Froggy Finds

Thing #49: TweetDeck

2010-05-21T10:16:00.002-05:00

Tweetdeck is what I currently use to manage my Twitter and Facebook accounts. It's not perfect. They keep updating to try to make it better, though. I have had problems in the past with it posting to Facebook when I haven't selected it. I think there's a setting issue that I haven't found yet that may be causing the issue. I reloaded today with the newest version and made some changes. We'll see if it fixes the problem. I have recommended this program to friends and family, because I do like it, despite the problems. :)

Thing #48

2010-05-21T10:11:00.002-05:00

I guess it's that time again. More learning needed. I'm way behind, but thought I'd start up on the new Things on a Stick. #48 is Twitter, which I have been doing for quite some time now. There's kind of an ebb and flow to it. I watch, and then I go for a few weeks or a month even without checking in. I've found it very useful for keeping up with children's lit news and parenting trends. Pretty fun all around. I'm still looking for the perfect solution to managing Facebook and Twitter together.

VoiceThread

2009-07-01T08:21:00.002-05:00

I just ran across this really neat program called VoiceThread. I originally read about it in Book Links e-newsletter and went to the site to check it out. It has some great potential for teleconferences and online classes or social networking. And of course, my brain is trying to come up with ways that I can incorporate this somehow in our website or tween wiki. Anyway, here's the site, http://voicethread.com/#home. Check it out.

And yes, I said tween wiki. We changed plans because it's more secure and has more possibilities for interaction. I'm so glad that More Things on a Stick was on a wiki, because now I know what can be done with that type of program.

Thing #47: Survey

2009-05-18T23:22:00.002-05:00

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

2009-05-18T22:46:00.009-05:00

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

2009-05-18T22:06:00.003-05:00

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

2009-05-18T08:24:00.003-05:00

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

2009-05-17T17:10:00.004-05:00

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

2009-05-17T17:02:00.002-05:00

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

2009-05-17T16:52:00.002-05:00

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

2009-05-17T10:46:00.003-05:00

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

2009-05-16T16:25:00.003-05:00

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

2009-05-16T10:47:00.002-05:00

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

2009-05-11T12:36:00.002-05:00

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

2009-05-08T15:01:00.002-05:00

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

2009-05-04T20:33:00.002-05:00

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

2009-05-04T17:12:00.003-05:00

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.

Thing #34: Answer Sites

2009-04-30T19:53:00.003-05:00

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

2009-04-29T10:54:00.003-05:00

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

2009-04-27T12:51:00.002-05:00

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

2009-04-27T12:46:00.004-05:00

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

2009-04-23T20:29:00.005-05:00

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

2009-04-22T16:28:00.002-05:00

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

2009-04-20T11:36:00.002-05:00

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

2009-04-18T15:17:00.002-05:00

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

2009-04-16T20:45:00.002-05:00

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

2009-04-15T11:31:00.003-05:00

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!

Thing #26:Nings

2009-03-06T15:01:00.002-06:00

I joined the 23 things Ning during the original 23 things. I didn't do a lot with it besides what I was supposed to for the 23 things. I don't know that I'll do a lot more with it unless the library decides to do more with it. I did join the "Rochester Public Library in the House" group. I'm interested to see if anything happens with that. And I viewed the First Help Desk video, which I think is hilarious. I think I'm done with Thing #26!

Froggy finishes up Thing #25

2009-02-24T14:23:00.004-06:00

Thing #25 officially done! I added some fun gadgets to my site. I think that finishes thing #25. Woohoo! What's next?

Froggy is now tired after working on Thing #25

2009-02-18T14:32:00.003-06:00

Ah. Widgets and gadgets and gizmos, oh my! I read over the 20 usability tips. Some of them seemed to be common sense, like not giving details about work-related items. Who would do that, anyway? And some of it seemed overwhelming. So, I'm supposed to organize my posts and put them in an archive on the sidebar. I don't think I'm there yet. And since I only have one person (thanks Andy!) who's following my blog, I guess I'm not going to worry about all the commenting items just yet.

