Operation Paragon

Week 9:

2008-10-26T15:22:00.002+13:00

Project Gutenberg is a nice concept. At first a thought it might be some attempt by Steve Guttenberg earn a living now that they aren't making any more Police Academy movies, but it seems to be quite charitable.
However the search engine wasn't very good. You can't specify date when conducting searches, and seacrhing amongst subject headings wasn't as easy as it should be.

Week 9:

2008-10-26T14:47:00.002+13:00

I've picked out this podcast for you to enjoy. It's about someone leading a similar life to me. It seems I'm not enough of a wise head to work out how to add the RSS feed directly to my blog, but I've added it to my Bloglines account.
These podcasts seem to be just the same as blogs to me, but I guess they're for people too lazy to read. There might be some that are OK but they seem to be far out weighed by the boring yapping of nobodies.

Week 9: Et tu, Brute?

2008-10-12T16:14:00.002+13:00

I found this interesting case on youtube. Funny how gumshoes 2000 odd years ago spoke the same as we do now. It would be useful if they spilled a little about some of the clips, it would really help you if you're trying to get the rap on some redhot.

Week 8 Cont.:

2008-10-12T15:54:00.000+13:00

I've run my eye over the Web 2.0 award winners recently.
They all seem to be one way or another of finding like minded individuals. No wonder all the drums in this town are closing down.
The best one I found was Last.fm. This site helps you find music that suits your tastes based on information you submit. From what I found the recommendations were pretty good, although I had already heard of most of the outfits listed.
Heaven knows how you could use this in Libraries, but it's does to micro-blogging what the electric cure does to the Johnson Brothers.

Week 8: Working the mill

2008-10-12T15:34:00.000+13:00

Sorry about the lack of communication recently, but I've been out of town working on another case.
This word processing business is all a bit strange to me. Where I come from a typewriter is something you use to take care of your enemies. They say the pen is mightier than the sword, but in this case the typewriter can fill the word processor with daylight.
I prefer Google Docs to Zoho, after all Zoho sounds like Zoro's Gypsy cousin.
The way you can write and save documents while away from the office is certainly handy, but then you can do most of this with Gmail. It's the spreadsheets which are really good, just right for keeping track of expenses when you're out of the city, those used slugs and saps really hurt your overheads if you don't keep track of them.

Week 7: Facecrooks

2008-08-19T14:16:00.000+12:00

Why would any PI wanting to keep a low profile use Bebo or Facebook when you have to login to view the profiles? You don't have to with Myspace.
I see some scratcher has set up a Myspace page in my name. I can't imagine why anyone would want to try to impersonate me. He was even too afraid to use his own mush in the profile.

Week 6 & 7: Library <2.0

2008-08-19T13:26:00.001+12:00

It was another quite day in the office, so I decided to open up the filing cabinet. It doesn't hold much, I mainly use it to help add to my dust collection. I found an old case, some tomato had asked me to look into some Libraries using web 2.0. At first I thought this web 2.0 case must have been something to do with people trying to appear with it by using a flash sounding monicker for something that was as new as George Washington's teeth. Some of these libraries really had things sorted out, I was impressed. But how you convince some sap to use these web sites and so on, when they can't use a self issue machine I don't know.
As a run of the mill sleuth trying to find out information I like to keep my expenses down as much as possible. After all there's no point shelling out any more spinach than you have to. That's why I personally like the libraries that aren't quite so savvy. There is certainly no shortage of them Abington, JMU, International University College and Hartford Union High School are four but there are plenty of others. These guys sign up for trial access to databases, then publish the usernames and passwords on their websites, talk about patsies.

Week 6: Tag you're it

2008-08-08T14:38:00.003+12:00

I was siting in the office on the sixth floor of the Cahuenga Building and decided to treat myself to a steaming mug of cream of artificial flavouring soup. I started thinking about how easy it is for any two bit sleuth to find out information these days. Take these so called tagging set ups. Aparently any wise guy can put the finger on a particular website and tell their friends how great it is. Now this old fashioned gum-shoe may have been the subject to a few too many Brodericks, but I find there just isn't any substitution for a good old fashioned stake out. The proper search startegy will give you all the dope you'll ever need. I'm just not willing to trust any old shyster to try to sell me some info, and swear that it's all on the square.
Mind you if I wanted to make some sort of trip for biscuits to find someone to drink out of the same bottle with, then I suppose these rackets might not be such a bad idea. After all you try to pick up a skirt these days using any of the convetional methods and you're liable to find someone carrying a gat and end up wearing a wooden kimono.

Are you listening to me?

