findingDulcinea

Social Bookmarking at its Most Fun

The second generation of social bookmarking sites is attempting to take the concept of grabbing a link and turning it into something visually appealing, addictive and all-encompassing. While many people swear by the comparatively old-school Delicious and Digg, there is room in these people’s lives—and yours—for other sites.

Current is technically a user-powered cable television station founded by Al Gore, but it also happens to be a social bookmarking Web site and hub for the station where you can watch video, read news items and comment and vote articles up or down, as well as submit your own. The focus, generally speaking, is on issues of public interest and issues that will pique your interest.

We Heart It calls itself a “visual bookmark for everyone.” Users have an eye for elegant imagery on the Web, whether it’s a photograph in a field, the interior of a house, a cute animal or a piece of clothing. Submissions are presented as squares and users can “heart” the selections they fancy and “explore more” to see similar items. (Warning: some items may be considered unsafe for work).

BuzzFeed is a time-bending portal to amusing, gross, and strange (did I say amusing?) items discovered on the Web. BuzzFeed has a staff of curators, but also invites user submissions. Each item comes with a photo or video, a link, user responses and other links on that topic. But you’ll likely never leave the site, so it doesn’t really matter.

Twine claims that it “Understands Your Interests,” and this is certainly an inviting proposition. Test it out by joining communities within the site, such as “Financial and Economic Global Crisis” or “Politics,” browsing the links others have posted and posting your own. You can bookmark items, share them and comment on them, and Twine will recommend items it thinks you’ll like.

Liz Colville
Senior Writer
Audience Development

Sweet Sites | Don't Get Fooled Again: Know Fact from Fiction

Know how to tell truth from fiction with help from these three Web sites.
 
Keep your e-mail inbox free of viruses, scams and hoaxes with help from Purportal.com, "debunking bunk since 2001." The site allows you to search various reputable databases and sites that collect information about urban legends, sneaky ways of parting you from your money and various bits of code you just don't want on your computer.  Sources include Snopes, Symantec and Fraud Watch International.
 
Continue on the factual path with Scirus, a search engine for scientific information that indexes journals, scientists' personal pages and coursework. A sister site, SciTopics, offers "research summaries" on a variety of different subjects in the sciences and the humanities, such as chemistry, environmental science and philosophy.
 
Librarians built Infomine, a collection of databases, electronic journals, books and other resources for university-level students and staff. It includes links to both paid and free content, and offers bibliographic information about each site.

Find your own "eureka" sites using SweetSearch.

Amy Goldschlager
Editor

If you like this newsletter, sign up for our weekly dose of travel insights or our weekly education-themed picks here.

Who Wants to Be an Internet Expert?

Back in the olden days, people talked about the list of books they wanted to read but would probably never get to. Although the lists might have been long, they may have been more manageable than we realized. With the Web, we’re getting a seemingly infinite number of articles thrown at us every minute. It’s hard to make a reading list—never mind get through it.

Fortunately, findingDulcinea, your friendly, neighborhood Internet librarian, has a solution: Our daily and weekly e-mail newsletters. Or, as we like to think of them: Expertise in Your Inbox.

* The Daily Dulcinea: A dose of knowledge spotlighting a notable biography or historical event. On Saturday, we'll send you "5 Must-Reads You May Have Missed" during the week.
* Weekly Travel Newsletter: a virtual tour of under-the-radar vacation destinations.
* Weekly Education Newsletter: a curation of Web sites and tools that aim to empower teachers, librarians, parents and students.
* Sweet Sites: a weekly e-mail of Web sites that will aid your research, up your Internet savvy and expand your mind.

Sign up here, now!

Your desire to become an Internet expert is probably reason enough for you to sign up for one or all of these newsletters. But if you need more incentive, we've created a list of reasons:

1. Our "On This Day" and Happy Birthday e-mails are guaranteed to tell you the correct date, every day.
2. There's no point to that new smartphone if no one is e-mailing you, right? We'll e-mail you. We promise.
3. We are more consistent/less demanding than the boy/girl/client/gig you wish was e-mailing you.
4. Getting our travel newsletter is like traveling, except you can bring more than 3 fluid ounces with you when you read it.
5. Our weekly "Sweet Sites" e-mail is not as bad for your teeth as other sweets. Nor will it get your keyboard sticky when you surf the Web.
6. If you lie and say you found one of our Sweet Sites yourself, we'll never find out.
7. Visit our Religion and Spirituality Web Guide to deal with the guilt you'll feel about stealing credit for our awesome work.

