Desktop Themes

We have released a feed detailing the different themes provided by the Desktop. The feed is available at http://feeds.feedburner.com/ResearchDesktopThemes. This feed can be added to web page at http://researchdesktop.org/embed-feed.jsp?feedURL=http://feeds.feedburner.com/ResearchDesktopThemes.

Places that works like Foursquare

Facebook has introduced a service called Places that works like Foursquare. To disable follow the instructions from Life Hacker

Gephi

We are playing with Gephi, an open source network visualisation tool. Try it on your facebook network by following this tutorial. It's still in Alpha but its cool.

Added Top Endangered Species Feed

We have added an endangered species feed that links to the Biodiversity desktop.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/TopEndangeredSpecies

Tableau Desktop

We are learning how to use Tableau Desktop analytics software at the moment. It is marketed as a data visualization and business intelligence tool. It produces some fantastic visualizations and there is a very good gallery of public images. It is worth visiting their gallery for some fantastic examples of what can be done. This is not exactly a home purchase but it is well priced for the desktop version and well worth the money. The easiest way to describe it is as rocket powered visual pivot tables. The charts and maps can be saved as images or into pdf. There is a free version called Tableau public that people can play with and free reader software. Well worth a try and I could see more researchers in universities using this tool.

Research Desktop Reaches Out

We have added two new facilities with the Research Desktop that allows branded RSS feeds or search facilities to be placed on other web sites. There is an example on our blogspot page http://sociomics.blogspot.com/.

Updates

We are updating the blog as our Research Desktop project moves along and we have added twitter and will be looking to create separate theme pages.