Hawksdomain's shared items
This article is one in a series of session reports from the recent BYU Conference on Family History and Genealogy. I tweeted the session live, but I hate to send you to Twitter to read them because they appear there in reverse chronological order. I’ve straightened them out for you here. Additions are shown in italics.
Wednesday, 29 July 2009 (Screen shots as of 9 August 2009. Click screen shot to see larger image.)
 Last session of the day. Gary Pack, "Family History Library Deskop: A Gold Mine of Data." (3:02 PM Jul 29th from TweetChat ) Changes come often and always. 20-30 changes a week. (3:03 PM Jul 29th from TweetChat ) Now have 450+ machines running the library patron desktop. |
| @rjseaver, didn't you write about this topic after your FHL visit? (3:04 PM Jul 29th from TweetChat ) |
 Subscription websites change constantly. We pay so you won't have to. Ancestry.com, Accessible Archives, Footnote.com, Genline.com (Swedish), HeritageQuest, ... Explore. (3:06 PM Jul 29th from TweetChat ) |
 Databases at the FHL: 3,700 databases available. FHLC gives CD number. Previously checked out at window. Now go thru patron desktop, although the list is now so long, it is best to use the FHLC catalog. FHLC has direct links in red. For example: Hudgins Cemetery: Livingston County, Missouri (3:12 PM Jul 29th from TweetChat ) |
 Links to New Tools from FamilySearch: online websites. |
 Links to online periodicals. Most of this stuff is only available at the library. (3:13 PM Jul 29th from TweetChat ) |
 Manage your records: Links to PAF, GEDCOM, other tools. Check out GenSmarts on your GEDCOM. Irfan View. WinZip. Affiliates (new). (3:15 PM Jul 29th from TweetChat ) |
 Online Resources: research help, FHL Favorites, with download instructions, ... |
 Submit Your Records: TempleReady is going away soon (3:18 PM Jul 29th from TweetChat ) [You can see from the screen shot to the right that just since the BYU conference, TempleReady has been removed from the FHL Patron Desktop! New FamilySearch really is happening on the Wasatch Front!] |
 Especially for youth: Links for youth and kids, to various Internet resources. (3:22 PM Jul 29th from TweetChat ) Q. If these are publicly available, why not make this page available over the family history center portal? A. No resources to do so. "The FHL is the step-child of the FH department and FHCs are the step-child of the FHL." Ouch. (3:23 PM Jul 29th from TweetChat ) FHC directors could contact him for the list of links |
| [The ones I could identify for use outside the library are: * Your Place in History http://www.kakophone.com/kakorama/EN/index.php (youth 12-up) http://dmarie.com/timecap/ http://www.ask.com/?o=12572&l=dir http://www.wikipedia.org/ http://www.teach-nology.com/web_tools/materials/timeline/ * Your Genealogy PAF – local installation http://www.familysearch.org/ http://www.last-names.net/ (kids 3-11) http://www.surnamedb.com/ (youth 12-up) http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Search/frameset_search.asp?PAGE=census/search_census.asp * Fun and Games Jigsaw Puzzle Lite - local installation Coloring Pages from Kodak Easy Share - Local installation. Use Cartoon effect (kids) http://www.puzzle-maker.com/CW/ Seven Day Calendar Grid http://factfinder.census.gov/home/en/kids/kids.html http://www.apcss.org/graphics/educate/match_the_country_and_their_flag.htm (youth) http://www.mysterycasefiles.com/games.html (youth) * Kids Online Games http://www.americangirl.com/fun.html http://linkasaurus.com/ http://www.nickjr.com/ http://www.hbofamily.com/ http://www.sesameworkshop.org/sesamestreet/ http://www.bigfishgames.com/download-games/genres/15/hidden-object.html http://coloringbookfun.com/ http://snowflakes.barkleyus.com/ http://www.peepandthebigwideworld.com/ http://pbskids.org/ http://atv.disney.go.com/playhouse/index.html http://www.ala.org/gwstemplate.cfm?section=greatwebsites&template=/cfapps/gws/default.cfm * Youth Online Games http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/interactive/timelines/kings_queens/index.shtml http://www.americaslibrary.gov/cgi-bin/page.cgi http://www.maps.com/FunFacts.aspx?nav=FF http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/our_america/index_flash.htm http://americanhistory.si.edu/kids/springer/ http://americanhistory.si.edu/militaryhistory/resources/whoami/whoami.html http://www.dupinternational.org/jubilee/quiz.htm Sudoku - local installation * Making Memories http://www.smilebox.com/ - local installation (kids) Create a photo printable e-card – No longer available (kids) Create Free E-Cards to email – No longer available (youth) Create/Publish a Photo Book (kids) Create/Publish a Photo Book – No longer available. See here instead. (youth) FHL memo with family history requirements from Faith in God for Girls (kids) |
