If you missed our Cool Tools Day in October, well, I’m sorry. Here’s what we talked about (also available as a PDF). Just to show there’s no hard feelings.

Bronwyn’s “iTunes & Audio Podcasts”
Visit iTunes website for free available podcasts including:

• TechNews TodayThis Week in Tech (TWIT)
• MacBOOK weekly
• This week in Google
• Search Engine – net neutrality and copyright
• Spark from CBC radio – lifestyle and tech

Alex’s “Pure Text“
For Windows users:

• Application stevemiller.net/puretext
• Keyboard shortcuts that allow you to maintain font and formatting when copying & pasting text

For Mac users:

• Visit alternativeto.net (similar to the process of using Firefox add-ons)
• Browse site for applications you want to use
• Select application and then click on “Visit Website”
• Download application to your browser

Franklin’s “Data Visualization: Many Eyes“

• Website: http://manyeyes.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/
• Good place to find data sets
• Good place to share data sets (warning: no way to keep data sets private so careful about uploading data sensitive documents)
• Can do tricks with mapping
• Provides options for visualizing data (example: using tag clouds, word trees, bubble chart, etc.)
• Alternative website: visualizing.org (It is free, but new – so it is still being built)

Will’s “UBC Blogs & UBC Wiki”
UBC Blogs:

• Digital Learning Commons
• All you need is your CWL to make a blog or website
• Social media aspect to blogs are groups, forums, profiles, friends, etc.
• About 6000 people are using the service now
• Built using WordPress
• Supports custom CSS in themes
• Consider it a content management platform (rather than a blog platform)

UBC Wiki:

• Functions on Media Wiki software
• It is not private, anyone can edit
• Based on philosophical ownership, not structural
• Your CWL should last “forever”

Jonathan’s “WilsonWeb”

• Audio capability for reading/hearing articles off of WilsonWeb interface
• Can download audio files as well as text
• Can listen to audio while following along with the html text (words are highlight as they are read)

Trevor’s “OneNote“

• Virtual notebook
• Can organize into binders – notebooks – pages
• Can type anywhere on screen/page (not line-based)
• Can keep all different kinds of documents/files in one page (so that you have all related documents in one place)
• Can link from it
• Takes good snapshots of pages & will include url of html pages (only difficult doing this with pdfs)
• Can keyword search through ALL One Note documents at once
• Autosaves along the way (no save button)
• Create shared notebooks
• Can draw on page
• Saves time in filing
• visitmix website – works with silverlight

Schuyler’s “Search Shortcuts in Google Chrome”

• Edit search engines
• Can set up keyword shortcuts for different sites
• Add to google toolbar add to chrome search
• Example: type “gs” for google scholar
• Might be able to do sim in FireFox
• Another tool is Yubnub
• Can set Yubnub into Chrome search bar and execute yubnub commands directly into your search

Schuyler’s “Dropbox & GoodReader“

• Backup option
• Stored in the cloud
• Can stop using usb keys (all you need is access to the internet)
• Can invite collaborators to your folders
• For iphones, load GoodReader to navigate into your Dropbox account

Frankin’s “Portable apps“

• Website: Portableapps.com
• Legitimate site
• Can store on usb key without having to download applications onto the computer’s hard drive
• Good way of getting around restrictions of downloading

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081120-roll-your-own-search-results-with-googles-new-searchwiki.html

Continually raising the bar on search, Google has unveiled a new feature that lets those with Google accounts massage their search results. If this is an intelligent/learning feature, chances are it will allow those of us who use Google for serious searching to bend it more to our needs — roll your own Google Scholar, for instance, geared toward searching medical or LIS literature.

A link to what I thought might be the announcement of the very cool sounding Google App Engine SDK (for which I was, alas, too late to be one of the lucky first 10,000 to sign up) turned out to be a link to Google I/O, a developer conference focused on the Google platform, coming up May 28-29th at Moscone Center in San Francisco. Ajax, Mashups, and Code, Oh My! Sounds like a whole lot of fun for only $50 (student registration price).

If you’re keen on developing cutting edge web apps using Google’s SDK, follow the App Engine link, download the SDK, and sign up for email notification when they open it up to more users. Or, if you just want to link online documents, calendaring, and a website, go for Google Apps. It’s free for students, and there are 120 other UBC students already signed up.

Update: More on Google App Engine, from the good folk at Ars Technica.

In Educational Technology there’s a longish article pointing out the “good, bad and ugly” of Google Books. Includes a detailed view of how one university library system — University of California’s — is working with Google Books to get books online.

They are hiring an Interaction Designer at the Seattle/Kirkland location:
http://www.google.com/support/jobs/bin/answer.py?answer=23691

Especially interested in those with an academic background in human computer interaction.

Jennifer