALM) annual meeting in 1996. With the introduction of HLAS Online, the Handbook becomes available in three formats: the original print volumes, now published by the University of Texas Press; the CD-ROM produced and updated by the Fundación Histórica TAVERA (Madrid, Spain); and this Internet version. Updated frequently, HLAS Online provides rapid, comprehensive access to future, current, and retrospective volumes of the Handbook. posted by Marcus | 4:00 AM Wednesday, January 21, 2004   Electronic Guide to the Best Mexican Law Websites http://www.llrx.com/features/mexlaw.htm Mexican law expert Prof. Jorge A. Vargas's comprehensive guide will be a tremendous asset to researchers, as it includes documentation and commentary on Mexican law information in English and Spanish, federal statutes and codes, the constitution, international treatises and conventions, the federal government, the state governments, and the legal background and history of Mexico. posted by Marcus | 2:54 PM   Computer Security Incident Handling Guide http://www.csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-61/sp800-61.pdf The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has released Special Publication 800-61, Computer Security Incident Handling Guide. NIST was directed to publish the guide by the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) of 2002. The Computer Security Guide is available as a 148 page .pdf document. posted by Marcus | 1:35 PM   Conducting Research Surveys via Email and the Web http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1480/ While many visitors to commercial websites may find themselves asked to take part in any number of marketing-type surveys, more and more scholars are attempting to use the web to create well-defined surveys to examine academic questions. This intriguing publication from the RAND Organization (conducted by Matthias Schonlau, Ronald D. Fricker, Jr., and Marc N. Elliott) examines the validity of a number of claims, including the popularity of such online surveys due to their low cost and rapid return time. Within the document's 118-pages, the authors discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using email and the web to conduct research surveys, along with offering several practical suggestions for designing and implementing Internet surveys. The report consists of seven chapters (all of which may be downloaded separately), and three appendices, including an extended literature review. [The Scout Report - January 16, 2004] posted by Marcus | 1:25 PM   Eurekster - The Only Search Engine with Personalized Results http://www.eurekster.com/ Eurekster Inc. is a privately-held US company with offices in San Francisco and New Zealand. Eurekster is the only Internet search engine powered by social networking technologies - delivering results that matter most to users and their networks of friends and contacts. Eurekster continuously "learns" from the behavior of users and their social networks to deliver personalized search results and instant sharing of their popular Web destinations and searches. The service allows users to confidentially and privately share their knowledge and experiences with each other, simply by using Eurekster to search the Web and navigate to sites of their choosing. Eurekster relies on unique, patented Learning Search technology and patent pending processes that link search algorithms to social networks. posted by Marcus | 12:55 PM   Finding People Resources and Sites http://www.FindingPeople.info Finding People is a Subject Tracer™ Information Blog developed and created by the Virtual Private Library™. It is designed to bring together the latest resources and sources on finding people. We always welcome suggestions of additional sites and resources to be added to this comprehensive listing and please submit by clicking here. This site has been developed and maintained by Marcus P. Zillman, M.S., A.M.H.A.. Additional links and resources by Marcus are available by clicking here. posted by Marcus | 8:18 AM Tuesday, January 20, 2004   Informed Librarian http://www.InformedLibrarian.com/ I am very pleased to announce that we have received official word from The Informed Librarian that they have added our Awareness Watch™ Newsletter to the titles that they cover in each monthly issue of the Informed Librarian. We are very honored and will continue to offer the finest quality content in each of our monthly Awareness Watch Newsletters. Additional information as well as the current issue and archives of previous issues are available by visiting AwarenessWatch™ Newsletter website by clicking here. posted by Marcus | 5:04 PM   Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/ Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia that is being written collaboratively by the various readers. The site is a WikiWiki, meaning that anyone, you included, can edit any article right now by clicking on the edit this page link that appears in every Wikipedia article except for a few protected pages. The project was started on January 15, 2001 and there are 194709 articles in English that are being worked on with many more articles being written in other languages. Every day hundreds of contributors from around the world make thousands of edits and create lots of new articles. All of the site's content is covered by the GNU Free Documentation License. Contributions remain the property of their creators, while the copyleft licensing ensures that the content will always remain freely distributable and reproducible. See copyrights for more information. posted by Marcus | 12:46 PM   Legal Research Center http://www.state.wv.us/wvsca/library/LRC2/LRCHomePage2.htm Their goal is for you to easily and quickly understand the legal process, search the Internet for legal materials, write a letter, fill out forms, or print a document. Because legal research can be complex and confusing, they have designed these materials with you in mind. Throughout this Web site, you can click on any highlighted and underlined word for a quick link to specific information. The Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia and the West Virginia Library Commission are pleased to provide this valuable resource. [Virtual Chase 01-20-04] posted by Marcus | 10:29 AM   Fact Check - Holding Politicians Accountable http://www.FactCheck.org/ A nonpartisan, nonprofit, "consumer advocate" for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics. They monitor the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews, and news releases. Their goal is to apply the best practices of both journalism and scholarship, and to increase public knowledge and understanding. The Annenberg Political Fact Check is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. The APPC was established by publisher and philanthropist Walter Annenberg in 1994 to create a community of scholars within the University of Pennsylvania that would address public policy issues at the local, state, and federal levels. The APPC accepts NO funding from business corporations, labor unions, political parties, lobbying organizations or individuals. It is funded primarily by an endowment from the Annenberg Foundation. posted by Marcus | 10:18 AM   SciDev.net http://www.SciDev.net/ The overall aim of the Science and Development Network (SciDev.Net) is to enhance the provision of reliable and authoritative information on science- and technology-related issues that impact on the economic and social development of developing countries. Their goal is to ensure that both individuals and organisations in the developing world are better placed to make informed decisions on these issues. They seek to achieve this objective primarily through running a free-access website, but also by building regional networks of individuals and institutions who share their goals, and by organising capacity-building workshops and other events in the developing world. posted by Marcus | 7:53 AM   The RNase P Database http://jwbrown.mbio.ncsu.edu/rnasep/home.html The RNase P Database is a compilation of RNase P sequences, sequence alignments, secondary structures, three-dimensional models, and accessory information. The database primarily contains information on the bacterial and archaeal enzymes, focusing on the RNA subunit. Some information is also included on the eucaryal and organellar RNase P RNAs. posted by Marcus | 7:05 AM Monday, January 19, 2004   URLWire Features Internet MiniGuides 2004 http://www.urlwire.com/news/011904.html Eric Ward's long running and excellent URLWire lists some of the latest and current happenings on the Internet. In todays issue/alert we are very proud to announce that he did a feature on my nine 2004 Internet MiniGuides that maybe found at the above URL. posted by Marcus | 2:30 PM   This edition of Current Awareness Happenings on the Internet by Marcus P. Zillman, M.S., A.M.H.A. (January 19, 2004 V2N3) is dedicated to a number of selected sources for current awareness including staying current and keeping up to date. Click on the below audblog link to hear an audio describing these sources that I have just recently posted to my personal blog and added to my eCurrentAwareness Resources 2004 Report. These resources are available from the following URL: Staying Current and Keeping Up To Date Sources http://zillman.blogspot.com/2004_01_01_zillman_archive.html#107452096299296193 audblog audio post posted by Marcus | 1:38 PM   In researching my blog's stats I discovered an excellent anonymous page that linked my site as eCurrent and I am listing all the other sites that were listed. It was an excellent mini source for staying current and up to date: Linx http://www.newslinx.com Buzz http://www.researchbuzz.com Lii http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/internetindex Neat http://marylaine.com/neatnew.html Scout http://scout.wisc.edu/ Blogdex http://blogdex.media.mit.edu/ Shelf http://resourceshelf.freepint.com Site http://www.workingfaster.com/sitelines AmericanLibs http://www.ala.org/alonline/index.html LIS http://www.lisnews.com LJ http://www.libraryjournal.com ElD http://www.eldoradolibrary.org/thisweek.htm Gnu http://www.sls.lib.il.us/reference/new InfoT http://www.infotoday.com SearchDay http://www.searchenginewatch.com/searchday/index.html TVC http://www.virtualchase.com/tvcalert/index.html eCurrent http://www.zillman.blogspot.com Net http://www.librarian.net Shifted http://www.theshiftedlibrarian.com Stuff http://www.librarystuff.net Daily http://www.tk421.net/librarylink Web4 http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Web4Lib These of course are just a few of the many many resources that are available on the Internet to stay current and to keep up to date. If you know of someone or if you are really interested in staying current and up to date you might be interested in visiting my eCurrent Awareness Resources 2004 Report page that offers a 37 page report with hundreds of relevant and competent resources for staying current and keeping up to date. posted by Marcus | 9:02 AM   Paradign Online Writing Assistant http://www.powa.org/ Paradigm is an interactive, menu-driven, online writer's guide and handbook written in HTML and distributed freely over the WWW. It uses hypertext structure to create a web of links and text frames that you can navigate quickly and easily by clicking your desired choice. Paradigm is intended to be useful for all writers, from inexperienced to advanced. To get the most from the website, take time to explore its components. Choose a topic that interests you, read the discussion, do an activity, move to another topic. Sense how the topics relate to your own needs and interests. Some writers, for instance, will want to practice Editing, while others will be more interested in Discovering ideas. posted by Marcus | 8:16 AM   NCBI Handbook http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/bv.fcgi?call=bv.View..ShowTOC&rid=handbook.TOC&depth=2k This NCBI Handbook (in PDF-format) is intended for power-users of the NCBI databases. It includes relatively stable information about each resource. The text covers Databases, Data flow, Searching the Data, and User Support. Eleven chapters cover NCBI databases: 1. GenBank: The Nucleotide Sequence Database; 2. PubMed: The Bibliographic Database; 3. Macromolecular Structure Databases; 4. The Taxonomy Project; 5. The Single Nucleotide Polymorphism Database (dbSNP) of Nucleotide Sequence Variation; 6. The Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO): A Gene Expression and Hybridization Repository; 7. Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM): A Directory of Human Genes and Genetic Disorders; 8. The NCBI BookShelf: Searchable Biomedical Books; 9. PubMed Central (PMC): An Archive for Literature from Life Sciences Journals; 10. The SKY/CGH Database for Spectral Karyotyping and Comparative Genomic Hybridization Data; 11. The Major Histocompatibility Complex Database, dbMHC data-flow, technical details and end-user tips for the varied collection of bioinformatics tools available from NCBI. Three chapters cover data flow to build these databases: 12. Sequin: A Sequence Submission and Editing Tool; 13. The Processing of Biological Sequence Data at NCBI; 14. Genome Assembly and Annotation Process. Eight chapters cover software tools for querying and linking the data: 15. The Entrez Search and Retrieval System; 16. The BLAST Sequence Analysis Tool; 17. LinkOut: Linking to External Resources from Entrez Databases; 18. The Reference Sequence (RefSeq) Project; 19. LocusLink: A Directory of Genes; 20. Using the Map Viewer to Explore Genomes; 21. UniGene: A Unified View of the Transcriptome; 22. The Clusters of Orthologous Groups (COGs) Database: Phylogenetic Classification of Proteins from Complete Genomes. There is a hypertext-version of 215 topics available at http://snipurl.com/3wqk posted by Marcus | 5:10 AM   2RSS.com http://www.2rss.com/ RSS feeds, RSS directory, RSS software, RSS scripts, RSS articles, RSS syndication, XML, RDF, news and more. posted by Marcus | 5:00 AM   MSR Netscan - Usenet Social Accounting Search Engine by Microsoft Research http://netscan.research.microsoft.com/ The Netscan System provides detailed reports on the activity of Usenet newsgroups, the authors who participate in them, and the conversation threads that emerge from their activity. Using the Netscan tool users can get reports about any newsgroup for any day, week, month, quarter, or year, since September 1999. Netscan data is updated monthly and can be used to: Find newsgroups where others share your unique interests. Monitor the health of newsgroups related to your interests and pursuits. Stay informed on current events and the latest trends. Locate sources for technical assistance and information. Examine troubling issues and hot topics not covered in product documentation. Track the participation of your favorite authors across Usenet newsgroups. posted by Marcus | 5:00 AM   PR Newswire's RSS (RDF Site Summary) Feed http://www.prnewswire.com/news/aboutrss/rss.shtml PR Newswire now has a RSS feed to it resources and it is located from the front page of their site. posted by Marcus | 4:50 AM Sunday, January 18, 2004   Intelligence Center http://www.intelligence-center.com/ An excellent resource for the latest economic intelligence online with related search and intelligent agents resources as well as resources for the invisible web. posted by Marcus | 3:26 PM   Cost of Going Digital Up for Debate http://www.dlib.org/dlib/december03/connaway/12connaway.html In a study that compared the perceived costs to libraries of providing print and electronic materials, researchers found that librarians believe that labor, space requirements and material resources would be less costly in an all-digital library than in a paper library. However, those librarians expressed a wide range of views on exactly how much cheaper digital should be. Participants expressed some concern that higher salaries might be needed to attract and retain a more knowledgeable and skilled level of staff needed to effectively manage an all-digital library, thereby balancing out a substantial portion of the potential savings. Respondents also noted concerns related to the costs of managing both the digital and paper library simultaneously, which is the most common current scenario. The authors conclude that these uncertainties warrant the continued study of the resources needed to transition from a paper to a digital library. posted by Marcus | 3:20 PM   Gateway Tools http://www.ctg.albany.edu/publications/online/gateways/portal The Center for Technology in Government offers guidance to government agencies on creating "electronic information access programs that are effective, manageable, and affordable. [Neat New Stuff, January 16, 2004] posted by Marcus | 3:10 PM   The Top Science Stories of 2003 ScientificAmerican.com http://snipurl.com/3w08 "For some, this year in science may be remembered more for its disasters than its successes. On January 16 the space shuttle Columbia launched to great fanfare, only to fail tragically on re-entry 16 days later. Then came news of the mysterious and lethal disease known as SARS, which sparked worldwide panic. And a midsummer blackout stretching from Ontario to New York served as a vivid reminder of how dependent we are on a fragile power grid. Amid these calamities, however, a number of noteworthy achievements unfolded. China became the third nation to send people into space; paleontologists working in Ethiopia unearthed the oldest known members of our species; researchers applied virtual reality to colonoscopies and autopsies with stunning results. In addition, the 50th anniversary of the discovery of the structure of DNA and the centennial of powered flight served as springboards for reflection on the bigger picture of scientific progress." posted by Marcus | 3:03 PM   Open Source Awards http://www.opensource.org/osa/ The Open Source Awards recognize excellence in the open-source community. There are Merit (Bronze), Special (Silver) and Grand Master (Gold) awards. For full details on the awards and the rules of eligibility, read our charter. For a list of past awardees, see the awards page. posted by Marcus | 2:38 PM Saturday, January 17, 2004   NSIR - Question Answering System http://tangra.si.umich.edu/clair/NSIR/NSIR.cgi NSIR is a Question Answering System being developed by CLAIR research group at the University of Michigan. posted by Marcus | 7:14 AM   Just When You Thought Information Was Safe http://www.infotoday.com/searcher/jan04/ebbinghouse.shtml The U.S. House of Representatives has before it an attempt to create a new type of intellectual property specifically for databases. Among the major concerns for libraries and other information providers to the "Database and Collections of Information Misappropriation Act" (H.R. 3261) are such questions as: Will performing interlibrary loans, preservation projects, circulating material, and/or creating bibliographies, or providing access to commercial and/or Internet databases violate its terms? Trouble is, there's no guidance as to what libraries, schools, and research and educational institutions can and cannot do with databases. The vagueness of the text and the lack of definition of terms used in the bill could lead to expensive lawsuits to gain judicial interpretations and limits on liability, according to opponents. The Association of Research Libraries says a key concern is "the fact that the legislation would create protection not only for databases, but for the facts contained therein. Such protection would be at odds with the U.S. Supreme Court's assertion in Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service Co. (1991) and in Dastar v. Twentieth Century Fox (2003) that copyright protection does not extend to facts." posted by Marcus | 5:20 AM   Web Stars: Best of the Web by Josh Taylor http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,113745,00.asp Where should you go for news, research, shopping, and more? We compare Goliaths of the Web to lesser-known upstarts--and discover some surprising results. The Web has been around long enough that even the most adventuresome surfer might end up in a rut, always using the same sites to get work done. So we put up the periscope to scan for the best newcomers and compared them to the Net's stalwarts. In each category, one site emerged as the Best Bet--but that shouldn't dissuade you from exploring the other contenders, all of which offer innovative and useful features you won't find anywhere else. posted by Marcus | 5:15 AM   Biocompare - Buyer's Guide for Life Scientists http://www.biocompare.com/index.asp Biocompare offers a site that gives a multitude of resources for the bio and life scientists and allows the comparison of various resources, products and services. I have just listed in my Biological Informatics Subject Tracer™ Information Blog. posted by Marcus | 5:10 AM   The Australasian Journal of Combinatorics http://ajc.math.auckland.ac.nz/ The Combinatorial Mathematics Society of Australasia provides their first decade of their journal for free. The latest decade and a half is limited to tables of contents. posted by Marcus | 5:00 AM   Digital Libraries Magazine http://www.dlib.org/dlib/january04/01contents.html The January, 2004 Issue of Digital Libraries Magazine is now Online. posted by Marcus | 4:55 AM Friday, January 16, 2004   Articles, Abstracts, Documents, Papers, Reports, and Literature Resources 2004 - Internet MiniGuide by Marcus P. Zillman, M.S., A.M.H.A. http://www.InternetMiniGuides.com/ http://academicresources.blogspot.com/ Articles, Abstracts, Documents, Papers, Reports, and Literature Resources 2004 - Internet MiniGuide has just been updated and is now available at the above URL for purchase and immediate download. This 55 page Internet MiniGuide has the following table of contents: Research Sources Reference Sources Search Engine Sources Directory and Database Sources Articles, Abstracts, Documents, Papers, Reports and Literature URLs Articles, Abstracts, Documents, Papers, Reports and Literature Bots Dissertations, Theses and Lectures Sources Technical Reports and Manuals Research Papers, Terms Papers and Essays My Internet MiniGuides now total nine and cover a wide variety of niched subject areas. My first miniguide was called Linkseries and listed all the gopher sites by selected topics for university reference libraries and was first published in 1993! posted by Marcus | 5:30 AM   A Survey of Digital Library Aggregation Services By Martha L. Brogan - Digital Library Federation, Council on Library and Information Resources http://www.diglib.org/pubs/brogan/ http://www.diglib.org/pubs/brogan/brogan2003.pdf This 100-page report, commissioned by the DLF, provides an overview of a diverse set of more than thirty digital library aggregation services, organizes them into functional clusters, and then evaluates them more fully from the perspective of an informed user. Most of the services under review rely wholly or partially on the Protocol for Metadata Harvesting of the Open Archives Initiative (OAI-PMH). Each service is annotated with its organizational affiliation, subject coverage, function, audience, status, and size. Critical issues surrounding each of these elements are presented in order to provide the reader with an appreciation of the nuances inherent in seemingly straightforward factual information, such as "audience" or "size." posted by Marcus | 5:29 AM   World Internet Project http://www.worldinternetproject.net/ The originators of this project believe that the Internet (in whatever distribution system: PC, television, wireless or some yet to be developed system) will transform our social, political and economic lives. We further believe that the influence and importance of the Internet will dwarf that of the most important cultural influence of the past 50 years: television. Potentially the Internet represents change on the order of the industrial revolution or the printing press. Believing this, our Internet