Thing#18 Zoho Writer (Online Productivity)

This here blog was written in and published from Zoho Writer! Well I can tell right now that I will use Zoho, as I am always emailing copies of my CV's, cover letters and various other documents friends for them to look at, give opinions on and edit and it makes far more sense for me to share with them on Zoho (a one stop shop) than send my documents far and wide via cumbersome attachments. I like the way the icons are laid out and I especially love the strikethrough tool-it will be great for editing purposes so you can see what might have been rather than having to refer back to an earlier copy and it functions just like the nice firm cross out with a lead pencil. I have often had problems opening documents and finding them in strange formats when I use them on different computers, so hopefully Zoho will circumvent this nuisance. I have just 'shared' a document and it gives you the option of 'read only' or 'read/write'.

I also just checked the shared document on the receiver(my colleague's) email and it looks.....just the same as when I wrote it, although.....I selected read/write yet the document does not allow him to edit it? Maybe it's because the email I registered on Zoho with is not yet verified( I keep checking to no avail)

Things # 16 & # 17

I have been using 'Wikipedia' for some years now for my own personal use and as a library assistants unofficial research tool so looking at the library wikis was a completely new experience. I found the 'Books Lovers Wiki to be the 'prettiest' maybe because unlike 'Library Success' and 'SJCPL Subject Guides' it doesn't emulate the interface of Wikipedia and is not so textbook like in appearance. I was simply amazed by the amount of spelling mistakes and grammatical errors in the Princeton Wiki. I really enjoyed watching Peter Blake 'Wiki's in Plain English' video-so easy to follow, cute and informative. The edit-save-link cycle expained so very clearly. I had no idea you could co-ordinate a camping trip on a wiki! Like a cut-paste-remove discussion, no boring-repetitive-laborious round and round we go emails. Without going into all the obvious pros and cons of wiki's, I love the anarchy inherant in being able to edit other peoples entries/pages. After all it is not as if 'official' historical reference sources aren't edited with subjectivity. Japan's World War two text books are an extremely good example of this.





I explored the Learning 2.0 Favourites wiki and added a 'favourite movie' (Festen) and it was quite cute to see my other library pals favourites, I also added a 'favourite book(s)'(John Dollar and Small Holdings) which link through to their entries in my 'Library Thing' library. I enjoyed snooping aroung the other favourites-guessing some of the entries or fellow library workers from tell-tale clues. I also added my blog to the Favourite Blogs page all though it's NOT my favourite.

Things # 14 & # 15

I 'took a look' at technorati and found it not very enticing in comparison to delicious which I found cute and user friendly. The advertising and the celebrity focus which is all too common on websites I come in to contact with is a bit nauseous. I did a keyword search for ''Learning 2.0" and got 992 results for a tag search, 824 for Blog Directory, and 11,905 for a Blog Posts search using the 'exact phrase' and 'search in all blogs' options but this result was significantly narrowed when I changed from search in all blogs to 'blogs about'. I didn't find anything of particular interest under'popular' (actually the word 'popular' makes me not want to click-like when a shop assistant tells you the dress your looking at is very popular as if it would make me want to buy it)



My thoughts on these peoples musings are quite lengthy and I won't get web.2 finished if I elaborate so to start with...I really enjoyed reading 'To a temporary place in Time' especially '...the avalanche of material available will put a premium on service, on tailoring information to needs, and on developing participatory relationships with customers.' as avalanches do need some negotiating. I like the idea of librarians guiding patrons on their way
through the infinite mazes of information and I love the idea of Libray 4.0 being a return to the and relaxing solitude of an actual and physical library experience as opposed to a virtual one. A bit like the post war invention of instant coffee-revolutionary and time saving but reducing coffee to an instant drug rather than a tasty beverage and now..... real bean ground coffee has made a triumphant return (in New Zealand anyway) as there really is no need for coffee to be instant unless you are climbing a mountain in an avalanche.

Library 2.0 is exciting and essential and I am excited about a lot of it but I feel that the other 'perspectives 'I read from eOCLC neglect to mention that humans come to a library for the physical space as much as for the information to be found-not everyone wants their whole world to be accessed from a screen, or their home. Some people like to roam and I like walking into a library because it is not a shop and no-one is going to try (overtly) to sell me something and I don't have to talk to anyone if I don't want to.

Thing # 13 Tagging, folksomonies and social bookmaking in del.icio.us

I found the Us.ef.ul: A beginners guide to Del.icio.us resource quite useful and I set up browser buttons through a link in 'A beginner's guide to the Next Big Thing' on my tool bar- one links to my del.icio.us account and a tag icon that bookmarks sites without going all the way to delicious. I think I'm beginning to understand 'flat hierachy' I added 3 sites to My del.icio.us favourites and there are 4 tags. ie Dogme 95 is tagged with both 'dog' and 'Danish'. I looked around PLCMCL and I looked at popular sites and their tags. Now I have del.icio.us on my tool bar I will definitely use it-i think I'm getting the hang of it. I just need more practice.

Thing # 12 Rollyo

I enjoyed using Rollyo to create a search roll (called Devil's Avocado) and I felt nicely satisfied when I successfully added it to my blog but... I don't think Rollyo is a very useful tool for me. Although I have favourite websites, the resources that I use are so varied that I would have to create heaps of search rolls. I guess it keeps websites I like in a tidy virtual box.

I would like to know why the angryalien.com URL doesn't work on my search roll? Any Ideas or solutions?

