ImaginOnTech

Starbucks WiFi

2010-06-14T16:24:00.002-05:00

Rumor has it that Starbucks is going to offer free WiFi starting July 1st. They have had WiFi for the last several years but were locked into a contract with T-Mobile who managed the service. At that time only the first 24 hrs were free, then you needed an account with T-Mobile ($$$) to connect. Other coffee houses offered free WiFi so this is great for Starbucks and many coffee addicts who also want an internet fix.

Breaking News

2010-03-21T13:23:00.007-05:00

I have dedicated nearly 22 years to a library that has been named the #1 library in the country and is now an ALA 5 Star library. On April 3rd the doors will close on 12 (50%) of the branches in our system and 148 of our finest will no longer have jobs. This is a sad truth all over the US. In many cities as the tax revenues decrease and the cost of government operations increase, libraries suffer, security suffers, and education suffers.

In our digital age, libraries offer the sole means of closing digital divides between the haves and have nots. As employees become the unemployed the reliance on libraries as a means of learning computer skills, creating a resume, searching for jobs, applying for jobs, and in some cases finding a job.

I invite any who are able to support your local library. Lobby for your government to prepare for the future and if they are not already effected to plan to weather the storm of the current recession.

eMac upgrade update

2009-11-08T14:52:00.003-05:00

Well, 4 of the 5 eMacs are upgraded to Leopard. Yes, they run it just fine after a memory upgrade to 1GB. I also stocked one with Open Source Software to test out. I will be recruiting teens and youth to help out with testing and getting opinions as to what works and what doesn't. So far TuxPaint has been used a lot.

Apple and bundled software:
Leopard
iLife 09 - iMovie did not upgrade due to Video Card.
iWork 09 - Apple Office Suite
The old Panther build came bundled with a couple games that I left in place as they were very popular:
Nanosaur 2
Marble Blast Gold
I also allowed access to:
Dictionary, with profanity blocked
Chess
TextEdit
Caculator

I also kept PrintShop for a desktop publishing software.

Open Source installed:
For pre-teens:
Child's Play
TuxPaint
TuxMath
TuxType
For Teens:
Celestia
Stellarium
GIMP
Inkscape
Blender
KompoZer
Scratch
SketchUp

I am still trying to load Alice. I have it on my MacBook and it runs great. The website says that it will run on a PPC Mac but when I try to install it comes up as not recognized. I am still researching this but if any of my readers know what the problem might be let me know in comments, especially if you can help me resolve the issue.

Photo social bookmarks

2008-12-10T12:51:00.003-05:00

I'm not 100% sure why Digg or another social bookmarking site can't do this but I found this on iLibrarian and had to post a link to it. Basically the New York Times had an article about some sites that do for images what Digg and the rest do for websites. It's worth checking out.

My Dewey number

2008-12-04T14:47:00.003-05:00

Helene Blowers posted this from the CML Learn and Play program.

My name gives this and it really seems to fit me.

Mary Kyle's Dewey Decimal Section:

858 Italian miscellaneous writings

Mary Kyle = 31851525 = 318+515+25 = 858

Class:
800 Literature

Contains:
Literature, criticism, analysis of classic writing and mythology.

What it says about you:
You're a global, worldly person who wants to make a big impact with your actions. You have a lot to tell people and you're good at making unique observations about everyday experiences. You can notice and remember details that other people think aren't important.

Find your Dewey Decimal Section at Spacefem.com

This is the results from my birthday and again not a bad description:

Mary Kyle's Dewey Decimal Section:

671 Metalworking & primary metal products

Mary Kyle's birthday: 7/18/1953 = 718+1953 = 2671

Class:
600 Technology

Contains:
Health, agriculture, management, public relations, buildings.

What it says about you:
You are creative and inspired to make the world a better place. You can work hard on something when it catches your interest. Your friends have unique interests in common with you.

Find your Dewey Decimal Section at Spacefem.com

Lastly my 3 digit number choice:

Mary Kyle's Dewey Decimal Section:

927 (Optional number)

Class:
900 History & Geography

Contains:
Travel, biographies, ancient history, and histories of continents.

What it says about you:
You're connected to your past and value the things that have happened to you. You've had some conflicted times in your life, but they've brought you to where you are today and you don't ignore it.

Find your Dewey Decimal Section at Spacefem.com

I was truly surprised to find that all three seem to hit highlights that make up my personality, perhaps not all but some of the most obvious

I need a new marketing strategy

2008-12-03T10:15:00.002-05:00

Teens don't care about Open Source. I will be attempting my GIMP class again but am marketing it as just a photo editing class. Hopefully, that will draw in more people.

Avast me hearties!

2008-09-18T17:31:00.002-05:00

Talk Like a pirate day is here again.
I've been checking my name for this year and came up with 2.

vMary, your pirate name is
Seaman Grainne O'Malley the Green
What is YOUR pirate name?

PLCMC Tech Summit 2008

2008-08-17T14:13:00.002-05:00

It seems we had a great day this year.

This year I did a presentation on Open Source Software that could be used in Libraries for working with youth of all ages.

The presentation was posted to Slideshare.

It seemed to go very well and I look forward to more similar programs.

I am hoping to do a public presentation for parents and teens on Software Freedom Day, September 20th, which I will also post.

What is a Librarian, anyway?

2008-06-03T09:31:00.009-05:00

I have to say a few posts grabbed my attention recently. They began with comments by a fellow library staff member and member of ALA, who does not have an MLS, MLIS, or other library degree. Lori Reed wrote about Emerging Leaders in ALA. Lori is a Library Trainer at PLCMC and highly professional, however she lacks that critical MLIS or other library degree that the program requires.

I was pleased to see one of my favorite bloggers, LibrarianinBlack was supporting Lori and she pointed out other issues for people who are don't or can't travel. Neither however, mentioned the age factor. I realize ALA are assuming that to be an Emerging Leader you are just starting your career and recently out of Library school. But there are people who didn't go to library school until later in life. I once met a former State Librarian for Colorado who got his degree at 40, I think he was 60 or 70 when I met him. Despite his rapid rise through the ranks of Librarians he would not have qualified for ALA's Emerging Leaders Programs either since they also limit to under 35.

Lori has since added a second blog on the value to the organization of non-degreed staffers.

During our new employee orientation the following question is asked, “How many of you are librarians?” A handful of people will raise their hands. The rest will squirm in their seats waiting, wondering what’s coming next. “To our customers we are all librarians” is the next thing new staff hear.With that statement you see a smile emerge and tension melt away.

I definitely think she has a point. I've worked in libraries for 22 years and 20 of those years in one system in a variety of roles. In some cases I felt a definite segregation of "Professional" vs "Paraprofessional" staff. The thing is when you work in a small location with only one person with a library degree, there just isn't always a person on hand to be the librarian if you restrict the definition to only include people with the degree. Our customers don't in fact know the difference. 10 years of my work were at just such a location. I worked in every capacity, from periodicals clerk, storyteller, shelver, reference librarian, to Manager On Duty, and on occasion cleaning up vomit. I now work in a much larger facility with several degreed Librarians and am called on to serve as Manager On Duty about once a month. I am pleased to say I have seen much less of the attitude I saw when I began working in libraries. Now more are surprised to find I don't already have the degree.

I like what Liminal Librarian's has to say on this topic:

And yes, some will define "librarian" as simply someone who holds an MLS, but I think this is an oversimplification, given both the diversity of fields in which we work and the number of people who do the work and call themselves/have the title of librarian, without having earned the degree. Not to mention the fact that we lack standardization in library education and schools, so we come out with the same degree, having learned very different things.

My role in the Library has changed a lot over those years, due in part to the advancing role of technology in libraries. I am a bit of a geek and nerd at heart and embraced technology from an early age. I was playing with Fortran and Assembler languages in the early 70's, before the first desktop PC, so when our library system introduced public internet access stations in 1995, I soon found myself as the one who my coworkers came to for help with things computer. Later, when I felt it was time for a change, I moved entirely into technology and became a public technology trainer. I worked my way up from teaching Computer Basics and the occasional MS Office class until now teaching Animation, Image Editing (both Photoshop and GIMP), Dreamweaver, and was even called on as one of the first guest bloggers for Learning 2.1 by Helene Blowers. The point is at my age (currently 55 going on 30) I am in the unique position of being a technology resource to younger staff with Library degrees.

