Author Archives: Glinda Harrison

Library Corner: 2-24-2015

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Library corner imageLibrary News:

 Digital Books Are Up in the Air (American Libraries)

Where Libraries Are Sited Is As Important As What They Do? (Brave New World)

National Libraries Day cites decline in UK libraries (Teleread)

OverDrive’s Big Library Read and Global eBook Club (The Ebook Reader)

National Library of Medicine Launches New Twitter Stream For K-12 Science Educators (Infodocket)

Coming soon for U.S. and Canadian libraries: Disney streaming video! (Overdrive)

Listen Here: Edmonton Public Library Will Begin Offering Free Downloads of Music by Local Musicians in April (Infodocket)

Someone Is Trying to Save You From Awful Books at the Boston Public Library (Boston.com)

Pilot Project: Three Chicago Public Library Branches Will Begin Lending Internet Routers and Tablets Next Month (Infodocket)

Digital Collections:

Canada: Scholars Portal from Ontario Council of University Libraries now locally hosting 40 million articles (Infodocket.com)

New Resource: ProQuest, University of Michigan Library and Bodleian Libraries Provide 25,000 Early Modern Books as Open Access Text (Infodocket)

Resources: Badilisha Poetry X-Change, The Largest Online Archive of African Poetry in the World (Infodocket)

Newly Launched Posen Digital Library From Yale University Press Makes Available Jewish Literature, Art, Artifacts and More (Infodocket)

Cornell Hip Hop Collection to Go Digital (Cornell Sun)

 

Once a week, I post links to digital-related library news articles and information about new digital collections available online.

Daily Links: Tumblr blocking infringing content

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daily linksDigital Life:

Tumblr Is Now Blocking Uploads of Infringing Content… (Digital Music News)

Tumblr censors torrent related tags and searches  (Torrent Freak)

Google set to launch kid-friendly YouTube app on Feb. 23 (Android Central)

Fast Facts: Tax ID theft tops FTC complaints in 2014 (Infodocket)

Can Sponsorship Save Small Bookstores? (New Yorker)

Why digital natives prefer reading in print (Washington Post)

Apps:

15 best recipe apps for Android tablets (Tab Times)

Tips, Tricks and How-to:

How to Download Your Kindle Notes and Highlights and Export Them (Ink, Bits and Pixels)

10 Tips to Help Make Your eBook Reader Last Longer (The Ebook Reader)

6 common problems with the Nexus 7 (2013) and how to fix them (Tab Times

Finds and Deals:

Amazon’s Deal of the Day todays has JLab headphones and earbuds for up to 80% off. I own several pairs of each and have found them to be an amazing value for the price.

The Kindle Daily Deals include post-apocalyptic science fiction, inspirational, romance and kids’ genres. And, until March 11, you can get 175 Kindle Books for $1.99. There’s a GREAT selection in this group: Ed McBain (87th Precinct Mysteries), Bob Mayer (Area 51) and many, many more.

The Nook Deal of the Day is The Valley of Amazement by Amy Tan for $1.99.

Kobo’s Daily Deal is A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan for $2.99.

And finally, how about a really fun Kindle cover? This 6″ TLC Slim book Fluffies cover for the Paperwhiteis so cuddly!

Daily Links are interesting links I discover as I go about my online day. The frequency and number of links posted depend upon the daily news. I also post other, different links of interest on the Google Plus eBook Evangelist Page.

 

Lenovo installs adware on pcs

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lenovo y-50Lenovo, a computer company that last year had one-fifth of the world computer market share, had been installing adware on PCs. The adware came pre-installed on new PCs shipped between October and December 2014. It hijacked encrypted sessions, leaving the affected computers vulnerable to attack. The adware uses a fake security certificate called Superfish which can circumvent HTTPS encryption.

Ars Technica has a detailed piece here on the adware and how it works. I recommend giving it a read.

Given the size and scope of Lenovo’s market share, this story was obviously going to be big news.  To make matters worse, in a pretty callous statement, Lenovo said that the adware was included “…to help customers potentially discover interesting products while shopping.”

