Friday, August 31, 2007

#9 Merlin and Search engines for RSS feeds

I was just looking at Merlin. I found some great things. I found some tutorials that our computer volunteer might find interesting. I found a search engine for social networks called Wink. I searched the names of some of my relatives in it and found some interesting things. The blog article "Libraries in Social Networking Software" is very interesting. I haven't completed it, but some of you might want to read it.
You might want to look at this entry on the blog Library Crunch. I don't know that I totally disagree, but can't imagine finding some materials without Dewey numbers.
http://www.librarycrunch.com/2006/05/spine_labels_and_dedeweficatio.html
I was using the different RSS feed search engines today. I think I like Bloglines,Topix.net and Syndic8.com best. Topix.net-This search tool allows you to locate recent newsfeed items based upon keyword or phrase searching. The tool focuses specifically on news and media outlets RSS feeds for information, not weblogs Syndic8.com - Syndic8 is an open directory of RSS feeds that contains thousands of RSS feeds that users have submitted. I found some interesting stuff related to my home town and county. I know Technorati is supposed to be so good, but I didn't care for it. I hope this isn't too sacreligious. I did subscribe to it and claimed my blog. Perhaps if I play around with it, I will like it.

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

#8. Learn about RSS feeds and setup your own Bloglines newsreader account.

I started this exercise at least 3 weeks ago. I only work on this on Wednesday evenings. I like the idea of RSS feeds, but haven't had time to look at what I selected. I selected knitting blogs, news blogs and library blogs. You know I really wanted to look at the knitting ones. I couldn't figure out something, but once again Annette came to my rescue. 8/15 I was still really having trouble getting the link for my bloglines to work and Linda Zuckerman's instructions for them on her blog really helped. If anyone has trouble with this go to her blog and follow them. Thanks, Linda. 8/31