I probably won't bother getting a degree as I am nearing the end of my career but I'm proud of my 27 year old who will be starting at UNC-Ch this Fall working on a MSLS degree. I hope she has inherited my love of technology as she will be joining the ranks of Librarians in the digital age. I also hope she will value all staff she works with no matter what degrees they have or don't have.

Facebook and Facebook groups #60 and #61

2008-06-01T09:56:00.003-05:00

Since there really wasn't much for me to discover here, I will take Kjersti's post and add to it. I've had my Facebook account for a couple years and really like it, though I shy away from a lot of the apps that just are for fun like Kharma, cupcakes, Vampires, etc.

Probably the first item to show I use Facebook for Library related use is my friends. If you look at my Friends list, I currently have 55 friends. Five are related to me directly, 2 daughters, 1 unborn grandson, and 2 nieces. One is my Son-in-Law. One other is an old high school buddy. All the rest are in some way library related, either current PLCMC employees, former PLCMC employees, Learning 2.0 and 2.1 contacts, one I found through Facebook Groups, three friends were guest speakers at the library's Tech Summits, who I friended to see what they are up to in the library technology world.

I use Facebook as a launch site for a lot of the Web 2.0 resources I use a lot, such as:
Zoho Office
Twitter
Jaiku
Last.FM
Books iRead
Goodreads
Library Thing

I use these apps as a way to find new reads and sometimes for library purposes. I have to admit I keep up with Books iRead more than the others as I enjoy the Chuck this book capability. Jamie Christenbury and I chuck books we think the other might like and I've chucked a couple new titles at Kjersti by some of our mutual favorite authors, such as Mark Kurlansky and Robert Sullivan.

One use of Facebook was one brought to my attention by PLCMC's Chris Bates. He and I are both members of Metrolina Library Association and he used Facebook to ask me some questions for use in a presentation for Metrolina. I hadn't really thought of using it that way before. Since then I found an Irish Librarian looking for help with some research that our Carolina Room could provide and hooked her up with Jane Johnson. The original contact came from the Library 2.0 Interest Group in Facebook.

That leads me to the next use I've found for serious Library discussion on Facebook, Groups, here are the ones I've joined an found useful:

Library 2.0 Interest Group
Web 2.0 Tips and Hints
Libraries using Facebook Pages
Internet Librarian
FacebookAppsForLibraries
Libraians and Facebook
Web 2.0
Second Life Librarians

I'm sure there are others but these I have found useful to me. Of course, I also joined a couple Apple Groups too. Anyone who has followed this blog for a while will know I am a hardcore Apple fan, especially in the last 2 years since I bought my MacBook (I still have iPod Touch Lust, maybe someday I can afford one).

Next I plan to share my favorite Google Reader Library related feeds.

From LibrarianinBlack

2008-04-30T07:49:00.002-05:00

I am rapidly becoming a fan of this person's blog. Today when catching up on posts I found two exciting posts.

Alice a programming software to teach kids programming basics from Carnegie Mellon. I'm looking at it for youth classes next fall.

The second OpenLearning is a product from Open University in the UK offering free online training in a variety of subjects. Registration is free and easy. I can't wait to begin learning!

I can easily see that she will remain in my Google Reader to follow on a regular basis.

Tom Lehrer and Google

2008-04-21T17:36:00.003-05:00

I was happy to see that Google paid tribute to Tom Lehrer in their Official Blog this week. His 80th birthday is just past and I realize that the old vinyl disk we raised our daughters with is long gone. I wonder if any of his tunes are on iTunes?

It pleases me that the company that brings me such helpful items as Docs and Blogger also shares an appreciation of the same wit and intellect that I do. Perhaps I'm not such an old fogey after all.

Image Editing Online

2008-03-28T13:33:00.008-05:00

I've covered this topic before on another blog, Learning 2.1, but a new entry has joined the field of candidates and I think it deserves mention. I will also be giving an update to one I mentioned before.

First of all, I want to do the update. I mentioned Fauxto before as a great online image editor. They have changed names and can be found at Splashup This one is a really high-end image editor that gives Photoshop Elements a run for it's money, even offering layers and filters similar to Photoshop. Surprisingly they manage to offer a Photoshop like experience and look in a Flash based environment. I highly recommend checking it out.

In other news Adobe has finally launched Photoshop Express. It's offering for online image editing and storage of images. Express is no where near as powerful as Photoshop or even Photoshop Elements but it's a start. The biggest drawback however is the need to have the latest Flash player installed, not surprising from Adobe however. It has a clean interface that is easy to understand and use. Basic and some intermediate features are available but it is limited in scope.

I am glad to see this available but will stick with SplashUp and Picnik for online editing and GIMP for the serious stuff.

Re-organization

2008-03-24T11:36:00.003-05:00

The library system I work for in undergoing a major re-organization. A former leader in our library, Helene Blowers now in Ohio, posted the following blog post over the weekend and it seemed to me as very profound and appropriate to consider as we move forward.

LibraryBytes: Growing the Org Chart

Helene really hit a chord with me. I like the idea of likening an organization to a garden, perhaps inspired by Spring getting going but it made total sense to me. In her description the leaders are the "dirt" that fertilizes and supports the organization. If you continue that analogy, I as a front-line worker might be like the worker bees who pollinate the garden and help it be fruitful. I am there to facilitate the customer experience and help them accomplish their goals. I doubt it will make any major difference as I feel I have always striven to provide the best possible service. However, it may give me a new way of looking at how I provide that service and as a gardener, I enjoy the analogy.

Recovery and Ravelry

2008-03-03T12:04:00.005-05:00

it's been a while since I've posted. From November through January I spent most of my time learning Final Cut and preparing for foot surgery. On Jan 24th the surgery took place and I couldn't do anything for a couple weeks. During that time my oldest announced her impending wedding and, in anticipation of grandkids, I decided to check out Ravelry. I believe Jamie has already done something on this and this is my discovery posting on it.

Since she wrote about it Jamie and Lydia of IS at PLCMC, have set up a PLCMC group for our Stitch-Ins, Main, North County, and Mint Hill. We are still a small group of people but we can now see what books we all have, for sharing patterns, ideas, etc. You can see any user's projects and are able to set them to favorites easily to pick out your next project. Projects are tagged so you can search for a project type. They give you pretty good links to patterns and many free patterns with a place to save pdf's so you don't have to print them all out until you are ready to start the project. I really like the Queue where you can set up a set of projects you intend to start soon, I have 2 for yarns I found on sale recently. Moving to the projects is as easy as clicking "cast on". You can also keep up with your progress on the project. If you put it on the back burner set it to hibernating, and if you rip it out set it to frogged. You can also post photos of your work.

As a result I now know that the afghan, lovingly dubbed the "forever afghan," that I have been working on for 35 years was in hibernation, however, it is now finished thanks to 6 weeks of inactivity and the need for a wedding gift and no money.

Music downloading

2008-03-03T11:51:00.002-05:00

Thanks for this one Jennifer! I can't think how often our patrons ask for just this.

What I liked was that there is only downloading the music so the only limits in the library would be getting the computer to recognize the player or have a CD burner available if that is their choice. Of course not all the most popular songs will show up and I noticed that the first song listed was rated as explicit, so parents still might want to be aware when allowing their teens there to download.

Jott

2007-11-13T20:14:00.000-05:00

This was almost too easy! I had my account set up and the first Jott done within 5 minutes. That included verifying my email etc. I can really see the use for this when you are listening to the radio and want to "Jott" down a name, book title, or song title. Of course I recommend having some kind of hands free headset.

I personally prefer the wired head sets. I know everyone is going Bluetooth but there are some serious considerations when looking at Bluetooth.

Bluetooth makes a serious reduction in battery life for your phone, requiring more frequent recharging. I can go 3 days without chanrging. Bluetooth reduces battery life to 1/3.

Many bluetooth headsets are heavy and not particularly comfortable after only a short time wearing it.

Bluetooth is not (I repeat, NOT) a secure connection. Anyone may listen in so if you are discussing personal info , such as SS# or credit card info, you are taking a big risk of identity theft using bluetooth. Although it is possible tap into any cell call or any other phone for that matter, most cell phones allow encryption that will reduce the risk considerably. Using a bluetooth headset is about as secure as using a megaphone, it doesn't even take any special equipment to tap in.

