RateMyProfessors.com

RateMyProfessors.com lets students rate their professors based on their "easiness," "helpfulness," "clarity" and "hotness." Wired says professors are upset by the "ridiculously popular"site, prompting a smart rejoinder from another professor, on whose blog I learned of it. The 6-year-old site's founder - yes, he founded it while a student - is extending the concept to embrace evaluations of accountants, mechanics, realtors, lawyers, drugs, bloggers and more.

Why does the Heritage Foundation teach CAR?

A blogger, Oso, who attended the Heritage Foundation's recent seminar on computer-assisted reporting explains what it's all about:

"If you're like me, you're wondering what the hell one of the nation's most prominent conservative think tanks is doing hosting a seminar to teach bloggers and journalists how to better interpret statistics and databases. Mark Tapscott, who besides working for Heritage is also a board member of the Media Bloggers Association, answered that very question in his introduction before anyone could ask it. Heritage has a near-paranoid distrust of government and they would love to have a contingent of conservatively-minded journalists watch-doggin' every government payroll, budget, and study."

Oso goes on to say, "It is also very much to the Heritage Foundation’s credit that the two-day seminar focused wholly on techniques instead of ideology."

Computer-assisted reporting blows

So says Uptown Girl:

"I loathe Introduction to Computer-Assisted Reporting. It is the bane of my existence. My professor takes this class and himself way too seriously and this is a very basic class. I shit you not, we've spent the past three weeks going over what a web address means and the meaning of .com, .gov, .org, and .edu. I'm about ready to pull my hair out I'm so bored."

Search Yahoo! Finance

You may not know that you can search Yahoo! Finance for information on private companies, their subsidiaries and key people. The info comes from Hoover's online. There's info on public companies too, but info on private companies is generally harder to find.

JotSpot Live

JotSpot Live "allows you, your colleagues or clients to take notes together on the same web page at the same time. Imagine everyone simultaneously typing and editing the same Microsoft Word document and you'll get the idea." A free version lets you create up to 5 pages a month, with ads. Paid versions up to $20 a month lose the ads and let you create more pages.

State and Local Government Employee-Retirement Systems

The State and Local Government Employee-Retirement Systems survey "provides revenues, expenditures, financial assets, and membership information for public employee retirement systems. Data are shown for individual retirement systems as well as at the national, state, and local level. "

PureText

"Have you ever copied some text from a web page, a word document, help, etc., and wanted to paste it as simple text into another application without getting all the formatting from the original source? PureText makes this simple." So says the maker.

MathForge.net

MathForge.net says rather clumsily that it "attempts to be a central point on the web by which general points of interest concerning the broad field of mathematics may be found. A goal of Mathforge is to bridge the gap from the knowledgeable to the merely-interested."

Harvard Center for Risk Analysis

Journalists as a rule don't do a good job putting risk in perspective. The home page of the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis includes a risk quiz where you can compare the risk of dying from such things as heart disease, homicide and bioterrorism. Just hover your mouse over the death-inducing event. It also publishes "Risk in Perspective," a bimonthly publication on risk. PDFs of past issues are online.

Free PDF version converter

The makers of NicePDF software offer freeware that will convert a PDF to a different version.

ASAP Utilities: Free Excel tools

This free add-in for Excel offers "over 300 useful and powerful utilities to fill the gaps in Excel, and automate frequently used tasks." That includes conditionally selecting cells, applying formatting, working with formulas and more easily importing and exporting files. "Guaranteed to save you many hours of time!" the site proclaims. The author now has a blog too.

Using Search Engines to Find Online Medical Information

A physician and programmer explains to his fellow doctors how to use search engines to find online medical information. " ... for many clinical scenarios, Google and other search engines can provide, quickly enough, an answer that is good enough," writes Mohammad Al-Ubaydli.

DownThemAll!

One of the handiest Firefox extensions is DownThemAll!, which lets you -- with one click -- download all the documents or images from a Web page. You can also use filters, so you can just download PDFs, or Excel files -- whatever. There are fancier tools to do this sort of thing, such as Wget, or HTTrack, or Curl, or rolling your own Perl script, but DownThemAll! is the simplest and the easiest to use for the most common scenario: When you come across a page with a lot of stuff you want to download quickly without tediously clicking on each and every link.

Worldwide Free Public Records

The Free Public Records Finder has a page devoted to free public records from around the world.

Schemaball

Schemaball is "is a flexible schema visualizer for SQL databases. The purpose of Schemaball is to help visualize the relationships between tables." It uses Perl and several of its modules.

FOIA Guide

The House Committee on Government Reform has issued a new edition of its "CITIZEN'S GUIDE ON USING THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT AND THE PRIVACY ACT OF 1974 TO REQUEST GOVERNMENT RECORDS ." This copy is on the Federation of American Scientists Web site.

