The Final thing

The Final thing

I am relieved that I have completed Web training 2.0…..keep in mind that the fact that I would finish was never a sure thing…. In fact for a while there after September I was sure of the complete opposite that it would never end.

Think I am being dramatic…. ask any Clendon staff the 23 things had built to epic proportions, my deadline was looming and I had whining perfected down to an art (not that that took much work)

And in writing this am I in no way saying that I did not learn heaps from it……in fact it was quite the opposite but that doesn’t mean I learned it gracefully(I don’t think that is even within my capabilities)

I wouldn’t be true to myself if I didn’t preach it back….

1. If I am in an optimistic mood a maximum of 5 people have read any or all of my posts

2. Miserable templates for blogger which work are hard to find sometimes Misery has to be Happy (for lack of choice)

3. Google is the best thing since sliced bread

4. Pictures (especially of cartoon) helps (me anyway) and makes things look good

5. Personalities come across peoples blogs so being able to be anonymous is nice

6. It’s nice to discover something new but writing about something you know makes you feel smart

7. Having other staff members to discuss frustrations with helps

Thanks to anyone who reads my ramblings and thanks for those who set this up

Nine of Nine Part 3 of 3

Ebooks

This unlike the previous post is something I have actually heard of and use. Ebooks are great especially with portable reading devices. Although realistically if you don’t want to pay for them, you may have to resign yourself to reading mainly Classical well known titles like “Pride and Prejudice” and “The Iliad”. This is great if your anything like me and are planning on reading some Classic novels but not so good if you either;

A. Can’t stand them
B. Or have read it all already

Well then there is always Amazon and other a heap of other sites to buy popular titles from. I like a lot of people like reading from a book rather than a computer (much better experience) but there are pluses to Ebooks including it being better for the environment, better accessibility and cheaper.

Anyway I digress I did find some titles on Project Gutenberg which I wouldn’t mind reading (I guess I have to prove it with examples) like The adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Aesop’s fables. It is available in a variety of formats including HTML, txt, Plucker (never heard of this one), AVI, CSS, DVI, EPS, GIF and ISO. The variety of the formats is great gives options as to how to read it.

Nine of Nine Part 2 of 3

Podcasts

I have to honestly admit at this point that before doing this post i had no idea what podcasts were which is needless to say sad especially as it was "word of the year". Well I guess the point of this exercise is to learn something new right??? Good now I feel completely justified.

All in all this was an interesting blog post to research for. I visited both the websites which were listed. On the whole I much preferred podcast.com. The website was easier to navigate and the podcasts were provided in mp3 and mp4 format as opposed to having to join something or other and download a program.

Ok here is where my geekiness is in full effect (and proud of it). I added the RSS feed of Wild Chronicles Digital Shorts to my bloglines account. It is a very interesting channel but very few episodes as of yet. I also found other channels of interest for example a channel on intelligent design. As to the question in the 2nd post in which i wondered if my bloglines account would be of use.....well it hasn't.

We've been ratted out, boys.

Nine of Nine Part 1 of 3

You Tube

U Turn 30 000 Subs



This is a nice Dominoes Video. It's amazing but mainly just two things come into mind
1. People have this much time???
2. And What's with the Cat??

Need I say exploring YouTube was no hardship. It was hard to find something interesting and library appropriate. What I like most about it is that it doesn’t require registration to watch Videos. Anyway enjoy.

Eight of Nine Part 2 of 2

Web 2.0 Tools

This was fun mainly because I decided to choose a web tool from the winners of the fun and entertainment category. Actually not a winner but an honourable mentions Guess-the-Google.
This is a spinoff of Montage-a-google (yeah I never heard of it either) which finds pictures based on a random keyword. The idea is to get points by guessing the keyword in the least time and least guesses as possible to get points (Montage-a-google is the opposite).

If anyone wants to give it a go http://grant.robinson.name/projects/guess-the-google/

I also had the chance to try out several other web tool including a cocktail builder and hairmixer.

Eight of Nine Part 1 of 2

Zoho Writer

Okay 1st of it is very hard to be objective when every second word Zoho writer changes my font. Overall it was very similar to Microsoft Word (but I guess that is sort of the point).

