The DAILY genealogy technology newsletter for genealogy
consumers, packed with straight talk - hold the sugar coating - whether
the vendors like it or not!
Want to download thousands of e-books to your Kindle or Nook or other e-book reader? Are you worried about "the weight" of carrying all those books? That's not a problem, according to Professor John Kubiatowicz, a computer scientist at the University of California, Berkeley. He calculated weight difference and found that 4 gigabytes of text increases the weight of your e-book reader by a billionth of a billionth of a gram, about the mass of a single virus or DNA molecule."
I don't think that will make your airline luggage over weight.
If you have heard the news of this weekend's snow storm followed by power outages in the northeastern U.S., I can confirm it is true. Our house has been without power for about 36 hours now. The power company has advised that some customers may not have power restored until Thursday.
In my case, I have no electricity, Internet service, or traditional telephone service. Luckily, the cell phone service has continued to work without interruption and the 3G wireless modem also connects to a nearby cell tower. As a result, I do have Internet service but everything is battery powered. I am limiting my usage in order to conserve the batteries, in case this does stretch into a multi-day outage.
The following is a Plus Edition article written by and copyright by Dick Eastman.
One of the things I detest about many web sites is that when you sign up for a subscription and pay with a credit card, the site automatically renews your subscription when it expires. Some web sites will automatically renew without even the courtesy of notifying you in advance. They keep on billing, and you cannot easily shut down the offending vendor. Of course, you could cancel the credit card itself, but that usually isn't convenient.
Another risk, although rare, is that someone might obtain your credit card number surreptitiously and make illegal charges against it. While all online charges are insured by the credit card companies so that you will never lose any money, going through the process of filing a claim and getting your money back can be inconvenient, at best. I think it is better to stop such an illegal transaction BEFORE it occurs.
Luckily, these problems are easily prevented if you take appropriate steps in advance.
I guess it is reassuring to know that a cemetery is useful. I'd shudder to think that a cemetery might not be useful. As proof of its usefulness, here's a picture of the entrance to the Useful Cemetery:
Hint: the cemetery is located in Useful, Missouri.
The following brief announcement was written by the Canadian Association of University Teachers and published at http://www.caut.ca/pages.asp?page=1036:
Canadian Association of University Teachers to launch national campaign to Save Library and Archives Canada
(Ottawa, October 28, 2011) On Wednesday, November 2, the Canadian Association of University Teachers will launch its national campaign: “Save Library and Archives Canada”.
The campaign will expose how major restructuring of Library and Archives Canada is undermining the institution responsible for preserving Canada’s history and heritage. “Library and Archives Canada is cutting services and acquisitions. Unless this is reversed, the damage to our country will be enormous,” said CAUT’s executive director James L. Turk.
This week I had a chance to use Shoebox. It is an application for the iPhone recently introduced by 1000Memories. Shoebox effectively places a scanner in your iPhone. You can read the announcement at http://goo.gl/IOX25.
You can find any number of applications that allow you to take pictures of pictures, using the iPhone's camera. In fact, even the standard iPhone without any extra software will do that. What makes Shoebox different, however, is its ability to automatically detect the edges of a photo and then quickly crop and straighten the photo accordingly. Even if the picture was not perfectly aligned with the camera when the iPhone picture is taken, Shoebox will correct the alignment and show a picture that is perfectly aligned.
The Georgia Family History Expo will be held November 11-12 at the Gwinnett Center, 6400 Sugarloaf Parkway, Duluth, Georgia. If you can be in the area, I suspect you will enjoy this event.
Family History Expos are held in a number of cities around the U.S. every year. Most of the events are in the western U.S. so an Expo in Georgia is unusual. The Expos are sponsored by Family History Expos, Inc., a company in Utah with Holly Hansen as CEO. Holly and her assistants are well experienced at holding these Expos. I have attended several and have always enjoyed them.
On August 9, 2011, I published a brief article at http://goo.gl/tcfuO about a tragic situation at the the Richland Chambers Reservoir in Navarro County, Texas. One of the worst droughts in Texas history is helping archaeologists unearth a small piece of American history, a graveyard for freed slaves. Now the Corsicana Daily Sun has an update by Oliver Sheehan that gives the latest information.
The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration spent $430 million to create an Electronic Records Archive of millions of documents. NARA Inspector General Paul Brachfeld now says that the system is inadequate and disappointing.
Under the currently deployed system, users can search only by metadata. Such information typically includes tags for information, such as name of the original publication, date of publication, agency that originated the document, and a small number of keywords. Users who hope to locate a document by a word or phrase in a document that isn't part of the metadata will be unable to do so.
Lack of text searchability “is an important weakness, and I am not sure it can be corrected,” Brachfeld said.
How do you read a signature that is heavily slanted with the letters seemingly run together? Genealogists have that problem when trying to identify signatures but numismatists (coin and money collectors) also have the same problem when trying to identify signatures on banknotes and checks.
I have written several times about the online backup service called Backblaze. You can see my earlier "Backblaze - A Better (?) Online Backup System" article at http://goo.gl/mOgp3 and several other articles at http://goo.gl/T1jY9. Now the company has announced version 2.0 of the service and perhaps the biggest surprises of all: lower prices and larger storage limits.
Backblaze’s basic pitch to consumers and businesses is simple: for $5 per month, you can back up an unlimited amount of data over the Internet. The price can drop as low as $3.96/month if you pay for two years of service in advance.
The following announcement was written by the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation:
First Phase of The Peopling of America® Center Explores Pre-Ellis Era
Today, The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation and the National Park Service opened the first phase of the Peopling of America® Center, a major expansion of the Ellis Island Immigration Museum, which will explore arrivals before the Ellis Island Era. This 10,000 square foot experience focuses on the history of immigration from the Colonial Era to the opening of Ellis Island in 1892. Interpretative graphics and poignant audio stories tell first-hand accounts of the immigrant’s journey—from making the trip and arriving in the United States to their struggle and survival after they arrived and efforts to build communities and ultimately a nation.