Groups from Usenet

2007-10-05T19:59:00.001-05:00

Usenet was indeed the beginning. Groups aren't that new either I joined my first Yahoo! Group in 1999, New Nordic Folk. I could keep up with new music and find out about the next Nordic music festival in Minneapolis. I've been known to make pilgrimages so joining a group isn't far out of line for me. However, if you look at the Ning Networks and all the different groups there you can discover the next development of the idea of places to share ideas.

I admit that Virtual Worlds are likely to be the next step in this progression. Although I have had singularly bad luck with it, Second Life is the next step. Librarians are gathering on Info Island and sharing there. I just wish I could get past getting an avatar. For some reason they keep saying I already have a character on the island but I never got past the signup and I've even tried new emails that I created jsut for that. Grrr!!! Yes, even I can meet my technological barriers. I will beat it though just not tomight.

LiveMocha

2007-10-05T19:56:00.000-05:00

This has a lot of potential but is still a bit new. I did start learning German but I hope they continue to add new languages. I can't wait to begin Norwegian or Swedish. I suspect my daughter would enjoy the chance to keep up her Norwegian and Finnish too. Of course they are still in Beta but I hope they keep going.

Animoto

2007-09-23T12:35:00.001-05:00

Not bad but I wish there was greater control of the animation. Also I had trouble with uploading my music. Additionally, it took a long time, 15 minutes, to render the video. Still I am not totally displeased with the results.

Retroland

2007-09-23T12:17:00.000-05:00

I can see a real audience for this one also, provided the user is into lots of popular music, movies, foods, tv, places, toys, fashions, or arcade games, all the topics offered. I didn't find anything of interest since I am compulsively into the non-popular. I know there are groups for me just not here. Of course, being one of the least sentimental people I know I rarely like to think about "good old days" besides for me they were anything but good. Anyway I couldn't do much here since I found myself back in the outcast era of my life. I would recommend this to someone trying to meet others who do have fond memories of "good old days."

Social Networking: Age and Apps

2007-09-20T16:35:00.000-05:00

In light of the recent NYT article on social networking sites for an older generation, I thought I would make a first appearance discussing Facebook.* As Paul Kedrosky says, teens might be tire kickers, but in my experience they move because there is an improvement from, say, Friendster to Facebook. I never used Friendster, and I have a fundamental dislike of Myspace. I think Myspace is ugly and the embedded music annoys me. If the music was optional - something that the visitor turned on rather than being required to turn off - I would feel more positively about it. My point, rather, is to discuss the plethora of new applications that Facebook has gained this year.

Facebook originally appealed because it was a college student exclusive. No little brothers and no mums were going to see what you were saying to your friends. All that has changed as Facebook opened to the general public, with no small amount of protest and a stepping up of personal information security. So why are people still using Facebook, now that their employers can check out whether their profile is displaying unprofessional behavior? Well, online scrabble can't be the only reason, but for my part it is certainly getting me to sign in to the site a lot more. It must be true for a number of other users as well, as the Scrabbulous developers have had to make a number of upgrades and server moves to keep the application running smoothly. Poking has been upgraded through news apps that allow users to do whatever action they wish to their friends, and applications now exist for sharing huge lists of one's favorite music, movies, and books. There are at least three applications for sharing the contents of one's book shelves and reading lists with space for users to write reviews, explore the books of users with similar tastes even if they are not friends, and one even taps into Amazon enough to give recommendations of other books one might enjoy.

A small complaint: all of the apps tap into Amazon.com, while I would just as soon have a quick and easy link to see if my local library has a book that I am interested in reading. Now that would be libraries moving in a new direction to serve the public.

A glaring problem: there are three different book applications that I know about. Some of my friends use iBook, others Visual Bookshelf, and still others the Books app, so if I want to see what all my friends are reading I have to use all three applications. It isn't a problem limited to books, and Facebook doesn't regulate the apps to assure that there are not multiple applications serving the same function. Despite this aggravation, Facebook has still made an important step in opening up application creation to so many minds. Users have a direct link to developers through application wall posts to request new functions or report bugs, making Facebook far more responsive to user desires. In effect, Facebook doesn't have to do all the work to allow the application to adapt and mature with its users, with the potential to cross the generational gaps as well as the international borders that it already dances over.

The best thing: Facebook has added its own new applications that allow users to post music and video to their profiles. These sound and video files are activated by the visitor and not auto-run. Despite fears by may users before Facebook opened to the general public, it hasn't become Myspace.

*Reflink: LibraryCrunch

Thing 33: Expressing myself

2007-08-11T12:26:00.000-05:00

It's not often I can create some art that I can appreciate. I frequently tell people "I am artistically challenged", or "I married an artist since I am not one". I will say that the Stringspin was fun I created 2 masterpieces, one with each version:

Anyway I still am behind 2 more Things so I must keep going.

Getting back on track

2007-08-11T11:55:00.000-05:00

This summer has been incredibly complicated. One staffer is a new father, another has been in high demand as a conference speaker, and yet another is on a Technology Scholarship. Add to that mix, 2 week long summer camps for kids with the attendant planning required. A collection of animations to edit together as a video for the lobby Plasma Screen. But it doesn't end there, I was also active in the Harry Potter and Jim Dale event planning and those ended up being major projects too. To say the least I've barely had time to think much less keep up with the Learning 2.1 activities. I plan to work on those as soon as the Animation video is finished.

However, I would like to take this opportunity to state that some of the blogs here may not be mine. I have added my daughter, Kjersti, as a guest blogger here. Kjersti had a blog she kept last year Curry Potatoes. She was dong a year of study abroad in Bø, Norway. It was an experience of a lifetime as her blog shows. Kjersti plans to go for an MLS now that she has finished her undergrad work and that's why she will be contributing to my blog. If all goes well she may be starting her own Learning 2.1 blog. She has applied for several PLCMC positions and finally has an interview coming up next week.

Photobucket and Meez

2007-06-20T06:45:00.001-05:00

Now here is where I think Photobucket shines. The Avatars are fun! Though I did get frustrated that not everything is free. This is a mashup of Photobucket and Meez avatars. Since I was using it through Photobucket I didn't even have to sign up with Meez, how slick can it be?

I chose to dress in what I would wear were I a 20 something, cropped cargo pants, boots. I do wish I could have found the hair in other colors, like green or bright red. The animation is Global Warming and since it's summer and we barely had a winter this year, I'm feeling the heat, though that might just be that I'm in my 50's but still think young.

Still I managed to get this not only posted to Photobucket but it adds to your blog easily too! My only comment is that you have to go into the blog to add the text as an edit. Other services just give you the code and you paste to the blog. See the ToonDoo post a bit back. There I could chose between a straight post and a flash file, I used the flash so moving your mouse pointer over the comic will scroll dynamically.

YourMinis

2007-06-19T20:01:00.001-05:00

I like a clean desktop, so I'm not a big one for adding widgets to my desktop but I can also add a few to my blog so that's the way I went. For those primarily using shared staff PC's this will be a good solution to doing this Thing. There are a few more steps but they help you with getting them code copied. Just add another element to the page and there you are. If you've added Technorati, or an RSS feed you already know how to do it.

SketchUp

2007-05-29T17:52:00.000-05:00

While researching for a program on other Google products I discovered a 3D modeling software called SketchUp. Now at first it seemed rather intimidating but I think I finally have it figured out. Here's a model of my dream kitchen for my house. Working in a facility with kids and teens we are always looking to new ways to stimulate kids and give them new opportunities to stimulate development. I am pleased with this progress. Since I am using the free version there are limits to what I can do with it. I can post it to 3D warehouse and Google Earth both of which I plan to do since it's part of the experience. The nicest part of this is that it's a free software so the library can definitely afford to offer it. The main limitation is having someone to support it, thus my trying to learn it.

So what do I work on next? Well, there are still some rather high end software out there, enter Blender, a 3D Modeling and Animation software. Now if I felt intimidated by SketchUp I was really a wimp. Blender is COMPLICATED, there are a ton of buttons and controls and many are toggle buttons. Learning the interface is a major step according to the tutorials I found. But surprisingly the whole software is only about 20 MB and again it's free. I do hear that once you get going it makes much more sense so I do have hopes, especially since I managed to build a sphere with little trouble, that was very hard in SketchUp. Getting the sphere transparent and overlapping another might not be so easy but we'll see.