Thing # 11

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/lucycloudy Here is the link to my Library Thing catalogue. I loved Library Thing. I really enjoyed adding the books to my library-especially choosing the exact covers of the books I own or have read. It felt quite nostalgic. I lent my paperback copy of 'John Dollar' one of my favourite books ever to someone and never got it back and now it's difficult and expensive to order so its quite nice to have a virtual copy. I really liked the suggestions options and have noted down some books that I have vaguely heard of but couldn't quite remember the names of. I even created a widget and felt quite pleased with myself when it went so smoothly. The word 'widget' itself is very cute.

Thing #10 Online image generators

As I have already warholised my cat in Thing #6 I thought I would 'Hockneyise' my 'Warholised' cat using the Photo Spread Effect Generator tool from The Generator Blog.I also made a customised 'writing in the sand picture' using imagechef.com (I saw the site written across the bottom of the coffee cup picture on the ACL Learning blog).See my results on the left. I tried using the letterjames but it annoying and it seemed to keen on getting me to subcribe.I had already used FD toys for mashups quite a bit when I made mashups and found it great to use.

Thing # 9

junkforcode is an blog/website that I found searching under the subject 'Situationist and art' ( I'm interested in the Situationist art movement) on Topix.net and I added it as an RSS feed in 'My Yahoo Main Page'. I tried searching for library blogs but I didn't have much success. In the past few days I have been unable to access feedster and I didn't find technorati or Syndic8.com very user friendly but I did find one library related blog called The Future of Libraries. I took the technorati tutorial but it seemed more about configuring one's blog than searching for blogs. Maybe I will fall in love with technorati in Thing number #14.

Thing # 8 RSS Feeds

I was advised by a little tall bird to use 'yahoo' to set up RSS feeds instead of 'bloglines' as 'apparently' it is more user friendly and I had already joined yahoo when I joined flick. To set up RSS feeds in Yahoo you go to My Yahoo and sign in and go to your main page (there is already some generic RSS feeds there soI deleted all but one). Click on Personalise Page followed by add RSS feeds where there is box to paste the url of the RSS feed you chose from a website by clicking on the RSS feed icon browser. I have mainly Guardian RSS feeds such as 'science' and 'world latest'. I found this very useful and have actually been using the RSS feeds and it saves me doing a million clicks to see what I want. Once in My Main Page if I click once I get the headline in a kind of speech bubble-like-rectangle and if I double click I get the whole article.

Thing # 7 Digital cameras

I have a background in fine art photography but I missed out on digital photography and currently do not even own a digital camera, however that all changed one fine day on the First Floor when I was asked to teach digital photography-I had to rapidly aquaint myself with downloading and editing photos.
Taking photos is easy but becoming familiar with the myriad of cameras and USB cables that students brought along (or forgot) was more of a 'learning curve' as it were. Now I have basic digital photography skills I would like to use more sophisticated editing programmes and buy myself a half decent digital camera. Joining the world of digital photography has been a pleasurable but fairly painless jaunt.

Thing # 6

Mashups....I warholised my cat and made her into a made her the subject of a motivational poster using 'Big Huge labs'. So much fun and really easy to use. My favourite was the movie poster which stars my nephew. I printed it off and will send it over the sea to him and I think he will be tickled pink seeing himself projected(as it were) into an imaginary movie. I also made a trading card which is quite a cute and childish thing to do.

Iraqi fox (Thing#5 continued)

DSC_0087
Originally uploaded by divnfishnridn

I added this fox using 'flickers blogging tool' instead of saving the picture on my memory stick and adding it to my post .Much quicker.

Thing #5

I quite enjoyed looking around flickr. I found this photo of 'Totoro' by searching under 'everyone's' photos-I was suprised at the thousands of Totoro related photo's flicker has. I also searched 'groups' for images of Totoro. Totoro is a famous anime character from Hayo Miyazaki's film My Neighbour TotoroI am familiar with other photo sharing websites such as digimax and snap fix (both new Zealand owned) as I sometimes teach digital photgraphy and show students how to upload their photos. I think flickr is fairly user friendly, although I didn't upload photos but I checked out the upload feature and it seems really straight forward. I really like the groups option on flickr and one fine day i might join one. I joined flickr but promptly forgot my password.

Thing #4 continued over a monthe later (i'm sorry to say). I looked at bebo and felt that it would be like going back in time to join up,like i was trying to get down with the kids or something-indulging a peter pan fixation. I may also be influenced by news reporting about Bebo and young girls being coerced into exhibitionism and misappropriation of photos ecetera, ecetera.

I did however join face book and daringly added a photo (although I'm represented by only a piece of my skirt and my lower leg). I have been enjoying asking friends to be my 'facebook friends',in particular confirming how we know each other. Poking friends and becoming a vampire was fun. I haven't given my friends presents yet but have received them. It's quite hard keeping up with my face book friends who seem to have a 'suspicious' amount of time to check their face books. All of my friends in facebook are my colleagues which is quite nice so we can refer to our face booking communications. My library- outsider friends don't seem at all interested in social networking sites-going by their absence when facebook went through my gmail contacts list. I registered on face book as Katherine rather than 'Katie' my usual moniker so it is harder to find me as I was a bit apprehensive when I initally joined.

Cocorosie's Rainbowarriors is quite lovely and a wee bit mysterious. I haven't heard it before. I liked their Noahs Ark album but I came upon that by chance because I seldom listen to music and I'm not sure why that is because I really like music. Another band I listened to on myspace was the Steve Able Band. I love Little Death.

It's seems a little bit odd to create a blog when you don't have much to say about anything in particular. I hope this doesn't have to be 50 words each time? Does it ACL Co-ordinator?