 Learn links: extremely basic, flash drives, online learning aids. (3:24 PM Jul 29th from TweetChat ) |
| Review: Subscription sites always changing. FindMyPast for English. We pay a lot for it. 1911 hot. Databases add to it every week. (3:27 PM Jul 29th from TweetChat ) |
 Review the Trial Websites page each time you come to the library. It has subscription websites on loan to the FHL for evaluation and changes very frequently. Most of Patron Desktop available on wireless for laptop users. (3:32 PM Jul 29th from TweetChat ) |
| Remember: The world wide web is ALWAYS in beta! (3:35 PM Jul 29th from TweetChat ) |
| Taking Q & A. (3:36 PM Jul 29th from TweetChat ) |
| Q. Can’t you make a list of new stuff available? A. We are developing a page, What's New At the Library, that could be made available through FHC Portal. (3:38 PM Jul 29th from TweetChat ) |
| Q. Can’t you make more of these links available outside the FHL? A. Ultimately would like everything at the library available anywhere in the world. (3:38 PM Jul 29th from TweetChat ) |
| Q. FHL Favorites? A. The FHL favorites is now available through http://bit.ly/fxzNv (3:42 PM Jul 29th from web ) |
Remember that tweets are limited to 140 characters. Less the #byugen hashtag, each tweet could not exceed 132 characters. Hence, tweets often use abbreviations, bad grammar, and lack proper punctuation.
Notice: The Ancestry Insider is independent of Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org. "The Ancestry Insider" does not mean "Ancestry.com Insider." The opinions expressed herein are his own.
A favicon is that tiny website icon/logo displayed in the address bar, bookmarks, and tabs of modern browsers. This is that final touch that helps to give your site a professional look. This tiny graphic helps in creating that identity we all want for our blogs.
To be able to add a favicon you do of course need the icon itself. There are many free favicons available all over the Net but you will most probably want something that is unique to your site. What I do is to design a bigger image (say 125 x 125px) and then convert this to the icon format when I have finished. You could use a photo as the starting point for your design. To start off with you could design in JPG, GIF, BMP or PNG format.
Once you have created your image you can make use of the FavIcon Generator at Dynamic Drive to make your final favicon.
The favicon you have just created will now have to be downloaded to the home directory of your blog. Please ensure that you have named the graphic favicon.ico.
Next you will have to open your header.php file. In this file you need to add the following line to the head section:
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="http://yourdomain/favicon.ico" />
Make sure you have added your domain name to the code. That’s it, you now have a favicon on your blog.
Your new favicon is not going to appear in your browser immediately. This could take a few days to actually appear, it all depends on the browser you are using. There are all sorts of tips available regarding this issue on the Net. My opinion, you have to ensure that you have done everything correctly and then you simply wait for the icon to appear.
Do you have any advice that could hasten the process of your favicon actually showing in the browser? If you do not already have a favicon on your blog you can now consider adding that final touch.
Till next time. 
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You’ve probably noticed that Twitter links and updates are now very commonly found on blogs. There are a few different ways that Twitter can be used and integrated into a blog, and this post will showcase 30 blogs that are promoting a Twitter account. Some show the most recent Tweets and others are simply icons and links to the Twitter page. There is a good bit of variety from these featured sites, so hopefully you’ll find some that you like.
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"If Abigail Sherman married my 8th granduncle, and her brother was Jeff's 8th great grandfather, what does that make me to Jeff?"
Olive Tree Answer: I had to write to Cynthia to ask if she meant Abigail married her 8th GREAT grand-uncle (because what she first wrote did not make sense to me) She replied with
"Yes. She married Daniel Lockwood who is my 8th great granduncle. Her brother Isaac Sherwood is Jeff's 8th great grandfather."NOW it makes sense!
Jeff and Cynthia have no blood relationship. Daniel (Cynthia's 8th great uncle) is the husband of Jeff's 8th Great Aunt Abigail.
Google goes social bookmarking with the iGoogle What’s Popular Gadget
Google has been on fire lately with three new gadgets, today I want you to look at the future with the new Google Digg Style What’s Popular Gadget.
I have a link in the comments at the link above to add the iGoogle What’s Popular gadget.
