#21 Podcasts Have Nothing to do With Whales

According to podcast.net, Podcast Alley, and Yahoo Audio there are no podcasts about me. That's funny, because I was interviewed for a podcast last year. Check out the May 25, 2006 episode of Mr. Ron's Once a Week. It probably doesn't show up on a search because my name doesn't appear in the written description. I did find a weekly podcast about circus freaks called The Human Marvels and added it to my Bloglines account. I already had a science fiction show saved there.
Podcasts are broadcast with many forms of software players so there seems to be something for everyone.
Libraries are starting to use podcasts for news, storytime, booktalks, author interviews, etc. There appears to be a variety of on-line tools to create podcasts. Maybe we should do an audio version of the Library Shhhout-out.

#20 Video Killed the Radio Star

I've been checking out YouTube for quite a while now. You can spend hours there. It's a fun way of getting a glimpse of "where are they now" celebrities, old rock bands, shows from the early days of British TV, and even family members. Yes, my cousin who is a singer is on YouTube. There are clips of his TV appearance on a British TV talent show in the 90's where contestants had to pretend to be famous celebrities, some shaky video of a pub show, and even a clip he loaded of himself landing a plane.

Here he in on Stars in Your Eyes as Bobby Hadfield of the Righteous Brothers.


I was interested in that huge list of other video hosting sites linked to from the Learning 2.0 site. Whew! Who would have the time to explore them all? I see Yahoo videos cropping up more and more these days, though, and some Google video.

I like YouTube's social networking aspect where you can find out more about the person who posted the video and find out their other posts. The comments can be interesting, although there are a lot of trolls.

YouTube might be a good way of sharing programming tips with other libraries or among staff. You'd have to watch out about violating copyright, however, and only use fair use portions of copyrighted materials. It would be great for displaying programs with content created by the participants, though--like improvised drama, booktalks, poetry readings, etc. Permissions would have to be obtained from the performers. Promotional pieces for the library could be produced and linked to YouTube from other sites.

#19 Exploring Web Award Winners

I've tried out some winning 2.0 sites.

I can't get excited about fuzzmail. I previewed it on the site to find out that it just shows you an animation of the way the message was created with the spelling corrections and editing included. Mostly you just don't want people knowing what a spelling dork you are. The message I sent myself hasn't shown up in my in-box yet. I don't instantly see any library use.

Wow! With Shopify you can create your own on-line store as easily as creating a blog. This might come in handy for libraries that have a gift shop.

That's the first time I've looked at Craig's List. Interesting and useful in general. Again, can't think of a library use. I noticed that people don't give away things free in England like they do in this country. I guess this is a land of excess and opulence.

Okay, I knew going in that Cocktail Builder wouldn't have any library applications except for recovering from the library when I get home--I had to look, anyway. I now know how to make a drink called Lady Godiva's Nipples. I've already tagged that puppy on del.icio.us and I'll be picking up the Chambord raspberry liqueur on the way home.

I bet there's a good use for swivel. It looks like a useful tool for putting statistics in understandable visual format--maybe circulation, programs statistics, work flow information, etc. I can't tell right away if you can keep your charts private, however. That may have an impact on what data one wants to upload. I don't see a quick explanation of how to, though.

wufoo: Well, on-line forms and surveys--of course that might be handy to get patron in put and staff opinions. The site is explained a lot better than swivel, too.

ning: Make your own social networking site. That might be a fun way of creating spaces for people to discuss books, etc. or for staff to discuss training.

On to the next thing.

Google Docs is Not a Shipping Company

Well, you know, as frustrating as Zoho was, it's a lot cooler looking than Google Docs, but it already knew who I was when I opened the site because I have a gmail account and I had already logged in there today.

There are some similar features but the interface is not in your face. That is good and bad. The view is less cluttered so may be less daunting to some, but you have to look behind tabs and drop downs to find some features.

You can insert comments in a variety of colors but they seem to be more intrusive; they don't disappear into a small icon when you finish. But neither do they duplicate themselves when you press enter and start a new line which is what happened to me in Zoho for some reason. There's no tagging.

