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Wikipedia Alternatives: What to Do When Wikipedia Goes Down

Fei — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 23:00:49 +0000

By David Daw
January 20, 2012

SAN FRANCISCO – Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has announced that the crowd-sourced encyclopedia will be going dark on Wednesday in protest of the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) legislation.

Wales has advised students to “do their homework now” to avoid the downtime, but that’s not your only option. If you really must do research tomorrow, here are five Wikipedia alternatives to keep you covered.

Encyclopedia Britannica Online
Remember regular encyclopedias? Britannica, formerly the most referenced encyclopedia on earth, offers up expert summaries of a wide range of topics online. Though it’s been overshadowed by Wikipedia’s crowd-sourced approach in recent years, Encyclopedia Britannica is still one of the most respected reference works in the world.

Scholarpedia
Scholarpedia uses the same software as Wikipedia, MediaWiki, but keeps the philosophy of a more traditional encyclopedia. Scholarpedia is written only by experts and as a result has less breadth but more depth than Wikipedia. Articles on Scholarpedia are better sourced and more stable than the average article on Wikipedia.

Infoplease
Infoplease started as a quiz show back in the 1930′s before evolving into a yearly almanac. Now it’s a huge online encyclopedia managed by educational publisher Pearson Education. Infoplease’s main advanatage over Wikipedia is that it has a much larger selection of multimedia entries and tools.

Citizendium
Citizendium aims for a comfortable middle ground between the “anything goes” world of Wikipedia editing and the more formal inclusion process of traditional encyclopedias. Citizendium does allow for contributions from the public at large, but contributors must use their real names and conform to the site’s rules and regulations or they will be banned from editing in the future.

The Free Dictionary Encyclopedia
If you’ve ever Googled for the definition of a word, you’ve probably run across Free Dictionary. In addition to dictionary functionality, the Website also offers an encyclopedia section with much longer explanations of over 100,000 people, places, and things.

If you can’t accept a substitute for the real Wikipedia–and you have some prep time–you might consider downloading Wikipedia’s offline archives. Wikipedia offers a 1.7GB archive of the entire Website that you can download and consult when the site is down.

10 Ways Linux Is Making Life Better

Fei — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 23:00:55 +0000

By Katherine Noyes
March 23, 2011

SAN FRANCISCO – Linux has long played a leading role in the world of servers, due in large part to its stability, security and lower total cost of ownership (TCO). What many don’t realize, however, is just how ubiquitous it’s becoming in other parts of life as well.

Not only are distributions like Ubuntu helping Linux make great strides on the desktop, but the open source operating system is now quietly powering myriad innovations that many of us take for granted.

Where can Linux be found today? Let’s count just a few of the many places it’s making life better.

1. Android

First and foremost, of course, is Android, Google’s Linux-based mobile operating system. Well-poised to relegate Apple’s successful iPhone to the realm of niche devices, Android is giving the popular iPad a run for its money as well. By putting Linux in the hands of countless mobile consumers around the globe, Android is arguably Linux’s greatest mainstream success to date.

Then, too, there’s also Chrome OS, which will reportedly figure prominently in a low-cost notebook PC coming from Asus this summer, among other devices.

2. WebOS

Packed with perhaps as much potential as Android is HP‘s recent decision to use WebOS on pretty much all its desktops and laptops, not to mention tablets and phones as well. WebOS is, of course, a Linux-based operating system originally developed by Palm. With HP’s new strategy, Linux will land on the desktops, laps and hands of countless more consumers as well, giving it another huge boost toward mainstream ubiquity.

3. Niche PCs

Even aside from all the many consumer PCs already running Linux, we’re also starting to see the operating system powering niche PCs as well. Take the recently debuted KiWi PC, for instance. Targeting senior citizens, the Ubuntu-loaded machine uses Linux to make computing stress-free for senior citizens. “KiWi PC is powered by an Ubuntu operating system, which generates visible and easy navigation from startup to shutdown,” as the device’s Web site explains. “The Ubuntu operating system creates a user-friendly desktop, allowing senior citizens to have immediate access to their email and the Internet hassle-free.” So much for the myth that Linux is harder to use.

4. Set-top boxes

Though it’s not typically visible to the user, Linux is often at the heart of the ubiquitous set-top box that so many of us use for streaming content, for example. The Ubuntu-powered Neuros Link is just one example.

5. ATMs

Windows really isn’t secure enough for banking, as many experts have been warning for years, so it’s no great surprise to see Linux increasingly used in automated teller machines instead. A project at Brazilian bank Banrisul, for example, has received considerable fanfare.