Memory-Sharing Platform Launches First Mobile Tool For Sharing Photo Collections From The Past
SAN FRANCISCO, October 27, 2011 — Memory-sharing platform 1000memories.com today announced the launch of the Shoebox scanning app for iPhone, the first mobile tool designed for digitizing, organizing and sharing collections of photos from the past.
The app gives individuals, families and organizations the ability to scan and instantly share large collections of photos and documents that have previously been difficult to digitize - the photos traditionally neglected in shoeboxes, old family albums or archived analog collections.
The following announcement was written by Ancestry.com:
Ancestry.com Adds More Than 50 Million New Birth, Marriage and Death Records Expanding the Largest Searchable U.S. Vital Records Collection to nearly a Half Billion
New Collections from 23 States include records on famous Americans like John Wayne, Clark Gable and Ernest Hemingway
PROVO, UTAH – (October 27, 2011) – Ancestry.com, the world’s largest online family history resource, today announced it has added 53 new historical vital record collections to its nearly half billion U.S. vital records, the largest searchable online collection of its kind. The foundation of family history research, civil vital records – recordings of births, marriages and deaths – were typically created at or near the time of the event and serve as an essential resource for the millions of Americans who are beginning or continuing their family history research. The new additions encompass 23 states, include more than 50 million historical records dating from the 1600s (some of the oldest U.S. records available) through to 2010 and have been made available through partnerships with state and local archives, county offices and newspapers. Many notable Americans can be found in the collections, including John Wayne, Ernest Hemingway, Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Judy Garland and many more.
Let's clear up some confusion: Yesterday, I published a brief article at http://goo.gl/95Oee that pointed to a longer and more detailed article by Sarah Wilson, published on the WRCB-TV web site at http://goo.gl/W0Yvb. My article stated, "records are available free to Tennesseans by visiting the Tennessee Electronic Library main web page at http://tntel.tnsos.org/, then clicking on the 'genealogy' tab and then the 'Tennessee Death Records' tab."
Note the words "records are available free to Tennesseans." Newsletter readers published a number of comments at the end of the article, stating that they couldn't access the records on the Tennessee Electronic Library web site. Indeed, anyone outside of Tennessee shouldn't be able to access the free records, as stated in the article. Free access is only available to Tennessee residents. It is my understanding that non-Tennessee residents will soon be able to obtain the records for a fee on Ancestry.com, if they are not already available.
Repurchasing shares of one's own company usually shows the company is well-financed and the board of directors is confident of future growth. The following announcement was written by Ancestry.com:
PROVO, Utah, Oct 26, 2011 -- Ancestry.com Inc., the world's largest online family history resource, today announced that its board of directors has authorized the repurchase of up to $50 million of its outstanding common stock. Ancestry.com shares may be repurchased from time to time through September 30, 2012 in the open market or in privately negotiated transactions.
"The decision to initiate this new share repurchase program reflects our continued confidence in the long-term growth prospects of the company," said Tim Sullivan, Chief Executive Officer of Ancestry.com. "Our healthy balance sheet and strong free cash flow generation, should allow us to continue investing in our business while also returning capital to stockholders."
The following announcement was written by FamilySearch:
Search New Free U.S. Records from California, Iowa, and Texas New Collections Added for Guam, Japan, and Wales
26 October 2011
New records were added to FamilySearch.org this week from Canada, Chile, the Czech Republic, England, Guam, Hungary, Japan, Norway, the U.S., and Wales. Begin searching for your ancestors now at FamilySearch.org.
FamilySearch International is the largest genealogy organization in the world. FamilySearch is a nonprofit, volunteer-driven organization sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Millions of people use FamilySearch records, resources, and services to learn more about their family history. To help in this great pursuit, FamilySearch has been actively gathering, preserving, and sharing genealogical records worldwide for over 100 years. Patrons may access FamilySearch services and resources free online at FamilySearch.org or through over 4,600 family history centers in 132 countries, including the main Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah.
The following announcement was written by the Federation of Genealogical Societies:
Genealogy Society Website and Newsletter Reviews
October 26, 2011 – Austin, TX. The Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) is pleased to announce two new member benefits for genealogical societies, historical societies, and family associations.
The first new benefit is a free review of an organization’s website. A member society can request a review of one, several, or all areas of its website. The review may include suggestions for design, layout, format, font use and contrast, ease of navigation and use, effective use of graphics, and inclusion of content.
The U.K. National Archives' web site has announced that the Dorset section of the Manorial Documents Register (MDR) has been made available online at nationalarchives.gov.uk/mdr/.
The Manorial Documents Register records information on Dorset's manorial records from over 400 manors, held at over 50 different locations, some in publicly accessible institutions and others still in private ownership. The Dorset project benefits researchers worldwide, enabling them to search for manorial records by manor, parish, type of record or by date, and to identify relevant records online for the first time for this county.
I have written a number of articles about the security of online data storage and the (in)security of normal email. Now a new service called CryptoHeaven takes the concerns out of both. With CryptoHeaven, all data is encrypted in your computer before it is sent online. No third parties, including server administrators, government agencies, big brothers or others, not even the employees of CryptoHeaven, can read your data. You can even safely send credit card numbers through CryptoHeaven's encrypted email.
The company also provides safe and secure instant messaging. CryptoHeaven is available for Windows, Macintosh, Linux, UNIX, and Solaris. However, there is no version of CryptoHeaven for handheld devices, such as iPhones or Android smartphones.
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