Wicked Cool

Finding Bugs Online (the creepy-crawly kind)

Photo by Jack Dykinga

There sure are a lot of bugs online, and not just the computer glitch variety.  "Catch the Reading Bug" had SCLS thinking about insects this week.

Here are some interesting places we found to look for online photos of creepy-crawlies:

Warning -- don't click on these links if you don't want to see bugs!

• The Encyclopedia of Life has a great section on Arthropods (in addition to being an amazing project for all species)
• The USDA Agricultural Research Service has a collection of Insects and Other Arthropods that relate to agriculture (like the blue orchard bee at right)
• Insect Images and Invasive and Exotic Insects
• Amazing insect photography in the Flickr Insect Close-Ups Pool
• And more!  Any good recommendations? 

As with any online photography, remember to check copyright restrictions before using these images on handouts or websites.

Thanks to Deb Haeffner and Shawn Brommer for sharing the tip!

Find Out Who's Linking to Your Website

You didn't hear this from me... but I thought you should know what people are saying about your website.

Or at least who's linking to it.  You might be surprised.

Do a "link:" search in Google, and another in Yahoo, substituting your URL in the query:  link:http://www.yourlibrary.org/ 

The results you bring up will be pages that link to your website (or did at the time they were indexed).  It's best to try both Google's and Yahoo's search engines because sometimes they turn up drastically different pages.  Neither will be 100% accurate (they can't index every page of the entire Internet at every moment -- if only!), but they give a rough idea.

Variations:  substitute any alternate domain name that your website uses (like link:http://www.yourlibrary.info), or the URL of a specific page on your site (like link:http://www.yourlibrary.org/notthehomepage.html).

Egotistical?  Maybe a little -- but it can valuable to see whether your website is being linked to anywhere, and in what context (it's part of your online reputation).  Additionally, if you are thinking about eliminating a page from your website, it's helpful to see if anybody is still linking to it. 

A Screenshot is Worth a Thousand Words

Next time you need to remember how a window looked, take a screenshot.  This can be a big help when you want to keep a record of a confirmation message without wasting paper on a printout (such as after completing a registration or transaction) or when you encounter a mystifying error message that you want to look up later.  Here's how:

1. Make sure the window you want to capture is selected as the "top" one on your screen.
2. Hold down the Ctrl key and hit the Print Screen key at the same time.  (On most keyboards, Print Screen is located on the right side along the top row of keys, above the Insert key).  Ctrl + Print Screen will select and copy an image of the window.
3. Open MS Word or MS Paint (or your favorite image-editing software) and make sure there is a blank document open.  (Note:  Word will shrink the image to fit the standard letter-size page.)
4. Hit Edit > Paste (or right-click and select paste -- or use Ctrl + V) to paste the screenshot image into the blank document.
5. Save the document.

Added -- Hitting Print Screen all by itself captures everything that's visible onscreen at once, making it possible to get multiple windows at once (and any part of your desktop that is showing).  Ctrl + Print Screen only gets the topmost "active" window.  Thanks to Sarah Hartman for the extra tip!

Picture Book Views of Technology

Ever notice how computers, cell phones, and gadgets are nowhere to be seen in picture books?  Children's author Erica Perl takes a look at why -- and finds some exceptions to the rule -- in this slideshow:

"The Mismatch of Technology and Picture Books"