#14 Getting not-so-technical with Technorati
Discovery Exercise:
1. Take a look at Technorati and try doing various keyword searches in the different search areas. Do you get different results depending on where you search?
I really like how this enables me to cover a broader variety of possibilities for what I'm looking for.
2. Explore popular blog, searches and tags. Is anything interesting or surprising in your results?
Not particularly? At least not specifically, but I would love to compare what the top fifteen searches are for other countries and compare them to America. It's always interesting to see what each country is interested, concerned about, or has as a priority for their searches.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Change Pirate Day 6: Post #8
#13 Tagging, folksomonies & social bookmarking in Delicious
Discovery Exercise:
1. View one of the Discovery Resources listed above to get a good overview of the features in Delicious.
2. Take a look around Delicious using the PLCMCL2 account that was created for the original 23 Things exercise by Helene Blowers. Note: In this account you will find lots of resources that have been highlighted or used throughout the course of the Learning 2.0 program.
This was very helpful! I really appreciated being able to go through this lsit of links and have examples and suggestions and explanations listed as I read through.
3. Explore the site options and try clicking on a bookmark that has also been bookmarked by a lot of other users. Can you see the comments they added about this bookmark or the tags that they used to categorize this reference?
I did look through these bookmarks, it was yes, very nifty, but I'm not sure how much I really cared for it personally. Sometimes they're helpful, sometimes they're just clutter.
4. Create a blog post about your experience and thoughts about this tool. Can you see the potential of this tool for research assistance? Or just as an easy way to create bookmarks that can be accessed from anywhere?
"One site that she didn't mention that I like a whole lot is All Consuming, which lets you list, tag, and share items you are consuming (books, CDs, movies, etc.)." from here. I really think this would be fantastic for a library system like OPL with their staff and their patrons. I'd love to see what my fellow librarians in the system are reading or focusing,t he things they're learning! I also would love to see what the majority of our patrons are looking at. Statistics, numbers, charts and graphs are always fascinating for working out the demographics of who (and where these people are) is using the library. It would really help with planning programs for the next year! (I realize this is probably already done in some fashion, but it would be nice to have this available to lower staff in the system.
I'm not so sure I'm that fond of Delicious and how it organizes things, but I'm going to have to spend more time there. the cross-tagging and user-assigned tags are nifty, but... doesn't seem all that culturally and socially relevent for me personally and the things I keep track of online. I love the way the search tool is set up, but...I don't like the way the individual things are listed so haphazardly.
More thoughts to come.
Discovery Exercise:
1. View one of the Discovery Resources listed above to get a good overview of the features in Delicious.
2. Take a look around Delicious using the PLCMCL2 account that was created for the original 23 Things exercise by Helene Blowers. Note: In this account you will find lots of resources that have been highlighted or used throughout the course of the Learning 2.0 program.
This was very helpful! I really appreciated being able to go through this lsit of links and have examples and suggestions and explanations listed as I read through.
3. Explore the site options and try clicking on a bookmark that has also been bookmarked by a lot of other users. Can you see the comments they added about this bookmark or the tags that they used to categorize this reference?
I did look through these bookmarks, it was yes, very nifty, but I'm not sure how much I really cared for it personally. Sometimes they're helpful, sometimes they're just clutter.
4. Create a blog post about your experience and thoughts about this tool. Can you see the potential of this tool for research assistance? Or just as an easy way to create bookmarks that can be accessed from anywhere?
"One site that she didn't mention that I like a whole lot is All Consuming, which lets you list, tag, and share items you are consuming (books, CDs, movies, etc.)." from here. I really think this would be fantastic for a library system like OPL with their staff and their patrons. I'd love to see what my fellow librarians in the system are reading or focusing,t he things they're learning! I also would love to see what the majority of our patrons are looking at. Statistics, numbers, charts and graphs are always fascinating for working out the demographics of who (and where these people are) is using the library. It would really help with planning programs for the next year! (I realize this is probably already done in some fashion, but it would be nice to have this available to lower staff in the system.
I'm not so sure I'm that fond of Delicious and how it organizes things, but I'm going to have to spend more time there. the cross-tagging and user-assigned tags are nifty, but... doesn't seem all that culturally and socially relevent for me personally and the things I keep track of online. I love the way the search tool is set up, but...I don't like the way the individual things are listed so haphazardly.
More thoughts to come.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Change Pirate Day 5: Post #7
Thing #10: Play around with an online image generator
Discovery Exercise:
1. Play around with some image generators and find one that you like: Wordle is a lot of fun!
2. Post the result of your discovery process in your blog. Note: Be sure to include a link to the image generator itself, so other participants can discover it too.
This is being a bit of a hassle, but, I think I've got it now. Ugh. Here's a bit of a problem of being provided the precise code for something when you're using a rich text formatter for your blog.
Thing #11: Take a look at LibraryThing and catalog some of your favorite books
Discovery Exercise:
1. Take a look around LibraryThing and create an account.
2. Add a least 5 books to your library.
3. Blog about your findings and be sure to link to your LibraryThing catalog.
Okay, I'm starting to get pretty sick of having to create all these new accounts just to follow these instructions. I'mg oing to have so many accounts with so many things I rarely use by the time we're done! I can definitely see the use of this, though. Very, very nifty and I might actually keep up with this in my spare time...(-snort- spare time) Fortunately, it's very simple to use and basic to keep up with, a classy, basic layout that's easy to navigate.
My Catalog!
Thing #12: Roll your own search tool with Rollyo
1. Explore Rollyo and create an account for yourself.
2. Create a search roll for any subject you like.
3. Create a post in your blog about your experience and link to your search roll. Can you see a potential use for tools like this?
