HIST 390-001 The Digital Past Fall 2013

AP Late this month, Google went "dark" in terms of providing publishers with free information on which words led people searching in Google to click on their sites. The move came as Google seeks to reassure users following the NSA/PRISM domestic surveillance scandal.

Wow, I hadn't even heard about that, Emily. Terrific story. That's a bummer, though -- I use Google Analytics on some of my sites, though I probably should make more use of it, and it was always interesting to see what keywords people were using to get to my site. Sometimes the keywords were weird.

An interesting article that shows how you can use Diigo effectively to collect information and bits of information from many different webpages in an organized way. The article presents some questions to think about when doing web research and how we can use tools such as Diigo to aid in gathering a large amount of information in one place. It also explains more in depth what Professor French has told the class regarding Diigo.

Open access ( OA) is the practice of providing unrestricted access via the Internet to peer-reviewed scholarly research. It is most commonly applied to scholarly journal articles, but it is also increasingly being provided to theses, book chapters, and scholarly monographs.

During Open Access week, I stopped by the Fenwick Info desk. I was able to get some informational packets and forms on open access week. There were many packets and brochures describing the history of open access and how students and professors could become more involved in the open access movement. I found one packet to be very informative on how I could learn to use open access to my advantage when conducting research.

Thanks, Lauren -- I'll give you 5 extra points on your Exam 2 grade when I grade them.

"Interlibrary Loan helps you obtain research materials you need that are not available from George Mason University Libraries or Washington Research Library Consortium (WRLC) libraries." I believe this is a definitely helpful webpage for all of us.

Absolutely. Essential.

A neat page by the Internet Society depicting their potential scenarios for the future of the internet with cool little videos.

Mega.com's Vikram Kumar explains why he's building private but not anonymous e-mail, why you won't see Google investing in end-to-end encryption, and lessons learned from the summer of Snowden. Im doing my project with a similar subject so I thought this would be a good article to share in regards to privacy online.

These are just some tips that can help us all with our presentations. Some of them are for a lengthier presentation but overall the are pretty helpful!

Forbes tips on how to make a great presentation

Some tips for making a PowerPoint Presentation

Its a good article about technology investment in Africa, something that we touched upon in Natasha's presentation. It seems encouraging because investment and opportunities have increased with different companies taking interest.

Great post, and very relevant! Thanks, Mahrokh!

"Deep in the underbelly of the Internet is a hidden corner known as the "Manosphere"- a collection of websites, Facebook pages and chat rooms where men vent their rage and spew anti-women rhetoric. Protected by the anonymity of the Internet, men feel free to post hateful and violent comments." Follow up to presentation today, really got me thinking

Article by CBS news explains how schools in California are replacing textbooks for tablets

Article by Fox news gives us a glimpse into the future of gaming

The Supreme Court will not throw out New York state's tax on Internet purchases.

The time has come and our loyal reader know already our traditional Advents Calendar. For the people who don't know, every year we had in December each day, until the 24th (Christmas Eve in Germany), a post with specials, tips, tricks, plugins, tutorials and so on. Since it is quite a lot work to accomplish 24 high quality posts, we asked some of the finest WordPress Experts in Germany if they would like to contribute some ideas and great posts to it every day. http://wpengineer.com/2652/every-day-a-post-of-wordpress-tipps-and-tricks-until-christmas/

This is a short yet interesting article of Cyber Monday being an instigator for an increase of cyber crime. Reading it before shopping online may make you choose carefully on which site you want to order from on Cyber Monday.

I'm pretty sure GMU subscribes to Office 365, which means that you can get Microsoft Office products for free while you're enrolled here. Quite a deal. Or you could use OpenOffice, the open source alternative.

I just checked up on this. The FAQ for GMU's Office 365 says the subscription only includes free access to the new Outlook and Calendar. I use OpenOffice on my computer, and apart from some formatting inconsistencies when working with people using Microsoft Office, it works great.

Some interesting information on Dropbox, cloud storage.