End of iHCPL (Week 10 #23)

One of my favorite iHCPL things was Flickr. Collecting and sharing photos on Flickr makes sharing with friends and family easy. My second favorite thing was the photo editing tools. I could see uses for them at work (promoting events to staff and customers) and at home ( funny personalized birthday cards).

One thing I would like to see is more examples of how people use web 2.0 applications for work. I know there are awards for web site "excellection". I think I'll search for a list of them so I can get some ideas from recognized bloggers and web divas.

Downloadable Media (Week 9: #22)

Downloadable media is great for when you can't get to the library or you can't to read a book(like when you're driving). LibriVox appears easy to use. Unfortunately something was wrong with the archive and I could not search for any titles. Many of the titles LibriVox are classics or books published before 1923.

Wowio is a local Houston company that offers not only public domain downloable books but copyrighted books for no charge. There are even comics and graphic novels. How do they do it? Unfortunately, they use commercial sponsorships to compensate the authors. There are questions about your habits that are a part of the registration process. They used this information to send their users advertisements. If you don't want any promotional emails, you should make sure the statement about accepting them is not checked.

Using OverDrive is a little more involved than Wowio. You won't be asked any questions but you do have to download software. This is important especially if you are using a library computer that doesn't have the software loaded on it already. Most libraries do not allow the public to download anything onto the hard drive. OverDrive will also ask you to download a security update for Windows Media player. The plus side of this is that this allows OverDrive to offer you copyrighted material for free through the public library and without advertisements. I have only one compliant and it's not really a compliant. So many people like OverDrive, you will probably have to place a hold on popular or well-known titles for a chance to check them out.

Podcasts (Week 9: #21)

There are podcasts for just about anything you can imagine. I found a podcast for fans of Snape on Itunes and a podcast for dog owners on ipodder. I have found that some podcast directories are easier to search than others. I think Itunes is the best way to find new podcasts. As far as downloading them to my MP3 player, I like ipodder. I don't have to log on to a website. There is a program on the MP3 player that has a list of the podcasts I have subscribed to. When I attached the MP3 player to a USB port, the program starts, searches for the latest podcasts and downloads them.

I also used Bloglines to subscribe to a podcast called Collection Comics Library. I added a blogroll from Bloglines to the sidebar. You can click on Collection Comics Library on the sidebar to hear the latest podcast.

My favorite podcast is X Minus One (http://xmone.libsyn.com/). X Minus One is a science fiction radio show that was produced in the fifties.

YouTube (Week 9: #20)

I like watching YouTube clips like the piano playing cat. I don't think I would watch debates or clips from news reports. If someone was making a point in their blog and embedded the video, I might watch it. The categories listed on YouTube are pretty broad. Under the Category "Auto & Vehicles", you may find spoofs, demonstrations or product safety reviews all list together. I think the keyword search is a better way to find videos.

By the way, my favorite video was in the Auto & Vehicles section. It is about the concept car, the Nissan Pivo 2. It's so cute. I want my own personal car robot! Where can I get one? Okay. I can't imagine driving it but ...it has a robot!!! A real talking robot! See embedded video below.

Web-based Apps (Week 8 #19)

I think web-based apps like Zoho are great. If you only need the basics as far as word processing, spreadsheets and presentations, this will save you time and money. You can save your presentations on the website and share them with co-workers and friends. And you can save on your hard drive for important things like the computer games or music.


I created a slideshow with Zoho Show. It was easy but I did have problems with a slide not appearing in the slideshow. Eventually, it worked. Click on the link below and take a look.

http://show.zoho.com/public/neekie54/Mississippi%20Run

Social Networking Week 8: #18

In the previous post, I said I'm a member of at least five social networks. So I don't really need to join any more. But this gave me an opportunity to check out sites I haven't used. I looked at Ning but I closed it after a few minutes. Don't get me wrong. It's great but I would lose a lot of time searching for that elusive network I cannot live without. LinkedIn is useful but I wouldn't look at it too long. It's a bare bones site. Xanga looks like a lot of fun. I like the themes. I wish I had tried it before I tried Facebook. RateMySpace is great way to get ideas about remdeling from ordinary people instead of TV shows backed by corporations. Threadless has my favorite type of clothes---t-shirts! I want to buy a t-shirt! Well...uh...maybe later.

