5 Security Tips for Facebook Mobile

Condensed From Mashable.com 5/16/2013 by Bob Al-Greene:

You are your Facebook account. Public or private, its contents define you in a professional, commercial and social nature. It's an identity you want to protect. But you probably aren't doing everything you can to secure your account.

Here are five ways to make sure there's more than a phone case between you and a potential intruder.

1. Lock Your Device
Obvious? Maybe, but more than 30% of people don't use passwords to protect their mobile devices. This is your first line of defense if your phone is lost or stolen. You should always have a passcode or pattern on your phone — not only to protect your Facebook account, but for other sensitive information, too. [...]

2. Use Different Passwords for Facebook and Email
Three-quarters of web users select a single password for all their sign-in purposes, and the most common codes are often the most obvious ("123456" and "password" are favorites). A few more digits, letters or symbols can drastically increase the time it takes to crack your password. Take the time to invent multiple passwords for your accounts, especially for Facebook, which houses tons of personal info.

3. Make Sure Secure Browsing is On
Facebook has offered a secure browsing option since 2011. Without an HTTP Secure (HTTPS) connection, your data is open to sneak attacks any time you use free Wi-Fi (i.e., in a Starbucks or hotel lobby). [...]

4.Enable Login Notifications and Approvals
To ensure your account is only accessed when and where you determine, enable login notifications. Facebook will send you a notification every time your account is accessed from a new location [...] You'll get a warning if someone enters your account on an unfamiliar computer, phone or tablet. [...] Login approvals will ask you for a special code every time you try to access your account from a new device.

5. Use Trusted Contacts
This recent innovation from Facebook asks you to select a small group of reliable friends. In the event you can't access your account, and even security questions aren't helping, Facebook will send different codes to these friends. When you put them together, you can get back in. Select the friends you know you can contact quickly and who won't mind sending you a code at the drop of a hat. This option is labor-intensive for you and others, but it's a good last-ditch at getting into your account if it's been compromised.

For more information, read the full article.

Best Free Reference Sites (part 3 of 3)

Library Journal recently published its annual list of best reference sources. For more information, read the full article.

National Gallery of Art
nga.gov
The National Gallery in Washington, DC, houses one of the largest collections in the world of painting, sculpture, and the graphic arts. At the gallery’s website, information is available for more than 110,000 objects, with images provided for 20,000 of them. The site is searchable by keyword or phrase, and users can unearth teaching resources or in-depth studies and search the collection by artist, title, or subject. An extraordinary and easy-to-navigate resource.

Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello
monticello.org/site/jefferson
This website was launched in 1996 by the Thomas Jefferson Foundation. Two of the most used features of the site are the Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia and Monticello Explorer. The encyclopedia, with over 1,000 articles, is “the trusted source for information on Thomas Jefferson and his world,” and through Monticello Explorer users can take a 3-D virtual tour of the plantation, house, and grounds. Users can read articles about the plantation and slavery, watch addresses, interviews, and lectures,  and access the digital archive of the Family Letters Project and the Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery.

Trove
trove.nla.gov.au
This online search engine developed by the National Library of Australia (NLA) covers content from the NLA, state, and territory libraries and over 1,000 other Australian libraries. As the name implies, it a treasure house of more than two million books, photos, maps, unpublished materials, and media. It’s a great place to search more than 6.8 million digitized pages from 260 Australian newspapers and now incorporates Picture Australia, a vast collection of more than two million images.

U.S. Electoral College
archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/index.html
This is the definitive website for information about the Electoral College and how it works and for finding electoral votes by state beginning with the election of George Washington. Find answers to such questions as: How does the Electoral College work in my state? What happens if a candidate does not get 270 electoral votes? Identify how electors voted by viewing the Certificates of Ascertainment. Use the Resources page for links to state election sites, teaching materials, and other election sites

Best Free Reference Sites (part 2 of 3)

Library Journal recently published its annual list of best reference sources. We'll share these with you over the next few posts. For more information, read the full article.

GovSpeak: A Guide to U.S. Governmental Acronyms & Abbreviations
libguides.ucsd.edu/govspeak
Created by a government information librarian, this resource rightly boasts of being “the most current, extensive and fully linked listing of U.S. government agency, office, program, and publication acronyms.” It is helpful that changes in agencies and titles are reflected in the entries. A link is provided to the Department of Defense Dictionary of Military Terms , which provides search and browse features for military acronyms, abbreviations, and definitions.

NBR: The National Bureau of Asian Research
nbr.org
NBR contracts independent research to the world’s leading experts to examine developments and trends in northeast, southeast, south, and central Asia; Iran; and Russia. Politics and security; trade, economics, and energy; and health are the broad topics covered. While not all of the reports are free, they are all free for 60 days after publication. NBR’s Strategic Asia Database contains more than 20 years of 70 key indicators in ten themes from the 37 countries. Maps that track Chinese and Japanese military developments are available, with more countries to be added soon.