You can track changes made to the document from the Revision tab. I didn't see this in Zoho, but I didn't look for it either. In both programs you can get contextual menus by right clicking. This is useful. You can collaborate on a document with others, and post to your blog from Google Docs as well as publish the document on the web for others to see, as in Zoho.

I had to search further to find the document settings and change the default font.

I think someone who wants very basic functionality and gets confused by too many options might like this better, but might get frustrated trying to find the document settings. The fact that the active document and the home page with saved files are in two seperate tabs may bother some. I like the way Zoho has it all on one screen.

Well That Worked

So, now I know that those tags in Zoho turn into Technorati tags (and you can't use two-word tags like in Blogger) and if you change colors they don't always look well on your blog background.

The Great Blog Shift

Okay. I am testing to see if i can post to my blog from Zoho.
Is this Abandon hope all ye who enter here
or God bless all who sail in her?

Technorati Tags productivity,word,Zoho,Blogger,processing

#18 Wasting Time With Online Productivity

These apps hold a lot of interest for me since they have the potential of helping me edit a chapter whatever (Internet enabled) computer I am on.

Zoho sounds simple till you get there and have a whole array of menu items to consider. *takes deep breath and plunges in*

I like that you can tag docs as opposed to putting them in folders. I'm not sure that I am so fancy in my blogging needs that I need the extra features there to post here, but you never know. The sharing capability would be useful for work groups editing a document together. The comments feature is pretty cool (except why did it duplicate the comment when I pressed enter after it). The templates are pretty boring, though.

I found Zoho a little frustrating out of the gate. It changed font on me when I hit enter to start a new paragraph but seemed reluctant to stop using bold and underline, and the highlighting feature wasn't acting quite like I expected. I guess, like anything, you have to get used to its quirks.

Yikes! It decided to freeze in mid-edit as I tried to look at a comment. I had to refresh the page then I thought I had lost my information since I hadn't saved it yet. That would be very irritating if it was an important document. It turns out it must save automatically because I found it in an untitled doc when I started a new untitled doc.

I was able to import a file from my PC successfully.

Okay, I guess I could use this but it might take some getting used to. It seems a little buggy.

#17 MD Wiki

Well, it took me a few minutes to figure out how to add my blog to the favorite blog list on the Maryland Libraries Wiki but I guessed it before I finally found the instructions on one of those videos. Just to be cheeky, I also added a photo; something no one else has done on that page.

I think there should be clearer written instructions on how to proceed with this task because a lot of people are sticking their blogs on the front page and not on the favorite blogs page, and others are adding their favorite things to the comments and not editing the appropriate favorites page.

Aren't I fussy?

I made my own page on the wiki--Annette's Evil Laboratory--and I added a couple of creepy movie trailers. The editing is very much like editing this blog. Not hard after the initial stage of figuring out where everything is.

I had fun looking at some of the other pages. Some people caught on and got fancier than others. I added a couple of comments to some of the sites.

#16 WIKI WAKI WOO

I find Wikipedia a great source for pop information--ultra-current information but also pop culture of the past. If I want to find out what has happened to a pop star of the past, I go to Wikipedia and start there. If I want a definition of a current slang term, I find Wikipedia a great place to look. Since it is edited by all and sundry, however, I tend to verify facts in other sources if I need total veracity. I think it is a great informational springboard, however. There's even a Wikipedia article about me! But it has some misinformation. Maybe I'll register and add some information as part of this learning experience. Hmmmmm! There's a thought.

I haven't explored other wikis as much. We have a community wiki for my town but not much was going on there the last I looked. I think it would be a good source of local information if more people contributed. I would like to share information about contractors and handymen, for instance, but the references there are old. New recommendations from neighbors would be very useful. Of course, how do you know it it's not the tradesmen themselves or their friends who are posting good plugs? That's the sort of thing a local library could partner with their community on.

Wikis would make it easier for more staff to contribute to updating library Intranet pages instead of it falling to a small set of people with the right log-in and knowledge.

I like the use of wikis for book lists and subject guides--at least open to staff to edit. It might be interesting to pilot opening it up to the public and see what happens. Time has to alloted for someone to monitor the site, however.

