Some dude from Norway, Alexander Refsum Jensenius, has written a short step-by-step instruction on how to export references from Google Scholar . could be useful. Commenters point to web apps like CiteULike, WizFolio and a downloadable app for organizing PDF files called Papers - which is Mac only.
The Lent Term 2007 computer service course timetable is now available.
It is essential to register for courses - the titles of available courses are are linked to the corresponding booking forms. If you book a place but cannot attend the course, please use the form to cancel your booking.
Unless otherwise specified, courses assume basic computing skills. Courses marked are suitable for beginners; those marked require some prior knowledge or experience (as detailed in the course description). If extra runs of over-subscribed courses are added after initial publication of the timetable,
they will be marked .
Please note that the Census Registration Service news page has recently been updated with a new edition which can also be downloaded in PDF.
Ionut Alex in his Google Operating System weblog says in his post 10 Google myths:
I’ve heard many inaccurate things about Google this year, and most of them are spread by word of mouth. Maybe Google should do a better job at explaining things that may seem trivial to computer experts, but difficult understand for other people.
Coming soon (it says here)…
Introducing the most important and innovative indexing advancement in over 30 years, CSA Illustrata provides web-based access to indexed tables, figures, maps, graphs, charts and other images contained in scholarly articles. This unique tool provides researchers precision, efficiency, and relevance in the data discovery process. Users can display the full image, including captions and label text – all of which can be easily saved or imported and used for presentations, lectures or research. The first database in the family, CSA Illustrata: Natural Sciences, includes tables and figures from more than 1,000 journals from prominent publishers resulting in more than 1 million indexed images.
Zoho, a provider of a suite of online office products and productivity tools, has introduced the beta of its free wiki product, Zoho Wiki. A wiki is a collaborative web based document which can be edited by either anyone (open) or only ceratin perople (closed). Zoho itself is an excellent free web based software portal with word processing, spreadsheet and many other applications. It makes collaborative production of documents much easier by keeping the files on the web for each person to access. Zoho is a brand of the software company AdventNet, Inc.
In addition to the standard wiki features, the new Zoho Wiki offers the following:
A WYSIWYG editor (Zoho Writer’s) that includes features such as spell check, revision history, differences between any two versions, and reverting to any older version.
Grouping functionality—In addition to setting your Wiki as public (by default) and private, you can have your Wiki viewed and/or edited by a selected group of members.
Zoho Single Sign-on means you can use your existing Zoho ID to access it (no need for separate signup/in).
Embedding of objects into wiki pages such as a Zoho Sheet chart, Zoho Show slide show, Zoho Creator application/form, or YouTube video.
Other than the wiki associated with the username, a user can create two more wikis with a Zoho account. And there is no limitation to the number of pages per wiki.
Microsoft has added Live Search Books to its growing list of Live Search options - a rival project to Google Book Search. Live Search is the new improved MSN Search and Microsoft’s attempt to catch up with Google. Let me remind you that Live Search already offers an Academic option similar to Google Scholar with a useful emphasis on references. And, naturally, there’s maps as well, like Google maps but, some say, better?
10 Academic Resources Daily aims to ‘… provide valuable solutions for students and young researchers; disseminate additional knowledge, skills and attitudes… communicate within the academic community… share information about scholarships, grants, conferences, study abroad opportunities, exchange and professional training programs and internships all over the world.’
The useful Office Letter site introduces a list of Windows tips as follows:
Many of us are using our computers at breakneck speed most of the
time. Cutting corners on how you control the system interface saves
you literally hundreds of miles of mousing around on your desktop
over the course of a few years. Here are our top time-saving and
motion-saving tips for using Windows Vista (taken from the book,
Special Edition Using Microsoft Windows Vista by Robert Cowart and
Brian Knittel, Que Publishing).
Clare’s Walk is the latest production by Steve Waters, Director of Studies in Drama at Homerton College, Cambridge. In the words of the Menagerie Theatre’s web page:
“Clare’s Walk takes for its inspiration the nightmarish journey of 1841 by poet John Clare (1793-1864) from the lunatic asylum where he was incarcerated in Epping Forest to his home in Northborough in North Cambridgeshire, along the route of the A1.
“Playwright Steve Waters and actor Patrick Morris re-walked the route in June 2005, looking at how the landscape has changed since Clare’s day, and the development issues the entire region faces, examining the themes aired in Clare’s verse in a modern context: the connection between self and environment, between ownership and dispossession.”
The production has been appearing in small venues along the route Clare walked - we saw it back in April at
Milton Country Park, Cambridge. It is a wonderful one-man performance by actor Patrick Morris who re-walked the route with Waters last summer. We enjoyed it immensely - it has both laugh-out-loud funny moments and deeper heartfelt moments - a magical way to spend 90 minutes, especially if you are interested in the countryside, its past and its future. Personally, I think that it is an important work that needs to be seen more widely. Maybe it could be made into a tv production?
I have come across only one review of Clare’s Walk by Jill Sharp for The British Theatre Guide.
Anyway - you have one more chance to see it. An extra production is being staged this Friday, 14 July, 6.00pm, at
The Junction in Cambridge as part of the
Hotbed 2006 Cambridge festival of new writing for the theatre.
The play’s main source is a short journal Clare kept on his walk. This journal is freely accessible online - near the end of the ebook The Life of John Clare by Frederick Martin (thanks to Project Gutenberg, a large online repository of freely available ebooks). The Library holds many works by and about Clare and we currently have a small display on the first floor commemorating him and Steve Waters’ production.
Other links to John Clare include:
The John Clare Page
The John Clare Society
John Clare weblog [a poem a day]
Poem Hunter - John Clare [full text of 53 poems by John Clare].
Coincidentally, The John Clare Trust reports that, on Tuesday 4 July, it was awarded a ‘Stage One Pass’ from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) for its project to buy and restore John Clare’s Cottage in Helpston [near Peterborough] and to open it to the public for the first time. This is where Clare was born and brought up.
Update (September 2006):
Sadly (for us), Steve Waters has left Homerton College to take up a drama post at University of Birmingham as Lecturer in Playwriting. Read his new profile.