Recently Twitter lifted the limit on the size of lists - previously we could only have 500 people in a list, which meant that I had to create 3 different lists as I reached the limit twice. However, I can now collect all of my contacts into one splendid list, which is around the 1,230 mark: UK Librarians on Twitter.It took forever - I had to call up lists 2&3 and go through every person individually to take them off one list and put them on another - I tried options, but doing it manually seemed best, if brain numbingly tedious.
Now, I should say a few things about it - it's my list, primarily designed to make my life easier, and I've taken a very wide definition of both 'UK' and 'librarian', but in the main I've based putting someone into a list on their own biography, so if someone hasn't mentioned that they're based in the UK and/or not mentioned that they are involved in the library profession, they probably won't be on my list because I didn't realise. Consequently this list is not meant to be comprehensive in any way.
I'm also sure that there are errors in it, but that's going to happen when you're playing around with that sort of number. If you're on my list and you're not UK or regard yourself as a librarian, it's no big deal because as I said, it's my list, and Twitter lists are fairly fluid at the best of times. However, if you really don't want to be on it, just DM me and I can remove you quickly.
If you are on the list (cue Dad's Army joke) and your account is protected, it's not an issue, because even if other people look at the list they won't see your tweets unless you have allowed them access. However again, if that's an issue, I can take you off the list, no problem.
If you're not on the list it doesn't mean anything at all; just that I haven't added you for a variety of reasons. Again, if you want to be on it, let me know, and I'll add you.
If you want to view tweets from the list you can just look at the page, and Twitter also has an option that allows you to subscribe to it. This means that you can see all the unprotected tweets, but that you don't have to follow all of the people on this list. Hopefully it will be a useful addition, and it's certainly interesting to just get an indication of how many librarians have signed up to Twitter over the years.
One of the very interesting aspects of Twitter is the ability to have online chats about specific subjects, usually lasting for an hour or so. These chats utilise a particular hashtag, and people who want to engage in the chat will keep an eye out for the particular tag, and will use it themselves if they want to become involved. There are hundreds of chats taking place on a regular basis and there's a useful community run document that lists many of them. If you're aware of any of them, it's likely to be the excellent #uklibchat which has its own blog page, listing what the next subject for discussion is, with the ability for people to add their own thoughts and ideas. However, the problem that people have with these chats is that they can be terribly difficult to keep up with. There are a number of tools that simplify this however, and if you're a keen chatter, you might want to explore a few.
Nestivity provides a complete solution to managing your Twitter account, but they also have a specific funtion, Tweetcasts which controls your real-time conversations on Twitter. Guide your followers through
real-time chats accompanied by Images, Videos, Polls, Presentations,
Documents, and live streaming content. It has both free and paid options.
OneQube has real-time analytics show trending hashtags, most active Tweeters, and shared links. You can explore profiles and shared content without leaving the conversation and save your Tweet Chat transcripts on-demand for later viewing. Free.
Tchat is a minimalistic resource, and I really didn't get it at all, but you may have better luck.
TweetChat is a nice tool - straightforward and it does what it says on the tin. Log in, choose a tag to follow and you get directed into a specific hashtag room where all the tweets are curated. You can block spammers and add in smart pausing. It's a free tool.
Tweetgrid is a dashboard creation software. It says of itself "TweetGrid is a powerful Twitter Search Dashboard that allows you to
search for up to 9 different topics, events, converstations, hashtags,
phrases, people, groups, etc in real-time. As new tweets are created, they are automatically updated in the grid. No need to refresh the page!"
Twubs has been around for some time now, and it just focusses on hashtags, allowing you to register them, archive them, moderate, embed the chat onto a webpage and display the conversations on a single page. Free.
If you don't like any of these options, you can always use a straight forward twitter client such as Hootsuite or Tweetdeck.