Handbook for bloggers and cyber-dissidents

Reporters Without Borders has published online a "Handbook for bloggers and cyber-dissidents":

"Bloggers are often the only real journalists in countries where the mainstream media is censored or under pressure. Only they provide independent news, at the risk of displeasing the government and sometimes courting arrest. Reporters Without Borders has produced this handbook to help them, with handy tips and technical advice on how to to remain anonymous and to get round censorship, by choosing the most suitable method for each situation. It also explains how to set up and make the most of a blog, to publicise it (getting it picked up efficiently by search-engines) and to establish its credibility through observing basic ethical and journalistic principles."

Save Our Homes

The Sarasota Herald-Tribune made impressive use of Google Maps in its series "Save Our Homes." You can type in an address or click on any part of the map to find information about property values and tax breaks for any home in three counties. The series is about a Florida constitutional amendment passed 10 years ago. " ... over the years, the program that was supposed to save little old ladies from being forced from their homes has turned into a cash cow largely for the rich," the newspaper says.

How to search Google efficiently

This page explains how to "Learn to use Google's advanced query syntax to get results quickly."

Excel statistical add-in

SSC-Stat is a a statistical add-in for Excel that is free for non-commercial use. It's 125 British pounds - that's about $225 - for commercial or government use. "SSC-Stat is designed to strengthen those areas where the spreadsheet package is already strong, principally in the areas of data management, graphics and descriptive statistics," the Web site says.

Yahoo! Instant Search

Yahoo! has a new, experimental search page that gives you results as you type.

National Criminal Justice Reference Service

The newly redesigned National Criminal Justice Reference Service Web site has a database where you can find answers to questions about criminal justice, juvenile justice, and substance abuse. If the database doesn't have the answer, it will prompt you to email your question to a specialist.

National Association of Professional Accident Reconstruction Specialists

The National Association of Professional Accident Reconstruction Specialists "is a non-profit organization whose members have joined together to share the challenge of dealing with the complex problems of accident reconstruction."

Overview of Windows Graphical Brainstorming Tools

Some people are obsessed with software that's supposed to help them think. So far, it hasn't helped me, but you may want to check out an "Overview of Windows Graphical Brainstorming Tools."

PortlandMaps

The city of Portland is a mapping innovator. Check out PortlandMaps, where you can see some examples of how they've used Google Earth, Google's new free 3D world viewer, to illustrate crime, flood plains and zoning.

NIH Conflict of Interest Information and Resources

The National Institutes of Health offers lots of material on conflict of interest in research.

Excel as a database

This explains why so much of the data that comes our way is a mess.

Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections

Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections sells county-by-county presidential election data.

Mappr! Where It's At.

Mappr! "is an interactive environment for exploring place, based on the photos people take. "

Writers Block: A Definition by Example

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (we'll sidestep the question of whether journalists are de facto members) has a page devoted to definitions of writer's block.

Photoshop tutorials

Here's a list of Photoshop tutorials.

Yahoo Hires Blog Journalist for Conflict Coverage

"Yahoo has taken its first steps to compete with mainstream media outlets with the hire of Weblog journalist Kevin Sites, who will be specializing in coverage of war and political conflicts for the Internet firm," according to Publish, the "Definitive Authority on Web Publishing and Print."

The definitive collection of idea generation methods

I don't know what to think of "The definitive collection of idea generation methods." Explains the creator:

"This website lists and explains every idea generation method I've encountered during the past 15 years. It is the result of extensive research; my many sources include books, management journals, websites, academics, consultants and colleagues. The methods have been drawn not just from the worlds of creative problem solving and innovation, but also from other worlds such as organisational change, strategic planning, psychotherapy, the new sciences and the creative arts."

Google Blog Search

Google now offers its own blog search. You can also get feeds of your searches, among other features.

Hurricane Katrina Disaster Viewer

The makers of Arcview mapping software offer a Hurricane Katrina Disaster Viewer.

Make Google Maps Part of Your Web Site

Developer.com explains how to customize and use Google Maps for your own Web site.

Counting unique entries in Excel

How to count unique entries in Excel

GIS Monitor

GIS Monitor offers a weekly newsletter on GIS news.

Quickly Entering Dates and Times in Excel

Excel Tips points out you can use Ctrl+; (semicolon) to enter the current date and Ctrl+: (colon) to enter the current time.

Personal Health Records

myPHR.com is "A guide to understanding and managing your personal health information." This site by the American Health Management Association encourages you to maintain your own "Personal Health Record" of your medical history to "help reduce or eliminate duplicate tests and allow you to receive faster, safer treatment and care in an emergency."

The Numbers - Movie Box Office Data, Film Stars, Idle Speculation

The Numbers "was officially launched on October 17th, 1997 as a free resource for industry professionals and fans to track business information on movies. Since its humble early beginnings, with just 300 tracked movies, the site has grown to become the largest freely available database of movie industry information on the web. Nearly 10,000 movies and about 500,000 separate pieces of information are now stored in the database, and The Numbers continues its commitment to making this data available to the widest possible audience."

GenWed: Free Marriage Records Online

"GenWed is dedicated to finding and listing all the free genealogy marriage records online for the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom."

Fantasy Football Mathematics Resource Guide

Fantasy Football Mathematics is a textbook for grades 5 through 12 that uses fantasy football to teach math concepts such as permutations and combinations, linear equations, the Pythogorean Theorem, statistics, data analysis and probability. Seems more useful than wasting a significant portion of your life competing in fake sports ...