Posting by e-mail would be handy on certain occasions, but I don't think I'm that attached to my blog right now. I used to get AvantGo on my old Palm. I've since upgraded and didn't realize it was still out there. That's pretty cool. A friend of mine recommended Gcast instead. Hmmm... more research to do.

Seeing all the gadgets was interesting, yet again overwhelming. I like simplicity. I don't want to muck up my blog too much with unecessary things. But you can see I've already added my Shelfari shelf. So, on to adding more widgets/gadgets. Maybe tomorrow, or another day. I need coffee. Mmmm... Caribou coffee.

Froggy does housekeeping for Thing #24

2009-02-04T13:56:00.004-06:00

I'm working on Thing #24. I think I got most of it. Maybe even all of it. I looked at the new templates for my blog. There are lots that weren't there when I started. Some of them are pretty cool! I didn't like any of them better than the one I have now, though. I like my look. I've been playing with some of my digital scrapbooking software and have thought about creating my own look, but it's a bit overwhelming right now. Maybe later.

I've added widgets. You can see my Shelfari widget. I added it before I started up with more things on a stick. I like widgets. I like the way the Shelfari widget displays as a bookshelf.

I added information about myself. I actually don't want to put it out there because I have another blogger blog that I'll be using for work purposes. The info's there now, but will disappear shortly.

I like my display name. I'm not changing it. I can't think of anything else I'd like to change it to. I don't want to put my real name out there, for now. I might at a later date.

I gave my avatar a new look for winter. You can go back in my blog posts and see where I did this. If it ever warms up here, I'll change it to more springy clothes and sites. I plan to put up some pictures of a "froggy" on my other tween blog for work. I just haven't gotten to it yet.

I registered my blog with More Things on a Stick. I keep getting updates by e-mail. Things are a-changin' every day, sometimes every hour. You guys must be busy! And I got the e-mail when my blog was added to the wiki. It's in the right place. Thanks!

Thing #24 DONE!

Anyone ever watch Monster House? I wish I had that big stamp and the echo-y sound when I put that in...

Oh dear. What have I done?

2009-01-23T12:25:00.002-06:00

I signed up for More Things on a Stick. I'm so in trouble, now. Why do I do these things? It must be that life-long learning thing that I'm addicted to. Bummer. (And also, why does my inner voice sound like a "valley girl"? No idea. I'll have to work on that...)

Playing with video

2008-12-27T15:45:00.000-06:00

The topic of video came up because online booktalks are cool! Thought I'd play around with posting video and so found this cool clip of my puppy a few years back trying on booties to protect his little paws from the snow. The hope was to get him to play in the snow, but as you'll see, he didn't go near it. He seemed so much happier to be outside in the cold with the booties on. Fun!

Winter is here...

2008-12-05T10:45:00.000-06:00

I winterized my avatar. I guess it's time to admit that winter is finally here. Shoveling the driveway will do that for ya!

My Dewey Number

2008-12-02T16:47:00.000-06:00

Who knew? I have a Dewey number. Here's the scoop!

Froggy's Dewey Decimal Section:
460 Spanish & Portuguese languages
Froggy = 685775 = 685+775 = 1460

Class:
400 Language

Contains:
Linguistics and language books.

What it says about you:
You value communication, even with people who are different from you. You like trying new things don't mind being exposed to unfamiliar territory. You get bored with routines that never change.

Find your Dewey Decimal Section at Spacefem.com

Shelfari

2008-10-28T12:18:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine was using Shelfari instead of Library Thing. No limits, as far as I can tell, on how many books you can add! Pretty cool. And you can see my shelf of what I'm reading now on the left side of my blog here. I'm trying to decide if I can use this somehow on our library website. Hmmmm...

Froggy finds Thing #23 liberating

2008-09-11T10:45:00.000-05:00

Hah! I finished! I seriously didn't think I'd get through all 23 things. Now that I'm done, I wish there was more. I will definitely make it a higher priority to keep up on new technology.