6. In-Vehicle PCs

Another recently announced Linux innovation is a series of PCs designed for agriculture and construction vehicles. Built for rugged conditions and harsh environments, the Grayhill devices offer a choice of Linux or Windows CE.
Linux has also popped up previously in vehicles including Mavizen’s award-winning TTX02 electric motorcycle. Then, too, there’s the fact that car companies including both Toyota and Peugeot are using Linux as well.

7. Wikipedia, Google and More

If you’ve ever used Wikipedia, then you’ve benefited from Linux, at least indirectly. In fact, Wikipedia is now using Ubuntu after years on Red Hat and Fedora. Wondering about scalability? At Wikipedia Ubuntu now reportedly powers some 10 billion page views a month.

While we’re on the subject of corporate applications, Google, Amazon, Cisco, IBM, the New York Stock Exchange and Virgin America are all renowned users of Linux, too.

8. One Laptop Per Child

Aiming to create devices that can be distributed to millions of disadvantaged children around the world, the One Laptop Per Child project has built its XO laptops to take advantage of the many freedoms of Linux.

9. Government

In the United States alone, the U.S. Postal Service, the U.S. Department of Defense and the FAA are all among the high-profile governmental users of Linux. Then there are all the many governments around the world that have made similar decisions, including France, Spain, Germany and Switzerland.

10. IBM’s Watson

Last but not least, the Watson supercomputer that wowed the world with its performance on Jeopardy recently runs on none other than Linux.

Those, of course, are just a small sampling of all the many places Linux is to be found. Still, taken together, they make a pretty convincing argument for the power of the open source operating system. No wonder more and more businesses are seeing past the myths and switching to Linux themselves.

Easily Look Up Words and Phrases in Internet Explorer

Fei — Wed, 26 May 2010 23:00:32 +0000

By Rick Broida
May 27, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO – Remember Accelerators? They were a much-touted new feature in Internet Explorer 8–but I don’t know a single person who uses them. Personally, I just never took the time to investigate them all that closely.

That may change now that I’ve tried out Define with Bing, an IE accelerator that’s genuinely useful. With just a couple clicks, it looks up definitions of any word or phrase you highlight in the browser.

To install, just visit the link in the preceding paragraph, then click Add to Internet Explorer. Presto, you’re done–you don’t even have to restart IE. (Take that, Firefox!)

Now, when you highlight a word or phrase, you’ll see a little blue-white arrow appear next to it. Click it, then mouse over All Accelerators. In the pop-up list that appears, mouse over Define with Bing–you’ll then see a pop-up box with an abbreviated collection of related information.

Alternately, if you click Define with Bing instead of just mousing over it, IE will open a new tab with a more complete list of definitions (from sources like Encarta, Wikipedia, and the Web at large).

Very handy, no? Actually, this add-on would be a lot handier if it appeared in the primary Accelerators menu, so you didn’t have to navigate into the All Accelerators sub-menu. Here’s how to accomplish that:

In Internet Explorer, click Tools, Manage Add-ons. Click Accelerators, and then click Define with Bing in the list that appears. Now click Set as default, then Close, and you’re done.

What do you think? If you like the cut of Define with Bing’s jib, maybe it’s finally time you checked out all IE8′s Accelerators.

Google boosts Custom Search’s layout and results

Jon — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 01:12:13 +0000

By Juan Carlos Perez
IDG News Service
October 27, 2009

Google has updated its Custom Search service to provide what aims to be an easier-to-personalize interface and more visually appealing search results.

The enhancements, which will go live on Monday evening, also allow registered Wikipedia users to apply Google Custom Search to their Wikipedia searches, to obtain only results that are relevant to the encyclopedia page they’re reading, for example.

Custom Search is an online service that lets publishers provide a Google search box on their sites with an index tailored to their area of focus. For example, a car-racing publication could have a Google engine on its site that delivers only results related to that topic.

The new interface options include displaying a single- or two-column page, as well as what Google calls a “compact” layout for pages accessed from mobile devices. Google also offers several “themes” with different color palettes paired with other stylistic elements. Webmasters willing to tinker with the page’s code can further tweak the layouts and designs.

Another update lets webmasters add thumbnail images and action commands to results. For example, a book search result can include a small image of the cover, as well as buttons for the user to perform actions like download the text. Webmasters can also let users filter results by including specific instructions in the query, such as finding only works by a particular writer.

Finally, people who register for a Wikipedia account can activate what Google calls a Custom Search “skin” that lets them search from within Wikipedia and obtain only results that are relevant to the topic of the page they’re viewing. A Wikipedia page has instructions for turning this on.

Jackson’s death a blow to the Internet

blogadmin — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 10:25:01 +0000

By Ian Paul

Many people around the world were saddened over the news of the sudden death of pop star Michael Jackson. But the King of Pop’s passing also impacted the tech world as millions of fans flocked to Twitter, Facebook and various news sites to soak up Jackson-related information. The result was an impact on the Internet we haven’t seen since the Great Google Lapse of 2009.