Earth Day 2009: Blogging from Earth

Globes from an exhibit called "Cool Globes: Hot Ideas for a Cooler Planet" at the Rose Garden at Exposition Park in Los Angeles,Tuesday, April 21, 2009. (Photo: Reed Saxon/AP)

Visit our new section, The Environment, for news stories and features on food and farming; environmental threats; global environmental news; green living guides; wildlife news and more.

Our environmental coverage on the findingDulcinea blog has been varied: we’ve evaluated disaster-relief sites, given you the scoop on eco-cleaning products and divulged our favorite green city guides. Below, we’ve rounded up a few Earth Day-inspired posts for your web surfing pleasure.

Disaster Tracking

Research centers located around the world are dedicated to monitoring the violent storms that seem to be constantly discussed by news networks. Whether you’re concerned about floods, volcanoes, earthquakes or tornadoes, the research center Web sites in this "Sweet Sites" post on emergency preparedness will keep you in-the-know.

Traveling Green

Last fall, we introduced you to two fun and informative travel sites with an environmental slant. The green city guides are particularly helpful, explaining, for instance, where to walk and view great architecture in Chicago, and how to keep it green in Christchurch. Head over to our post on Green City Guides for further details and chosen links.

The Great Green Clean

If you’re a clean freak but hate the chemical smell associated with most home cleaning products, read our post on Green Cleaning. We culled information and tips on keeping a tidy home sans noxious odors and toxins, and linked to our favorite sources on everything from dish soap to laundry detergent.

An Arctic Following

With Arctic ice rapidly disappearing and dire predictions made by some researchers, you might be wondering what the true story is up north. To narrow things down and gain perspective, read our post on Monitoring the Arctic, where we’ve linked to organizations and online libraries to aid your researching efforts.

Sarah Amandolare
Senior Writer

Yom Hashoah: Struggling to Remember

The Hall of Names at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem (Photo: Sebastian Scheiner/AP)

A phrase frequently associated with the Holocaust is “Never Forget.” It’s become more poignant as the majority of the survivors of those terrible times are now no longer with us. While we may eventually gain some intellectual understanding of the events, emotionally engaging with such a monstrous event is difficult without some kind of personal connection.

As the daughter and granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, I can claim a certain personal connection. I am deeply aware of how improbable it is that I even exist. My mother is a Hungarian-American Jew who was born in Budapest in 1944. During her infancy, my grandfather was in a camp, and my grandmother sought safety and shelter for herself and my mother in various safe houses established by the Red Cross and by Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg.

Of course, my mother has no memory of those days, and sadly, my brave grandmother died shortly after I was born. My grandfather survived the camps, and when I was a teenager, he tried to share some of his experiences with me. He died about 10 years ago, and now those memories are lost, too. My grandfather’s one surviving friend (who herself was dramatically saved by Raoul Wallenberg’s intervention) is in her 90s.

Soon, there will be no one left to share a first-person account, and so much has already been forgotten. All we will have is the historical record and the mass of personal narratives left behind by those who could serve as witnesses. As the Holocaust recedes into the past, we must do what we can to continue to make it real, to understand how genocide occurs and to learn how we can stop atrocities occurring today and in the future.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009, is Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. Congress has officially set aside the entire week of April 19 to remember the events of the Holocaust. FindingDulcinea has created a Web page of resources to help you learn and share information about the Holocaust. Forge your own connection, however tenuous it may be. Help make sure we will not forget.

Amy Goldschlager
Editor

The Boston Marathon Is the Heart of US Distance Running

Photo: Bizuayehu Tesfaye/AP

CEO Mark Moran is live tweeting as he runs the Boston Marathon. Follow him @markemoran.