Project is designed to get in on the ground floor of that change and to watch and document what happens as households and nations acquire and use the Internet. Findings from the first UCLA World Internet Report. See the press release and charts: Press Release (.pdf 67kb) Charts and Slides (.ppt 361kb) posted by Marcus | 5:28 AM   CC/PP Structure and Vocabularies 1.0 Is a W3C Recommendation http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-CCPP-struct-vocab-20040115/ http://www.w3.org/2004/01/ccpp-pressrelease http://www.w3.org/2001/di/ The World Wide Web Consortium today released "Composite Capability/Preference Profiles (CC/PP): Structure and Vocabularies 1.0" as a W3C Recommendation. CC/PP 1.0 is a system for expressing device capabilities and user preferences using the Resource Description Framework (RDF). CC/PP guides the adaptation of content, making it easier to deliver Web content to devices. Read the press release and visit the Device Independence home page. posted by Marcus | 5:20 AM   W3C Director Tim Berners-Lee to Be Knighted by Queen Elizabeth http://www.w3.org/2003/12/timbl_knighted Buckingham Palace has announced that Queen Elizabeth II will make Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director, a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE). UK Honours are available to all who give service in the United Kingdom. Mr. Berners-Lee, a British citizen, is being knighted in recognition of his services to the global development of the Internet through the invention of the World Wide Web. Please read the press release. Congratulations Tim!! posted by Marcus | 5:15 AM   IBM's Web Fountain: Creating Computers that Are Not Glueless http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/publicfeature/jan04/0104comp1.html Computers can manipulate vast amounts of data, without knowing what any of it actually means. Now a major breakthrough in the field of machine understanding could spell big business for its developer, IBM, as well as data miners, content providers, libraries and anyone else who relies on information. IBM's WebFountain is a huge collection of processors, routers and disk drives running a menagerie of software applications, all dedicated to one purpose: making sense of the churning ocean of information, opinion and falsehood that floods the Internet. WebFountain sucks in data like a search engine. Then its analysis engine sniffs out its own clues about a document's meaning and provides insight into what the search results mean in aggregate. WebFountain's most amazing trick: it converts unlabeled data into XML-labeled data. A variety of annotators, each specializing in a separate subject, scans each document looking for familiar references, and automatically adds XML tags when it spots them. Result: a uniform, structured format that can be searched and analyzed. In a few months, in partnership with online news company Factiva, IBM will launch a service to allow companies to track their reputations online: what journalists are reporting about them, which blogs have said what about them, even the latest buzz in chat rooms. posted by Marcus | 5:10 AM   My Expert Doctor http://www.myexpertdoctor.com/ Myexpertdoctor was created by Dr. Christopher Sciamanna, a Brown University physician who specializes in the use of computers to improve health care quality. Dr. Sciamanna has brought together a group of nationally recognized experts to help translate the most up-to-date guidelines into tools that patients can use to improve their care. posted by Marcus | 5:05 AM Thursday, January 15, 2004   Education and Distance Learning Resources 2004 - Internet MiniGuide by Marcus P. Zillman, M.S., A.M.H.A. http://www.InternetMiniGuide.com/ http://educationresources.blogspot.com/ Education and Distance Learning Resources 2004 Internet MiniGuide has just been updated and is now available at the above URL for purchase and immediate download. This 43 page Internet MiniGuide has the following table of contents: Research Sources Reference Sources Search Engine Sources Directory and Database Sources Education Resources URLs Distance Learning Resources URLs Online Tutorials "I'm personally very impressed with the Education and Distance Learning Resources 2004 Internet MiniGuide since I finished 3 years of distance learning without any guide or guidance. The guide that Marcus has produced would have made my learning experience so much faster and less frustrating. As an ambassador to my University, I will recommend this guide to the Education and Distance Learning Deans, for their students to use as a resource. Amazing information!" Betsy Glass, Ph.D. uniquegenes.us My Internet MiniGuides now total nine and cover a wide variety of niched subject areas. My first miniguide was called Linkseries and listed all the gopher sites by selected topics for university reference libraries and was first published in 1993! posted by Marcus | 5:15 AM   There have been several newly created and a number of updated web applications current news aggregators on the Internet. I have listed a number of the most competent resources below to use as one of the resources to aggregate current awareness news and happenings on the Internet: Columbia Newsblaster: Summarizing All the News on the Web http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/nlp/newsblaster/ Gixo - Personalized Online News Service http://www.gixo.com/ Google™ News http://news.google.com/ Google™ News Alert http://www.google.com/newsalerts/ memigo - Cut Through the InfoGlut http://www.memigo.com/ Moreover Technologies http://w.moreover.com/ NewsInEssence: Web-based News Summarization http://www.newsinessence.com/nie.cgi NewsIsFree http://www.NewsIsFree.com/ NewsKnowledge http://NewsKnowledge.com/ NewsNow - Automatically Searching 15424 News Sources Every 5 Minutes http://www.newsnow.co.uk/ NewzSnap™ http://www.lobbynet.com/promo.htm RocketNews - Breaking News and WebLog Search Engine http://www.rocketnews.com/search/index.html Topix.net - News Organized By Topic and Location http://www.topix.net/ Yahoo News Front Page http://news.yahoo.com/ Let me know if you recommend any other current news aggregators and I will list them here as well. posted by Marcus | 5:14 AM   Topix.net http://www.topix.net A very comprehensive news aggregator organizing news by topic and location. We are observing a number of new news aggregators appearing on the scene that will allow us to redefine the method that we monitor and access current awareness news and happenings on the Internet....truly exciting times!! posted by Marcus | 5:13 AM   YSearch - Y-DNA Public Database http://www.ysearch.org/ Much has happened since Y-DNA testing first became available commercially through Family Tree DNA in February of 2000. Many thousands of people have tested to find family connections as well as family origins. Since then, other labs have entered this market, and the number of tested individuals is growing as the use of DNA is becoming more and more accepted as an important tool for family research, enhancing traditional genealogy research methods. In order to allow people that have tested with the different companies to make their results available for comparison, Family Tree DNA is offering Ysearch as a free public service. We have added several tools that allow you to compare side-by-side different users - the YsearchCompare - as well as generate a Genetic Distance™ Report, and many other features. This has been added to Genealogy Resources Subject Tracer™ Information Blog and Biological Informatics Subject Tracer™ Information Blog. posted by Marcus | 5:05 AM   Software Repairs Itself On the Go http://www.trnmag.com/Stories/2004/011404/Software_repairs_itself_on_the_go_011404.html Computer software has become more sophisticated and we've come to rely heavily on it. This is a problem because it's a challenge keeping complicated programs running. The emerging field of self-healing software aims to make programs take care of themselves. A tool that models data structures helps computers get the picture. [Technology Research News January 14/21, 2004] posted by Marcus | 4:59 AM   Quantum Dice Debut http://www.trnmag.com/Stories/2004/011404/Quantum_dice_debut_011404.html Einstein famously objected to quantum physics by saying that God does not play dice with the universe. The quantum world is filled with uncertainty, so much so that getting a quantum computer to generate random numbers would require an impractical amount of computing resources. A scheme for generating pseudo-random numbers, however, makes for practical quantum dice and could also play a key role in constructing quantum computers. [Technology Research News January 14/21, 2004] posted by Marcus | 4:59 AM   Guidelines to Authors of Internet-Drafts http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-guidelines.txt The IETF Secretariat has updated its procedures for processing expired Internet-Drafts. The updated procedures, which are presented below, can also be found in the document entitled "Guidelines to Authors of Internet-Drafts" . An Internet-Draft will expire exactly 185 days from the date that it is posted on the IETF Web site unless it is replaced by an updated version (in which case the clock will start all over again for the new version, and the old version will be removed from the Internet-Draft repositories), or unless it is under official review by the IESG (i.e., a request to publish it has been submitted). Specifically, when an Internet-Draft enters the "Publication Requested" state in the I-D Tracker, it will not be expired until its status is resolved (e.g., it is published as an RFC). I-D Tracker states not associated with a formal request to publish a document (e.g., "AD is Watching") will not prevent an Internet-Draft from expiring after 185 days. Internet-Drafts will not expire during the period surrounding an IETF Meeting when submission of updates to Internet-Drafts is suspended (i.e., between the cutoff date for submission of updated drafts, which is two weeks prior to an IETF Meeting, and the date that Internet-Draft submissions are once again being accepted). All Internet-Drafts scheduled to expire during this period will expire on the day that the Secretariat reopens Internet-Draft submissions. When an Internet-Draft expires, a "tombstone" file will be created that includes the filename and version number of the Internet-Draft that has expired. The filename of the tombstone file will be the same as that of the expired Internet-Draft with the version number increased by one. If a revised version of an expired Internet-Draft is submitted for posting, then the revised versionwill replace the tombstone file and will receive the same version number as that previously assigned to the tombstone file. Tombstone files will never expire and will always be available for reference unless they are replaced by updated versions of the subject Internet-Drafts. posted by Marcus | 4:55 AM Wednesday, January 14, 2004   International Trade Resources 2004 - Internet MiniGuide by Marcus P. Zillman, M.S., A.M.H.A. http://www.InternetMiniGuide.com/ http://InternationalTradeResources.BlogSpot.com/ International Trade Resources 2004 Internet MiniGuide has just been updated and is now available at the above URLs for purchase and immediate download. This 43 page Internet MiniGuide has the following table of contents: Research Sources Reference Sources Search Engine Sources Directory and Database Sources International Trade Resources URLs International Business Information Directories International Trade Bulletin Boards International Trade Journals, Newsletters & Reports “This is the most comprehensive internet business resource publication available anywhere. The Guide is my primary tool in assisting our over 1,700 members with questions regarding internet sources for data, intelligence and business start-up assistance.” Dennis Grady - President Chamber of Commerce of the Palm Beaches My Internet MiniGuides now total nine and cover a wide variety of niched subject areas. My first