This has been a fantastic programme. I thought that I was pretty 2.0 savvy before this, but yeaaah... not nearly as much as I thought. And there were a few things that I'd heard of but never really investigated (LibraryThing, Bebo, Technorati and mashups) and even if I don't plan to use them regularly, I'm awfully proud that I finally know what they are.
I've already listened to four episodes of my lovely new podcast. Best place to find similar podcasts, by the way: podiobooks I heart podiobooks. That would be my favourite result of doing the activities for myself, but the big warm fuzzy "I love libraries/librarians" was fantastic. It's horribly cheesy, but it was so lovely to see people helping each other do the exercises, talking about 2.0 things, encouraging people to finish. And I'm so proud of the previously self-confessed luddites who finished, and finished a long time before many others.
YAY US!
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Week #9 - NetLibrary
I created a NetLibrary account a couple of years ago so the hardest part of this exercise was finding my username and password... :D I didn't really find many books that I would want to read online though - the majority of the collection still seems to run along the lines of non-fiction DIY, business, studyguide and computing books. Which does make sense - why buy "The Absolute Beginner's Guide to Adobe Photoshop Elements 2" for the library when we'll be giving it away in a booksale two years from now when it's horribly out of date?
It's a perfect medium for reference books (see earlier post about wanting to use control + find on the hardcopy medical text book I was reading a couple of weeks ago...) but not so great for more leisurely browsing. I still do it though - I was reading "The Good, the Bad and the Undead" and left it at home at a PIVOTAL moment... so I mighthavekindofreadwhat happenednextwhenIwasonaslowregistrationshift... Er, and ditto for "Heidi" :D
I can't seem to read "The Good, the Bad and the Undead" online any more though - maybe they changed the level of access... Google Book search is a little better in that regard - you can tell from the beginning what level of access you'll get. Then again.. the only fiction novel in the fantasy genre that is fully available is "Ueber den Begriff des Wortes [phantasia] bei Aristoteles"...
I like that we have these options though: I could read a book at home, listen to it while I go to work, download the electronic copy, convert it into Braille... okay maybe I couldn't do the last one, but still! So many options!
It's a perfect medium for reference books (see earlier post about wanting to use control + find on the hardcopy medical text book I was reading a couple of weeks ago...) but not so great for more leisurely browsing. I still do it though - I was reading "The Good, the Bad and the Undead" and left it at home at a PIVOTAL moment... so I mighthavekindofreadwhat happenednextwhenIwasonaslowregistrationshift... Er, and ditto for "Heidi" :D
I can't seem to read "The Good, the Bad and the Undead" online any more though - maybe they changed the level of access... Google Book search is a little better in that regard - you can tell from the beginning what level of access you'll get. Then again.. the only fiction novel in the fantasy genre that is fully available is "Ueber den Begriff des Wortes [phantasia] bei Aristoteles"...
I like that we have these options though: I could read a book at home, listen to it while I go to work, download the electronic copy, convert it into Braille... okay maybe I couldn't do the last one, but still! So many options!
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Week #9 - Podcasts
I looked into podcasts when I first bought my ipod, but yeaaah, I downloaded a couple of episodes through itunes never got around to listening to them. I think it might have worked a little better if I walked to work, but the sound quality wasn't really good enough to compete with the noises on my bus. And listening to the history of the spanish civil war in spanish at 8am was a little hard. Far too sleepy to concentrate properly.
But! I discoverd that one of my favourite authors, Mercedes Lackey, has a new book out - as a podcast only: The Secret World Chronicles. Actually, it seems more like a comic book series, which is probably even more suited to the podcast format. But metahumans, with super powers? And a fiery website? Awesome! I haven't been able to download the episodes to my ipod though. Oh wait, in subscript just above the episode list, they tell you how to do it. *happy sigh*. I don't think I could love this author more.