I already blogged a bit about my experience in my last post. I will say that my favorite things were Flickr, Digg, and Facebook. I had no idea how many of my friends were out there on Facebook! What fun. I actually found several old buddies from high school and college that I've lost touch with over the years. Great stuff.

Here's hoping this is just the beginning and not truly the end!

Froggy finds Thing #22 inspiring

2008-09-11T10:29:00.000-05:00

I have to keep this up, huh. Well, I guess.

First of all, I'm going to find out who else in my library has finished the program so that we can chat about everything. I have to say I learned a lot. As part of my resolution to continue, I'll work towards actually using many of the tools that I did find useful. It's a bit overwhelming to put it all together. And I have to confess that I kept at it with Bloglines and like it more now. That was one of the things that I just struggled with, and complained about, in my blog. After I kept with it, it wasn't so bad.

I had originally thought I might turn this blog into a children's reading blog for grades 3 - 8 to talk about all the books that I'm reading for the Maud Hart Lovelace Award nominees. But since I have to keep going with this one, I guess I'll just have to create another blog. Or just use LibraryThing. Something to discuss with my supervisor for a fun task. I've hit babble now. Will stop.

Froggy finds Thing #21 a little bit of old, a little bit of new

2008-09-11T10:16:00.000-05:00

I'm sitting at home with a crummy cold in front of the tv with nothing to watch, so thought I'd play around more with the 23 things. Yes, I have a book sitting next to me too, but my eyes hurt. And my head hurts. I'm not sure how looking at a screen is any different than looking at pages in a book, but it doesn't seem to hurt as much.

Thing #21: I read the two articles, which seem to validate what we're hoping to learn by doing the 23 things. Get out there in the webspace as a library or librarian and make it work for us. Sounds good to me. I joined the 23 things ning, put my picture up with my cutesy little girl when she just turned a year old. And posted a comment on a couple of co-worker's pages. Hi Louise and Pam!

I looked at some of the other sites that were listed. I'm gonna have to find a scrapbooking network out there somewhere one of these days. I had joined WebJunction a while ago. One of my colleagues is always sending out articles from the site. It must be a great way to share information. They've just undergone a total revamp of their website. I need to set aside some time to explore all the changes.

That means, Thing #21 = done!

Froggy finds Thing #20. Yep. I found it.

2008-09-10T16:17:00.000-05:00

I actually appreciate that MySpace and Facebook are part of the 23 things. This is another one where my husband's whole family is involved in this kind of sport. I did check out Hennepin county's MySpace site. They're always on top of the web world. I heard that they have a whole department devoted to their website and web work. If only we had that at our library.

I signed up for a Facebook account. I'm not telling what I signed up under, though, because I'm actually going to use it for "real". It turns out that lots of friends and family have already signed up! This is another thing that could turn out to be addicting.

Froggy finds Thing #19 good for her MP3 player

2008-09-08T14:50:00.000-05:00

Podcasts are lots of fun, and I haven't played with them as much as I would like. I have a really great MP3 player that was gifted to me by my techie husband who may have been planning to give me a present that would last me my entire life. I definitely don't plan on upgrading any time soon. I went to MPR and subscribed to their How's the Family podcast. I listened to the podcast called Families are Consuming MORE! I agree. You can see the list of recent podcasts for this show here: http://minnesota.publicradio.org/radio/podcasts/hows_the_family/.

I can see using my MP3 player a lot more to listen to podcasts, where I haven't used it for that in the past. I see there's a lot out there that's library-related also. My husband was just telling me the other day about a podcast that the creators of Digg have out there. I might have to go check that out. First, I'll have to check back with him to see what it was about... Can't go too overboard, here.

I also checked out Gcast. I have nothing to create a podcast about at this point. And I don't want to put anything out there and waste space and time. We're thinking about posting a class by podcast on our staff wiki in the future. I'll consider using this site to do that.

Froggy finds Thing #18 already done!