The number one complaint so far is that there is no commenting in the gadget / widget. Google knows where comments belong, they belong on the parent blog post and they did this one right.
Scientific American recently published an article that asks a question designed to strike at the heart of everything we know: Could food shortages bring down civilization? The article, by Lester R. Brown, included three key concepts, before calling for a massive and rapid intervention.
• Food scarcity and the resulting higher food prices are pushing poor countries into chaos.
• “Failed states” that export disease, terrorism, illicit drugs, weapons and refugees.
• Water shortages, soil losses, and rising temperatures from global warming that impact food production.
"As the world’s food security unravels, a dangerous politics of food scarcity is coming into play: individual countries acting in their narrowly defined self-interest are actually worsening the plight of the many," he wrote. "The trend began in 2007, when leading wheat-exporting countries such as Russia and Argentina limited or banned their exports, in hopes of increasing locally available food supplies and thereby bringing down food prices domestically."
John Holmes, writing for the UN Chronicle, cites an earlier date. He pinpoints that food prices began to rise in 2004 while production increased at a pace slower than demand. The result? According to Bread for the World, 963 million people across the world are hungry and 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes daily — one child every five seconds.
There Are Big Calls To Action, But Change Happens Small.
When the fact and figures become so immensely staggering, people tend to tune out and shut off. After all, what can one person possibly do to change the world? How could helping one person matter, when it fails to help the nearly one billion who need help now? How will talking or writing or posting about any specific world problem possibly help? How indeed.
One of the greatest lessons I ever learned from working and volunteering in the nonprofit sector was that people tend to contribute less when the tasks seem overwhelming. (The same can be said in the private sector too). So much so, the outcome results in characteristics similar to depression, except en masse.
It's not uncommon for people feel sad, guilty, or avoid taking any action because "doing anything is too much effort" or "nothing one person can do has any impact." It's just not true. Change happens in small, sometimes unnoticeable ways.
Heifer International Makes A Difference.
And sometimes it is noticed. Heifer International has more than 180 projects that make a difference all over the world. In fact , since 1944, Heifer International has helped communities learn to become self-sufficient by raising animals that provide direct benefits such as milk, eggs, wool, fertilizer, as well as indirect benefits that increase family incomes for better housing, nutrition, health care, and schools.
It's more than a hand out, it's a direct and sustainable hand up. And its those small successes that make all the difference. Here are just a few from BloggersUnite.org and BlogCatalog.com bloggers. They contributed more than 10,000 individual posts and actions (and counting).
Facebook is the social network. And love it or loathe it, if you want to connect to friends, family, colleagues or clients, to share everything from videos and photos to just fanciful thoughts and precious ideas, Facebook is the place to be. However, if you want to use Facebook seriously, there are some seriously big features missing from Facebook…
I have very mixed feelings when it comes to using Facebook, mostly because there are some very obvious and notable absentee features that make Facebook, shall we say, problematic to use in the way I’d prefer.
All work and play — different sets for different people
As an example, I have an eclectic mix of people as friends on Facebook — including family, friends, colleagues and clients. I’m sure there are others out there just like me, but the problem is, I’m absolutely sure some of my clients don’t want to see photos of me and the lads on a night out, and similarly, the guys don’t want to see the articles I’m sharing with clients regarding work-related topics.
Facebook needs a way to group people into distinct sets (not Groups, because that’s something else entirely) whereby I can control what each set of people see. So friends, family and clients are in their own sets, each oblivious to what’s going on in those other sets.
In this scenario, when I’m tagged in a photo or a video by a mate of mine from a specific set, that photo and video will not appear to family or clients. And, articles I write or find and then post to my profile regarding work, technology, science, social media et cetera, don’t appear in the sets for family and friends.
Tagging shared items
By far the biggest problem with Facebook is information overload. The problem wouldn’t be as bad if all of what appears on my home page was relevant, but the vast majority isn’t. No offense guys, but there’s a lot of stuff you like that I just don’t!
An exceptionally easy way to sort information is to use tags. So when we add a photo, a video or a link, we also get the option to add some tags. Once added, I can then filter information in or out, based on the tags I feel are important to me.
In one fell swoop, the amount of information is vastly reduced. I’m sure we could allow some kind of minimal item that says something like: “John Smith posted 11 items today”, for those people whose tags we don’t subscribe to, to ensure they don’t get forgotten.
