Diigo - A web research tool

Website: http://www.diigo.com Diigo is a free, online tool that can help you while doing research. It is similar in concept to Delicious, a bookmarking tool, but in many ways more versatile. Sometimes, we feel as if there is too much information, when only some is really relevant. Diigo can help you save these snippets of useful information, add you own notes or save the entire page. Above all, it makes it very easy for you to access anywhere.

Getting started with using diigo is very easy. Simply head over to their website and click the "Get Started Now!" button. After creating an account, you will see this screen: If you want to start using it quickly, you can simply drag the Diigolet "super bookmark" to your bookmarks toolbar. From it, you can access Diigo's main features, such as highlighting and annotating: Alternatively, you can install the add-on, which provides more features such as viewing your Library as a sidebar. Once you highlight anything or add a sticky note, it is immediately added to your Library, which is stored in the cloud. That way, all relevant or useful information you find while researching is kept in one place, where it is safe and easily retrievable. This is another one of Diigo's powerful features: the ability to sync and access this data from any device, anywhere. It is compatible with iPhones, iPads, Android phones and all major web browsers. Here, you can see the bit from the article I saved, accessed from my iPad. This also allows me to easily return to the article to continue reading. Overall, Diigo is a great, easy-to-use little tool to aid in your researching, to use while working on a group project where you need to share information, or just for being able to save anything interesting you come across while browsing the web. Haihao Liu 11W

PaperRater - Your Very Own Editor

Website: http://www.paperrater.com/

We've all typed up a piece of writing for school homework or for some other reason and as we're writing it, everything seems to fit into place.

But then, there's the editing.

There are not many people would get their work grammatically correct at the first try, and even when you've read over your work and hand it in, your teacher gives it back with one or two correction markings that you overlooked.

With PaperRater, you can solve these little mishaps of your own subconscious. PaperRater is a free, online program that finds the mistakes in your work and makes them noticeable to you without having to consult anyone. What's more is that an artificial intelligence also marks it to a teacher's standard, giving you a grade and a score on your writing just like a teacher would.

Features of PaperRater (Written on the website):

• Auto-Grader
• Readability Statistics
• Style and Word Choice
• Spelling and Grammar Check
• Plagiarism Check
• Title Validation
• Vocabulary Builder

What it also does is that it rates your work based on the type of Year that you're in and the type of work that you are writing. Simply enter your grade, type of paper, title and text to get your editing feedback. It also can detect plagiarism in your work from your research sites, which you can post into the "Work Cited" section.

Uses in Learning and Reasons for Recommendations:

PaperRater is a great program to use when you can't seem to find anymore problems in your work. The difference from an average word processor is that it not only points out the problems that you miss, but it forces you to change those problems yourself rather than auto-correcting it for you. Therefore, you learn to identify more problems and change it yourself. It also suggests using different words and phrases that you may have never thought of using, opening your mind to more ideas.

For those who are extremely lazy and are tempted to plagiarize, or perhaps are hard-working but have unintentionally plagiarized, PaperRater detects it and points it out. It's probably what your teacher would find out anyway. So basically, it's your online teacher/marker.

Of course, if you are confident with your skills in editing or don't want to take advice from a computer, you can always ignore what it says.

By: Michael Kang 9F

Quick Tip: Ads, and how to get rid of them

Are you tired of ads distracting you while you're doing research? Are you sick of having to click the "close ad" button on YouTube? Are you absolutely certain that, for the last time, you do not wish find out your credit score? Are you starting to think that this article is beginning to sound an ad itself? Well, by installing a simple add-on, you can eliminate 98%* of ads encountered in your everyday web browsing!

*Not based on actual figures.

Before you begin: It is recommended that as you follow these instructions, open the links in new tabs. That way you can still see this page after you download the relevant add-ons.

Internet Explorer 7, 8 and 9

1. Download Adblock from http://simple-adblock.com/
2. Install
3. When you run Internet Explorer the first time after installing, follow the simple instructions to configure it.

Mozilla Firefox 3 and 4

1. Go to Tools > Add-ons
   
2. Search for Adblock Plus
   
3. Install the extension
4. Restart Firefox, and just click "Add Subscription" on the configuration screen.

Google Chrome 10

1. Go to https://chrome.google.com/webstore
2. Search for Adblock
3. Install Adblock (the one with 2 million users)

• Note: Currently causes issues when attempting to block ads in YouTube videos. Go into options and untick "Block ads inside YouTube videos."

Safari 4 and 5

1. Go to http://safariadblock.com/
   
2. Download
3. Double-click the funny-looking ".safariextz" file to install.
4. Optional: Enable automatic updates by going to Safari Preferences > Extensions > Updates > Install Updates Automatically.
   

• Note: Only tested on a Mac. Procedure should be same on PC. Please leave a comment if it works for you on PC.

Opera 10

1. Go to http://www.fanboy.co.nz/adblock/opera/
   
2. Right-click the "Main List: urlfilter.ini" and select "Save target as"
   
3. Choose the correct folder based on your OS as given on the website
4. Optional: Follow instructions to install the "Optimised Element Filter".

• Warning: This has not been tested by me! Please leave comment if it works for you.
  

Final comments: The effectiveness and thoroughness of ad-blocking will vary between different operating systems and browsers. But in all cases, there should be a big improvement in the number of ads you see, namely, a lot less! If, for some bizarre reason, you actually enjoy seeing ads, then please ignore this post.