Thing 47 -- Evealuation

Just completed the rather lengthy evaluation, and found in filling it out I was forced to rerun many of the lessons/things I'd covered this year. Very impressive and again informative. My congratulations to all the folks who complied both of these Web 2.0 lessons -- really great work!

Thing 46 -- Web Junction

I'm a huge fan of Web Junction and find the site not only informative but fun. this "thing" prompted me to explore deeper. In the past I've taken classes -- for free -- via Web Junction, and now I'm perusing more. At last year's MLA conference in Mankato I was pleased to meet many fellow Junctioneers -- and it made the experience all the more rewarding.

Thing 45 -- Clouds

Looking to do some clouding of my own with online backup. SOS is a site that charges for the service, so that is out. I did find the slideshow at: http://www.slideshare.net/webgoddess/collaborating-in-the-cloud very informative and suggest anybody who wants to social network and explains the tools. When you use calendars and other networks you can enable your coworkers or friends and family access to your agendas for the coming days/months. I've been using Google calendar for a couple of years and myself and another librarian (who share a sub) make ours accessible to each other. The bottom line is you're using other systems to store and share your data. Pretty cool stuff...

Thing 40 Mashup on the Web

From video to simple spelling the mashup sites help you do some squishing or changing in all manner of forms. Was so caught up in the links, time got away from me and I have to open the library in 10 minutes. Craziest was Lazy Library where Amazon only pops up books of 200 pages or less when you search! Talk about lazy!

thing 38 screencasting

I'm afraid I haven't been listing my "things" by their number -- if I find time, I'll go back and fill those in...

The following are examples of Screencasting:
At http://www.indeavors.com/resources/ppt1_tut.htm I found Optimizing Pictures in PowerPoint with a short tutorial video. Wonderful. Takes you through the steps of "downsizing" photos so that your finished presentation doesn't take up so much computer space.

Tried to view Peter Rabbit (under same heading as above), but took too long to load -- must not have checked out optimizing!

And the How Scholarly Search Engines Differ short video (from the UCLA Library) actually compares databases and gives you search limits to make the comparisons yourself. This will be an excellent tool to share with your college patrons.

What is screencasting? It's described as "A screencast is a digital movie in which the setting is partly or wholly a computer screen, and in which audio narration describes the on-screen action" in the link to O'Reily Media, and goes on to describe and demonstrate numerous variations to try -- everything from a white screen for a basketball coach to write on in real time ("animated whiteboard"), to editing and delivering.

And in iLibrarian I found A Quick Guide to Screencasting for Libraries, a two-page article with pretty specific information to get a person started.

And, best of all, at screentoaster.com you can create your own -- and it comes with a quick demo to get you started. Amazing stuff -- Googled into Times Square, made a quick recording, put it up on YouTube (the toaster site compresses it for you) and "You're ready to share it with the world." Very impressive.

Thing 34

Been at it all morning. It seems the more computer literate I try to get, the more illiterate I become. Never giving up, here are some of the "things" I've tried my hand at today...

Thing 34 -- Is This Our competition? Online Answer Sites takes you to distancedegrees.com, a very interesting site with the heading: Lose Your Wikipedia Crutch: 100 Places to Go for Good Answers Online. Scouting out six or or, I found only two to be outstanding and something to pass on to library patrons. These were ibiblio.org -- a "higher learning" database in which I lost myself for nearly an hour, and scholarpedia.org, which, according to its intro is "...similar to Wikipedia with some major differences. Each article is written and edited by an expert in the field, and all articles must be approved before they become part of the site, helping to ensure the information you get is accurate." I find too many students rely on Wikipedia and it's iffy information.

I also had time to look at some answer sites, my favorite of which is askville.amazon.com -- just click on a subject area to peruse the questions about, oh say Arts and Crafts. The Qs & As are really fun and interesting.

That's all for today. Looking forward to the next session, and more free time to go back to these favorite sites.

Still here, just like Istanbul and Athens!

Returned from my Turkey and Greece vacation last week -- 13 glorious days exploring Istanbul and small Turkish towns, the isles of Kos and Rhodes, then three days in Athens. Here's a link to photos (just copy and paste):

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8AatGbRu3ZtWQB

Have to get back to the More Things -- have about a dozen reviews in these blogs. Hope to get in the prize drawing...

More later.