Google has provided an explanation for dropping the ~ search option. Dan Russell is quoted as saying:
"Yes, it's been deprecated. Why? Because too few people were using it to
make it worth the time, money, and energy to maintain. In truth,
although I sometimes disagree with the operator changes, I happen to
agree with this one. Maintaining ALL of the synonyms takes real time and
costs us real money. Supporting this operator also increases the
complexity of the code base. By dropping support for it we can free up a
bunch of resources that can be used for other, more globally powerful
changes."
So let's break this down a bit. If too few people were using it, why didn't Google promote it rather more? That's a very weak argument. Google is happy to promote other things that they do, but oddly enough, when it comes to search functionality they're very, very quiet. It would be easy for them to suggest its use - when they do the basic synonym search or a 'did you mean' they could very easily have slipped in a suggestion to use it.
It takes time, energy and money to maintain it. Google earned $50 billion in 2012. They really can't use the argument 'we can't afford it', particularly when search is key to much of what they do. On the other hand of course, if they make it harder to find stuff when you search, and there's a useful little advert on the side, which will make them money, it's going to be hard to improve search in organic rankings, and therefore lose the opportunity to add to that $50 billion. Or am I merely being overly cynical here?
Maintaining a search function costs them money. Here's the nub of it, and it shows just how money grabbing Google is. I get that they're there to make money, I have no issue with that. However, there comes a point when, if they continue to degrade search functionality people WILL go elsewhere. But I think they are hoping that people are just far too lazy to do that, and they'll accept whatever junk Google throws at them. The point is - when the bottom line is money over the ease of use of the search engine, or the better results for the searcher, they're going to go for money every single time.
Increasing the complexity of the code base. How many coders does Google have? And isn't it fair to expect that they'll have some of the very best in the world? Ah, but that comes at a price doesn't it, and Google's already pointed out how important that is to them.
As for the other global changes, I'd be interested to see how Google is using their coders on other stuff, and while they're at it, I'd be fascinated to know just how much they're saving by removing this search function.
In short, as I have said before, and will say again, Google is not a search engine company, it's an advertising company. While I'm at it, a librarian is there to help you, Google is there to make money.
Google is going from bad to worse. They had the option of a synonym search, using the tilde "~" character - so a search for ~beginner would return hits for beginners, tutorial, primer and so on. It was an amazingly useful resource - for obvious reasons. It was one of THE key search functions that I would talk about when training and when using the search engine myself. And they've killed it. It's just gone. A search for ~beginner returns exactly the same results without the use of the tilde symbol.
I have no words left to describe the short sighted stupidity of Google in doing this. They are wrecking whatever useful functionality they had for no good reason. I wonder what's going to go next? It wouldn't surprise me at all if they now get rid of the entire advanced search functionality in one fell swoop. They clearly don't want people to think, or do anything vaguely complicated to make their lives easier.
Google search is continuing to degrade at a frightening rate.
I am tempted to weep, truly I am. I normally have a lot of time for Radio 5 Live; they do some good stuff, but this time they've really lost the plot. To give you a bit of background, there are resources called Remote Access Tools, or RAT for short. These are installed on a computer, with the other 'half' on another computer, allowing one person one their computer to control the other one. It helps with sorting out technical issues and problems - very helpful tools they are too.
As with anything, there's a dark side of course. If you inadvertently install this software, someone else can take control of your computer and do pretty much whatever they want to - play around in your files, turn on your webcam, log onto games as 'you' and so on. This has been going on for YEARS. Really - YEARS. This is not some new phenomenon, but apparently according to Radio 5 live it suddenly is, because they've done their 'investigative journalism' and realised what's going on. Childnet International launches in on the act according to this BBC news report, except that they really haven't, since the story isn't important enough to appear on their website and makes a fleeting appearance on their website. While I'm mentioning the "Webcams taken over by hackers, charity warns" report, could they at least get some stuff right? It's poor even by the inept standards of the BBC; they can't even get the name of these resources correct, but I suppose 'Trojan' sounds so much more exciting than 'Tool' doesn't it.