Some wikis seem to have problems with spammers inserting links to their ads. Any library who uses wikis needs to figure out how to block those and have someone on spam patrol. The Library Instruction Wiki I looked at, Library 2.0 in 15 minutes a day, was totally infested with spam. I'm glad to see from the Princeton Public library BookLoversWiki that not all wikis need have that generic Wikipedia look.

What surprised me about the Bull Run Library wiki was that it was created by a patron and not associated with the library. Can they do that? Anyway--news flash for library patron--when I checked the "add features" tab it said your wiki subscription has run out and you owe the wiki people money.

#15 continued

Things I agree with from reading articles on Libraries 2.0:

• 2.0 technology offers great ways of removing barriers between our patrons and our information by making processes user friendly.

• We need to find new ways to bring our services to patrons rather than insisting that they come to us—whether physically or virtually. This means placing our content and links in places other than the library Web Page and being a presence on the Web in places other than our own site.

• The 2.0 librarian uses Instant Messaging to meet users in their space online, builds blogs and wikis as resources to further the mission of the library, and mashes up content via Application Program Interfaces to build useful Web sites.

• questions to ask when planning for technology. Does it meet the users need in a new or improved way? Does it create a useful service for putting users together with the information and experience they seek?

• Users will create their own mash ups, remixes and original expressions and should be able to do so at the library or via the library’s resources.

• Libraries should welcome the submission of reviews, assignment of keywords (“tagging”), addition of scholarly commentary, and other forms of user participation.

For me, Library 2.0 means I get to play with cool things at work and make them relevant to what I do, and, in turn relevant to our patrons' needs.

#15 Perspectives on Web 2.0, Library 2.0 & the future of libraries

I went to a day-long conference on this very topic last Friday: OCLC Capcon's Annual Meeting 2007: Social Networking: Fad, Folly, or the Future. Aside from providing very good food they also provided a variety of speakers on 2.0 technologies and how the library can participate and use these advances in Web technology. There was a presentation of the results from a new membership report Sharing, Privacy and Trust, and Our Networked World which can be downloaded or ordered in hardcopy from the OCLC website. The keynote speaker, Roy Tennant, Senior Program Officer for OCLC Programs and Research, addressed how we can "integrate the new social media tools, learn from those content streams, and deliver platforms that incorporate user-generated content." There was a panel of experts who discussed library use of the 2.0 technologies and even touched upon 3.0. There were some good tips on which libraries are doing what and it will be interesting to look at their sites. I also jotted down some web sites I didn't know about but want to explore. I have quite a stack of things to keep me busy.

The PowerPoint presentations of these speakers can be viewed and downloaded from the Capcon Website.

One thing I am sure of--this is not a fad, it will not go away, and libraries need to use these THINGS to stay relevant. They also are fun and can save a lot of time and effort. Allowing our users to interact with us and add to what we do via tagging and wikis can make our users feel more invested in our services.
One speaker, Roy Balleste, Director of the Law Library at UDC, had a list of questions we should ask ourselves when we considered using a new application--
Can it help the library?
Can it help the staff?
Can it help the customers?
He said you must get the staff doing it if you want to create evangelists. Thats what this 23 things is all about, huh?

#14 Technorati

Hmmm! Not sure I want to claim this blog. Want it to remain semi-private,it being a learning thing and all.

Anyhow--in searching Learning 2.0 in Technorati I noticed that Allen County Libraries are doing 23 Things along side their customers. That seems like a very interesting twist that might help library patrons not only learn some new things but be aware that Librarians are relevant to the new technology.

Under key word search in Technorati--509 results for Learning 2.0 and they range much further than libraries. Apparantly CPAs are into it.

A tag search turns up 620 posts, and they include videos.

I find 669 blogsabout Learning 2.0! That surprised me, because I thought number of posts about the topic would exceed number of blogs dedicated to it. Wait a minute--the search is using those as seperate words. When I put quotation marks around the phrase I narrow it down to 309 blogs that look more relevant. many of these are from libraries and librarians participating in 23 Things.

Vanity search
There are 58 results for me under key word search
1 post tagged with my full name
And no blogs dedicated to me because I haven't made any public as yet and my stalkers are not so tech savvy apparantly.

