Category: Research

Firefox Scrapbook Hacks – Viewing and Saving Webpages from Anywhere!

Reading Time: 4 minutes This weekend I decided to wrap up a couple cool knowledge management “hacks” and share some code on GitHub.  I primarily use the Firefox Scrapbook plugin to save all web pages of interest and use it as a general “digital snippet” repository. Since I started using Scrapbook in 2006 there have been a number of…
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Learning Faster – Automatically Extract Highlighted Text from PDF Documents

Reading Time: 8 minutes Overview I never really considered myself a “highlighter” until a couple years ago.  Back in school I would, on occasion, highlight some interesting passages while doing homework or reading books and jot them down later.  More often then not though many of those highlights would go to waste.  After all, what good are highlighting interesting…
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How to Synchronize Your Digital Scrapbook

Reading Time: 4 minutes I had originally planned on calling this article ‘How to Use Cloud Computing to Synchronize Your Digital Scrapbook For Research and Integrate Into Your Personal Knowledge Management Wiki for Extra Credit’

Visual Understanding Environment (VUE)

Reading Time: < 1 minute The Visual Understanding Environment (VUE) project at Tufts is focused on creating flexible tools for managing and integrating digital resources in support of teaching, learning and research. VUE provides a flexible visual environment for structuring, presenting, and sharing digital information. At its core, the Visual Understanding Environment (VUE) is a concept and content mapping application,…
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As We May Think: Creating Your Own Personal Memex

Reading Time: 3 minutes The memex ( “memory extender”) is the name given by Vannevar Bush to the theoretical proto-hypertext computer system he proposed in his 1945 The Atlantic Monthly article As We May Think. The memex has influenced the development of subsequential hypertext and intellect augmenting computer systems. Bush’s vision for the memex extended far beyond a mechanism…
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Document Management Systems: SCAN (Smart Content Aggregation and Navigation)

Reading Time: 3 minutes Back in March, I began evaluating some open source Document Management Systems (DMS) to help compliment my wiki-based Personal Knowledge Manager (PKM). That’s a little bit of acronym-overload. But, in simple terms I really am looking for a way to easily store, categorize, and retrieve a number of my documents related to research and learning…
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Semantic Wikis and Faceted Browsing: The Ultimate Knowledge Database

Reading Time: 2 minutes Every 6 months or so I mix things up and alternate my primary area of focus between studying philosophy and pursuing my creative technical interests (e.g. my multitude of pet/geek projects). I decided to switch gears a couple weeks ago and have been back into academic mode. My primary focus has been studying the history…
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Document Management Systems (DMS) and Knowledge Management

Reading Time: 3 minutes When I first started using knowledge management applications (mainly traditional outliners), I had hoped that I could find the “One True Application” or OTA. The OTA is the single killer-app that contains all the features I could ever hope for, solves all of my problems, and automagically helps organize all my information. Well folks, I’ve…
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Wiki Hunt: Wikis for Personal Knowledge Management

Reading Time: < 1 minute A few months ago I blogged about Personal Learning Environments and Knowledge Management. Since that time, I’ve been researching a number of open source applications and today, I’ve officially kicked-off my hunt for the perfect Wiki for personal knowledge management. What I’m ultimately looking for is a wiki for organizing my personal research, keeping track…
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Personal Learning Environments and Knowledge Management

Reading Time: 2 minutes For readers that know me, it’s not a stretch to say that I *love* learning new things. I’ve always been a bit of a self learner (autodidactic if you want to get technical), and a few years ago I started a search (a quest actually) for finding tools to help streamline the learning process. Over…
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