Thing 23 - Summary

I am glad I persevered and finished all 23 things - even if it did take me longer than the original 9 weeks. I am a little sad that the interest in it has waned and nobody will be reading my posts after all of that. But I may send out my site to some friends and family and keep up the blog so they can keep up with me.
I am surprised that I ended up writing as much as I did - this is not my forte. I am really proud that I accomplished my original technology goal - using the digital camera and I didn't bore anyone with garden pictures! I just needed the extra push this gave me since I told my daughter that I had to learn
Learning all the 2.0 "things" was very interesting and I did find some that I especially liked and will use again - like bloglines and podcasts. Most just take up too much time; but at least I know what's out there. Some were fun - I even gave my avatar a new hairdo after I got my hair cut! And I'm thinking of using the sketch generator to make a gift for Christmas.
So I would definitely participate in another discovery exercise again. The 23 things website was easy to use since we could just click in and out of the different steps. I only had to ask for help a couple of times.
HOORAY! I'M DONE!

Thing 22 - Audiobooks

I am familiar with Overdrive and have downloaded a book to my computer back when we first subscribed; but I don't like reading online, esp. for pleasure. But another reason I would like to get an MP3 player is so I can download audiobooks - I like to listen while I work in the yard. The choices for audio are pretty good (much better than the videos).
We should probably advertise the "Project Gutenberg" for those students who need to get their hands on a copy of a classic for summer reading lists and all of ours are checked out.

Thing 21 - Podcasts

My Christmas wishlist will contain an MP3 player (in case I don't win one) because I liked listening to podcasts. There are so many different subject areas to chose from - I especially like the podcast.net where I could browse alphabetically by tags. When I looked under L to find something library-related, it showed:
librarian (4)
librarians (5)
libraries (9)
library (39)
libraryandinformationscie (2)
librarymusic (1)
libraryofeconomicsandlibe (1)
libraryscience (3)
librarysearch (1)
That's a lot to listen to. So I sent the SirsiDynix Institute podcasts RSS to my bloglines. Stephen Abrams does a lot of podcasts dealing with Web 2.0 material. So I can listen at work!
I also looked up quilting this way and wouldn't mind listening to Alex Anderson while I sew. And for all those Project Runway fans in the library - I found podcasts by Tim Gunn! I might also be interested in listening to some health related episodes.
I see that the Yahoo!podcasts site is closing down after Oct. 31 and podcastalley seemed a little dark and weird for me. Maybe I just didn't give it a chance.

Thing 20 - YouTube

YouTube has provided a lot of entertainment during this 23 Things project and I enjoy seeing what everyone has chosen. When I searched the site, I was overwhelmed at all the things I did not want to see or what others thought to be interesting. I am glad there is a search box. So, since it mentioned that I could find some old TV shows I thought of a routine that my family watched on "Hee Haw" many years ago that involved spoonerisms. We would laugh for days about the 'mugly other' and the 'bancy fall' This was the best routine I could find of the story of 'Rindercella' - and the easiest to understand. ENJOY.

There are actually some cute library uses for YouTube - the finalists named in the "I Love My Library!" contest sponsored by Thomson Gale can be found here. Here is just one of the finalists:

Thing 19 - Web 2.0 Awards

I checked out the 1st place winner for the category retail - Threadless (www.threadless.com) It's all about T-shirts. I enjoyed looking at all the designs and reading about how the designers came up with their ideas. You can sign on and discuss the designs as well as shop for the t-shirts and/or hoodies. This site would be very social for the younger set who wear a lot of t-shirts as they can blog about them; so I guess I could see this being used for something in the YA section. Maybe have a 'design a t-shirt' contest and submit the winner OR find a design to order for a teen book discussion or summer reading

"Lost in Translation"
I wish I had seen this site earlier because there was a perfect shirt (see above) for Lee to wear in France. It's called "International Translation" and it is covered in pictures of things you would be looking for while traveling. Then you can just point to the picture of what it is and the natives can steer you in the right direction. Cool!

Talk like a Pirate Day!

My pirate name is:

Dirty Ethel Rackham

You're the pirate everyone else wants to throw in the ocean -- not to get rid of you, you understand; just to get rid of the smell. You have the good fortune of having a good name, since Rackham (pronounced RACKem, not rack-ham) is one of the coolest sounding surnames for a pirate. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
part of the fidius.org network

Thing 18 - Online Productivity

This is my sample using the ZOHO Writer. I agree, it's is pretty much the same as Word. The fact that it is free makes it a great choice for those who can't or don't want to pay for the MS products. I also like the fact that it can be used for group projects and would be handy for school. But I was just getting to the point where I felt rather cool carrying around my flashdrive!! I am even ahead of my daughter using that little gadget! But this site is good to know if I need to work on projects when I am away from my desk or laptop.