TMZ: Scoop or Fail?
TMZ was the first news service out of the gate with news about Michael Jackson’s death. Initially, TMZ quoted unnamed sources about the singer’s death, but did it really have the scoop?

Maybe not, says technology writer Mike Elgan on his personal blog The Raw Feed. Although Elgan can’t say for sure whether TMZ had solid information, the writer notes that someone had created a phony news story using an online tool that creates fake news items. The bogus story was from a nonexistent news service called Global Associated News. Before long, tweeters were linking back to GAN’s phony report, with links growing at a rate of 10 per second for half an hour, Elgan says. The funny thing is, the tweets and the fake story all happened before TMZ broke the news using anonymous sources.

So did TMZ base its initial report on the phony news story or did it base its report on legitimate sources of information? I’m guessing TMZ’s story was the real thing, but Elgan’s theory is an interesting take on what can happen when news sources and social media collide.

Twitter Rumors
While some tweets were linking back to the fake Michael Jackson news story, other Twitter users were having their own fun with the Twitter-based rumor mill. Lost among the Michael Jackson tweets were claims that other celebrities had also died, including Jeff Goldblum and Harrison Ford. Those stories turned out to be bogus, but many people were taken in by the hoax, at least initially.

Twitter and AIM Fail
Twitter’s infamous fail whale hasn’t been seen very often in recent months, but yesterday it was on full display during the Jackson fallout. Twitter co-founder Biz stone told The Los Angeles Times the microblogging site “saw an instant doubling of tweets per second the moment the story broke.” Twitter hadn’t seen that kind of activity since last year’s U.S. presidential election. The result was a slowing of the entire service, and the fail whale made frequent, albeit brief, appearances throughout the Jackson news wave. Twitter’s search capabilities were also briefly affected.

It’s interesting to note that the voracious appetite for Twitter updates about recent problems in Iran has not seriously impacted Twitter. After days of tweets about election rigging and street violence there was no noticeable impact on Twitter’s service, but Jackson dies and the Twitosphere comes crashing down under the weight of the singer’s popularity.

AOL Instant Messenger also had problems, largely due to bad timing on AIM’s part. The instant messaging service was scheduled for maintenance right around the time the Jackson news broke. Responding to PC World’s inquiries about AIM’s blackout, AOL put out the following statement: “At AOL our AIM instant messaging service was undergoing a previously scheduled software update which should normally prove routine. It proved not to be. There was a significant increase in traffic due to today’s news and AIM was down for approximately 40 minutes this afternoon.” Obviously, the news AOL referred to is Jackson’s death. The company said it has “never seen anything like it in terms of scope or depth. Historically, celebrity news prompts a worldwide outpouring with several key consumer behaviors — searching, sharing and reacting to the news followed by online tributes has become the modern way to mourn.”

WWW Fail
We’ve been hearing doomsday predictions about the end of the Internet for some time. The basic premise is that in the next few years, the Internet’s infrastructure needs a drastic overhaul before it bursts apart at the seams.

While some would like to believe otherwise, the news of Jackson’s death didn’t kill the Internet. However, some segments of the World Wide Web definitely experienced overloads that caused some sites to go dark or at least slow down. The load times for major news sites slowed down from four seconds to nine seconds, according to Venture Beat. Impacted sites included ABC, AOL, LA Times, CNN Money, and CBS.

The Los Angeles Times, one of the first trusted news source to verify Jackson’s death, reported nearly 2.3 million page views in just one hour — the highest traffic the newspaper has experienced in such a short time. That page view record beats any hour during the Times’ highest traffic day of all time — November 5, 2008, the day after Barack Obama was elected President.

Akamai, a tech firm that tracks Internet usage, reported that North America’s most popular news sites experienced a traffic influx 20% above average during the height of the Jackson story.

Final Impact
While some portions of the Internet were creaking under the pressure, Wikipedia users engaged in a brief editing war over Michael Jackson’s entry. Unsurprisingly, Wikipedia editors eventually locked out changes to Jackson’s page until hard news sites verified Jackson’s death. By morning, Michael Jackson had taken the top four spots on the iTunes 100 top albums sold.

It’s interesting to note that despite the constant tweets and TMZ’s early pronouncement, a lot of people were reluctant to believe Jackson was gone until a more credible news source — so-called old media — verified the entertainer’s death. So Jackson’s death didn’t bring down the Internet, and it reminds us that new media like Twitter, Facebook, and The Huffington Post can only enhance our news experience, but these online resources are no substitute for traditional, hard-nosed reporting.