Marsco Information & Research

I rely on Bloglines for reading blogs, but occasionally you come across a blog that doesn’t have a feed, what to do?  I’ve had a post about RSSPect sitting in my Bloglines saved items for over a year now so thought I should finally investigate.  RSSPect requires a simple sign-up process, and then automatically takes you to a page to create feeds from your own content.  If you want to create a feed from someone else’s blog, you need to click on the AnySite tab.

You insert the url and then choose what sort of updates you want, major and minor are the default.  If you choose all you will probably find out every time they change links, do something to the sidebar etc.  Once you’ve completed that page it takes you through the final stage, what you want to do with the feed.  I use Firefox as my browser and it is set to subscribe any new feeds automatically to Bloglines.  I clicked on the feed url and then was taken straight to the Bloglines page where I could set it up.  Simple!

I read a stupid amount of blogs, and am always finding more I want to follow.  If it wasn’t for the mighty Bloglines, I’d never keep up.  Of course, there’s always the view that I should just read less blogs and streamline it down, quality not quantity and all that.  Not sure I’m ready for that just yet…

Another post that’s been sitting in my saved items on Bloglines is one from Phil Bradley, linking to a brilliant post all about Bloglines, and how to use it.  If you want to find out more about RSS and Bloglines, or know someone who does/should, go and have a read.

Via Blogher, find out about RSS in a way that’s easy to understand. Ideal if you or your colleagues are wondering what this mysterious term means

I know I could improve my search strategies, and I’m pretty sure lots of other people out there could too.  Learn more in the article ‘Search alternatives and beyond’ from Educause Quarterly.

Via Peter Scott’s Library blog.

I tend to prefer taking notes on good old-fashioned paper, it feels quicker and you can easily draw diagrams alongside.

Much of what I write about on here is inspired from when I was a public librarian on a stupidly limited budget and travelling round libraries all the time (3 a day not unheard of).  I didn’t like having to carry things round with me, especially since I travelled on the bus and often then had to walk some way from the bus stop.  I now work for a charity and have my own desk, PC, don’t need to travel around, but I am still drawn to finding ways of doing things online so that they can be accessed anywhere.

A while ago LibrarianInBlack linked to an article called Fifty Ways to Take Notes, which has loads of ideas and tips for keeping your notes online so you can find them anywhere you can find an internet connection.  Have a look and see what you think.  Many of the recommendations can be accessed by a group of people for collaboration (again, great when I was a librarian as my colleagues were scattered all over the city).

Something I should pay attention to, having neglected this poor blog for over a month.  Not on at all.

Getting Things Done (or GTD to those who want to Get Things Done so badly they abbreviate for more time, sorry, couldn’t resist!) is the title of a book by Dave Allen and is all about productivity and time and task management.  I’ve never read it but I do read a few blogs that are big fans of it.

The best blog to start with is Merlin Mann’s 43 Folders (the title comes from a very neat trick), there’s even a section called ‘Getting started with Getting Things Done’.

Lifehacker is a blog full of hints and tips for a variety of things, from getting to sleep to getting the most out of Firefox but also includes plenty of productivity hints.  As they say, ‘don’t live to geek, geek to live’.

D*I*Y Planner moves away from all-singing, all-dancing PDAs and offers templates for a paper Hipster PDA.  The blog also has GTD links and tips.  I like this lo-fi technique and have added a few of the pages to my Moleskine, in true geek D*I*Y Planner style.

British blog PigPog looks at being creative and also includes GTD tips.  PigPog are good at digging up interesting tutorials for crafts etc, and, ok, they mentioned my other half this week…

I think I need to read these a bit more thoroughly now.

It's great, it's something you hear a lot about, but what is it? Find out here (via Tame the Web). Bit techy but a good start.

Also via Tame the Web, a great new blog, Tech Essence, easily explaining new technologies that libraries and librarians can use.