A Renewed Strategies to Fight Low Literacy

Online libraries are beyond any shadow of a doubt, tremendous opportunities for all Internet surfers, who are still addicted to reading books, but they no longer have the time to go to the library, or buying books is not part of their budget. Therefore, they can take advantage of online resources, that are usually stored and organized as ebook files. The e-format we can access in online libraries was obtained after the conversion of classic books into pdf files. It is worth pointing out that online libraries fall in two different categories according to whether the service is for free or not. Thus, an account to a payable service provides a larger offer, and, probably high quality formats. As for free accounts, such options are basically inferior to a payable service, and the differences are noticeable at face value.

The very first drawback is related to the the database because free services provide a limited number of items. Regardless of the basic feature, online libraries are similarly organized, meaning that, the home page comprises the basic categories hosting the entire database, facts about the serve (how it works), log in/ log out options, subscription criteria. In essence, online libraries have a very friendly interface, usually based upon a library management software. Nevertheless, the online platform has been adjusted for very specific purposes and are pretty different from the application used in traditional libraries, simply because this service means more than a library online catalogue.

We need to emphasize the fact that, a new line of online libraries are available today as part of the national plan developed in order to fight low literacy and illiteracy. A brand new service committed to educational progress via online means is a website developed by the authorities, also branded The World Digital Library, and launched in April, 2010. This project is also envisaged as an international service due to the fact that visitors can access the database resources in various languages (French, Russian, Spanish, and many more). The main goal exceeds the standards of similar cultural projects as The World Digital Library aims for strong cultural connections between world's nations. Another online library sharing a similar approach is a website where you can find the work of famous authors in English literature, and if you take a closer look at the Author Index, you will see that the books are quite impressive.

Top 6 Characteristics For Becoming a Librarian

If you are interested in choosing the career path of a Librarian, you should have certain characteristics and values.

1) The desire to help, teach, and serve others.
2) Believe strongly in the First Amendment, protecting the freedom of speech and press.
3) Respect others right to privacy and the freedom to read any subject they choose.
4) Have an interest in information research.
5) Have an interest in a wide variety of resources, materials, and subjects.
6) Have advanced computer skills and adapt quickly to new technology

Librarian positions generally have three components: user services, technical services, and administrative services. Librarians may specialize in one of these areas or in small libraries, they may be responsible for all three areas.

In user services, librarians assist visitors in locating the material they are looking for, rather it be research material, learning material, or books and media that are fictional in nature. They may also teach visitors how to find and acquire information on the internet or instruct in the use of the card catalogue.

Technical service librarians, specialize in acquisitions and cataloguing. They acquire, prepare, and classify materials so that patrons can find it easily. Some write abstracts and summaries. Often, these librarians do not deal directly with the public, but work behind the scenes to ensure the smooth operation of the library.

Administrative service librarians manage the operations of the library. They may negotiate contracts, supervise library workers, work with budgets, and oversee all activities in the operation of the library.

There are several types of libraries in which a Librarian may work. There are public libraries, school libraries, media center libraries, and university or academic libraries. Information centers, corporations, law firms, advertising agencies, medical centers, museums, research laboratories, and government libraries all hire Librarians.

Are You Getting the Most Out of Your Android Phone?

Android based phones are the most popular smartphones on the market today. Android is easily outselling the iPhone and is available on every major mobile carrier. New users often struggle to really get the most out of their Android handset. Common criticisms of Android would likely evaporate if more users knew ways to maximize the benefit of their Android handset. Here are some applications, tips and tricks that I have found to really boost the usefulness of my Android phone.

Managing Your Battery Life
A criticism that I hear often is that Android phones have very poor battery life. That was certainly true with the earliest models, and it can still be true with the newer handsets. Fortunately, there are a number of tools for managing your battery life that will help you squeeze the most from your Android phone's battery.

Some of the features of Android are not needed on a constant basis. These include Bluetooth, WiFi and GPS. These features can quickly drain the phone battery if they are running continuously. Fortunately, Android version 1.6 added some tools to make it easier to switch these items off in order to increase battery life. There is a widget you can add to your phone's desktop that allows you to switch these features ON and OFF with a single touch. Many applications have the ability to toggle these ON and OFF as well so if an application needs one of these features, it can activate it.

Another frustrating aspect of managing your battery life on Android is that the default battery meter only displays a color: green, yellow and red to indicate how much battery power remains. This can make it harder to gauge if an application is draining your battery more quickly than normal. Battery Meter Lite is a free application that includes a battery remaining notification. When this notification is enabled a battery icon with the percentage of battery remaining will appear in your notification area. This makes it much easier to manage your battery life because you know exactly how much battery power remains.

