Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Week 9 3/4 - Terminado: Thing twenty-three of twenty-three


Platform 9 3/4
Originally uploaded by dicey339.
Awww...I'm feeling kind of sad this is ending. I've had a really good time learning 2.0.

To reflect...

My favorite discoveries were the image generators, podcasts and learning about
del.icio.us.

I never did have time for that tag cloud i wanted to make, but that's the very next thing I'm going to explore on my own. This is an example of how the program has launched me into lifelong learning.

Lots of take-aways from this program...I'd say twenty-three sounds about right.

I would definitely participate in another discovery program like this. I've learned tons. Even some of my tech saavy friends are quite impressed at my abilities :-) And you know what? I think I AM a computer genius now...just like I predicted in Thing One!
:-)
Thanks Virtual Services Team for a brilliant 9 3/4 weeks!

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Week Nine - E is for evil: Thing twenty-two of twenty-three

I just can't take it anymore! The ebook thing sent me completely over the edge.
Is this for real?
"Today There Are 1 Million Free Electronic Books On The Internet" Are they kidding!!??
I know that it's highly unlikely that I will ever read a book online. There's too much I would miss. The feel of the cover in my hands, the smell, the sound of someone you really like reading to you.
I think I'm probably going to end up like Guy Montag in "Fahrenheit 451"....fighting to the end to preserve the book.
Here's something interesting Ray Bradbury said after writing his novel:

On the alienation of people by media, Bradbury said:

"In writing the short novel Fahrenheit 451 I thought I was describing a world that might evolve in four or five decades. But only a few weeks ago, in Beverly Hills one night, a husband and wife passed me, walking their dog. I stood staring after them, absolutely stunned. The woman held in one hand a small cigarette-package-sized radio, its antenna quivering. From this sprang tiny copper wires which ended in a dainty cone plugged into her right ear. There she was, oblivious to man and dog, listening to far winds and whispers and soap-opera cries, sleep-walking, helped up and down curbs by a husband who might just as well not have been there. This was not fiction."

scary...

I guess I just don't get it...the whole ebook thing....just like I don't get why people dogear pages.

And now...I'm going to go curl up with a good book...

Week Nine - Pods: Thing twenty-one of twenty-three


Pods Near Castor Bean Tree
Originally uploaded by cobalt123.

I really like Yahoo! Podcasts for searching pods. http://podcasts.yahoo.com/ Again, I'm drawn to color and non-boredom in a website, and this site provides both! The "Most Popular" and "Highly Rated" sections are fun to browse. If you do a seach on 'books', you will be astounded! I found a cool Sci-Fi one called, "Escape Pod" http://podcasts.yahoo.com/series?s=7ba2408f95e9e6e8c6a29c763c044603
Let me know if anyone can recommend a good podcast for learning Spanish. The few I found had only limited entries. I added one pod called "Spanish phrase of the Day" to my bloglines account. This is what I learned today:
Quisiera pedir un bocadillo. (I would like to order a sandwich.)
Hey! That should go on my PB Wiki post!

And this post would mean nothing without a mention of one of my favorite movies of all time involving pods. "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077745/

Monday, March 26, 2007

Week Nine - Library Blonde: Thing twenty of twenty-three



I love this commercial!

YouTube has so many library related videos. We should be so creative! And we are!

We definitely need to try Library Dominoes here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwihz7iZlx0

Week Eight - Library Thing, I think I love you: Thing nineteen of twenty-three

But I wanna know for sure.....

This is fun site! http://www.librarything.com/
I can't imagine myself ever having the time to catalog my whole bookshelf though, but I can daydream about it.
I'm not quite ready to open up my rather varied reading interests on my blog, especially with only five books entered, but hopefully it will make it's debut it in the near future.

I did find a few surprises regarding how popular my books were. One title, that I always find multiple copies of in old book shops and figured no one had ever read, was actually in 28 member's libraries. What I want to do with that information...I'm not sure :-D

Week Eight - Zoho/Soho : Thing eighteen of twenty-three

I think I really like this!
Not only does Zoho Writer cause me to reminisce about the time I left my homework on a thumb drive at home and had no way to print it out before class, it's also much more visually appealing than Word. The colors and icons make all the difference in the world when faced with an 8-10 page paper. Nine background color choices! Wow!
One for every mood :-p
So I give Zoho Writer a thumbs-up.
http://writer.zoho.com/jsp/home.jsp?targetURL=%2Findex.do
I'm looking forward to trying out a few of their other online helpers such as the Zoho Sheet and Zoho Show.

How many of you found yourselves wanting to take a trip to Soho in London while completing this exercise?

Week Seven - It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time!: Thing seventeen of twenty-three



I simply couldn't resist posting this Family Guy clip on PB Wiki Day!
Well, they do say creating and editing a wiki is as easy as making a peanut butter sandwich. That might be stretching it a little, because I've made tons of peanut butter/jelly sandwiches and I can do it with my eyes closed. I don't think I could do that with my wiki... but cute slogan all the same. http://pbwiki.com/

Jumping into the library sandbox was painless. My blog is present and I'm fully accounted for in this exercise.

Oh! Almost forgot to mention that I took the PB Wiki tour, and absolutely loved the idea of a wiki novel. I can see see where that might be a fun library collaboration.

Friday, March 23, 2007

Week Seven - Wiki Wiki: Thing sixteen of twenty-three


Here is the Wikiwiki Hawaiian BBQ place in El Segundo, CA
Have I ever been there..nope! I just like the logo :-)
Wikis are actually a really fun concept. I can see how helpful they'd be for various travel events, with people adding points of interest, what's good at the local eatery, and opinions on places to stay, or not to stay. In other words, insider tips. I haven't decided if they're a good idea in the workplace. I can see complications arising when someone's well thought out idea is hacked to pieces the next day by a co-worker. All well documented, of course!

