Rockin' Robin (TWEET TWEET)

New York Times article about Twitter was the only interesting thing I "discovered". Well, that and the fact that even FOUR PER CENT of people in my age group are Twits. TwitterVision was an interesting geography lesson... What can you say in 140 characters? Not much. I understand that it's the aggregation of the tweets that build up to something interesting, but I also see why most (many?) people sign up and within a month sign off/out. WHO HAS THE TIME? The appeal to kids (basically gossip) is understandable, within their peer group. The small town feel that eventually becomes claustrophobic...

Mashups were not explained (were they?). I was forced to go to Wikipedia, a source I am very wary of. "A digital mashup is a digital media file containing any or all of text, graphics, audio, video and animation drawn from pre-existing sources, to create a new derivative work[1]. Digital text mashups, for example, appear by the thousands every day as users of blogs and online forums copy and paste digital text in juxtaposition to comment on topics of interest, while fan-created video/audio mashups juxtaposing commercially produced video clips with favorite pop songs constitute a major portion of YouTube content." OK, again, at least now I know what it is.

eeeeeeee(k)books

If you go to "DailyLit", you can get one exerpt a day from a book sent to your email. Read in bits. And starts. On your computer. Hmmmm....
You can get tech ebooks, computer ebooks, ebooks for mobile devices (your PHONE!!!), and get them for FREE. Or pay.

This saves many many trees. I guess.

If you read on (a?) Kindle, you can enlarge the type. Good for us old folks. Your luggage is much lighter when you travel. They're making much better versions; ones that the reader can "flip" the "pages". Just like a "real" book. Wow. Brave New World.

NPR, but not streaming live...

Well, as usual, I didn't really figure out how to download a podcast onto my reader/RSS feed? I'm so lost, it's not even funny. I have iTunes on my computer at home, and I think I'll just try it there. At least I now know what a podcast is. I just don't have an MP3 player. Is that what an iPod is? Yes, says Chris. OK. I'm even tempted to get an iPod; they must have gotten cheaper by now... What's that stuff in the left hand margin. Could it possibly be... podcasts?

I LOVE COMMONCRAFT

These guys are hilarious, and this is the first place I've ever seen that shows how things work in a way that anyone can understand.

You have NOT received a YouTube video!

You have received a YouTube video!
ABSOLUTELY COULD NOT FIGURE OUT HOW TO GET VIDEO ONTO MY BLOG.
I tried the "add video" icon. Filled in the info. It didn't work. Downloaded "YouTube Download". It didn't download. Apparently you can send YouTube videos to everyplace in the world (I clicked on "Share") except a blog. Finally emailed video to myself, right-clicked on it and sent it to my blog. Now my blog post says "You have received a YouTube video". AARGH.

Well, anyway, I guess if you click on the link, you will see the coolest video ever. Interesting comments on the website, too. "All pale white women with straight noses" and "Rich people were white people and they had the money to have their portraits painted". True up to a point, but the modern portraits were paintings of artist's models, and they didn't have any money!

I first found out about YouTube when people starting emailing them to me. I've seen some very very touching and very amazing videos (although I only recently found out that the one of the elephant painting an elephant is FAKED). The guy who did this morphing also has one on film stars, but morphing photos just isn't the same as morphing artwork. There's also "Dogs in Art", but I haven't found "Cats in Art". I'll have to do that one myself. Uh, yeah, next lifetime.

PS Just realized that the link goes to my email page. Nice. Oh, well. Time to get help.

Getting Things Done/REMEMBER THE MILK!!!

GTD=Getting Things Done. Skip the video (45 minutes!) and you can get a LOT done in that time. Computer "productivity" seems to be all about organizing. I like Remember the Milk; I'm a big fan of lists. Unfortunately, I like to have my lists with me wherever I go. I also like the iGoogle dashboard. Phases of the moon, a calendar, weather, to-do list... I understand Googledocs. How secure is that stuff out there in cyberspace? If it's making plans with friends, no biggie, but I wouldn't put anything out there that I didn't want the whole world to see.

Found some great tips on Stepcase Lifehack ("50 tricks to Get Things Done faster, better, and more easily") But, "Dial2Do" (available in 24 countries)... Call a number and have them do things (?) for you, like e-mail. Doesn't anyone ever RELAX anymore? All the free Apps we're greatful for: organizing all your wikis, blogs, email, bookmarks, IMs... I'd have to spend most of my life on a computer to even understand how valuable these things are. Just not ready to go there. VLC Media Player: master your digital media. Ubuntu: let's rethink Linux. Pidgin: a cross-platform multi-protocol IM app. Launchy, Digsby, etc. etc. EEEEEEEEK.

OK, calm down. I was sort of interested in the 2.0 website awards. I had at least heard of a lot of the sites, but was curious to see the #1 picks for things like shopping, runners-up for Flikr, etc.

I'm hoping this class is just to let us know what's out there, so we're at least somewhat in tune with our (student) patrons. As far as productivity goes, I'm still voting for a wiki for our ILL team.

2.0 Awards for the top websites.

STICKY WICKET

I can see the idea behind a wiki, but PBWiki is now PBworks, PBWiki101 doesn't open (see 4 comments), I have to use html (are you serious!?!), and I can't seem to do anything but leave comments. Couldn't do anything on Rollyo (not apparent how to "sign in"). Added comment, but no photo... bummer.