National Council on Disability
ncd.gov
This small federal independent agency advises the President, Congress, and other federal agencies on policies, programs, practices, and procedures that affect people with disabilities. Briefs cover civil rights, education, empowerment, financial assistance, health care, and many other topics. This is a great place to research subjects from air carrier access to fair housing.

Best Free Reference Sites (part 1 of 3)

Library Journal recently published its annual list of best reference sources. We'll share these with you over the next few posts.  For more information, read the full article.

CDC Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Environmental Health
cdc.gov/Environmental/

This portion of the CDC website focuses environmental factors that affect human health and how people affect the health of the environment. Find information and data on topics from respiratory health to chemical-weapons. The National Environmental Public Health Tracking Network, integrates health, environmental, exposure, and census data to provide users with maps, tables, and charts.

 

KnowLA: The Encyclopedia of Louisiana

knowla.org

This digital archive of Louisiana culture and history contains 300 articles by scholars and more than 1,000 images, audio, and video files. Users can watch a simulation of Hurricane Katrina, listen to former governor Jimmie Davis singing “You Are My Sunshine,” or hear former governor and Sen. Huey Long’s 1934 “Every Man a King” address. The encyclopedia is presented by The Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities.

 

Encyclopedia Titanica
encyclopedia-titanica.org

This online encyclopedia tells the story of the ship, the survivors, and the victims. You can check out the complete passenger list, arranged from first to third class, view a crew list or even see who survived, in which lifeboat, what their profession was, and what they paid for their passage. Frequently updated, the site offers a discussion page, movie section, and even a Facebook page.

Introducing the Digital Public Library of America

The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) launched on April 18, 2013.
The DPLA offers a single point of access to millions of items—photographs, manuscripts, books, sounds, moving images, and more—from libraries, archives, and museums around the United States. Users can browse and search the DPLA’s collections by timeline, map, format, and topic; save items to customized lists; and share their lists with others. Users can also explore digital exhibitions curated by the DPLA’s content partners and staff.

The DPLA contains metadata records—information describing an item—for millions of photographs, manuscripts, books, sounds, moving images, and more from libraries, archives, and museums around the United States. Each record links to the original object on the content provider’s website. The site currently contains records for over 2 million items and continues to grow.

DPLA content is available to software developers, researchers and others through its application programming interface (API), with the intent of fostering the creation of  novel environments for learning, tools for discovery, and engaging apps. For more information, view the DPLA's apps section.

Access to the DPLA is free of charge for all users. It is funded by grants from a number of foundations and government agencies.

Tell Google What To Do With Your Digital Assests When You Die

From the Google Public Policy Blog 4/11/13, by Andreas Tuerk:

Plan Your Digital Afterlife With Inactive Account Manager

Not many of us like thinking about death — especially our own. But making plans for what happens after you’re gone is really important for the people you leave behind. Google has launched a new feature that makes it easy to specify what you want done with your digital assets when you die or can no longer use your account.

The feature is called Inactive Account Manager and you’ll find it on your Google Account settings page. You can tell Google what to do with your Gmail messages and data from several other Google services if your account becomes inactive for any reason.

For example, you can choose to have your data deleted — after three, six, nine or 12 months of inactivity. Or you can select trusted contacts to receive data from some or all of the following services: +1s; Blogger; Contacts and Circles; Drive; Gmail; Google+ Profiles, Pages and Streams; Picasa Web Albums; Google Voice and YouTube. Before the systems take any action, Google will warn you by sending a text message to your cellphone and email to the secondary address you’ve provided.

 

Savvy Sheet Music Searching

The go-to resource for finding public domain sheet music is the Petrucci Music Library's International Music Score Library Project. It has a fantastic variety of scores in PDF format that range from solo guitar music to symphonic scores. (Note - The site conforms to Canadian copyright law. If you are not located in Canada you will need to consider the copyright law of your locality).

 

The main search field allows you to enter any words, names or terms for your search, but you can also use the links in the “Browse scores” area on the far left hand part of the site’s main page. One of the most useful ways to find scores is through the “categories” links that are at the bottom of the page for any work. For example, here’s the page for Erik Satie’s 3 Gynmopedies. If you scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page you will find links to all sorts of related categories. There are public domain recordings for many works as well. The quality of scores can vary wildly from scans of very old hand-written manuscripts to modern electronic engravings.

Another good site is The Mutopia Project. There is less variety, but all of the scores are engraved in a modern, attractive format. All pieces are in a MIDI format as well, so that you can import the piece into an electronic score editor or listen to the work (albeit a soul-less facsimile of the actual music). This is a real time saver if you need to edit or arrange the score or any of the parts.

The University of Memphis Music Library has a very good list of sites with online scores. This site has links to several other digital sheet music collections in university libraries such as the University of Indiana and Harvard University. If you are looking for the rare, ancient, or exotic you’ll have fun browsing the links on the Music Treasures Consortium page administered by the Library of Congress.