miniguide was called Linkseries and listed all the gopher sites by selected topics and was first published in 1993! posted by Marcus | 5:00 AM   How to Digitize Eight Million Books ... A Conversation with Michael Keller http://www.honco.net/os/ On a golden late summer afternoon, we strolled across the campus of California's Stanford University. The lawns and pathways were filled with returning students, most of whom were carrying books and cell phones -- emblems of the oldest and newest forms of information and communications technology. Our destination was the Green Library and a meeting with Michael Keller, University Librarian, Director of Academic Information Resources, and Publisher of HighWire Press and the Stanford University Press. Deep within the sub-basements of the library, far from the sun and the students above, an experiment was taking place. A robotic scanner, custom built for Stanford, was systematically digitizing parts of the university library's vast collection. Michael Keller, who selected and ordered the robot, is overseeing this unique effort. [The Book and the Computer] posted by Marcus | 4:50 AM   5th Annual Digital Reference Conference Papers http://www.vrd2003.org/proceedings/index.cfm The Virtual Reference Desk (VRD) is pleased to offer presentations, handouts, models, papers, and other materials from its 5th Annual Digital Reference Conference in San Antonio, held on November 17-18, 2003. [Joann M. Wasik - The Virtual Reference Desk] posted by Marcus | 4:50 AM   Community Informatics Research Network (CIRN) Inc. http://www.ciresearch.net/ CIRN is an international network of practitioners and researchers into community informatics and community networking, established in October 2003. It is the outcome of several years of informal discussions and activities about the need for a more permanent international network for those interested in enabling communities with Information and Communications Technologies. It is incorporated as a voluntary association in the State of Victoria, Australia. Its purpose is to promote and represent community informatics and community networking internationally. Community Informatics lies at two cross-roads: bringing together people concerned with electronically enabling communities: local, virtual and communities of practice; and structuring collaborations between researchers and practitioners, including industry, in these three domains. posted by Marcus | 4:30 AM   Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine http://www.ccjm.org/ The Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine is an indexed, peer-reviewed journal published 10 times a year by The Cleveland Clinic as part of its program of medical education and scientific communication. The Journal is designed to meet the continuing medical education needs of general internists and cardiologists. The focus of the Journal is the application of new developments in the diagnosis and treatment of disease encountered in clinical practice. Relevance to physicians in practice is a chief criterion for the selection of articles. posted by Marcus | 4:20 AM Tuesday, January 13, 2004   Competitive Intelligence Resources 2004 - Internet MiniGuide by Marcus P. Zillman, M.S., A.M.H.A. http://www.InternetMiniGuide.com/ http://CompetitiveIntelligenceResources.BlogSpot.com/ Competitive Intelligence Resources 2004 Internet MiniGuide has just been updated and is now available at the above URLs for purchase and immediate download. This 39 page Internet MiniGuide has the following table of contents: Research Sources Reference Sources Search Engine Sources Directory and Database Sources Competitive Intelligence Resources URLs My Internet MiniGuides now total nine and cover a wide variety of niched subject areas. My first miniguide was called Linkseries and listed all the gopher sites by selected topics and was first published in 1993! posted by Marcus | 8:06 AM   Google Add Number Search Tool http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/01/13/HNgoogletools_1.html Google Inc. added more weapons to its query cache this week, rolling out tools that allow users to access travel updates and search by numbers for information on shipment tracking, patents and vehicle identification, for example. Using the new search by number feature, Net users looking to track packages can now enter a United Parcel Service of America Inc. (UPS), FedEX Corp. or U.S. Postal Service tracking number into the Google query bar to locate their goods. Users can also search by patents, Federal Airline Aviation (FAA) airline registration numbers, bar codes and telephone area codes, according to information posted to the company's Web site this week. [InfoWorld Jan 13, 2004] posted by Marcus | 5:15 AM   Peer Resources http://www.peer.ca/mentor.html Peer resources is a very comprehensive site dedicated to latest resources for mentoring and starting and maintaing a mentor program or service. posted by Marcus | 5:11 AM   Law Scout http://lawscout.uakron.edu Legal Research Guide: Starting Points for Law, How To Perform Legal Research : The University of Akron, School of Law Library offers this searchable directory of legal research guides. Browse the directory by legal topic or search it using a variety of criteria. Entries include information about the research guide as well as a link to it. If you register (not necessary to browse or search the directory), you can save your search. (gt, gk, et) posted by Marcus | 5:05 AM   VIP and VIP Eye http://www.vivavip.com/ VIP is a monthly publication focussing on information products and information people. VIP is available by paid subscription and includes product reviews and comparisons, interviews with senior information industry figures and monitoring of research to identify future trends. VIP Eye is a twice-monthly subscription email service analysing business information news announcements. VIP and VIP Eye are by FreePint Limited technology by Willco Limited. posted by Marcus | 5:01 AM   Digital Opportunity Channel http://www.DigitalOpportunity.org/ Digital Opportunity Channel is jointly edited by Kanti Kumar of OneWorld South Asia in New Delhi, and Andy Carvin of the Digital Divide Network in Washington, DC. posted by Marcus | 5:00 AM Monday, January 12, 2004   This edition of Current Awareness Happenings on the Internet by Marcus P. Zillman, M.S., A.M.H.A. (January 12, 2004 V2N2) is dedicated to my 2004 professional Internet MiniGuides. Click on the below audblog link to hear an audio describing these nine professional Internet MiniGuides that have just been completely updated for 2004! I like to consider these Internet MiniGuides as your personal private library on nine exciting subjects! The site is available from the following address: Internet MiniGuides http://www.InternetMiniGuide.com/ audblog audio post posted by Marcus | 2:55 PM   Legal Resources 2004 - Internet MiniGuide by Marcus P. Zillman, M.S., A.M.H.A. http://legalresources.blogspot.com/ http://www.InternetMiniGuide.com/ Legal Resources 2004 Internet MiniGuide has just been updated and is now available at the above URLs for purchase and immediate download. This 41 page Internet MiniGuide has the following table of contents: Research Sources Reference Sources Search Engine Sources Directory and Database Sources Legal Resources URLs Legal Forms and Documents My Internet MiniGuides now total nine and cover a wide variety of niched subject areas. My first miniguide was called Linkseries and listed all the gopher sites by selected topics and was first published in 1993! posted by Marcus | 5:05 AM   BotLaw - The Place for Legal Research on Intelligent Agents/Bots http://www.botlaw.com/ BotLaw.com was founded in November 2003 by Christiana N. Markou, an advocate and legal consultant from Cyprus. It aims at facilitating research in the newly emerged area of bots law, a sub-area of information technology law. BotLaw.com attempts to put all or at least most of the existing material on the subject in one place and aspires to become a comprehensive research resource to be used by academics, practitioners and students with an interest in this particular area of law. The site also serves as a forum in which people can exchange ideas, discuss the arising legal issues or publish their related work. BotLaw.com is currently in its infancy as is the area of law on which it concentrates. However, being the first site wholly dedicated to this area of law, BotLaw.com has even in this early stage an important role to play in the legal cyberspace. posted by Marcus | 5:04 AM   Mauritius Seeks to Become a Global Cyber Island Paradise http://allafrica.com/stories/200401120314.html First came California's Silicon Valley, then India took the honours. Next, if all goes according to plan, the tiny Indian Ocean nation of Mauritius hopes to lead the way in Africa, by transforming itself into a "cyber island". The dream is to create a hi-tech paradise, dubbed "cyber city," which is located in Ebene, 15km (9 miles) outside the capital, Port Louis. The 12-story tower, surrounded by a ring of mountains, rises out of the sugar cane plantations that were once the bedrock of Mauritian economic prosperity. posted by Marcus | 5:03 AM   Cable and Internet Loom Large in Fragmented Political News Universe: Perceptions of Partisan Bias Seen as Growing -- Especially by Democrats Joint Report with Pew Research Center http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/pdfs/PIP_Political_Info_Jan04.pdf http://www.pewinternet.org/releases/release.asp?id=72 The Pew Internet & American Life Project and the Pew Research Center for People and the Press have released a new report that shows cable news and the Internet are looming larger this year as sources of campaign information, as smaller numbers of Americans are turning to broadcast TV and newspapers. In addition, young people are increasingly saying that they are learning about the campaign from comedy shows such as the Daily Show and Saturday Night Live. But the poll finds that people who say they are learning things about politics on comedy shows don't know much about the current campaign. The Internet, on the other hand, has a well-informed audience and active use of the net for politics is strongly linked to a high level of knowledge about the campaign. The survey also finds that the nation's deep political divisions are reflected in public views of campaign coverage. As many Americans now say news organizations are biased in favor of one of the two parties as say there is no bias in election coverage (39% vs. 38%). This marks a major change from previous surveys taken regularly since 1987. An increasing number of Democrats, in particular, see campaign coverage as biased in favor of the Republicans. posted by Marcus | 5:02 AM   American Web Sites Speak the Language of Overseas Users by Bob Tedeschi http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/12/business/12ecom.html?th The New York Times reports that the National Football League will roll out a Chinese-language version of its Web site this month in yet another move by American entertainment and media organizations to capitalize on overseas Internet audiences. posted by Marcus | 5:01 AM   Anthropology Collection Database Accessible on the WWW http://www.calacademy.org/research/anthropology/collections/collintro.htm The Department of Anthropology, California Academy of Sciences provides Internet access to its extensive research data collection. The anthropology collection comprises approximately 17,000 objects, most of which are ethnographic. The collection was gathered from the indigenous cultures of western North America (exclusive of Mexico) and the Pacific Rim, including all Pacific islands and East Asia. Currently the database includes over 8,000 digital images documenting the collection's general holdings from the U.S. Southwest and the Pacific Islands, and basketry from California. Digital photographing of the remainder of the collection is an ongoing project. Individual researchers or research groups, with