Week 10: 23 Is this really the end?

I'v really enjoyed these exercises in roaming the web. It made me a little more aware of how much there is that I don't know about it. The weeks I enjoyed the most were the avatars, the books and the Youtube. Myspace is not for me. One thing I will keep on enjoying is the Library Elf. I like the way it is set up with my whole account on one screen. My son has been a lot of help and I am impressed by the easy way he gets around the web. Flicka was fun and probalbly something I'll use in the future. The world seems to becoming more and more dependent on the internet so it's important that we don't get left behind. We do our banking and shopping on line now. Also any question can be answered in minutes. People can visit friends and relatives on the other side of the country or the other side of the world and share their thoughts and pictures instantly. Of course, the news is full of the ugly and evil side of the internet also. My mother, who is in her 80's, is to afraid to even touch a computer. I think the good far outweights the bad and it certainly here to stay.

Week 9: # 22 Downloadable Media

Last Christmas I got a MP-3 player. I made sure it was one that was compatable with the library's eBooks. I looked at LibriVox's offering and they were mostly classic and books by authors I didn't known. When I went to the Wowlo site, my McAfee Security Software went a little crazy, warning me of possible danger to my computer. I like HCPL's eBooks. They have a good selection of new tiltes with many of my favorite authors. I also like the brief discriptions of the books.

Week 9: #21 Podcasts YarnCraft Podcast

I looked around at the podcast sites. Most of them are music which does not interest me. I found some audio book downloads that are kind of expensive. I'd rather get them from HCPL. I found some library news podcast but truthfully, I don't care what the libraries in Canada or Nebraska are doing. Finally found a podcast about yarns that seemed fun. The website is called www.yarncraft.lionbrand.com
Here is the link to subscribe to their podcasts: http://feeds.feedburner.com/YarnCraft

Cute Youtube Video

Here is a funny video called Baby laughing at the Wii

Week 9 : # 20 Discover YouTube

It's been fun looking around the YouTube website. You could literally spend all day going from one video to another. It's sort of like potato chips, you can't eat just one. I especially liked the ones with animals and babies. Cat can be so crazy and many owners have captured their crazy cats doing many amusing things. I like the "Baby laughing at the Wii". You just have to laugh when you watch it.

Week 8: # 19 Web-based Apps

I created an account in Zoho Writer. It seems like a good alternative to Microsoft Word. Of course, with my skills at mastering new things on the computer, I froze the program up the first time I used it. However, I did manage to write a few sentences but I fail at getting it on my blog. Evidently I don't know the magic words and passwords to do that.

Week 8: # 18 Social Networking

I viewed most of these sites and really didn't feel like I wanted to join any of them. Maybe I'm too old to really see the point. The only site listed that had any appeal for me was the Rate My Space. That looked like fun and maybe I'll join when I have more time to devote to sitting at my computer at home.

Week: 7 # 17 Technology

Modern technology is truly a wonderful and frighting thing. Every time I see a new gadget that does dozens of things, I cringe to think how many hours I would have to spend to even get it to turn on. My husband thinks it's "intuitive" to operate them, to which I say "Yeah right". Just last week, when my husband was out of town, I decided to play a DVD. Hurrah for me, I did. The only touble was trying to go back to regular HDTV, I must have pushed the wrong button because none of the remotes would do anything. I fixed it my usual way. I press every botton on every remote until I got a picture. And another example of the down side to technology happen today at the library, the computers went down. So very many of our tasks involve the computer so without them we were helpless. Don't get me wrong, I do love the computer and all it can do to help us in our job. It's just scary seeing how dependent we are on them.

Week 7 : # 16 Wiki

I finally figured out how to post my blog to favorite blogs. I really don't feel comfortable posting my unbidden opinions on some stranger's blog and I'm sure I won't be doing it again. I didn't realize before that wikipedia was not necessarily an official site and anyone could put information on it, whether or not they know what they're talking about.

Week 6: # 15 Library 2.0 & Web 2.0

The main conclusion I come to from the articles I read is that the world is quickly changing because of the new technology and especially because of the explosion of the internet. If we don't try to keep up and provide services to the customers that reflects this, we may become obsolete. Library 2.0 is an example of the efforts being made to do this.

Week 6: # 14 Technorati

I look around the web site. I was surprised at how many other library systems seem to be doing the same exercises as we are. I came up with pretty much the same blogs with the different searches.

Week 6 # 13 Tagging

I watched the tutorial which was confusing to me. I did sign up for a del.icio.us account and found it more fun than I originally thought it would be. I found some sites about making costume dolls and miniature houses and furniture. I enjoyed the other peoples bookmark and will have to look into it a lot more a home when i have time to really check out all the great websites. This is a hobby I am looking forward to when I retire in a few years and this will really be a big help.

Week 5: # 12 The Library Elf

After trying all day to get to the website, I finally got it to come up at home. Signing up was easy. At first I thought that it was probably unnecessary because Harris County sends reminders to my e-mail, but I really like the format. Everything is right there together and it is easy to see when books are due and when requests may be coming in. I really like this service.

Week 5 # 11, Library Thing

Once again, I had a hard time getting the images on my blog. My son was a great help to me. Somehow I don't think I'll use it very much except maybe to get suggestions on other book like my favorites . I'm really not organized enough to keep track of every book I read. It is an interesting site though.

Week 5: # 10 Playing around with Image Generators

This is my avatar I made with the help of Victoria Starr. I used www.meez.com. It was pretty easy and fun. It reminded me of playing with paper dolls. Suzie-que may look a little conservative but she does look a little bit like a librarian. Aside from that, she does have the heart of an artist.

my avatar

week 4: Finding Feeds

Finding RSS feeds was harder than it seemed at first. Many of the internet sites I would have like to have, were not available. Finding 10 sites of any interest at all was a challenge. I found the list of 200 favorite ones helpful. The ones I picked are 1: CNN.News, 2: Entertainment tonignt 3: Futuregirl.craft 4: Cinema strikes back - world of films 5: Houston Chronicle; Front page, 6: HC Entertainment 7:HC Movies, 8: Dilbert, 9: Wendy Knits, 10: NYT Fashion and Style. The tutorial and the video instructions were helpful.

Week 4: # 8, Making life "really simple"

Signing up for a blogline was fairly simple. Figuring out how to do anything with it was a little harder. I did add the pictures from my Flickr account to the blogline.

Week 3 # 7 Pixer

Use Pixer to crop and change picture of my cat to resemble a painting.

Week 3 # 6 Trippermap

Use Flickr Trippermap to put pictures of my vacation on a map. It looked good in Flickr but couldn't figure out how to also transfer the pictures to my blog.

Week 3 # 5

Used Flickr to add a picture of a sunset

Today I edited a picture of my sweet cat Ivo. I like the oil painting effect. I think the more I do, the easier it will be to navigate around. At least, I hope so.

map

After an hour of trying to get my pictures on a map, I did it in Flickr but I can't get it in my blog. What did I do wrong? Frustrating!

Atfer much head scratching and a little help for my friend, I actually got a picture to appear. Ya for me.

This is a lot harder than I thought it would be. Also, sharing my thoughts with a lot of unknown people is a little bit creepy to me.

first posting

This is a blog to learn how to blog. I'm not sure what I'm doing.