Social Networks Are Forever?(Week 7: #17)

Most people who listen to or read the news have heard of Facebook or MySpace. But have you heard of ListenToYourWife or AlternativeEnergy? If people are interested in it then somewhere out in cyberspace there is a social network for it (or in the process of being launched). I think it's great but I hesitate to join anymore. I'm probably a member of at least five social networks. I probably visit one regularly (and I have links to the other four on it). But I visit the others maybe once every couple of months. I often wonder if one day I will find that one of my accounts is disabled because of lack of use (I think at least one should be-I haven't gone past registering for it).
Networking is important for work, learning and relationships. But how much is too much? Will the social networks keep growing until several come up with so many awesome apps the others can no longer compete? Or will new ones keep appearing everyday? Will my Facebook account still work when I'm 60? It better! Just think of all the friends I could collect over several decades. Would you want to lose all that contact information? No way! But how long will this go on (and for free!) ?

Wiki, wiki, wiki (Week 7: #16)

Wikis are great ways to work together. Some are easier than others to work with. I think wikis are great for collaborating on papers, books and creating a list of ideas or activities. Most wikis allow you to create a clickable table of contents to navigate. Just like blogs, you can include links, files and photos. Wikis usually notify the administrator and the moderators about changes and allow you to change them. Since everyone sees the same thing online and that makes it easier discuss to ideas or changes.

Library 2.0-Why Our Customers Still Need Us (Week 6: #15)

Dr. Wendy Schultz's article called "To a Temporary Place in Time" was very good. I think her statement about tour guides is important to remember. It may seem that librarians are no longer needed but that may be more media hype than fact. It appears that many teens, twenty-somethings and thirty-somethings know about some online tools and services. Usually, they know a enough to get whatever they want done. Those wonderful blogs, websites, podcasts we see online are created by a small number of people who really understand a certain tool, have an idea and combine both. There are millions in this country and billions of people in this world. Compare those numbers to the number of Second Life users or Facebook users and you will see that most people are barely involved. That will change-especially if someone takes the time to inform people about what's available and what meets their needs. The library offer information services like some companies offer their products. Instead of giving the same book or website to answer a certain question, we should help customers to tailor the information to their needs..



Think about an ordinary reference interview, a customer in the seventh grade asks for a book or a website about energy. It's an assignment several of the schools in the area give every year. You give the customer the same book or website that you have given twenty other customers in the seventh grade that day. What's wrong with that? Nothing-except why is the same book or website appropriate for all twenty customers? Among those twenty, one may be visually-impaired, another may read on the level of a third grader, and one may attend a magnet school for engineering. The format of the information needs to be adapted to the specific needs of the customer. What if you could suggest a library database or website that had an avatar that was interactive. The avatar could ask the customer the type of format they would like-audio or visual. The customer could specify how loud the audio is and whether a female or male voice is used. The customer could also change the text color, size and font without messing with toolbars or having to use the Accessibilty Options in Windows. What if the customer could tell the avatar that the information is hard to understand and click on every word they want defined. A small pop-up would appear above the word with a simple definition or synonym. Tagging, embedded video, podcasts and visual search engines would help those would want more information. Many of these things exist as separate tools now. But what if one day, when you guide a customer to information that all of those tools are automatically a part of the package. That would really be something to see!

Technorati (Week6:#14)

Technorati Tools are interesting. There are apps for browser buttons, widgets that get your link count, authority and other things. These tools would not be used by someone who is not a "committed" blogger. It's not worth the time if you're just dabbling in blogging. There are interesting blogs under WTF and Popular. Don't expect everything to be like "Boing Boing". Some blogs are people discussing random topics and sometimes just ranting. Whether the information is correct (or coherent) isn't the point here but how many people surfing the next like your site.

If you search for something on Technorati, remember that you will get different links for tags, blogs and posts. I did a search on "Learnig 2.0" First blogs listed have a higher authority than tags or posts.

If you want your blog to appear on Technorati, you need to claim it like I did (http://technorati.com/blogs/storyworldborder.blogspot.com). I also created used FeedBurner to tag my blog (http://feeds.feedburner.com/StoryWorldBorder).