the stipulation that permission be sought for redistribution in any form, may use these data. posted by Marcus | 5:00 AM Sunday, January 11, 2004   Healthcare Resources 2004 - Internet MiniGuide by Marcus P. Zillman, M.S., A.M.H.A. http://www.InternetMiniGuide.com/ Healthcare Resources 2004 Internet MiniGuide has just been updated and is now available at the above URLs for purchase and immediate download. This 49 page Internet MiniGuide has the following table of contents: Research Sources Reference Sources Search Engine Sources Directory and Database Sources Healthcare Resources URLs Top 10 Best Consumer Medical WWW Sites My Internet MiniGuides now total nine and cover a wide variety of niched subject areas. My first miniguide was called Linkseries and listed all the gopher sites by selected topics and was first published in 1993! posted by Marcus | 7:37 AM   FTSE-100's Web Sites Getting Better, But a Third of Them Still Don't Get It http://www.iablondon.com/newsitem.cfm?ID=160 They highlight the findings of the third annual Web "Oscars", which ranks the UK’s top 100 companies by the quality of the Home Pages of their corporate Web sites. posted by Marcus | 7:32 AM Saturday, January 10, 2004   Business Resources 2004 - Internet MiniGuide by Marcus P. Zillman, M.S., A.M.H.A. http://BusinessResource.BlogSpot.com/ http://www.InternetMiniGuide.com/ Business Resources 2004 Internet MiniGuide has just been updated and is now available at the above URLs for purchase and immediate download. This 67 page Internet MiniGuide has the following table of contents: Research Sources Reference Sources Search Engine Sources Directory and Database Sources B2B Vertical eMarketplaces URLs Business Bids Resources URLs Business Resources URLs Business Intelligence Resources URLs Economic Resources URLs Electronic Commerce Resources URLs Entrepreneurial Resources URLs Small Business Resources URLs My Internet MiniGuides now total nine and cover a wide variety of niched subject areas. My first miniguide was called Linkseries and listed all the gopher sites by selected topics and was first published in 1993! posted by Marcus | 5:00 AM   Exploring Mars NASA: Mars Exploration Rover Mission http://marsrovers.nasa.gov/home/index.html NASA Land Rover a Success on Mars http://www.npr.org/display_pages/features/feature_1580717.html Mars Photos Tempt Scientists With Vast Areas for Exploration http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/08/science/08MARS.html Geology of Mars http://www.lukew.com/marsgeo/ Denver Museum of Nature and Science: Water and Life on Mars? http://www.dmns.org/mars/ Discoveryschool.com: Destination Mars http://school.discovery.com/lessonplans/programs/destinationmars/index.html BBCi Space: Mars Guide http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/space/portals/beagle.shtml NASA has blasted into the new year by not only landing a robotic vehicle (the Rover Spirit) on the surface of Mars, but also by transmitting the best photographs ever captured of the red planet. With that, Spirit is now preparing to meander about the surface of Mars and collect specimens of rock and soil -- the return of which is anxiously awaited by scientists worldwide. Spirit landed and made its first transmissions to earth earlier this week. And, as was planned by NASA researchers, Sprit had landed almost directly in what looks to be an impact crater, now nicknamed Sleepy Hollow. Researchers are excited to explore that area and the many other craters and rock debris located there. While the planet appears to be quite desolate, Spirit will soon be joined by its twin, Opportunity. Opportunity is expected to land next week on another part of the planet before beginning its own exploration. The first site takes visitors to NASA's official Mars exploration site. Located here is all sorts of information on the mission's purpose, a timeline of events, updated photographs sent by Spirit, press releases, and resources for teachers and students. The two news sites offer reviews of the mission. The first is a detailed site from NPR.org and provides visitors with several stories that have been dedicated to the mission. The second of these is a review of the photos of Mars sent from Spirit. The fourth site is dedicated to the geology of Mars. This site, from Albert T. Hsui at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, is a great reference for delving into the details of Mars geology (as was known pre-January 2004). The next site is from the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and provides a great description of the search for water (or the past presence of it) on Mars. Discoveryschool.com offers the next site which provides a great collection of teaching resources for educators wishing to bring Mars into the their classrooms. The final site, from BBCi, totes itself as containing "everything you need to know about Mars exploration." And, it lives up to its claim pretty well. This site offers a different perspective from the NASA mission by offering a look into the European Space Agency's Express Mission and the subsequent landing of the ESA version of the Spirit and Opportunity, the Beagle II. [From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2003. http://scout.wisc.edu/] posted by Marcus | 4:45 AM Friday, January 09, 2004   Security Resources 2004 - Internet MiniGuide by Marcus P. Zillman, M.S., A.M.H.A. http://SecurityResources.BlogSpot.com/ http://www.InternetMiniGuide.com/ Security Resources 2004 Internet MiniGuide has just been updated and is now available at the above URLs for purchase and immediate download. This 48 page Internet Miniguide has the following table of contents: Research Sources Reference Sources Search Engine Sources Directory and Database Sources Security Resources URLs Personal Computer Security and Analysis Personal Computer Hard Drive Cleaning Personal Computer Firewalls Secure Havens Secured Documents and eMail Transmission My Internet MiniGuides now total nine and cover a variety of niched topics. My first miniguide was called LinkSeries and listed all the gopher sites by niched topics and was first published in 1993! posted by Marcus | 2:05 PM   Do Web Search Engines Suppress Controversy? by Susan L. Gerhart http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue9_1/gerhart/ Web behavior depends upon three interlocking communities: (1) authors whose Web pages link to other pages; (2) search engines indexing and ranking those pages; and (3) information seekers whose queries and surfing reward authors and support search engines. Systematic suppression of controversial topics would indicate a flaw in the Web’s ideology of openness and informativeness. This paper explores search engines’ bias by asking: Is a specific well–known controversy revealed in a simple search? Experimental topics include: distance learning, Albert Einstein, St. John’s Wort, female astronauts, and Belize. The experiments suggest simple queries tend to overly present the "sunny side" of these topics, with minimal controversy. A more "Objective Web" is analyzed where: (a) Web page authors adopt research citation practices; (b) search engines balance organizational and analytic content; and, (c) searchers practice more wary multi–searching. posted by Marcus | 1:54 PM   On the Economy of Web Links: Simulating the Exchange Process by Boris Galitsky and Mark Levene http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue9_1/galitsky/ In the modern Web economy, hyperlinks have already attained monetary value as incoming links to a Web site can increase its visibility on major search engines. Thus links can be viewed as investment instruments that can be the subject of an exchange process. In this study we build a simple model performed by rational agents, whereby links can be bought and sold. Through simulation we achieve consistent economic behaviour of the artificial Web community and provide analysis of its micro– and macro–level parameters. In our simulations we take the link economy to its extreme, where a significant number of links are exchanged, concluding that it will lead to a winner take all situation posted by Marcus | 1:51 PM   Next Generation Net naming Scheme Rewrites Rules http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3292043.stm Internet "granddad" Vint Cerf says in the next decade, the Internet will stop being part of the telephone network; instead, the phone network -- along with most other communications channels -- will become part of the Net: "You are going to see a fairly dramatic increase in services riding on top of basic Internet infrastructure. You will see more and more layers of functionality showing up in the Net." Examples include new naming systems that allow objects other than Web servers and Net domains to become part of the Internet. The Naming Authority Pointer (NATPR) "allows you to take a domain name and map it into whatever ID space you want to. I think that's a sleeping giant because it allows you to escape the bonds of the DNS and move into new naming spaces that have very different characteristics," says Cerf, who adds that NATPR could allow such things as book or magazine ISBN codes to claim their own address space on the Net. posted by Marcus | 1:46 PM   Keeping Up With New Web Sites http://lii.org/search/file/newsites/ The following resources are useful for staying current with new and newly-discovered Web sites. Most offer subscription options for e-mail or RSS. posted by Marcus | 1:38 PM   How to Make a Faceted Classification and Put It On the Web http://www.miskatonic.org/library/facet-web-howto.html Faceted classifications are increasingly common on the World Wide Web, especially on commercial web sites (Adkisson 2003). This is not surprising--facets are a natural way of organizing things. Many web designers have probably rediscovered them independently by asking, "What other ways would people want to view this data? What's another way to slice it?" A survey of the literature on applying facets on the web (Denton 2003) shows that librarians think it a good idea but are unsure how to do it, while the web people who are already doing it are often unaware of S.R. Ranganathan, the Classification Research Group, and the decades of history behind facets. This paper will attempt to bridge the gap by giving procedures and advice on all the steps involved in making a faceted classification and putting it on the web. Web people will benefit by having a rigorous seven-step process to follow for creating faceted classifications, and librarians will benefit by understanding how to store such a classification on a computer and make it available on the web. The paper is meant for both webmasters and information architects who do not know a lot about library and information science, and librarians who do not know a lot about building databases and web sites. posted by Marcus | 5:38 AM Thursday, January 08, 2004   Grokker May Trump Google In Opening Up the Invisible Web http://www.fortune.com/fortune/fastforward/0,15704,563090,00.html Had any good "info-revelations" lately? A re-tooled software application called Grokker may be just the ticket for an infusion of serendipitous little wonders. Grokker (available at Groxis.com) takes the raw output of a query and organizes it (via visual representation) into categories and subcategories. When you type in, say, "nanotechnology," Grokker sifts through data from multiple search engines and you initially see a big circle, within which are smaller subset circles with such labels as "molecular," "conference," "technology," "science" and "research." It even includes a category circle on "children's books." Click on "molecular," and that circle enlarges so you can see several further subcircles, one of which is "molecular assemblies." Click on that, and another category -- "molecular assembly sequencing software" -- shows up. Groxis CEO R.J. Pittman says Grokker promises to crack open some mysteries of the Web: "Google has indexed several billion pages, but there are between 550 and 600 billion in