So:

The good

Generally very easy to figure out and very similar to Microsoft Word. There is a variety of applications which can all be acessed through 1 account. It was relatively easy to sign up especially through my google account created for blogger and that you can publish to your blog from it. Haven't tried it yet but lets hope it goes well....and most importantly it's FREE

The bad

Like i said it kept changing my font which drove me nuts for the first 10 mins. Doesn't offer as many options in some aspects.Have to have the net avalible And I personally prefer the Microsoft Word 2007 layout.

And the confusing

Questions Questions .....????

It is compatible with Microsoft Word?

But more importantly how much space is each account allocated for saving?

I must scream it to the world, my excitement from the top of someplace very high. Do you know many Ferraris?

Seven of Nine

Social Networking

Best get it out of the way first my social networking website of choice is Facebook.…. Granted I am a relatively young member but early warning the rest of the post may be slightly biased.



Did a little research (in other words typed in Wikipedia) and found that it was setup in 2005 so it is the youngest of the social networking websites which were visited. It currently employs 300 people (imagine being paid to be on Bebo). As for something new and unknown bebo is an acronym of Blog early, blog often.
I choose not to register (read earlier post of all my phobias).
Looks relatively simple and an added advantage is that a lot of my friends are on bebo.



The oldest of the websites visited. It is marketed as ‘A place for friends’. Probably one of the most popular website worldwide so really easy to find changeable temples on the internet. Very few of my friends are members which is really the point. Further investigation required registration.



Definitely know the most about this one and most explored mainly because I am a member. I find bebo and my space to have more similarities than facebook. Most of my friends are member and allows a range of communication aside from posting. It does have it’s frustrating moments but overall my fav. Hennepin County Library is a relatively good profile. It had a really good widget which allow search through the catalogue.

A Like I said biased…..

Six of Nine Part 3 of 3

Library 2.0

Inherently I think that all the ideas are the same that the internet has made obtaining information easier and libraries have to adapt and include new technologies as part of the way that we provide patrons with information. I think that the major difference is of the way in which different libraries view libraries now. From the different perspectives I read I enjoyed Away from Icebergs

“No profession can survive if it throws its core principles and values overboard in response to every shift in the zeitgeist. However, it can be equally disastrous when a profession fails to acknowledge and adapt to radical, fundamental change in the marketplace it serves”

But then I am fickle (first article read and being short helped its cause)…..

I also agreed with the opinions in To a temporary place in time which stated

“Libraries are not merely in communities, they are communities: they preserve and promote community memories; they provide mentors not only for the exploration of stored memory, but also for the creation of new artifacts of memory”

And that’s my 2 cents….

'What a pretty fire"

Six of Nine Part 2 of 3

Technorati Again

Unfortunately my blog remains unclaimed as of today (though it wasn’t due to lack of trying). I have made my peace with this I mean it is highly unlikely nay impossible that anyone will


a. either claim my blog or
b. search for it in technorati (facts are facts)

I did manage to search for Manukau Libraries Web Learning 2.0 It was easier to search with Manukau libraries. I found 3 different blogs including the mllearn. I have also found that it has become easier to search for mllearn blog with Google now that it has been claimed on Technorati.



I also tried popular. Unfortunately some websites were blocked but I did manage to visit Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done. Best thing on the blog Melt Mail which is a website which allocates people random email addresses which lasts for form 1 hour up to 24 hours (for all those pesky websites which required registration but send a lot of junk emails)





Yes, words are useless! Gobble-gobble-gobble-gobble-gobble! Too much of it, darling, too much! That is why I show you my work! That is why you are here!

Six of Nine Part 1 of 3

Tagging

Tagging is like an opinionated Google so of course I loved it. Its existence was always a given but the knowledge was more like background music (everyone knows it’s playing but no one is really hearing it). Unfortunately I am currently doing this at work and more than ½ of the websites which I searched for in Del.icio.us were not particularly cooperative in loading. This was probably because many of these sites were not in English( was searching for anime images….it hard to think up work and library appropriate material !!!). Fortunately 1 of the 10 websites I clicked actually loaded so here is a picture of Ouran high School Host Club( one of the best manga)

The other tags I used were for design wallpaper. I found a really nice website in case anyone wants to check it out http://www.desktopography.net/. Here is a really nice desktop wallpaper from it

Definitely useful however I have yet to create an account. Worth checking out other tagging websites before I sign up.