I shouldn't laugh - but they interviewed a woman who complained that her webcam turned on while she was in her bath. Yeah - she was watching a DVD, on her laptop, in her bath. How many levels of stupid does that take? She's got a lot more to worry about than some pervert peering at her - staying alive is clearly going to take a lot of her limited brainpower.
The advice, we're told, is to unplug our webcams. Well that's just fine and dandy if you're using one that can be unplugged, but less use when it's on your laptop. The CEO of Childnet International comes to the rescue though, and Will Gardner advises us "Pointing your webcam at a wall or covering it up can be good practice, and closing the laptop lid." Really? So once we've closed the laptop lid, we're supposed to use the laptop... how? The report goes on to interview various other 'experts' who whitter on about increasing your security by upping your anti virus software. A RAT is NOT a virus. It's a tool. That's why they're called Tools. You can have the most superdooper anti virus software in the world on your machine, but if you've chosen to run a piece of software there's not that much they can do about it. I will give a hat tip to Will Gardner for one piece of advice though; "The key advice is not clicking on links or opening attachments from people you don't know."
This gets us closer to the nub of the issue. This stuff doesn't appear on your computer by magic - the RAT fairies don't arrive one evening and sprinkle virus dust on your computer. People choose to click and open links from people that they don't know - in emails, on bulletin boards, in gaming forums and so on. I see it said so often 'Oh, I was hacked'. No you weren't hacked - you were stupid. Your computer is not a toy. It's a very complex piece of hardware, backed up by even more complicated software, and while I don't think we should be expected to know all the ins and outs of how they work, a bare minimum level of intelligence should be used when you turn it on. At least if someone accesses your webcam there should be a little light that pops on, warning you of some activity. Apparently though, this isn't enough for some people - do they not think 'Oh, not seen that before, bit odd, let's investigate that'. It's not hard - you go to a search engine and you type in webcam light came on and the majority of results that come up on the first page all indicate that you might have a problem of some sort. Now, I'll freely grant that it's perfectly possible to inject code into a forum for example - and even if you just visit that webpage, and don't click on any links at all, your computer can download malicious content, allowing someone else to control your machine. The BBC have done a useful quick video on this, which is worth watching, but the point is also made that it only works because the machine hasn't been updated to new versions of Java, and it's still running an older version which is susceptible. There's been plenty in the news about disabling Java, or, if you really have to have it (and most of us don't), updating it.
No, I'm not finished ranting yet. The Radio 5 live interview gets even better. They interviewed Keith Vaz who chairs a Home Office Committee on E-Crime. Now, you'd think that someone who was involved in that - which includes holding seminars, and can ask senior police officers questions about E-Crime would be up to speed on this, wouldn't you? Well no, me neither, but this idiot (and I use the word advisedly) starts blethering on about how dreadful it is. He admits to having NO IDEA about this, and says that he's not discussed it with the police - which since he doesn't know about it makes sense. But - WHY doesn't he know about it? It's supposed to be his job isn't it? That's one of the things that he's paid to do? You know, be professional, knowledgeable and up to date.
So, to use the language of the day 'What lessons can we learn from this?' Keep your computer up to date, with the latest software. Don't click on links from people that you don't know. Keep an eye on the little webcam light, and if it, or your computer does things you weren't expecting, investigate them. But also, don't get paranoid - yes, this stuff does happen. So does people getting run over by buses, but we don't stay in the house because it might happen to us - take sensible steps to keep yourself safe.
Oh yes - and don't use a laptop while you're in the bath.
There's an interesting article in today's Mirror Newspaper: "Jobless forced to pay for library internet access just as more services move online". This is a shameful, disgraceful situation, and one that we should all abhor. I'd like to just say 'it's wrong' and move on, because it's so clearly wrong, so insanely wrong that's all that should need saying. But unfortunately, more needs saying because it's happening.
