Another milestone for knowledge workers following this research blog — near completion of the sidebars designed to augment your research through use of the net. In this post I list the main sidebar headings for quick reference. No need to scroll to find them later (if you disdain scrolling) — just use the ‘find in this page’ function in your browser (or toolbar/s). That’s faster if you know what you want to see. If you don’t know, just take your time and explore.
The left and right sidebars now take over much (not all) the roles played by my research website and indonesian-studies list. The main research site pages have many outdated links and don’t include new materials. The list has current links and new stuff but only a rudimentary Yahoo! Groups search system to find things. The sidebars partially remedy these problems.
Left sidebar
About - Takes you to my Friendster profile. If you’re signed in, you see the full profile.
Email Me - Lets you send me an email directly to my main email address.
Add as Friend - If you haven’t joined Friendster yet, or are a member but haven’t added me to your network of friends, the Add link is the one to hit. Appreciate it if you then also email a note from within Friendster if the simple or elaborate Friendster profile you set up doesn’t say much about you. Those little emails really save me time. 
Syndicate This Site - This link allows you to add Simplicity postings (not comments or new sidebar entries) to your RSS feed. Good idea to get one if you have put it off. I use Bloglines. Lots of other good ones around though.
Powered by Friendster Blogs - Just an ad taking you to the Friendster signup page. Also takes you to a private Friendster page if you have already signed in.
Nice Friends - Quite an important list. Helps you add knowledge workers in my network to your network. Just click on the person’s name. There are many others listed when you view my friends list directly from within Friendster. Nice people.
Recent Comments - Just the most recent comments by readers on my postings. Plus my replies. Older comments are automatically archived by Friendster’s software.
Sightings - A few imposters found among friends of friends. Enak dibaca.
My Other Blogs - My first two blogs, Reonsiderations is professional, Tids and Bits personal. Some helpful or amusing postings in each. More later.
My Other Net Places - The remainder of my net presence. Easier to click these than to google me. Web-searching with syntax and keywords — "john macdougall" indonesia — yields over 10,000 results.
Nice Songs - My entertainment for you. Reflects my musical tastes with some Indonesian sites tossed in. You do need the appropriate player for the various songs (all available in the right sidebar under Our Net). Some songs stream, some download, most make you wait till a site connection is made and your player opens. Tip: I favor Sarah Brightman and David Rovics.
Necessities - These are partial or whole versions of US print periodicals I get through the US Postal Service. I read selectively from them. Many comprise first-rate literary journalism. Definitely liberal in American terms. Occasionally you’ll see an article from them on indonesian-studies in line with my view that anyone studying Indonesia needs to know more about other countries in the region and around the world. Otherwise, Indonesian studies becomes insular. That’s worse than archipelagic — better to be global and local (glocal’ is the social science jargon for this approach — I dislike jargon so I deny telling you this word).
Practical Stuff - A very few neat net tools to keep you healthy, wealthy, wise, and on time.
Southeast Asia - As some of you know, I consider myself a Southeast Asian rather than Indonesian specialist, even though my work for many years has focused on Indonesia. This important list gives you access to major online Southeast Asian print media, including a big selection from Indonesia. At the top of the list are multiple net directories for every country in the region. These let you did deeply beyond the press, essential but timebound to the present and not always deep.
World Press - Focused on the press of the West (wherever that is) and the (entire) Islamic world (in more places than you ordinarily have in your mind). At the top of the list are some major net directories of the world’s press so you can fill in gaps in your daily reading. More than one directory is included since these sites vary greatly in coverage and currency (very hard to maintain them).
Our World - Institutions around the world and in Southeast Asia which tend to generate longer reports placed online. Not quite finished updating the Southeast Asian contributors.
Minority Groups - Designed to remedy the enormous gap in knowledge I see everywhere about the diversity of American society. I made a special effort to cover Asian American and Muslim American groups. At the top of the list are carefully selected Wikipedia entries with good introductory info to many groups, exclusive info on others, and as always, leads to other sites and print materials. Many relevant very incomplete Wikipedia entries (called ’stubs’) are omitted.
Right sidebar
Recent Posts - Just my 10 most recent postings to Simplicity. These are those appearing on the blog’s opening page. The rest are easily retrievable from this blog’s archives.
Archives - The blog’s archives arranged by month of postings.