Lois

Thing 14 -- reader's advisories

Getting in more time today prior to the blizzard predicted for tonight (and I fly out to Istanbul Friday -- today's Monday), anyway checked out Readingtrails.com. I really wasn't impressed, but clicked on comedy and the book Gospel: A Novel, by Wilton Barnhardt, came up. Then I copy-blocked the title into Amazon, read some good reviews, and will have to remember to request it from the library when I return. That's agreat librarian tip, which I showed my computer savvy substitute, if you need to find a CD or DVD, amazon it to see what it looks like. Works for books, too, just gives you the color of the jacket, illustrations, etc.

Back to my earlier investigating, booklamp.org. This site breaks books up by scenes and then compares elements (density, dialog, etc.) and the data from one book can be used to compare it with other books. Watched the short video, then couldn't resist -- joined. I tried Jurassic Park (you have to choose from their list) and only got back sci-fi stuff. Then I tried To Say Nothing of the Dog, more sci-fi. It looks like that's the main genre of this site, however you can request them to add books, so looks promising for further research.

Then at whatshouldireadnext.com I wrote in Gospel: A Novel (Paperback)
by Wilton Barnhardt and got this back:

Our Recommendations

These are our suggestions based on readers' recommendations.

The Secret Lives of Bees - Sue Monk Kidd See Amazon UK | US
Telex from Cuba: A Novel - Rachel Kushner See Amazon UK | US
Departures - Elizabeth Oness See Amazon UK | US
The Ha-Ha: A Novel - Dave King See Amazon UK | US
Well-School in Murder - Elizabeth George See Amazon UK | US
Uhuru - Robert Ruark See Amazon UK | US
Hot Fudge Sundae Blues: A Novel - Bev Marshall See Amazon UK | US
The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit: My Family's Exodus from Old Cairo to the New World - Lucette Lagnado See Amazon UK | US
Child 44 - Tom Rob Smith See Amazon UK | US
Garnet Hill - Denise Mina See Amazon UK | US

Then I clicked on 'more results' and got these additional ones:

Plays By Anton Chekhov: Uncle Vanya; Ivanoff; The Sea Gull; The Swan Song - Anton Chekhov See Amazon UK | US
Under the Volcano - Malcom Lowry See Amazon UK | US
A Voice Through A Cloud - Denton Welch See Amazon UK | US
W, or the Memory of a Childhood - Georges Perec See Amazon UK | US
What's for Dinner? - James Schuyler See Amazon UK | US
Wheat that Springeth Green - J.F. Powers See Amazon UK | US
When I Grow Too Old to Dream - Oscar Hammerstein II (words), Sigmund Romberg (music) See Amazon UK | US
Where Angels Fear to Thread - E. M. Forster See Amazon UK | US
Who's Afraid of Virgina Woolf? - Edward Albee See Amazon UK | US
Missed Fortune: Dispel the Money Myth-Conceptions--Isn't It Time You Became Wealthy? - Douglas R. Andrew See Amazon UK | US

Again, another a very promising site.

Lastly I ended up at http://www.loganberrybooks.com/stump-form.html -- the book stumpers site. This is the brief 23 Things description: this site lets people ask about books they are trying to find based on vague memories. Other people make suggestions. It costs $2 to post a Stumper, but you can answer and browse others' answers free. a half-hour flew buy, but if you have a book title that complete escapes you, this would be the place to start.

Thing 34 -- been at it all morning...

Tried some search engines and looked up crop circles. Every since I drove over to see the one near Fosston, Minnesota, I've been fascinated. Needless to say, these aren't made by guys with two-by-fours on ropes stomping around in the dark. No, much more surrealistic than that.

Lois

Thing 36 -- it worked!

Wonders never cease -- it worked! I copy-blocked the addy for my new label, pasted it into my last post, then copied it from there into the address line on the web, and hot-diggity-dog, it worked. There is a way at http://www.acme.com/labelmaker to actually paste it into the post, but the author was rather snippy about explaining it, so I figured it was probably too tough. However, that is one more item I'll try to master prior to More Things expiring. And the label making site is cool -- check it out!

Lois

Thing 36 -- always new

Love getting the updates via email -- had time to check out this recommendation today: http://www.multcolib.org/books/ -- very nice. Hope my library systems' new website works as well. 'An Embarressment of Riches' was a nice way to browse new items and do a search by subject (listed on the right side of the page).

Here's a link to a cool label -- will post this and see if it works...

http://www.acme.com/labelmaker/labels/label_20090324111714_91994.gif

Lois

Thing 34 -- more things I've discovered lately...

