Thing #47: Survey

Well, that's the easy part, right? Done. No seriously, done. So not believing that, and thinking my boss is suddenly going to wonder why I have so much more time on my hands. Shhhh...

Guess I'll just have to keep exploring. Gotta keep up with all these tweeners for the upcoming tween blog. Yah, that's the reason. :)

Thing #38: Screencasting

Ah. Finally. Here's the one that was hard for me because it involved a download, and recording something, and putting in sound. Yah, you try that with a one-year-old and a three-year-old running around. I wasn't sure about doing this one at work either. I think in order to eliminate background noise, I would have had to book a meeting room. Also, an issue. But I took some time at home after the kiddos had gone to bed and it's done!

I chose to explore Jing because I have seen other tutorials done with Jing and really liked them. In fact, several of the classes were from JessicaSprague.com on digital scrapbooking. So fun!

I had set up a wiki on pbworks.com for my Maud Hart Lovelace reading group which represents SELCO/SELS. And it's kinda new for some of the people, so I did a little tutorial on how to add a comment. Here it is!

Hope it works for you. When I try to bring it up on my conputer, it's huge. Maybe I need to edit. Ah, but I tried. I get points for that, right?

Thing #46: Webjunction Minnesota

I really like Webjunction. I've been a member for a while. I used to get frequent e-mails on our MN Reforma listserv group from Bruce Pomerantz about things going on there. It has great information on outreach to Spanish-speakers for libraries. And I've taken a few webinars at our library through Webjunction. I'm glad it was one of the Things. I revisited. I haven't been in a while. I think the last time I really explored, they were in the middle of changing the site to its current look. So, I went, I updated my profile, friended some of my colleagues, signed up for a few courses, checked out a discussion on book displays, and spent a good amount of time just browsing. I found a course for PowerPoint. One of my co-workers was going to teach a class on that, and I was supposed to assist. I'm wondering now if we couldn't just sign up for that course instead. I'll have to check in with my co-worker on that. It could be a real time-saver! So, cool beans and thanks!

Thing #45: The Cloud

I guess I've been familiar with cloud computing for a while now. I ran into an article while I was doing 23 things that referred to that term and looked into it a little bit more. My mental response was to think, Oh, so that's what they're calling it. I recently had a conversation with my husband about backing up our files online. It seems scary to me, but he made a good point. What if the house burns down. It's all gone. Everything. Backup CDs. External hard drive. Gone. And that would be just horrible, because we would loose so many memories. Almost all of our photos are digital. We didn't decide on whether to do it or not. I see another conversation on that topic in the making.

And I guess I also knew about being able to control your desktop from another computer. My dad, who loves gadgets and had a second career as a web developer, had a client who needed daily maintenance on their website. He used this technology to access his server computer at home when he vacationed to my house (a mere 800 miles away). And I could be totally wrong, but I think my husband may have used this technology as an IBMer before he was issued a laptop for work purposes.

It's such a weird intangible concept, and yet, cool! What's next?

Thing #44: Economy

Here's another Thing virtually done. My family does online banking, so I'm familiar with a lot of the features there. My husband was recently "worried" about one of the grocery bills I brought home, so the other night I was surfing coupon sites to find printable coupons. Found a few, and some recipes too! Some of the other links were pretty interesting. We do pretty good with gas, are spoiled with our cell phones, so those I didn't explore too much. I've heard of and browsed CraigsList and Freecycle. Any tips on saving money are welcome, so I'm going to really peruse some of the stuff in there. I was a little disappointed that the weekend treasure site didn't show anything for Rochester. And I've always been interested in raising a chicken or two. We'll see about that one. I heard you had to get a license to do that in Rochester within the city limits. Fun stuff. Thanks for including it.

Thing #43: Online TV & Video

I use Hulu for online TV viewing. I missed an episode of one of my favorite shows, Saving Grace, because of a recording mishap. Watched it on Hulu. It's very convenient and a lot of the major television companies are just putting their shows on their websites. I also use Netflix where you can watch movies online instead of having the disc shipped to your house. It's awesome. My husband watched the first season of Heroes that way. I haven't caught up to him on that show yet, but one of these days...

Thing #40: Mashup the Web

Hmmm... I feel like we're chasing our tails here. Aren't all these widgets and things that I've added to the blog mashups. I mean really? But it's good to get a really clear definition of it, which the video supplied. Thanks!

To be nice and play along, though, my husband and I use CrimeReports to check on our neighborhood, which we have "fondly" been calling "the 'hood" of late because of an annoying gang presence in the last couple of years. I looked at LibWorm and decided that it was just too much for me right now. The grinding gears in my head came to a screeching halt trying to figure out what I wanted to do with all that information. And I was going to do Travelr, but then I got in there and there was all this stuff about lattitude and longitude and I thought, didn't I kind of do this already with FlickrMaps. I think I did. And it was sooooo much easier. So, here's that map.