Well, I think it's a great idea for ILL at our library... there are 4 of us, sometimes 5 of us, all involved with the running of the various borrowing, lending, messages, overdues, LORI requests, etc. It's nuts. In the old days of retail, we'd keep a notebook (yes, paper) at the cash register and if anyone had a comment or problem, they'd write it down. The problem was to get people to read it. I see the Wiki as a sort of message board for the 5 of us, so we're "all on the same page", so to speak. Emailing just doesn't work that well. I don't think an RSS feed is necessary, but who knows.

OLLY OLLY OXINFREE (TAG YOU'RE IT)

For some unknown reason, organizing your bookmarks on DELICIOUS is called "social bookmarking" (?) and the tags become a folksonomy (the study of hippies). OK, I did join delicious and organized all my bookmarks on my home computer. I only have 80 or so (pared down from over 200... some of those must have been automatic; I'd never seen them before).
The word "tag" is from the longer work "metatag". I think. Well, I'm glad I organized them.

Didn't get the technorati thing. I'd have to be doing a LOT more blogging and be interested in a LOT more blogs, which I'm not. Sorry. But I DID finally find out what Web 2.0 means, as associated with 2.0 websites (always felt too stupid to ask). It's the second generation of web development and design, based on interaction and sharing. "2.0 refers to the historical context of web businesses coming back after the 2001 collapse of the dot.com bubble". Tim Berners-Lee, inventor the the www claims that many of the tech components (in 2.0) have been available since the earliest days of the web.

FUN FUN FUN

Sorry, I don't see myself as a cartoon character now, nor do I ever want to see myself as a cartoon character. Oh, well.

I didn't exactly get Rollyo. Why not just use Google? Why do I want to search things I already know about. Anyway...

LIBRARY THING ROCKS!!! When I first looked at it, I thought "why am I making a list of books?". It's not explained terribly well on the homepage. Just "add books", "look for groups", "swap, borrow...", etc. THEN my colleague explained to me that this was a way to catalog your own library. My husband has what is probably one of the best art libraries in the state . One of our worst fears is that the house will burn down and the library will be irreplaceable. Also, when we die/move/whatever, the books are sort of an overwhelming mess. Robin often buys duplicate books because he doesn't even know what he has. But it could all be catalogued! A friend of ours, who lost her art library in a house fire, suggested we "take photos of the shelves", and I've actually considered this. But now the contents can live in cyberspace! He can access and add to it constantly. My art books, also. Will this turn him from a Luddite into a tech-lover? Maybe.

Really Simple Syndication

OK, it was actually pretty simple. I found some VERY cool sites, thanks to Bloglines: Drawn! was one, and Design Sponge was another. I thought the library feeds were really really boring, with maybe one possible exception...

I accidently subscribed to some nasty "Inbox Crawler with Crawler Smileys" and found out how to delete programs from my computer. Sort of a basic thing...

BLOGLINES!?!?! Why aren't you using Google Reader? I think I got a virus from that last inadvertent subscription. I tend to click on almost anything and then can't get myself out. Or I close out of everything.

I'm going with Google...

I LOVE/HATE TECHNOLOGY

OK, I tried to post (three times) and couldn't get past the "Select Profile". Apparently, everyone knows what this is but me. I can't believe how frustrating this all is, but when it works, when someone helps you, shows you how, it's amazing. I'm really enjoying the other blogs on technology, especially Guybrarian. He's very into all things Japanese, which is quite an eye opener for me. My husband is in his sixties, and he's a total Luddite In fact, he's thinking of starting a group called Elderhostile), so it's a struggle for me to keep positive about technology. I'm just thankful that I work with younger, tech-savvy (patient!) folks at a library. I got into because of books, of course, but I'm getting more and more interested in technology, a necessity these days. I just say to myself, "Don't get discouraged!"

Italy trading cards

My creation
Originally uploaded by prov_booksthroughbars

Here is one of the two trading cards that Jason helped me with. This is really really difficult. He is very experienced and still had a hard time with it. HOWEVER, I am learning about tabs and tab browsing, and how to get to my desktop (windows + D) and a bunch of other things, so it's still a good learning experience.

Flikr

Palazzo Pubblico (1297-1326), Siena - regione Toscana, Italia
Originally uploaded by keienkop

The most beautiful city in the world, Siena, Italy. I think we'll try renting an apartment here on our next trip.

I guess I could "get into" Flikr, if I ever took photos anymore. Or I could just sit at my computer and look at photos. I guess it's useful if you need a photo, but they're not in the public domain, are they? How would you get permission? Too complicated... OK, the Studio Commons or whatever. I'm still not really interested, but hope to see my nephew's wedding photos. Maybe via Flikr, who knows...

Make a Blog

Is it really this easy to create a blog? Why did I think it was such a big deal? Another of my problems with learning: CONFIDENCE

First Week

I thought the video was fairly lame, but it did make me think about my learning process. I'm good at everything except two: problems and goals (two relatively important parts of the process). I can usually view difficulties as challenges, but large problems have tended to discourage me in the past. I've recently become more positive about good outcomes. Goals are still a problem. My goals are too vague and I need to get into the habit of writing them down, breaking them into steps, etc. Hmmm....