http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Memory-card-comparison.jpg -- Public Domain
Digital memory is measured in bits and bytes. I am not going to get into a…
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Added by James Tanner on January 27, 2011 at 8:03am —
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The names chosen by the manufacturers of memory cards are not helpful. They seldom give you any idea what the product is or can do. Since, in my experience, genealogists are consumers of flash memory and purchase digital cameras, it would be convenient to know what you are looking at when making a purchase without doing a search on the Internet. Unfortunately the memory card landscape is just about as complicated as buying a new car (although they cost a whole lot less than cars). I think this…
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Added by James Tanner on January 27, 2011 at 8:02am —
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Back on January 11, 2011 I wrote a post entitled, "Update on the reliability of flashdrives." I am certainly not immune to believing Internet Myths. I am fan of the MythBusters program on TV (which I am too busy to watch) but interestingly some of the myths they set out to disprove actually turn out to be true. But the opposite is very much more likely. Information passed around on the Internet…
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Added by James Tanner on January 25, 2011 at 9:35pm —
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I do not spend as much time as I would like to at the Mesa Regional Family History Center, but I regularly teach classes and help patrons. We have a lot of computers for patron use and a man and a woman came into the center and were sitting down to use a computer. I happened to be the closest missionary/volunteer and so I got the brunt of their extreme displeasure. It seems that the Center has spent considerable time re-designing their start-up screen to make it easier for patrons to find…
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Added by James Tanner on December 10, 2010 at 6:42am —
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As you can see from this short video, Google eBooks are device
independent. As they say in the movie, "Access all your ebooks
wirelessly, no matter where you go. Google eBooks stores your library
in the digital cloud, so you can read all of your favorite books using
just about any device with an Internet connection. Google eBooks is
compatible with Android phones, iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, web browsers
and many supported eReaders. Whenever you open one of…
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Added by James Tanner on December 6, 2010 at 6:33pm —
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As you can see from this short video, Google eBooks are device
independent. As they say in the movie, "Access all your ebooks
wirelessly, no matter where you go. Google eBooks stores your library
in the digital cloud, so you can read all of your favorite books using
just about any device with an Internet connection. Google eBooks is
compatible with Android phones, iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, web browsers
and many supported eReaders. Whenever you open one of…
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Added by James Tanner on December 6, 2010 at 6:33pm —
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After I thought about the relationship of genealogy as a discipline to
either art or science, I decided to look online and see what was there.
To my surprise (not really) it turns out that the subject is not widely
discussed. I did find one Blog post on the subject called "
Genealogy is an Art"
from the year 2000. Right out of the chute, I must say that I disagree
with this Blogger's assessment.…
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Added by James Tanner on December 4, 2010 at 10:20pm —
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Genealogists' stock in trade are names, dates and places. I have been
thinking about names. My name "James" happens to be the number one most
common name in the U.S. (according to some sources). John, Robert, Michael and William round out the top five. The
top five for women are Mary, Patricia, Linda, Barbara and Elizabeth in that order. Now, we aren't talking here about popular…
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Added by James Tanner on November 27, 2010 at 6:45pm —
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René Descartes in his influential book
Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason, and Seeking Truth in the Sciences, [Descartes, René.
Discourse on the method of rightly conducting the reason and seeking truth in the sciences.
[S.l.]: Project Gutenberg Association, 1993], in part, addresses some
of the fundamental ways of applying an early formulation of the
scientific method. Those who attempt to do genealogical research could
well implement…
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Added by James Tanner on November 23, 2010 at 5:37am —
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René Descartes in his influential book
Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason, and Seeking Truth in the Sciences, [Descartes, René.
Discourse on the method of rightly conducting the reason and seeking truth in the sciences.
[S.l.]: Project Gutenberg Association, 1993], in part, addresses some
of the fundamental ways of applying an early formulation of the
scientific method. Those who attempt to do genealogical research could
well implement…
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Added by James Tanner on November 23, 2010 at 5:37am —
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Genealogists are no different than any other computer user who wants to store photos or scanned images on their computer system, but they may have a greater need to specifically identify the images.
