Citation tweaks, speed improvements, & more

We deployed some updates to EasyBib today - here’s a brief summary:

Citation source updates: We’ve added the “vinyl recording” type to the musical recording citation form (thanks Emily!), and the Book of Proverbs to the Bible form (why that was missing the first time around we have no idea - thanks Timothy and Daniel for pointing this out).

Interface updates: A lot of people have been asking if they can export their citations to Word. Even though we’ve had that option since we launched, it was slightly buried. We’ve moved the links around a bit so it should be easier to find (thanks Tom, for this and all of your other great suggestions).

Bib4School tutorials: For our new Bib4School subscribers, we’ve added a number of tutorials to the administrator control panel that help walk you through the process for creating teacher and student accounts.

MyBib signup reminders: When you sign up to a MyBib account, we’ll email your login and password information so you don’t forget.

Speed improvements: We’ve optimized our database, and that’s made our pages load a lot faster. We hope you notice the difference.

Google Chrome on EasyBib

Hey bibbers,

Not sure if you’ve heard, but Google released a new web browser today they are calling “Chrome.” We’re big fans of Google at EasyBib - we use the Google Apps suite of tools for all of our internal business needs, we use Google search (obviously), and so on - so Chrome was something we were excited to check out.

Let me first get my personal opinions out - Chrome is a fast install, has a non-intrusive interface, and works speedily. Most of the sites I use load a lot faster in Chrome.  It’s a beta product, so there are some small issues (for instance, javascript rich text editors, like the one in Tumblr, don’t work properly).

On that basis alone, I’d encourage anyone who is interested to at least check it out. I’m a FireFox user, but I’m likely going to switch to this. Internet Explorer users, Chrome is worlds ahead of what you’re used to.

So why am I writing this post? Well, new browsers always have implications for Web developers, especially new browsers launched by a company with Google’s reach.

The biggest concern is interface stability: Web browsers can interpret a site’s code differently, which could have far reaching implications for how a Web site looks. For instance - we spent a lot of time making sure our site looked the same in IE and Firefox, but there are minor issues that are still not perfect. Adding another browser in the mix could complicate matters.

Fortunately, Chrome uses Webkit, which Apple’s Safari is also based on, and our pages render well.  So that’s one concern neutralized.

The thing that I was most interested in, however, was something new Chrome is bringing to the table. This is the Chrome Task Manager, which is basically a way for users to tell with Web sites are hogging all their memory. We’ve all been in situations where our browsers freeze and crash, and we don’t know why. Well, Task Manager is a way of figuring out which Web sites are naughty and which are nice.

So how does EasyBib perform?

Here’s the screenshot - When I first load the EasyBib site, it loads about 11MB of memory, but then goes down to about 7MB. As I use the site, it hovers around 10MB. I’ve included some other sites for comparison.

Overall, I think 7-10MB is pretty decent. Fellow web developers, what do you think? For your own sites, were you happy with your memory performance? Any suggestions to lower the usage number? Post your thoughts in the comments.

New citation format: Blogs & Podcasts

A common question we receive on our help desk is, “How do I cite a blog?”  Blogs are increasingly becoming a mainstream source, and students are often finding the information they need for their papers in this relatively new type of source.

To help, we created the blog format. You can cite a full blog article, a blog comment, and even interviews and product reviews.

Blogs are information sources that you should treat with some care.  There are thousands of blogs that are written by professionals and experts, but there are thousands more that may not be. Obviously blogs are becoming a very important medium for information transfer, so to categorically deny this source as a respectable citation medium would be the wrong thing to do. Just take pains to double check the quality of what you’re citing.

And let’s be honest: this applies to all sources you use. Always confirm the quality of your materials when you do your research.

EasyBib featured on CNET Webware

Easy as ABC: Web Apps for Students

“This one is a little bit of an old school pick, but it’s an indispensable resource for every student.”

Thanks guys!

Our first widget: minibib

Our first foray into widgetry: we bring you minibib.

What’s minibib?

minibib is a quick and easy way to let your users start citing sources directly from your Web site. Selecting a source from the widget brings them back to EasyBib.

What’s the use case? Well, every now and then we get an email from a public library or a school library asking if they can add a link to EasyBib from their resources page. We’re always thrilled when we get these emails because we know librarians are our hardest audience to please, and know that if they’re linking to us it means they appreciate our work (to all the librarians out there- thanks :) ).

So we thought, hey, instead of just a little old link, can we spice it up a bit?

From that little question grew the idea of minibib. Take a look and let us know what you think.

Introducing ISBN AutoCite

Hi everyone,

As the new design settles in with our users, I wanted to make a few blog posts about some of the new features we have on EasyBib.  The first of these will cover ISBN AutoCite.