2008-08-03T15:58:00.000+12:00

Sorry if my first few posts sounded a bit unusual,but I've found my voice now.

Most of this Web 2.0 stuff is like eggs in the coffee, but it's nice to see the wise heads having a go. I'm guessing they already have the bees so probably don't need to play along. It must be a hard lay acting as the finger man giving all the blogs the up and down to see if they are all keeping up, must be enough to leave one craving the corn.

Week 5: Wikis (or should that be wikies?)

2008-08-03T15:00:00.005+12:00

Like so many Jaspers I don't rate Wikipedia as a reference tool, the way some mugs rely on it is enough to drive this shamus to the eel juice, however I've always found this variation to be very interesting (you probably won't be able to access it at the office), but that's not the point of this exercise (unfortunately).
Wikis certainly act as a good wire, but I think their usefulness can be matched by online forums and applications such as Google Docs (but they'll have to wait untill week 8).

P.S. I noticed Luza won one of the July ipods. I also noticed that Luza made some clear threats on his/her blog in the event that he/she did not win an ipod. Therefore...
Watch it Kelly I know a can opener, who for a pair of C notes will come round and play some chin music to make sure the ipod goes to the right gumshoe got it?

Week 4: Techno Talk

2008-07-24T14:32:00.001+12:00

I am particularly interested in the Web 3.0 apps currently in development i.e. google gears. I have checked out googles new "encyclopedia" knol, currently it's quite limited mainly health related articles, no entries under Marlowe unbelievable. I guess time will tell whether it's any better than wikipedia.

Week 4: Flickr Foto Fun

2008-07-24T11:16:00.002+12:00

I figured that if there are so many books written about me then there is bound to be one or two photos of me on the internet. I wasn't too surprised when I found this picture of myself (looking rather jaundiced) on Flickr. Finding it was duck soup these website eggs make really make this private cop's life easy.

I also found Flickr quite handy at generating useful notes, like this one.

ransomizr

A clue?

2008-07-23T10:53:00.000+12:00

Week 3: Library thing

2008-07-22T15:04:00.005+12:00

Well I didn't seem to have any trouble working out how to use LibraryThing. But I was rather alarmed to find out that some Limey called Chadler had written all these books about me! How the hell did he find out all this stuff. There's also a book about my good friend Sam Spade, he works down in San Francisco, does a good job but I don't think he could stand it on the mean streets of LA. Anyway I have made a list of these books here, so the guys at the Sheriff's office can look at it.

Week 3: My Life In Pictures

2008-07-22T14:32:00.003+12:00

As you can see, here is a picture of me as done by Andy Warhol, or was it FD Toys? Given that Warhol's celebrity screen prints were made in the 1960s and I am working in LA in the 40s and 50s it's safe to assume it was the later. I'll sign off with this photo of me reflected in my ever so shiny desk.

The perfect chocolate soufflé

2008-07-11T13:01:00.001+12:00

Sometimes I will be overwhelmed with a craving for a particular dish (e.g. chocolate soufflé). This will lead to me looking through copious cook books and websites searching for the ideal recipe. To aid me in my search I have added a search box to my blog, which is capable of metesearches.

To add the box I needed to use the draft version of Blogger.

First select the layout link from the dash board, then "add a gadget", then select the links option. Once it has opened you can select what web sites you would like to search. In my case I chose my favourite cooking sites. Once you have saved these you need to select "add a gadget" again. Now select "search box", and make sure the "linked from here" box is ticked.

Once you have saved all of this a search box and a list of links will appear on you blog. When you conduct a search in the new box it will provide you with results in a tabbed format. The first tab will be for results within your blog, the next for results within the pages you have linked to, and the final one is for results on the world wide web.

Week 2: RSS feeds and bloglines

2008-07-08T16:02:00.002+12:00

I found setting up my bloglines account and subscribing to rss feeds to be rather easy. Once set up they certainly save time when you want to be up to date with all your favourite websites. Setting up the bloglines blog was no more difficult, once I realised I hadn't validated my email address that is.
I am currently using the draft version of blogger which has this great new tool which allows you to a My Blogs List where you can add your RSS feeds to your blog (they're on the right).

Week 1: Templates

2008-07-04T15:09:00.001+12:00

I decided that the stock templates available on blogger were simply too plain for my tastes, so I have installed a new one.
I had some trouble installing the new XML coding. Initially I was trying to copy and paste it without choosing to modify the layout first.
Once I realised I needed to midfy the layout first, it was pretty simple. Just use google to find a layout I liked, download the XML code, extract the files, and cut and paste in place of the original XML text (remebering to back up the original), simple!
Next step modifying the code to suit my particular tastes.