2008-09-08T14:23:00.000-05:00

Yay! The other night, I was reading Little Loon and Papa by Toni Buzzeo to my 2-year-old daughter. It has loon sounds in the text that you're supposed to make. Honestly, I'm from Oklahoma. We don't have loons. I've heard the loon song, but couldn't replicate. Anyway, my daughter couldn't sleep, for whatever reason 2-year-olds can't sleep, and insisted on being downstairs with me in the den. I was on the computer (probably working on my 23 things) and thought it would be fun to find out what a loon really sounds like. So on to YouTube to show my little girl what a real loon looks and sounds like.

This is one of the videos that we found:

There were more that had better video of the loons. My daughter thought this was so great! And what a cool way to bring a fiction book to life for a little girl. It was very easy to find more like this one. In fact, we moved on to moose videos, and beavers, and so on with all the animals featured in the book. So fun! And it seemed to calm my daughter down so that she finally decided to go to bed, you know, so that we could read the book one more time...or two or three times...maybe more.

Froggy finds Thing #17 familiar

2008-09-08T14:06:00.000-05:00

Thing #17 contained a lot of to do's. I think I got through it all. I'll recap. ELM. I worked with these databases a lot while I was getting my library degree, which was not too long ago. I set up a search alert for myself. Search alerts were a new find for me. I think I got it to work okay, even though there was a lot of confusion. I mean, confusion on the 23 things blog and as I fumbled around with it. I made up a webpage in EBSCO. I really don't see a use for it for me. So, I deleted it after I played around a bit with it. I e-mailed the ProQuest webpage to myself. That was interesting. And I set up an account with NetLibrary (I thought I had one already, but couldn't remember the login) and made a note.

I like NetLibrary. I don't use it much, but it has some awesome features. I did a presentation on it for my colleagues at one point when we first started using it at our library. I even remember mentioning the cool notes feature. I didn't realize there were so many new features in EBSCO and ELM. I learned a lot on this Thing.

Froggy finds Thing #16 helpful

2008-09-05T21:54:00.000-05:00

I wish we had something like the Assignment Calculator and Research Project Calculator when I was an undergraduate student. I would have used it if only to keep myself on task. Working in libraries all my life, I knew how to do the research, but sometimes needed help with the non-book related research. There's so much more out there now.

These tools will be useful to help students do their research papers. It seems that research is dying, in that students no longer know about any resource except for the internet and Google. We're constantly explaining to kids that it has to be a reputable site and you have to know how to tell the difference online.

I find it strange that kids are so trusting of anything that's out there. Our world is getting so small because of internet access. You can visit with people halfway across the world. Identity theft is rampant. There's a new type of stalker, a new type of pervert trying to meet young kids. And kids seem so naive about all this. My rant for the day, I guess. It's late. Tangents happen.

I'm glad this tool is out there so that we can help students learn about true research.

Froggy finds Thing #15 to be a part of her every day life...

2008-09-05T10:14:00.000-05:00

Yeppers. That's right. Every day life. No kidding! I've mentioned my husband, the software engineer, and all of his techy-ness that rubs off on me. I watched the Second Life video of Info Island and have to say that the graphics are not that great compared to some of the awesome games that are out there.

Our family (extended) is a family of WOWers. For a while, family didn't call, they chatted on World of Warcraft. All my husband's family had accounts, even his dad. It's odd, how it becomes one of your social circles. I had my own account for a while, and it was fun. I realized after a certain point, that it took up too much of my time. I played a lot while I was pregnant with our first child because I wasn't playing soccer or biking or doing much active for that matter. For some reason, it wasn't that relaxing for me, though. I'm too goal-driven. I wanted to finish all the quests, and there were always more.

It's something that my husband does to get away and relax. I think gaming is for him, what reading is for me. MMORPGs are so big for socializing! My husband has conversations with people from other countries while he's playing. Our world is getting so small now. It's just amazing!

Now there are systems like the Wii that are revolutionizing console play and making it that much more like online socializing. Our library has a teen game night with Wii, PS2 and computer games, which I think is so necessary, since this is the world that our kids are growing up in. I'm excited to see what else the future will hold for my little ones as they get older.

Froggy finds Thing #14 very useful and fun!