As I write this, more than 26,000 people, who all qualified with previous marathon times, are running or have just completed the Boston Marathon, which weaves downhill and then gradually up Heartbreak Hill through several outlying towns and into Boston. Already, the top professional runners have finished, with Salina Kosgei of Kenya placing first for the women and Deriba Merga of Ethiopia finishing first for the men. The Americans Kara Goucher and Ryan Hall each finished in third place. For a play-by-play recap of the pro races, read the USA Today blog Game On. You can find complete, searchable results of all the athletes running the race at the Boston Athletic Association Web site.

Boston is in many senses the heart of U.S. distance running, even if the most talented running professionals now spend their time in verdant and high-altitude places like Mammoth Lakes, Calif. and Portland, Ore. to help them improve their fitness levels and compete with the Africans. The U.S. running boom, which started in the 1970s and called Boston its home, saw Americans like Bill Rodgers (who is running again this year after a 10-year hiatus), Amby Burfoot, Alberto Salazar, Frank Shorter and Grete Waitz burst on the scene, engaging in friendly rivalries and, in Rodgers' case, getting four Boston wins under his belt (for her part, Waitz won the New York City Marathon nine times between 1978 and 1988). They themselves were spurred by the efforts of athletes like Steve Prefontaine, who died prematurely and remains a god in runners' eyes.

Running Boston is no easy feat. It requires training for several months through the winter, which alone is enough to ward off a lot of runners. But our very own CEO Mark Moran is doing it, making this his fifth marathon in a handful of years and possibly his fastest, his previous record coming in Philadelphia last fall. Constantly adapting his training, Mark has shown that with a little Internet savvy, some creativity (he's added boxing to his cross-training routine), and a lot of patience, marathons can actually get easier, not to mention more enjoyable. (So much so that he was having trouble waiting for today to come).

Naturally, being an office of several distance runners—we're running the New York Ragnar Relays in May—we've compiled a series of inspirational and motivational articles, training resources and multimedia to help convert more peple to the Boston cause.

Liz Colville
Senior Writer
Audience Development

If you need another marathon to help you qualify for Boston, want to start running, or have other running-related queries, our Web Guide to Running can help with that.

All Susan Boyle, All the Time (and All in One Place)

Photo: Andrew Milligan/AP

Susan Boyle, the 47-year-old “spinster” singing sensation from Scotland, was clearly the Internet star of the week and will likely continue to fascinate people until she is eliminated—or far more likely wins—season three of “Britain’s Got Talent.” The media coverage of Boyle will likely keep racing ahead. But we’ve pieced together the best multimedia and most interesting aspects of Boyle’s ascent—so far.

Boyle, a self-deprecatingly funny woman who’s never been kissed, hails from West Lothian, a village community in Scotland. She’s so far spent most of her adult life caring for her mother, who recently died. Her mother loved “Britain’s Got Talent” and wanted her daughter to audition for the show. As is often the case in middle age, the death of Boyle’s mother actually inspired her to finally take the plunge, singing “I Dreamed A Dream” from “Les Miserables" in front of a tough crowd that included judge Simon Cowell.

Boyle proved that age is no obstacle in the pursuit of a lifelong dream, namely to become a professional singer. She also gave the audience a “wake-up call,” as one “BGT” judge put it: Her humble appearance prompted many people to assume she wouldn’t be a good singer at all.

Of course, there’s plenty of precedent for wacky auditions. Season one winner Paul Potts was rather insensitively described by that same judge as “a lump of coal,” clearly no indication of his (what she went on to call) “diamond”-like talent: Potts has gone on to sell upwards of four million copies of his debut opera album.

Boyle performed “I Dreamed A Dream” again for U.S. audiences via satellite on “The CBS Early Show” on April 16. The nice thing about this recording is that there isn’t the background noise of “BGT”’s enthusiastic audience.

A 1999 recording of Boyle performing “Cry Me A River” has also turned up on YouTube. It’s only the audio version, but it’s stunning just the same:

Liz Colville
Senior Writer
Audience Development

Gay Rights in the Mainstream Media, Gay Rights in the Twitter Stream

Rep. Beth Bye of Connecticut holds her marriage license, the first issued to a gay couple in the state, on March 6, 2009. (Photo: George Ruhe/AP)

When Proposition 8 appeared on the California ballot in November 2008, gay rights were not yet a mainstream topic. Ironically, when Prop 8 passed, support for gay marriage started to mount. Whereas once homophobia was considered “the last accepted prejudice,” people came out in large numbers to protest the ban, and the media covered it. More states started to push harder for marriage laws. Recently, Iowa and Vermont passed laws in favor of gay marriage, and the District of Columbia council voted to recognize marriage in other states.

