Free old-time radio horror shows

From the site:

Thought you had seen everything, all those old movies and television shows two or three times even? Well you probably haven't experienced old time radio! This media is so old, it is refreshingly "brand new" to many of us. Here, we present 100 of our favorite horror theme stories, from shows like Witch's Tale, Lights Out, Innersanctum, Quiet Please, The Haunted Hour and others. These are the very stories that inspired favorite Horror Comics and shows like Twilight Zone and Thriller! In fact, old time radio horror show, "Witch's Tale" is reported to have served as direct inspiration for EC Comics.

Scary Books from Google

Google Book Search launched another special event micro site... this time, it’s all about scary stories in time for Halloween. These are older books that already passed into the public domain, like Bram Stoker’s "Dracula", Shelly's "Frankenstein" and lots more obscure thrillers like Edith Wharton's "The Eyes" and Thomas Hardy's "The Withered Arm". Neat stuff!

Firefox 2.0 ready for download

Firefox 2.0 brings many improvements and new features from its predecessor. Some of which include reduced memory consumption, improved performance, strengthened security and much more. The following is the official list as stated by Mozilla’s press release:
• Tabbed Browsing - more custom options. close button added to tabs. session history.
• Spell Check - inline spell check for web forms. works with most online blogging tools.
• Search - real-time live results. search engine management options.
• Web Feeds - ability to add feed to live bookmarks, Thunderbird, Google reader, etc.
• ID Theft Protection - spyware/popup blocker. phishing protection. blacklists.
• Customization - more add-ons for specific features. (themes and plugins)

Animated "how to" for tying knots

Not really library related (unless you are asked by a patron for knot tying assistance), but very helpful site.

www.animatedknots.com

eBooks on your WAP-enabled phone!

tx2ph.com (text to phone!)turns your internet-enabled cell phone or PDA into a book-reading device. And you don't need a lot of memory in your mobile device -- because all the text is stored on the server and downloaded one page at a time. There's no need to download and install any software, all you need is an Internet-enabled cell phone or PDA. And the service is free! (Your mobile service provider may charge you for the data downloaded, refer to the "data usage" section of your plan.)

Google as your federated search interface

From: TechEssence.info

For a while now I've noticed that journal articles from some not-for-profit (but not free) content delivery projects--like JSTOR and Project MUSE--have populated my Google search results. But the implications of that never sunk in until I sat in on recent presentations by salespeople from both Gale Thomson and EBSCO, both of who say they are working with Google on a similar capability: results from their databases will appear in Google results.

Apparently, how this would work is still under development, with issues such as result placement algorithms and the point at which user verification occurs being among the major issues.

But still, the idea of Google being the interface for federating searching makes sense in a context where libraries are constantly resisting the user behavior of going to Google first and ending their information searches with what is found there. Making other federated search interfaces as simple as Google may not be enough--if users go to Google anyway. And I have to confess that I've been one to protest against the dumbing down of federated search interfaces; but Google is the elephant in the room, and can't be ignored.

Google Launches "Google Docs & Spreadsheets"

In a bold move toward Web 2.0, Google has formally bundled and launched their word processing and spreadsheet web applications under Google Docs & Spreadsheets.

From the site:

With Google Docs & Spreadsheets, you can:

* Use our online editor to format documents, spell-check and more.
* Upload Word documents, OpenOffice, RTF, HTML or text.
* Download documents to your desktop as Word, PDF and more.
* View your documents' revision history and roll back to any version.

Plus, since its online, you can:

* Invite others to share your documents by e-mail address.
* Edit documents online with whomever you choose.
* Publish documents online to the world, or to just who you choose.
* Post your documents to your blog.

The Yahoo! Time Capsule: One World. Many Voices.

Yahoo! Time capsule

For 30 days, from October 10 until November 8, Yahoo! users worldwide can contribute photos, writings, videos, audio – even drawings – to this electronic anthropology project. This is the first time that digital data will be gathered and preserved for historical purposes.

In addition to submitting your own content, you can view, read, or hear the images, words, and sounds contributed by users from around the world.

You can also comment on the content you and others have submitted – and engage in a digital conversation that is just as revealing and important as any of the content you’ll witness.

And by November 8, you will have helped create a digital legacy of our times, a mosaic of revealing snapshots that will be sealed and entrusted to Smithsonian Folkways Recordings and its Smithsonian Global Sound® based in Washington D.C., officially taking its place in history.

Interesting discussion of library obsolescence

Prompted by an article in the Lawrence, Kansas newspaper that called libraries "inefficient", "limited" and "obsolete", the discussion is hot over at teleread.org.

Google Books Top 10 Most Viewed

From Google Blogscoped

Google announced the most-viewed books of their Google Books search program:

1. Diversity and Evolutionary Biology of Tropical Flowers


2. Merriam Webster’s Dictionary of Synonyms


3. Measuring and Controlling Interest Rate and Credit Risk


4. Ultimate Healing: The Power of Compassion


5. The Holy Qur’an


6. Peterson’s Study Abroad 2006


7. Hegemony Or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance


8. Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage


9. Perrine’s Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense


10. Build Your Own All-Terrain Robot

Flickr Set of Old Penguin Book Jackets

From Boing Boing

A really cool Filckr set of old Penguin book covers. A real stroll down memory lane for us long-time Penguin fans!