Even though Halloween is over, I love this clipart image!

Daylight savings rant

I hate Daylight Savings time. It already gets dark at a little after 6, I am dreading next week when it's dark in the morning and in the evening when I leave at 4:30.

More puppies - Sibes this time!

Puppies!

These are not my puppies but they sure are cute!

Week 9, Thing 23: All I have learned

Well, I am finally here - sometimes I didn't think I'd ever get here. I must say I enjoyed most of it, although some pieces simply did not work the way they were supposed to. I did find if you keep plugging away at it; like many applications there are at least a couple of ways to do just about anything. So when something didn't work I would try a few other things and eventually something worked; not that I was always able to tell what it was I did to make it work.
Not unlike my current job. I learned a long time ago that if it ends up fixed....good! Now leave it alone!

My favorites were:
Reading other people's blogs.
Booklover's wiki. I've already read a couple of books recommended there and I've found some new authors.
Flickr.
Craigslist.
Facebook.
Image generators.

One of my flicker photos of a couple of adorable Plott hound pups was picked as a favorite by someone called Menacing Buddha.

As far as lifelong learning goals; I think this is a very good example of finding out the many, many places out there on the World Wide Web. So many of these sites are the tip of the iceberg, you start in one place and then you just keep branching out and branching out until your eyes glaze over and your hands fall off.

I think a lot of staff members found this to be more time consuming than they thought it would be. Given BCPL's business level and bandwidth constraints I think that definitely needs to be considered.

I would do it again, but with upcoming commitments at work not until sometime next year.

All in all, I'd say it was a good learning experience. The best way for me to learn personally is by hands-on experience and this course certainly gave you lots of opportunities to do so!

Week 9, Thing 22: Overdrive and downloadable audiobooks

I chose to look at Project Gutenberg since I am somewhat familiar with Overdrive and we no longer have Netlibrary. From there I went to the top 100 e-books from yesterday, and again, wow. You can just keep going forever. I chose an Aesop's Fable's audiobook just to hear what it sounded like; and it sounded like a robot reading with no inflection whatsoever. I think it would put me to sleep, I would definitely not listen to that one in the car!

Week 9, Thing 21: Podcasts

I found several podcasts that were quite entertaining..

http://www.bangcartoon.com/bcrh.htm

http://s3.amazonaws.com/chinesepod/0595/mp3/chinesepod_B0595pb.mp3

http://podcastdownload.npr.org/anon.npr-podcasts/podcast/1090/14270...

and my personal favorite:

http://www.DogCastMedia.com/audio/17_DogCast_Radio.mp3

I will have to go back and explore these when I have some time.

Week 9, Thing 20: Youtube

Youtube is something I became acquainted with a long time ago, there is some hilarious and downright scary stuff there. On my way home from work last night I was listening to the Don and Mike Show on 105.7 FM radio, and they were talking about a recent Youtube video and whether or not it was real. Callers had varying opinions. Since then it has been revealed to be a fake. Here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nFDnC8SSWQ

I first heard this song on the radio several weeks ago and envisioned the artist(s) completely different.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGOohBytKTU


Flight of the Conchords is a show on HBO that I would watch if I had HBO; but I have the first season reserved in my netflix account.

Week 8, Thing 19: Discover any site from the Web 2.0 awards list

Wow. There are lots of sites here. I immediately went to fun stuff, because I like fun stuff, and found an interesting site called One Sentence: True Stories told in one sentence. I also went to Google maps and looked at my house. I signed up for a facebook account. I created a Say-So account. And of course, craigslist; which I am already familiar with.

Week 8, Thing 18: Online Applications and Tools

I looked at both Zoho writer and Google Docs. I really like that documents can be saved online, so I can access them anywhere and I don't have to carry a USB drive or a diskette around. I signed up for a Zoho notebook account. I think I will use this to take minutes the next time I have to for a meeting; staff are starting to do that more and more using a laptop. It's easier than writing down notes and then going back to your desk and typing them up. I found that if I don't start typing them up right away, I don't understand my own notes and/or can't read my own chicken scratch writing.

Week 7, Thing 17: Sandbox Wiki

I created a Maryland Libraries Sandbox account. I added my blog to favorite blogs and here's proof! http://marylandlibrariessandbox.pbwiki.com/ although it wasn't quite as simple as the instructions said; I eventually figured out how to do it.
I did enjpy this part; especially reading about other peoples favorite things. I added an entry to the favorite dogs wiki. There are just so many places to go; I am finding this a lot with the whole 23 things program. Keeps you absorbed but can also keep you distracted.

Week 7, Thing 16: Wikis

While reading this, this just kind of jumped out at me:

excerpted from the Public Library of Charlotte and Meckenburg County's (PLCMC) Core Compentency blog

Spellcheck anyone?

Once I got beyond that, I found the booklover's wiki; and I will be perusing that whenever I get a spare moment.

Week 6, Thing 15: What Web 2.0 means to BCPL

Lots of interesting concepts here; however, for a public library system the funds to allow all the "neat stuff" simply are not available. Our computers for public use are blocked from using many of these sites for security reasons. Hmmm: Google Page Creator; must check this out.

Week 6, Thing 14: Technorati

Looking at technorati and doing a search on learning 2.0 I found there are 21,441 blog posts about learning 2.0. I don't think I will have time to read them all. I did spend some time checking out the links off the main page, such as WTF: Where's the Fire? What's Hot, and Why. I don't have much use for the Favorites since I have My Favorites on my homepage. The popular link is interesting to see what is going on out there and what people are looking at. I did find several useful blogs here; such as http://blog-blond.blogspot.com/.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJr2evLANsE

Week 6, Thing 13: Del.icio.us

I created a del.icio.us account. I like the fact that when you save a URL, Del.icio.us tells you immediately how many other account holders have saved that URL too. It even tells you who they are. This tool could be very useful for saving related websites and quickly finding information for school projects or research projects.