2008-09-05T09:54:00.000-05:00

I explored Library Thing for Thing #14. This type of program has come up a few times in one of my committees. I am a reader for the Maud Hart Lovelace Award in MN. One of our members has brought it up a couple of times, but it seems like our group is more of a notecard collecting type of group. Now that I know what this is all about and have taken the time to explore, I think I might support that committee member in her wishes to start this way of organizing the group. Or I'll at least join her in keeping track in this way.

As part of Thing #14, I added my most recent reads to my Library Thing account. These are books I have just read, am reading, or am getting ready to read. I didn't review them yet, but I think that would be a nice way to keep track. Enjoy!

Thing #13: Not too bad

2008-09-04T20:52:00.000-05:00

Ah, productivity. I must already realize that I'm terribly disorganized and am try, try, trying to fix the problem.... constantly. I think I mentioned in another thing post that I already use My Yahoo as a homepage on my home computer. I love it. It's so very simple. I checked out all the other tools mentioned, but I am one of those people that uses a PDA. It keeps me going. I carry it everywhere because it is also my phone. And I try to keep my work and private life separate, so I don't worry about syncing the two calendars (and etc.) together. I could see where these would be handy to those who are inclined to use them. I love to do lists. But that's just too tempting to constantly do that, so I have to restrain myself on that one. I'd be doing it all day long and nothing else. I'm considering this one done.

Thing #12: Addicted to News

2008-09-04T15:43:00.000-05:00

I have to say that I have a love-hate relationship with news. Thing #12 is one that I have to be careful about how much time I devote. My father was a news reporter. It's a rough life, and I got to hear about all the horrible car accidents, bombings, riots, etc that he covered. Being a radio journalist, his main goal was to get a "sound bite." Generally this means that you either have to get someone saying something, or you have to get the "boom" of the explosion, the "honking" of the traffic jam caused by the accident. Anyway, because of my father's all-consuming relationship with news, I'm not so big on it. Not only is it depressing, but it's all too overwhelming. I like to scan. Just the headlines. I don't read the really bad stuff. It's enough to know it happened. I don't need the details.

That said, the sites that compose the articles by vote are kinda interesting to me because I truly can just scan. Every once in a while, I like a good long read, like the New York Times provides. I looked at Mixx, Digg, Newsvine, and Reddit. I liked Digg the most. I was sad to see that Ian Hibell passed away in a car accident, on his bike. Mixx was okay. I didn't like the other two at all. They seemed to be all politics right now. Not too big on politics either.

I tried to "share" the op-ed article Sarah Palin Speaks! from the NY Times, but YahooBuzz didn't work for me. I signed up for Digg, but have to do all the verifying etc. Cool tool!

Thing #11: Delicious, but not tasty

2008-09-04T15:23:00.000-05:00

Neat-oh. I think that's something that my dad always said as I was growing up. It might date me a little. This particular thing had to do with the website del.icio.us. I could have a lot of fun with this site. I'm always trying to set up bookmarks, but don't often use them. If I actually saw them and could organize them like delicious does, I think I'd use them more.

Well, for record-keeping, I watched the podcast, checked out the Minn23 account, took a look at Lookybook and went through Lemons Are Not Red (a book I have to check out for my two-year-old), made my own account (which I hope to play around more with in the future), and I tagged my Thing #8 post with biking/Freewheel tags. Fun stuff!

I remember mention of this being discussed at this year's PLA conference, about using this type of tagging in library catalogs. It sounds revolutionary to me. A lot of people would be able to find books on Native Americans if they didn't have to look up "Indian Americans." How useful this would be for local communities that have their own way of saying things: dialects could be used. It all reminds me of Sandy Berman and the work that he did in revamping subject headings.

Thing #10: Wikis!

2008-09-04T12:43:00.000-05:00

I like wikis. Our library has a staff wiki for their intranet. Pretty cool. I've created a page or two on it. Still learning, but it's fun. I watched the video that the 23things blog says too. Neat presentation. And I put in the "more blah blahs" in the Meta:Sandbox. I kind of feel funny about changing stuff unless I'm actually knowledgeable about it. And even then, I hesitate. I think it'll be fun to browse through the bookie/library wikis mentioned also.