Managing Tasks
Sometimes you want to know what tasks are running and have a way to stop a running task. This is especially true if you have an older Android phone with a slow processor. System Panel Lite is a great application for this. If you have ever used a Unix based operating system or Linux, System Panel Lite will remind you of the top application. It provides a list of actively running processes and inactive but cached processes. It also gives you some handy charts of the current CPU usage and memory usage. Clicking on a running application, you can see the individual application's CPU and memory usage and you have the option of killing the process. By default, system processes are hidden from view but there is an option in settings to see the Android system processes as well.

Getting More from Messaging
When I first got my Android phone, I hated the default messaging application. I quickly discovered Handcent SMS, a free application that replaces the default messaging application. Handcent features a threaded interface to allow you to visually see the back and forth conversation you are having via SMS. It also allows sending pictures via MMS and saving MMS attachments. You can set Handcent as the default messaging application on Android. Handcent will also provide notifications for new SMS messages. The notification can be customized a bit, including what color your phone LED should flash when you have new messages. When you switch to Handcent, you will need to go into the default messaging application and turn off its notifications. Otherwise, you will get two notifications each time you receive a message.

Five Steps To Running A Successful Amazon Business

When starting a media selling business, just like any other kind of business, you need investment capital. Depending on how fast you want your business to take off, you will need more money. The bulk of your spending will be in the beginning, as you will need to buy the proper equipment.

If you are not the kind of person who is willing to go 100 miles from home to get inventory, you probably will not be nearly as successful in this business as you could be.

1. Years ago, media scouts used to guess the price of the items by site, and buy what they thought they could sell for a good price. If you try that now, you will be losing out on incredible amounts of money. Now, an amazing piece of technology is used, called a scanner. By scanning the bar code of a media item, it gives you the prices of the items on Amazon almost instantly. I recommend using the $400 scanner from ASellerTool.com, as it is cheap, but efficient. This service costs $30 per month to maintain.

2. Sign up for FBA (Fulfillment By Amazon), at Amazon.com. It is $40 per month, but this service will pay itself off incredibly fast, you don't have to spend hours packing, and the shipping is fast. Buyers prefer buying something from FBA, as there is fast shipping and great customer service. With FBA, you can price your items lower than the $3.99 + 1c, allowing you to get an edge on your competition. Never sell something below $3.25.

3. FBAPower (FBAPower.com) is a service that will increase your efficiency of FBA so much, you will not want to go without it. Using a $70 USB laser scanner, you can quickly scan your items into the system. This lets you box up 50-70 pounds of media items, taking about 40 seconds per item. In this 40 seconds, you need to quickly examine the item, click its condition, and stick the special bar code sticker on it. This service costs $40 per month.

4. You will need a thermal printer. A printer, that prints with heat. I recommend getting a Dymo Thermal Label Printer. This will allow you to print without ink, and very quickly. These labels hold the bar codes of each item you send to the FBA warehouse. This printer costs about $100, and the rolls of labels tend to cost around $12.50 per roll. This seems to be cheap, as label rolls tend to have a lot on them.

5. Getting your inventory is always an adventure. Using maps.google.com, I search for thrift stores, dumps, Goodwill, Salvation Army, libraries, etc. Libraries are the gold mine of media selling. I often times go to $5 bag sales, netting over $600 in a sale! That is in less than one day of scouting. Call up your local libraries, and write down the dates and times of the library book sales.

Popular Tools for Online Learning Content Creation

Both learning management systems or LMS and e-learning software have evolved a lot in the last one decade. Content created by e-learning software such as captivate, articulate and others can be easily hosted on an LMS.

Captivate - Create online learning content without any technical know-how

A part of Adobe e-learning suite, Adobe Captivate allows instructors and teachers to create various online learning courses without any knowledge of multimedia tools or coding. Adobe Captivate provides a wide range of useful features including file output generation in multiple formats. Course content generated through this tool can be published on YouTube or uploaded on an LMS for streaming.

Ability to import and sync presentations in a project along with custom widgets created by Adobe Flash make this tool really special. Priced at 249 USD, Adobe captivate also comes with built in templates that help instruction designers during online learning content creation.

Articulate - Easy to use content creation tool

Articulate allows quick and easy creation of online learning content that can be easily published to a learning management system. For most of its functionalities, the Articulate Rapid e-learning solution utilizes Microsoft PowerPoint. Presentations can be quickly refined with various animations by using this tool. The greatest advantage of Articulate as online learning content creation tool is the ease of use and built-in question handling options.

On top of these built-in functionalities, Articulate also comes with a readymade Quizmaker software tool. Instructional designers can incorporate media, graphics and publish courses that comply with AICC and SCORM standards.

Lectora - Value for money

Developed by Trivantis Corporation, Lectora can be used to create e-learning content in various formats including video files, HTML web pages and executable files. This software can import files from Microsoft PowerPoint for an e-learning project and it supports popular industry standards such as AICC and SCORM. It also supports several automated tools including resource manager, media library and title wizard.