Thing #30- Lolcats

Meh. I mean, I know the caption doesn't go with the picture, but I couldn't force myself to deliberately use wrong grammar. I get that Anil Dash has a whole article about the idea that lolcats can have a particular grammar, but I just doubt everyone making lolcats realises this!

Anyway, of all the things we've done so far, I think this is probably the least useful for us at the library.

Thing 29- Scrapblog

It would appear I've been having a busy 2.1 day. And yes, I found one I like quite a lot, after a few things that weren't really my cup of tea.

Like Anne, the photobucket thing/link didn't work for me, but it wasn't too much of a hassle to save my pics to my pc, then just upload them. So my album is... here! Tada!



Um, yep, Twilight... pretty much. My only other thing about the thing that I didn't like was the shortage of darker pics/backgrounds- not specifically because I wanted to make a vampire book promo (which I did), more because there's more than cutesy stuff that a person might want to make... like so much, it's limited, and I'm sure there's a way to make it more interesting than just using the defaults available.

The thing for me is, I love technology, my laptop and I are practically attached by an umbilical cord, and I LOVE photoshop (not that I made the pics in my scrapblog, I stole them and I have no idea who made them), but I really like scrapbooks to be scrap books.

/end rant, since I already said I liked this new toy!

Thing #28 Well, we're big rock singers...

...so I made a Twilight cover, since it's my latest craze, but to be honest, the program didn't thrill me, there just wasn't enough room for variables that I could find- much as I hate to say it, I think there's a lot more opportunity for creativity with microsoft programs like publisher, using their templates...

Thing 27: Photobucket

What I like about Photobucket: the url that each pic gets assigned! Super handy for just putting the image into any kind of webpage as a signature image, or just as a pretty addition to a post...


...such as this, the cover of the latest book I read.

What I don't like about photobucket is how easy it is to not have a private account, meaning that anything you find in anyone's account might not have been put there by them, so giving credit to the person/account where you found the art might be redundant...

Thing 26: Little bits of the Internet, on your desktop

Random observation: yes, vista comes with widgets, minis, all sorts of fun. It also takes a very long time to open, even with 2gb of ram... Yep, I'm an XP gal! Just upgraded two weeks ago, and I'm very happy with my shiny new (old) operating system!

Okay, so I had a little look at putting a widget into my blog, which is fine- you'll find it right here above my post- but that's the thing- wouldn't I want a widget thingy in my sidebar, not my main content? And I noticed Livejournal wasn't catered for, so I found that a little strange, so it's pretty limited to not have the option of getting some kind of code to put in wherever appropriate...

#25 Making Newsletters

All that comes to mind is, if I was still doing the Hawthorn Historical Society newsletter, it would be a useful tool. Letterpop.com, that is.

As it is, somebody show this site to Emma, stat!

Actually, I might be able to find a use or two for it... it also makes me think about those Christmas Card newsletters a lot of my American friends do, so if I was that kind of person, that would be cool too. But the problem I am having is I can't figure out if I can create my own background pictures or use my own pictures in the headers- making this another version of LiveJournal (except completely and utterly different, except for the fact I'm not savvy enough to code my own layout...)

To be continued...

#24- Back to it, Summer break is OVER!!!

Zamzar... file conversion... this, that, the other... *snaps back from daze*
Well, hasn't there been some problems with people using vista and creating word documents, then not being able to open them on our pcs? This rings a bell- perhaps this is a good way for us to combat this problem. If I recall rightly, these vista docs are '.docx'?
In any case, either I did something wrong, or when it says it takes a while, it wasn't kidding, since my converted file isn't yet in my inbox... *waits patiently*

Edit: File arrived, converted and shiny... and identical to the old file, except different. All good.

Check out my Slide Show!

Some pics by Boruvka, some not.

#23 Is this really the end? Or just the beginning ...

I hope it's the end... I have to leave my pc in about ten minutes!!!

Final reflections:

-I was a late starter with the course, so was kinda rushed on a few of the parts, especially the last two.

-I wish I had started earlier, because it was a fun week. It was also nice to be able to chat with colleagues about it, rather than each doing our own thing as we usually do we were all on the same task.

-I can't believe work paid me to explore YouTube... that's pretty nice!

-I am totally inspired to get going with my personal blog, I gave it a new layout already!

-I found a few things a bit twisty and a lot of work, but much of what was accessed was intuitive.

-I LOVE the internet.

#22 Audiobooks (or "The end is in sight ")

Audiobooks are something I never gave much thought to prior to working at the library; I knew talking books were available, but catagorized them as something for the elderly, rather than something for my to listen to on my mp3 player.

That they are downloadable is very cool, and even more library like than podcasts!