Now, the media watch on gay marriage is so tuned in that The New York Times City Room blog published a piece yesterday about N.Y. Gov. David Paterson’s anticipated but unconfirmed plans to introduce a gay marriage bill. Ten years ago, homosexuality was still a taboo topic, but in the past year, most media outlets, and many Americans, take the importance of gay rights as a given.

But perhaps the best example of all was the fast spread of news about the so-called #amazonfail on Twitter. A handful of gay authors found that their books had been reclassified as “adult” on Amazon and therefore could not be found on search. A decade ago, I genuinely believe that those few authors would have been the only ones to know or care about that situation. But this weekend, #amazonfail became the most popular search topic on Twitter.

Amazon decided it was such an emergency that employees were called in on Easter Sunday to fix the problem. The fact that the mistake is being called a PR disaster tells me that somewhere along the way, this country’s attitude toward homosexuality has shifted. No longer is homophobia “the last accepted prejudice.”

Rachel Balik
Senior Writer

Be a Better Web Surfer

Maybe you don't totally understand RSS feeds, want to pimp out your Firefox toolbar, or want to be a better social bookmarker. Whatever online skill you're looking to improve upon, there is something for you below.

Lifehacker's "Most Popular Top 10 Lists of 2008" lets you find this how-to blog's best content of the year in one place, including, "Top 10 Things You Forgot Your Mac Can Do" and "Top 10 Firefox 3 Features."

Our Web Guide, "Web Technology: A Primer," features dozens of high-quality Web sites that will help you understand RSS feeds, podcasts, aggregators, media players, online file-sharing and much more.

InfoPirate's "Top 50+ Social Networking Firefox Add-ons" will clue you in to fun tools that you can add to Firefox's toolbar, making it easier to connect with friends, check your e-mail, bookmark favorite links and sync your browser's bookmarks with those you save on sites like Del.icio.us.

PC World's "16 E-Mail and Instant Messaging Boosters" features software and add-ons for mail clients that can help you better manage tasks, create filters, get rid of junk mail and organize all your messages more effectively.

Lifeclever's "How to organize your cluttered desktop and regain your sanity" has a simple philosophy for cleaning up all those files, no matter what operating system you use. The secret: a series of folders with action-specific names.

MakeUseOf has dozens of great posts that can help you improve your computer's performance, remove unwanted browser features, find hidden functionality in your favorite programs and Web tools, and more. Be sure to bookmark this site.

Liz Colville
Senior Writer
Audience Development

For general how-tos, offline and on, ReadWriteWeb has a post called "A Big List of Sites That Teach You How To Do Stuff." Here you'll find sites like eHow, Expert Village, TrickLife, SuTree, and explanations of the types of skills these sites specialize in.

Using EncontrandoDulcinea as a Spanish Language Learning Tool

Even though encontrandoDulcinea is primarily designed for people who speak Spanish as a first language, or who would rather receive their news and information in Spanish, this bilingual site is also an excellent online resource for those who are trying to learn Spanish or improve their fluency in it.

EncontrandoDulcinea covers stories from the fields of science, politics, nature, health, history, art and international relations, and offers entertaining and informative articles for adults as well as educational material for younger audiences. The “On This Day” feature, for instance, highlights historical events that are of particular interest to the Latino community. As the articles are written in Spanish, they also provide an opportunity to practice reading in Spanish while learning history at the same time.

Considering the exponential way in which bilingualism in the United States is growing, it’s no wonder that more and more people are interested in improving their language skills.

The Instituto Cervantes, a nonprofit organization sponsored by the Spanish government, is devoted to enhancing the teaching of the Spanish language and advancing the culture of Spanish speaking nations. In the U.S., the Institute has venues in New York and Chicago. Whether you’re taking a Spanish course such as the ones offered at the Institute, or are practicing the language on your own, the articles that encontrandoDulcinea offers can be a great source of language practice.

Our Web Guide to Learning Spanish is also a valuable resource for those looking to learn Spanish or improve their skills via the Web.

