Wrap-up

Even as I was grumbling about this, due to lack of time to work on it, I'm sort of glad I forced myself to finish. The timing of the project couldn't have been much worse from my standpoint because of the huge workload during the weeks required to complete things. I'm sure if I'd had a computer at home, I would have done more of the work there. These exercises took all my concentration and I was not fast at moving through them. I do think there was value in it -- just as a way of being forced to become more familiar with the things/jargon we hear about every day.

Audiobooks

Since I had heard so much about Project Gutenberg during the last few years, I was interested to see what it was all about. I listened to several samples from Fisherman and the Goldfish by Pushkin, Call of the Wild by Jack London, and Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz

Podcasts

I found several podcasts that interested me -- mostly from PBS news shows. I know there are a few things I've seen that I'd like to go back and watch a segment on a political subject or two.

You Tube

Well, I can now say I've had my first You Tube experience. I watched an old clip of The Blues Brothers from Saturday Night Live. Dan and John really had some good moves.

Web 2.0 Awards

I can imagine going back to the lists provided here because they're so vast. I tried the travel category (farecast.com), music (pandora.com) and books (biblio.com) The travel one could be helpful when we're searching for a good fare to France to visit family. I'll go back to Pandora because I'd like to play around with this one more -- put together the music I like and see what other suggestions are made. It also seems like I'm always searching for some book that's not readily available, so biblio.com might be a good resource me.

Zoho Writer

This is really cool. I put together a document with some preliminary ideas about organizing a reunion with some friends. Since I'd be asking two of the 6 others to help me with food, it would be a way for the other two to give their ideas so we could more easily coordinate things.

Sandbox

I added my blog to the Favorite Blogs page

Wikis

I went to several of the wikis listed and particularly liked the Booklovers Wiki at Princeton Public Library. Having all those categories would help to easily find book reviews of interest to patrons and others. I also spent some time reviewing CCPL wikis on the intranet. I know minutes often are posted on there. I had forgotten that staff is encouraged to add to the Job Description Wiki.

Web 2.0

I read Into a new world of librarianship and Away from the "icebergs" and found the following to engage me the most:

"This librarian recognizes how quickly the world and library users change with advancing technology. Project timelines that stretch on for months simply do not work in Library 2.0 thinking."

"We need to focus our efforts not on teaching research skills but on eliminating the barriers that exist between patrons and the information they need. But if our services can't be used without training, then it's the services that need to be fixed -- not our patrons."

Technorati

Technorati give me a headache

Tagging, etc.

I read about del.icio.us and finally understood (through examples like The Cook's Thesaurus) how these tags work

Rollyo

I went to Rollyo and read about the possibilities. Then I set up my own Rollyo (Get the facts!)

Good News/Bad News

While helping a co-worker add her Meez image to her blog, I cautioned that I had problems with the full body image, but was able to add it to my blog when I switched to a head shot instead. She copied the URL for the full shot and it worked perfectly. Since then I edited my profile again, changing the head shot to a full body shot and it worked. As for the good news/bad news? The good news is that I was glad to have the full image because it's animated, the bad news is I have no idea why it worked.

LibraryThing

I really liked this, and since I can't seem to remember titles and authors, this might be a good way to keep track of what I've been reading. I catalogued seven of the last few books I've read.

Ta Da!!!

Okay -- this is big. I actually went to Meez, fooled around changing an animated image, thought I was following directions by trying to add a link to my blog under Edit my Profile but it didn't work. I finally figured that I had two problems -- I was trying to add my cool fancy animated image, but the fine print on blogger said the image must be 50k or smaller. I changed it to a head shot (not as much fun, for sure) and chose the "get URL" rather than "get link" and it worked.

MERLIN

Checked out MERLIN and several of the library related blogs listed

RSS feeds

I read up on RSS feeds and connected a feed to the bottom of this page. I especially liked the choice of information at washingtonpost.com. I also set up a Bloglines account

Color Pickr

This was really cool -- fooled around with it trying all the different colors

Flickr Fun

Took a while to find a free photo that I really liked. I'd like to try making stuff with the photo -- like notecards, etc.

Technology

I've been impressed with some of the blogs I've found through the carrollparticipants.blogspot.com site. The thing that most catches my eye and interests me as I've played with Flickr some more, is the ability to insert photos. I'd like to play around with that more than I have.

Hope

Perfect,
originally uploaded by LN♥.

What is it about this amazing plant that makes me feel hopeful? When it fills an entire corner of one of my shady gardens early each spring, I'm thrilled that a new gardening season has arrived. Maybe seeing this image on my blog will give me hope that I'll gradually overcome my struggle with the technology challenges being sent my way.

It's Friday

Well, end of the day on Friday and I haven't posted a darned thing this week. On Monday I intend to get the Flicker image in place -- I've done some preliminary noodling around and I hope I can pull it off.

Test post 2

As I look over the 7-1/2 lifelong learning habits, I think the hardest one for me is viewing problems as challenges -- at least initially. My inclination is to see problems as frustrations and I think that is primarily a time issue. Because we don't have a computer at home, I've never had the sense that I could just play around until I taught myself something. On the other hand, when I do solve a problem I love the sense of conquering something or figuring something out on my own.

Test post 1

It took me way longer than it should have to figure out how to change a draft into a real post.

Actually, I never really did get it -- I had to delete the draft and begin a new post.

Let's get this off the ground

Well, I just did the initial setup and it didn't seem too painful.