Visitors are up

2007-05-27T20:01:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm playing around with having a Frappr Map vs Clustrmap. Personally, I like the Clustr as it has a cleaner look on the page but Frappr has some fun features like visitors can add their picture and a comment along with a pin to the map. However, the best info I get from Stat Counter. I put this on last fall and I'm getting some really interesting data from it. First of all I've had a significant increase in visits from the Blogger Navbar. Also from Technorati and Del.icio.us. I also am getting lots of attention from the PBWiki for Learning 2.1 but perhaps that's because only 2 other people have added their blog there.

I am disappointed that few people are coming from the Ning network, ExplorediscoverPlay, that Jamie set up for Learning 2.1. After all that has gotten several members and since it started and people are using the chatterwalls and generally having fun there. Then again they may be having so much fun in the Network they aren't going to the blogs. The PBWiki has been pretty quiet so anyone going there is going to follow what ever leads they can get.

ToonDoo Comic Strip Maker

2007-05-27T19:09:00.000-05:00

It's Sunday and we walked the gauntlet of people anxious to get into the building trying to get into work. I have to give one of my coworkers, Russ Reed, credit for finding this.

There are some other Comic Strip Generators though:
Comeeko
Stripgenerator
Comic Strip Generator
Read Write Think - geared to kids
Stripcreator
Make Beliefs Comix - another specially for kids

Check them out!

Thank you Zamzar!

2007-05-27T13:27:00.000-05:00

I had discovered this from another source and I love it! It solved an issue I had with getting submissions to an animation this summer. Just have the kids post to YouTube and I can convert them to avi's for including in the final video for the Plazma in the lobby and in the August Film Festival! I just tested and the animations from 3D Choreographer loaded great but the CoreFx still presents a problem. We may need to set aside some floppies for those captures.

If they don't have internet access Staff will still need to assist with posting. The idea here is to minimize the need for staff intervention.

Temporary Page Element

2007-05-25T09:46:00.000-05:00

Okay it's just temporary but I am very excited that my daughter will be returning from Norway in a week. So for the next week, I have a countdown counter in the upper right corner of the blog. So I can see exactly how long before she arrives!

Apple news

2007-05-16T12:27:00.000-05:00

Apple has gotten a lot of news this year with the announcement of the forthcoming iPhone. But they have a lot more going on despite the delays to Leopard.

There is a new Mac Pro (well about a month ago) with 2 quad core processors! This week they upgraded to MacBook but it's not a drastic change, now I have the bottom line laptop instead of an upgrade. They are also getting ready to release a new version of Final Cut Studio. I actually had guessed that was coming but when the Quad Core was announced I figured I had missed. But the new Final Cut comes out May 31! My prediction meter is going up, I personally give credit for that to all the pods I listen to on the bus with the mp3 player from Learning 2.0 last fall.

Apple is finally taking off DRM

2007-04-06T05:42:00.000-05:00

That's right they are finally doing something not just issuing calls to remove DRM. They announced Monday a deal with EMI music to put the entire catalog on iTunes DRM free. There is a catch, it costs $.30 more but you get twice the bit rate so I think it's worth it especially for classical the tends to loose a bit at the 128kbps rate. I even have my first purchase picked out. EMI has a big catalog but one part is a big Classical collection. They are the only label that has Alison Balsom, a phenomenal trumpeter. I hadn't gotten any of the tunes from iTunes with her as the nuances of her music would get lost in the downloadable version. The new version is CD quality so every little nuance will be there to enjoy. So I'll be checking every week until they get posted and once they are I buy it. i think it's important to show the music companies that this will work. That people will buy music legally if what they want is available when they want it. They don't want such restrictions.

I have not purchased audiobooks from iTunes as I can get them cheaper from Audible and don't have to have an iPod so audiobooks are strictly a Windows thing for me. That's why I did the compromise and loaded the Windows partition. Sometmes I wish I had just gotten the ipod. A refurbished shuffle is available for only $49 so it would have been cheaper than a copy of Windows but my player was free and Jan's was only $30 last year and we have them already. Besides where else was I going to test Office 2007? I do have to admit I generally use Open Office instead though. I just prefer Mac OS.

NING has a community for Library 2.0!

2007-03-31T15:19:00.000-05:00

Since Social Networking is so much a part of Web 2.0 I decided to take a look at this company that provided software for creating social networks. The cool part is it's free!

In searching through the networks there I stumbled on one dedicated to Library 2.0. I found a reference to the Wired article on our Learning 2.0 project and how it is taking the world by storm. No wonder Helene was named a Mover and Shaker this year.

Next I found a link to a blog called Other Librarian and an article on non-tech Library 2.0 things you can do. Since not all staff are naturally tech savvy, I thought these might be interesting ways to approach Library 2.0 for some of our staff.

But to help bring people up to speed, what about creating online courses with Moodle, an open source e-learning software? I hadn't heard of it but it seems someone has developed Sloodle, a mashup of Moodle and Second Life. How virtual can we get!

Okay, I'm running out of time today so I'll explore more tomorrow.

Daylight Savings is a rip-off!

2007-03-12T07:47:00.000-05:00

You know Daylight savings only works if you sleep late. If you are one of the people who gets up early because of having to be at work early (my husband) or just does it because you like to do stuff before going to work, there is no savings, you just get up that much before the sun comes up. I just checked and since I get up at 5 a.m., I save - - nothing and never did! What I get is to have reduced sleep all summer because I have a harder time getting to sleep with the sun is still up or has just set. If I get up at 5:30 I would save a measly 19 hours and at 6 only 79 under either daylight savings scheme, to gain from the new system I have to get up at 6:30 and then I only save 2 hours more! Does anyone really think 2 hours of daylight will make a speck of difference? What I've lost is an hour of sleep everyday it exists. My husband has to be at work at 7 and has a half hour drive so we get up at 5 to shower, eat, make the bed, and update his podcasts before he has to be on the road (in the dark I might add at 6:30 now).

Chronic late sleepers will figure out how to adjust their work schedule to allow them to not gain anyway. So really it's all a waste of time and energy. So if you are a late sleeper who gets up at the last minute to squeak into work at 8 or 9 then yes the time change will force you to save some daylight. But for the rest we just lose sleep.

If you are interesting in finding out is you actually do save anything in this check out this website. You will need your latitude and longitude and what the difference is between you and UTC is:
http://www.frictionlessmedia.com/DaylightSavings.htm

DRM blues

2007-03-09T07:18:00.000-05:00

Steve Jobs has added his voice to the "get rid of DRM" crowd. Of course, lots of people are pointing out that he's holding out with an all or nothing stand. There are plenty of small labels that want their music DRM free.

We deal with this issue all the time with NetLibrary and OverDrive. Both of these are shackled to Windows Media DRM 2.0. Those files won't play on Mac OS or iPods. and just to keep things annoying, Microsoft opened their new store exclusively for their new Zune player. Guess what files from the Zune store won't play on Creative, iRivier, or SanDisk. They might manage NetLibrary and OverDrive but not Zune.

Actually there are quite a few music stores that don't work with many portable players. Some are for streaming only, though at least most of those are free. It's facinating that the iPod has such a large market share but it can only accept DRM-Free MP3's, ripped from CD, and iTunes Music. According to the Steve Jobs letter mentioned earlier 90% of the content on iPods comes from ripped Cd's. If you don't already know, ripped music is music that has been converted to MP3 some other digital format froma CD. Record Labels really don't like to hear this and have threatened to put DRM on CD's so If you plan to use the music on a portable you have to buy another copy for the portable device. What this will mean is that if you have an iPod, your son has a Sandisk MP3, your daughter has a CD player, and your husband has a PocketPC, you might have to buy 4 copies of the music for each player. Actually the son and husband might be able to share but not anyone else. What is the standard today is to get the CD, make a copy for the daughter to use and rip it to mp3 for everyone else. Then the CD may just sit on the shelf somewhere. Now the copy under current law is legal, that is considered FairUse. though multiple copies wouldn't be. Ripping to MP3 is a bit questionable and Windows Media Player is now applying DRM in that process so you can't share the MP3 with many players, I'm not sure of the limit but I think it's 5. Each time you move the file you must connect to the web to get the license for the new player. So far I don't think iTunes does that but it could be just a matter of time.

