Saturday, May 31, 2008

13). Online Productivity Tools

I have start pages both on Yahoo! and Google. My Yahoo! page is my personal one - has all the fun non-work related gadgets (movie times at local theaters, horoscopes) and my iGoogle I use at work (to do lists, bookmarks).

I tried the one at PageFlakes also. It has a sleeker look...you might also want to know that Yahoo! has recently gone through some updating and offers some choices for personalization, however, it does not dare to even come close to Googles background pages smorgasborg. In fact, it looks like Yahoo is mimicking Google in that way but falling way-short.

I use both Yahoo and Google - what I find is that Google has more tools and gadgets and is more cutting edge. But, Yahoo is more established and is therefore more able to offer groups that serve your needs/interests. Google falls short on groups. If you want to network or chat/email with other people on just about anything, check out Yahoo. If Google was that advanced I'd certainly completely shift over. Well maybe. Only Yahoo offers the Ziggy comic strip for your start page. Google lacks that. (They both have Garfield.)

The PDF converters are nice tool - but I really wish they'd have the ability to convert a Quark file to a PDF. That's the one thing that all online PDF converters fail to have. Google offers a PDF converter gadget as well - just another thing on my iGoogle page to make things handier at work.

One last note...I LOVE 30 Boxes. LOVE IT!!! I'll be entering in friend's birthdays and my to do list stuff. I am a chronic birth-date forgetter. I have less than five birthdays memorized (and one of them is my own and one of the others is the day after mine) - I am horrible at dates so I'm looking forward to using this tool. This tool also has the option to email you ahead of time for events.

12). Social News Sharing

Newsvine for me was the most useful site for credible news recommendations. Digg and Mixx were more of a People and US magazine version of news - fun, flashy but not necessary sources of substance. Reddit offered up some interesting news bits and seemed more middle of the road for me as a source.

I find that I will prefer Newsvine over the Yahoo and Google news engines. I've used Google and Yahoo surfing for news to read because they're easy. (I like easy.) But they are very limited in their presentation and I guess I'm ready to graduate to a better level of news service. ((I know you'd think being in a library I'd read the newspapers we get but I've seen people read the papers who use other things than Kleenexes to rid objects from their nose and then go back to flipping through the paper. No thanks.))

Mixx and Digg leaned more towards being productivity drainers. Nothing wrong with that if that's what your looking for.

The article that I tried to add to Newsvine - I submitted it but it didn't show right away. I wonder if that's normal for a new submission??? The second article I tried to submit was already submitted - as it was a week old.

I'd really be interested in the demographics of the members of these groups. Just for curiousity's sake.

Friday, May 30, 2008

11). Tagging and Del.icio.us

Well, I did it. I've been meaning to do it forever, so finally a reason good enough to register with del.icio.us. I'd been keeping bookmarks at my iGoogle page which is handy but doesn't involve any social sharing with it.

I bookmarked some pages and did a search with "Library 2.o" and then looked at some of the peoples' bookmarks who had that in their tagging. What can I say? Treasure troves of nifty bookmarks of sites to go visit. If you're lucky you find someone else who thinks like you but who is ahead of you in the bookmarking game and you've hit the jackpot.

I love that the bookmarks are accessible. I have lost personal bookmarks before when my computer has died...bookmarks that took me five or more years to store and lovingly sort. It's horrible. So I like that they are out there in cyberland free from the lifespan of my personal computer and tendency not to back things up. (I'm getting better though - I really am! Cross my heart!) But I don't like that you can't organize them the same way as you do in your browser. I have a method to my madness that I can't replicate here and I am bummed. But I'll get over it.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

10). Wikis

Wikis are a great tool for sharing information and having it in a central location - the director of my library and myself put up a wiki (we used wikimedia).

In my opinion, schools should not be banning wikis as sources of information - but rather teaching students how to be responsible consumers of information. This is one of my top ten pet peeves. (That is if I was organized enough to have a list!) Students should learn to be discerning in how they rate their information resources - the format of anything, book, newspaper, wiki, should not make it credible or not credible. Just because it's a book with a hard cover doesn't mean the author knows anything --- and just because any joe can publish on a wiki doesn't mean he isn't knowledgeable about his material.

