LibraryLookup

"Jon Udell, Lead Analyst at InfoWorld's test center, didn't set out to rock the world of library technology. He just wanted to check his local library's catalog while simultaneously browsing through Amazon.com. He soon developed LibraryLookup, a bookmarklet that can be installed on a browser's tool bar.

LibraryLookup is a bookmarklet written in JavaScript code that extracts the ISBN from the URL on a bookseller's page, then goes to a library catalogue and searches by ISBN. If the library owns the book, the record pops up. It works with any site that uses an ISBN in its URL, including booksellers such as Barnes & Noble and Powell's, and any library vendor that allows searching by ISBN. Not all integrated library systems (ILS) use the ISBN, but many do. Udell's weblog includes lists of hundreds of bookmarklets already created for libraries that use Innovative Interfaces, Endeavor's Voyager, epixtech's iPac, DRA, and Talis. Users just need to drag the bookmarklet to their toolbar."

Here is the bookmarklet for public libraries in Rhode Island:
RI LibraryLookup
Jon Udell: LibraryLookup homepage

Reading, Watching, Listening, March 16 2005

Reading The Big Year A Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl Obsession by Mark Obmascik
Reading Time magazine, March 21, 2005
Reading Blender Magazine, April 2005
Reading Men's Journal magazine, April 2005

Watching The Amazing Race, CBS
Watching Survivor Palau, CBS
Watching The Grudge (DVD)
Watching Showtime (DVD)

Listening to Buffalo Nickel-Longplay 33 1/3
Listening to John Hiatt-The Tikki Bar Is Open

iCalShare - Share Your iCalendars!

This site contains more than 1900 calendars to use in programs like iCal and Mozilla Calendar.
Mozilla Calendar is a project of the Mozilla Organization. This is the group that also produces the Firefox browser. Apple Computer is the developer of iCal. The calendars available at icalshare.com can be used with other programs that support the ical(.ics) file format.

Calendars can be imported or, depending on the program, you can subscribe to calendars. A subscription means that the calendar can be updated by the calendar owner and the changes will appear in your calendar.

For example I subscribed to the 2005 Boston Red Sox baseball schedule and the owner updates the calendar daily with game results.

iCalShare - Share Your iCalendars!

Shopping Bargains

The internet is great for finding bargains. I use the following sites:

Slickdeals describes itself as "The most frequently updated and complete deal site on the web". It usually list four or five deals a day. It also has a very active forum and offers online coupons. I've used this site to get free subscriptions to Men's Journal, Blender, Sporting News, TV Guide, Computer Shopper, and PC Magazine.

Techbargains, as its name suggests, offers bargains on computers and and electronics. I used this site today to buy a Viking 256MB CompactFlash card for $6 (after rebate) and a Viking 256MB Secure Digital card for $7 (after rebate).

DealCatcher offers daily deals and also has links to the Sundays ads to all of the major retailers. It also has a forum and a price comparison section.

FreeAfterRebate as the name states offers free merchandise (after rebate of course). Most of the deals are computer and electronic related. They usually offer up lots of deals on free software. The site tagline is "The best things in life are free (after 6 to 8 weeks)"

Dealcase is yet another site offering great deals on the internet. It is mostly bargains on computer and electronic related items. But also has deals for clothes, houseware, books, DVDs and other merchandise.

DealofDay offers internet bargains, a forum, and coupons and price comparisons. This site does not display correctly in the Firefox browser. But is okay in Internet Explorer.

Cheap Stingy Bastard is a personal blog with post for cheap stuff the author has found on the internet. It offers a e-mail newsletter and links to popular copons.

MOTHER of all DEALS is "a database of deals from many of the most popular deals sites. So instead of having to check 5 or 6 deals sites, You can now just check one! " It lists deals from Slickdeals, BensBargains, TechBargains, GotApex, XPBargains, and FatWallet. This is a straight forward and ad-free site

All of these sites offer RSS feeds. Keeping track of them is easy using you favorite feed reader.