Yeah, right. (Ars actually wrote an article called “Lenovo honestly thought you’d enjoy that Superfish HTTPS spyware” based on that one!)

The company is now backtracking, with Lenovo’s CTO is now saying that “… we didn’t do enough.” There are also promises to wipe Superfish off the affected PCs.

So the company is sorry. Sort of. < /sarcasm>

Lenovo’s complete statement, along with affected model numbers and instructions for removal is here.

Just a couple of days ago, I was eyeing a Lenovo tablet for a upcoming project. I am really glad now that I didn’t make that purchase.

Stay tuned. There is going to be a lot more news on this in the days to come.

 

Daily Links: Letting Your Kids Play in Social Media

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daily linksDigital Life:

Letting Your Kids Play in the Social Media Sandbox (New York Times)

Trade-In Values Have Tanked for Older eReaders (The Ebook Reader)

Used eBook Marketplace Tom Kabinet Launches eBookstore (Ink, Bits, & Pixels [formerly The Digital Reader])

Trans-Pacific Partnership still pushing to screw your rights in secret (Teleread)

Tablet Magazine puts a price on comments to eliminate online trolls (The Passive Voice)

New Dr Seuss Books Coming in July (Ink, Bits and Pixels)

How Google determined our right to be forgotten (The Guardian)

Apps and Software:

BBM for Android now available on the Amazon Appstore (Android Central)

Kindlebox Automatically Sends Books from Dropbox to Your Kindle (Lifehacker via Teleread)

Google has officially launched a Google Play Music app for iPad (Tab Times)

IFTTT launches 3 new apps to create an easy button for the web (Gigaom)

Broadband and Telephone News:

UK parliament calls for Internet to be classified as a public utility (Ars Technica)

US carriers still stink at unlocking phones, analysis finds (Ars Technica)

Gaming and Streaming:

​Sling TV to add Epix video-on-demand channels (Cnet)

Tips, Tricks and How-to:

Log out Everywhere except your current Browser on your WordPress Blog (Social Positives)

How to connect iPad to your TV (Tab Times)

Finds and Deals:

Today’s Kindle Daily Deals titles include Romance, Science Fiction, Literature and Young adult. There are also 50 Romance and Mystery titles in the 50 Kindle Books for $2 deal. Ed McBain’s Cop Hater (87th Precinct Mysteries Book 1),  is one of the titles for $2. 🙂

The Nook Find of the Day is Vicktor E.  Frankl’s  spiritual classic, Man’s Search for Meaning for $2.99.

The Kobo Daily Deal is Smokin’ Hot by Lynn LaFleur for $2.99.

Amazon music store is featuring $5 Digital Music Deals, including Night Visions by Imagine Dragons.

Daily Links are interesting links I discover as I go about my online day. The frequency and number of links posted depend upon the daily news. I also post other, different links of interest on the Google Plus eBook Evangelist Page.

Library Corner: 2-17-2015

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Library corner imageLibrary News:

The History of Harvard’s Library, One Spine at a Time (Harvard)

Museums Are Now Able to Digitize Thousands of Artifacts in Just Hours (Smithsonian Magazine)

Not In the Clear: Libraries and Privacy (Inside Higher Ed)

National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped Will Implement New Braille Code in 2016 (Infodocket)

Essay on problems that the economic model of e-books poses for college libraries and scholars (Inside Higher Ed)

Digital Collections:

A Visit to the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center (Digital NC) (Infodocket)

Coming Soon From ProQuest: Digitized Collection of Influential British Magazines, More Than 850,000 Pages From First Half of 20th Century

New Online: Louisiana State Archives and Louisiana Public Television Launch Digital Media Archive (Infodocket)

Wellcome Library donates 100,000 medical images to Wikimedia Commons (Wikipedia Blog)

Reference: University of Glasgow Releases “Historical Thesaurus of English” Web Resource (Free) (Infodocket)

NYPL Digital Collections Platform: An Introduction (NYPL)

Once a week, I post links to digital-related library news articles and information about new digital collections available online.

