Archive for January 2010

Karen Schweitzer writes for Digitizd about 15 Must-Have Web Apps for Students. There are many interesting programs listed here and most of them are available for free.

Matt Silverman at Mashable has some suggestions for How To: Build a More Beautiful Blog. If you’re looking to take your blog to the next level, you’ll want to check out this post which makes the following recommendations:

• Learn Some HTML
• Find the Right Template
• Be a Layout Sleuth
• Make It Your Own
• For the Non-Designer: Go Minimalist
• Need More Inspiration?

Inc. Magazine has created a guide to blogging, social networking, multimedia tools, and online reviews and opinions for businesses and organizations. Their Social Media Toolkit includes these 14 guides:

• Your 10-Step Guide to Blogging
• 8 Steps to Starting a Blog
• 10 Must Have Blog Techniques
• 8 Types of People That Belong on Twitter
• How to Banish Blog Spam
• How to Use Social Networking Sites to Drive Business
• How to Advertise on Facebook
• 6 Social Networking Faux Pas
• How to Use Multimedia for Business Marketing
• Marketing Your Business on YouTube
• 6 Services to Help You With Mobile Marketing
• How to Take Advantage of Online Review and Answer Sites
• Take a Deep Breath
• 7 Secrets to Getting Positive Online Reviews

Mari Smith at the Social Media Examiner takes a look at How to Better Engage Facebook Fan Page ‘Fans’. This is part one of a two-part post. This first article covers the following areas, offering detailed recommendations with screenshots:

• Share Quality, Relevant Content – Daily
• How Often Should You Post?
• What to Post
• Sourcing Quality Content
• Cultivating Your Style
• Mix Up the Types of Posts
• Incite Comments

Sarah Houghton-Jan at the LibrarianinBlack presents 13 Ways (and 147 Tools) to Help Your Library Save Money on Technology. Here are her top five ways, be sure and check out the full post for all of the great tool suggestions.

1. Free Software for Public & Staff Computers
2. Free Security Software Suite
3. Free Staff Scheduling Software
4. Free Team Meeting Tools
5. Free Tech Support Tools

Ben Parr at Mashable takes a look at What the Web of Tomorrow Will Look Like: 4 Big Trends to Watch. The article discusses the authors four big predictions for the evolution of the Web.

1. The Web Will Be Accessible Anywhere
2. Web Access Will Not Focus Around the Computer
3. The Web Will Be Media-Centric
4. Social Media Will Be Its Largest Component

Big Is The New Small has compiled a mega-list of 111 Twitter Tools. This handy directory is sub-divided into the following categories:

• Twitter Analysis
• Information Gathering
• Network Building & Management
• Twitter Management
• Sharing Tools
• Organization & Productivity
• Life Tools
• Business & Finance
• Health
• Blogging

The WPBeginner website has posted a fantastic collection of 55+ Most Wanted WordPress Tips, Tricks, and Hacks. If you are interested in using the open-source blogging platform for yourself or your library, you’ll want to check out these tips. Here are just a few of the instructions you’ll find in this article:

• Use WordPress as a Free Email Newsletter Service
• Create a Membership Directory using WordPress
• Create Your Own Private Twitter Site using WordPress
• Create a Contributors Page that lists Author with Avatars and Other Details
• How set an Expiration Date for Your Posts
• Allow Users to Submit News on Your Site

Richard MacManus at ReadWriteWeb has put together a list of the Top Tools For Tracking Topics on the Web. If you’re looking for an easier way to keep up with what’s happening on the Web, a specific research topic, or what’s being said about your organization, you might try out some of these tools. The list is broken down into the following categories:

• Feed and/or Email Services
• Destination Services
• Social Filter
• People Curated
• Aggregators / Portals
• Misc

Barnard College Library has a brand new Facebook Page! Please check it out if you have a chance, we have some great photos from our Archives (more coming soon), an Ask-a-Librarian widget, catalog search, YouTube videos, and a feed from our Archives blog.

I’ve recently been looking for sets of icons for all of the social websites that I belong to for my website, blog, and also print handouts. In the course of my research I’ve come across some excellent icon sets that designers are giving away for free. If you have a need for social media icons for your library website, personal website, or blog, here are a few resources that I found helpful.

30 Amazingly Creative Social Bookmarks Icon Sets
This list by Speckyboy Design Magazine has screenshots of all thirty amazing 2.0 icon sets with links back to download pages.

27 Excellent Free Social Media Icons Sets
Jon Bishop rounds up 27 different icon sets, each with snapshot previews of the graphics.

The Best Social Media Icons All In One Place
Henry Jones of Web Design Ledger compiles a list of 20+ social icon sets. There is a lot of overlap between this post and the Speckybog Mag article, however there are a few unique sets listed here.

100+ Remarkably Beautiful Twitter Icons And Buttons
Hongkiat.com pulls together 20+ icon sets and individual twitter graphics available for free.

IconsPedia
This website offers a quick search of free icons, many of which are social.

FreeSocialCons.com
This resource is a collection of free social media icons. They also offer several icon sets.

I’m sure there are many more collections of quality free icon sets out there, please list your faves in the comments!

Google Docs has rolled out a new feature which allows users to upload and store any type of file up to 250 MB, providing 1 GB of storage space. Lifehacker discusses the feature in Google Docs Now Allowing Any Type of File Upload.

Sarah Perez at ReadWriteWeb explains the 3 Facebook Settings Every User Should Check Now. The article outlines the ramifications of the Facebook privacy changes which took place in December, and what individuals will want to be aware of as far as their personal privacy settings. These are the three areas the post discusses:

1. Who Can See The Things You Share (Status Updates, Photo, Videos, etc.)
2. Who Can See Your Personal Info
3. What Google Can See - Keep Your Data Off the Search Engines

The folks at Creative Cloud have come up with some interesting stats about the popular microblogging application, Twitter. Here are a couple highlights:

• If you printed Twitter it would cover 350 million sheets of paper, which is 37 times the number of pages used in bills introduced in the United States Congress since 1955.
• If you printed Twitter and laid the pages end to end, they would stretch 60,763 miles or two and a half times around the earth.

via Mashable

Aliza Sherman at Web Worker Daily provides a guide to the different types of Facebook pages in Facebook Pages, Groups and Profiles Explained. She briefly explains the why and how to use each, as well as their caveats & quirks.