#21 Podcasts, Smodcasts!

It's not surprising that 'podcast' was the word of the year, it's all over the place. I think there is some confusion that is created by this 'new-fangled' term, but the concept is simple: audio on the net. It doesn't get more simple than that, does it? (I hope not.)

I've elected to try podcast.net, and being me, checked out the 'entertainment section'. I wondered if I would find anything about the Hollywood Writer's Strike, but that wasn't to be. I couldn't find anything, so I just clicked on the television one and found a Heroes podcast.

To be honest, the podcast itself was kind of dull, but as a tool, podcasts are awesome and of the many many tools we have looked at in recent days, it's my opinion that these for libraries are one of the most useful and versatile.

#20 You too can YouTube

YouTube. Since I've had decent net at my place, YouTube has been my friend. I've used it for a few purposes- some friends made vids last year to share our Christmas with friends around the world, and... music video clips! Woo! I don't have a T.V. but I used to when I lived OS and was quite the MTV addict. Through YouTube I've been able to discover obscure clips for songs that were hits a few years ago.

This one is a fave of mine. A retrospective kind of piece looking at German identity. At the end of '04 you couldn't turn on the radio without hearing this one. Everybody loves home videos, YouTube just opens the doors for something more.





As for a wider use of YouTube; it's a bit like everything we've been exploring, really. Many things have multiple applications and open up doors and opportunities. YouTube may not have been designed with libraries in mind, but it's another way of recording info and therefore widening its audience.

#19 Discovering Web 2.0 tools

Here we see a list of sites which we have explored in recent days, let's look for something a little different...

Yelp is American based, which I didn't know on opening it; it is a travel site dedicated to talking about the good and not good of each location, a little more personalised than something big like the lonely planet site.

Already Boroondara Library Service has had an online travel demo talk/night/event. Sites like yelp could really be valuable in personalising a person's trip plans and giving them the chance to interact with people who have been to their destination.

#18 Web-based Apps: They're not just for desktops- part ii

See below for evidence of posted doc from zoho!

Zoho doc.1 v.1

Welcome to Zoho Document the first, written by Boruvka.

 

Unfortunately said correspondent isn't really sure what to say. She is, however, very happy, for several reasons:

 

Amazon delivered Veronica Mars dvds yesterday.

The evil housemate is moving out.

It's summer.

The night market at Vic Market is back and was fun yesterday.

She is going to Sydney for the weekend.

 

Life is good.

 

 

#18 Web-based Apps: They're not just for desktops

This is totally neat. For ages I have used email drafts on my google account to write documents which I will later need on my PC, when elsewhere. On top of this, the opportunity for shared authoring in a document is of the good.

Glancing through just at a little list of the names is impressive, with google and zoho leading the way.

Posting wasn't easy. It would have been, but I think I made it more complicated than it had to be, forgetting the difference between my online name, and my user name, which for blogger is my email address.

See above to see if it worked...

#17 Playing around with PBWiki

I'd love to say I love it, but the instructions on inserting the link confused me. A lot. And then it turned out after this really complicated little speech in the podcast, referring us to the funny dashed lines about the '\' (), that all you had to do was a) type in the url, or b) use a little linky button exactly like we do here. You know, that cute little picture of the world and a chain/link...

But yes, I added a favourite or two. And yes, this was in the fave TV shows section.

#16 So what’s in a wiki?

In a way this is the one I had been waiting for. I mean, I use wikipedia quite a lot normally. It's a good site for looking up spoilers for Grey's Anatomy when I just can't wait (which is every week).

In terms of advantages and disadvantages, wikis mean that everybody can contribute, which is obviously both good and bad. While wikipedia, from a scholarly point of veiw, can be viewed with disdain, I think this is something of a generalisation stemming from the idea that print equals verification, and like anything, if you're investigating something important to you, scholarly or not, chances are you'll check multiple sources anyway. Certainly I have other sources for info on Grey's Anatomy too. So I would suggest the wikipedia is the best thing since sliced bread, and a great source for all sorts of things as well as pop culture.

The idea that wikis can be manipulated, in my opinion, is almost naive, since anything that is written, published or not, is written with an agenda in mind. The onus is on the reader who needs to be discerning in using the source.

How to use wikis in the library- a totally neat way for customers to interact, something like an online book group, really. Princeton Public Library has a wiki which does just this, and it's rather good in terms of options. User names are displayed, meaning a librarian may have more authority than someone called 'anonymous', but there's still a place for everyone.

"I think we're going to have to ring I.T."

If I had a dollar each time I heard that...? I probably couldn't quite retire, but I'd have a nice meal out, that's for sure.

I digress.