Don't know if the title of this blog is a take on Live, Baby, Live (title of an INXS live album) or what.
Well the RSS part of 23 Things was pretty simple considering I had taught classes on RSS in AquaBrowser. Setting up an RSS feed is easier than teaching a class about it. I already had several and varied RSS feeds on my bloglines account (my bloglines blog is available on the right hand side). Subscribed to Stefan Freed's blog (from BCPL) and Scott Reinhardt's blog (from CCPL) as well as our very own Alan Simpson's blog - picked 3 people who were at different stages of the "things" journey.
Now if I can only remember to check my blogs. If I still had FeedReader on my pc at work it would be easy. It popped up a message every time a blog had been updated. Not unlike the message you get when you get a new email. Nice thing about FeedReader is it is Open Source.
Perhaps I'll put it back on my machine to keep track of my fellow "thingers".
Monday, July 30, 2007
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
My brain hurts!
If this doesn't make you stop and think...well shame on you! (Thanks to Amy DeGroff for posting this on the Discussions Forum at Si).
Monday, July 23, 2007
A Little Bird Told Me
Heard several folks at the last Computers In Libraries mention the site Twitter. "I just updated it on Twitter"....."I'm on Twitter right now...." etc.
So being ever the curious one that I am and since we are playing around with social networks....I decided to head on over to this thing called Twitter. Still not 100% what it can do for me. Is it a floor polish and a desert topping? Does it slice, dice and julienne? Inquiring minds what to know.
Perhaps this explains it a bit better than I can. Micro-blogging??? Will we have nano-blogging next? Just insert nano into you and think a thought....the nano will do the blog for you.
So if you want to know what I'm doing...I'm mlibrarianus on Twitter.
Really cool app on Twitter - Twitter Faces (uses Google Maps).
So being ever the curious one that I am and since we are playing around with social networks....I decided to head on over to this thing called Twitter. Still not 100% what it can do for me. Is it a floor polish and a desert topping? Does it slice, dice and julienne? Inquiring minds what to know.
Perhaps this explains it a bit better than I can. Micro-blogging??? Will we have nano-blogging next? Just insert nano into you and think a thought....the nano will do the blog for you.
So if you want to know what I'm doing...I'm mlibrarianus on Twitter.
Really cool app on Twitter - Twitter Faces (uses Google Maps).
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Social Networks
Proud to say I'm part of the Library 2.0 community. A social networking site that was created with Ning. This network is for librarians and others interested in Library 2.0. Also on Ning, I belong to the Mid Atlantic Librarians network.
When someone at the Ning network couldn't understand what all the hubbub about social networking was about here was my reply:
My response to Michael would be that the appeal of these sites is based in community or in the human need to communicate, to interact, to share. I suppose not everyone has that drive but if you look at the history of the Internet and things such as IM/Chat rooms and their popularity .... well to me it wasn't a big jump from that to the social networking sites that are out there now. To me it is just a natural progression. No longer do I just talk about say my love of dogs or libraries but I can share with others pictures, videos, etc. Think of it as still a big chat room that now had AV capabilities.
Yes, you could do a search box on a MySpace page that would redirect them back to your catalog. We have that on one of our MySpace pages for our library system (we also have it on our PC4Kids site). Our Web Programmer gave our branch manger the code - you type in your search term(s) and it enters that into our AquaBrowser catalog. It is a great way to be "out there" and bring people into your site.
There are many, many possibilities for using Library/Web 2.0 and social networking. If nothing else, if it helps to bring customers to your library or library site it can't be all bad.
Another site that I'm part of is Joomla In Libraries. Joomla is the software that runs Si!
The great thing about belonging to communities like these is being ask questions of others that are experiencing what you are or have been through it and have solutions.
I hope others will see what Web 2.0 and programs like 23 Things are just a natural progression of what was established a long time ago. Change can be scary or it can be embraced and looked upon as a positive experience. It all starts with you and your viewpoint.
When someone at the Ning network couldn't understand what all the hubbub about social networking was about here was my reply:
My response to Michael would be that the appeal of these sites is based in community or in the human need to communicate, to interact, to share. I suppose not everyone has that drive but if you look at the history of the Internet and things such as IM/Chat rooms and their popularity .... well to me it wasn't a big jump from that to the social networking sites that are out there now. To me it is just a natural progression. No longer do I just talk about say my love of dogs or libraries but I can share with others pictures, videos, etc. Think of it as still a big chat room that now had AV capabilities.
