HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ALAN RICKMAN!

I usually post the happy birthdays on my other blog but that has fallen by the wayside. I am too busy with writing content manuscripts, plowing through my novel (editing chapters) and setting the final touches on getting the house straightened up and kids settled.

However, in the 'tween time, I would like to pause (as I do every year) to do a little fan-girling and wish Alan Rickman a Happy Birthday.

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TOOL REVIEW

Klean Sweep is a handy tool for Linux operating systems. Yes, dear readers, we are using Ubuntu after giving Vista its last meal and making it walk a very short plank.
The tool finds empty files and directories,broken symlinks or references to other files; backup files created in KleanSweep, orphaned files, dead menu entries, and duplicated files.

KleanSweep runs in administrative mode and is handy for getting rid of files that are no longer viable or are redundant.

There is a caveat to this handy software that is very important to understand. Klean Sweep works on simple heuristics which finds items by name. For example, if there is "alan_rickman.jpg" (yes, you knew that I would work that in somehow!) and "alan_rickman.mp3", KleanSweep might find and display both. You must carefully vet the files you discover with this utility by right-clicking a file and choosing Open Directory. The directory will take you to the folder where the file is located so that you may be certain this is the item you want to remove. A good measure of caution too is to not remove something if you do not know how the element will affect the computer's viability. Furthermore, if you are a wee bit on the paranoid side, the program gives you the option of creating a backup file. Kleansweep is a useful application but must be handled with care.

Technorati Tags: kleansweep, blogging tools,alan rickman

TOOL REVIEW

PLEASE SEE MY UPDATE ON THIS REVIEW

CoolIris is a web page preview tool for Firefox 2.0. With CoolIris, a person can preview a page without clicking through to the page. This is very useful so that one gets an initial sense of a site without doing a lot of mouse work.

Let's take CoolIris for a spin. I decided to preview a site, Dictionary of Victorian London, from one of my blog links. I placed my mouse next to the link and up popped an icon consisting of two green and blue boxes. I budged my mouse over the link and up popped a preview of the site. There are various choices that you can make for the preview. Go Back will take you to back to the starting page when you click within the preview, Open The Current Link In A New Tab will open the preview in another window, the E-Mail tab will let you, after you register with CoolIris, e-mail sites to friends. There is an Exit button, and a lock icon to Stick The Frame or keep the preview open so that one does not have re-open the frame.
Now the fun stuff begins. When you come to a link, you can highlight it and right click to get various choices to research the intended subject. Let's choose the ever handsome Alan Rickman in my Labels for a trial run (sigh, it was a toss-up between him, Andrew Vachss, Andrei Codrescu, and the Bronte sisters...the Brontes lost). Now, run the mouse cursor over the highlighted word and right click. One has the choices of the freedictionary,Google Images, and Wikipedia. Clicking on Google Images takes you to a page of Alan Rickman images and you can place the mouse over any of the images and it will give a CoolIris preview. Magnificent!

This is definitely a tool that is necessary for Firefox. Be sure to add it to your browser.

Technorati Tags: CoolIris, blogging tools

TOOL REVIEW

Zotero is a bibliography tool for Firefox. Ordinarily, I would not do two tool reviews in a week but this is a very useful tool for citations.

In Zotero, a person can save annotations in various forms for both online and offline use. You can import and export libraries of citations to Zotero, create standard citations for book, book sections,documents, journal and magazine articles,and many more citation forms including podcasts. There is the ability to create new items from the current page as well as saving a link to a current page. There are also standalone notes that one can write.

Let's take Zotero for a spin. I decided to note a wikipedia article about Alan Rickman. I clicked on the Zotero icon in my browser and the interface for the tool popped up. Next, I clicked on the Save Link to Current Page. This gave me an interface that saved the link and also timestamped it. Underneath the timestamp is a blank white area to make a note. I wrote "This is an article about the handsome actor Alan Rickman, second only to the late Jeremy Brett as one of the greatest British actors." (Note: You can copy or cut, then paste from Zotero to Blogger or anything else like e-mail). Next there is a Related link that shows what might be related in one's library and a tagging function.
Zotero saves not only the citation but when you open Zotero again, you can click on the web link and go directly to the cited article.

Right-clicking on an item brings up several more options to create a bibliography in various formats such as IEEE, Chicago, Vancouver et cetera. This can be exported to RTF, HTML, Printed, or to the computer's Clipboard. Zotero also can generate a report in the browser if you choose to click the option Generate Report.
Zotero can be added as a plugin in some versions of Open Office and in Microsoft Word. Check the compatibility table for more information.

This is definitely a tool that is necessary for Firefox. Be sure to add it to your browser.

Technorati Tags: alan rickman,zotero,jeremy brett,blogging tools