Categories - The blog’s archives arranged by the not altogether whimsical categories to which I assign particular postings. Mostly Wondrous Things are done on this blog, but occasionally some really strange, funny, or political material appears.
Calendar - This usually appears as the month of most current postings. The specific day on which a posting has appeared is kindly highlighted by Friendster. Basically, the monthly calendar tells you I have been busy most days on my regular job or on indonesian-studies list. Changes to sidebars, made daily, are not highlighted on the calendar. Now that the sidebars are about done and ‘just’ need to be maintained, I will announce sidebar changes in periodic separate postings. If you have Simplicity blog in your RSS feed, you will automatically receive announcements of all regular postings, including announcement of sidebar changes. Otherwise, you have to visit Simplicity using your browser. The blog works with all major browsers, though we all know which browser is the best one, don’t we.
Searchrolls Plus - These days targeted search is the name of the game. This list is dedicated to some of the recent new tools in that category — searchrolls, listibles, swickis, and clustering search engines. All have been the subject of easily findable previous postings. Specific tools provided enable you to do research on many aspects of everyday life, using the net, and, of course, researching Indonesia and the rest of the world. I’ve included the tools I myself have made so far. More coming, as time permits. Remember, it is very easy for you to make searchrolls, swickis, and listibles, all the more so with the numerous new links in both left and right sidebars. Just email me if you would like your creations included here.
Our Net - This is a grab-bag heading for many of the best things on the net, especially what is now sometimes colloquially called ‘Web 2.0,’ the participatory web. Here you will find resources to astonish you, as well as links to specific software usable right in your browser or downloadable. Use links here to get up-do-date on many of the net’s nicest places and goodies. A guaranteed good show, or your money back.
Language - Maybe most people in the world get by knowing just one language, but not those who enter here. Mostly everyone I know who visits is at least bilingual, though not in all basic linguistic skills — speaking, listening, writing, reading, (oral) interpretation, and (written) translation. There is some linguistic skill in many languages you can acquire through the links in this list. Sites range from simple utilitarian efforts to highly sophisticated online language learning courses.
Radio Stations - This list focuses on ‘foreign’ radio broadcasters with Indonesian-language (and other) services. Some of the stations have text counterparts of their broadcasts. Listening to just a few of these stations quickly shows enormous variations in scope and value of news coverage. At the top of the list are some major directories of online radio stations of all types from all over the world. Offline-only stations are also often listed in these huge compendia. Radio stations, most expensive to operate, come and go very quickly online. Like online versions of print magazines, some have just dropped out due to financial exigency, competition, and redundancy.
Nice Blogs - Weblogs are currently the most explosive segment of the participatory web. There are so many of them, and so many types, that even now excellent specialized blog search engines are jammed with traffic as more and more people search the so-called blogosphere. At the top of this list, I include three of the dedicated blog search sites. Many other general search engines now have tabs specializing in blog searches, or simply automatically display blog postings in their results. In my fairly short Iist here, I concentrate on Indonesian blogs (often, surprisingly, written in English), including the small but growing number of aggregate blogs (postings by a set of partners, sometimes moderated). Other blogs dealing with Southeast Asia are also gradually being added. Most but not all blogs are syndicated and available via RSS feeds. Huge numbers of webpages are also now syndicated but are not blogs. Some of these inevitably appear here. You will also find a growing number of photo blogs (phlogs). Sorry, no vlogs (video blogs) at the moment.
Nice Lists - Mailing lists still thrive on the net, though bloggers have sometimes fled them in search of greater freedom of expression, or less clutter and chat. I’ve included only a few lists since many are accessible only after joining them or signing on to an account on a particular list service.
Video - Here I concentrate on proliferating news sites with video feeds plus a new species of services allowing individuals to upload and share their own videos. You really need broadband for this. Even then, some video sites really strain browsers and may crash them. Nothing fatal,
just annoying.
Mashups - These are another new type of website typically overlaying one or more application interface/s with another to produce a startling, useful, or purely amusing result. Ordinary folk may make some of them, but others require programming skills.
Altogether, the sidebars contain at this moment approximately 1,300 links for you to explore. Spend some time here. Try things out. A research blog assisting you to do real research doesn’t come along every day. And don’t forget hard-copy print sources. Or field work. Or, most of all, research design. Online information alone rarely comprises an adequate research project.