If we are to stress (as I think we should) that libraries are there for more than books - that they are there to help people in the local community, then the library should be there for people to help themselves. A good library, staffed by professional librarians should be helping people in all manner of different ways. It is there to provide access to materials in any form - a fact is still a fact if it's in a book or on the internet. That there are libraries which are charging people to get factual information, or to fill in the forms online that the government is now insisting that they do is a terrible condemnation of the situation that we currently find ourselves in.
Of course, it's also worse than that, since it depends on where you live. Some counties don't charge for access, so we're once again back to the postcode lottery on libraries and their services. We all understand that libraries have to get revenue whenever they possibly can, but this is a VERY different situation to charging for the odd DVD or CD. People have a choice of deciding to pay for their entertainment from the library - they don't have a choice on filling out forms to claim their entitlements (I refuse to call them benefits), and a library with a librarian available to help out if needed, should be available to them. A clock ticking away the pennies in the background is not a conducive way to work.
Libraries do not exist to make money. They exist to help people.
Unless you live under a rock, you'll know all about PRISM, the NSA's global data surveillance program. Added to that is the ghost at the monitor of the Draft Communications Data Bill, which is refusing to die, and may well make a come back at any point in the not too distant future. I'm not going to go into details about exactly what these things are; I've linked to some Wikipedia data about them, but I do want to discuss some of the things that you need to take into account both now, and potentially into the future regarding the data that you're sharing and methods you can use to make sure that you don't.
When you do just about anything on the internet, it can be tracked by someone and stored. This includes your internet searches, the adverts you click on, the mail that you read and send, your Facebook data (even if you have privacy options all turned on), phone calls made using Skype, anything you do on other social networks, Twitter accounts (even protected accounts are not secure), chat room messaging, online games that you play and the interactions you have on them, internet access via a smart tv or games console. Online transactions using PayPal, searching and checking for places on maps, cloud based storage, instant messaging, video conferencing, photograph sharing, document collaboration and more. Concerned? Yes, you should be. Now, some people say that 'if you're innocent you've got nothing to fear' but that's an entirely bogus argument. This type of survellance implies that we are all potential suspects in criminal activities, terrorism or worse, and we should object to that.
So, what can you do about it? You can find out what the government or any public body knows about you by submitting a Freedom of Information request. You can hide or disable your location on a mobile phone, remove yourself from the Electoral roll or check to see if you've been caught on camera, under the terms of the Data Protection Act and request to see footage of yourself. You can obviously do a lot more, and the Living off the grid site (though US biased) is an interesting place to get ideas. However, I'm more interested in the computer side of things, so that's what I'll focus on.
Browsing. Every site that you visit leaves a trace behind you, and it is held byr your internet service provider. You can overcome this by using a proxy - your browsing then gets scrambled, letting you conduct your business privately. Hide My Ass is a proxy service that lets you do just that. It's worth visiting the site because it explains in some detail exactly what it is, and what it does in easy none technical terms. Furthermore, dump Internet Explorer, Chrome and Safari, and start using Firefox or Tor. If that's not possible there are add-ons that you can install, such as HTTPS Everywhere, which is a Firefox and Chrome extension that encrypts your communications with many major websites, making your browsing more secure. You can find out more about how to fix tracking by taking a look at the very informative site put together by DuckDuckGo. It goes into great detail about scripts, cookies and so on, which I don't have the space or time to cover here. You could also use a 'Do not track' add-on and you can see what sites are tracking and can prevent it.
Searching. Forget the main stream engines, and head over to DuckDuckGo. Meanwhile traffic at the private search engines StartPage and
Ixquick has dramatically increased this week as Internet users react
to news of the PRISM data sharing program.
