Important information from Dr. Baltrip, "Everyone has a paper trail. Everyone."
And you can believe that. Nothing gets done anymore without a million forms to fill out and information to enter.
Budgets are a huge source of information if you know how to read them.
There are lots of institutions from which to get information. Here are a few of them:
The SEC
The FCC
The Government Printing Office
The CDC
The FDA
The CIA World Fact Book
Jack Ryan would approve.
The Census
The National Center for Educational Statistics
US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
NOAA.gov
Here are a few more sites, not government related, who use the freedom of information act and provide access to institutional information:
Guide Star, which is a non-profit search
The Smoking Gun
Crimetime
Black Book Info
White Pages
Search Systems, a public records directory
Flight Aware allows you to track airline flights
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Extreme Twitter For Your Face!
Today we're learning about "extreme Twitter" in my Computer Assisted Reporting (C.A.R.) class. Since I have more than 900 "tweets" (I prefer to call them "twits" myself but "tweet" is the preferred nomenclature, dude) I think I'm already pretty "extreme." (Or, extremely lame, since I twit so much.)
The first lesson is, of course, be careful. Twitter can be viewed by anyone so make sure you know what you're twitting. (Mine is locked, so I have to approve anyone who sees my twits...unless I send them a direct twit using the "@" symbol and their username.)
We went over the basic structure of the Twitter homepage @username, direct messages, favorites, retweets, etc.
Currently trending worldwide: "Justin Bieber." This kid always seems to be trending so I'm pretty sure that 12-17 year old girls are the ones who twit the most. At least the evidence seems to suggest this.
Twitter only allows 140 characters, which is similar to the number of characters in a text message. Most major wireless carriers will allow 160 characters so I'm not sure why Twitter is capped at 140.
Dr. Baltrip also discussed hashtags, for example #Bacon, which are used to index twits. Hashtags are searchable.
One website discussed in class was Twitter Facts and, specifically, their post about following newsfeeds on Twitter. There's a lot of great information about Twitter that can be found here and I'm sure I'll get more out of Twitter after combing the site for tips.
Another site discussed was TwitterSearch, which I wasn't aware of and should make finding more sources for my article easier. Trendsmap allows you to track what's trending and where. I didn't know about it, either and I think I'm going to waste a lot of time playing with that site. When I don't have C.A.R. homework to do, of course. TweetDeck.com is a directory for Twitter and they also have an iPhone app, which means nothing to me since I have a Motorola Droid. Monitter.com lets you monitor current twits in real time, which is awesome...but a little big brother-ish, IMHO.
For ease of twitting links, which can often be long, Dr. Baltrip showed us bitly.com though, since BIMAD stands for "Bacon Is My Anti-Drug" I prefer bacn.me. Mmmm...Bacon.
Twitpic.com and twitvid.com are sites which allow you to post pictures and videos to your Twitter account.
Twitterfeed.com allows you to have your blogs post directly to Twitter. I do this manually but if you're lazy and/or post a lot of blog entries (which I do not) then I could see the appeal of this site.
Hootsuite.com allows you to combine many of your social networks into one dashboard. It's okay, I guess, but a little busy. Sort of unnecessary for me, since I used tabbed browsing in Firefox (and some of my networks, Blip.fm, for example, aren't supported) but I might get into it as time goes on.
Something completely unrelated to Twitter, but nonetheless an awesome tool, is the Google Wonder Wheel, which I think is really going to make my research easier. I would urge everyone to explore this tool. I plan on doing it.
Here are some good Google tips from the NY Times.
The last thing we discussed were "wordles" or "word clouds," which I had seen but didn't know there was a term for them or, really, how they worked. Apparently, they provide greater presence to words that are used more often in speeches, writing, etc. It's actually kind of cool.
Labels:
extreme twitter,
google,
tweet,
tweeting,
tweets,
twit,
twitter,
word cloud,
wordle
Thursday, March 4, 2010
good to know information on how to find information.
Here are a list of sites we received in class which should help us locate information.
K-State open records info
The Student Press Law Center and their FOIA letter generator. (Pretty freakin' awesome, IMHO.)
FCC's FOIA page
Kansas Sunshine Coalition for Open Government
Library of Congress
The Gutenberg Project, where you can get over 30,000 free books as their copyright has expired.
American Library Association
Encyclopedia Britanica
Infomine: Scholarly Research
IPL2
Academic Info, lots of scholarly stuff here, including video lectures on myriad subjects.
And, personally, I like to study/research/write with music. Some of the best music for me is R.E.M., so here's R.E.M.'s YouTube page for your academic pleasure.
K-State open records info
The Student Press Law Center and their FOIA letter generator. (Pretty freakin' awesome, IMHO.)
FCC's FOIA page
Kansas Sunshine Coalition for Open Government
Library of Congress
The Gutenberg Project, where you can get over 30,000 free books as their copyright has expired.
American Library Association
Encyclopedia Britanica
Infomine: Scholarly Research
IPL2
Academic Info, lots of scholarly stuff here, including video lectures on myriad subjects.
And, personally, I like to study/research/write with music. Some of the best music for me is R.E.M., so here's R.E.M.'s YouTube page for your academic pleasure.
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