The more things are so engrossing, I find myself exploring different areas, then running out of time to blog about them. So, I’ll just make a few notes of my last two sessions:

Tartanmaker.com had me engaged for a good 30 minutes, and I had no sense of the time flying. I have to admit, my first attempt reminded me of the potholders I used to weave in camp as a child, but all in all making your own tartan pattern looks to be addictive!

Bighugelabs.com had some great Flickr tools – from making a jigsaw puzzle from your favorite pic, to creating a small photo book. All looked simple enough, but was trying to explore as much as possible that day, so only checked out the options. There’s also Map Maker at the site, where you lick on all the countries you’ve visited and it colors them in on a large map. Sounds better than it is…

Today I made a Hollywood sign reading Winger – very impressive. Something fun for a kid to try. And a chocolate bar with my name on it – of course with the bite taken out of one corner. These fun items are at glassgiant.com…

At fodey.com you can make your own newspaper clipping and depending on how involved you get with seeing your story in print, this site can gobble up a mess of time.

My favorite so far is at xtranormal.com – text-to-movie. Although the characters are rather stiff (Wii-like), it was fun to devise different plots and watch the poor devils act them out. It takes awhile to boot up, but the voices are a hoot! Another way to wile away a good 30 minutes…

But the highlight of the extra 23 things is found at zompist.com with the Excuse Generater – hilarious! And some bosses just might buy the stuff! Here’s one generated under the “distraction” heading:

‘I got so distracted by this stupid flame-war on the Net that I could hardly think-- and then my Loompanics catalog arrived. I am so ditzy sometimes! Anyway, I hope the medication kicks in this week.’

So that’s it, now if I can get this on my blog!

Thing 39 -- almost forgot to post!

Just spent the morning exploring More Things, and was fascinated by the Clip Art Etc. site (http://etc.usf.edu/clipart), and the copyright free photo sites, of which I visited Morgue File -- a term used in the newspaper business for clippings/photos on certain subjects -- (http://www.morguefile.com) a site in which you can search by subject and bring up entire files on subjects. That was my morning. Exciting!

Thing 35 books 2.0 -- weird...

Ever wonder where you'd fit on the shelf? Go to this site to find out...

http://spacefem.com/quizzes/dewey/

Thing 36 -- Comic again, one more note

I see by my last note I need to edit better, so please forgive the mistakes. Anyway, went back to Tiny Tag and was prompted to save my tag withe Flickr. I wasn't sure of my account name/password, but was sent via Yahoo so access was a snap. Now have saved in cyberspace a very small tag. Ain't life grand?

Thing 35 -- tagger out of commission

I'm still working away here today -- had a free 2 1/2 hour block so am trying to hit as many new "things" as possible. But wanted to look at Acme Label Maker ant it's out of order. Not sure of the problem, but Tiny Tags works and is very cute. Am trying to figure out a way to use it at the library. Any ideas?

Thing 33 -- more things on a stick Travel

I've just visited mylifeoftravel.com and have set up an account. By bringing in my yahoo address book (extremely easy) I made a "general" list of friends and family who may be interested in my upcoming Turkey/Greece trip. So I sent off a quick email to them (and to all my library friends -- if you'd like to be included in the journal updates, drop me a note here), and gave them the option to bow out, too. Anyway, it looks like a great place to keep travel notes and photos to share. This is my second longer training session of morethingsonastick and I love it!

Thing 25 -- Introducing Dotty

Just showing my sub here at Mahnomen how to enter a note on the blog... Went through the Blogger's Toolkit to get her started.

Thing 28 -- Customized home page, Removed quiz added library spot

Had to remove Simposons' Who Want to Be a Millionaire game -- the music was driving me mad! So added a nice link to a library site -- hint, hint, nudge, nudge... Keep reading!

Thing 28 -- Simpsons fan

As you can tell I'm a Simpsons fan, so stop by here for your daily dose of a quote and a quiz. How much fun is this?

Sometimes we fail...

Trying to remotely add to this blog with no success. Or, if the new post is here hidden in the 'Drafts' and I'm certainly not finding it. Perhaps I'll have more luck in my next training session. I'm off to tackle another "thing," hopefully with better results.

Thing 28 -- Snow -- here and outside!

Now I made it snow on my blog -- this is amazing. Hopefully I can get it off of here come May...

Thing 24 -- Refreshing your blog. Trying again...

Well, it's next year and I'm taking up the 23 Things challenge once again. However, this blog is not listed on the NLLN site, my other blog (retrolo) is -- and I can't seem to access that one. So I will report on my (hopeful) progress here and try to slip it into the NLLN site. Wish me luck!

Lois