Thing #9: Not sure about this one

2008-09-04T12:28:00.000-05:00

Thing #9 had to do with online word processing software. I'm not sure how I feel about this. I'm trying to think of applications in the library world, and I come up with all those people out there who can't afford Microsoft Office. And yet, they can come into their library and get on the internet. Where I think this might get a little dicey is when you have these personal documents floating around online that people might be able to hack into. And then again, no one is really safe, because your personal computer can just as easily be hacked into. It's kind of an interesting debate and/or thought.

One other pro that I can see would be the ability to NOT carry around a thumb drive/disk (does anyone use disks anymore)/whatever you use to carry your documents around. Hmmm... I like it, minus the security issues.

Oh, and for the record, I edited on Zoho. Mine was the Texas comment, as they truly think they are their own nation, per my mum and good ol' Lance Armstrong, among others who have claimed this untruth. I couldn't get the document to come through on GoogleDocs, but am still working on it. I requested access.

Thing #8: more photo fun

2008-09-03T20:46:00.000-05:00

I really enjoy photo fun. I don't have a ton of time to play around with it, but I really wish I did because there are some really cool tools out there. I did take some time to use picturetrail.com and set up an awesome slideshow. The really neat thing about this slideshow is that my husband, Mr. Programmer, was working on something very similar to this for our family website. It was very cool-looking. Unfortunately, our family website broke, and with two little ones and lacking time, he didn't have the time to fix the code. Now, using PictureTrail.com, I can post the same type of thing on Flickr or whatever phot-sharing program I choose! Awesome!

So, here it is. While biking across the state of Oklahoma on the yearly organized bike ride called Freewheel, I had my husband snap shots of me and libraries along the way. We've since done this bike ride another couple of times, but in different areas of the state.

Thing #7 is a lotta stuff!

2008-08-08T16:10:00.000-05:00

So, I decided I should keep plugging away at the Things. I'm glad I get the e-mails that prompt me to work on them. I did a couple of the things that the e-mail suggested, then went back to the Things webpage and, lo and behold, there's a ton more that I have to do. Let's see if I can get it all down.

I have e-mail accounts, way too many, and thinking about adding another and using a current one for wanted spam. I IM and text message lots with my cool Palm Centro phone. In fact, that was the way that I communicated with my husband while he was at work and I was on maternity leave recently. Unfortunately, IM and texting aren't allowed at work. I would love it if we could IM at work. It just seems so much easier to me than using the phone. On the phone I sit and say "um" a lot. With IM, I can just type the message and they can get to it when they have the time. But then, I used to use IM to chat with family and friends when we moved out of state. It was an easy and cheap way to keep in touch. I love IM. Text messaging costs money, so I avoid that if possible. But that's an easier way than calling if you just have something quick to say to a friend. We have an IM account set up for Children's Reference, but never use it. I kind of wish we could since it's probably how our main audience communicates. Something to investigate...

What else? Watched the couple of videos. Again, same sentiment as above. Very cool! Wish we could do that at our library in the children's area. We actually do in our adult reference area.

Okay, moving on. I listened to an interview with Connie Fairbanks and learned about her writing a cookbook, Scratch That: Seasonal Menus and Perfect Pairings. I never really thought about the process of writing a cookbook except for cooking a lot and testing out the recipes. I felt like I learned a thing or two.

And last, but not least, Webjunction has done a major overhaul on their website, so the article we are supposed to read is no longer available. But I get it, I've participated in web conferences and webinars. No biggy. So, on I go to the next Thing...

Thing #6: Quick and Easy

2008-07-29T15:10:00.000-05:00

I kind of played around with a card generator. Picked my favorite Homer picture and put it on. Looks like fun. Again, my husband got excited because he used to play Magic, the card game. These cards are just like those, but you can make them your own. Anyway, got it all set up, picked a background color, put in text and photo. Did not realize that this particular color had spiders on the background until I e-mailed it to myself and looked at it enlarged. Now my beautiful relaxed puppy looks like the spiders are coming to get him!!! Oh well. It was still fun to do, and I could see applications within the library world.

