Library Stuff

Quite an over-reaction to finding out that librarians blog. I almost snarfed the water I was drinking after clicking on the link. (Thanks Jennifer)

Today, Aggie sent me Streamick.com, a directory and online streaming site for free T.V.

The site is very dynamic and I love the directory. It’s user driven in that they will post submissions, as long as it’s legal and free (there is a validation process), but there are a few issues.

1) There’s no way to pause the video, or at least mute it. I had to do it from my laptop

2) Streaming T.V. is fun, but I wonder how it will compete in the world of YouTube where we can watch certain video whenever we want.

3) No blog and no RSS. So, I can’t easily keep up with new channels or site developments. Grumble…

Jessa Crispin (subscribe to her blog – I think she holds the record for the longest time in my aggregator) got an e-mail from a librarian (she is now Jessa’s favorite – surpassing me?) regarding the 2006 Notable Books list and some statistics. Interesting stuff:

“Of the 50 authors who are listed under fiction, 26 (52%) of them have written for the Times in the past 26 years. Of the 24 authors who haven’t written for the Times, 13 (54%) are female. Of the 51 authors who are listed under nonfiction (there’s one book with two authors), 28 (54.9%) have written for the Times in the past 26 years. Of the 23 authors who haven’t written for the Times, 6 (26%) are female.”

Now, what can I do to impress Jessa…?

One of my “keeping up” heroes, Marshall Kirkpatrick, who left his writing position at TechCrunch today, blogs about how he did what he did so well. An excerpt:

“I am subscribed to thousands of RSS feeds and currently have thousands of unread items in my feed reader – that suits me just fine. The secret is to organize those feeds so that the most important information is easy to access. I have several folders that include feeds from the blogs of companies I wrote about at TechCrunch, news search feeds for those companies and other high priority topics. I refresh and check those folders frequently throughout the day. I keep everything else in low priority folders that I only check if I find the time. That way I end up reading 100% of what’s most important and probably 10% of what’s unimportant enough to miss.”

If you like to “keep up” and want to do it well, read the whole post. He kicked Web 2.0 booty whiel at TechCrunch and has a lot to offer.

These throwaway e-mail addresses are nothing new. Basically, these tools allow you to create e-mail addresses for those times when you need to sign up for something in order to get something, but don’t want to provide your real e-mail address (for obvious reasons).

I’ve been a fan of Dodgeit for a long time because I can get the e-mails in my aggregator. Today, said aggregator sent me to two new-to-me throwaway e-mail tools.

+ Spamhole – “SpamhOle.com allows you to create a temporary email address; nameyoupick@spamhole.com. For the number of hours that you choose, all email to nameyoupick@spamhole.com address is automatically forwarded to your regular email address. After time is up, any new mail that comes to your spamhole address is automatically deleted. This way, you never have to give your email address out when you sign up for stuff on the internet. You can create a spamhole address, sign up for stuff on the internet, and not have to worry about your mailbox becoming a target for spammers”

+ 10 Minute Mail – “you will be given a temporary e-mail address. Any e-mails sent to that address will show up automatically on the web page. You can read them, click on links, and even reply to them. The e-mail address will expire after 10 minutes. Why would you use this? Maybe you want to sign up for a site which requires that you provide an e-mail address to send a validation e-mail to. And maybe you don’t want to give up your real e-mail address and end up on a bunch of spam lists. This is nice and disposable.”

I like certain qualities from each. Spamhole allows the e-mail from their addresses to get forwarded to my real e-mail. Then, the address dies. Lovely. 10 Minute Mail allows me to reply from the temp e-mail address. And of course, only dodgeit sends the info via RSS.

The winner, IMO, will be the tool that does all three.