Week 10: #23 Is this really the end?

Well, I can't believe I really completed this program. It was very trying at times but perseverance and persistence paid off...and some help from my coworkers. The program was very eye-opening and I learned so many new things that I never knew existed. Thank you iHCPL for introducing me to all these wonderful tools. There were so many things I discovered that I'm so glad I did this. I am now more confident about learning more new applications. If I can do this, I can probably do anything. I thought the animated picture postings were the cutest things. A lot of other people's blogs were very interesting, entertaining, and informative. I wish I'd had more time to spend on each exercise so my blogs could have been more elaborate. Many of the participants blogs had a real WOW factor. I enjoyed reading other peoples' blogs and learning new things. Good for all the participants and good for iHCPL/HCPL. This is certainly not the end; it is just the beginning.

Week 9: #22 Downloadable Media

HCPL's digital site is very very good. There is so much to choose from...books, music and videos. I will be checking out a lot of stuff now that I'm aware of this. I had no idea that classical music and comedy videos were a part of this. This is the best thing. What a great service this site provides. I located many titles that I would want to check out. The main difference I found between the library site and the free sites is HCPL's site is more user friendly and much easier to manuever through it. Thanks. I love it.

Week 9: #21 Podcasts, Smodcasts!

I looked at Podcast.net and searched health. I found an interesting site Seasonal Health Tips - The 5 Element Way with lots of information on all areas of health based on Oriental medicine which has always caught my attention. I added the RSS feed to my Bloglines account and I was amazed that I actually remembered my login name and password. When I searched under "library" I found many, no make that too many, library podcasts from military to lunar/planetary to whatever you want. There is so much useful information everywhere you look; there is just not enough time.

Week 9: #20 Discover YouTube & other video sharing sites

I briefly explored YouTube and was hard pressed to find a video worth noting. The "First Date" video that was on YouTube's homepage today was not worth watching and it generated nothing but profanity in titles or comments and questionable videos, in my opinion. Is this what everyone that watches YouTube finds entertaining? If so, this would be one explanation for the lack of respect in society today. I'm not a fan of YouTube, to say the least.


For the sake of completing this exercise, I did look around (trying to avoid landmines) and found a Nascargot video that had snails racing with Nascar driver's numbers on their backs that was sort of cute. I wasn't interested in spending a lot of time on YouTube. I think this website has too much trash on it to be of much benefit to anyone. It seems that anything interesting leads to questionable material. The concept of the site might be fun to apply to a library site... if things could be kept "G" rated.

Week 8: #19 Web-based Apps

I created my free account in Zoho Writer. I created two documents and thought this was amazing that I could create a word document when I was not in Microsoft Word. I tried to send the document to by blog but could not get it to cooperate. Maybe Blogspot Blogger is not a default compatible with Zoho without tweaking it. Didn't have time to figure it out right now. I did send it to my email to test this feature of sharing documents by email without sending a document in an attachment. You can send it Read Only or Read/Write. This is very cool and has the potential to be very useful. I will probably be using this a lot. Zoho also has so many features to personalize documents with possibly everything Microsoft Word has. I like this and will be telling others about Zoho, who aren't aware of it. Back to the back-breaking grind here.

Week 8: #18 Social Networking

I looked around several of the social networking sites and my notes of likes and dislikes are as follows:

MySpace -I like the premise of this website but it has gotten a LOT of bad press and rightfully so. The person you could be talking to is probably not the person you think you're talking to. There has been a lot of trouble for a lot of people resulting from using this website. I encouraged my children not to use this website, if they were going to take it seriously and use it seriously.

Facebook -This website seems to be popular with the college-aged group. I have seen this site and it looked very interesting.

Rate My Space -I love to watch HGTV and I have heard of this site from the program. I'm not sure I would use this site, but I might.

Infield Parking -This would be a fun site if I were still interested in NASCAR.

Dogster -This would also be a fun site to show off the cute things your dog does and get information from other dog owners about a particular breed or habit.

My interests in this trivial stuff has been replaced by my granddaughter. She is the cutest and the most entertainment I have seen in a very long time anywhere.

