RSS Feedreader - Version 3 now available

If you are looking for a PC based program to collate and read RSS feeds, but find some of the packages confusing and overwhelming, try Feedreader (http://www.feedreader.com/). It is fairly basic but the latest version (3.0 ) has most of the essentials.



It is simple to set up and use and the smart feeds enable you to set up rules so that each time your feeds are updated they are automatically searched for terms or phrases. Copies of the items are then placed in a separate folder. For example I have smart feeds for various companies, products, people and events.

Important: when you install Feedreader go into Tools, Options, General. Under Notifications, make sure 'Display notification' is set to "Do not display notification" and 'If not set in feed then..' is set to "Do not allow feeds to show notification by default". Also untick the 'Play sound' box. Otherwise you will end up with irritating pop-up boxes beeping all over your screen when your feeds update. If you want alerts/notifications for individual feeds or smart folders you can set those up using the Edit feed option.

The great thing about these programs is that if you want to change to something else you can always export your existing list of feeds to an OPML file and then import it into your new program. You can't, though, export your filters or smart feeds. They have to be set up from scratch.

IWR interview with Gary Horrocks - Ahead of the Game

Further to the posting of April 10th about our Chair's interview with IWR, this is now available on the IWR web site.

We still haven't worked out, though, what “It’s all about mapping ambiguities” means. But then neither has Gary!

Training course : Electronic Information Risk Management

A reminder that UKeiG is running a one day training course Electronic Information Risk Management on May 16th at CILIP in London

Topics to be covered include:

• e-mail Management
• Collection and Storage of E-Information
• Metadata
• Protection of Personal Information
• e-Database Management
• e-Information Incident Handling
• e-Information Access Management
• Retention and Disposal of e-Information

Every organisation is now required to ensure that the use of electronic information and e-systems comply with legal, regulatory and best practice requirements. This training course will provide a sound understanding of electronic information risks and how to manage them. It will be a combination of presentations, group tasks, discussions of best practice and practical problem solving sessions. A practical case study will be used to highlight typical areas of e-information risks.

The course presenter is Dr Rita Esen, a Cyber Law Consultant with a great deal of experience in electronic information risk management. Her company ( CyberLaw Services ), provides training and consultancy on Electronic Information Risk Management, e-Marketing Legalities and e-Commerce Law. Dr Esen has chaired a European Standardisation Working Group on Promoting e-Trust Through Legal Compliance and has co-authored an Electronic Signature Guide, a project funded by the European Commission. She is a Certified Adviser on Data Protection/Information Security and a member of the U.K. Institute of IT Training.

Costs (including lunch and refreshments):

UKeiG members £130 + VAT (£152.75); others £160 + VAT (£188.00)

Further details and a booking form are on on the UKeiG web site

Top Search Tips from Manchester

I ran an Advanced Internet Search Strategies workshop for Manchester Business School yesterday (April 26th) and, as usual, asked the participants to come with their own top search tips. The list can be found on my blog at http://www.rba.co.uk/rss/blog.htm.

Updated Information - UKeiG Training: e-Resources in Higher and Further Education

Venue: The John Rylands University Library, University of Manchester
Date: Wednesday, 5th July, 2006, 9.30 - 16.30
Course fees: UKeiG members £130 + VAT (£152.75); others £160 + VAT (£188.00)
Further information and booking form: http://www.ukeig.org.uk/training/july06/eresources.html

Course outline

This meeting brings together both suppliers and users of education resources to explore their availability, use and licensing in higher and further education establishments. The aim will be to learn about some sources currently available as well as new and future developments, followed by reviews of user experience. Discussions on the pros and cons of these resources will also take place with the aim of highlighting issues, which, if addressed, will serve to improve the access and use of these resources.

Presentations include:

e-Journals and the professional librarian
Caroline Moss-Gibbons, Head of Heritage Collections, Royal College of Physicians

Supporting users of electronic data resources in research and teaching
Joint presentation by Stuart MacDonald, Assistant Data Librarian, Edinburgh University Data Library and Luis Martinez, Data Librarian, London School of Economics

Education, blank, Education: what's available and what's missing
Alan Bradwell, Education Librarian, Anglia Polytechnic and LISE Chair

Terms and conditions of JISC e-resources: affecting access and providing choice
Lorraine Estelle, JISC

Innovative technologies from Eduserv : what the future may hold for education resources
Peter Walker, Director of Eduserv CHEST

Challenges, change and choice for e-resources: open access to the fore
Tracy Kent, Computer Science Librarian, University of Birmingham

To register your interest in this meeting, reserve a place, or request further details, please email meetings@ukeig.org.uk. Further details are also available via the UKeiG website

Windows Academic Search

Microsoft have launched Windows Live Academic (beta), a potential competitor to Google Scholar. It covers peer reviewed articles on computer science, physics, electrical engineering and related subjects and boasts more than 6 million records from approximately 4300 journals and 2000 conferences.