Fortunately, there are dozens of programs, some of which are free, that
can help organize images. One issue that arises immediately is the need
to maintain image associations. As one commentator wrote recently, she
had an old picture album…
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Added by James Tanner on November 17, 2010 at 6:32pm —
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The
Wiki.FamilySearch.org website has been incorporated as part of the newer
Beta.FamilySearch.org
website. Presently, the Research Wiki, as it is commonly referred to,
is growing at the rate of over 400 pages a day. It is my opinion that
this website is quickly becoming the first place to go to for starting
any research project. I am continually pleasantly surprised at the
amount of…
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Added by James Tanner on November 14, 2010 at 9:08am —
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It is certainly interesting to watch the changes as the Beta.FamilySearch.org website continues to grow and improve. Thanks to
Sue Maxwell at Granite Genealogy
for quickly noticing the newest changes. It looks like many of the
improvements to the Search capability and Library Catalog that were
discussed at the Bloggers' Day in Salt Lake, have now been added. The…
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Added by James Tanner on November 11, 2010 at 9:01am —
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Thanks for asking! One commentator took pity on my plight of unending
scanning and questioned me about where I put all the stuff and keep it
organized. Very interesting questions. Very difficult answers.
Have you ever looked at ads for computers? Have you ever noticed that
there are no cables in any of the pictures? Try it now. Go to Best Buy
or Amazon and look for some kind of computer. Any kind will do. If you
can't think of one, try a Dell 3.0 Ghz GX. Do…
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Added by James Tanner on November 10, 2010 at 11:03pm —
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Several bloggers put up posts about a new website called
Build a Better GEDCOM Wiki. The current goals of the site include the following:
Based upon information provided on this page and others, we will attempt to build a set of goals here for the current project of replacing/updating GEDCOM. This new standard will be referred to as BG
(Better GEDCOM) in this discussion.
- BG should remain a file format…
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Added by James Tanner on November 10, 2010 at 8:04am —
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In a FamilySearch Wiki article from a presentation at the NGS 2010 Conference entitled "
Blazing Digital Trails at FamilySearch"
Bill Mangum, of Product Management explains the process of record
acquisition used by FamilySearch to augment its already huge collection
of documents. In addition to giving some interesting insights into the
FamilySearch record acquisition process, the process…
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Added by James Tanner on November 5, 2010 at 8:40am —
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Personal Ancestral File (PAF) is probably the most influential lineage
linked database program in the world. To quote BradJackman on
LDSTech back in 2008,
" However, I think most genealogists will agree that PAF still holds a
major position in the field, and it's ease of use, simple GUI, and huge
user base make it a force to be reckoned with, not some little
freeware experiment to be swept under the rug."…
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Added by James Tanner on November 3, 2010 at 4:31pm —
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In my recent post about statistics for FamilySearch, a comment by Randy Seaver of
Genea-Musings
got me thinking about the statistics and terminology used online by all
of those huge records collections, everybody from FamilySearch to
Ancestry.com to the Library of Congress. One of the most influential
books I have ever read is a small 144 page treatise written in 1954
entitled "How to lie with Statistics." Here is the…
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Added by James Tanner on October 29, 2010 at 8:03pm —
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In a recent FamilySearch Blog post on 25 October 2010, DiltsGD offered a list of the
top ten genealogical repositories.
There is no doubt that the libraries on the list offer huge
genealogical resources, but the most important question for researchers
is how accessible are the collections? What access is there to the vast
stored material? How much of what the library contains is original
source documentation…
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Added by James Tanner on October 26, 2010 at 8:31am —
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Nearly two thousand contributors averaging about 500 new articles a week
go into the FamilySearch Research Wiki. Now linked and integrated into
the
Beta.FamilySearch.org
website, the Wiki is accessed through the "Learn" link on the startup
page. Here is a screen shot showing where the link is located:…
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Added by James Tanner on October 25, 2010 at 8:15pm —
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