Although, I agree that all this would be simpler with only one DRM scheme, I suspect the record labels love it. They now have an excuse to make people buy multiple copies of music for each player they own. I suspect they would love tying even CD's to just one player. So if you and your whole family love a particular CD, you can't share it unless you trade CD players too.

New Mashups

2007-02-27T06:55:00.000-05:00

Yahoo Pipes - a mashup variation on an RSS Feed aggrigator. Put together your own Feed and set up filters to remove the stuff you don't want.

Doggdot.us - this one is a mashup of Digg, Slashdot, and Del.icio.us. For those of you who like those guys someone has them together in one place.

Hmmm, rumors

2007-02-14T16:45:00.000-05:00

I've run across several podcasts, blogs and other resources talking about Google's newest MS Office wannabe, Presently. But in searching Google all I find is other people talking about it, Google is absolutely mum, so I'm beginning to think this one is just rumor. First of all, I wonder why Google would call this one Presently when they call the former Writely just plain Docs. For Presently to make sense Writely should have kept it's name and Spreadsheets should have been Excellently, Additionally, or Summarily perhaps?

I have used Spreadsheets and Docs and like them both somewhat but neither is quite an Office killer. I really can't see a corporation using them when almost any corp has Office and major co

Microsoft Office 2007

2007-02-07T09:34:00.000-05:00

Okay, I have it, they gave full licenses to attendees of the Launch event in January at the Convention Center. You download the demo but the license you got at the event removes the restrictions and time limits, woohoo. I was rather surprised at the download rate since I was doing it through the WiFi at ImaginOn, on a weekend when we were full of MySpace and YouTube users.

All I can say is, forget everything you know about Office! Or at least where all the tools are. They did away with the Menu and made it all tabs with bigger icons for the tools. No, you don't lose screen real estate as instead of the Menu Bar you now have a group a tabs and each tab has it's own set of tools. They also changed a few shortcuts so be prepared there too. For long time Office users there will be a delay while relearning but from what I can see it seems to be more intuitive. So new users may find they are learning faster and can get more done. Sigh, I'm teaching Office 2003 this month to Home Schooled children and am having to really work at keeping from using 2007 from my laptop instead of 2003 like they will have on their computers.

I feel sorry for all the Technology teachers who are still catching up on the 2000 to XP to 2003 upgrades.

The only other comment I can make right now is they are continuing the trend to have most of the clipart and templates available online only. In fact I'm not sure they have as many as the minimal clipart in the compact load of Office 95 (you only got about 40 but files were available for another 400). Of course, this might just be since I got it free for attending the event and didn't buy the discs. But I haven't done that since Office 97. My husband is pretty tolerant of my interest in keeping up with computers but I do have to set a spending limit and the MacBook blew the whole budget for a while.

Google news

2007-02-07T09:25:00.000-05:00

First you'll never guess the most popular Google Search term. It's

Yahoo!

Yep people are going to one search giant to find the other.

Google is also putting more pressure on Microsoft with another addition to Docs (formerly Writely) and Spreadsheets. So far this one is only getting mention in Google's blog and some blogs and podcasts that follow it. I got this from CNet's Buzz Out Loud podcast. At present, (pardon the pun) it's called

Presentation

Okay, I don't think it's original either but what can I say. I checked and it's not in Google Labs yet but I promise to try it once it is available. Google is rapidly becoming one of my favorite one stop web spots.

Upgrades, arrgh!

2007-02-07T08:00:00.000-05:00

I'm back after a hiatus to catch up on other areas of my life, including a 3 week visit over Christmas from our daughter who is spending a year in Norway.
This brings Skype to mind. This is a rapidly evolving company. Around Christmas they had an upgrade to version 2. It introduced video calls! I had expected loss of quality and was happy that the audio is just as good even if I did add video to the mix. I will admit the video is rather jumpy and low resolution but hey it's free and let's us talk for hours about a third of the way around the earth! The important part is that the voice is as good or better than a land based phone across town. Adding the video is not quite the same as being with her but it's sure close. Now for the arrgh. They just released version 3! This one allows desktop sharing, a shared whiteboard, conference calls, and a ton of mashups and widgets from the web, they are also offering some Web 2.0 services of their own to compete with other services out there like Picasa, Flickr, etc. From what I can tell this is rapidly becoming a Web 2.0/3.0 product. I have to admit that many of the new products only work on Windows so I'm safe from them but can anyone keep up here?

Of course as hard as it is to keep up with Skype, last night I discovered that there is no keeping up with Flash. Several kids regularly go to Disney.com to play online games at ImaginOn. This is a very popular site for younger kids but last night it was no go at the library. Disney has bought into the latest version of Flash and we are a version behind. I put in a Help Desk Ticket about it and it seems we had been running Flash 7 up until very recently when we were upgraded to 8. I guess Disney skipped right over 8 and went straight to 9 because they won't let you do anything on their site without upgrading to 9. All you can do is click on the download the upgrade link. Poor IT, when a high demand online service does this, we are forced to ask to respond.

24th Thing

2006-11-28T14:05:00.000-05:00

Image Generators and Bloglines seem to be favorites today. However, Chris B had a great idea for using Del.icio.us for Library Reference Desk. However, everyone really enjoyed the whole experience and had unique ways to use them.

It really is all about the E's, but Web 2.0 brings in C's too.

Audiobooks complaints

2006-10-30T08:52:00.000-05:00

These aren't my complaints but ones staff seem to get a lot from the public.

Don't play on iPods - True they don't and iPod users have the bulk of the market for mp3 players (about 50-60%. In fact I have looked at a lot of similar services and so far I have only seen a few that would work on iPods and they quit offering the service to libraries. Now the books are only for purchase by the public. At present only Overdrive and NetLibrary offer services for free borrowing from libraries and they are exclusively Windows Media DRM. iPods to have the biggest martket share of players but books are not easy to get onto the players. A greater time commitment is required, unless you are willing to buy all the audiobooks you listen to. The best options for these people are iTunes and Audible as sources for books. Both are going to charge fro every book downloaded. I think Audible can be cheaper in the long run through their subscription plans.

Can't download using a Mac - Again a valid complaint but not a big issue. Apple computers are still less than 10% of the computers out there. If the user has a newer Intel mac, they can run Windows either through Parallels or in another partition on the Mac. but this is really turning the Mac into any other PC. Older macs can try using Windows Virtual Machine if they can find a copy, but it never ran that well and might not help.

SanDisk Digital Audio Player

2006-10-16T10:08:00.000-05:00

I got my mp3 player last Friday and since I've used them for the last several years I figured I'd post a review here.

I've read the cNet reviews and wasn't expecting much but I'm frankly a bit impressed. First I'll mention the major points from cNet and then give you my take.

cNet Review comments-
Sound isn't good - improved on version 2 player

No speed control in version 2

Menus hard to navigate

Books don't play in correct order

No line-in recording

Did I mention they didn't like the sound quality?

Okay, here's my perspective.

First of all I suspect if I was willing to try the earbuds that came with it I might agree with cNet but the earphones that are comfortable to me give great sound with it. I have yet to find mp3 player earphones that I can wear for more than 10 minutes so I'm afraid I can't bring myself to try them. However, I have used my favorite earphones and I've listened to music, FM, and audiobooks on it. I tried the player with mid-priced computer speakers and they sound as good as a decent stereo. So scratch the Sound Quality complaint.

The FM tuner is surprisingly good. My house is noted for bad reception and I even drew in WDAV from Davidson with no problem and believe me Classical Music is a good test. If it sounds good anything will.

I guess someone might miss the speed control given the comments about that feature in Overdrive Console but I've never had an mp3 player with that feature so I don't see it as a complaint big either.

I had no problem with the menus. I didn't even look in the book Helene gave me.

I loaded some music and books from 3 sources. NetLibrary, Audible, and OverDrive using the link Frank sent us. Everything seems to be playing in order but I do have the random play feature turned off. In fact it came with it turned off, I did turn it on briefly just to see if it worked and it turned off again just fine. Personally, since that one came from user comments I suspect they didn't even know they had it turned on. NetLibrary gives all books as a single file so order of play isn't an issue but it could be with OverDrive that breaks all books into one hour episodes. The player kept the book in order so that wouldn't be a concern if you only used the player to listen to books. But the file name is long and the part number is at the end. When navigating through the files you can't read the whole file name. It's good that the player keeps them in order for you. I did rename the files so I could easily see what part I was on so I could go listen to some music or radio and go back to the right section with less guesswork. I also keep each book in it's own folder to prevent mixups.

