Have a few seconds at the computer and don't know what to do with them? Try out Domai.nr.
(Yes, that's the URL. Most web browsers will assume the "http://" and not all addresses have a 'www' at the front.)
This simple tool will take what you type in (single words seem to work best... phrases may get mangled) and suggest combinations of domain names, domain name types (although .com and .net are among the most common, there are literally hundreds), and first level directories to represent your entry as a web address.
I of course had to try my first and last names (not exciting) and, since I'm a librarian, I had to try that next. It suggested "librari.an"... I thought, woah, that's awesome... I'm gonna buy that domain. But Domai.nr links to a site that allows you to do just that, a site that tells you how much and what's required. Turns out that it would cost almost $300 USD a year to own it. AND you have to have a local contact in the islands of the Netherlands Antilles. AND you have to have a company located there. "Well, I don't have ALL those things..."
It was fun while it lasted. Tell me if you find any other interesting ones!
[ via Lifehacker's entry entitled "Top 10 Tools for Your Blog or Web Site" ]
Labels: 2checkout, aboutOnlineTools
Just checked out a relatively new wiki called "Medpedia". This is a highly controlled yet global wiki acting as an encyclopedia for medical concepts (such as drugs, conditions, anatomical terms, tests, etc.) for use by anyone from medical professionals to health care consumers (articles having tabs for both "plain english" and "clinical" versions). It is still in the development or beta stage and will be for a while, as projects like this must and ought to be.
It has a seemingly reasonable search function from my few tests, listing title keyword hits first then those from the article text. It's difficult to determine how effective it is at this time, given that there are so few entries written so far (I estimate only about 1700). To aid searching, there is also an "All Articles" display that lists all articles (duh) in alphabetical order.
From what I can see, the content is excellent, each article providing a wealth of information in a common format (recognizable to anyone who uses Wikipedia), organized into useful categories. For example, in the broad concept article for "Cancer" there is a glossary of related terms to help the user understand the subject better and to link them to other articles that may be helpful. Drug entries have the usual necessary subcategories such as other names, how it's to be taken, risks, and alternatives.
I have two problems with this otherwise exceptional tool (and project). Firstly, not all finished articles have what I would consider sufficient references to support the content. Some have dozens of excellent linked citations (such as the Plain English article for "Aspirin" but some have one citation or nothing listed under references. Hopefully, this will be remedied as the site grows.
The other issue I have has to do with the drug information. More than any other medical information, drug monographs are subject to confusion, rapid change and bias from interested parties. Although the articles about various pharmaceuticals are given as much scrutiny as all other content in this site, I'm more willing to trust the collective information about them from such texts as "DrugPoints" (formerly the USPDI), Martindale's Drug Reference, and even the CPS. I would think that a comprehensive reference for drug information would at least contain a mention of these resources.
So go and check out Medpedia for yourself. Tell me what YOU think about it.
(This entry was also written for BrackenBlog, the somewhat internal blog for the Bracken Health Sciences Library at Queen's University.)
Labels: aboutHealth, aboutOnlineTools
From Tomorrow's Professor Blog, I read an article about the current push for universities to offer 3 year undergraduate degree programs instead of, or in addition to, the standard 4 year programs. The claim is that it will save money, both for the institution and for the student, get people into the work force faster, and result in a more streamlined, "fuel-efficient" education system.
Bah, I say. As soon as I read this, I hung my head in despair. This is not the direction we need to be going. On a biological level, there's an inborn need for more formative years (i.e. more education of immature individuals in the species... not intended as an insult lol) the more complex the lifestyle or society the individual is born into. Everyone seems to be saying that life is much more complex now, and is getting more so... There are simply more things to learn and more specialized nooks for people to fit themselves into. We don't want less educated generalists, generally - we want better trained, better educated, more mature workers. Actually, we need everyone to be more educated generally, I think.
I have to reveal my bias in this of course. I am a librarian in a university, and although I think our library, serving our faculty, within our university helps the students (and staff and faculty) more than average, I still don't think we have enough time with them. We are integrated into their classes almost entirely but we still see the vast majority of the students about 3-4 hours for formal education sessions in information literacy throughout their time here. For a subject and skill set that most people don't think is useful or think they have already (wrong on both counts), this is hardly enough time to change their opinions AND teach them what they need to know. Shortening the time some of them are in university, will simply decrease our time with them, and increase the pressure of the faculty members to give us even less.
As it says in the article, "the push for three years [is] coming from those whose ideas about higher ed amount to: 'get it over with and get it over with fast.'" Yes. In all likelihood, shortening the amount of time students are required to spend in higher education would be cheaper all round. But so would not attending university at all! That's not the direction we want to be going. Honestly, our education system here in Canada and the United States is not perfect. But cutting the time in it is not the answer. More time might be. At least, better teaching strategies and an improved societal atmosphere of "education is a good thing" would help. And more money too. Cutting funds from higher education just destroys all the work that we have done in the past several years to improve our teaching as it is.
The funniest part of the article is the quote from Richard Vedder saying that "Thomas Jefferson's two-year program at the College of William and Mary didn't stunt his intellectual growth." Ignoring the tiring habit of Americans to bring up their founding fathers every chance they get, couldn't Thomas Jefferson be an exception? And besides, I think the almost 250 years since Mr. Jefferson graduated has seen a few developments that may make even a general liberal arts degree require a little more effort. LOL
934 The Buzz and Spin on 3-Year Degrees (via Tomorrow's Professor Blog, RSS feed)
Labels: aboutEducation, aboutMoney
