Hi, my name is Roger Skalbeck. I'm a law librarian at Georgetown Law Library in Washington, D.C. I designed and run the law library's website, and I manage our blog, called Due Process. I have written articles for LLRX.com, I write a column called "Tech Talk" for Law Library Lights and I am on the board of the Law Librarian's Society of Washington, D.C. I like palindromes, sushi and German arts and humor.
Together with Barbara Fullerton, we presented "Tech Tools for Effectively Managing Information" at 10:30 on April 9 (of course for the Computers in Libraries conference). Despite some loud microphone feedback, it was (we hope) a lively interactive demonstration of several tools for managing information. We had fun, and we hope to do this type of presentation again. Check out this amazing sketch of us to see what we looked like when we presented. (thanks madinkbeard)
Links from: Tech Tools for Effectively Managing Information
Following is a list of the tools we talked about, together with some related links.
- SendMeRss -- RSS sent to you via email
- Kuler (see also: 25 Online Color Generators, Kuler Desktop and APIs and Dreamweaver tools for Kuler) -- color pallette generator and social sharing options
- Glance -- tool for collaborative computer-to-computer demos and troubleshooting
- Conduit.com (see also: LibX) -- two options for creating website toolbars (we talked about Conduit.com, but LibX is a great alternative)
- PDFHammer.com -- Free online tool for manipulating PDF files
- Web Developer Toolbar -- Firefox extension for troubleshooting your websites. Also works to generate color swatches, view document structure outlines and many features not just for web developers
- PonyFish -- Add RSS to a page or site that doesn't have it
- AddThis.com-- Simple bookmark widget that lets users save content to up to 36+ social bookmark and community sites -- Also a great way to know how users are interacting with your content.
- ProcessLibrary -- resource for identifying DLL and related control files on your Windows computer
- Fantastico (Wikipedia entry) -- A tool offered by many web hosting companies that automates installation of scripts for open source programs such as Drupal, Mambo, Joomla, etc.
- Rollyo -- a way to create a personalized custom search engine
- BrowserShots.org -- Free tool for testing your web design on numerous browsers
- SnagIt -- Great commercial software for creating screen shots -- it costs money, but the features are very useful
- Firebug -- not just for web developers, this is a good tool for editing any code delivered to your browser. Use it to test different typefaces for your site, mock up design choices and so forth.
- WatchThatPage -- track changes to pages to know when new content is added
- Scribefire (see also: WIndows LiveWriter, Qumana) -- These are free tools that you can use for managing blog content where you don't use the native blog application's editing tools. Scribefire was the tool discussed in the presentation.
- GifUP -- a quick and simple way to create animatted GIF files or select Avatars. Not the best for copyright compliance.
- Zotero -- free tool to manage research and create bibliographies. Great alternative to EndNote or RefWorks. No server version (yet).
- Camtasia -- commercial software for creating screen demonstrations and interactive training presentations (see also: Wink (free) and Captivate (not free)
- TechCrunch and Adobe Media Player (see also: VLC Media Player) -- Tools for obtaining and viewing FLV (streaming flash video format) files, which you currently can't play in iTunes or Windows Media Player
We've also linked these tools, together with related stories and some tools we're not using on this page: http://del.icio.us/tag/cil2008-techtools
If anybody has questions or suggestions about the presentation, contact me (Roger).