Froggy finds Thing #5 too time consuming

2008-07-27T16:27:00.000-05:00

How many mashups are there for Flickr? I found a list with 365, some of which didn't really seem to be related. I did get my husband interested in Flickr. Now he's off to other sites, comparing, researching, trying to find the best option for our once a year subscription to a photo site. I may have created a monster. It's a good thing my husband is the detail-oriented type. I've been looking through some of the tools for an hour or so and just feel exhausted.

In playing around with Thing #5, I did get to do something a little fun. Here's my effort to use a mashup:

You can also view some of the pictures I posted on my Flickr site .

Froggy finds Thing #4 AWESOME!!!!

2008-07-15T15:54:00.000-05:00

I'm a bit overwhelmed by all the stupendous options, but since I do a bit of scrapbooking (read: major hobby), Flickr looks like a dream come true. I can't wait to explore a lot more and hook all my family members and friends! I uploaded a picture and sent it off to a "friend" to see what they think. Our personal family webpage is currently broken. We've been wondering what to do. It consists mostly of a truckload (no I mean it, the dump truck type) of photos. Flickr just might be our solution.

Love the tagging feature too! Because from a scrap perspective, that means that you can pull together all the photos on a particular topic and put 'em in a cool creative album. I'm feeling a bit like I may have found a new addiction. What to do, what to do...

Froggy finds Thing #3 frustrating...

2008-06-27T11:54:00.000-05:00

Many months ago I kept hearing the buzz about RSS. Actually, I'd been hearing about it for a long time, but finally got fed up and decided that I needed to learn about it or I was going to fall way behind. This was while I was still pregnant and not sleeping well. So one night at about 3:00 in the morning, I got onto my Yahoo account and set up a My Yahoo page. It was great! I felst so relieved. I had all my news there, a link to my e-mail account, weather for both my homes, and goofiness besides.

In doing this project, I went to Bloglines as recommended and was overwhelmed by the messiness. I'm not sure why, but it just seemed difficult to get the page the way I wanted it. And I'm sure already being set up with a page full of RSS feeds in a different display with Yahoo didn't help any. I like My Yahoo, and I'm sticking with it. I suppose I'll check the Bloglines every once in a while, but it's not my cup of tea. I would recommend My Yahoo for anyone out there that likes to play with the colors of their page and get things to look the way they want. Click and drag, etc. That's all for just this minute folks!

Froggy finds Thing #2 interesting and thought-provoking...

2008-06-27T11:00:00.000-05:00

Thing #2 involved watching a film and reading a couple of articles. The film mentioned "fitting Things in" which hit a chord with me. I've always been one to cram everything into life that I can. I play sports and enjoy it. When I had my first child, many people told me that I would find my life too busy to continue sports. But I have continued. I've made it a priority in my life and am lucky enough to have family that supports me in this. So I see what Mr. Abram was saying about making learning Web 2.0 and Library 2.0 a priority. Make the time. I continue to "make time" to do what I want to do even though I now have a second child. And it's hard, but life is that much more interesting because I insist on living it to its fullest.

I was also reminded of the role of libraries throughout the years reading the blog and article recommended. I've always felt that libraries have been on the cutting edge of technology even going way back to scrolls and the printing press. The internet and all the tools that have evolved because of the internet are the same as scrolls and the printing press for libraries. They are revolutionary. They will change our lives. And the library will give access to these tools to communities that might not be able to access them on their own. I look forward to learning the 23 Things so that I can participate in assisting our library community with their life-long learning endeavors. Isn't that what being a librarian is all about?

Froggy finds Thing #1...

2008-02-29T11:23:00.000-06:00

Liking all things froggy, I decided to name my new blog "Froggy Finds". So far, I like the background for my blog. It seems pretty froggy. I'm hoping I can find some other froggy things along the way. The next part of Thing #1 is to create an avatar. Should be interesting. I wonder if they have frog avatars...