The above paragraph was typed in ZOHO and published to my blog. It was easy once I changed permissions on IE to allow ZOHO Writer. I do wish there had been something like this years ago when I needed a spreadsheet program on my computer at home. Can you tell I liked the little emotions - not very professional for a paper though.

Thing 17 - SandBox Wiki

This was a quick one. I added my blog to Cecil County's list and I posted a statement on someone else's page - 23 Things you could do Today. It was as easy as they said.

Thing 16 - Wikis

I have known about Wikis for a long time now though I have never made any changes to one. I have always had the concept that wikipedia can't be trusted; but I find it great to use when I work on my crossword puzzles. It almost always has the answer to those detail type clues as 'artist of "Prima Ballerina"' or 'star of a (certain) 1937 movie'. The member-type wiki can be a very powerful tool. The Unicorn User Group started one several years ago to discuss solutions to problems that we were all having rather than just posting answers on a listserve or forum. That way, changes could be made as someone discovered something that would work. Also, someone else suggested that we could use a wiki to work on a group project - we didn't, but I can see how that would work.

Thing 15 - Library 2.0 and the future

It's obvious that we are in the middle of something big here, hence all the debate. We are moving from a profession that was all about citing sources to allowing the public to find information on their own and make their own decisions about the validity. While this is a major transition for old-school librarians, the newer, younger staff can embrace it much easier. I feel like I am one of the middle-grounders. I like the organized, everything in its proper place of the old ways; yet I find myself wanting to do more on my own. When I am searching for something, in a new place, or just facing a new experience, I first want to "do it myself"; but I don't mind asking for help if I need it.
So I find myself in the middle of the metadata debate also. At first I agreed that - Yes, we need one thesaurus to cover all topics. Make it easier to find what we need in any format. But the specialized vocabularies are important also. For instance, if you are looking for medical information, you don't want to pull up every situation of that term and have the medical source buried deep in pages and pages of results. So what we need is a happy medium so we can chose if we want a specific source or not.
I am also having some trouble giving up ownership of tags and keywords to the general public. While cataloging still has many old-fashioned terms still in use, I saw the trouble just five of us had in trying to catalog some photographs - and that was with using a specialized art thesaurus. We were all over the place in deciding what the pictures were really about. I still haven't decided if folksomonies are going to help or hinder. ON TO THE FUTURE!

Thing 14 - Technorati

This site overwhelmed me. It's not that I see it as something I will never use - just not right now. First of all, I am not ready to tag my blog and put it out there for the world to see. Secondly, I do not have the time to wade through all the choices that it gives or to even look for favorites. I really don't spend that much time on my computer. But I can see the potential for future use.

Thing 13 - del.icio.us

I didn't sign up for this one - yet. When I first started looking at it, I thought I would not be interested in this at all. My favorite links are for me alone and I really don't care what other people are choosing for their favorites. But the more I looked this over, the more I could see the advantages and ways I could use it. I have already been in several situations where I wish I had my favorites list with me since I hadn't memorized websites that I needed. The site itself gave a few good ideas for using it (of course) and I could find it useful when doing research or group projects at school. At least, if a fellow student mentions it, I will know what they are talking about.

Thing 12 - Rollyo

I agree that this would be very useful for reference or even those who use the internet alot! I don't seem to search in categories often; but I decided to create mine using quilting sites. Then maybe I will look at them more often. Now I will try to add the searchbox. Well, there it is (I'm surprised myself). My rollyo is FJ Quilting Sites.

Thing 11 - LibraryThing

I had heard of this before. We explored it during my cataloging class but I didn't try it. I did put in a few of my favorite titles now (http://www.librarything.com/catalog.php?view=fjack&shelf=list) even though I don't actually have the books at home. (So I will probably go back later to remove them and unsubscribe.) I don't buy or keep books since the library can store them for me. Now, what I need is something like this to keep track of all of our DVD's. Does anyone know of a site like that?

Thing 10 - Online Image Generators

This exercise was fun. I checked out several generators but thought that many of them were too silly. I did like this sketch generator - this is my house. My avatar did take way too much time but I was trying for just the right look. This is me - not at work! Actually it's pretty close to what I look like when I go to the Rendezvous to dance to my favorite band, Nightstreet. I am just missing my dangling earrings and "Harley Davidson" written across the front of my shirt. I was a little disappointed that the whole dance sequence didn't come through but if you click on the picture, there's more. I should add one of Nightstreet's songs as background music.

Thing 9 - Merlin, etc.

I had a lesson on Merlin last year with Nini so I didn't spend a lot of time investigating it now. I did look at online learning and will keep up on the free classes offered. SirsiDynix offers some stuff that goes along with our system. The search tools for feeds were somewhat overwhelming for me right now - way too many choices. I think I will just choose some as I find them. I did find another one on Stephen Abram's blog since he had a button for 'related feeds'. The new one is put out by LITA (Library and Information Technology Assoc.) and they talk about things like the top tech. trends of 2007 - http://litablog.org/
I decided I am going to look at Meez at home - it will take way too long to play with!