Not many players do have line-in recording. Though it is on the Creative Zen Nano Plus but not often. Unless you have a lot of cassettes of phono recordings you want to convert to mp3, I can't see much use for it anyway.

My final take, I give it a 9.5 out of 10 and am very happy. I wish I could find another for my husband.

My only real disappointment was that it also loses it's place when the battery runs out, stress on "also." This is a complaint I have with the other players I have. The good news is this one has a screen with a battery charge level so I can change it just before it runs out. It did keep it's place while I did a change with the player off.

Tracking the blog

2006-09-29T06:40:00.000-05:00

I added a Statistics Counter from StatCounter last Friday. I had no idea how many people were finding my blog! I was playing with StatCounter today and discovered they have a cool mashup with Google Maps on there so you get a map of where your hits are on a world map. I had a hit from Thailand, India, and Spain! Also New York, Michigan, California and lots of other places along the east coast of the US. I just added a blocking cookie to my browser that keeps my visits from being counted and confusing the counts. Of course, I have to do it on the PC's I use at work too but the hard part is remembering to do it. I feel a bit slow not doing this right way. I knew I have readers as I have some comments. Helene I know has viewed it a few times, so did Jamie and some other PLCMC staffers. But now I know not only how many but where they are and what brought them to me. I was pleased to see several from del.icio.us and technorati, but also a few from search engines I hadn't heard of.

Continuation

2006-09-28T08:15:00.000-05:00

Since I already have the blog going I'm going to keep track of it. No I won't check stats several times a day but I will add anthing new I stumble upon and thoughts on those discoveries.

Last week I realized that I had no way of knowing how often people visit this blog (should have used Wordpress) so I set up with StatCounter and added the code so I could check it. It was rather surprising. I just put it in on friday and by this morning I had gotten 50 loads. I admit about 8-12 were me with viewing after publishing a new post. They give a lot of information including where the link came from. Not surprisingly several were from plcmcl2 but a few were from del.icio.us and technorati and there were a few that really surprised me that had nothing to do with Learning 2.0.

Surprisingly, my daughter complained that she didn't think anyone other than myself and a former teacher were reading her blog since we are the only ones to comment. I hope she tries out the suggestions I made. Anyway I'm using what we did here in so many ways it's almost silly.

Thing 23

2006-09-26T09:17:00.000-05:00

Wow, this is the end but I for one will continue with these tools.

Well, it's been a busy journey but since I'm on the Emerging Tech and Tech Talk Teams I think I need to finish before some of the rest. I did enjoy the exercises and was very thrilled to see my motivational poster hit Tame the Web. I've found some new tools for my box, explored others in new ways. I feel I also picked up ideas for my Systemwide Strategic Planning Team.

Given all that I really feel that this has been very useful. Yeah, a bigger player will be great to have and a chance at the Laptop would be fine (it would be used mostly for work, I promise). But that didn't really effect my thoughts here since I can see some great ideas for marketing the library with YouTube (ex. our Studio I submissions). This couldn't have been done at a better time despite how busy we all are with the SSP teams etc. The thing is I see both as going hand-in-hand. What better way go with Strategic Planning than to explore some of the technologies that could allow us to move forward into the 21st Century! I see this as a kind of brainstorming for the teams. Technology is moving to Web 2.0 whether we are ready or not, and a basic part of Strategic planning is exploring the technologies that will embrace it. One of the main points of Library 2.0 is meeting our customers where they live and that is very much in the Web 2.0 World. It's time we move forward into this world and use it along side the technologies we already have. Let them support and expland each other.

Finally, I suspect the incentives got more than a few motivated but for me I hope PLCMC also wins greater "buy-in" (to quote Lydia and Martin) by staff to these new resources and tools.

Web 2.0 sites

2006-09-26T08:05:00.000-05:00

Well, this was a tough one since we have used so many of the sites listed. However, I couldn't resist the offer to explore Threadless since I joined threadless earlier this month. My daughter introduced me to them and I personally think her wearing her Be Green T-shirt into ImaginOn is why we did so well on the Leeds Certification.

This is just a part of the great graphic but it is also a link to the page for this shirt that is sadly on the out of stock page. I also like many others but sadly since they aren't really library apporved apparel I can't wear many to work.

On a related not, I was perusing the Genuine Scooter Co page today and found this great photo. Genuine and Threadless are only a couple blocks from each other in Chicago. Since my husband rides a white Stella to save gas, they get 90 mpg, it was only natural for me to love this bike. I just might have to get him to put one of the stickers I got with our T-shirts on his bike windscreen or helmet. On weekends when I work you might see his bike in front of ImaginOn if he joins me for lunch. Maybe I'll get him to give me a ride someday once he takes his driving test and can take passengers.

I also played a bit with Wayfaring and had fun making my own map. I included the major locations I worked at with PLCMC over the past 18 years and counting. I also included a few of my favorite stores, including where we adopted our lovely Stella.

video and audio searchng

2006-09-22T17:30:00.000-05:00

I tried several searches for videos, Blinkx and Singingfish, as well as Google and Yahoo. I couldn't locate one of the great Studio i producations posted on YouTube, sigh. I did find a post of the opening day celebrations for ImaginOn from ChooseCharlotte on the Google search pages. I never saw any of the outside events that day since I was stuck inside manning StudioI and Tech Cental, so cool.

Since the ImaginOn Studio I productions didn't come up on the searches I tried here they are:

If you like Troy Story go to YouTube and Rate It.

Next I tried a couple podcast search engines and finally found Podzinger. On it I found the Talking With Talis series and one other I had not seen before but by and large I don't think many library sites are doing Podcasting. It would be a fun way to do booktalks. Perhaps PLCMC should start one.

YouTube

2006-09-22T16:25:00.000-05:00

I've also been enjoying the YouTube entries from ImaginOn such as the Peeps take Over the World trailer and the award winning Troy Story by the Rust Sisters. I also played there listening to one of my favorite Finnish bands who recently got popular as a soundtrack for YouTube animations, though some I wouldn't view at work so I won't link it. Actually one of my favorite YouTubes was the Human Space invaders.

The day Steve Irwin died CNN posted several articles about him, one more reason to not have a TV. Who needs it, between Netflicks and YouTube I can get it all!

However, I am anxiously awaiting the posting of the full movie of Peeps. Hint to Julie and Glenn.

I am slowly getting used to NetFlix and would be interested in what other people at PLCMC watch from there. I noticed they have a means of inviting friends but I don't know the emails other people I know are using, so if you use NetFlix and wish to share your recommendations and reviews, add me as a friend, my email for them is: mkyle_42@yahoo.com. I do think they have a bit to learn about social networking from other Web 2.0 sites.

PBWiki Central

2006-09-22T16:05:00.000-05:00

It's neat to see what other people like but how did our staff get over 1 million cats and over 2 million dogs? I did add my 2 cats though.

I've played on Wiki's before and use several that are serving as forums for Open Source Software projects I've been tracking. Personally I think they make better resources than the old listserves or bulletin boards. They allow greater organization. I also use Wikipedia fairly often and get lots of good info from it. I also know that they can be locked down some so the absolute openness of something like Wikipedia really isn't that big a problem. I see a lot of additions to the various favorites and I think a lot of our staff are ready to take the next step of collaboration on a Wiki to share programs, ready reference information, and other staff related ideas.

Wiki, Wiki, Travels

2006-09-22T12:00:00.000-05:00

Here's were I think we are missing out. For any of you who visited the Bull Run Wiki, they have a welcome right on the page for those of use participating in PLCMC's 23 Things. It was cool, but I can see lots of great uses for Wiki's in Libraries.

Limited to library staff they can offer and open collaboration between staff for sharing ideas and concerns. Perhaps not replacing our Intranet but building on it and opening it to all staff sharing ideas, knowledge, and resources. Don't get me wrong, I was early on a member of the Intranet Team participating in it's evolving into PLCMC Central. I feel it has a well established place in our toolbox but we also need open collaboration between staff of all levels to keep that ball rolling. Imagine a ready reference Wiki to for all staff to share where to find what in Charlotte and online? A program ideas Wiki for staff to share their successful and perhaps not so successful programs. Perhaps that program that flopped at one branch would be a major hit at another.

