Esmeralda7's Weblog

Final note….

esmeralda7 — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 03:35:44 +0000

I hope you all look at the time I posted these last few ‘things.’ The post date may say Nov 1, but I’m doing this at 11:35 pm and it’s still Oct 31st. I want my 10 hours of certification credit–please. It was still a good experience. I’m going to have a beer and go to bed now. I guess I’m going to play with the cat first–so he says.

Thoughts on the 23 things experience

esmeralda7 — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 03:30:15 +0000

I’ve had a great time doing these exercises and journeying through new (to me) parts of the electronic world. I feel proud of myself for having been able to deal with some of the electronic stuff (it only took me 2 tries to embed my Google map–and with no extra help!) that I had only barely heard of and makes me confident that I will be able to master more things with just a little bit of practice.

I am amazed at the amount of stuff out there and I know that we have only scratched the surface. I hope to continue discovering new things and will make a real effort to introduce some of these useful tools to our customers. Thanks for all the work the committee did putting this together–it was a great ride.

Thing 23

esmeralda7 — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 03:23:49 +0000

Wow. Some of this makes my head hurt. I guess I am at a point now where I have problems with over-analysis. If you over discuss, over philosophise, you end up with tautologies and all sorts of logic issues. ‘It is what it is’ (unless you are a Buddhist and saying it with whatever authority that brings and, yes, authority is the wrong word) is over simplistic, but there is an element of that in what is coming down the pike.

I think that the way the Web is being used is changing, but as a result of what users have made of it. It think that what is going on now is at least partially what the first radical users had in mind. They just kept plugging away until the rest of the world (and that would include software developers, etc) caught up. And how nice that they have. What is going on just makes sense if you think about how the web works–what effect connectivity has in promoting collaboration.

The same applies to libraries. We need to listen to our customers, find out what they really want and then find the best way to provide it with the funds available. They will need guides–they will always need guides and that is what librarians are. I don’t see print dying, I see it being used in different ways, but reference is a lot different than it used to be and will continue to evolve. There is no choice about that, there is only trying to keep up and provide the best.

Thing 22

esmeralda7 — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 02:37:27 +0000

I investigated both recommended sites and I like podcast.com the best. I did a search for knitting podcasts since it is frequently way easier to understand how to do something if you can see someone demonstrate the technique. I got some of the same hits on both sites, but podcast.com gives you a little summary so that you know what goes on and can decide if it will be useful or not. I never thought about there being a separate way to search for podcasts, but these are really handy. I’ll probably come back to these for more instructionaly stuff (like how to fix my toilet) and maybe recommend them to some of our customers.

Thing 21

esmeralda7 — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 02:18:39 +0000

I checked out both YouTube and Metacafe and was reminded of something one of my coworkers said to the effect that YouTube is more fun if you have a video camera and can upload. Maybe–but being the voyeur that I am, I enjoy watching. I have gotten many hits from YouTube while searching for a topic–some helpful, some not so much. I am kind of hamstrung here at home because my connection speed is so slow (I know, I know, stop whining and do something), but I see it as just a giant amalgam of stuff, mostly for entertainment. It would also be nice to find something that would illustrate a point, say about tornadoes, and then find a clip that I could embed in my online post or whatever. Google movies would probably be better for that. I like Metacafe for the entertainment value. I could spend a lot of time looking at goofy pet video clips. I guess this is sort of a try out place for would be filmmakers and it’s a nice place to display entertaining stuff for your friends to watch. Just another aspect of connectivity that is so ubiquitous that I almost don’t think about how it works (they have contests?!).

Thing 20

esmeralda7 — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 01:25:15 +0000

Ok–I must be doing something wrong here, but this is my third try with YourMinis and I can’t find the Startpage, even after signing up for an account. I did play with the widgets on several of the pages–lots of best ofs and weather stuff–and changed the colors of the print and the backgrounds. I don’t have a new enough computer to try to download anything more complex (however, I did talk to Matt Hoffman and I think I’m going to be remedying that soon–this one is so slow I should probably get a handicap like they do in golf), but I did move my gadgets around on my iGoogle page. I can see how they would be helpful and they’re cute, but I’m not yet enough of a wonk to want to create one. Maybe later.

