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Google Books: You may never go to a library again

lbramly — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 20:28:17 +0000

OK, I’m going to tell you about yet another amazing product from google… I am so in love with their stuff, but first, I must refer you to Freelance Folder (www.freelancefolder.com). Go to their web site and sign up for daily articles sent to your email inbox. The articles mostly pertain to freelancing, but even if you don’t freelance you will still find valuable tips about resources, time savers and general information about how to better organize yourself. Thanks to Freelance Folder and their contributor Heather Johnson for the following tip about:

Google Books!

Apparently google has spent a lot of time scanning in over a million books and making them available online. Books in the “public domain,” meaning that their copyright has run out, may be viewed in their entirety. If a book is still under copyright, then only limited pages may be viewed. Books may also be purchased through Google Books, making this service a boon to publishers and authors. However, unlike Amazon.com and other online bookstores, I am guessing that google’s book database is much larger.

The real power of Google Books is its search engine that searches the contents of all the books in the database. This makes Google Books one of the most powerful research tools ever. It’s like having the contents of every library you have ever visited at your finger tips. Simply type a word or phrase in to the search box, click the Search Books button, and presto — google finds all the books that match the search terms you entered. You can display any page on which your search term is found, regardless of the book’s copyright status, but you cannot print books that are not in the public domain.

Better yet, should you wish to visit a physical library, you can click on the “Find This Book in a Library” button and key in your zip or postal code. Google links to the WorldCat.org database for a library that has copies of the book, and lets you know if the book is available! No wasted trips to the library. And of course, if you absolutely must own a copy of the book, you can click on one of the book seller web sites listed.

If you do not have a google account (i.e. a gmail address, or a subscription to adsense or any other google services), Google Books can be a challenge to find. If one goes to google’s classic search page, one would never know that they offer anything other than a search page, as there is no evident way from that page to access any of the other google functions!! However, if you go to http://books.google.com/, you can access Google Books directly, or you can google “Google Books” and display the link. If you do have a gmail account or some other google account, you can find Google Books under the “more” menu at the top of your google home page or gmail page (click on “Books”).

Happy researching!

How to Remember to Get the Milk

lbramly — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 23:45:48 +0000

I know many people have trouble remembering everything that they have to do. We have too much information coming at us. Our lives are busier than ever. Wasn’t technology going to help? Personally I think technology has just complicated our lives even further, but then along comes a piece of software that makes you think there is hope yet.

Remember the Milk is a free online service that keeps track of everything that you have to do. You can create To Do lists, give a date to your tasks, and organize your tasks into categories that might represent the projects you have on the go or the areas of importance in your life (a’la Stephen Covey). You can prioritize your lists, print them, write notes, and display your tasks by date. You can mark them complete, and any tasks not completed on the date you said you would complete it, are marked in red so you can’t avoid them. The program gets even more indepth than what I have described here, but this is simply as far as I have taken it and as far as I need to go right now.

I know, I know, you’ve tried software to keep you organized. You’ve bought every daytimer ever created, and you’ve even tried to create your own. You’ve tried keeping post-it notes all over your desk, you’ve tried a PalmPilot, you’ve tried the calendar on your cellphone. Why is Remember the Milk different? Two reasons.

First, you can link Remember the Milk to your gmail email, your gmail calendar and your igoogle home page. It links to other programs as well, but I am slowly becoming all google, all the time. This means that I don’t have to go to a different web page to get my To Do list or update my tasks. Between gmail, the calendar and the home page, my list is almost always displayed on my computer screen and I can update it directly from here. I could even access it from my cellphone if I wanted to. This also means that as the moment strikes me and I suddenly remember something I have to do, I can type in the task right there on my gmail screen, which is always active. The number of scribbled-on PostIt notes on my desk is starting to decrease…

Second, it’s flexible and forgiving. I can set this program up almost any way I can imagine. I can keep my grocery list filed under the notes section for the “Go Grocery Shopping” task. I can type in the task and the date all in one sentence (i.e. Work on Proposal June 4) and it automatically picks out the date and assigns the task to June 4. I can also set times to log meetings in the To Do list.

My only complaint is that when the program said it interacted with google calendar, I thought that any time-specific meetings that I have set up on my Remember the Milk list would automatically show up in the google calendar. I also thought the opposite might be true, and Remember the Milk might pick up any meetings and tasks I have listed in the calendar. Right now I am running both and trying to remember to log meetings in both places, although my Remember the Milk To Do list does conveniently display in google calendar.

And best of all, it’s free! However, as I keep using it, I am sure that I will be sending them a donation, even just to thank them for all the money I will save on PostIt notes!

All of my graphic design clients should read this!

lbramly — Wed, 21 May 2008 20:58:33 +0000

I subscribe to an email newsletter from Freelance Folder. They send me articles regularly from their various contributors. Most of the articles have to do with the freelance life, getting more clients, diversifying one’s freelance business and the like, but yesterday they sent out an article entitled “Typography Essentials — A Getting Started Guide.” The author talks about font basics, types and styles of fonts, when it’s best to use serif and sans serif fonts, type alignment, and when it’s best to use certain types of alignment. This is a great article to pull out when I say that a paragraph ought to be left-justified and the client insists that it be justified! However, I have to admit, some of my clients have a great eye, and yes, justification does work best in some places where the norm would say it doesn’t.

Read the article and bookmark it for future use!

Quit stalling and just write something!

lbramly — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 22:47:06 +0000

I’ve been staring at my screen for some time now, alternating between this, building my web site and IM’ing a friend… general procrastination stuff! I’ve been thinking that I ought to write something profound, this being my first post and all, but I think I’ll just keep it short and sweet and let you, the reader, know what to expect from these blogs.

My blog has two objectives:

provide clients and readers with tips and tricks dealing with common software and computer issues, writing, and graphic design
keep readers informed of my experience of being a 45-year-old (almost) woman who, by virtue of moving all over the place and investing heavily in the family, has let her career, um, let’s just say, “lose focus,” and must now regroup, rebuild and make some money doing something I enjoy! I have a couple of wonderful clients who have followed me halfway round the world and stuck with me for years, but I am definitely in serious rebuilding mode. I am writing this in the hopes that other women (or men) can share in my experience, learn from it, give me feedback and hopefully gain knowledge and confidence in their own rebuilding process.

Fortunately I have solved the ‘what do I want to do’ problem, and am returning to what I love and do best: communicate. Those who know me will say, “But isn’t that what you’ve been doing all along?” Well, I think the major revelation to me is that I needed to add writing back into the mix. I have done a lot of editing and graphic design over the years, but have not written in any serious way. So, I will be adding technical writing back in to the services I offer, and am also committing to writing at least two articles per month for publication (particularly travel writing!). I am also blogging on this site and on www.eldercaretalk.com, my web site for caregivers of elders with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.

While I will be focusing more on writing, I will continue to offer editing, graphic design , workshop facilitation and conference management services. I found out a long time ago that I can be more helpful to my clients if I can offer all of these services, as usually one feeds off another and my clients don’t need to go and find someone else who can write their brochure copy or design the brochure for the conference I am managing.

As you can see, finding enough to write about is not one of my problems…

Cheers,

Laura