But why stop there? A Wiki can make a powerful tool for marketing our bookclubs and the sharing of ideas by our public as well, such as the Book Lovers Wiki from Princeton Public Library.

Really the possilbilities are endless.

Library 2.0 Perspectives

2006-09-22T11:14:00.000-05:00

I read all 5 perspectives but found the next one in line "The Ripple Effect" really informative. It was on a much smaller scale reading about the services they have in place and are putting in place was truely astounding.

Additionally the more I read the more I felt the current SSP teams are really the best place to launch Library 2.0 ideas and technologies. I can see this as a major change in how we do business. It seems to meet our goals for a Balanced Scorecard we do need to embrace the new trends and reach out to our customers where they live, work, and play.

Technorati blog searches

2006-09-22T10:12:00.000-05:00

Well, the biggest limit I see here is that the blog writer needs to claim the blog on Technorati. I tried adding my daughter's to my favorites and it shows up but I can't use Technorati to go to it. Instead I get told the blog has not been claimed and thus can't be found. However, I was able to find several fellow staff through searching for PLCMCL2 and liked that. I find the biggest help are the widgets that can be added to my blog allowing other people to search my blog.

Just finished looking at Digg and found an interesting insight on the the rise in blogging. Martin Neumann's Blog Columnist. To a degree I suspect there are a lot of blogs of no consequence and he does make the point that we need to get out and enjoy the world we live in and not let blogging rule our lives. I think I'll go to bed early now.

Tagging Delicious

2006-09-22T09:42:00.000-05:00

We are using a lot of resources that use tags. You can tag your photos in Flickr, tag blogs in your favorites in Technorati, tag bookmarks in Del.icio.us, tag your posts in blogger or most other blogging sites, tag your search roll in Rollyo, tags are also used in LibraryThing and this is where I find them most useful. When I enter and tag my books, I can follow these tags to related books I might like. I can also follow tags other users have for the same books to find yet more. The same principle is how tags in Del.icio.us help. Mostly, I had fun following the tags but I can see that entirely too much time could be spent here. I found that it didn't always narrow the search but instead opened it. I have a pretty useful search style and have fairly good success with it and will keep using it, but in some cases it does help to use tags. In my case I like to use LibraryThing's tags for finding related books to the ones I read.

My own Rollyo

2006-09-19T10:32:00.000-05:00

I can't figure out what's going wrong with adding Rollyo Searching on my webpage so I am doing a direct link on my other Blog, Computer Notes. It was appropriate there since the Roll was built from the Mac Search Roll already public on Rollyo with a few additions of my own. Anyway you'll find the link in the top left.

Rollyo searches and Library Thing

2006-09-04T14:49:00.000-05:00

This is fun, I haven't actually made my own but using rollyo to limit to a few websites likely to have what you want is pretty neat. I found "Ask Mr. Fix-it" and decided to see what I could find out about Shellac there, we have a 1942 house we are restoring and my husband was wondering just what it is. Wow, all we ever wanted to know and then some.

Another good roll was "Mac Search". I set up my account and plan to play a bit now.

I also have a few of my too numerous to count collection of books on Library Thing. It's hard to believe we got rid of 2 boxes of books last year. I think I'll start lining all the outside walls with bookshelves, it's "bound" to increase the insulation. Of course we nearly always have several on the bedside table and nearly all are nonfiction! I did use a Library Thing Widget to post my current reading on my blog. Hmm, wonder if there is a site like this for movies, that would be fun. If anyone has found one let me know! I remember reading about one but can't remember the name. I know Amazon and NetFlix will help me find other similar books and movies but I rather like using Library Thing.

Wow, I can import my bookmarks, yeah, now that's helpful. I have a whole range of bookmarks and here's where I can upload them. If you could download them again it would make a good way to back them up. Haven't found that yet though.

NetLibrary and other Audiobook sources

2006-08-31T18:58:00.000-05:00

I feel like I'm cheating here, I teach the NetLibrary tech talk and have already used Overdrive. I will say a few things about NetLibrary, though.

First, it is getting better. They did a recent face lift and seem to have upgraded the server too, as I noticed the downloads are a lot faster. Of course the files are still rather big so I can't do many on my trusty Muvo since it's just too small. That is one thing about OverDrive, since they break the files up and you can further break them up, you can put them on smaller players, wowie zowie! They still have that whole Windows vs Mac and iPod vs Windows Plays for Sure issues but I do think they are better. Maybe some of the recent legal disputes with Apple's iTunes will turn into forcing the Media players to better compatibility. Here's the ArsTechnica article on the meeting in Norway last month:

Apple, Scandinavian consumer ombudsmen talk iTunes

Second, they added a few tools to browsing. You can now sort by date and even stipulate oldest or newest first. I would like a sort by length however. When finding stuff for classes, I spent hours finding books under 90MB. but for my husband I'd like the longest. Of course with netLibrary being free that isn't that much of an issue.

I also started him on a Librivox book and he liked it but we both can see some difficulties. They are straight mp3 files with no DRM so anybody can listen to them on just about anything, but the readers are amateurs and it shows. They post the books a chapter at a time and frequently have several readers for the same book so there is a loss of continuity that you won't see with paid services like Audible, netLibrary and OverDrive. Anyway, it was nice to try it.

I do want to check out one of the Mercury Theater mp3's too. I bet they would be good if you are into old radio dramas, good thing I am. However, I am a bit reluctant to install BitTorrent to manage the downloads.

Blogger Beta

2006-08-30T17:08:00.000-05:00

For any of you who have read this blog before, it has a new look.

For everyone else I'm playing with the new Blogger Beta which is now tied to my Gmail account. There are several new features and I have better control of the location of items. So be forewarned, things will change and I'm playing. That's all for now.

Oh, one change is faster posting. So I no longer see the % complete screen when publishing a new post or making a change to a post. I do like that. It alone is worth the trouble of the upgrade.

If you are interested in my Beta testing trails you might want to read my other blog: PuterNotes

Online graphic generators

2006-08-30T08:31:00.000-05:00

Here's a new logo for my blog created on CoolText.com

With my review coming up I thought a bit of wishful thinking was appropriate.

Last but not least I think this would be a fun vanity plate for my car.

Now some more fun!

RSS and all that Jazz...

2006-08-30T08:04:00.000-05:00

RSS is almost old to me. I've switched from subscribing to many of the list serves I formerly had, when RSS became available for them. I'm using Yahoo mostly since with Yahoo Mail Beta it is in my mail, kind of a one stop shopping. However I do play with Technorati and bloglines sometimes too. It is hard to set limits and putting them in folders for blogrolls can be useful.

I did use Technorati to find PLCMCL2 blogs and found my Flickr toys blog along with 3 other staffers. I particularly liked Julie B's King Peep Stamp.

I have found kind of a mixed bag on Librarians Internet Index but they are having fun preparing for Talk Like a Pirate Day. Here's the post from Sept 14, they have lots of piratical websites to play on. I started subscribing a while ago and often see references to Web 2.0 and other such. Last week they did a bit more play.

LII

Avast, me hearties!

Skype fun and function

2006-08-29T08:43:00.000-05:00

Okay I should be able to do this with iChat since we both have macs but for some reason we can't connect now we are on different networks. But Skype not only let's use talk between my old and soon to be laid t rest PC and her mac but also both of our Mac's with only one issue fixed with a headphone to eliminate the feedback of our mics picking up the other's voice out of the speakers. Anyway this past weekend we had about 3 conversations and could have included her sister if she had the time. We use Gmail chat a lot too but the voice is better. I need to get her a webcam so we can turn it into video calls. Since the daughter I'm talking to is in Bø, Telemark, Norway, this is really wonderful.

Of course, at the risk of showing my age, I will say that I remember when a call between Alaska and Alabama through the regular telephone system was full of delays and frustration. It was 1972 and my brother was living in Kodiak Alaska. There was at least a 5-15 second delay between when I finished speaking and when he heard me finish, again a similar delay between his starting and my hearing him. It was far more like CB or Ham radio than a phone call. Skype isn't substancially different from using a telephone to talk to someone in the same building. It is another case of our flattening world.