Five of Nine

Wikis

Wikipedia is one of the best first points of contact when researching. True it’s not the best thing to reference but it eases you into whatever topic has you thoroughly confused (as I often am). Other wikis do exist. I was a little wary although I did explore the various wiki links provided. It was interesting although everyone can edit everything so I think if someone puts up a post it is neither here nor there. Definitely is a great way of sharing information amongst libraries.

Yay visited PBwiki Learning 2.0. My blog is now a part of the favourite blogs. Have been blogging for a while now so my wit level not as high as when I started. A lot of people beat me to it. Can’t say I was surprised though. I did enjoy imposing my choices of favourite books, number and movies on other people. I do believe I mentioned something about a certain phobia to join websites or in this case wiki, so I predictably appear as manukau learning. I have to say that “Sandbox” is a great name to use for a playing website. Taking us right back to preschool. Onward to tagging.




Ratatouille. It's like a stew, right? Why do they call it that? If you're gonna name a food, you should give it a name that sounds delicious. Ratatouille doesn't sound delicious. It sounds like "rat" and "patootie." Rat-patootie, which does not sound delicious.

Four of Nine Part 3 of 3

Technology

I am utterly useless without technology in my daily life and I think that it is safe to say that I am not the only one. I like learning and trying out new things because if it is available use it. Technology has definitely made a lot of things more convenient. Advancements such as camera, mp4 players and Bluetooth on mobile phones have made things a breeze because you don’t have to remember a hundred things in the morning. Still for me personally despite all of these things I think that one of the best advancements is email. I have finally become a member of facebook but email is still my main method of communication. I tend to say things all wrong and I am awake at all the wrong times in the day so to be able to email allows me a chance to think....and to do things at my pace and at my time.

Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming. What do we do? We swim, swim.

Four of Nine Part 2 of 3

Flickr Fun

Flickr Color Pick was cool. The graphic were nice and simple and it was a really interesting way for searching for photos. Here are some really red pictures I found using the tool.

I also decided to go with the norm and make a trading card. I think that the librarian cards have been thoroughly done so instead I decided to do a trading I would actually like to have. Now if only the Escape card existed.

Four of Nine Part 1 of 3

Smiles from Sindh

I finally went on the Flickr website. I say finally of course because I was meant to have done this at least a week ago. I have a dislike of joining too many websites (Just a little phobia I have). Hence I decided not to join Flickr. Surprisingly that turned to be the only reason. Flickr was a very enjoyable website. I had fun browsing through all the photos especially the interesting 7. I did have a hard time deciding what to blog about....there were so many photos that looked interesting.

In the end I went with the photo that is at odds with my blog. It is a photo I found when I searched for smile and children. I loved this photo. I think that most of us are so busy we forget to smile. It actually prompted me to add my blog to the manukaulibraries training account and blog directly from Flickr. Unfortunately no matter how many times I tried this I couldn't get it to work so in the end just decided to save to my computer and upload it. Oh well at least i tried.

Three of Nine Part 3 of 3

Rollyo

I have found that 1 is relatively decisive when 1 is actually running out of time. I am very behind in my blogging and a task……ah goes to show procrastination never pays. Still at least it is very enjoyable right???

Creating your own search engine sounded like a brilliant concept to me mostly because I am very addicted to Google. I can honestly say that I never use the internet without Google…..and to think that I would have never discovered my addiction if it wasn’t for my blogging.

So the obvious question to be asked was what is the best search engine to have which would of course increase the level of convenience in my life and let’s face it enable my laziness. I was going to just create one from the topics given but I it occurred to me that mixing gossip with news would not have the desired effect. Instead I was struck with inspiration (yeah it does happen occasionally) and I decided to make a search engine for all the video streaming sites out there (ok well not all) but a lot from DailyMotion to YouTube. Wikipedia of course was my source of information for this.

The downside to this I realise is that it will be very difficult if not impossible to use it from any work computers. Unfortunately this particular part of the inspiration did bump into me until much later when the damage had been done. I trialed it and well it seemed to work....

Anyway here goes

Select...Words of MiseryVideo StreamingSearch The Web

Well, maybe, they aren't small — maybe we're big

Three of Nine Part 2 of 3

Library Thing

It’s true this website seriously dislikes me.......so what else could I do but return the favour. What other conclusion can you possibly draw...... I sat for maybe more than 15 minutes waiting for it to load..........waiting .......waiting and waiting some more (wasn’t even using the work computers)....and it finally loaded.

On the upside it was very easy to join and once the initial page loaded it didn’t take loads of time for further navigation. Also it was easy to find books.