Recession-Themed Shopping: Stimulate Your Taste Buds, Stimulate the Economy

The recession may be a bitter pill to swallow. But in the adversity inherent in an economic downturn comes opportunity for marketers looking to sweeten our lives with recession-themed products.

Among the products whose (figurative) stock is rising: FinancialCrunch.com, home of “Sweet Assets.” Mentioned in an earlier post on the findingDulcinea blog, the site allows consumers to slake their recession-tide cravings with a whole portfolio of confections including “Short Change,” a box of chocolate coins (above); “Nest Eggs,” a hollow milk chocolate egg filled with dark chocolate coins inside; and the “Stimulus Package,” guaranteed to provide happy returns.

Wash it all down with some bright green “Stimulus Soda.” The blue raspberry/pineapple-flavored concoction, which the makers dubbed “the nation’s first bailout brew,” tastes a bit like a Sweet Tart, according to NBC Chicago.

For weight-conscious folk looking to get a sour-sweet recession-themed punch, Design Glut’s Dow Jones handkerchiefs put the DJIA’s performance over the past five years right around your neck. Or place an online bid for some preppy-chic Lehman Brothers swag.

After all, bailout is the new black (or way to get into the black, at least).

Anne Szustek
Senior Writer

For sweet financial news during this recession, check out my daily column, Chin Up in the Downswing. To wrap your head around the subprime mortgage crisis, see our Web Guide to the Global Financial Crisis. To wrap your head in curlers, see either the year 1955 or findingDulcinea’s Web Guide to Beauty.

What Are the 5 Things You Can't Live Without, Even During the Recession?

Photo: Anthony Devlin/AP

We’ve done a series of features on the recession that aim to tackle the concerns that ordinary people are having in a climate of layoffs, foreclosures, scrimping and saving. One of the most popular, “What Are the 5 Things You Can't Live Without—Even During the Recession?” had our friends opining to us about their own five things. What about hair care? What about entertainment, travel and hobbies?

So we asked our friends and family to join us on a Facebook group, where many are now sharing their five things. But our curiosity has taken us well beyond Facebook. We want to know what all our readers are spending money on in the recession, even if they’re not on Facebook!

So we’re asking you and everyone you know to tell us your five things. You’ll find a question in the middle of the article. Answer it, then list your five things. Chat with other users about their list using the Qwidget, our comment tool, and stay tuned for next week’s follow-up article: “People’s Choice: 5 Things Worth Spending Money on During the Recession.”

In the meantime, for more tips and sites to better your career, bank balance and overall well-being during the recession, head to our special section, “The Way to Work,” where you’ll find articles like our latest, “The Way to Keep Working: Networking During the Recession.”

Liz Colville
Senior Writer
Audience Development

Culinary Travel Sites for Study Abroad Students

Eating al fresco in Barcelona

Cooking and eating with the locals offers a surefire cultural immersion for students studying abroad. Even without enrolling in a strictly culinary program, students can experience the deeply embedded cultural features intrinsic to native foods, simply by doing as the locals do.

Brave New Traveler’s Ross Lee Tabak has excellent advice for those longing to tuck into a legit local meal, including shopping at the grocery store instead of always eating out, not being afraid to eat alone, trying everything once and walking around during mealtimes to ask locals for their recommendations.

For students who want a more formal and structured culinary education experience abroad, there are plenty of programs to choose from. Try Study Abroad Links, which has a thorough directory of culinary study abroad programs in Argentina, Canada, France, Italy, South Africa, Spain, Thailand and the United States. Or visit the Study Abroad Directory from GoAbroad.com, which lists about 100 different culinary arts programs for students around the world (just highlight “Culinary Arts” in the subject section of the search box).

Finally, visit our "6 Sites for Study Abroad Programs," for more sites to help you plan an educational immersion, or our Food Web Guide to help you indulge in all things culinary on the Web.

Sarah Amandolare
Senior Writer

Qwidget: A Better Way to Comment

The comment section on most Web sites is an area of controlled, and sometimes uncontrolled, chaos. The great thing about the Qwidget, the comment widget that we use on all our news articles, is that it's all about conversation, not just commentary. The Qwidget is a project of the company Chat the Planet, which is responsible for critically acclaimed 2007 documentary "Hometown Baghdad."

