Thing #34: Answer Sites

Why anyone would think that answer sites are competition for libraries, I have no idea. And here's why I think they aren't competition. These sites are used to ask different types of questions than what are asked at libraries, IMHO. I asked a simple question on WikiAnswers, Yahoo!Answers and askville: How many breeds of dog are registered with the AKC? A librarian could answer this simply by looking it up on the American Kennel Club's website: 161.

But when I asked this question on the answer sites, I actually got referred to all sorts of websites, some that weren't related to the question except for having AKC somewhere in the text of the site. On WikiAnswers, it looked like someone had already asked the question at one point. The answer given was a big fat I don't know. Not helpful. Librarian = helpful.

So, back to the issue of these sites being used for different types of questions. I believe these sites are taking the place of asking friends and family questions in regards to personal issues. For example, as a young mother without any family nearby, I would check issues online to see if others had run across problems that my babies were having. Nothing serious that really needed medical attention, just baby stuff. I could have called the library, but they would have just referred me to a nurseline. Librarians aren't medical personnel. And the nurses on nurselines are legally required to say certain things so that they don't get sued. So, personal advice, from people willing to give it online. Not a threat to librarians, just replacing those calls to family and friends when families are spread out all over the country, or even in other countries. Seriously, not a threat.

Thing #33: Traveling

With two little ones, I don't do a lot of traveling. I like the idea of it, but the closest that we'll get to traveling is going back to visit their grandparents, or our bike trip where they'll spend the week with their grandparents while we ride. So, although I'm sure I'll be able to use this information to help others, I'm not sure that I'll be able to use it personally until another few years down the road. Maybe by then, Travel 2.0 will be the norm.

I read a couple of the articles on Travel 2.0, the one in Christian Science Monitor and the one in USA Today. I've had similar experiences as what was noted in one of those about hearing all this great stuff about a hotel and then finding out it's crap. I can relate. We reserved a room once in Chicago and they gave us someone else's on accident, but then were so full that they couldn't correct the issue. We gave them 1 star because they weren't too concerned about screwing up.

So, back to the Thing. I liked the My Kugelhopf blog. I sometimes wish I could travel for a living. But I chose a different life, so I get to do other things and read about people who do that. Which is sometimes more fun, if you really think about it. Nice recipes. Will have to try one. I learned about the Fasika Ethiopian restaurant in St. Paul by going to Tripadvisor.com. If I could ever convince my husband to eat anything but American food, I might try it out. Or maybe the next time MLA goes that way.

I checked out Mapness. I could see that being a lot of fun. It's apparently changed to MapVivo. I looked at a motorcycle trip around the world in 5 years. For something like that I would wonder how they got internet access to put it all in as they went. Or maybe they did it afterwards as a scrapbooking kind of tool. Well, looks neat, but don't know how I'd use it at this point.

And I looked at Green Routes. I'm not sure about that one. It looks like more people need to add to the site to make it a little more useful. I'm not sure why our area of the state would be considered Bluff Country either. Odd. So, Thing #33. Done. What's next?

Thing #32

And just a note, that when I tried to edit the last post in the "Compose" view and not the Html view, the map crashed Internet Explorer. Hmmm... powerful stuff!

Thing #32: Google Maps

I could see where this would be very useful. I was playing with it and trying to set up a route map for our Freewheel ride this summer, but quickly realized that the people in charge of the event will probably take us on odd routes to make up the mileage that they're trying to get. So, I wasn't very successful. I ended up just making a map of the stops for each day. Here it is in all it's glory!




View OK Freewheel 2009 route in a larger map

Thing #31: More twittering

Hmmmm... Not crazy about this thing, but possibly hooked on Twitter. I check it on my computer and my phone. I like it. I haven't added it to my Facebook yet. I'm kind of liking it being separate for now. But, of course, I did add my tweets to this blog page. I don't really think anyone is reading them here. But it's fun, all the same. I looked up scrapbooking and found a vendor of scrapbook supplies, CropChocolate. Maybe I'll buy some. Chocolate sounds good, too...

And I really don't want to add my name to the Tweeter Directory. Thanks, anyway. I looked through the alerting and scheduling tools for Twitter. Again, I don't think I'm there yet. It's nice to know it's available, it's just not my thing.

I read the article suggested here: http://thenextweb.com/2008/12/22/food-for-thought-in-which-twitter-stage-are-you/ and found out that I am in stage 5 of acceptance of Twitter, although I'm not sure how useful my posts have been to the people following me. In fact, they've mostly been posts regarding socks. I love socks.

