Phil Bradley's weblog

The Illustrated Librarian Temporary Tattoos

From the site: "Librarian stereotypes are as old and outdated as microfiche. Nowadays you're just as likely to see your local librarian driving a Harley as a Honda Accord. This 3-1/2" x 4-1/2" hard-cover book contains twelve non-toxic temporary tattoos ranging in size from 1-1/2" to 3-1/4". Put one in a prominent place to prove once and for all that "smart" and "cool" are not mutually exclusive! Also great for bibliophiles and bookworms."

The Illustrated Librarian Temporary Tattoos, Archie McPhee Toys, Gifts & Novelties via kwout

Can you spot the error though? The tattoo that the model has on her arm is incorrectly positioned. When she puts her arm down it's going to look really stupid! Of course, if you go along to the Modified Librarian you'll see real librarians with real tattoos.

TypePad functionality takes a step backwards

TypePad. is obviously the blogging software that I use, as do many thousands of others. Indeed, they call themselves the 'premier blogging service'. Recently they have 'upgraded' the compose screen, and it's had a very unfortunate side effect with regards the QuickPost option. It's a quick way (duh!) of posting to the weblog, and it's the only way that I've ever used - it's fast and (used to be) effective.

Up until now. The QuickPost option is virtually useless now. Most of the functionality has gone, and the ability to add via HTML has disappeared. All I can do now is bold, italic, underline, bulletpoint and link. What this means is that when you try and QuickPost the title of the page is the opening text. Since I can't access the HTML if I try and put in something before that I have to delete the link, write what I want, and then add the link back in. I can no longer directly add in images via HTML as I used to be able to.

I posted the question and got the reply 'Yes, we know about this, we'll try and do something.' It was said in the 'oh, don't bother us, we don't care' voice. What is the point in providing me with LESS functionality? How is that supposed to help me? Why is it deemed a good idea to make it take me longer to post?

Not Happy.

HowDoYa adds relevancy to search

HowDoYa. is a search engine that I've mentioned before - it finds sites or pages that show you how to do things - plan a wedding, clean a car and so on. When you've done a search you get to see some keywords that match up with What, Who, Why and Where. Now they've added in a spectacles option, or X-Ray vision as they term it, which allows you to click on the  glasses and see which keywords are included in the specific site you're looking at. This allows users to quickly see if the result is really what they're after.

It's a very clever and interesting twist - to be honest, it's much easier if you try it, so toddle off and take a peek.

Looking for icon images? Try Iconfinder

Iconfinder is a simple to use engine that finds icons for you. It also provides you with access to the licensing options too, so you can quickly see what you're allowed to use an image for. The image below shows the result that you get for the word 'search'.

Iconfinder - Search for: Search - Icon search made easy! via kwout

Cyberbullying

Jenny, over at Lucacept has written a really useful post on cyberbullying (link takes you direct to the post) and has included a couple of excellent videos from YouTube on the subject. I've included one of them here - very powerful and to the point. See her posting for more.

Booktagger - Your Online Book Collection

Booktagger - Your Online Book Collection. It says of itself: "Tired of cruising book stores trying to judge a book by its cover? Now you can ask those who've read it before. Booktagger is an online bookshelf application to list the books you've read and to share them with others." Why not try LibraryThing, Shelfari, LibGuru, Bookjetty? This is really getting stupid now - you can maybe get away with having a couple of these resources, but does anyone think that yet another of these is going to make the grade? I thought it was stupid enough when Bookjetty turned up, but this is nuts.

Interesting review of a book over at the Telegraph site 'Sensual pleasure of the library' in which Philip Hensher reviews The Library at Night by Alberto Manguel. I can't think that the librarians at the University of Exeter are going to be terribly pleased with it though. "The librarians of the university I teach at, Exeter, regularly toss out irreplaceable volumes without any consultation, to the point where academics have to loiter around skips to rescue anything important."

It's an interesting review which is itself a defence of libraries and a mild attack on computerisation of content (using the Doomsday Project as the stick).

CILIP | Internet Q &A

CILIP | Internet Q & A . This months column is now available. I've answered questions on archiving, retrieving closed tabs in Firefox and finding similar sites.

More Microsoft developments

Live Search : Book search winding down. Actually, what's the opposite to a 'development'? Microsoft is pulling the book digitization project and Live Academic project. Coupled with their announcement on Wednesday that they're bribing people to use their search engine it's pretty clear that Microsoft sees search as one thing, and one thing only - a way to make money. Of course, the only problem is that they really don't understand how to do it.

If I'm searching for stuff, it's not that likely that I'm going to want to buy, because that's not the sort of searching that I, and many others do. If I want to buy a product I'm more likely to use a search engine to find a shop and take it from there.

I remember when I was doing the 'Microsoft Chimps' (sorry, Champs) project, all that they could focus on was money, money and more money. Which was really rather sad and short sighted. Because really, I'm still seeing less and less reason to use Live. Which is good news for Exalead and the other contenders.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Web worlds 'useful' for children

BBC NEWS | Technology | Web worlds 'useful' for children. Useful little article from the Beeb on how children use virtual worlds, using the example of 'Adventure Rock'. Upshot is that it's a good idea and should be encouraged.