On the downside I think it seriously needs more colour (all the brown). I also found it slightly annoying to add books as it wouldn’t let me go back to the list of books for an author after I had selected one. I think that I can honestly say that I am not very likely to use the site often. I much prefer Google for searching for books and aside from that I don’t have time to finish all my reading let alone add it to a website. I also hate logging on....

Having said that however I can see its usefulness as long as they got rid of the brown.......Here is a link to my very anaemic catalogue...Enjoy
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/MiserylovesCompany

Three of Nine Part 1 of 3

Image and Text Generators

Ahh how did I ever get along without knowing about image and text generators? Well 1 thing is for sure I certainly did not know the extent of my problems....staff I work with take note

"I'm a cynical cranky pants with a highly suspicious nature!"

Yep doesn’t that just explain everything. This was of course curtsey of the “Name Generator Generator” from http://generatorblog.blogspot.com/ which diagnoses your problem using your name. How more specific can you get?

Since I was making such good progress I thought why not let’s try the image generators. I mean how can you argue with the logic?? if my name had managed to reveal my problems my picture might actually solve the rest of the mystery. I have only waited years for this.


Ok fine I chickened out but I did find the next best thing....A smiley shock surprise

Curtsey of imagechef at http://23things-swinburne.blogspot.com/2007/08/23-things.html

I have to say that i really enjoyed playing around with the text and image generators. Much more fun when you find a good website. One thing to note is that most websites don't allow direct linking and the picture has to be saved before being posted.

In case anyone is interested here is something else I discovered. 23 things to learn on the web is actually a widespread idea with many universities and libraries launching it some right here in blogger.... Doesn’t it just make you feel better that not only are all the Manukau libraries staff suffering through it with you but some of the rest of the world as well. Misery loves company

Two of Nine

Aha I conquered RSS. Ok well not true I am still RSS challenged but happy to note not as much as I was last week. If nothing else at least now I know of its existence and a little bit about its usage. It wasn’t exactly difficult however I have to admit that I had to read least one of the tutorials before I knew what was going on (what?? some of us are more tech challenged than others). Getting a bloglines account was easy enough sort of like getting an email account right down to selecting your topics of interest. Adding feeds was a bit more difficult. Since I had only just this week discovered the presence of feeds I decided to go with some from the top 1000. Not really certain whether I will actually be reading any of those to which I subscribed to.

Here is a link to my public blog on bloglines http://www.bloglines.com/blog/Misery. Ok not the most creative thing but at leat its up. Ahhh the accomplishment.

Personally for myself I think an account on bloglines would have limited usage. Fortunately the option of adding feeds is also available on internet explorer (better because no logins).

Searching for library related blogs and news feeds was a little bit more difficult. From the suggested search tools Technorati was possibly the best to use. And in saying this the search tool still wasn’t the easiest to use. I did manage to find several websites.... although I am not entirely certain that they are very library related. I did not like searching for feeds using the search tools because they were not specific. An easier way to do it I found is to go on the website of interest and let internet explorer 7 pick up all the RSS available.

I also managed to change my blog template. Now whatever I write is actually readable because it not quite so dark (not sure if this is a good thing).

So, tell me, my little one-eyed one... on what poor, pitiful, defenseless planet has my "monstrosity" been unleashed?

One of Nine

First sentence of my first blog

Strangely enough the hardest part of the setting up an account was deciding what name to identify myself by and what email address to use. I am part of a club of excessively normal people who actually chooses to name their email accounts after themselves. Not just the first name either but the full name (I have an excellent reason for this…now to just remember it). All things considered I had no idea what I was going to base my blog on so I wasn't exactly sure whether I wanted to have my name associated with whatever I was going to come up with. You have to understand that I have two terrible qualities which should not go hand in hand in a person. I am indecisive and I over think everything. This makes me actually reaching a decision next to impossible unless I absolutely have to. The actual username Misery is from the cartoon ‘Ruby Gloom’ …what I can say I like cartoon characters. I actually prefer the main character but I find Misery to be very mood defining.

Unfortunately the 1st post spent a couple of days in limbo because I had no idea what direction it was going to take. I considered several alternatives including writing in Lemony Snicket style to go with the name. Upon actual reading of the instructions for one of twenty three I realised that it wasn't a choice I had to make. So here we are…Now I have to register and done.

There is no charge for awesomeness or attractiveness