My thoughts about online social networking are this is a good way to connect with people that share the same interests. The sites that appealed to me would be Rate My Space by HGTV and Dogster if I had time to socialize online. It is more important to me to socialize with family and neighbors and friends in person and be entertained by my granddaughter.

Have a great day...it is beautiful today.

Week 7: #17 Blog About Technology

I can remember when I first used a computer in the eighties. I didn't want to give up my electric typewriter. Now I have problems using a typewriter. I have a MP3 player, although I haven't taken it out of the package. I bought it almost a year ago but don't know how to load music yet. I have finally mastered working our DVD player and I know almost all the functions of my cell phone. Technology, what would we do without it?

I commented on other's blogs. That was, by far, a no brainer.

Another beautiful day in Houston.

Week 7: #16 So what's in a wiki?

I looked at some library wikis and here's what I discovered:

In the iHCPL Sandbox wiki -I added my blog to the popular blogs (Thanks Grace) although mine is pretty bland. When I get used to all this new info I may be able to make things more interesting.

In SJCPL Subject Guides - all the info seems to apply mostly to Indiana (IN)

Library Success: a best practices wiki, has a gad of information but I would never have time to read much of it.

I accessed the iHCPL wiki and created a login account for myself. I added my blog to the favorite blogs page on the iHCPL wiki . It was kind of fun and interesting to try to edit the page, to add my blog, and steal editing minutes after someone else would steal my editing time. "Favorite" is an understatement.

Wikis may be useful in researching but I'm not sure I would trust the content.

Isn't it a beautiful day outside today? WOW

Week 6: #15 On Library 2.0 & Web 2.0

I read some of all of the five perspectives but "Away from Icebergs" perspective kept my attention. Web 2.0 or Library 2.0 is very important to the way we access and collect information today. Some of the "icebergs" may not be necessary in university libraries but our circulation numbers continue to rise, not fall. Maybe the “just in case” collection is just the cost of doing business.
Our community continues to grow and mostly with families with preschool and school age children. Quick and easy access to information is important for research and education but parents reading books to their small children and older children reading books is invaluable to their growth and development. Visiting physical libraries is a special part of a child's rearing. Not only the education aspect but the emotional and social aspect as well. I hope no physical libraries are ever completely phased out. I guess the The “just in case” collection is just the cost of doing business.

Week 6: #14 Getting not-so-technical with Technorati

I took a look at Technorati and did an advanced search by typing "Learning 2.0" as a keyword search in Blog posts, in tags and in the Blog Directory. The results different were very different.
I explored popular blogs and discovered that the Tag search in the advanced search netted the same results as popular blogs. Pretty cool.

Week 6: #13 Tagging makes the web 2.0 world go round

I watched the 8 minute tutorial which was very helpful in understanding Del.icio.us. Del.icio.us was very easy to sign up for and use. This is a wonderful way to bookmark interested sites at one location and view it at any other location, such as work, school, and home. This tool could be a great potential for research assistance.

Week 5: #12 The "Library" Elf will remind you!

I registered with Library Elf to receive emails about my books that are due. I wasn't thrilled about giving out my Library card # and PIN # to an outside party but did it anyway to accomplish this exercise. What's another couple hundred people knowing going to hurt? This is a good service but since HCPL already sends reminders, I would prefer* to only be notified by HCPL. This would be great if HCPL didn't notify their customers. We already do a terrific job!

*I'd also prefer to be scheduled to do these tasks instead of having to keep trying to squeeze it in during other times but oh well, what are you going to do...keep hoping. Have a great day.

Me in Meez

Week 5: #11 A Thing about Library Thing

I created an account in LibraryThing and added the following books to my catalog:


The Elements of Organic Gardening by HRH The Prince of Wales
1,147 forbidden health secrets : safer, gentler home remedies doctors and drug companies hide from you
Rodale's Illustrated Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening
1,001 smart self-care strategies for women : natural
Lasagna Gardening: A New Layering System for Bountiful Gardens: No Digging, No Tilling,No Weeding, No Kidding! by Patricia Lanza



Have a great day!

