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.