As for the proper sites.. Podcast.net had a pretty extensive collection, but the titles that I liked turned out to have been the author's passing fancy in 2006, with no updates since then :( And the ads were hideous. A flashing pink "Is your love cheating on you?!" banner is very distracting. Podcast Alley had a nicer layout (and better ads) but I had the same problem with great looking titles turning out to be one-off events. But yay for Yahoo! They include the last published date in the search results. Hooyaah! We have found a winner!
I've added The Secret World Chronicles to my Bloglines account as requested, and to my Google Reader account because I'll actually check that one :D
But! I discoverd that one of my favourite authors, Mercedes Lackey, has a new book out - as a podcast only: The Secret World Chronicles. Actually, it seems more like a comic book series, which is probably even more suited to the podcast format. But metahumans, with super powers? And a fiery website? Awesome! I haven't been able to download the episodes to my ipod though. Oh wait, in subscript just above the episode list, they tell you how to do it. *happy sigh*. I don't think I could love this author more.
As for the proper sites.. Podcast.net had a pretty extensive collection, but the titles that I liked turned out to have been the author's passing fancy in 2006, with no updates since then :( And the ads were hideous. A flashing pink "Is your love cheating on you?!" banner is very distracting. Podcast Alley had a nicer layout (and better ads) but I had the same problem with great looking titles turning out to be one-off events. But yay for Yahoo! They include the last published date in the search results. Hooyaah! We have found a winner!
I've added The Secret World Chronicles to my Bloglines account as requested, and to my Google Reader account because I'll actually check that one :D
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Week #9 - YouTube
I really like YouTube and am still amazed at the videos you can find there. For example, if I were to want to watch a popular TV series that hasn't aired in New Zealand yet, I could pretty much guarantee that it will be available on YouTube. Not necessarily for long, and it'd probably have to be cleverly disguised with spelling errors or outwardly nonsensical abbreviations, but you could find the episodes if you were persistent enough.
Not that I would do that of course, because that would be Wrong and I am currently being investigated as a Spam Blogger (*mutter*) and wouldn't want to add Supporting Piracy to my list of alleged internet crimes.
The only complaint I have is that a Search function powered by Google should have a lot more flexibility. Sorting by relevance, date added, view count and rating are great, but what I wouldn't give for an Advanced Search option... It's just so messy without it. Of course, I could just be horribly blind and it's there already, but if that's the case it should be more obvious :P
I like the Community Groups though, and that could work really well in a library setting. It would probably be more similar to the LibraryThing networks, but the idea is the same. At the very least it could make the library website more interactive, or perhaps even the catalogue...
As for the video I find worth adding as an entry to my blog (and this was very hard given the high standards of my blog...)
Proof that babies are FREAKY AS H*LL:
Not that I would do that of course, because that would be Wrong and I am currently being investigated as a Spam Blogger (*mutter*) and wouldn't want to add Supporting Piracy to my list of alleged internet crimes.
The only complaint I have is that a Search function powered by Google should have a lot more flexibility. Sorting by relevance, date added, view count and rating are great, but what I wouldn't give for an Advanced Search option... It's just so messy without it. Of course, I could just be horribly blind and it's there already, but if that's the case it should be more obvious :P
I like the Community Groups though, and that could work really well in a library setting. It would probably be more similar to the LibraryThing networks, but the idea is the same. At the very least it could make the library website more interactive, or perhaps even the catalogue...
As for the video I find worth adding as an entry to my blog (and this was very hard given the high standards of my blog...)
Proof that babies are FREAKY AS H*LL:
Week #8 - Web 2.0 Tools
Teeehee, naturally I was drawn to the games section of the Web 2.0 Awards and can confirm that yes, Guess-the-Google is as addictive as advertised... It basically shows you a montage of 20 pictures and you have to guess the keyword that would have been entered to find them in a Google Image search. Some, like 'mullet', were painfully obvious, but there were a couple that I couldn't work out. I wonder if it repeats... Although I am tempted to keep playing until I can beat today's high score 380, I shall settle for being ranked in third with 369. Maybe.