Getting attention

2006-08-29T08:35:00.000-05:00

Seeing my Motivational Poster created in Flickr toys from fd on Tame the Web did give me a bit of a thrill. Thanks to Helene for pointing that out to me. It seems someone commented on it there too, so I now fully understand some of social networking appeal.

Well, I did say I am relatively private so I don't normally take to a lot of social stuff. Anyway it's a flash in the pan and will be yesterday's news very soon. I think what held me back so much has been my tendency to see 2 sides of every arguement. Now that is a boon when dealing with someone who is unhappy with a library policy but can hold you back when it comes to embracing new things like social networks. So I wasn't the fastest to embrace social networks. I think part of it is being highly satisfied with my life but now the kids are grown and I filled the hole of their launching with a pair of kitties, I've realized my husband and I are a bit insular. I tease him that he's downright neolithic when it comes to computers. Which is why I gave him the google search page there. At least there is some point to going home.

Anyway I now have a new 15 minutes of fame to add to my Employee Spotlight.

Mac with Windows 4 NetLibrary

2006-08-29T08:15:00.000-05:00

Well the MacBook now has a Windows Partition. It wasn't my favorite solution but I did get a few minor benefits. Such as the Version of Windows Media Player that came with it is version 9. To tell the truth I had forgotten how much easier it was to handle NetLibrary files. I may keep it on this computer, at least as long as possible to get some screen caps for my audiobooks screencast.

However, I wish I could have held off, I still have hopes from CodeWeavers version of WINE.

Writely as a blog editor

2006-08-27T10:12:00.000-05:00

Ths is my first Writely document and so far I don't see a lot to get used to. I find that Google does a good job of keeping you free from viruses such as disabling macros etc. I've been playing with Gmail spreadsheets too and kind of like them though there are things I miss from a regular spreadsheet app like Excel or OpenOffice Spreadsheets. Like dragging a formula down a row, and auto fill features. It's also kind of clunky adding a new row since they only let you do it a row at a time.

Ohhh. I just noticed the Blog tab. Well, I don't see it published but it is in my postings so I'll finish it here and post.

That's my new play this weekend. Now to go install Boot Camp and Windows on the MacBook so I can finally get going on the screencast of NetLibrary. I think I'll try using WMP 9 first and do one for each of the 3 versions of WMP there are out there. Helene asked and I frankly hadn't used 9 in so long I forgot how to sync with a player. However, I do know that NetLibrary says that 10 is better and ofcourse now MS has a beta of 11 available. Wouldn't it be great if it would talk to iPods? I didn't see anything to that effect and I hardly expect it MS would tell people that iPods are losing ground to other Windows Plays 4 Sure players. Perhaps but iPods hold the biggest single market share. Even is Plays4Sure is catching up. you would think with Jobs owning a chunk of MS shares they woulf talk to each other better.

Off to play...

Fun with Flickr Toys

2006-08-25T15:29:00.000-05:00

I just added some plcmcl2 photos to my Flickr page a couple with the fd flickr tools. Here's the fun Motivational photo I created.

This one Russ posed for a photo at the Tech Central
sign and is now the cover of a gossip Mag.

This isn't my usual type of thing to play with but I can see uses for it all and will likely play some more over time.

I also played a bit with SitePal. Now other people can see that I'm secretly a really funky gal.

RSS, I got that one down. But I can always look at some more. This is why I abandoned my regular Yahoo and the funky avatar in favor of Yahoo mail beta. I get my RSS feeds right in the mail window.

Yahoo Avatars and other fun and not so fun stuff

2006-08-18T12:16:00.000-05:00

Yahoo avatars are fun but if you've already switched to the new Yahoo mail beta, you lose them, sigh. I was sad to see mine go but I do like the handling of the new Yahoo mail service so I'll do without the fun avatar (mine had green hair and glasses, I made a SitePal friend to make up for that loss). The new service will handle much more like Outlook and other email clients than an online email. I've been using it for the past 3-4 months. The only trouble is you have to keep your browser up to date.

Okay, update on my MacBook WINE project. So far the prospect is not looking good for running Windows Media Player without a dual boot so I guess I'll have to clean out under the sofa cushions and dig up enough to buy a Window XP sp2. I've heard from several folks on Sourceforge and some Mac OX bulletin boards and WINE doesn't run much (mostly games) and the new versions of Winodws Media Player seem to be particularly tricky. I won't have more than WMP, Firefox, Audible Manager and Publisher on the Windows partition and there are a couple good free virus scanners for PCs. This weekend the sofa comes clean!

I did find a cool software similar to Camtasia for Mac and it's currently free. They call it iShowU. I plan to try it and perhaps do a couple tutorials for Mac users with it.

Also watched an Opal workshop this morning. On it I heard about Delicious Monster and downloaded it, he said it was kind of like Library Thing but it's a software just for us Mac users! Wow, a catalog of all the stuff my daughter left with us while in Norway!

MacBook

2006-08-13T17:42:00.000-05:00

I am interrupting a bit to work on migrating to a MacBook at home. So this post is about my journey in that realm. So far I have OpenOffice running in X11 since it's built for Unix not Mac OS X. It runs great despite that and I really like it aside from seeing my USB drive. For now I do it all on the Mac desktop and copy to the USB. Played with the new apps like Garageband, iWeb, and Photo Booth. Of course I now have a new digital camera too since all MacBooks have iSight so I'll include a couple photos of me on Flickr for your enjoyment.

The next major project is getting Windows Media Player 10 to run through WINE. Success here might help a few of our patrons with NetLibrary on Macintosh. It won't fix the whole iPod thing though. I'm going for pure Mac and thus don't want to sully the machine with a dual boot, okay I admit it, I'm just too poor (after buying the Mac) to buy a new copy of Windows XP and I can't move the one on my rapidly dying PC since it's just SP1. If this works I get to use Netlibrary on the Mac since I have a Creative MP3 not an iPod and I can use Audilbe on it too. Yeah, although Audible likes both the Creative Player and Mac OS, they don't like them at the same time. Kind of a pickles and ice cream thing. Anyone know how the idea of pickles and ice cream for pregnant women started. I tried it on a dare when I was expecting and I swear it was what caused the Morning Sickness I got.

So that's my tech travels this week, next week is Tagging.

Flickr Photo Fun

2006-08-07T12:40:00.000-05:00

Yep, I set this up back in April and have a few photos there. I just checked and all the public photos had several views but no comments. I'm not really a high end photographer. My camera isn't much better than what cell phones have built in these days. It does as much as I need however and that's okay. I have seen lots of really great photos other people posted.

I saw some cool stuff like 1001 for Mac OS to upload photos and keep you updated on what's new out there either using your tags, your friends, or whatever. Seems a cool way to see what other people like you are up to.

Intro to blogsphere

2006-06-24T12:41:00.000-05:00

Okay, this blog has exsisted since April, I deleted the earlier posts in favor of following the Library Learning 2.0 initiative.

Here's a few things about me.

I'm a private person so this part is very hard. I have worked for PLCMC since May of 1988, yep that's 18 years now. I'm not young but I like to think young. I consider myself pretty technologically savvy and like to play with geeky toys. It's one of my faults.

I have 2 great daughters who are grown and on their own. Catra is at University of North Carolina - Charlotte studying Biology, she plans to earn a teaching certificate to teach science and math in the public schools. Kjersti is at University of Wisconsin - Madison studying Scandinavian Studies. She is preparing for study abroad next year, her senior year, in Bø, Norway to gather material for her senior honors thesis on Folk Music and Identity in Norway. She hopes go for a Masters in either Anthropology when she gets back. She entertains the notion of journalism after she finishes school like her hero, John McPhee.

I have filled my empty nest with a pair of female cats, VW, a tortoiseshell, and Patina-Luna, a tabby. They are very cute, cuddly and lovable.

My husband and I are restoring a 1942 post-bungalow cottage in the Plaza Midwood area. This will keep us busy until we are too worn out to do anymore. Hopefully that will be after it's in fairly good shape and comfortable to retire in.

Okay, the easiest Habit of Lifeling Learning for me is #6, Play! I do this every chance I get so it was a natural for me. I mentioned before playing with geeky toys is one of my faults. It's nice to be encouraged to pursue it. The hardest is #1, the end changes day to day, mostly because technology changes every day. But I do have goals, I just keep them flexible to match the changing face of technology.

That's enough about me for now.