Tagging and Del.icio.us (Week 6: #13)

I watched the Otter Group Del.icio.us tutorial. It was okay but a little long. It covered the basics about Del.icio.us and some ways it can be useful. I thought "Several habits of highly successful Del.icio.us users" was useful except for Habit Three: Use the inbox. I could not find the inbox on Del.icio.us. All I can say about "Us.ef.ul - a beginner's guide to Del.icio.us" is that small print made me want to hit "Delete".

I have my own Deli.icio.us account. Importing your bookmarks is easy. FYI-you may get vague tags this way (i.e imported or personal favorites). No problem! You can rename tags without editing each bookmark or even better-delete the tag from your bookmarks and keep the bookmarks.

I like that you can access other people's items that are tagged the same. You can quickly find other interesting sites this way. Some of the sites might not be exactly what you want but you may finding something interesting that you didn't know before.

Here is the link to my subscription on Fair Trade.

http://del.icio.us/rss/tag/fairtrade

Library Elf (Week 5: #12)

Library Elf is great for anyone who does not check their email on a regular basis or doesn't own a computer. I like getting text messages on my cell phone since I am more likely to check my phone than my email account. An account on Library Elf is easy to setup. I think anyone who has kids or has multiple library accounts will find this helpful.

LibraryThing (Week 5: #11)

I have had a LibraryThing account for awhile. If you read a lot of series, this is a good way to keep track of what you have read. I sometimes have to stop reading a series for awhile and sometimes I forget where I stopped. I also like the fact that I can see how other people rated a book I read or one I'm interested in.

See my LibraryThing widget on the sidebar.

Trip Planner (Week 3: #6)

I used Yahoo's Trip Planner for my short visit to College Station. One of the great features on this site is that it suggests places to stay, sites to see, restaurants and other items of interests. Here is the link to my trip.

http://travel.yahoo.com/trip-view-1365147-college_station_public_library;_ylt=AhnbQCJN9B.dd_nYj4HNZqubItAF

Image Generator (Week 5:#10)

Since I have an avatar, I decided to try the Comic Strip Generator (http://www.comicstripgenerator.com/). It's a great website for creating personal messages or maybe a wallpaper for the desktop!

Finding Feeds (Week 4: #9)

I tried several of the suggested search tools for feeds. I found Feedster to be the best for me. When I pick a subject, Feedster gathers the blogs on that subject. I don't need to go through a list searching for new blogs or technology blogs. Feedster does that for me. You can see my blogs from Feedster in the sidebar.

Bloglines (Week 4: #8)

Bloglines is pretty easy to use. If you want to find more blogs after you subscribe, you click on "Find new blogs". You have to scroll down a list of blogs (in alphabetical order) on Bloglines. While this is okay, there are faster ways of getting blogs on a certain subject on Bloglines such as Quick Pick Subscription.

Here is a link to the blogs I subscribed to.

http://www.bloglines.com/public/xenagogue

Pixer and loldog (Week 3: #7)

I found Pixer pretty easy to use. I was able to sharpen a picture I took with my camera phone and it looks pretty good. I used the picture to create a loldog. Nothing fancy. Take a look.

http://www.thecheezburgerfactory.com//completestore/128364304718217500Howudooin.jpg

My new Flickr account (Week 3: #5)

Flickr is great! I have boxes of photos that no one sees because they are not organized in any way. This is a good solution for me. Now I just need to remember to order a CD with my photos or buy a digital camera.

Here is the link to my Flickr homepage.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/storyworldborder/

Online safety and blogging (Week 2: #4)

As far as online safety goes, I like to keep in mind a simple rule I heard a month ago--don't post anything online you wouldn't put on a postcard. Unless I am on a social network on which I can restrict who sees my blog, I know anyone online can read it. But you can still blog about many things. You just have be careful about including details into your posts.

Greetings! (Week 2: #3)

Welcome to Story World Border. This blog was created as a part of the iHCPL. I will share my experience and progress with the 23 things for iHCPL. Since these exercises provide an opportunity for creativity and individual expression, I know iHCPL will be great fun!