total on what's referred to as the invisible Web or deep Web. Within a year Grokker will have ten times the reach of Google in terms of available Web pages." The Los Angeles and Chicago school districts have taken trial licenses for their students. posted by Marcus | 4:23 PM   Knowledge Hound http://www.knowledgehound.com/ Knowledge Hound claims to be the Web's biggest directory of free how-tos. For the do-it-yourselfer this could be "heaven" .... posted by Marcus | 4:12 PM   Alexa Page Rank http://pages.alexa.com/prod_serv/traffic_rankings.html?p=Dest_W_t_40_R1 Type in a URL and find out not Alexa's analysis of the site's traffic rank, but also related sites, a capsule description, an analysis of how people use the site, and an opportunity to write a review of the site on Amazon. You can also browse by subject or browse the top 500 sites. Alexa is a partner of Google and an Amazon company. [January 9 NeatNew and ExLibris] posted by Marcus | 4:03 PM   Beyond Bookmarks http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/12/031223071958.htm People are using the Web more than ever for their work-related and personal research, but keeping track of valuable URLs is just getting harder. William Jones and Harry Bruce at the University of Washington's Information School and Susan Dumais of Microsoft Research looked into the many tricks that people use to save "found" information (bookmarking, sticky notes, self-addressed e-mail, etc.) but concluded that most people don't use any of them when it comes time to revisit a page. They just go through the original search process all over again. "Our results so far tell us the tools for keeping track of Web pages don't mesh well with how people work with the Web," says Jones. The researchers found that even when offered an enhanced "Add to Favorites" option to a Web browser, it was largely ignored by students in the test group. As a result, the researchers are developing a conceptual framework for how people stockpile information, dubbed the "personal anticipation of information need," or PAIN. "People are motivated by PAIN," quips Bruce. The team is also addressing the problem of "information fragmentation" -- vital info is often scattered across e-mail, files, contact information, Web references, etc. -- with a "My Life" personal taxonomy intended to provide techniques and tools for organizing this hodgepodge of data. "We live in the Information Age, and the effective use of information is the key to prosperity," says a program officer at the National Science Foundation, which is funding the effort. "This project provides the theoretical underpinnings for a human-centric information environment that will enable individuals, families, organizations and societies to continually build upon their experience and gain control over the seemingly endless volumes of information confronting them." posted by Marcus | 3:53 PM   Advertising, Marketing & Public Relations Resources 2004 - An Internet MiniGuide http://AdvertisingMarketingResources.BlogSpot.com/ http://www.InternetMiniGuide.com/ I am in the process of updating all my Professional Internet MiniGuides and the first is now complete and ready for sale and immediate download as a 38 page .pdf document. I will be updating all ten over the next weeks and will announce each as they are updated and made available for sale. The Table of Contents for Advertising, Marketing & Public Resources 2004 is as follows: Introduction Research Sources Reference Sources Search Engine Sources Directory and Database Sources Advertising Resources URLs Marketing Resources URLs Public Relations Resources URLs My very first MiniGuide was called LinkSeries and listed all the current Gopher sites on the Internet in 1993! posted by Marcus | 10:14 AM Wednesday, January 07, 2004   New York Times Archives 1851 - Present http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/nytarchive.html A searchable archive of the New York Times all the way back to Setember 1851 is now available. Searching is free, but then articles must be purchased. The archive is hosted by Proquest, but you can get to it from the Times front page. This opens up a primary research source on just about everything that's happened in the last 150 years! posted by Marcus | 6:19 PM   The Zora Neale Hurston Plays at the Library of Congress http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/znhhtml The Zora Neale Hurston Plays collection at the Library of Congress present a selection of ten plays written by Hurston, author, anthropologist, and folklorist. Deposited in the United States Copyright Office between 1925 and 1944, most of the plays remained unpublished and unproduced until they were rediscovered in the Copyright Deposit Drama Collection in 1997. The plays reflect Hurston's life experience, travels, and research, especially her study of folklore in the African-American South. Totaling seven hundred images, the scripts are housed in the Library's Manuscript, Music, and Rare Books and Special Collections Divisions. Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960), the author of the ten plays (with co-authors Langston Hughes on Mule-Bone and Dorothy Waring on Polk County), deposited these scripts with the United States Copyright Office between 1925 and 1944. Included in the scanned materials are four very short plays (sketches or skits) and six full-length plays. Most are light-hearted if not outright comedies, and several include song lyrics without the associated music. Hurston knew the songs and the subjects of these plays from her own upbringing and her professional folklore research in the African-American South. She identified as her hometown Eatonville, Florida, the first African-American incorporated township. During the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, Hurston traveled the American South collecting and recording the sounds and songs of her people, while her research in Haiti is reflected in the voodoo scenes and beliefs woven into several of the plays. With the exception of Mule-Bone, the plays presented here were all unpublished when they were rediscovered in the Library of Congress in 1997. At that time, only Polk County was at all familiar to scholars on the basis of copies in other repositories. Little was known about Hurston's theatrical career until 1998, when scholarly publications began to reflect the drama discoveries announced by the Library of Congress. The discovery of the scripts, added to those Hurston plays already known, firmly establishes their author, an African-American woman, as a significant dramatist of the twentieth century. American Memory is a gateway to rich primary source materials relating to the history and culture of the United States. The site offers more than 8 million digital items from more than 120 historical collections. [Laura Gottesman, Library of Congress] posted by Marcus | 1:56 PM   The URL Clearinghouse http://library.albany.edu/clearinghouse/ The URL Clearinghouse is a set of instructions for creating URLs to vendor-mediated databases and e-journals licensed by libraries and other information providers. These are the URLs that librarians maintain in OPACs, Web sites, databases, course pages, guides, etc. The Clearinghouse focuses on URLs that point to databases and e-journals at the title level. Where discovered on a vendor's site, the option to create deep links at the article level and other deep levels is noted but no instructions are included. The Clearinghouse focuses on vendors that offer multiple titles, e.g., OCLC with its FirstSearch databases, Ingenta with its Ingenta Select e-journals. Few e-books or other electronic texts are included at this time, although some of the vendors featured in the Clearinghouse offer such items. [Laura B. Cohen - Network Services Librarian/Webmaster - University at Albany] posted by Marcus | 12:16 PM   Smithsonian Without Walls - Revealing Things http://www.si.edu/revealingthings/ Welcome to the prototype of Revealing Things, the first Smithsonian exhibition to be created specifically for the Internet. Revealing Things uses common, everyday objects to tell stories about people, their cultures, and the meanings they associate with their possessions. Because it is still in the experimental stage, Revealing Things may not work on all computers (see the Technical Requirements). Despite its technical restrictions, we felt it was important to make the program available for public comment. Revealing Things uses Java; to see the exhibition, you must have a Java-enabled browser, preferably the most recent version posted by Marcus | 12:07 PM   The Second Workshop on Semantics in Peer-to-Peer and Grid Computing http://www.isi.edu/~hongsuda/SemPGRID04 2nd Workshop on Semantics in Peer-to-Peer and Grid Computing at the Thirteenth International World Wide Web Conference 17-18 May 2004, New York, USA in cooperation with the GGF Semantic Grid Research Group (SEM-GRD) The Semantic Web is widely accepted as a means to enhance the Web with machine processable content. However, mostly the Semantic Web is aiming at techniques and technologies for static information, in contrast to dynamic services or distributed computing. Several interest groups and efforts are working on infrastructure for enabling distributed computing. The organization of these efforts are in part top down organized efforts, involving multiple formal organizations and dedicated projects, and bottom-up efforts, sometimes started by single organizations or individuals in a grassroots effort. The Grid is aiming at technologies which allow the flexible, secure, coordinated resource sharing among dynamic collections of individuals, institutions, and resources, enabling virtual organizations. Problems encountered include authentication, authorization, resource access, resource discovery, and interoperation of active services. The same problems are eminent in the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) area, where projects are typically organized in a bottom-up fashion. Reusable infrastructures like SUN's JXTA are emerging, attracting numerous applications. However, each application uses its own data format, and it is hard to see how applications interoperate. A related area is Web Services: driven by industry efforts numerous specifications are developed, which are of interest for the Grid projects as well as for the Peer-to-Peer efforts. Although there is an agreement that Web Services would benefit from more semantics, little systematic research has been done on the problem of how to combine the notions of Web Services with the results of the Semantic Web, Peer-to-Peer and Grid computing. The workshop will be organized in part around talks presenting research results in the intersection of the Semantic Web, P2P and Grid computing. Another important part of the workshop will be break-out groups, focusing on the amalgamation of Semantic Web and distributed computing. We hope the break-out groups will evolve into independent working groups and generate follow-up activities, which contribute to the technology areas. The proceedings will be published on the Web and a workshop report will summarize the outcome of the break out groups. posted by Marcus | 9:33 AM   English Chinese Glossary of Computer and Network Communications Terms http://ihome.ust.hk/~lbsun/terms.html The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, HK, China: "A very useful English-Chinese list of computer and networking terminology. Although far from complete it is much more useful than the outdated "Intelligent Database for Standard Chinese Computer Terminology" (http://ccts.cs.cuhk.edu.hk/) by the Hong Kong Computer Society and was originally set up to incoporate especially those words not included there. Contents: Alphabetically ordered word-list on one single page, English-Chinese, also including variants for Hong Kong and Taiwan. [From asia-www-monitor] posted by Marcus | 9:17 AM   Journalists' Tool Kit http://www.mediachannel.org/getinvolved/journo/ The Journalists' Tool Kit represents