Yes, you could do a search box on a MySpace page that would redirect them back to your catalog. We have that on one of our MySpace pages for our library system (we also have it on our PC4Kids site). Our Web Programmer gave our branch manger the code - you type in your search term(s) and it enters that into our AquaBrowser catalog. It is a great way to be "out there" and bring people into your site.
There are many, many possibilities for using Library/Web 2.0 and social networking. If nothing else, if it helps to bring customers to your library or library site it can't be all bad.
Another site that I'm part of is Joomla In Libraries. Joomla is the software that runs Si!
The great thing about belonging to communities like these is being ask questions of others that are experiencing what you are or have been through it and have solutions.
I hope others will see what Web 2.0 and programs like 23 Things are just a natural progression of what was established a long time ago. Change can be scary or it can be embraced and looked upon as a positive experience. It all starts with you and your viewpoint.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
YouTube and Woot
Since we are suppose to blog about something tech related I was torn between the obvious and possibly the not so obvious.
Most everyone by now has heard of, been sent a link to, or possibly even uploaded to the site YouTube. While testing 2 headsets we got in in LTS, I decided to visit YouTube to make sure the audio part was working (unfortunately the microphone part was not). Ran across a cute 8 week old puppy video...so it got me thinking that maybe someone would enjoy watching my nutty puppy too!
Here is my first foray into the world of YouTube:
- my son is the videographer and it is starring Dani the wonder nut....I mean mutt.
Then I stumbled upon this - too funny!
Enough about YouTube now for something completely different......WOOT!
Huh? Actually Danny Bouman, our web programmer, introduced me to this site. Woot sells one thing a day (a different thing each day) and only one thing until it is sold out. Except for Woot Off days which I believe are the last Thursday and Friday of the month. Woot Off days are addictive (I'm serious) because as soon as one items sells out they have another up ... items can be gone in seconds so you have to keep refreshing your screen to make sure you aren't missing out on a great bargain.
Woot! generally sells technology based products for a real steal. Cool thing is there is also Wine.Woot but sadly the state of Maryland will not allow them to ship wine here. Even if you don't know what the heck Woot is selling if you just want a good laugh, read the Product Info. Don't know who writes their product descriptions but they never fail to make me chuckle. Some of them have been written in a sort of Douglas Adams style.
So if you are a bargain shopper or just looking for a good chuckle....visit Woot!
P.S. Just discovered that Woot has Shirt.Woot! Missed out on a great t-shirt for my son today going for $10.00. It had all sorts of controllers on it (from Playstation, Nintendo, X-Box, etc.) and the shirt was called sore thumbs! When will the madness end?!!!
Most everyone by now has heard of, been sent a link to, or possibly even uploaded to the site YouTube. While testing 2 headsets we got in in LTS, I decided to visit YouTube to make sure the audio part was working (unfortunately the microphone part was not). Ran across a cute 8 week old puppy video...so it got me thinking that maybe someone would enjoy watching my nutty puppy too!
Here is my first foray into the world of YouTube:
- my son is the videographer and it is starring Dani the wonder nut....I mean mutt.
Then I stumbled upon this - too funny!
Enough about YouTube now for something completely different......WOOT!
Huh? Actually Danny Bouman, our web programmer, introduced me to this site. Woot sells one thing a day (a different thing each day) and only one thing until it is sold out. Except for Woot Off days which I believe are the last Thursday and Friday of the month. Woot Off days are addictive (I'm serious) because as soon as one items sells out they have another up ... items can be gone in seconds so you have to keep refreshing your screen to make sure you aren't missing out on a great bargain.
Woot! generally sells technology based products for a real steal. Cool thing is there is also Wine.Woot but sadly the state of Maryland will not allow them to ship wine here. Even if you don't know what the heck Woot is selling if you just want a good laugh, read the Product Info. Don't know who writes their product descriptions but they never fail to make me chuckle. Some of them have been written in a sort of Douglas Adams style.
So if you are a bargain shopper or just looking for a good chuckle....visit Woot!
P.S. Just discovered that Woot has Shirt.Woot! Missed out on a great t-shirt for my son today going for $10.00. It had all sorts of controllers on it (from Playstation, Nintendo, X-Box, etc.) and the shirt was called sore thumbs! When will the madness end?!!!
You're Not Getting In Here Without a Pass
Playing around with another 3rd party application - FD's Toys (same place where I created the mosaic of Dani).