A group chat option
I like Facebook’s chat, which is a simple alternative to MSN Messenger or Skype. However, now that we can share the things we find on Facebook, and since Facebook’s Connect service is really beginning to take a hold, we need group chat on Facebook, so we can chat with more than one person at a time:
“Facebook now have this option that embeds their share and comment options at the top of web pages and blog articles linked to from Facebook. What if you could do that, but include their chat tool, too?
Better yet, what if their chat tool linked to their Connect service, letting you chat with anyone who was on the same web page or blog article you were?”
Step out of the lime light — de-tagging photos and videos
Just because I’m in a photo or a video, doesn’t mean to say I want others that weren’t there to see them. I want an option to de-tag myself and stay de-tagged.
This goes right back to the family-friend-client thing; there are some photos and videos that are inappropriate for some people to see. I see this as an invasion of my privacy and I want the option to not be included.
Every time someone tags us in a photo or a video, we see this appear in the Notifications button on the bottom right of the Facebook tool bar. All that’s needed is an option that says something along the lines of: “Do you wish to be tagged?”
I personally find it extremely odd that we are forced into being tagged and not given a choice to opt out.
Update: as highlighted by Carla in the comments, the option to remove a tag of yourself in photos and videos does exist. However, the option is after the fact, that is to say, you’ve already been tagged at this point, regardless of you wanting to be tagged or not. Just to reiterate my earlier point, the process is wrong and should be: 1. a person tags you, which does not appear until, 2. you authorize the tag manually.
Sensible URLs for our profiles, Pages and Groups
We’re now seeing people and businesses using Facebook for serious purposes. The one thing that undermines our profiles, Pages and Groups is the computerized URLs we see for those items.
I have a Page for the Blah, Blah! Technology blog, whose URL sort of looks sensible enough, until you see the almost random stream of numbers towards the end.
We need sensible URLs, that are:
- easy for people to remember, write down or tell to someone else, and;
- are also good for the search engines (SEO) so people can find us on the web, too.
Of course, as anyone who’s performed a search on Facebook will attest, there are often many, many people with the same names. But I’m sure some geographic specificity would help sort such things out.
Let’s face it, the guys behind Facebook aren’t exactly stupid, so I have every confidence they could figure something out.
Conclusion…
Facebook is big and it’s getting bigger all of the time. What we’re seeing are the signs of growth and the pain that comes with such rapid growth.
While it’s not possible to please all of the people all of the time, there are some prerequisites that would certainly go a long way, and these five are amongst those very things…
Recommended reading
Our motto here at GeneaBlogie is “Learn, Share, En joy, Appreciate!” To which we often add, “Express Gratitude!” Today, I am grateful for the following:
In early February, I went on the site Find-A-Grave.com to update some family grave postings there. While I was there, I thought it would be nice to add photographs of two gravesites in particular: those of my great-grandparents, Otis Manson and Betty Sanford Manson. I knew both were buried in Fairview Cemetery in Midland, Texas. The only problem was that I didn’t have any such photographs.
Find-A-Grave has a feature that allows users to request a photograph be taken by a volunteer near the cemetery which contains the particular grave. Likewise, users can make known their availability and willingness to take photographs. As we used to say when I was in the credit union business, it’s “people helping people.”
I requested a photograph of the graves of Otis and Betty. Yesterday, I was thrilled to find a message from Find-A-Grave that there was a photograph for me! At the page for Otis Manson, I found that someone had posted this photo:
Gravesite of Otis Manson and Betty Sanford Manson, Fairview Cemetery, Midland, Texas
The same photo was posted on Betty’s page. The photographer and poster was identified by the Find-A-Grave pseudonym, Knightchow. This is the inveterate Find-A-Grave contributor and occasional GeneaBlogie reader named “Michelle.” I immediately went to her Find-A-Grave profile page and left her a message thanking her for this kindness. Then I conitnued surfing through Find-A-Grave. I came to the page for one Ed Featherstone, and (”Saints preserve us!”), there was this picture:
Grave of Ed Featherstone, Fairview Cemetery, Midland, Texas. He apparently was born in 1911, not 1920 as the headstone says.
Posted by the self-same Knightchow! Indeed, she had created the entire page back in 2007, and somehow I had never come across it. Ed Featherstone was married to Myrtle Serrita Manson (1906-1987), daughter of Otis and Betty.
I wrote her again to thank her for this photo. I asked her to transfer the page to my ownership, which she did cheerfully and almost instantly.
This experience was just great! So today we recognize Michelle with the first-ever Geneablogie “Gibraltar Award.”
Thank You!