I think this is another one that I'll probably play around with more later, but right now, enough is enough. :)

Thing #42: Music 2.0

I really had fun with this Thing, despite the fact that it's not something I can really do at work (no music at our desk, no headphones allowed) and my new laptop is having issues with non-headphone sound. But, yesterday I signed up for both Pandora and Last.fm. I poked around in both of them. Today, I asked my daughter if she wanted to listen to music on the computer. She was game. Of course! She loves music! So we sat down with two sets of earbuds and logged into Last.fm. We listened to Justin Roberts, Ella Jenkins, Raffi, Backyardigans, and more. It was awesome! I had to leave for a second and when I came back, my daughter said, "Put in your ducky ears, Mommy! Hurry!" (I have ducky earbuds.) And her little feet were bobbing up and down. She was listening to "Pop Fly" by Justin Roberts. She loves Justin Roberts, but hasn't heard that one before. After a slow song, we tried some of the kid stations on Reciva. It didn't work so well. There were too many commercials. It never got to the music. That was the Disney station. I couldn't get the any other ones to work, for some reason. I tried one of Live 365 too, but just ended up at one of my local stations websites. I was probably doing something wrong, but oh well. I ended up going to the MPR website and listening to the newscast because by that time, my daughter had lost all interest and wandered away. Pretty fun stuff, regardless!

Oh yes, and another widget has been added.

Thing #41: Mashup your life

Yes. Randomly skipping around doing things now. Not skipping like the thing you do when you're a little kid, just not doing things in order. You know. But I'm trying to get through some of these, and this weekend I'm working at the public desk, so can't do some of it. I'm just working through the ones that I can.

I signed up for Lifestream. It's neat. All of your stuff together. I have no followers yet. It's new to me. I'm not sure I'm sold yet. I could see how this would be really great for libraries to use if they have all of these feelers out through twitter and facebook etc, to have it all in one place to advertise to people. Nice! I'll play with it for a few weeks and see if I like it.

Thing #39: Digital Storytelling

I'm skipping a Thing, although I've looked into it. I'll come back to it when I get a video to post. Digital Storytelling is a fun thing for me if only because it gave me the opportunity to play with things that I had wanted to anyway. I do scrapbooking as a hobby, and have recently started in on digital scrapbooking. So, even though I looked at some of the items linked, I didn't get into it a ton. I like Scrapblog. It's advertised in all the scrapbooking magazines that I read, besides the Creative Memories one, that only advertises it's own products. :) I did toodle around with some of the recommended items, but I have to post one of my own creations here. It's my favorite. And usually, I try to avoid putting my kids out there, but I just can't help it.

Thing #37: Photo Tales

We're getting into things that I really like to do through scrapbooking, which is neat to be able to learn about. I still have my account with Flickr, but haven't done much with it. My family has a photo-sharing site at SmugMug, and they have some neat features. But I would like to keep my family somewhat anonymous, so I'm not putting the link out there.

I posted a Slideoo slide in the sidebar of my Flickr pictures, registered for One True Media and Picnik. Both of these are pretty cool. I've struggled with some projects at work that involved photos because I have editing software at home and know how to use it, but not anything of note at work. So, it's neat to know that it's available out there, if needed. I love Picasa and use it at home. I've recently recommended it for use at work, but I don't have enough photos for work that I need it at this point.

Cool stuff! I'll be bookmarking a lot of the photo editing sites for use at home in my scrapbooking hobby and may use some for a slideshow I'm working on for work.

Thing #36: Comic Relief

Lots of cool things on Thing #36. I especially liked some of the background creators and cool scrapbook related things. I can see using the newspaper creator for some fun scrapbook pages. And the dictionary entry would be cool to use too!

I made a comic strip. I really didn't want to. It's not my thing. Although my little sister is awesome at drawing comics. I'll just get her to do any that I need. Yeah, sure. But anyway, it's posted in a widget and all tiled out. I'm probably going to delete it soon, but it's there for now.

As for library-related comics, I would say the best would be Unshelved. If you haven't seen it, you have to go there.