Top favorited blogs listed by Technorati contain a few I know since they seem to get quite a bit of attention other places. A few I already have RSS feeds for. Many are technology related. Some I couldn't tell what they were from the technorati profile. One I checked was a Canadian political blog that suddenly folded as of Friday. Hmmmmm! I wonder who that person pissed off. Some I have no idea why they are so popular and don't have the time to explore and figure it out. Marketing, web development, and the arts are represented but hardly any politics which surprised me.

Top blogs based on unique links in the last month--I recognize more. Some of the same topics reflected. More humor, news, politics, tips, gossip. Not so much on writing which seems odd since so many authors keep blogs now. Are they screaming into the void?

Top searches seem to reflect breaking news and pop artists. That's to be expected.

Okay, I understand the Technorati tagging business and could add an html tag if I wanted--but DO NOT WANT.

cross-eyed and delicious

I've been doing a lot of tagging for my own del.icio.us site at home and have just started a separate account for tagging all the links on Kidsite. Now we'll really see what we can do with it, reorganizing and updating a section of a big library website. Yikes! It does get convoluted and tiring, though.
I've started to look at some library sites that use del.icio.us. (I think La Grange Park Library should either sue or fire the person who does their website. Can you say 1994 anyone?)
I find it difficult to see where and how these libraries are using del.icio.us but, as I mentioned, I'm cross-eyed at this point. Someone's going to have to walk me through it.

#13 Lucky or Not?

Well, Summer ended and the work began to pile up so it's been longer than I like, but here I am again. Just startling to look at del.icio.us.
OK, number one--how do I pronounce that?
Number two--DOESN'T ANYONE HAVE A SENSE OF PRIVACY ANYMORE!!!!?
Do I want all my book marks made public? Do I want to stalk and be stalked. Do people tag their favorite porn sites?
brb
Okay, I'm back. That didn't take long, did it? If you exist in virtual space that is.
Anyway, I set up a del.icio.us account and put the link at the bottom of the right hand column over there. I spelled "anomaly" wrong in my user name--oh, well, the real spelling was probably taken anyway. the last time I used it I had to use the spelling "Annomaly".
Now I need to add and tag more stuff.
Even later--
I like being able to add buttons to Firefox so I can quickly see my account or add a site. I chose the version of the Firefox add on that didn't automatically upload and reorganize all my local bookmarks. I put the buttons on both my home computers, too. I can still upload my personal bookmarks when I'm ready. I've just found out that you can make bookmarks private if you want. Whew! I don't want total strangers to have a complete profile of my personal life. I may use del.icio.us more in that case. It will prove handy for sharing bookmarks between all the computers I use.
Libraries could use this for sharing useful bookmark sets at a branch or through a whole system without having to load bookmark files on every computer. Cool!

#12 Roll Your Own

Rollyo is interesting but my mind went blank as to what to create. Then I looked at what others had done and began to think it had all been done already. I was especially impressed by someone who had made a search for children's preschool programming resources.

I almost made a best price search, but it had been done before. Then I began to do a slang dictionary search even though there were a few of those, but decided it was too broad, so I limited it to Web slang and this is what I ended up with.
Annette's Web Speak Search Engine.

I could see staff making handy search tools on information desk computers for subjects often asked about. It could also be used to generate search boxes for our public using one or multiple tools. Can it be used for sites that usually have to be logged into, however? is there a way to set that up?

I'm going to try and add the search box to my Blog.
Okay--that worked. I put it under my zombie news feed for now.

# 11 It's a Library Thing

Well, I checked out Library Thing and set up an account. I was frustrated that I had to upload books by the same author one by one instead of being able to check the ones I wanted on the list and upload them all at the same time. Also, it was irksome determining different editions of the same book so all could be represented--it meant checking various sources and changing view on the display back and forth. If you want all your books to have pictures then you need to also check various sources or upload your own. And most of the other sources are academic libraries which narrows the choices for fiction readers considerably. Overall, while it was quicker than doing original cataloging it was still fiddly to enter all those subject headings and I didn't even want to get into writing reviews at this point. (Interesting that they make those reviews available other places on the web if you don't opt out.)

It's very clever all the things they do with the information up-loaded like those clouds, and very reassuring that there's such a booky site on the Web that's supposedly the death of book reading.