Life Calculator

Some University of Pennsylvania academics have created a Life Calculator where you enter your fitness habits, family medical history and other factors and compute how long you are likely to live. No guarantees, though.

GPS Coordinate Converter

Latitude / Longitude Coordinate Converter

Society of Environmental Journalists: Katrina coverage and resources for reporters

The Society of Environmental Journalists has created pages collecting key environmental coverage of the disaster and primary resources for reporters covering hurricanes and tropical storms. "Enormous just in terms of human disaster, Katrina is also proving one of the most important environmental stories in a long while," SEJ says.

J-Learning

J-Learning is "your how-to site for community journalism."

Blogcritics.org

I'm not sure what Blogcritics is about: A blog about critics? Critics of blogs? I dunno, and if there's an explanation on the busy, busy home page, I lost patience before I could find it. The equation at the top of the home page: Blog + Critics = Blogcritics.org doesn't help. ... Oh, wait, I gave it one last try and found it at the bottom of the page: "Blog: contraction of "web log," i.e., personal journalism web site.+ Critics: those who discuss and evaluate cultural artifacts.= Blogcritics.org: News and reviews of popular culture by a multitude of superior bloggers." So superior they can't be bothered to explain themselves clearly, it seems.

Yummy! Personal PDF Library

The Yummy! Personal PDF Library offers "Social PDF Linking." It lets you share and tag links to PDFs without having to download them yourself, and the site makes money by charging should you want a bound and printed version delivered.

Spreadsheet Jokes

Spreadsheet Jokes, including a section for those who love VBA Humor. I don't know whether to laugh or cry ...

Excel and Powerpoint tutorials

Here's a detailed collection of Excel tutorials. There are also Powerpoint tutorials.

Another Google Maps hack: Katrina Information Map

This is the sort of thing newspapers could and should do: The Katrina Information Map uses Google Maps to lets people affected by Hurricane Katrina report on conditions in their neighborhoods. Clicking on a bubble gives user-reported information about that location. The "map is intended for the use of people affected by Hurricane Katrina who have or are trying to find information about the status of specific locations affected by the storm and its aftermath," the site says. People are also using it to report that they are safe and to report on people who need help.

PocketMod: The Free Disposable Personal Organizer

There has been a well-justified backlash against Palm Pilots, Pocket PCs and other high-tech solutions to low-tech problems. See, for example, the "Hipster PDA", which is a clever way to rebrand lowly index cards and binder clips. Now there's PocketMod, a "Free Disposable Personal Organizer." Essentially it helps you print a piece of paper with your own template of to do lists, calendars, and what have you and tells you how to cut and fold it into a booklet you stick in your back pocket or purse. "Lets face it, PDA's are to (sic) expensive and cumbersome, and organizers are bulky and hard to carry around," the site says. "Nothing beats a folded up piece of paper."

Speech Accent Archive

The Speech Accent Archive at George Mason University "uniformly presents a large set of speech samples from a variety of language backgrounds. Native and non-native speakers of English read the same paragraph and are carefully transcribed. The archive is used by people who wish to compare and analyze the accents of different English speakers."

Choosing an RSS Reader

SearchEngineWatch explains how to choose an RSS reader.

Online Searchable Death Indexes, Records & Obituaries

Deathindexes.com is "a directory of online death indexes listed by state and county. Included are death records, death certificate indexes, death notices & registers, obituaries, probate indexes, and cemetery & burial records."

How Do They Estimate Hurricane Damage?

Slate explains how they estimate hurricane damage.

Center for the Study of Public Health Impacts of Hurricanes

Oh, cruel prescience: The Center for the Study of Public Health Impacts of Hurricanes at Louisiana State University began a study in 2002 of "Assessment and Remediation of Public Health Impacts Due to Hurricanes and Major Flooding Events." The focus of the study: New Orleans.

Junk Charts

I've only been reading it a few days, but I'm impressed so far with Junk Charts, which offers regular commentary on the use and misuse of charts. Right now it's explaining how to use scatterplots to analyze whether high-spending baseball teams win more than low-spending ones.

Utilities for opensource GIS

10 Utils to make Opensource GIS that little bit easier

Essential Resources for Google Maps

Lifehack.org offers "Essential Resources for Google Maps."

Text Messaging Not Just for Teens

Text messaging isn't just for teenagers: It helped the St. Pete Times communicate with photographers covering Hurricane Katrina at a time when regular telephone service was intermittent.

Relief From The Collateral Consequences Of A Criminal Conviction: A State-By-State Resource Guide

I learned about this resource from a blog commenting on Kentucky Gov. Ernie Fletcher's pardons: The Sentencing Project has a state-by-state survey summarizing what it takes to get a pardon, your voting rights restored, your record expunged or otherwise mitigate the consequences of a conviction.

Crime Mapping News

Crime Mapping News is a quarterly newsletter from the Police Foundation on GIS, mapping and policing. The latest issue includes articles on mapping campus crime at three universities: Temple, North Carolina State and St. Cloud State.