Thing #35 cont'd

Unfortunately, the children's section of links didn't really impress me that much. So disappointing because I got so excited. I do have to say the Children's International Digital Library is great. I checked in on them when they were first starting out. I think my only complaint was that it took forever to load. And it still seems to. Oh, and I follow Just One More Book on Twitter. Cool site! I read a few of the books from Sillybook to my daughter, and she enjoyed it. But I have to put in a little plug here for a company that we've been using at our library for a long time called Tumblebooks. They're out of Canada. They have great customer service and frequently send out news about new services. Not only that, but they have a great selection of books that are animated. And for a minimal yearly cost, you can get all that for your library. I know, it's not free. But sometimes you do "get what you pay for". Anyway, we really like it.

Okay, and the last couple of sections are on Book Rental and Facebook. Ugh. There's that no time thing that's going on right now for me, so even though I think BooksFree sounds so neat, I don't think it'd be worth the cost right now. I used to do the quality paperback book club. That was sooooo dangerous for me. So many books, so little time. And I mean, so little time.

And Facebook. I love Facebook, although haven't been paying attention to it as much lately as we're going through a sick phase in my house. My daughter had pneumonia week before last. I have it now. Which is why I'm actually getting through this right now. I just don't have the energy to move. And I already watched two movies today for lack of being able to do anything else. Did the Visual Bookshelf. Not interested in the rest. This Thing is so horribly long. I think it could have been broken up into three Things at least.

I'm passing on the BookCrossing activity for now, but might do it later, like when my kids start school or something. Reasons mentioned earlier in post among others.

Ugh. And just noticed about checking out those articles. I read the one about the Literacy Debate in the NY Times when it came out. I really just think people are reading in different ways. I don't think the library is at risk. There have always been other venues for getting books. Now there's just more variety in format as well. I think our library has done a great job of providing various formats as they've presented themselves as viable. We've been pretty "cutting edge." But then, we've got all those high-tech IBMers and Mayo-ites to keep us hoppin'.

Done? Man, that was a lot of content!

Thing #35: Books 2.0

Oh the places you'll go! Books are so awesome and to be able to share online and have reading communities is even awesom-er! (Yes, I know it's not a word. But it's fun. Get over the grammar thing.) Anyways, a Thing like this tends to scare me because it could turn into a big ugly green monster that takes over my life and becomes my next obsession. But I'll try to restrain myself.


Not doing so great at the restraining part just now because I went through all the links under organizing your personal library. I already use Shelfari and have used Library Thing, but not a ton. Shelfari has had a lot of technical difficulties of late, so is no longer my favorite. I was kind of interested to see what else was out there. I like BookJetty. Signed up. I think I might use it for my adult reading and keep my kids reading on Shelfari. Some of the others just didn't look like what I wanted. It's weird how design really affects your choices. I thought ITrackMine looked like NetFlix. The red turned me off. Guess I'm a blue kind of person. Or, well... I'd really prefer green, but you don't find that often.


I signed up for DailyLit. I'm not so interested in getting books on my phone. I can get ebooks from my library through Mobipocket. And I already have a palmreader on the phone, but I haven't used it. For some reason, the allure of mobile reading goes along with my wanting to read the classics. I don't have time for the classics right now. I wish I did. I just don't. So, I find myself trying to put classics on my mobile devices. It's stupid. But that's what I keep doing.

The next section of links was on readers' advisory, which I love. There were some links that seem like the ones we use already for patrons. I like the idea of BookStumpers. I signed up for BookLamp, but it hasn't sent me the confirmation e-mail yet. Hmmm... Wonder which one I put in?

This is turning out to be a really long entry. Just a little more right? I looked at the online book communities. The BookGlutton one looked pretty cool, until I registered. Then I got confused. I didn't see any books that looked interesting. Then I saw the one that's done by Target and thought, "No way! Target?" So, I checked it out, and it's pretty darn cool! Now I just have to find some people to read with me. Long distance book clubs, anyone? All my non-work friends aren't readers like me. I'll recruit someone, eventually...

Let's see, what's next? I guess I'm going to gloss over the next two categories a little bit. The book group resources looks like more of the same. And we have digital audiobooks you can check out through our local library. I use this a lot and download books to my MP3 player and then don't listen to them because I don't have time. You know, the same reason that I always, always, always have late fees on my library card. :)

I like the idea of the Book Swap sites. I've actually heard about BookCrossing a lot over the years. I've never done it, though I think it would be interesting. Generally when I'm trying to get rid of my books, I'm not looking for more. I'm actually trying to weed. And then I just give to the library because our Friends group will sell them off and give the profits back to the library.

Reviews links were okay. I liked the one-minute critic, but it's just a cool blog site. Might be a neat idea for a tween blog at our library. BookBrowse looked really familiar, like maybe I browsed it once upon a time. :) And then I got to the section on Children's Books. Oh dear. I'm going to have to stop and take some time for this. I'm gonna go ahead and post this and just do a Part 2 post later.