Thing 19

esmeralda7 — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 01:10:25 +0000

I like books, so I picked Lulu to explore (might as well start with #1). Wow–I had no idea what I was getting into. This is the largest self-publishing site ever–founded by the guy who founded Red Hat. They have everything–templates, ideas for designing covers, ways to create a photography book by basically dragging and dropping, access to licensed material that you can use, distribution and all while you get 80% of the profits generated.

I’ve had people ask about getting things like family histories, local histories, cookbooks published and it looks like this would be the place. I looked at the top sellers for the past week and the content of the books was about what I would expect to see in a traditional buying source–how to books, health books, self help books and quite a few children’s items.

Lulu is billed as the place to go to circumvent traditional publishing venues and it looks to me like it would deliver. It also appears that the product would look much more professional than a lot of self published things I’ve seen. And, wait, there’s more. There are loads of discussion groups that the ‘creators’ (their term) can join and if there isn’t one to your liking, you can start your own.

i think this would be great for folks who want to publish something for limited use (like your own textbook, if you teach or family stories or cookbooks) and if you are an author you could actually create your own online support group that would take you through the whole process from beginning to end. Loaded with faqs and all kinds of help, I’d recommend this to would be writers.

Thing 18

esmeralda7 — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 00:48:26 +0000

I chose the iGoogle start page. I already have a Google account and their stuff always starts out clean and you can keep it uncluttered if you want. Of course, I porceeded to add a lot of stuff to it–quotes of the day, games, news (I just found out that Studs Terkel died from one of the feeds), Google Maps and some toys. i think I’ll enjoy going to my own page and I can always click back to classic if I get tired of it all.

I did try out some of the organizers. I just acquired a Blackberry and some of them (Remember the Milk) are compatible, so I’ll probably be using them–maybe I won’t forget my doctor’s appointment next time. I can see how online calendars can be useful. We used one to create timeline for a committee I was on and, better yet, I could create one that my sister could access so she can see at a glance whether I could cat sit or whatever. Now if I can only convince her to do the same, all of our lives would be easier. In some cases it could be a pain to keep up with this stuff, but I think once it’s set up and I become familiar with it, I’ll be happy.

By the way, doing this at home has convinced me that I need a faster connection. Waiting for these pages to come up is like watching paint dry.

Thing 17

esmeralda7 — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 13:27:40 +0000

I first heard about Delicious when David F. decided to use it to ‘catalog’ our ready reference stuff and links online. After reading about how it works, I can see why he chose it. I tried doing a search for pumpkin pie and found tons of stuff. I think I’ll use it for recipes and knitting patterns and sites. I’m always finding stuff and then taking hours to try to relocate it for someone else. What a waste of time. I also like the fact that you can tag and access from any computer. That way, if I come across something at work (on break, of course) I can tag it and take a closer look at home. I’m going to tell my sister about Delicious–she can keep track of her pet sites.

Thing 16

esmeralda7 — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 13:07:34 +0000

I created a Facebook account a week or so ago so that I could have time to play with it a bit before I had to write this. I’ve heard mostly about MySpace and Facebook (the others look sort of interesting, but no one ever asks me about them) and I chose Facebook because MySpace really does seem to be mostly for high school and young college age types. I’m not much for meeting people online, but a lot of my friends do it on a regular basis (some of them have met spouses) and my nephew has found his last two girlfriends online so I guess there’s something to be said for it. Anyway, once again, I think it may be a generational thing, at least partially.

It’s kind of neat keeping track of what folks are doing. I’ve kept my account private so that only Friends can see my stuff and I can see how it would be a great way to keep in touch with people who live far away or to find folks you’ve lost track of (you might want to think about this–there may be a reason you lost touch). I did help someone sign up after I had so it was useful that way and I read all the warnings and suggestions about what to reveal and possible abuses. It did not make me feel more comfortable about putting my personal information out there.

I think that it would tempting to reveal too much or maybe somewhat inappropriate information because you are sort of in a vacuum when you are sitting there typing. You can’t see reactions, the expressions on people’s faces or the tone of their voices (or the tsk, tsk of disapproval). You will most likely get a reaction, but it may be too late to do anything to correct it. I think the cautionary remarks should be taken seriously.

I may keep my account for awhile, but I’m not sure how much I’ll use it. It’s sort of not ‘me.’