• New NewsGator Extensions
  "NewsGator users: check out Greg Reinacker's blog.... Extensions include a cool calendar extension that takes feeds and ads them to Outlooks calendar. Also one that looks at feeds that don't push down all the content (lame lame lame, if you're one of the feeds that does that) and lets you slurp up all the content. I love THAT!" [Scobleizer]

• AmphetaRate
  "AmphetaRate RSS Recommendation is the first RSS recommendation server. It calculates your likes / dislikes to create a personalized RSS recommendation feed. We also currently provide an aggregator based on AmphetaDesk to communicate to AmphetaRate." [Lockergnome's RSS Resource]

• "You might want to check out FeedDemon by Nick Bradbury. While it comes with default style sheets, users are able to create their own XSL for efficiently processing the information. So, if you wanted to view just the first paragraph, you could create your own style or ask someone in the community to create one.
  
  Radek, an active community member, has created styles that hint at what can be achieved with this combination, from rating your feeds in a database, to creating powerful MindMaps." [Note to Self, via Jon's Radio]

I think all of these indicate that we're seeing a new phase for news aggregators. The first months of 2004 are going to be a major marker on a future timeline showing progress on the march towards maturation.

In my aggregator this weekend, I found links to an interactive Library of Congress Lewis and Clark and the Revealing of America Exhibition [via Peter Scott's Library Blog] and Michael Stephen's post iSights for Science Alive about the St. Josteph County PL's setup to let kids view a live Mars feed and talk to Astronaut Bob!

I love seeing this kind of stuff from libraries. Nicely done.

Meryl Evans sent me several links, mostly to do with RSS:

Newsletter Wars: Email Vs. RSS

Is RSS the Great Spaminator

FeedDemon Tutorial

While I enjoyed all of these links, what really blew me away was Wink, the software Meryl used to create the FD tutorial.

"Wink is a Tutorial and Presentation creation software, primarily aimed at creating tutorials on how to use software (like a tutor for MS-Word/Excel etc). Using Wink you can capture screenshots of your software, use images that you already have, type-in explanations for each step, create a navigation sequence complete with buttons, delays, titles etc and create a highly effective tutorial for your users....

This is a good example of how you can create tutorials in Wink, by capturing screenshots, mouse movements and specifying your own explanations with them. And all this in a standard Windows-based UI with drag-and-drop editing makes it very easy to create high quality tutorials/documentation....

Capture screenshots from your PC, or use images in BMP/JPG/PNG/TIFF/TGA/PCX formats.... Export your presentations as Macromedia Flash, Standalone EXE, PDF, HTML or any of the above image formats. Use Flash/html for the web, EXE for distributing to PC users and PDF for printable manuals."

And best of all, it's free! The one drawback is that appears to be for Windows machines only, even though the output can be cross-platform. This could be a great tool for libraries that want to offer step-by-step instructions on their web sites.

Chicago Public Library Look-up Bookmarklet

"Infoworld columnist Jon Udell, has created a very handy bookmarklet to cross reference titles at the major online book stores (Amazon, Barnes and Noble etc), against the stock of your local library. This bookmarklet however, never worked with the Chicago Public Library (CHIPUB) system, which uses the CARLweb catalogue management software. After a little investigation into the esoteric features of CARLweb, I think I may have remedied this situation....

Chicago Public Library Look Up Bookmarklet

Possible issues:

• Books have unique ISBN numbers for both paperback and hardback editions. If available, it is likely that the library will stock the hardback edition, so select the relevant edition at the online store before searching.
   
• The bookmarket creates a pop-up window, which may be suppressed, if you are running a pop-up blocking browser or application. Either disable the blocker before searching, or add the Chicago Public Library URL (www.chipubweb.org) to acceptable sites.

If your local library uses the CARLweb system, and you would like assistance in creating a bookmarklet, let me know and I will be happy to help. Please note, Jon tells me the search functionality appears to be inconsistent across CARLweb systems, so an implementation may not always be possible." [Notes from the Box Factory]

Emphasis above is mine. So does anyone know someone at CPL that can post this information to their web site? I have one name, and I'll send this to her, but it would be great to have multiple people on board.

Thanks, Ian!

• I am thrilled to see an RSS feed for National Geographic News! Check out that orange XML button at the top of the newest page that is now going in my presentations. [Recently approved feeds from Syndic8.com]
   
• "The Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau, whose mission is to "to serve the Wisconsin Legislature and the public by providing nonpartisan legal, research, and library services." is syndicating their publications." [Library Stuff]
   
• U of L Libraries RSS Feeds: "The following RSS feeds contain the newest 10 books added to the University of Louisville Libraries collections in various subject areas. This is a preliminary study into this area and not all subject areas are covered at this time." Very nice! Another winner for my presentations, one that I wish I'd had before last week's presentation to our academic librarians!
   
• I already have one convert after last week's RSS presentation! Ann caught on pretty quickly. The Indian Prairie Public Library District maintains a community web site, and she's already added a Feedroll list of Chicago Sun-Times headlines to the Local Media section! She also wrote to tell me that she's up to 30 feeds in Bloglines already. Heh.