Thing 8 - Bloglines

Okay, I registered. I have gone to many workshops that discussed RSS feeds and how they work. Thought they were an interesting concept so I'm glad I finally had the opportunity to try. Though I can't think of what I need to have sent to me 'right away'. I already had the comic "Unshelved" emailed to me everyday; but I added it to bloglines anyway. If I use it I may cancel the email. I also haven't forced myself to find 10 - will add more when something interesting to me comes up. I did put in some Cecil County blogs and Erica Hassler's. My best library feed, so far, is "Stephen's Lighthouse" - by Stephen Abram, SirsiDynix vice president of Innovation (at least he used to be) who calls it "Stuff of interest to me that may be of interest to library folk." He is a wonderful speaker with good ideas about the future of libraries.
I also went to a session on adding the RSS feed to our website/catalog. I'm afraid it made my head hurt because I would need API training to do it. It made the other tech people I was with blurry eyed too!

More Thing 7 - Our One-Eyed Jack

This was more of my tech goal - I uploaded from the camera. Much easier than I expected, just had to plug in a cable. Now I can bore everyone with garden pictures! This is another member of the family that few know about. Her name is Peanut and she is about 12 years old. My DD found her on the side of the road and she fit in the palm of my hand. (Hence her name.) Last year her eye became infected so we had to have it removed. She seems no worse for wear and is quite content; she eats, sleeps and lies in the sun like all other cats and is waiting for me when I come out in the mornings.

Thing 7 - Anything Technology

This is just a report on my new technology goal - using a digital camera. When I mentioned this to my DD, she said she needed a new one and off we went to Best Buy. She picked out the Canon PowerShot SD750 (whatever!), and she did get me my own memory card. It's hard to find the time to work with it, let alone having her home to help me; so I am still just looking through the basic guide - there is a bigger advanced guide yet! I am thrilled to report that I can 1) turn it on in the correct mode, 2) scroll through the pictures (hers - thank goodness no "Girls Gone Wild!" but close), 3) change the memory card, 4) take a picture (not a movie, which I did by mistake), and 5) erase the ones I don't want! I thought that was a big accomplishment for one evening, so I am going to take some more pictures (I have the camera until Thursday, when she will be playing golf with a retired Oriole). Then I need to learn to put them on my computer. You'll know when I learn that step. Sorry - no pictures of "girls gone wild".

Thing 6 - in memory of Cookie (flickr movie poster)

My creation
Originally uploaded by f22jack

This is our dalmatian Cookie, who passed away on April 16, 2007. She was 10 years old and her official name was Cookies and Cream (like the ice cream). I should say she was Billy's dog because she only tolerated me. Oh well, the books said that dalmatians were one master dogs! This is not really Cookie on the poster but she was a pretty dalmatian even if she was mean to others. Maybe I should have rated it R for "really scary". Though she drove me crazy at times, I still miss her.

Still Thing 5 - Addicted to sunflowers!

Addicted to sunflowers!
Originally uploaded by lpn2rn40

Thanks Edwar! I did it all by myself. The title of this picture is a good description of me. I could go a little crazy with this since there are 93,549 photos associated with "sunflowers" on flickr as of right now. So I will stop here (for now) and go on to working on Thing 6.

Thing 5 - Sunflowers in the Dark 2 (mosaic)

I like the way this picture looks against the black background.

Sunflowers in the Dark 2 (mosaic)
Originally uploaded by Roger Lynn

This is my first successful attempt at flickr - won't tell how many tries it took; but I did learn how to delete posts while I was working on it. I may have to try this on my own a few more times.

Things 3 & 4

Just a quick post now that I have registered and begun working on the tracking log. I am looking forward to decorating my blog page but I think that will come with future 'things' and I don't want to jump ahead. But I want pictures and an avatar also!

Things 1 & 2

I feel like I'm late getting started so I need to double up. I read the "7 Habits" so the concept here is not too different. I try to use that program as much as I can because I do have the propensity to sidetrack and I am so easily distracted. Since I have been using the program for several years (I have separate to-do lists for each part of my life right now.), I found the first habit to be the easiest for me. I know to set goals and then to backtrack and break them down into doable parts with short-term deadlines. The hardest habit for me is #4 - "have confidence in yourself as a competent, effective learner". Somedays my brain justs hurts with all the new things it has to take in!
So as my goal to work on, I picked something that I see so many people doing and I have fought against learning for so long - using the digital camera. I have been completely happy with my old 35 mm camera that prints the date on the front of the picture and besides, I am not that much of a picture-taker anyway (except for my garden). So I am planning to borrow my daughter's camera and just get started. I figure there are a lot of people that could help me!