If we are taught only certain resources are "good" aren't we just getting lazy and becoming enabled to not think for ourselves? Ack! *hair pulling*

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

9). Sharing tools

Well, I decided I like the Google tools rather than Zoho....that's more based on the general fact that I use Google some much - all the tools are then centralized for me.

Zoho had some features that really markets it more towards the business end of things rather than personal so I can see where that would be a draw.

I made a spreadsheet for everyone to come visit and edit - I really hope everyone comes and adds their own three favorite books/authors to the list!
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=p7upnA1MbSx9tJyK7HycIbA&hl=en

8). Sharing one of my "Things"

I enjoyed looking at all these tools and have several people I'll be recommending the e-folio to. (How cool was that!?) I used Lazybase to create a database of books I've read. Every year I think to myself that I should start writing down all the books I read. So maybe here's the start.

Lazybase was simple but a bit frustrating - I like to be able to customize things more and it's not all that snazzy looking. But, perhaps databases aren't supposed to be snazzy. *sigh*

I'm looking forward to adding all of these items to a more nifty bookmarking system than offered by Google. I use that one in desperation at work since we're always at different areas. Time to start putting them onto del.icio.us I guess.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

7). 2.0 Communication Tools

Email is frequently used at our library. Some of our content we are in the process of moving (or duplicating) to a wiki. It's all about organization - so much communication here becomes a reference for later. (You know, I had a problem with such and such patron/couldn't get the microfilm scanner to work....how do I do this??)

I personally use IM frequently at home with friends who are long distance - it really helps us keep up with eachother since so many of us seem to use computers/internet to relax or manage personal finance.

Two interesting communication tools that I have seen are:

http://www.zoho.com/

http://www.lumifi.com/


Also be aware that if you use iGoogle you can share documents and work on them with another person (or multiple people). Neatest tool ever that I haven't been able to use yet. But if I could...oh boy!

4). Flickr - Cats in Space!

I had a lot of fun searching the tag "cat" - I found this in the creative commons by Zumi, owner of Malingering - TheDamnMushroom

Go visit Cats in Space.

I think Flickr is a good tool - we use it at the library and often post children's events and other interesting things.

As a personal account...I haven't used it. I tend to store my photos at http://www.ofoto.com/ and share them from there. I'm not too socially open on photo sharing.

5). The Flickr fun stuff....I could definately see our library using the movie poster and badge maker. Actually a lot of the tools could come in handy. I think I'll be trying them out for one of my next fun posters for an event/program. The Big Huge Labs and Image Chef are fantastic....ToonDoo I tried out but I'd get myself into trouble making stuff with that. :o) It'd be too easy to be sarcastic or some such.

6). Online Image Generators - I think these would be a lot of fun to put together to host a tweens/teens computer class or program. Legality issues are huge and often muddy when it comes to library priveleges. (For example - A librarian can read a book for a storytime audience but it can't be recorded and played back on a podcast without getting into deep waters.) I've heard conversation where Disney (do I need the copyright symbol after THAT now?) went after libraries that had used images to promote books/etc. Sticky wicket!

And just for fun ---- check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyLTqBARFt8 . This made me laugh so hard!

3). RSS Feeds

I love the fact that with RSS feeds I can put everything in one spot and that it saves the data so I can read it when I remember to when I finally have time. (Between lack of time and memory I can get really behind.)

I've found it useful because I've been able to find blogs and websites that are on the same track or farther ahead - easy to pick up something useful without having to dig for it.

Teachers and media specialists can make us this because it really makes everything accessible. And because the content is so fresh you can stay on top of things - or at least the things you want to stay on top of.

I like using Google Reader. In fact, I love Google in general - check out all those tools it has and the betas in testing. Wow!

My favorite reads: "Tame the Web," "The Shifted Librarian," "Library Stuff" and "Blog Junction."

As for using RSS for audio content (mp3 players) - check out www.podcastalley.com to find podcasts and audio to subscribe and listen to but first checkout Juice.