Week 8 - #18 Social Networking

I have actually used Yahoo!360 and Myspace in the past but I took a look at some of the other sites listed in the exercise to compare. Personally, I don't have too much use for them at this point in my life. I've found that it takes quite a bit of energy and time to keep up with a site like Myspace. While I was able to find a couple of people I knew online, I found that I wasn't really interested in interacting with them. I was interested in seeing what they were up to and that's it. I guess I am more of a lurker. I find that the people I'm really interested in keeping in contact with I make an effort to keep in contact with them. With all these social networking sites, I find it easy to become very overwhelmed.

Week 7 - #17 - blog about whatevers

It's hard to think of just one technology issue to blog about. Too many choices! Which is a technology topic I guess I could blog about. I love technology but sometimes it gives me too many choices. There are so many things to subscribe to, so many site with info, even so many ways to organize all your subscriptions and sites. Maybe one day I'll get to the point of being 100% comfortable with EVERYTHING being online, but for now I still enjoy occasional forays into the technology world that supplement and enrich my life and work in the real world. Actually, scratch that. I don't think I'd want everything online and technology driven. It's just not always necessary. But don't take away my favorite websites. Or my email. Or my music download sites. Or my bank's website. Or my Simponsized self.


I posted a comment to circulation samurai.

Week 7 - #16 What's in a wiki

I see good and bad things about wikis. On the one hand, I love being able to easily share information with a wide group of people. It's so easy to contribute. On the other hand, it seems like it could get out of hand pretty quickly! I mean you have all these people contributing, so there's not much of a consistency. Also, the wikis seem like they could go on forever! Without a tagging function, it seems like it could get messy and difficult to find information. It all kinds of runs together.

Week 6 - #5 On Library 2.0 & Web 2.0

I had a hard time with some of these articles. I don't quite know how many of the the authors actually work full time with public, because sometimes it seemed like what they were talking about was a little abstract. Yes, great ideas in theory but how do we make them work in the real world not just in Second Life?

Week 6 - #14

I did the Discovery exercises for Technorati and I found that the results didn't change too much when I searched Learning 2.0 under Blog posts and tags. I also noted that many library blogs (or blogs people wrote about libraries) seemed to pop up under these searches. When I searched using the Blog Directory, I found the results a bit different. Maybe because the Blog Directory sorts by blogs about that specific search word? I'm not sure.

Week 6 - #13

I explored Del.icio.us today. I tried viewing the video from Otter Group but for some reason it wouldn't play past 20 seconds. However, I was able the view the other video that was mentioned in the comments and found that very helpful. It is fun to see what other people added and how they tag sites. Sometimes they use the exact tag I would have used, but sometimes they use a term I wouldn't have thought of.

Week 5 - #12

Well, it looks like Library Elf was working this morning so I got a chance to check it out. I don't have anything due just yet so it will take a few days for me to see how it comes across on email. I think it is a good service for many of our patrons. On a personal level, I don't need Library Elf because I check my account at work almost every day. But obviously, patrons don't have that luxury. It would be interesting to find out how many Harris County patrons have signed up for Libray Elf. Maybe when we sign up people for new cards or place holds for them, we should really talk it up.

Week 5 - #11

Today I created my LibraryThing list. At first I wasn't too excited about it. But then is started to suck up more and more of my time. This could be a dangerous thing. Perhaps I will start weaning myself off of it before I overload the system!

Week 5 - Exercise #10

I liked playing around with the Yahoo! Avatar image generator. I liked how there were so many different options to clothes, backgrounds, etc. You could really individualize your avatar. I also enjoyed working with Meez. I liked how you can animate your avatar. I'd probably keep up with my Yahoo! avatar though since I do have a Yahoo! email account that I use.

Exercise #9

Well, I tried to use all of the search tools, but I wasn't able to use Feedster. It seemed every time I went to their site, they were having technical difficulties. I didn't really like Topix. To me, it was pretty confusing. Their homepage was pretty cluttered and I wasn't sure where to start. However, I did like Syndic8 and Technorati was OK. I have to say though, my biggest excitement came from discovering that I could get an RSS feed off of Craigslist! There are some items I've been looking to buy and now I can get a feed of that specific category off of Craigslist. Awesome!

Exercise # 8 - Subscribing to RSS feeds

This exercise was not too hard. When I first saw the tutorial, I did a quick scroll through and thought, "What the heck!" There seemed to be a bazillion parts to the tutorial. I fully expected to see a 2t. or 3z. part to the tutorial. But once I finished, I realized it wasn't as bad as it seemed. I did enjoy adding the feeds. There are a few blogs that I check on every now and then and if I remember to check Bloglines, this will make it easier. Though it is strange to see my CNN blog next to some children's programming blog next to Blogging Project Runway. What an odd combination.