Author Alerts Defunct

Well, that didn’t last long! After singing the praises of Author Alerts in a previous post a few months ago, the site has ceased operations citing “several unforeseen incidents”.

So far my search for a replacement has been unsuccessful, which I find a little surprising as such a service would surely be of interest to many.

Author Alerts

Since the demise of RSS feeds on Fantastic Fiction I have been looking for an alternative source of alerts for new books from my favourite authors.

Recently I have discovered Author Alerts which offers both RSS feeds and email alerts. Unlike Fantastic Fiction you need to set up an account, but this is free and allows you to set up alerts for up to ten authors. The limit is extended to 100 authors if you blog or tweet about the site or like them on Facebook.

The site uses your choice of Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.ca to find publication dates, and the alerts link to the corresponding Amazon pages which is useful if you regularly buy your books from that merchant.

So far I have found the service to be reliable and very useful. It’s perhaps not quite as straightforward to use as Fantastic Fiction was, but more importantly it is not limited to the authors that Fantastic Fiction chose to track.

Author Alerts is a very welcome new tool for book lovers.

Lightroom: Hidden Modifier Tricks

Lightroom has a lot of features, some buried deep. A recent article at Lightroom Blog details ten “tricks” using modifier keys (Control and Alt on a PC, Command and Option on a Mac) that have the potential to enhance your productivity. I certainly learned some new tricks from this informative article.

Tracking Your Favourite Authors

One of the greatest frustrations for keen readers is keeping track of the new (and reissued) publications from their favourite authors. Fantastic Fiction could be the answer.

The site currently has lists for over 25,000 authors and over 300,000 books. There are series listings, cover art, and affiliate links to Amazon allowing you to support the site if you choose to buy books from that source.

But for me the best feature is that each author page has a link for an RSS feed, allowing you to keep track of your chosen authors in your feed reader.

Goodnight Opus

http://www.salon.com/comics/opus/2008/11/02/opus/

Today sees the very last of Opus. He has been a friend over the years from Bloom County, via Outland and finally Opus. His creator, Berkeley Breathed, has decided to put him into permanent retirement.

Goodnight Opus,
And goodnight air,
Goodnight noises everywhere.

Farewell, old friend.

Kermode Uncut

Mark Kermode is well known as a film reviewer on UK television and radio. His lively, and often controversial, weekly review slot on BBC Radio 5 Live (also available as a podcast) is a “must listen” for film buffs.

Recently he has launched Kermode Uncut, a video blog of short (typically 2-3 minutes) clips on a film related topic. Occasonally he digresses into unrelated topics, a recent one on hair pomade bordered on the bizarre.

Whether or not you agree with Mark’s opinions, he is always entertaining and the new video blog is a welcome addition.

Dark Gate Comic Slurper

A lot of online comics have an RSS feed, but many don’t. Also, if you read a lot of comics it can become a real pain managing a lot of feeds.

Today I came across the wonderful Dark Gate Comic Slurper. What this site does is allow you to choose a set of comics from a large list (which included all my favourites), and it consolidates your selections into a single RSS feed. Over 400 comics are currently listed and you can suggest missing ones for inclusion.

Very useful!

Feedreader 3.13

From time to time I try other RSS/ATOM readers, but (so far) I have always returned to Feedreader. It is free, simple to use, has a small memory footprint and good performance.

I particularly like its Intelliupdate feature that automatically adjusts when a feed is updated on the basis of how often it has new items, rather then the usual “update everything every hour” or whatever period you choose. Feeds can of course be set to update at specific intervals, from one minute to seven days or manually, if desired.

Version 3.13 has just been released and along with the usual fixes adds search engine feeds and multiple archives. There is also an experimental feature that allows the adding and editing of articles from Feedreader and other sources, the aim being to evolve a personal “knowledge base” facility.

One feature that I would really like to see is the ability to show a feed as an image gallery, much as competitor Blogbridge can do. I have recently subscribed to a number of Flickr feeds and this ability would be a very useful addition to the program.

If you are already a Feedreader user, then the new version is definitely worth installing; if not, and you’re looking for a no-nonsense RSS/ATOM reader, a test drive is recommended.

Flash Earth

Google Earth, Microsoft Virtual Earth, and other aerial imagery services are fantastic resources. But their coverages varies and one service may have more up to date material than another, and switching from one to another, navigating and zooming can be a bit of a pain.

The is is where Flash Earth comes in very useful. As its name implies, it is a Flash based website and provides access to images (and in some cases to maps) from Google Earth, Microsoft Virtual Earth, Yahoo! Maps, Ask.com, OpenLayers and NASA Terra. The added bonus is that having found and zoomed in on the location you’re interested using one service, you can switch to another at the same location and level of zoom (assuming the new service has data) with a single click.

It’s quite interesting to compare the levels of detail between services, and just how out of date some images are!

Microsoft WorldWide Telescope

Google Sky has been a favourite way of mine to while away the odd hour or two wandering around the stars. Although available within a browser, it is as part of the Google Earth application that it really shines.

But now there is Microsoft’s WordWide Telescope application, and I have to say that I am impressed. I haven’t had time to do a content comparison yet, but the presentation is superb and I look forward to spending more time exploring soon.

Is it better that Google Sky? It’s too early to tell, but it is certainly worth checking out if you have an interest in astronomy.

One caveat: While versions of Google Earth are available for Windows, Mac and Linux, you will (not surprisingly) need Windows Vista or XP to run WorldWide Telescope.