Week 5, Things 10, 11 and 12:

Played around with online image generator. It was like playing with paper dolls! See my Meez to the right. I had a heck of the time due to an extra character continuously copying when i went to paste the link.

Library Thing: View some of my books here:http://www.librarything.com/catalog.php?view=jreedy
These are only the ones I remember so far. I'm sure I'll be adding more as I remember them - or not.

I will now attempt to roll my own rollyo.

Unrelated FYI: Lots of people in Alaska roll their own. Cigarettes, that is. It is much cheaper than buying a pack, which leads me to another FYI: never leave your cigarettes sitting around anywhere in Alaska. People will much more quickly roll a pack of already rolled right into their pocket rather than roll their own.

Rollyo: http://rollyo.com/

Blackle

Energy saving tip powered by Google custom search:
http://www.blackle.com/about/

Week 4, Thing 9: Explore MERLIN and then locate a few other useful library-related blogs and/or news feeds

I signed up for a merlin account and did some exploring; also signed up for and added feeds to my Bloglines account.
Link here: http://www.bloglines.com/myblogs

An interesting lamp

'>http://

Week 4, Thing 8: RSS & Newsreaders

I've added 10 feeds to my bloglines account. Now I look for the little feed button on most websites.

I have been tagged! 8 things about me

1. My elbows are double jointed.

2. I once wanted to be a veterinarian but after spending several years working for one, realized I would never be able to make a living because I brought home every unwanted animal.

3. My significant other is deathly allergic to animal hair. We currently have 2 eastern painted turtles, a garter snake, a bearded dragon, some fish and 4 tree frogs.

4. I visit my Mom and walk our dog every morning and evening.

5. I am the youngest of five and the only girl.

6. I like to fish.

7. My favorite thing to do when I have free time is to sit outside and read.

8. I have been dogsledding twice in northern Minnesota. It's a lot of fun, but way too cold. If you ever want to go dogsledding, click on the link below:
http://www.dogsledding.com/testsite/

Week 3, Thing 7: Create a blog post about anything technology related that interests you this week.

A neat article with links to lots of blogs:

http://tech.msn.com/news/articlepcw.aspx?cp-documentid=5051140"

Week 3, Thing 6: Have some Flickr fun and discover some Flickr mashups & 3rd party sites

Okay, There are way too many cool pictures to look at here. I could spend all day looking up places I have visited; dogs; wild animals; etc. etc. But I have to actually get some work done.

Week 3, Thing 5: Photos & Images

Week 3: Photos & Images Thing 5. Explored Flickr and learn about this popular image hosting site. Found a lot of neat images. I might look into buying a digital camera, since I don't have a cell phone.

I placed this photo in a new post and didn't mean to; I went to delete it and got this message:

Sorry, we experienced some errors deleting the following media:
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDBr2v-n5TO7DWRGxs1s2T0FAQJp1-B__sqIP8jv4GX1dV-C9XqbhtdSojJ7xO_NXIH-CYC5vAiW1VprQL1h5Fvw6IrkfFjlaXWIbaxEDJq4_TsP6UIN8xNc9C6FJlHDGmi1-a4dKi0kE/s200/castle.jpg
For assistance deleting these media, please contact support and include these urls in your request.

Week 2, Thing 3 and Thing 4: Setting up your own blog; registering your blog

Week 2, thing 3:
Setting up your own blog:

I created and added my first post to my blog - then I lost it (the blog that is). I registered it; when I signed back in Blogger said I was signed in; but would not let me add any new posts. I used the Help menu to reset my username and password, it recognized the username but still would not let me do anything.

Week 2, thing 4:
Registering your blog:

Blogger kept taking me back to the page prompting to create a new blog so that’s what I did. I registered it and I sent Ellen the URL of the new blog to add to the BCPL participants’ page. Blogger seemed slow and bogged (no pun intended) down that particular day. This can happen if there a lot of users on the website at the same time. Other staff reported slowness, freezing and inability to upload pictures right around the same time I was having trouble.

Tracking my progress will have to wait until next week.

Week 1, Thing 2: Pointers from lifelong learners

Hardest:
Habit 2: Accept responsibility for your own learning.
Habit 4: Having confidence in myself as a competent effective learner.

Easiest:
Habit 5: create your own learning toolbox.
Habit ½: Play!

Bonnie

This is her highness Bonnie!

She is a rescued Siberian husky, 8 1/2 years old, extremely vocal (doesn't bark much but she can wooooo all day) and full of mischief. I was quite surprised the day after I got her to find her standing on the dining room table drinking my coffee. When I shouted "get down," she promptly laid down - on the table.

She has taught my family and I many useful things. A good sized, strategically placed throw rug will hide the stain from a full can of Quaker State motor oil. Wrapped Christmas and birthday presents should be kept behind closed doors until the actual recipient has had a chance to unwrap them. Dog hair is meant to be freely shared with everyone and everything. If you actually want to read the paper rather than pick up shreds off the floor put it somewhere up high. And always try to remember to keep the dining room chairs pushed in.

Here she is showing off her guard dog skills with my neice:

Week 1; Thing 1

Week 1, Thing 1: About This Program

I'm always had an interest in new technology and gadgets. Over the years I've discovered I like to tinker with hardware; I enjoy taking things apart and putting them back together and it's especially rewarding if whatever it is works afterwards. I'm hoping the program will help me become more profficient with the aspect of technology I've always been a bit nervous around, the software.
Having had a few years of experience in Technology Support it is always interesting to see that with software and hardware combined; just about anything can happen. It's also somewhat comforting to hear co-workers with many more years of experience say "hmmm - I've never seen THAT before!"