I found I had an author page on this site by virtue of having my books in the libraries of other people, so I uploaded a personal photo to it. I was amazed at how many people had my books in their libraries and how many were talking about them on the chat boards. I'm not sure if I want to announce myself as a Library Thing author and make all my books available for public scrutiny but it certainly is another venue for authors to network and promote their work, and maybe even give some insight into the reference materials that they use.

I think that the discussion groups could be very useful to libraries who want to have on-line discussions without having to set up their own software. The fact that you can create your own discussions group and limit the membership in various ways is very useful.

I found it very interesting how many public libraries are already using it as a supplement to their catalog. If this is the wave of the future, however, by importing information from the same sources, I see the potential for one mistake in cataloging to be perpetuated all over the universe forever. It's a good job one can edit the results once one has uploaded them.

I've added a Library Thing widget to the right, below my profile. It show the books in my library so far. Very self-centered aren't I?

Playing again

I used the chalkboard message generator for this.

#10

Here's my Yahoo avatar.

And I just realized that my previous post CORRUPTING POP CULTURE probably fits under #10 also as an image generator.

Shameless Self Interest Delayed Reaction

It suddenly dawned on me to search for myself on Technorati. Gulp! There were over 300 hits. I hope these people are kind.

Feeding the Feed

I think purposely looking for feeds can be overwhelming. Yes there is tons of stuff out there you can subscribe to but you can over do it. The better way is to be aware that feeds exist and when you come across something useful in your everyday pursuits you check to see if there is a feed available. That way you limit your feeds to the ones that are actually useful to you. They are handy if you want to be able to group and quickly skim work-related blogs for relevant information. But you can also get sucked into a black hole of trivia.
Syndic8 looks boring but utilitarian. The random suggestions on the main page are interesting, though, as are the top fives. I'm not sure I approve of them posting who has just registered, however. Privacy issues. Except some are obviously fake names. Hey! The Woodburn Public Library Teen Reads is one of the five most viewed feeds. Who would have thought? What is that library doing right to promore their RSS feed? Clicking on the link for that feed in Syndic8 takes you to a statistics page that has a preview and various options to grab the feed. In fact there are other links to all sorts of other mysterious technical statistics that are fairly unintelligible to most people. Who is it that reads this stuff? Yes, Syndic8 gets my vote for the most geeky of the feed finder sites. I added a science fiction podcast blog to my Bloglines. I also found a bunch of links when I did a search of children's books. Guess which library turned up again. Overall, I didn't have much luck searching most of my subjects. Browsing worked better.

CAN I HAS VIDEO?

Just seeing if I can embed another video using code.

CORRUPTING POP CULTURE

I made me a Mash Up.
Click to see.

Continuing Number 9

Well I added a couple of feeds to my Bloglines reader using the Bloglines search feature and Topix. The Topix feeds are news about the town I live in and the one I was born in. The others are about Meezers or Siamese cats.

AAAAACCCKKKKKK!

SpeechAgents make it sound like you get a minimum but reasonable amount of features for free--but when you sign up and give them your personal info you find you have to pay for anything beyond four character options and three backgrounds. And then they insert advertisements on your site!!! I thought I had read their agreement but I skimmed over it too fast and missed that detail. I had to delete and re-do two posts because after I linked to an animated speaking avatar made at their site all sorts of words and phrases were highlighted in green and created pop-up advertisements when I scrolled over them. MERLIN shouldn't include a link to that site without a warning. SpeechAgents is an opportunistic rip-off. That was a lesson to me to read more carefully.

THING 9

Okay--here's what I have learned:
Not all libraries should have My Space pages. My Space pages can be very monotonous unless you really do something different with the content and hurry people to links really fast. Also, I don't see much point in having My Space pages directed at anyone but teens and maybe twenty-somethings since most others won't find you or won't visit you. And the ones that do visit may think you are totally out of it, anyway, if you don't do it right. There's a certain geeky charm to some of the librarian generated content you can find through MERLIN, though.
Oh look, there's a link to Meez on the Gaming, Avatars, Virtual Worlds page. I guess I got there before my time. I've also dabbled in Second Life (I like flying) so maybe I'll check out Info Island when I get home. I can't do it here at work because you have to download software. I think it's pretty cool that some colleges are offering classes in Second Life. That means you could have a clothing malfunction in the middle of class sometimes. Gack! Nightmares revisited for virtual real. ROTFLMAO.
It's hard to watch YouTube video at work because of the bad connection. You have to keep on waiting for the video to buffer. This is annoying when time is of the essence.

