Monthly Archives: September 2009

Office 2007 Available in the Student Computing Lab at Addlestone Library

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Student Computing Support recently installed Office 2007 on the lab computers in the Addlestone Library. Being a Mac user, the transition has been a little difficult for me. In an effort to help patrons, I went looking for some helpful quick reference guides and found a wonderful selection of printable quick reference sheets at CustomGuide via Tech Republic.

CustomGuide makes the reference sheets for a variety of programs and platforms (Mac/PC).  They have quick reference guides for the new Office Suite, Adobe Products (CS3), operating systems and Internet browsers.  I highly recommend them.

Here’s the Quick Reference Guides they developed for Office 2007:

15 Minutes A Day: I Need More Time! What is RSS and How Can I Use It?

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The web team at the College of Charleston added a new feature to blogs.charleston.edu that allows you (and others) to post to multiple blogs by category or tag. This process is one of the features of using RSS ( or “NOT SO” Really Simple Syndication).   Robin Good provides a wonderful article on RSS from top to bottom for the non-technical user at: http://www.masternewmedia.org/content_delivery_and_distribution/rss-really-simple-syndication/RSS-what-it-is-best-uses-applications-guide-20071120.htm

Why Would I Want To?

  • I have 3 blogs and I am tired of posting the same content to each of them
  • I want to post ALL my content in one place and select which post goes where
  • I want other people to contribute to my blog via their own blog/posts

How Do I Do it (on my Blogs.cofc.edu Blog)?

You can enable the plugin in the Dashboard of your blog by selecting Plugins and Activating Feed WordPress. After you have activated the Feed WordPress plugin, you will need to add the website/blog/feed URL for syndication, adding it to your syndicated sources.  For more information on the Feed WordPress Plugin visit: http://feedwordpress.radgeek.com/

Other Useful Uses for Syndication

  • Integrate social networking apps  –  for example, what you post on Facebook automatically appears in Twitter
  • Gather content from all over the web in one place without having to visit each site individually
  • Collect a “Reading List” from the web to feed on your blog as a widget
  • Gather multimedia from all over the web on one topic

Once you get the hang of using RSS to gather and read information, you may want start creating your own customized feeds to suit your needs.  Yahoo Pipes is a free tool that allows you to aggregate, manipulate, and mashup content from around the web.

Addlestone Library Browsing Book Collection Blog Launches!

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The Browsing Book Committee (Andrea Galbo, Martha McTear, Will Breard, and Jannette Finch) at Addlestone Library started a browsing collection blog at http://blogs.charleston.edu/browsingbookscollection.  The blog features book reviews, new browsing books, a Twitter feed, and interactive widgets to LibraryThing and Shelfari.

The browsing collection is located near the Circulation Desk (Calhoun St. side) @Addlestone.

Browsing Book Collection Blog@Addlestone

15 Minutes A Day: Helpful FaceBook Hacks to Make Your Life Easier

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While reading 6 Facebook Hack Codes And Tips To Show Off Your Geeky Skills By Ryan Dube from makeuseof.com I ran across a couple of interesting and useful hacks.  The second hack mentioned, “Aye, Make Yer Profile a Pirate’s Page…” would be great for Talk Like a Pirate Day. It is not particularly useful, but we can just call this one fun.  What is useful is that Facebook allows users to select the Language their page is displayed in.

The second profile hack is also one of the easiest to implement. Facebook offers users the ability to transform their Facebook pages into any language that they like. If you scroll down to the lower left corner of your profile page, you’ll see your current language setting. Click on this, and you’ll have a list of all languages available to you. Notice the English Pirate option?

The 4th Tip “Download Complete Photo Collections from Your Friends Profles” was one that I have been looking for.  I can’t count how many times my I have run across an album from a conference, event, etc. and wished that I could download the entire album for myself.  According to the author, you can download the Firefox plug-in FacePAD and download entire albums.

After you install the FacePad plug-in, make sure you select Tools->Add-Ons, and configure the options for FacePad so it has your correct Facebook language. Then, all you have to do is go to your friend’s photo albums, right-click on the title and select “Download Album With FacePAD.”  That’s right, you’re not downloading a single picture – but an entire album.

Another tips I found useful in the article was “Scheduling Facebook Status Updates with Sendible.  If you use your Facebook status to let people know where you are but can’t be at a computer, can’t use your cell phone or don’t have internet access, this could solve your problems.

The last tip I would like to share is how to “Hide Your Online Status from Certain People.”  Unfortunately with the merging of business and personal there are times when Facebook can be a real time drain.  If you are trying to schedule your day there are times when you don’t need unwanted interruptions.  Everyone also has the friend/friends that just don’t seem to have anything to do.  I had set my Facebook status to offline but this seems as though it would be far more useful, allowing you to talk to who you want to when you want to.

…open up your chat icon in the lower right corner of your Facebook display, click on Friend Lists, and create a new list called “BlockList.” Make sure after you create it that it’s configured under “Display these lists in Chat.”  Now, all you have to do is either click “edit” and add the friends you want to block, or if they’re already online, just click their name and drag them under this new list. Once you’ve got everyone there who you want to block from see your online status, hover your mouse over the green dot to the right and click on “Go Offline.” Now, you appear offline to only those certain friends.

To full article from by Ryan Dube from makeuseof.com, visit: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/6-facebook-hack-codes-and-tips-to-show-off-your-geeky-skills/


U Kentucky Goes Digital with Thousands of Oral Histories

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By Denise Harrison, Cindy Skalsky – 09/09/09

Since its inception, the University of Kentucky Libraries Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History has amassed nearly 8,000 interviews. These are stories that often focus on Kentucky–its history, politics, authors, military, geography, and more. Interviews include the famous (Martin Luther King Jr., Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Stan Musial, Robert Penn Warren) and the not-so-famous from all walks of Kentucky life. These are not only precious recordings of personal stories that journal many aspects of the state; the recordings are also used by scholarly researchers. Historians, folklorists, anthropologists, linguists, armchair politicians, and horseracing buffs alike have found much to explore in this large, prestigious repository.

For more information, Listen to “Voices from the Collection,” “Voices from the Collection,” an audio introduction to the Nunn Center.