 

 

Amazon Free Apps Bundle for 2-12-2015

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officeproAmazon is giving away 37 free apps in their appstore today. The bundle includes games and productivity apps. While many of these have been offered before for free, there are a few gems in the bunch like the Doggcatcher Podcast player and OfficeSuite Professional 8 (a $19.99 value).

This offer seems to be for today only.

Valentines Day Deals on Fires and Kindles

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az-valAmazon is offering discounts on select Kindles and Fires in their Valentine’s deals. There are discounts on the Fire HD 6, Kindle Paperwhite, basic Kindle with Touchscreen Display, and the Fire HD 6 Kids Edition.

It is worth noting that when I was logged in under my Prime member account, the page also showed offers for 5 monthly payments for the various devices. I didn’t see these when I was logged in on my other account.

The sale ends February 15, 2015.

 

Library Corner: 2-8-2015

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Library corner imageLibrary News:

Where publishers ought to be behind libraries (Teleread)

 Artist upset after Long Beach Public Library removes doll from art display that it considered ‘controversial’ (Press Telegram)

Fire in major Russian library destroys 1m historic documents (The Guradian)

From Paper Maps to the Web: A DIY Digital Maps Primer (New York Public Library)

New Apps: Smithsonian Brings Historic Specimens to Life in Free “Skin and Bones” Mobile App (Infodocket)

Books & bikes: Share program considered for libraries (CT Post)

Big-Box Store Has New Life as an Airy Public Library (NY Times)

The K-12 and economic cases for a national digital library endowment (Teleread)

 Digital collections:

 University of North Texas Libraries Placing Digitized News Film (1950-1979) From NBC 5 / KXAS-TV (Dallas-Fort Worth) on Portal to Texas History (Infodocket)

DK Launches Online Encyclopedia for Kids (Publishers Weekly)

The Public Domain Project Makes 10,000 Film Clips, 64,000 Images & 100s of Audio Files Free to Use (Open Culture)

HMS Beagle sketchbooks added to Cambridge Digital Library (University of Cambridge)

Whitney Museum massively expands online collection database  (Art News)

University of North Carolina Library Launches DocSouth Data, Historic Texts Ready For Analysis (Infodocket)

State of Tennessee Begins Rolling Out Collection of Digitized Historic Maps Online (Infodocket)

Humanities Open Book: Unlocking Great Books (NEH)

Once a week, I post links to digital-related library news articles and information about new digital collections available online.

 

 

2 Lost novels by Ed McBain to be published

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mcbainThere has been a lot of interest in my two previous posts (here and here) on the availability of Ed McBain’s popular 87th Precinct mysteries. So, fans of police procedurals may be as excited as I was to read on Ed Goreman’s blog that Hard Case Crime will be publishing two lost novels by Ed McBain, both of which have been unavailable for over 50 years.

The two books are Cut Me In and So Nude, So Dead. So Nude, So Dead will be released in July 2015. Cut Me In is scheduled for release in January 2016.  Sample chapters of both books are available on Hard Case Crime’s website.

And, there’s more good news! According to Goreman:

… The same month, Hard Case Crime will also re-issue its one previous McBain title, THE GUTTER AND THE GRAVE, for the first time ever in trade paperback format. CUT ME IN is scheduled for a January 12, 2016 publication and will feature a new cover by legendary painter Robert McGinnis.
As a special bonus, each of the three books will also include a long-lost private-eye novelette by McBain starring Matt Cordell, the detective from THE GUTTER AND THE GRAVE. These three novelettes were originally published in pulp magazines of the 1950s and haven’t been seen in more than half a century.

If you are a fan of the genre, please indulge yourself and check out Hard Case Crime’s website. They have goodies by Max Allan Collins, Michael Crichton writing as John Lange and many more. The covers are absolutely brilliant representations of the genre!

Hard Case Crime also published Stephen King’s Joyland.