THE 23RD THING!!!!!!

Well, it's happening right now before my very eyes. I'm finishing the program. As pleased as I am to complete this (I'll receive an astounding quantity of CEUs), I'm a little sad because there's no new task, no assigned learning exercise for me to complete. I will spend much time learning throughout my life, but something I've learned about myself is that I tend to be more focused if I have an assignment to complete. It's the student in me, I suppose, the one that likes deadlines.

There is so much out there in the world of 2.0, it could take a lifetime of searching and researching to keep up with all the changes. This discovery program has opened up my eyes to applications I wasn't aware of (web-based productivity applications, LibraryThing and friends, Technorati) and has re-introduced me to things with which I was familiar, but uninitiated (blogging, Flickr, wikis). I haven't much use for some of the Things, such as RSS feeds and some of the mash-up sites (fun, but who has the time?), and I've found that I really enjoy other Things (like blogging).

Overall, my take is this: Let's never stop learning, and let's always take interest in what's new and different. This may mean we must change our pre-conceived ways of using computers and it may mean that we fumble around on what comes naturally to the next generation. Regardless, what is there to lose except maybe a little time?

The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn. ~Alvin Toffler

Audiobooks

Thing 22

With the deadline for the 23 Things drawing near, I'm pleased to discover that I'm pretty familar with the last couple of Things that I'm supposed to familarize myselfe with. I've got an account with both NetLibrary and Overdrive, and have been using them ever since I started working with the library system. I don't actually download books, since I have an iPod and therefore can't download books onto it, thanks to somebody, Apple I suppose.


That's okay, though, because I'm not much into listening to books, anyway. I prefer to use my eyes. I might feel like I should do something else (i.e. multitask) if I was listening to my books. And as you can see from the visual media here, multitasking would take away from my ability to fully focus on the task at hand.

Podcasting

Thing 21

Everyone, everywhere, everything has a podcast these days. If you need to know how to do something, you can find out how to do it by listening to someone tell you all about it via their podcast. I was introduced to an Australian guy (or at least to his podcast) when I was confused about how to work this software that I'd recently installed. The fact that I still can't work the software is absolutely no reflection on the quality of that Aussie fellow's podcast. His accent only enhanced the instruction. Or maybe that was the problem. Those were my first podcasts, actually. I learned about Odeo, Podcast pickle, Podcast Alley, and the whole podcast gang of characters. Make sure you have a fast connection (a recurring theme for me, one day it'll happen for me at home). When I tried to learn about the whole Adobe Audition software while listening to the podcast at home, it was astoundingly painful--a word or two at a time as I struggled to piece it all together. That, more than anything else, is responsible I'm sure for my not "getting" the software. Oh well, another day.

YouTube

Thing 20

This turns out to be a pretty easy Thing for me to complete, since I like to check out YouTube from time to time. It's a pretty amazing web feature, really, and it's hard to imagine a time when we didn't have access to so many videos at a moments notice. Although back in the day, it wouldn't have mattered if we'd had access to the videos because we wouldn't have had the bandwidth to play them anyway.

A couple of my favorites:

Chris L. introduced me to this particular video:



And speaking of Chris L, here's something of interest to us all:



If he happens across this and hates me for it, hopefully he'll let me know.

I guess I'll stop there, although I could just keep adding video after video.

The end.

And the Winner Is...

Thing 19

I started off by looking at all the nominees for the Web 2.0 awards, but there was so much that I chose to choose from the winners list. And how to play around with just 1 thing? I looked at a few, and was pleasantly surprised to find that I was familiar with much more than I thought I was going to be. A brief summary of what I found, what I thought.

Craig's List: I've used this before, my friends have used this before. When I first perused it I thought it was so big, how could anyone find anything? But, several events later (both hosted and attended) I've learned that people do read the List, and they will buy and sell items on it. It's a handy, area-specific, online, classified section.

Yahoo! Local city guide: This can be helpful, although it doesn't encompass everything that's in a city, just what users of the city guide have chosen to post. The reviews are good to read, and I found out about a couple of places I didn't know existed in Frederick which came as a surprise to me, being from the area.

