Xune

Databases for research

Erika — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 17:58:41 +0000

If you’re a student, researcher, or general enthusiast of information then you know the important of a good database. I’m doing a research project for work and found that LexisNexis Academic, LexisNexis Statistical, Factiva, and Business Source Premier are GREAT sources for current (and archived) news articles.

New Layout!!!

Erika — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 16:31:57 +0000

I’m currently working on a new layout for this web site and hope to have it up by the end of June. Get ready for some awesome-ness!

Toilet paper is environmentally unfriendly?

Erika — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 16:43:41 +0000

A Guardian article claims that toilet paper is worse for the environment than gas-guzzling Hummers.

Link to article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/26/toilet-roll-america

“The Future of Food”

Erika — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 16:41:15 +0000

A video on Hulu called “The Future of Food” is a very interesting account of how companies own patents to different varieties of seeds in the U.S. Monsanto, one of the largest seed owners (and producers of pesticides) has genetically engineered seeds to resist their own pesticide products. The company has then filed numerous lawsuits against farmers for “illegally” obtaining these seeds, even though they were inadvertently blown onto their land by wind and grown their accidentally.

This is a very interesting topic because it shows how the nature of agriculture has dramatically shifted since it started during the Mesolithic/Neolithic periods. Who knew that people can now legally “own” seed varieties and then prosecute others for obtaining those seeds. What’s to keep all varieties of seeds from being owned by corporations and virtually controlling the U.S.’ (or world’s) entire food stock??

Link to video: http://www.hulu.com/watch/67878/the-future-of-food

“Delicious” bookmarks

Erika — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 19:28:29 +0000

My friend Jess introduced me to delicious.com, a website used for creating a bookmark repository. A user adds bookmark to their account and shares them with others. It’s a great way to find user-valued links and the hottest web sites.

I’ve switched from displaying links through Wordpress on my “Resources” page to displaying my Delicious bookmarks. Access resources here.

Create EASY rounded corners with JQuery

Erika — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 19:08:48 +0000

I decided to do away with the rouded corners made from images on my site and replace them with rounded corners made using JQuery. This plugin for JQuery is by far the EASIEST solution I have ever come across..sets up in minutes!

List of failed U.S. bank branches

Erika — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 17:38:40 +0000

The FDIC has published a list of over 100 failed (closed) bank branches since October 2000. There is a link to each bank to help those affected by closings.

Learn JQuery, an Ajax class

Erika — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 18:15:45 +0000

At the moment I am learning Ajax with the help of a very easy-to-use class called JQuery. I am a big fan of tutorials when it comes to learning and have found the following sites to be very useful:

Irish Digital Media Awards Finalist

Erika — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 22:08:16 +0000

I spent the last semester studying abroad in Ireland at the Limerick Institute of Technology (LIT), and the work Kelley Corless and I had done on a project for the course has payed off. We spent the entire semester working on telling a story of development for a digital media competition set up by the Irish development agency, Connect-World.

We created an interactive, short animation explaining free trade in a simplistic way for children to understand. We started with hand drawn characters and then animated them using Adobe Flash.

Connect-World, among other organizations and businesses such as the Dublin City Council, RTE, National Irish Bank, Movies.ie, and AIB are all finalists in their respective categories in the Irish Digital Media Awards. The Digital Media Awards web site states,

“Launched in 2003, The Digital Media Awards were engineered to raise awareness of the emerging digital media sector in Ireland and more importantly to act as a showcase for the varied dynamic works being created by companies and third level institutions across a broad spectrum of categories in Digital Media.”

Our animation is now a finalist in the Connect-World category, and winners will be announced February 13th in Dublin.

LIT has been extremely generous in their offer to have me fly to Dublin for the award dinner for the announcement of the winners.

Journey of mankind interactive video

Erika — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 02:47:42 +0000

I was reading a chapter from Archaeology: Down to Earth by Thomas and Kelly when I got sidetracked and decided to search online for more information about a set of mounds at Poverty Point in Lousiana. In my search for more information, I found an interactive video created by The Bradshaw Foundation of chronicling mankind’s early start from Africa through out the world. The video is a nice way to understand where and when mankind traveled through out the ages.