essential resources for the working journalist and makes for a good bookmark. posted by Marcus | 9:01 AM Tuesday, January 06, 2004   Bloogz http://www.bloogz.com/ Bloogz is a research project that traces, through blogs, how information is spread. In particular, thanks to the links included in blogs, Bloogz Rank traces those pieces of information that seem to be more influent from weblog to weblog in the last 24 hours. Bloogz Rank assesses how popular websites and the topics of Blogs are, according to the number of visitors and quotes that can be found. Zillman.us, this blog, has the honor of being from number four to number one in the BloogZ Ranking of the top 500 blogs on the Internet in the last week. We thank everyone for their interest as well as their links to our site! Being number one on the Bloogz Rank is a true honor that we never expected! posted by Marcus | 8:35 PM   ChatterBots http://www.ChatterBots.info ChatterBots is a Subject Tracer™ Information Blog developed and created by the Virtual Private Library™. It is designed to bring together the latest resources and sources on an ongoing basis on ChatterBots. We always welcome suggestions of additional sites and resources to be added to this comprehensive listing and please submit by clicking here. This site has been developed and maintained by Marcus P. Zillman, M.S., A.M.H.A.. Additional links and resources by Marcus are available by clicking here. posted by Marcus | 2:19 PM   How to Create and Maintain a Website http://www.lincproject.org/toolkit/techtip_webguide.html Creating a website to increase awareness of your organization can be a daunting task. There are many aspects to take into consideration. The purpose, function, placement, creation and maintenance of the website are all substantial decisions best laid out in an initial planning process. This document is designed to answer some of the questions about what building a site may require, and to steer you to outlining a clear and thorough strategy for your site. posted by Marcus | 2:09 PM   Linux Kernel Upgrade Fixes Security Flaws http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105_2-5135129.html An upgrade has been issued for the Linux kernel to address two security flaws identified as serious. Marcelo Tosatti, who maintains the Linux 2.4 kernel series, said the security vulnerabilities of the older version pose significant risks to users and they should upgrade to the new kernel as soon as possible. One of the flaws fixed by the new kernel allows a hacker to change the privileges of a user account to those of the system's owner; the other flaw exposes some of the kernel's memory to intruders. Improvements to the 2.4 series kernel have otherwise been halted in an effort to encourage users to upgrade to the next series, the 2.6 kernel. posted by Marcus | 8:59 AM   SanskritaPradipika - Freely Downloadable e-Tutor for the Sanskrit Language http://www.sanskrit-lamp.org/ The following description is given at the site's "About" directory by Sudhir Kaicker: SanskritaPradipika, a freely downloadable e-tutor for the Sanskrit language, is intended to help English-speaking people learn Sanskrit, as well as the Devanagari script in which the language is written today. The medium of discourse is English, but will be gratified if the English text is translated to other European and Asian languages, so that the material becomes available to as large a number of aspirants as possible. The tutor has been written in the Java programming language. In principle, this is supposed to ensure that the package will run without problems on any sort of computer that can be connected to the Internet. The fact is, though, that SanskritaPradipika has been created on ancient IBM-compatibles powered by Intel Pentium II chips, running Windows 98. Much testing therefore needs to be done before the software can certifiably be said to be platform independent, and to run without error on other types of computer, such as an Apple, or a Sun Workstation. In this area too a collaboration would be most welcome. Four chapters and a section on diacritics are being offered at this time. Other chapters will shortly be made available. posted by Marcus | 8:54 AM   Window to the Universe http://link.abpi.net/l.php?20040106A5 The first images from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, formerly known as the Space Infrared Telescope Facility, are now visible online. The first observations include a glowing stellar nursery, a swirling, dusty galaxy, a disc of planet-forming debris, and organic material in the distant universe. The images demonstrate the power of the telescope's infrared detectors to capture never before seen cosmic features. posted by Marcus | 7:47 AM Monday, January 05, 2004   This edition of Current Awareness Happenings on the Internet by Marcus P. Zillman, M.S., A.M.H.A. (January 5, 2004 V2N1) is dedicated to my latest Subject Tracer™ Information Blog titled Directory Resources. Click on the below audblog link to hear an audio describing this site focusing on the many directories of single and multiple subject gateways, subject trees, subject portals and subject indices on the Internet. I like to think of this Subject Tracer™ Information Blog as the Internet's Directory of Directories! The site is available from the following address: Directory Resources http://www.DirectoryResources.info/ audblog audio post posted by Marcus | 6:20 PM   Web-Based Information Retrieval Support Systems (WIRSS): Building Research Tools for Scientists in the New Information Age http://www2.cs.uregina.ca/~jtyao/Papers/Web_WI03.pdf Abstract: The concept of Web-based Information Retrieval Support Systems (WIRSS) is introduced. The needs for WIRSS are shown by a detailed case study of existing research article indexing and citation analysis systems, such as Curent Content, DBLP, Science Citation Index and CiteSeer. The objective of WIRSS is to build new and effective research tools for scientists to access, explore and use information on the Web, which may lead to improved research productivity and quality. posted by Marcus | 4:24 PM   Korean Integrated News Database System (KINDS) http://www.kinds.or.kr/peng_html/what_kinds.html "KINDS (Korean Integrated News Database System - Korea Press Foundation, Seoul, South Korea) provides full texts of ten major national dailies; the Kyunghyang Shinmun, the Kukmin Daily, the Korea Daily News, the Dong-A Ilbo, the Munhwa Ilbo, the Segye Ilbo, the Chosun Ilbo, the Joongang Ilbo, the Hankyoreh, and the Hankook Ilbo. Articles of January 1, 1990 and after are available. KINDS also provides articles of economic daily newspapers, such as the Maeil Business Newspaper, the Seoul Kyungje Shinmun, the Korea Economic Daily, the Naewoe Economic Daily, the Jeil Economic Daily, the Money Today, and the Financial News. It delivers essential financial and business information for the most selective consumer. KINDS has more than 5 million articles from national dailies, economic dailies, TV news programs, English language dailies, local dailies, professional newspapers, and news magazines." posted by Marcus | 2:30 PM   Economic Development, Internet Technology, and Volunteers by Susan Ellis http://www.energizeinc.com/hot/2004/04jan.html Susan Ellis's January 2004 "Hot Topic" is titled "Economic Development, Internet Technology, and Volunteers." Susan, an international expert on volunteerism and volunteer management, shares her thoughts on this and her impressions of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) held in Geneva in December. Interesting article and impressions ..... posted by Marcus | 2:24 PM   Observatory of the Information Society: An International Gateway http://www.unesco.org/webworld/portal_observatory/ This site presents news and documents from UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) related to "ethical, legal & societal challenges of the Information Society." Searchable, or browse by categories such as virtual libraries, cybercrime, freedom of expression, and intellectual property rights. Also browsable by country within topics. Features links to related material. Available in several languages. posted by Marcus | 2:14 PM   China Close to 78 Million Web Surfers http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=internetNews&storyID=3952156 By the end of 2003, the number of China's Internet users is expected to hit 78 million, writes the China Daily newspaper, citing a report by the Internet Society of China. The article also stated that the number of China's websites is expected to increase to 500,000, and online computers would reach 30 million by the end of the year. Hu Qiheng, chairwoman of the society, was quoted as saying the Internet sector in China still lagged developed countries. The number of Internet users grew an annual 48.5 percent to 68 million people by the end of June, according to the China Internet Network Information Center. The semi-official research center said that China overtook Japan at the end of 2002 as the world's second-largest group of online users, second only to the US. posted by Marcus | 2:09 PM Sunday, January 04, 2004   AwarenessWatch™ Newsletter V2N1 January 2004 http://virtualprivatelibrary.blogspot.com/Awareness Watch V2N1.pdf Awareness Watch™ Newsletter http://www.AwarenessWatch.com/ The January 2004 V2N1 AwarenessWatch™ is available as a 22 page .pdf file from the above URL. The AwarenessWatch Featured Report covers selected single subject directories, gateways and portals available currently on the Internet. The AwarenessWatch Spotters cover some excellent just released papers as well as new identified Internet sources. posted by Marcus | 2:45 PM   Mars with Maestro http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/01/03/1733231 http://mars.telascience.org The Maestro Team writes "NASA has released Maestro, a public version of the primary software tool used by scientists to operate the Mars Exploration Rovers from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Anyone can download Maestro for free from here and use it to follow along with the rovers' progress during the mission. You can use Maestro to view pictures from Mars in 2D and 3D and create simplified rover activity plans. During the mission, updates will be released for Maestro containing the latest images from Mars." posted by Marcus | 9:26 AM Saturday, January 03, 2004   Open Access to Scientific and Technical Information: State of the Art and Future Trends http://www.inist.fr/openaccess/index_en.php http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Web4Lib/archive/0312/0173.html Gerry McKiernan, New Year Librarian, Iowa State University, posted a recent eMail stating that the audio visuals (slides, video, et.al) were available for this previous well received and highly competetnt conference on the current happenings and future trends in the access to scientific and technical information. Gerry also stated that these are important presentations that should be required viewing for every librarian (and those who wish they were). posted by Marcus | 9:26 AM   LibrarianInBlack.net http://www.LibrarianInBlack.net This blog serves as a one-stop-shop for all Techie Librarians...web design, technology news, library world news, reference stuff, funky gadgets, and other useful (or simply amusing) sites and posts. It also has an RSS feed. posted by Marcus | 9:17 AM   The Best of Buslib-L Page http://www.montague.com/review/buslibbest.html The Best of Buslib-L page now has over 75 summaries, arranged into 5 categories: -- Managing information -- Organizing information -- Reviews -- Tips and techniques -- Where to find it The most recent entries are about corporate governance and cultural trends. New additions to the Best of Buslib page are now included in the Montague Institute's RSS News Feed. posted by Marcus | 9:09 AM   Pricing and Architecture of the Internet: Historical Perspectives from Telecommunications and Transportation http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/doc/pricing.architecture.pdf