Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Wrap Up and Celebration! - Thing #23

Awwwwwright! Think I'll have a half-a-cup to celebrate!

The best part of this whole exercise was just learning something new each day--or each thing! I loved the "strain your brain" part of this. The Reader is keeping me occupied in the Lab each day. I love the LibraryThing--I hate starting a book and discovering I've read it already. WorldCat on the OCL website is terrific; a number of patrons are coming in talking about it. Sharing what I've learned with my guy has been lots of fun. We're both learning. He's discovered Google Docs. And knowing that my kids ("the boys") are following my blog tickles me.

So, thanks OCL WebThings team. Even with a late start, it was easy to catch up and accomplish all 23 Things without too much stress. Looking forward to Web 3.0!

ListenNJ - Thing #22

So the last task was the hardest for me. Since I was loading new software on our home computer, I asked my own Techie to take part in this one. Sometime I'll tell you about googling a Prohibition-era whiskey to find its value and consequently downloading porn--which took over our computer.

After fits and starts I was able to download Down in New Orleans by Billy Sothern. It's as clear as any CD I've taken from the library. I was disappointed that so many of the books I wanted to download were unavailable. Where did they go? Does ListenNJ just have the copyright to only one "copy" of each book? Frustration aside, looks like I'm going to be enjoying this Thing.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Podcasting - Thing #21

Looking for "coffee talk" I wound up finding this podcast and thought it would be more interesting to me than coffee news for dealers. Many of the podcasts have "old news" but this one was from Friday. Swedes love coffee; it flows in their veins! So this is almost as good to me as "coffee talk."


Swedish News in English

Friday, May 16, 2008

YouTube Latte Art - Thing #20

Again I spent too much time having fun on YouTube. Of course, I searched for coffee and Gevalia (some very funny Swedish commercials), but this video for latte art was the best. No sound but wow! That's some steady hand. There were other videos done by different people, but none as good as this one.

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Web 2.0 Awards - Thing #19

So I spent far too much time playing with this! For City Guides I tried Yelp.com and discovered the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago as the second entry under Education--where my son is Director of Marketing. It had so many rave reviews that I had to forward it to him. My Lab computer got locked up on Wayfaring maps site when I tried to locate my house--not too impressive. I discovered on the Philanthropy site that I could order "planet friendly" underwear from Care 2! Wouldn't it be more "planet friendly" to go without????

But the worst was Zillow.com, a real estate site. Since I've been trying to sell my house for what seems like 101 years, I thought I'd check it out. The aerial map showed the house across the street and said my house was worth $66,000 more than we're asking. Or maybe the house across the street is worth that much more than mine. (I don't think so!) Apparently they are not reflecting current market conditions!

So I wasn't too impressed by these sites. Pandora is next on the list. I've heard rave reviews.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Web Apps - Thing #18

I love it when I can show my computer-savvy guy anything "computer!" He plans to submit his Power Point presentation for the June Artist Guild show to Reference this way.

As an SLA and not terribly creative(!), the best use of Google Docs that I can think of for the library would be to put Circ procedures on a Google Doc and have a committee work on getting every step down for each task. I know the Albany Public Library had this on a wiki. Google Docs seems to be a more familiar tool, particularly to those who did not do the Web Things Challenge. I've found that procedures change constantly in TR. Anyone who comes in new and hasn't performed a particular task or doesn't get to do a task frequently needs written procedures for some of the more complicated tasks, such as running mailers or counting money. Being able to update frequently and with ease would make life so much simpler for the new employee and those who work with them and must answer 101 questions.

Monday, May 12, 2008

Playing in the Sandbox - Thing #17

Playing in the Sandbox was fun. I think OCL needs an Austen group where we can all sit around and talk about Mr. Darcy. Maybe an Austen wiki!

However, frustration became my emotion of the morning when I tried to leave my blog link on the OCL Webthings Blogs page. You know it's insanity when you keep trying the same thing over and over and over again. Nobody told me all the links have to be blue. I spent far too much time trying to make my half-a-cup link with a brown background and white letters. So it's brown and blue--mentally I am black and blue!