Emails. Use a tool called Mailvelope which is a browser add on for Chrome (Firefox shortly) that works with major email systems, and it lets you send encrypted email. You can also use a fake or temporary email address such as Trashmail which you can use to set up an email address which forwards mail to your real address, and can then delete itself. Alternatively use any of a number of temporary email addresses - I've got lists of them on my other blog which looks at tools and resources. Don't use Gmail, Outlook or Yahoo! Mail, but rather go for something like Bitmessage, or if you want something a bit simpler, Mozilla Thunderbird. You might also want to take a look at StartMail which is due to come onstream later this year.
Downloading. If you want to download material and ensure that both your privacy and location remain personal try out BTGuard (not related to BT) which gives you an anonymous IP address and encrypts your downloads. Alternatively, take a look at the OpenNIC project which works in a similar way.
Encryption. It's not as scary as it sounds since it's all automated for you, but it does allow you to store content safely and securely, if you're using things like Dropbox, Google Drive or Skydrive. BoxCryptor can keep your online files secure and Cryptocat encrypts any chats that you have in chatrooms. You could also use GNU privacy to
encrypt and sign your data and communications.
Cloud storage. Speaking of cloud storage, try OwnCloud, or the strangely named Tahoe-lafs system.
Social networking. Forget all the big players such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, and try Diaspora* instead.
That's just a few thoughts and ideas but it's just for starters. You can get more suggestions from Opt out of PRISM which illustrates what services you can trust and those that you can't. Also, the current issue (399) of ComputerActive magazine in the UK is another really good read, and I drew heavily on both sources to put this post together.
If you work in a public library, and you're trying to help people apply for various online benefits such as attendance allowance, disability living allowance or overseas state pensions, you may be running into difficulties, that are no-ones fault other than the Department of Work and Pensions. The 'About this service' states "This service doesn’t work with some modern browsers and operating systems." If you click on the option for more information you find out that it also doesn't work with
Macs or other Unix-based systems even though you may be able to input information.
Internet Explorer 7, 8, 9 and 10
Windows Vista
A smartphone
If you use Chrome, Safari or Firefox, the service will not display all the questions that have to be answered
They don't even mention Windows 7 or 8! You may wonder what these forms do work with. Windows 98, ME, 2000, or XP. Netscape 7.2, Firefox 1.0.3 If you have access to any of these systems however, and they're running on your computers my advice would be to sack your technical staff, because these are YEARS out of date. This is unbelievably inept to the point of being criminal. People are advised to 'claim in another way'. Although what way is not actually mentioned - they probably mean via stone tablets or carrier pigeon, though I suspect that those methods might also be regarded as rather too modern for consideration.
There's a great line on the site that says "We are considering how best to provide this service in future." 'Considering'? 'CONSIDERING'? Just how pathetic are the bureaucrats that came up with this idea and the technical people who gave it the nod through. This is worse than inept, this is nothing less than a deliberate attempt to make it as difficult as possible for people to claim their entitlements as possible. It's also yet another attack on a library service that is designed to help and assist people, by sidelining what we can do because we are not out of date enough. This is a total disgrace.
In Google terms, 2 million searches per day is not a huge amount, but nonetheless, it's something of a big deal. You can see all the facts and figures from their Traffic report but the main graph is here:
The huge spike in traffic is as a result of the Data Privacy Day and I think this shows that there's a real appetite and concern among searchers to ensure that their activities are not going to be tracked or monitored. Other spikes are caused by reports in the media, in case you're wondering. Is DDG going to be a major competitor to Google? No it's not. However, it's a nice alternative to consider using.
Hot Searches. Want to see what people are searching for in Google right now? The link takes you to the Hot Searches page - there's a nice embed code so that you can see exactly:
If you Want to see it visualised as a full page you can see the trends for various countries (11 in total), including the UK. If you want to see an all singing, all dancing, moving quicker than you can read version, well that's available as well.
Google has also done a series of top charts for different subject areas, and that's worth a look through as well. There are a huge number of options - actors, sports, animals, games, government bodies, movies, people, politicians, fast food outlets, together with an indication of the amount they're searched if they're trending or falling away. There's a nice embed code too, so this is the one for authors:
Recent Comments