The Qwidget asks you a question about an aspect of a story or blog post you've just read, as posed by the publisher of the article. You respond "yes," "no," or "maybe," and are then prompted with "Why?" You can then respond at greater length on the issue. As Phil Glockner of Scribkin puts it, “Think of it as a easy yes/no poll box that’s been pumped full of social media goodness.” After you input your response, you can look at everyone else's comments and respond privately to the people whose answers you're intrigued by. This is a great way to get to know your fellow users, as well as take part in an organized debate online.

The Qwidget calls itself "the conversation starter." Indeed, the Qwidget is worthy of a better description than "comment thread." Threads are easy to lose. But the conversations that happen with the Qwidget aren't. What I like most about it is that it encourages me to read thoroughly. It's not easy to answer a question about an issue like Mexican drug trafficking without having read an article attentively. Learn more about the Qwidget mission here.

Soon we're going to be rolling out the Qwidget in some of our features articles, where we often talk about timely matters that affect you, like the recession. We want to hear more of your opinions and hope to include them in some "people's choice" editions of popular feature articles like "5 Things Worth Spending Money On During the Recession."

Head to any of our news stories to see what Qwidget is like. After you answer your first question, you can create an account in a couple of easy steps!

Liz Colville
Senior Writer
Audience Development

April Fool's Day Jokes that Could Have Saved You Time and Money

 Just because yesterday was April Fool’s Day doesn’t mean you had any less work to do. In fact, maybe you were so busy that you jumped at the chance to enlist Gmail’s help in responding to the numerous e-mails you receive every day. With the newly released Autopilot, Gmail takes its service one step further. Now, Google’s Cognitive Autoheuristic Distributed Intelligence Entity—otherwise known as CADIE—will assess the tone of the e-mails you receive and respond to them for you.

With the time you save by letting CADIE respond to your e-mails, you’ll have plenty of time to download music. The owners of the BitTorrent site The Pirate Bay have made it easier for you, too, by selling their site to Warner Bros.

When they faced their last round of legal charges in Sweden this February, they argued that even if they got sued, they wouldn’t have money to pay the damages. Now they’ve got the cash (around $13 billion) and Warner Bros. can deal with the legal complications.

You’ll also save time now that The Guardian plans to eliminate its print version and switch entirely to the Twitter platform. After all, you knew perfectly well that any story worth telling could be expressed in 140 characters or less. Thank goodness that dinosaur newspaper finally caught on after 188 years!

So you’ve streamlined your day. It’s time to sit back, relax and have a good hearty laugh over all the April Fools’ Day jokes that exploded on the Web. Because as it turns out, no matter what is bothering you or causing you stress, laughter is the best medicine. No…really! It’s not a joke!

Rachel Balik
Senior Writer

Sweet Sites | Eye on the Sky (and Under Ground): Sites on Natural Disasters and Emergency Preparedness

Alaska's Mt. Redoubt (Photo: GeoEye Satellite Image/AP)

A few short weeks ago, Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana appeared on national television and decried the waste of spending money to observe volcanoes in Alaska. Then Alaska’s Mt. Redoubt erupted. Several times. The current flood threat in North Dakota and Minnesota make it clear that keeping an eye on the situation is vital to preserving people and property from danger and damage.

Floods, volcanoes, earthquakes, tornadoes: Who can keep up? Well, research centers across the globe are dedicated to that very purpose, and many of them provide up-to-date information on disaster news, prevention and relief.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Storm Prediction Center provides an animated map of severe weather patterns moving across the United States, storm reports and FAQs about tornadoes and derechos (windstorms).

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Emergency Preparedness and Response helps you lay out a general disaster plan for you and your family, and provides preparedness steps for specific (and currently occurring) hazards, such as volcanic eruptions, floods and blizzards.

The University of Delaware’s Disaster Research Center doesn’t appear to have much useful information on its own site, but it does link to several other disaster research centers across the globe, including the Aon Benfield UCL Hazard Research Centre (ABUHRC), “Europe's leading multidisciplinary academic hazard research centre,” and the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center.

Learn more about one of nature's most dramatic events in our feature article "Nature Wages War: Volcanoes."

Find your own "eureka" sites using SweetSearch.

Amy Goldschlager
Editor