Some of the most common sources cited on EasyBib are books. On the old version of EasyBib, book information had to be entered in element by element. Now, given that the bibliographical information in books are already organized by ISBN number, it was only a matter of time until we were able to marry a database full of these numbers with our service.  To cite a book via ISBN number, you first need to go to our book form.

Once there, you just type in your 10 or 13 digit ISBN number (often found on the inside cover of the book or on the back, near the bar code).

Then, click Autocite, and your information should soon pop up.

I’ll admit: we do not have every ISBN in here (many out of print sources are not in our database)- but we’re working hard to collect more data and bring this technology beyond books - to periodicals, web sites, and more.

One last note - MyBib Pro users used to have access to a service called “InstaCite”, which allowed them to search books based on titles and authors. While the ISBN Autocite database is much larger than our old InstaCite database, we do not yet have search by title/author - we will though, very very soon.

Introducing Murphy

EasyBib, this is Murphy.

Murphy, meet EasyBib.

Let me introduce you to what is called Murphy’s law in the computer space.

Murphy’s law basically says that if something can go wrong, then it most likely will.

You have also probably heard of so called “bugs” before when your geeky computer friends (People like me! ;)) talk about programming?! Well, bugs and Murphy’s law hang out at bars at night and plot where they could cause confusion, and then they will!

What am I referring to? I am referring to our launch last Friday.

In some respects it all went pretty well, but I am sure some of you noticed that you could not log into your accounts or it gave you another weird error when you tried or some accounts had sources/lists missing when you got in.

The reason for those issues is that we did not just change the design when we relaunched EasyBib (Version 5). What we did over the past six months is actually pretty unique in the web space. We started from scratch.

Most of what we did is not directly available to all the people using EasyBib every day. For example, we did a lot of reorganization of the bibliographical data which allows us to expand our service more easily in the future.

So even though you just see the new design, all of you will benefit from the background changes in the long run. We will be able to shift from 2nd into 3rd gear with the website and accelerate on new features and all the stuff you have been asking for over the years, and all the new ideas you can come up with.

As for last Friday, my good old pal Murphy (we go back over 10 years) made sure it did not go all as smooth as planned. So of course I don’t want to shift all the blame on poor Murphy and the bugs. There’s plenty of space here for us to improve as well and let me assure you that we will!

All the issues have been resolved, I talked to many of you guys through the helpdesk and let me thank you one more time for your patience and all the best wishes you guys sent in. If you still experiencing any of said hiccups, make sure to get in touch us.

As always, thanks for using EasyBib.

Stay tuned for more - you ain’t seen nothing yet!

You don’t own the business. The business owns you.

EasyBib began in 2001, when Neal and I were still in high school. We kept it through college, through working at other jobs, year after year after year. We’ve always had to split our time on it; there was always something else.

When we decided to do EasyBib full-time, there was a palpable sense that we’d finally shed the constraints of normal life and enjoy being empowered, responsible, and in charge of ourselves (sidenote: prior to EasyBib, I got an introductory taste of what freedom tasted like at drop.io. My experience there emboldened me to take the plunge here).

Our excitement was all about owning the business and doing what we wanted to do with it, being able to take it in various strategic directions and making a big impact along the way.

What we didn’t realize was that it wasn’t us who were going to own the business - the business would end up owning us.  Our schedules would be defined by our customers’ needs, not our own, and our strategic path would be defined less by our own vision than by the course the business inevitably takes.

It reminds me of that Big Lebowski quote: “sometimes you eat the bar, sometimes the bar eats you.”

Or that one joke about aliens visiting Earth, and after witnessing owners scooping up their dogs’ output, getting the wrong impression about who’s in charge. Or maybe the right one. =)

Anyway, we spent the whole day today trying to diagnose and solve an obscure issue we were having on migrating existing MyBib Pro accounts to our new platform. It’s working now, and finally getting it solved is one of those rushes that only real-time jobs can provide.

We’re not proud of the delays or the issues that people have experienced, and we hope they don’t continue to occur. If you’re one of those unlucky folks, please email us and we’ll look into it immediately.

But it just goes to show - at our old jobs, we might have just waited until Monday.  Thanks to Till for pushing into the late weekend night on this one.

We’re live.

Months. Weeks. Days. Hours. Minutes. Seconds.

Sunrise.

Sunset.

Sunrise.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

We’ve poured our souls into this one.

New stuff. Lots of it. Basically: everything.

Philosophy: that’s the same.

Easy. Practical. Accurate. Fast. Reliable.

More to unearth, more to come, more more.

More.

From these guys.