I Know When You've Been Sleeping...

I'm tracking your blogs from my Bloglines account.

I added some library themed blogs and discovered how to make folders to stash things in. I like the way that you can see how many new posts are in a folder without opening the folder.
Grouping feeds into Bloglines is a good way to unclutter your browser of feeds you don't look at quite as much.

The method of sharing one's Bloglines account seems to have changed a little since the instructions were posted on Maryland Libraries Learning 2.0 and Bloglines doesn't make the procedure clear either. It took a lot of poking around and the help of a colleague before I figured out how to post a link to my feeds, but...

Here's my Bloglines page.

I Made a Feedster Widget

Look in the right-hand column.
Now I can get all the latest news and posts about ZOMBIES!
I've added a search bar, though, so you can search other subjects if you want.

[NOTE FROM THE FUTURE: It's now January, 2008 and Feedster is DEAD. I'm looking for another site that will make a news widget.]

[ANOTHER NOTE FROM THE FUTURE: I found another way to make a news feed, that's why you see something different on the right]

Here's one of my favorite things I've found about Zombies.
A Zombie Pub Crawl.
Well, there's the link, but I'm trying to upload the video to my blog, too. It seems to have worked but I wonder if 24 megs are too big for my blog. How many megs to I get, anyway? Time to check.

THING 8--RSS: Been There, Done that.

I use Firefox so have been adding feeds to my browser for over a year now. I find it easy to do and very handy. Now IE has that feature, too, and I've tried it out.

Also, over a year ago I created a Bloglines account but didn't use it much and now have forgotten my password. I can see the usefulness of having a web site with my feeds, though. It means I only have to set them up once and then I can access them on any computer--if I remember my password.

I think my mistake the first time was populating Bloglines with stuff that wasn't that crucial to me--so, let me give it a go again.

LATER:
I thought the Wicki article was too teckky but the Commoncraft video, RSS in Plain English was an excellent introduction to the concept. I thought the Palinet tutorial was pretty good, too. The CNet video wouldn't finish loading for me.

EVEN LATER:
Okay, Bloglines is all set up for me and some feeds added in three different ways so far. And why would I want to do all that search for the RSS icon and copy the link or cut and paste URLs when I can just drag the Sub button to my toolbar and sub with two clicks? When not at one of my very own computers, I suppose, but I'll take the easy way every time.

The advantage of Bloglines is that you can see the posts in the preview pane, whereas if you get a feed to your browser you only see the names of the posts in your drop down menu and have to click one at a time to view.

Savage Chickens: Scrabble Rematch Cartoon

I found this while looking for Scrabble pictures.
Savage Chickens: Scrabble Rematch Cartoon

It's on a blog I found to be very funny. There was even a library related cartoon.

I noticed a header above a list at the bottom of the page that said "Links to this Cartoon". Below that was the phrase "Create a Link". Out of curiosity I clicked it.

Lo and behold! A dialog box popped up with my blog title already entered (I was logged in on another browser tab) and all I had to do was click another button to add the link in a post to my own blog. Well! Ya learn something new every day.

I think my link may not be reflected on the Savage Chickens site because I have limited the visibility of my blog.

THING 7--Technology Related

I think I've proven by this point that I love computers for their entertainment value. I just like messing around with them and have for years now. Right now I have five computers in my house--my screaming fast desktop PC with 2 gigs of RAM and two hard drives; my husband's PC which I have to maintain; my iBook, because it's fun to have an Apple computer to play with, too; my Palm Lifedrive PDA which comes in handy on trips because I can check email and take chapters of my book to work on; and my very first computer up in the attic--a Kaypro I with a 9" screen and two 5 1/4" floppy drives which I bought in the eighties and hang on to for sentimental reasons. Oh, I forgot one--I also have a dead Dell laptop which I haven't discarded yet. I hated that one because it never worked right. That makes 6. And, of course, there's my not so secret affair with my new work computer.