Pandora: I became a subscriber to this site, and I'm a big fan. I love being able to create my own "radio station" based on artists I like. They're remarkably perceptive as to my music tastes.

About Wikis, again

Like I mentioned in my earlier post, the authenticity of wikis is, on occasion, dubious. I just came across this article dealing with a new creation, Wikiscanner, that might help with this problem. Wikiscanner is a site that tracks the edits on Wikipedia and lets you know who's behind the words on the page. No more hiding behind fake credentials.

test document

Thing 18

This exercise has to do with web-based productivity applications; in other words, office software that you can use and save online. I just wrote a few sentences about it and then used the publish feature to send it to my blog. My goodness, everything has become so easy and so integrated.

Here's what I wrote in Zoho Writer, pretty cool (the application, not the entry so much). I'll check out Google.docs next. Maybe I'll throw away all of my old 51/4 inch floppy discs.

Here's a simple document that I'm currently creating, simply because it's a part of the exercise I need to do for this particular step in the 23 Things program. I think this is pretty neat, however, having the ability to create documents and not need to have the proper software loaded on your computer. I recognize all the icons, this seems fairly obvious to me and would hopefully be explanatory to others. How simple, to have your documents always available to you even when you've forgotten your disc or your flash drive or whatever it may be that you use.

Hey, where's the spell check?

Aha.

Going to the Sandbox

Thing 17

Even though this entry's title includes the word "sandbox," I won't be inserting any pictures of cats in a sandbox for your viewing pleasure (or displeasure). I will, however, include this cake recipe.

I've taken part in the PB Wiki, made my own deposit in the sandbox. I was mildly intimidated at first because I'd never made a wiki entry before, but once I got going and figured out what I was doing it was really simple. I even made mine a little bit fancy. Can you find my blog link?

The Wonderful World of Wikis

Thing 16
I browsed through the wikis on Friday and now it's Monday, but I think I can recall enough to formulate some enlightened observations on Wikis and their World. I used wikis for a long time without really understanding what they were. What I did understand, however, is that I should have felt ashamed about using Wikipedia as an occasional reference. I get some good information from Wikipedia, though, don't you? I don't plan to write my master's thesis using Wikipeida as my sole reference, but if I'm looking for some info I'm pretty sure I'll find something good there. Typically I end up finding something else to spark my interest and then I'm off and linking away. A linkfest, so to speak. But, I digress.

People everywhere are a wealth of information--information they store in their heads. Wikis are a perfect resource for sharing and disseminating that info until that inevitable abuse happens. There are methods in place to counteract this abuse within wiki communities (which seem to be, in some ways, stronger than many of the communities that we live in) . Wikis allow everyone to take part in information sharing and are a perfect example of what this whole Web 2.0 thing is about.

There are a couple of ways to use wikis in libraries that would be handy. First, the idea of annotating the catalog via patron input is a great one. I frequently refer to amazon.com to see what people are saying about the books they're reading, and I think our patrons would appreciate the same service with that friendly hometown touch.

Second, a subject guide with links for staff might be very handy. I've been introduced to good websites by my co-workers. Not the least of which is Stuff On My Cat.

Library 2.0

Thing 15

These articles were informative and interesting. The world is changing, the internet is changing, and libraries are obligated to change right along with them or else fall into a state of obsolescence. We will remain relevant as long as we keep up with the dialogue that's happening all around us. The dialogue that you can find in 2. 0 websites like Flickr, Myspace, Facebook, etc.... The traditional methods of answering reference questions may be heading out the door, but our obligation is to meet the patrons elsewhere, in the cyberland where they live and where librarians don't say shhh.


Already, people ask What do librarians do now that there's Google? The truth is, people, Google doesn't have all the answers. And there's always going to be someone who's intimidated and needs help navigating what's out there. That's ultimately what we're here for--we help patrons navigate information, therefore we have to be familiar with what we're talking about.

Technorati

Thing 14


I'm becoming fascinated by the world of blogging. There are so many people out there doing it, and they all want somebody to read it. (If you don't, why are you blogging in the first place? That's what tiny diaries with tiny keys are for.

