My new Starting Points blog is now up and running at

http://starting-points.blogspot.com

It covers on a mostly daily basis the same topics as all the groups I
established on Facebook (FB) and elsewhere on the net. )You can find those on my Facebook Info page.) The Starting Points topics reflect my longstanding main areas of interest. Namely --

Southeast Asia, the Muslim world, American studies, global problems, minority groups, and internet resources

I had been putting some Starting Points postings on my Facebook Wall, but I am now stopping that practice for a while. FB, after all, is a 'walled garden' for one's friends. Better for now to make Starting Points available on the wider public net where all can find it through web or blog search engines and bookmark it or put it personal RSS feeds.

Starting Points is not strictly an academic or a personal blog. It's a blog to help others to do research, or more generally, knowledge production, in any medium -- print, audio, broadcast, video, film, blogs, websites, email, personal sharing sites (translation: anywhere).

The focus is mainly providing insights into diverse contemporary and available events and sources, including longer materials readers would not typically see.

To help accomplish this end, I have already set up in the right sidebar several lists of links designed to aid your own net searching and exploration. These are --

Search Tools Compilations
Unconventional Search Sites
Online Learning Resources

I have just begun constructing similar lists of links (also in the right
sidebar, further down) for all the main topics covered by the blog. These lists will grow substantially in size in coming months and over the life of the blog.

There are also already present on the blog a lot of gadgets which self-refresh and push blog-related info directly to you. Other gadgets are focused on net searching you can tailor to your own needs. Most of these gadgets are located at the bottom of each page, while some are in the right sidebar. Combined with my postings, you can use these gadgets to become well-informed on just about any topic which interests you. though I try to nudge you to materials on the topics on which the blog focuses.

You can leave comments in just about any language on any posting. You can quick-tick any of the little boxes after each posting -- these are labeled 'bravo,' 'ha=ha,' and 'lies.'Comments and quick-ticks are easy ways for you to provide feedback to me on blog postings. You can also email me directly on anything else about the blog -- like the gadgets, link coverage, tehnical suggestions, and my personal opinions. Use this preferred address --

john.a.macdougall@...m