Although I do have a Second Life account and a sexy Second Life avatar which I've flown across the virtual 3-D Linden landscape, mostly I enjoy rather simple games. I play email Scrabble with friends and enjoy a Scrabble-like on-line game called Babble where you try to make as many words as you can by linking letters in a daily generated grid.

In England Scrabble is very big.

I Saw a Movie Last Night

That made me very worried about 23 things--

We Can Have Video Now

THING 6--Esme LOL

Esme LOLZ
Originally uploaded by aliveontheinside

I was checking out the Flickr toys and found the tool for creating LOLcats. This tool will come in handy.

MY MEEZ AVATAR

You know you've been waiting for it.

THING 5--Flickr

Fun Fun Fun as you see from previous posts. I dove right in and found out how to do lots of stuff before I actually read any instructions. I set up an account and made it private for now. I'll make public individual photos as needed.

I've used Photobucket as an on-line picture host for years and so that helped me know what to look for when up-loading. Flickr and Photobucket are different in various ways. Both allow you to share your photos with others if you want or keep them private. Flickr allows you more options for uploading in different ways, including sending a picture from your cell phone, and more options for organizing your photos. You can send a picture to your cell phone from Photobucket, however. When you link a photo to another place such as a bulletin board, the Flickr picture becomes a link you can click on to go to Flickr. Photobucket just allows your picture to be seen on the other site. That can be preferable.

You can search both sites using tags. There is no map feature on Photobucket, but I don't have a big need for that, though. Photobucket allows you to get fancier in making slideshows and saving them. I don't see anything that matches Flickr's community of Groups, however. Flickr has more functionality as a social networking site. The ability for friends to make notes directly on the pictures that pop up when you mouse over is cool. But I was disappointed that the Flickr "Make Stuff" section was all third-party pay sites. You can buy various stuff with your picture on it from Photobucket, too, and prints, but it's more obvious you have to purchase the items.

Photobucket allows you to upload short video clips and gives you a tool to do some simple editing. Flickr does not provide for videos. There is also slightly more photo editing options in Photobucket.

I think that Flickr is glossier and sexier overall, and I was impressed by the high quality of the pictures I came across, but I like the functionality of Photobucket for hosting images to post to bulletin boards.

And there's a link to Meez on Photobucket so you can make your own 3-D avatar . (More on that later.)

I haven't played with all the Flickr third-party fun sites yet though. There's lots there to amuse by the looks of it. I did make my name in Flickr letters but was disappointed that I couldn't save it but could only link to it.

hairless and fearless

hairless and fearless
Originally uploaded by massdistraction

Now I know two ways to add photos from Flickr. The other way I had to cut and paste an HTML link. This way I set up a direct link from Flickr to my blog and gave Blogspot permission to accept Flickr posts. Now I can click a link above a Flickr picture that I like and send it directly to my blog. Don't you like this bookstore kitty?
Ripley has her own Pool on Flickr.

The picture was taken by Flickr user massdistraction and clicking on the picture takes you to the Flickr site.

Testing if I can Link to Flickr

Back from my trip to Mars

Now I have more things to do.

Must Practice Linking to Images

Hey, u canz clik on diz pic and has cheezburgers.
More nom nom nom than THINGS.

THING 2 nom nom nom

What's easy? Playing. That's very easy. What's hard? Viewing problems as challenges and not things to be torn limb from limb.
Reading up about things I'm interested in is easy but not taking classes. I can't sit still in classes. Determining goals--no. That makes it like work. *shudder* Pretending there is no goal is better. Collecting tools is very easy--especially if they are bright and shiny and geeky. Actually using the tools--that's another matter. Brain matter. Having confidence in myself as a competent, effective learner--well that changes depending on how well I'm doing. yes, I will use technology to my advantage where possible. And when I've nailed it, I'm happy to teach it.

Wha ha ha ha ha ha!

Done Thing 1--read up on 23 things.
Done Things 3 and 4--set up and register a blog.
Now I'm ready to start devouring the rest of those THINGS.