Once that somebody reads the blog, I think they'd probably like them to link to their blog, or favorite it, or put it on a blogroll, or all of the above. They absolutely want to know how many people are doing these aforementioned activities.


This is the part where Technorati steps in. Technorati lets you see how many times people have linked to you, what your rank is, how many fans you've got; basically it re-enrolls you in high school while you live in anxiety wondering how popular you really are. I'm afraid my Technorati experience is very similar to the life I lived in Frederick High--my ranking is 3,915,745. I was browsing around the forums dealing with links and the like, and there were a number of users worried about their status, wondering why their ranking had dropped or hadn't risen, what happened to their authority, blah blah blah.

Actually, I understand more than it sounds like. Last fall, I started a Myspace page for myself just for fun. Around the same time, several other people I knew started pages too, and, unbeknownst to them, we engaged in a deadly serious popularity war. I couldn't stop myself from looking daily to see how many "friends" they had and compare it to my own. I was experiencing a strange, leftover, high-school feeling and I wanted to make sure that I had as many friends as they did. It consumed me. Eventually, however, my slightly more mature adult side took over, and I decided to delete my profile. The Yardslippers Myspace page now fulfills my social networking needs, and I don't feel the pressure to have lots of "friends." Besides, it's the bands fault, and not my own personally, if someone has more friends than we do.


All that said, if you're feeling like you want to Favorite my blog, please feel free.

What's for lunch?

These are from a site called lolcats, and being the cat nerd I am, I found them funny. Here's another one that I think is funny, but I'm embarrassed to have too many cat pictures in one post. Or in the blog in general. Crazy Cat Lady is a real condition. It's called cat hoarding.

Because We've All Wanted to See It (Haven't we?)

This question has burned in my mind for years now. What does a komondor dog look like when it's jumping over a hurdle? I hope this clears it up for you. It did for me.

It's De.light.ful, It's Del.icio.us, It's De.love.ly

(Let's hope it's really delicious if you have to eat at this restaurant)
Thing 13

I've had a del.icio.us account for a while. I love it because I can look at my bookmarks from any computer, anytime, anywhere. Unless I'm home, that is, because my dial-up connection is so dern slow. When I'm browsing (on fast computers) I can save websites to refer back to later. I've done this. I've even gone back and looked at the sites again. It's amazing and there's no need to remember lengthy web addresses or try to remember what search terms you used to get there. But sometimes I what I need is a del.icio.us site to remind me how the word delicious gets split up for the website address. D.eli.cious? Deli.ciou.s?? De.lic.ious???

Rolos

Not Rollyo. In case you can't remember the jingle, here it is.

You can roll a Rollyo to your pal...

Thing 12



I think this is quite the interesting concept, this Rollyo business. Interesting, yes, but necessary? As time marches on and I get closer to completing the 23 Things I have
to wonder if I have latent Luddite tendencies (as opposed to this person). Learning how to judge the accuracy of a website is something that was beaten into me during my years in school, and so I'm at determining if a website is worth anything or not. After doing a Google search, I find it pretty easy to quickly scan through the hits and to decide which sites are going to help me. I also feel that by limiting the websites I use in my search I might miss out on something valuable that could turn up by accident. Like a shark picture. Or like a shark and kayak picture. It's Shark Week on the Discovery channel. Check out this video, if you dare. It's not for the faint of heart.

A note about what I actually experienced on Rollyo: I didn't take the time to list too many websites in my own Searchroll, I began making a searchroll for music (none too original, really, but I was mentally stymied at the time) and found myself returning to Google to get ideas for websites that I'd want to include on my own Roll. Then I thought, if I'm seeking out the sites from Google, maybe I could just continue to do my searches from there. So I tried a search or two on Rollyo, just to see, and got many results that didn't come from my Searchroll. What the H? I wondered.

I just completed a successful Rollyo search, and now I finally see how this just might come in handy. I did a search for an artist I like, from my own customized search engine, and got the results I was looking for. So it can make sense to use something like this, but what about all that other information that's online that you just stumble across when searching for something. I may use the occassional Rollyo search, but I think that typically, I'll stick with the more traditional ways of searching.

