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New Features on OverDrive Mobile

More good news from OverDrive, the service provider behind our downloadable e-books and audiobooks! Based on patron feedback, they have made some improvements to their mobile interface. Here’s the rundown:

Patron-defined lending: Choose your own lending period for each title. Lending period options include 7, 14, or 21 days. If you plow through your e-media quickly, a shorter lending period can help to keep you from exceeding the 10 item checkout limit.
Advanced search: In addition to keyword search, you can now search by title, author, publisher, format, and more! This targeted approach should save you some search time.
Enhanced searching: After search results are returned, filters are available to help you narrow down further. One helpful filter will only show titles with copies available for immediate checkout. No more scrolling through page after page looking for a book you can download today.
Page numbers: Search results will now have page numbers so you can estimate the total number of results and keep track of your location within results.

We hope these features make your mobile downloading experience easier and faster than ever! Enjoy!

Got Sony Reader Wi-Fi?

Last week, I posted about how to download the library’s OverDrive titles directly to your Kindle. This week, another e-reader with direct download capability emerged. The newest in Sony’s e-reader line, officially named Sony Reader Wi-Fi, also allows you to checkout and download library e-books without a computer in the middle of the process. OverDrive has created an instructional video to teach Sony Reader Wi-Fi users this new download method.

Happy downloading!

Got Kindle?

You asked for it, and now it’s here! Our OverDrive downloadable e-books are now available for Kindle devices and apps.

To download an e-book to your Kindle, visit our Digital Collection. Search for a book you would like to download. If it has this icon: add that version to your digital bookbag and download. Downloading will prompt you to login to your Amazon account. From there, you can send the title to your Kindle device or app. For detailed instructions, please see our website.

Search Individual Sites Using Google

Have you ever tried to search an enormous site that either didn’t have a site search or the site search wasn’t worth using? Thankfully, Google can rescue us from that quagmire!

While searching for information on the NYS Department of Health site (I don’t mean to pick on them, but this is a true example), I couldn’t seem to find what I needed after about 10 minutes of searching. So, I went to Google and typed the following:

health.state.ny.us:spanish language materials

The “health.state.ny.us” portion is the address of the website I was searching. The colon in the middle (without spaces on either side) tells Google where the site name ends and the actual keywords begin. This simple tweak in my search magically brought up a manageable list of relevant results!

I hope this helps next time you stumble across an unwieldy website that you know has information you need. Until next time…

Finding Lost Electronics

Have you ever lost your camera? How about your cell phone? Thankfully, if you have access to the internet, there are some tools to help you locate your lost items.

Cameras:
Stolen Camera Finder – This site uses the camera’s serial number to search for photos on the web taken by the your camera. If someone else is using your camera, it will help you track it down. The site works best in Firefox or Chrome.

CameraFound.com -Worldwide “lost and found” for cameras.

IFoundYourCamera.net – Another “lost and found.”

Cell Phones:
If you don’t already have an app installed to assist in finding your phone, try one of these sites:

Icantfindmyphone.com – Enter your phone number and click the “Hello” button to make your phone ring.

Where’s My Cellphone? – Similar to the site above, with the added feature of a delay in call time.

Laptops are more difficult to recover unless you have installed software to protect against loss, such as LoJack for Laptops or Hidden (for Mac). If you would like to read an amusing computer recovery story involving Hidden, one Mac owner kept a blog about the theft, complete with embarrasing pictures of the thief!

Happy Computing!