With telecommunications in a slump, the search is on for ways to re-invigorate this key industry. The main problems are clearly economic much more than technological, and many of the proposed remedies would lead to new architectures for the Internet that would provide for greater control by carriers. They would drastically reduce the role of the end-to-end principle, the main foundation for the success of the Internet, in which functionality resides at the edges of the network. The proposals to restrict voice over Internet (VoIP) are just one part of this trend. Historical precedents from telecommunications for introduction of differentiated services and sophisticated charging methods on the Internet are discouraging. The almost universal trend has been towards decreasing price discrimination and simpler pricing. The history of transportation presents a different picture, with frequent movements towards increasing price discrimination and more complicated pricing (although with many noteworthy reversals). Charging according to the nature of the goods being transported has been and continues to be the norm. Since the incentives to price discriminate are increasing, and the ability to do so is also growing, it is conceivable that telecommunications might break with its historical record and follow the example of transportation. It is therefore of interest to examine the evolution of pricing and quality differentiation in transportation. posted by Marcus | 9:06 AM Friday, January 02, 2004   Knowledge Map of Information Science: Issues, Principles, Implications http://hw.haifa.ac.il/human/hebrew/ISMapWeb.htm The study explores the theoretical foundations of information science (IS). It is aimed at developing a comprehensive, systematic, and scientifically valid knowledge map of the information science knowledge domain, and grounding it on a solid theoretical basis. posted by Marcus | 10:15 AM   China Search Online http://www.zhongsou.com Huicong International Information, which determined to be the world's largest Chinese search engine provider announced at a release conference on December 23 the birth of the professional search brand "China Search Online", a latest progress made by this provider who aims to challenge Google. posted by Marcus | 9:54 AM   URI "info" URI Web Site http://info-uri.info "info" URI Proposal (Internet Draft) http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-vandesompel-info-uri-01.txt URIs In General http://www.w3.org/Addressing/Activity The recently proposed "info" URI scheme enables the URI referencing of selected categories of legacy information-asset identifiers. OCLC Research has developed, and is hosting, NISO's "info" URI registry, built on an enhanced OAI-PMH 2.0 repository. Using the registry, a namespace authority can register specific types of URIs for the public namespace(s) it controls. NISO, the Maintenance Agency for the "info" Registry, has delegated responsibility to OCLC as the Registry Operator and prototype developer. Agencies interested in designating "info" URIs must submit proposals for approval. More information on the registration process is available on the "info" URI Web site posted by Marcus | 9:48 AM   Top Searches for 2003 http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html http://search.yahoo.com/top2003 http://50.lycos.com/2003review.asp The top searches for 2003 from Google, Yahoo and Lycos. Very interesting to see what people are searching for on the Internet and the results they receive! posted by Marcus | 8:28 AM   Educator's Reference Desk http://eduref.org/ This site gives access to "2,000+ lesson plans, 3,000+ links to online education information, and 200+ question archive responses. ... [It also] provides a search interface to the ERIC [Educational Resources Information Center] Database, providing access to over one million bibliographic records on educational research, theory, and practice." The database is updated monthly and includes citations from 1966 to the present. Searchable. From the Information Institute of Syracuse (IIS). posted by Marcus | 6:54 AM   Nielsen/Net Ratings Internet Access Survey http://www.internetnews.com/infra/article.php/3294121 http://www.nielsen-netratings.com/pr/pr_031230_us.pdf Nielsen/Net Ratings Internet Access Survey - Three Out of Four People Connect to the Internet Through Non-Browser Based Applications: "...76 percent of active Web surfers access the Internet using a non-browser based application. Media players, instant messages and file sharing applications are the most popular Internet applications." posted by Marcus | 6:52 AM Thursday, January 01, 2004   What the Net Did Next by Mark Ward http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3292043.stm The internet is set to become the basis for just about every form of communication, according to net pioneer Vint Cerf, and he should know what he is talking about. posted by Marcus | 12:30 PM   The following papers have been recently posted to New Papers on: http://freesoftware.mit.edu http://opensource.mit.edu PAPER 1 Author: Vadén Tere Title: Intellectual Property, Open Source and Free Software http://opensource.mit.edu/papers/vaden.pdf Abstract The notion of intellectual property is used in order to create digital commodities. While the commodification of code is useful for certain kinds of knowledge intesive work (the Taylorist forms), it severely disrupts other types of knowledge creation. Applying Scott Lash's division of knowledge creation into organisational and disorganisational types, we also gain insight into the different positions towards IP held by different wings of the FOSS community. PAPER 2 Authors: Garzarelli, Giampaolo & Roberto Galoppini Title: Capability Coordination in Modular Organization: Voluntary FS/OSS Production and the Case of Debian GNU/Linux http://opensource.mit.edu/papers/garzarelligaloppini.pdf Abstract: The paper analyzes voluntary Free Software/Open Source Software (FS/OSS) organization of work. The empirical setting considered is the Debian GNU/Linux operating system. The paper finds that the production process is hierarchical notwithstanding the modular (nearly decomposable) architecture of software and of voluntary FS/OSS organization. But voluntary FS/OSS project organization is not hierarchical for the same reasons suggested by the most familiar theories of economic organization: hierarchy is justified for coordination of continuous change, rather than for the direction of static production. Hierarchy is ultimately the overhead attached to the benefits engendered by modular organization. PAPER 3 Author: Modica, Salvatore Title: Knowledge Transfer in R&D Outsourcing (and Linux-Vs-Windows) http://opensource.mit.edu/papers/modica.pdf Abstract: Why did Microsoft not hire all those smart programmers who ended up developing Linux through the internet? Because, we answer, the value of the information about its operating system that Microsoft should have transferred to any of them to render her productive would have been too high compared to her expected individual contribution, so that after writing a contract with Microsoft the typical developer would have run away to sell the acquired knowledge on the market. On the other hand, knowledge transfer in R&D outsourcing is not always so critical, and for example in the pharmaceutical and chemical industries research contracts are extensively used, usually in the context of a long term relationship between firm and innovator. We analyze this kind of repeated interaction, and find that when the knowledge-transfer problem is not blocking, the firm should transfer to the innovator as much information as it is compatible with the latter's incentive constraints. PAPER 4 Author Dafermos, George Title: Blogging the Market http://opensource.mit.edu/papers/dafermos3.pdf Abstract: Weblogs have been recently characterised as the "open source media". And in much the same way that open source software is been deployed, marketed and sold within both commercial and non-commercial contexts, weblogs can advance both commercial and non-commercial objectives. However, in this primary - research paper, the focus is on the benefits that organisations can seize by embracing weblogs, and how weblogs are bound to revitalise marketplace and workplace conversations. In addition, several case studies are being analysed, ranging from Slashdot and Openflows to Amazon, Macromedia, Groove Networks, and Gizmodo. PAPER 5 Author: McCormick, Chip Title: The Big Project That Never Ends': Role and Task Negotiation Within an Emerging Occupational Community (Dissertation in progress) http://opensource.mit.edu/papers/mccormick.pdf Abstract: This dissertation involved in-depth interviews of over fifty open source developers in two major open source projects. The primary areas of interest were 1) conducting an ethnographic study of the work practices and culture of 'post-burecratic' organizations to see what lessons these groups may hold for managing intellectual labor and 2) examining whether the open source movement represents a new professional model for software engineering. PAPER 6 Updated Paper Author: Chiao, Benjamin Hak-Fung Title: An Economic Theory of Free and Open Source Software: A Tour from Lighthouse to Chinese-Style Socialism (revised version) http://opensource.mit.edu/papers/chiao.pdf Abstract The theory is that free and open source software is private property under the guise of common property. Such software is distributed mostly under the GNU General Public License. The intents in The GNU Manifesto suggest striking similarities between this license and communism. The resulting economic properties, however, are similar to those of Chinese-style socialism: both resulted from an increased separation of legal and economic ownership. The phenomenal growth of China in the last twenty five years and of such software in the past few years could be attributed to such separation. PAPER 7 Abstract Submission Author: Muffatto, Moreno & Matteo Faldani Title: Open Source as a Complex Adaptive System - Published in Emergence 5 (3) http://www.emergence.org/ Abstract: The Open Source community and its activities can be considered to have the characteristics of a system. The Open Source system is distinctive because it is neither controlled by a central authority that defines strategy and organization nor totally chaotic. It can be placed at a middle position between a planned system and a chaotic one. In this sort of position there are non-formal rules which allow the system to produce significant results. The Complex Adaptive System theory can be used to better understand and analyze the Open Source system. This work presents a description of the main characteristics of the functioning of the Open Source community regarding its organizational structure and development process. The concept of complex adaptive system is then introduced and its functioning mechanisms briefly described. Finally, we will interpret the characteristics of the Open Source community in the context of complex adaptive systems theory. posted by Marcus | 11:36 AM   Tool Eases Grid Monitoring http://arxiv.org/abs/cs.DC/0307052 http://snipurl.com/3m2f If Grid computing is going to become the ubiquitous data utility many people envision, it's going to have to be easier to use. Setting up a Grid today requires programming skills. A Web interface that makes running a Grid a point-and-click affair points the way. posted by Marcus | 11:20 AM   Bots and Humans Play Together http://snipurl.com/3m2e Joining a pickup ball game is a good way to get to know people. It might also be a good way for humans and robots to learn to work together. To that end, CMU researchers are putting together mixed teams for soccer, with the Segway scooter as the common denominator. posted by Marcus | 11:17 AM		archives subject tracers™ Marcus P. Zillman Blog Home Internet Alerts Audio Welcome Marcus P. Zillman Internet Speaker Marcus P. Zillman Internet Consultant Marcus P. 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