I don't really see how Guess-a-Google would be relevant to libraries so I had a wee looksee at Statsaholic and tried to do a website traffic comparison for the ACL, North Shore and Waitakere Library websites. It didn't really work though because it would only register a comparison between "aucklandcitylibraries.com" and ".govt.nz" not "waitakerelibs.govt.nz" or "shorelibraries.govt.nz". They have some pretty neat examples though: in a comparison between myspace, facebook, and friendster, myspace is kicking arse although facebook is gaining ground. Oh if only I had popcorn to watch the RACE TO THE FINISH!
Hehehe, I have no idea if this information is accurate, and there are probably all kinds of qualifiers that should be taken into account, but it's pretty fun to play with :D And maaaybe if libraries are trying to Stay Up With The Play and were going to set up a library page on a social networking site it might be worth seeing which site is used more heavily.
I don't really see how Guess-a-Google would be relevant to libraries so I had a wee looksee at Statsaholic and tried to do a website traffic comparison for the ACL, North Shore and Waitakere Library websites. It didn't really work though because it would only register a comparison between "aucklandcitylibraries.com" and ".govt.nz" not "waitakerelibs.govt.nz" or "shorelibraries.govt.nz". They have some pretty neat examples though: in a comparison between myspace, facebook, and friendster, myspace is kicking arse although facebook is gaining ground. Oh if only I had popcorn to watch the RACE TO THE FINISH!
Hehehe, I have no idea if this information is accurate, and there are probably all kinds of qualifiers that should be taken into account, but it's pretty fun to play with :D And maaaybe if libraries are trying to Stay Up With The Play and were going to set up a library page on a social networking site it might be worth seeing which site is used more heavily.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Week #8 - Zoho
As yet another memory stick is turned in to lost property I am increasingly tempted to use something like Zoho and store my documents online... And after using the delightful tags of del.icio.us I'm particularly impressed with their Tags as Folders selling point: "Tags are the new folders. Not sure whether you want to put a document in the Sales or Marketing folder? That's where tags-as-folders come in. Make the document available in both the folders! Now, isn't that handy?"
Why yes, yes it is. And the adding contextual comments part. Sooo good. I've tried sending people things with edited comments in bold or capitals, but if the formatting doesn't carry across, you can't even tell what's changed, and switching from capitals to lower case is a bit of a pain. And finally! An application that puts the option to 'close account' on the sign in page! I have created soo many accounts with this 2.0 programme and I really would prefer to drop some of them when it's finished, but can't even find the option in several of them.
The only difficulty I came across was that it was horribly slow to make any changes. Again, that could be the internet here, but it stalled completely when I tried to create a new document, and again when I was adding a comment to a document. Still very impressive though :)
Why yes, yes it is. And the adding contextual comments part. Sooo good. I've tried sending people things with edited comments in bold or capitals, but if the formatting doesn't carry across, you can't even tell what's changed, and switching from capitals to lower case is a bit of a pain. And finally! An application that puts the option to 'close account' on the sign in page! I have created soo many accounts with this 2.0 programme and I really would prefer to drop some of them when it's finished, but can't even find the option in several of them.
The only difficulty I came across was that it was horribly slow to make any changes. Again, that could be the internet here, but it stalled completely when I tried to create a new document, and again when I was adding a comment to a document. Still very impressive though :)
OH THE HORROR!
My blog is locked! It was identified as a SPAM BLOG.
I feel so violated.
And can't stop using italics!
*HOWLS IN PAIN*
Oh the humiliation!!!
*mutters* I'm going back to LiveJournal after this. Just see if I won't!!!
I feel so violated.
And can't stop using italics!
*HOWLS IN PAIN*
Oh the humiliation!!!
*mutters* I'm going back to LiveJournal after this. Just see if I won't!!!
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