And I perused the list suggested: http://www.transplant-1.com/blogorama/twitter-is/
I just think Twitter is good fun with a little bit of usefulness and networking thrown in. I've started out using it kind of like I started out using Facebook, which has now balooned into something totally different for me. I wanted to use it to connect with close friends and family, but I've got people on there that I've reconnected with from high school, co-workers, and friends of friends. It's a little scary for me right now. And I imagine Twitter will get to that point too. But, hey! It's all in good fun. Right?

Thing #30: Delicious, Part 2

I'm a little perplexed on this one. I watched the film (very low volume). I read the article, which seemed outdated, as some of the items referred to didn't seem to be there anymore. I tried to do some searches in my browser... and failed! I got an error message wanting to know if I wanted to try to search it on Google instead. Hmmm...

I did have some success though. I added a friend to my network. Since I don't really know anyone right now who uses Delicious, I didn't subscribe to anyone through my inbox. And there wasn't an option for the tag part. Or I'm missing it. Or something. But that would be a really neat feature... if it were there. Did the tagroll, which I really like because I love word clouds. They're just fun. Words, all floating around. It reminds me of scrapbooking, and makes me happy. :) And I added a badge to my blog, which seemed redundant, since the tagroll is there, you know, with the exact same information. So, probably going to delete that when it irritates me enough.

Okie dokie. Thing #30. Done. Dare I look to see what's next?

Thing #30: More RSS, Part 1

I worked on more things this weekend, since there were some slow spots at the desk. I'm not sure if it was because I was working at the desk or if it was just too much for my brain to take in right now, but I got a little confused. It looks like there's so much that you can do with RSS! I think the e-mail function would be handy, but I have a notifier set up on my work and home computer. So, no need! And then I can also access Bloglines from my mobile phone. Which is awesome! I'm currently behind on my feeds because it got sunny outside.

Well, I sifted through again, just to see if I was a bit loony or what, but a lot of the tools, although they look cool, are kind of taken care of by the service itself, or I just don't feel like I need them at this point. I have a feeling this will be somewhat like when I was doing 23 things. There were items that I just wasn't ready for yet. But then later, when I got into it more, I was able to go back and use those Things when I was ready.

So, let's just sum up. Filtering: don't need it right now, maybe later. E-mail notification, etc: taken care of by the service that I use. Be more efficient: I have other ways to be efficient than the tools listed right now. Sharing your RSS: sounds like this one would be really fun, but I don't have anyone that I'd like to share with or that I think would appreciate my feeds yet. Hmmm... Maybe will have to check with some people just to experiment with that one.

Half of Thing #30 explored. Now on to more Delicious!

Thing #29: Googalot

It's Google tools! I have to say, I've been tempted to sign up for GMail for a while, but now I feel like I should have done it a lot sooner. Very nice! I like the calendar feature, although I have a Palm for that, so will probably not use it as much. But, it might be nice for sharing events and appointments with family. I looked at the Labs, but will have to take another look. I didn't find anything I was interested in using upon first perusal. And there were a lot of neat themes. I like the fact that you can choose your own colors too!

I also signed up for a Google alert on slow cooker recipes. It hasn't come back yet with a search result. Let's see... darn! I changed the options to "as it happens" hoping something would pop into my e-mail, but no luck! Maybe that's something I'll have to get back to later.

Thing #28: Already done

I use MyYahoo. I like it. I looked at iGoogle once, and thought it was too plain. I'm sure there are options for spiffing it up. But I like MyYahoo. I have my NetFlix on there, which is awesome. And I check news and some other boring stuff. The best part is the Garfield and other miscellaneous comic strips that I put on. Love that!

My only complaint is that I was so excited when I started off with it, but my excitement dwindled when I had to get it just the way that I wanted. Some of the things that I put on, I decided I didn't like. All the customizing wore me out. But I still use it from time to time.

Thing #27: Froggy likes to tweet

But it would be good to have more people to tweet to... I know it's a cool way to keep in touch etc. I kind of like the idea. It'll take me a while to get into it though. Maybe. So, watched a video, read some tutorial type stuff. I'm now following School Library Journal and More Things along with some friends. I tweeted a couple of times, which you can see on my blog here. Did a search on socks and came up with some interesting tweets, some that I'd rather not read all the way through. Sounds like someone in Marley and Me loves socks... So, done with Thing #27 and will explore more. Already learned something about Mystery Beer night. Hmmm... Later!