Monday, April 28, 2008

thing 19 - web awards

i would like to check out the travel sites: farecast, kayak, and realtravel. i do like to travel and learn about other cultures and people - i just don't really have the time or the desire to fly right now. but it's so much fun to fantasize!

thing 18 - web apps

i've been using web apps for a couple of years now, i guess. i think i started using them to work on shared documents with others, then because i had a laptop without microsoft office loaded on it. the one thing that bothers me about google docs is that when you print, the url is on the bottom of the page, like a regular website, and i only know of one way to get rid of that and it's too complicated to do all the time - i guess that means i'm lazy :)

web apps would be useful for almost all collaborative work - but i don't think we use them as often as we could, similarly we do not use the chat technology for meetings...

Saturday, April 19, 2008

thing 17

i posted in the wiki sandbox - okay - and added my blog

in doing thing 17, there was a lot of back and forth - making sure i'm doing what i'm supposed to for 17. i still wish instructions were not so verbose...

wiki's could be useful for committee and group projects - obviously. i haven't had a use for them though - i should say yet. i wish we could use these applications more for committee and group meetings - it would save so much in travel time and gas money, and i could still kind of be in the branch. i've used things like aol chat for njla committee meetings several years ago, and i never had a problem with it - i know some people don't even like the idea - i have no idea why, i mean - i have my ideas about why but there isn't a point to writing them out here. online meetings are easy, the entire meeting is fully documented, and it would cut out road travel completely. hello!

thing 16 - wiki wiki

mahalo

i did look at the best practices wiki - it was pretty boring overall. i checked out the programming and services to the poor & homeless. the programming topic had a few interesting program ideas and descriptions, but it could use a lot more - someone needs to add to it. the services to the poor & homeless were just links to websites outside of the wiki - not helpful at all.

i looked at ocl's article on wikipedia - i have no idea of who made what edits. am i supposed to?

wiki's are wiki's... i guess they can be useful?

check out the surferpedia article:
http://surfing.wikia.com/wiki/The_aesthetics_of_risk_%28academic%29
please note: study was done in australia, not the u.s.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

thing 15

i read OCLC Next Space Newsletter – Web 2.0: Where will the next generation of the web it take libraries?, Away from Icebergs, and Into a new world of librarianship.

one point that michael stephens - librarian/blogger - made in Into a new world of librarianship that struck me was, "Perpetual beta works well for the library’s Web presence. This librarian redesigns for ease of use, user involvement and easily added/re-configured pieces." i believe libraries and staff always need to keep in mind the importance of being a dynamic element and point of interaction - whether it is in their online presence or in real life.

thing 14

as i think i may have mentioned in an earlier post, i am not a big fan of technorati. i do not like all the commercial stuff going on around the borders and i'm not interested in reading blogs - everyone has so much to say and it all seems so massively boring.

i did the learning 2.0 search and looked at the popular blogs and i wasn't surprised or interested in any of it. it's as though before the internet, there was a filter between what everyone in the world had to say and you.

now, that filter is gone.

for people who have A LOT of time on their hands and think what they have to say is hyper-critical and earth shattering - it's a great thing. for me, not so much.

Monday, April 14, 2008

thing 13 - delicious

peer driven (information directory) - is that a good thing? freely chosen keywords vs. taxonomies - is that a good thing? sometimes it feels like i'm using a *really bad* search engine, only worse. hmmm... i do not know what to say. delicious is probably v. useful for teachers, students doing research - and stf did a great thing for the middle school summer reading list, as a way for gathering information and resources (by a professional) that can be easily shared and accessed online with students.

but, i would not say it is something i will ever use in my personal life. and, i'm not that crazy about the design of the website. the font style/size and colorings, some things upper case, some things lower case, make it a little difficult for me to read and it looks overall ... not so hot, to me.

Thursday, April 10, 2008

2nd part of thing 10 commenting

i made a comment on an entry in someone's blog. why doesn't google let you edit your comments? if you want to make a change, you have to delete it entirely and enter a new one. that doesn't make sense.

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

webchallenge 027

webchallenge 027
webchallenge 027,
originally uploaded by girl surfing.
so this thing between flickr and blogger seems to have been worked out...?

thing 12 - part deux

i searched world cat for one winter story, and found that only one library is holding a copy - santa cruz - not a big surprise. i'll put in a request for it. it's not a book but it is kind of new :)

i performed an advanced search for letting go - and unfortunately there are no holdings at all. when i searched for just kelly slater - i see how all the different formats are listed with their little icons, including articles - how cute. a couple of years ago when the dvd was first released, quiksilver had slater do a short tour to promote it. one of his stops was the club in ortley beach, and i made it there - it was pretty cool to see him and strider wasilewski. we tried getting them to stop at the library while they were in town, but they just didn't have time - quiksilver had them on a super tight schedule. his agent said, "definitely next time"

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

thing 12 - part one

i opened a netlibrary account many moons ago - and never used it. i've opened another and searched to see what kinds of cookbooks there were. the pickings are pretty slim. i didn't find any that knocked my socks off, but i browsed through a thai one. browsing a cookbook online is clumsy, and not as satisfying or easy as having one in my hands.

over the years, i have demostrated to numerous customers how to access and use netlibrary - and they have been well satisfied and impressed with it.

thing 11 - library thing

library thing is fine i guess - useful for people who do not have any other way of keeping track of what they have read and what they want to read. as with the previous *things*, i'm not sure if i'll have the interest level or the time to use it. i keep a *diary* of my reading (a notebook i bought in california once), and that seems to work okay for me.

thing 10 - tech entry

hmmm... one of the things i worry about re: technology is - losing my itunes library. since i don't have my itunes backed up, i'm pretty much living dangerously - i could lose everything if my laptop died, which i'm not expecting to happen - but you never know.

and i would be bummed out if i lost all those songs i've collected over the years. i guess this will be my next project. i'll need an external hard drive or lots and lots of discs. i love my ipod - i don't like worrying about "losing" all that music. when everything was just on cd or cassette, or lp, you never had to worry about this type of thing really.