Freeloader Friday Download of the Week

Giving Back with your Mac: Online Service Ideas

We spend a lot of time online, but how much of that time are we doing things for the 'greater good'? Why not employ your Mac in some quality online service? Lets get started.

Help others find their Ancestors

Family Search Indexing

Genealogy is a hobby for some and a way of life for others. There are millions of pages of records out there that exist as micro fiche that have yet to be digitized and made searchable.

This is where the Family Search Indexing project comes in. The LDS (Mormon) Church has hordes of fiche that need digitizing, and with cross-platform (Java) software the project makes it possible to digitize batches of 50 names from old census records in less that 30 minutes. The software (which requires the latest version of Java, which requires 10.4.9) even allows you to download a batch to work offline. When you're done, submit and you helped someone find their great great great....

Discover new galaxies for mankind

Galaxy Zoo

I know this sounds very Star Trek, but its the real deal. On this website you can employ your star-gazing skills to classify galaxies. Don't worry, there's some training.

As part of the deal, you'll get to see some images of distant galaxies that no one has ever seen.

Bring classic writings into the digital age

reCAPCHA

We see capchas every day on the web - you type in nonsensical numbers and letters to prove you are human. But, what if that effort could be spent on something useful.

reCAPCHA is a service for webmasters that allow them to screen spam from blog comments and do some good. The works that appear in capcha images are actually excerpts from books being digitized from the Internet Archive. Now you can employ your readers in the effort to digitize public writings.

Other opportunities

Have specialized skills you'd like to apply online? Search Volunter Match and the UN's Online Volunteering. Share some of your time with a worth cause. Its just a good thing to do.

Brian

  


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