I did like the ALA wiki. Once again, it's for a single event and proves helpful for the weary traveler.

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Week Six - Transporter: Thing fifteen of twenty-three


I liked the post by Dr. Wendy Schultz
called "To a temporary place in time..." http://www.oclc.org/nextspace/002/6.htm
The reason I liked it so much, is that she realizes that although the library of the future will be a very different place than we're used to, it can still be a warm, inviting refuge for our users, a place with comfy chairs (we REALLY need to get some of those). Her vision of Library 4.0 had many comforting images, and is how I like to think about the library of the future. Here are the final lines of her perspective:

the LIBRARY: a WiFREE space, a retreat from technohustle, with comfortable chairs, quiet, good light, coffee and single malt. You know, the library.
I’ll meet you there.


What Library 2.0 means to me? Well, I guess it's sort of like the Star Trek Transporter, transporting us to Library: The Next Generation.

Week Six - Unclaimed: Thing fourteen of twenty-three

Decided not to claim my blog on Technorati. http://www.technorati.com/
I found it kinda creepy about those spiders and web-crawlers!
Maybe I will attempt it down the line, but for now I will limit my viewers to friends, co-workers, and anyone who accidently finds themselves here. Don't get me wrong, I think tagging is great! I just don't want to be the one tagged just yet.
I tried the Learning 2.0 search using the three different options. When I searched under 'blogs', I got anything and everything that had the word 'learning' or the numbers 2.0 in it. It wasn't very helpful. The tags search brought up a more narrow group, which also included videos and pictures related to Learning 2.0. Finally, the blog directory search was cool because it brought up a photo cube of people with blogs relating to Learning 2.0. I really like the way the photo cube looks, and hope to learn how to create one of my own.

I think Technorati ought to have a contest for the 100 millionth blog!

Monday, March 19, 2007

Week Six - Mmmmmm del.icio.us!!: Thing thirteen of twenty-six

Mmmmmm del.icio.us!! http://del.icio.us/ I definitely like this idea.
I can see it will take some time to set up my own, but I am encouraged to try it out because my bookmarks are always miles long and not in such good order. I can see how helpful this 2.0 tool will be. The very fact that others can bookmark onto your bookmarks and so on and so on...will make for some interesting finds, I'm sure.
I really can't wait to learn how to set up a cloud tag. It's the one thing that I've been looking forward to learning how to do.

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Week Five - Batgirl: Thing twelve of twenty-three




I know most people are curious to know what their favorite superheroes are up to on their time-off, so please try-out my new Rollyo search box to enter a comics related search. Who knows, maybe you'll find out that one of your favorite superheroes moonlights as a librarian as well.
Looks like I'm going to need some superhero powers of my own to figure out how to get this search box over in the sidebar! Far too much white noise over there.
I'm simply going to leave the Roll Your Own jokes behind :-)
http://www.rollyo.com/

Week Five - Miami condo: Thing eleven of twenty-three

And the winner is.....
I decided to pick something from the short list to experiment with for this week's exercise. I discovered though, that after all the fun I had during the last exercise, I must say, these 'winners' didn't excite me that much.
But I did find a site I liked a lot. http://www.housingmaps.com/
I'm not planning a move, but if I were, this would be SO great. For some reason, I love the little mint, lemon and salmon colored map markers. I don't know why, I just do!
Plus, it's always nice to know I can find a
"Lovely 2 bedroom condo, water views, FULLY FURNISHED $1150" in Miami...if I'm so inclined.

Week Five - Kiss Me: Thing ten of twenty-three


Or rather...Kiss me I work @ the leabharlann (liaw-err-lann). That's the Irish word for library. It's a good thing I have Irish connections.
I found this button generator on The Generator Blog (by kind referral)
There's a reeeeeeeeeally long A to Z list of fun generators to try. I can't wait to impress my friends with my creativity!
Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

http://generatorblog.blogspot.com/index.html

Friday, March 2, 2007

Week Four - Hans Mestrum: Thing nine of twenty-three

Of the four feed-finding search tools mentioned this week, I think I prefer Feedster. Not only is it more enjoyable to look at, I like the idea that they provide a 'Feed of the Day'. The site that was featured today gave me some very good ideas on how to improve the appearance of my blog. I'm still struggling a bit with fonts and colors and things.
Technorati was my second preference because it's really fun to say. It has a really nice tab system under the category 'popular', with favorite video, music, news and movie searches to choose from. I may end up liking this better after some practice, but the ads flashing all over the place are a distraction, and it was a bit much for a Friday afternoon.
It WAS kind of fun listening to the Technorati Tutorial in Dutch though :-) It's done by a guy named Hans Mestrum, and he cleverly titles the presentation 'Hans on Experience'. Plus he uses a U2 song in his intro. Gotta love those Dutch!
http://www.hansonexperience.com/screencasts/blogfinder/engels_nederlands/Technorati.html

Thanks to the Virtual Services Team for this great link.

Week Four - Feed me!!: Thing eight of twenty-three


pasta dinner
Originally uploaded by yajico.

Feed me!! How can you not be happy when this week's thing makes you think of food?! Bloglines is just like a menu of my favorite foods (although they're RSS feeds), all in one place. http://www.bloglines.com/ Who wants to wander aimlessly from restaurant to restaurant when everything you could possibly want in terms of blogging is under one roof? I actually got carried away and added 16 entrees to the menu, three of which are other participant's blogs, and three are from the required list. I haven't added my bloglines link because I couldn't find the Share tab mentioned in the tutorial...but I'm still looking. The question is, do I really want everyone to see what I'm eating...