The Return of Thing 10

After noticing that a couple 23-thingers mentioned the whole "export" option (which I couldn't find before and now seems remarkably obvious), I went back and exported my avatar. I think we really look alike, I mean really, really look alike.

It's a LibraryThing

Thing 11

I've started up my own catalog of books I've read today; I'll start a list of books I want to read tomorrow. I must be tired, though, because at this moment I'm thinking that a notebook and a pen seem easier to me for list making. Right this second, the only book thing I want to do is find out what happens in The Book that Must Not Be Named. Homeward bound, I am, to see. I'll revisit this Library Thing soon and I promise to love it then. Pinkie swear.

This guy knows what he's talking about

Thing 10

I played around with the image generator Letter James, and came up with this library-friendly fellow. He visits classrooms and whacks kids on the head with his sign when he's finished. Oi, he might say on his way out.

The opposite of Useful is Useless

Thing 9

As per the instructions, I did find some useful blogs to subscribe to. In the process, however, I began to question what "useful" really means. I figure it holds a different meaning for each person and, as the ol' paraphrased saying goes, one man's usefulabilityness is another man's non-usefulabilityness. I find it useful (as the word starts to sound stranger and stranger to me) to look at ridiculous librarian blogs. A band name my sister and I tossed around for our soon-to-be-famous project was The Dearhearts. A quick bit of research showed there's already a rock n roll librarian out there somewhere that's used our band name. She seems to have a drinking problem. All of which falls within the category of info useful to me. The Dearhearts project is temporarily shelved, as you can see by the extreme progress of our Myspace account, but the fame is still on its way.

Ticket to ride the Blogline Highway

Thing 8

Okay, I'm subscribed now. I'm a part of the rss-world, hip and up-to-date and I receive my news in my own personal aggregator. This is a great idea but I was reluctant, for whatever reason. It somehow seemed easier to go to all the different sites I peruse in order to get my daily dose of information, but I'm now seeing the error of my ways.

Lots of people love technology

You may not be able to tell by the medium on which they choose to write, but it's heartfelt. This is from a really great website called found magazine.

Anything technology

Thing 7

I want to play Wii. I haven't gotten into video games since I was a Super Mario Bros. III addict, although I experienced a brief Galaga/Ms. Pac Man revival a few years ago when I frequented the laundromat. I like the idea that one can move one's body and be vaguely active while playing a videogame. Maybe Wii is the answer to childhood obesity!!

My Friend Flickr

Thing 6


Chia Pet, originally uploaded by snowboard9.

Not everything needs a point; not everything needs to do something that's productive, right? With that in mind, here's my favorite Flickr mashup.

What's that euphonious sound?

The Yardslippers, Woodsboro Carnival 2007, originally uploaded by nonstopflights.

After purchasing the tickets and riding the rides (with a stomach full of funnel cake), the next step in a traditional Frederick County carnival evening is to listen to the band.

Tickets, please

Tickets, Woodsboro Carnival 2007, originally uploaded by nonstopflights.

Thing 5

A couple of weeks ago, we played at the Woodsboro carnival. This is where you would have purchased tickets to get on the very safe rides.

The neat thing about Flickr is that you can use someone's picture and post it to your own blog. Flickr even takes care of giving credit to the person who took the picture. Pretty neat.

This is only a test

Things 1 & 2


The 7 1/2 Habits--my favorite one is probably step 7 1/2, because it's the most fun. Life, however, can't be all play so there's more to say about it.

Initially when looking over the list I thought, Well, I'm great at each and every step; it's quite possible that I'm the best lifelong learner that's ever been. I closed my eyes for a second and saw the awards and statuettes coming my way, the ceremonies, the gift bags. But, since I'm such a great learner I made myself read the list again and actually Reflect On What It Means To Me.

Something I enjoy, even though it can be occassionally time-consuming and frustrating, is dealing with problems that arise during the learning process. I've learned some important things when certain other things go wrong. Step 3, then, gets a thumbs up.

On the ol' other hand, though, I tend to not have enough confidence in myself as a learner. It really depends on what the subject is, but if it's something I've decided I'm not so good at then I automatically assume it's going to take me a long time to learn. That would mean it's the step I need to work on. Step right up.