The initial version is limited to computer science, electrical engineering and physics from scholarly societies, but content from other subject areas are promised. Unlike Google, Microsoft does provide a source list at academic.live.com/journals

This service is very much "beta" and I suspect that Microsoft is putting down their marker to say "Google are not the only ones doing this". Gary Price has published an excellent overview of the service together with comments.

I like the sort options (relevance, date - newest and oldest, author, journal and conference) but search does not reflect this structure. Unless I have missed something, the only option that I can see is keyword. When I am searching this type of literature I often want limit my search by author. I may also want to limit the search by date. None of these options are currently available. I do like the way the results are presented, though. The left hand side of the screen lists your results. When you move your mouse over one of the results the right hand side of the screen displays title, abstract, author(s) and the bibliographic details.



Although the search results and bibliographic details are free, you must either have a subscription to the journal or pay on a per-article basis to access the full text via the publishers web site.

This is a beta service but there is no feedback option on the search or results pages. It is only on the FAQ page that they give you an email address that you can use for comments- wlasinfo@microsoft.com.

It will be interesting to see how this service develops.

Also posted in Karen Blakeman's blog

UKeiG Training: e-Resources in Higher and Further Education

Venue: The John Rylands University Library, University of Manchester
Date: Wednesday, 5th July, 2006, 9.30 - 16.30
Course fees: UKeiG members £130 + VAT (£152.75); others £160 + VAT (£188.00)
Further information and booking form: http://www.ukeig.org.uk/training/july06/eresources.html

Course outline

This meeting brings together both suppliers and users of education resources to explore their availability, use and licensing in higher and further education establishments. The aim will be to learn about some sources currently available as well as new and future developments, followed by reviews of user experience. Discussions on the pros and cons of these resources will also take place with the aim of highlighting issues, which, if addressed, will serve to improve the access and use of these resources.

Presentations include:

Getting the most out of e-journals in higher education
Caroline Moss-Gibbons, Head of Heritage Collections, Royal College of Physicians

Supporting local data users of e-resources effectively : an action plan outlined
Stuart MacDonald, Assistant Data Librarian, Edinburgh University Data Library

Education, blank, Education: what's available and what's missing
Alan Bradwell, Education Librarian, Anglia Polytechnic and LISE Chair

Terms and conditions of JISC e-resources: affecting access and providing choice
Lorraine Estelle, JISC

Innovative technologies from Eduserv : what the future may hold for education resources
Peter Walker, Director of Eduserv CHEST

Challenges, change and choice for e-resources: open access to the fore
Tracy Kent, Computer Science Librarian, University of Birmingham

UKeiG Browser Share Update

The latest visitor stats for the UKeiG web site show that the Firefox browser is still going strong with just over 20% of visitors to our site using it. That is slightly down from the figure reported in February. Internet Explorer has around 75% but we also have a significant 3% of people using Safari.

IWR - Gary Horrocks on UKeiG

Having been declared the snappiest dresser at Online in January's issue of Information World Review - see New award for UKeiG - Gary Horrocks has made it into IWR again. This time, he was interviewed about UKeiG and his work at King's College London. The double page spread is on pages 14-15 of the current April issue. Unfortunately, there is no electronic version available on the IWR web site :-(

UKeiG Training: Making Websites Accessible

Venue: Department of Information Studies, University of Sheffield
Date: Wednesday, 24th May 2006, 9.45 - 16.30.
Course presenters: Nigel Ford, Peter Holdridge
Course fees: UKeiG members £150 + VAT (£176.25); others £180 + VAT (£211.50)
Further information and booking form: http://www.ukeig.org.uk/training/2006_05_24_accessiblesites.html

Course Outline

It is now a legal requirement to ensure that Websites are designed in such a way as to make them accessible to people with a range of disabilities. In the UK, the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA), stipulates that websites must be accessible to blind and disabled users. The Webcredible organisation, www.webcredible.co.uk notes that:

"Section III of the DDA, which refers to accessible websites came into force on 1st October 1999 and the Code of Practice for this section of the DDA was published on 27th May 2002. This means that the majority of websites have been in breach of the law for over five years."