Week 5: #10 Play around with Image Generators

Well this took some doing but I finally did it. This is berryberry kool.

http://www.meez.com/

Week 5: #10 Play around with Image Generators

Hey, what do you know. I did it again. Maybe I do get it after all. This is fun.

http://www.comicstripgenerator.com/

Week 5: #10 Play around with Image Generators

Well, I went to Gravatar and created an account but couldn't get anything to save yet.

So I went to SignGenerator and got this. As always, this is a work in progress.

Week 4: #9 Finding Feeds

Right now I like to use Bloglines search tool to locate RSS feeds I found interesting. It covers a wide variety of subjects that include nearly all of my favorite interests. This is truly amazing to have all this info collected in one spot. I really like it. I couldn't navigate Feedster and Syndic8 didn't catch my interest.

Week 4: #8 Make life really simple with RSS feeds

Okay, this was easy after all. The YouTube video from Helene Blowers on adding RSS feeds put everything into perspective. I felt in control and successfully subscribed to ten newsfeeds. Some of my selections are:
Gardening Question of the Day for Monday, October 1, 2007

distrait: Dictionary.com Word of the Day

Quotes of the Day Robert Frost: "Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length."

The Shifted Librarian

and

I am a Canna What Flower Are You?

Week 4: #8 RSS feeds

I hope this satisfies this weeks' 1st Discovery Exercise. I created a free online Bloglines account for myself. The links below are from some of my feeds, I think. I'm not exactly sure where they came from. I don't understand yet how to do this exercise. I copied and pasted these links in a new post. Is that right? I wish there was more detailed instruction on how to do each exercise.
RSS: "Really Simple Syndication". Simple for whom??? I was hoping this would be simple but I did not find it so. I guess if it was simple, we wouldn't be learning something new. Right?


URL: Dog Food: 5 Types Of Commercial Dog Food You Might Want To Consider

URL: Dog Cologne

URL: Pet Insurance – Lower The Cost Of Veterinarian Visits With Pet Insurance

Week 3; #6 or #7

I did it...by myself

Week 3 #7 Photo Editing

Photo Editing Tool

Week 3: #6 More Flickr Fun

What is this?

Week3:#6 More Flickr Fun-Colorpicker

Pretty Rain Drops

Week3: #7 Editing a photo

I am lost but trying to find my way with the help of a friend

Week 3: #6 Flickr mashups

Week 3: #6 Flickr mashups-Flickr Captioner is very interesting as to how you can add a caption balloon to any picture you have the URL for. I haven't been able to successfully achieve this task yet because I have been scheduled only two hours to do the three tasks for this week and it took me some extra time to Blog my first picture from Flickr. The first hour was pretty much lost, needing more detailed instruction/info. Slow going but I'm getting there.

Week 3 Post #5 Beautiful Sunset

Lac Brome sunset
Originally uploaded by julienconstans

I would love to see this when I leave work everyday.

Week 3 #5 I'd Like To Be Here

run away with me
Originally uploaded by thomas cristopher

This is where I would like to be at the end of the day.

Week 3: Post 5

I have been able to create a Flickr account. Now I have yet another email, this time with Yahoo. I think I may have posted my Blog on Flickr but I was not able to post a picture from Flickr on my blog which was the objective for this week's exercise, or at least today's exercise. There does not seem to be enough instruction on Harriet to complete this exercise for someone like me who is new to all this. (Several of my co-workers said they had the same problem.) I 'll try again tomorrow. Could we have some tips on sucessfully completing this exercise while it's still a foreign language to us. Thanks

Internet Safety

Internet Safety is of most importance. You have to be careful of the information you give out on the internet because it can result in identity theft. Do not give out any personal information. Also, do not believe everything you read on the internet unless it is from a trusted source. Internet users beware.

Second Day of Blogging

Repetition certainly helps reinforce learning something new. After two attempts today, I finally logged on successfully. This is a necessary step and most helpful. Note to self: login name and user name are different.

This is like learning a foreign language. Yesterday I wondered if this was the easiest task of the 23 steps to learn. Today it's more familiar and much better.

Have a great day and keep connecting those neurons.

New to Blogging

I have heard about blogging, read about blogging, talked about blogging...I hope I have just posted my first Blog.