Think I will print this out and use it in lieu of my HCL name tag.... ;)
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Dani's First Year
Decided to play around with one of the "discovery resources" on #5 Explore Flickr. This actually plays right into Thing #6 which is mashups (so this is 2 blogs in 1). Since I created one type of mashup for the Staff Intranet I thought I'd try something different - a mosaic of my sweet puppy's first year. Dani (short for Danielle) or AKA Devil Dog.
Pics from left to right:
Which one do I pick? The one of the left is soon to be known as Dani. The middle one is her brother and the sable colored one on the right is her sister who I was originally going to pick but my husband vetoed it. That's fine because Dani has turned into what he calls "a lovely little doggie".
Exploring my new home. Dani's first day home without a name just sniffing around.
Sleeping. Puppies sleep a lot and she loved to climb up on the sofa (with a little help from her human friends).
Helping Daddy. My husband building our nice shed to hold firewood and Dani thought she'd help out.
Puppy and string..what is she part cat?
Center pic - Dani has a piece of a plastic grocery bag on her nose. This is currently my wallpaper both at home and work.
Dani Queen of the tall grasses!
Dani with her new doggie bed (which she proceeded to chew to bits) and her new yellow football (it didn't last much longer).
Dani graduating from Pet Smart's puppy training.
Dani doing her famous sitting at the top of the steps but with her paws hanging over.
There's got to be some puppy chow left in here!
Dani sitting in the computer room among the remnants of chewed papers.
Santa Paws was good to her.
Pics from left to right:
Which one do I pick? The one of the left is soon to be known as Dani. The middle one is her brother and the sable colored one on the right is her sister who I was originally going to pick but my husband vetoed it. That's fine because Dani has turned into what he calls "a lovely little doggie".
Exploring my new home. Dani's first day home without a name just sniffing around.
Sleeping. Puppies sleep a lot and she loved to climb up on the sofa (with a little help from her human friends).
Helping Daddy. My husband building our nice shed to hold firewood and Dani thought she'd help out.
Puppy and string..what is she part cat?
Center pic - Dani has a piece of a plastic grocery bag on her nose. This is currently my wallpaper both at home and work.
Dani Queen of the tall grasses!
Dani with her new doggie bed (which she proceeded to chew to bits) and her new yellow football (it didn't last much longer).
Dani graduating from Pet Smart's puppy training.
Dani doing her famous sitting at the top of the steps but with her paws hanging over.
There's got to be some puppy chow left in here!
Dani sitting in the computer room among the remnants of chewed papers.
Santa Paws was good to her.
Thing 5 - Flickr & Live Earth London
Again another not very original title but ces't la vie. Funny that Flickr caught on so big when WebShots was one of the first sites that I knew of where you could share your photos. I remember having to keep staff from using photos from WebShots as screen savers because it also downloaded malware and caused problems with things like Netscape/Thunderbird email. Hopefully if staff discover Flickr we won't have the same problem. *sigh* Ah the life of a techie.
Ok, so I poked around a bit at Flickr.....decided I wanted to know if anyone had uploaded photos from last Saturday's big concerts. Live Earth regardless of how you feel politically about global climate change the concerts were utterly amazing. Maybe since I'm a child of the Live Aid generation this held more fascination for me. I enjoyed seeing the mix of performers. I did find it ironic that an event of this porportion had to have a HUGE carbon footprint associated with it. Hopefully, everyone there did some offsets to make up for it. But I digress....found one of many photos about Live Earth at Flickr. This one picture of the New Wembley Stadium caught my eye. I watched the concerts with my British husband. We both found it ironic that Americans have the worst carbon footprint yet the turnout (crowd) for the New York (really New Jersey) concert was nothing compared to the English (Wembley) crowd.
Ok, so I poked around a bit at Flickr.....decided I wanted to know if anyone had uploaded photos from last Saturday's big concerts. Live Earth regardless of how you feel politically about global climate change the concerts were utterly amazing. Maybe since I'm a child of the Live Aid generation this held more fascination for me. I enjoyed seeing the mix of performers. I did find it ironic that an event of this porportion had to have a HUGE carbon footprint associated with it. Hopefully, everyone there did some offsets to make up for it. But I digress....found one of many photos about Live Earth at Flickr. This one picture of the New Wembley Stadium caught my eye. I watched the concerts with my British husband. We both found it ironic that Americans have the worst carbon footprint yet the turnout (crowd) for the New York (really New Jersey) concert was nothing compared to the English (Wembley) crowd.
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