Current high level Web authoring tools (such as FrontPage, DreamWeaver, etc.), although they may provide prompts and advice, do not automatically generate "accessible" Web pages, and some knowledge of accessibility and what is entailed is required of the Web page and Website creator.

This is a one-day "hands on" practical course designed to teach you how to create Web pages and Websites that are accessible to people with a range of disabilities. You will learn how to validate pages that you create in relation to acknowledged international standards, and how to kite mark your Web pages according to A, AA or AAA international accessibility standards. You will become familiar with techniques and software that provides automatic checking of your Web pages for accessibility, and will learn how to keep up to date with future accessibility developments.

Pre-requisite knowledge: You should have some familiarity with HTML and the basics of Web page creation.

Course Presenters

Nigel Ford teaches Web design at Masters and undergraduate level on the course Designing Usable Websites at Sheffield University's Department of Information Studies.

Peter Holdridge has wide experience of Web design, and is responsible for the Web presence and development of Sheffield University's Department of Information Studies. He also teaches on the Designing Usable Websites course.

UKeiG Training: Electronic Information Risk Management

Venue: CILIP, 7 Ridgmount Street, London, WC1E 7AE.
Date: Tuesday 16th May 2006, 10.00 - 16.30
Course presenter: Dr Rita Esen
Course fees: UKeiG members £130 + VAT (£152.75); others £160 + VAT (£188.00)
Further information and booking form: http://www.ukeig.org.uk/training/may06/einfo_riskman.html

Course Outline

Today's networked economy has changed the way organisations operate as they are now faced with the challenges of using electronic information to fulfil their business goals.

Electronic Information Risk Management consists of the use of best practice to collect, organise, use, store, share, provide access to and dispose of electronic information. Every organisation is now required to ensure that the use of electronic information and e-systems comply with legal, regulatory and best practice requirements.

This training course will provide a sound understanding of electronic information risks and how to manage them. It will be a combination of presentations, group tasks, discussions of best practice and practical problem solving sessions. A practical case study will be used to highlight typical areas of e-information risks.

Topics to be covered:

• e-mail Management
• Collection and Storage of E-Information
• Metadata
• Protection of Personal Information
• e-Database Management
• e-Information Incident Handling
• e-Information Access Management
• Retention and Disposal of e-Information

Course Presenter

Dr Rita Esen is a Cyber Law Consultant with a great deal of experience in electronic information risk management. Her company (CyberLaw Services ), provides training and consultancy on Electronic Information Risk Management, e-Marketing Legalities and e-Commerce Law. Dr Esen has chaired a European Standardisation Working Group on Promoting e-Trust Through Legal Compliance and has co-authored an Electronic Signature Guide, a project funded by the European Commission. She is a Certified Adviser on Data Protection/Information Security and a member of the U.K. Institute of IT Training. Although an independent Cyber Law Consultant, Dr Esen is currently a visiting specialist to a number of universities, including the University of Durham, where she lectures Cyber Law to MBA students and the University of Lille, France, where she lectures International Business Law to MBA students. Dr Esen has published widely in her areas and has recently co-authored a book titled "E-Marketing: A Customer-Led Approach" which is to be published this year.

RSS feed for UKeiG events

The eagle-eyed amongst you will have noticed that UKeiG now has an RSS feed listing forthcoming training events. The URL for the feed is http://www.ukeig.org.uk/training/ukeigevents.xml .

We have also been trying out the free web based My-RSS service set up by UKeiG member Steve Burgess. UKeiG Events is listed in the pull down menu under "Check out the latest feeds" and can be viewed in your web browser. The feed URL for your news reader for this version of the feed is http://my-rss.accessions.co.uk/feed32.xml

Exalead enhances NEAR command

Exalead has enhanced its NEAR command by allowing searchers to specify how close they want their search terms to be to one another. By default, NEAR looks for your terms within 16 words of one another in the order specified. You can now specify the maximum number of words that can separate your terms by using NEAR/n.

For example:

climate NEAR/2 change

finds climate followed by change but separated by up to 2 words.

climate NEAR/5 change

finds your terms separated by up to 5 words.

It is interesting that Exalead is resurrecting some of the search options that used to be standard but have been dropped by most of the major search engines. AltaVista used to have a NEAR command but this disappeared soon after it was bought by Yahoo.

Also posted in Karen Blakeman's Blog