My search roll is added to the side of my page!
I love how simple this is to set up and add to wherever I need it. Still, I'm very familiar with google searching and yahoo searching so it's not too much of a convenience, since I like the variety and freedom that being able to do it myself allows instead of trusting or leaving it in the hands of narrowed search engine.
Discovery Exercise:
1. Play around with some image generators and find one that you like: Wordle is a lot of fun!
2. Post the result of your discovery process in your blog. Note: Be sure to include a link to the image generator itself, so other participants can discover it too.
This is being a bit of a hassle, but, I think I've got it now. Ugh. Here's a bit of a problem of being provided the precise code for something when you're using a rich text formatter for your blog.
Thing #11: Take a look at LibraryThing and catalog some of your favorite books
Discovery Exercise:
1. Take a look around LibraryThing and create an account.
2. Add a least 5 books to your library.
3. Blog about your findings and be sure to link to your LibraryThing catalog.
Okay, I'm starting to get pretty sick of having to create all these new accounts just to follow these instructions. I'mg oing to have so many accounts with so many things I rarely use by the time we're done! I can definitely see the use of this, though. Very, very nifty and I might actually keep up with this in my spare time...(-snort- spare time) Fortunately, it's very simple to use and basic to keep up with, a classy, basic layout that's easy to navigate.
My Catalog!
Thing #12: Roll your own search tool with Rollyo
1. Explore Rollyo and create an account for yourself.
2. Create a search roll for any subject you like.
3. Create a post in your blog about your experience and link to your search roll. Can you see a potential use for tools like this?
My search roll is added to the side of my page!
I love how simple this is to set up and add to wherever I need it. Still, I'm very familiar with google searching and yahoo searching so it's not too much of a convenience, since I like the variety and freedom that being able to do it myself allows instead of trusting or leaving it in the hands of narrowed search engine.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Bunnycomic1.jpg hosted at ImageShack.us
Visit rlee3002's (my) ImageShack profile
Quickpost these images to Myspace, Digg, Facebook, and others!
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Change Pirate Day 4: Post #6
Thing #8: Learn about RSS feeds and setup your own RSS reader account.
1. Okay, I confess...I'm a complete n00b with RSS feeds, I really am. These were really good resources to learn about them, but I'm still going to have to do it myself before I completely understand how this works.
2. I really like the way this can streamline the things you enjoy. At this point I genuinely don't go through many blogs, mostly webcomics and news as I often feel like getting so many peoples opinions is overwhelming...like too many ads at tv getting me to look at their product their way instead of finding facts and formulating my opinion. Not like webcomics don't do this more subtly, but the key word is 'subtly' in this. If you're going to brainwash me, you don't want to give me a headache right out to begin with. The whole frog in a pot of boiling water sort of analogy.
PS: It seems a little silly I can't set my blog on there to automatically import my Change Pirate blog from here. Maybe I just haven't figured it out yet. I'll keep looking. Sheesh, Facebook can do it.
Thing#9: Locate a few useful library related blogs and other news feeds.
1.. Here's what I've got for a list of feeds:
Bloglines News
Bunny
Buttercup Festival
Change Pirate
Nebraska Library Commission Blog
O! What a Geek : Library Learning
Unshelved
The Weather Channel: National Weather Outlook
xkcd.com
The Bunny System
2. Running a search for feeds was fairly effective, though the occaisional more obscure feed I hd to actually run a search for to bring up the url, dig through it to find their RSS feed, and then use the "Add" and paste the rss feed link into there to get it to work. Not terribly inefficient, so I don't mind using it at all. I mostlys tuck with the sites I'm currently using to keep track of them, especially since I check them on a relatively regular basis now...
1. Okay, I confess...I'm a complete n00b with RSS feeds, I really am. These were really good resources to learn about them, but I'm still going to have to do it myself before I completely understand how this works.
2. I really like the way this can streamline the things you enjoy. At this point I genuinely don't go through many blogs, mostly webcomics and news as I often feel like getting so many peoples opinions is overwhelming...like too many ads at tv getting me to look at their product their way instead of finding facts and formulating my opinion. Not like webcomics don't do this more subtly, but the key word is 'subtly' in this. If you're going to brainwash me, you don't want to give me a headache right out to begin with. The whole frog in a pot of boiling water sort of analogy.
PS: It seems a little silly I can't set my blog on there to automatically import my Change Pirate blog from here. Maybe I just haven't figured it out yet. I'll keep looking. Sheesh, Facebook can do it.
Thing#9: Locate a few useful library related blogs and other news feeds.
1.. Here's what I've got for a list of feeds:
Bloglines News
Bunny
Buttercup Festival
Change Pirate
Nebraska Library Commission Blog
O! What a Geek : Library Learning
Unshelved
The Weather Channel: National Weather Outlook
xkcd.com
The Bunny System
2. Running a search for feeds was fairly effective, though the occaisional more obscure feed I hd to actually run a search for to bring up the url, dig through it to find their RSS feed, and then use the "Add" and paste the rss feed link into there to get it to work. Not terribly inefficient, so I don't mind using it at all. I mostlys tuck with the sites I'm currently using to keep track of them, especially since I check them on a relatively regular basis now...
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Change Pirate Day 3: Post #5
Thing #7 Blog abouttechnology that intrigues you this week.
I remember when my parents were traveling around America to raise support for going back overseas for their mission work, and my dad would always joke to audiences about how he believed computers were made for Bible Translation.
Before they had computers, my parents had to do Everything by hand. Keeping track of phonetics, keeping track of the words they'd learned handwritten phonetically and what they meant...since my parents knew that the language had never beenw ritten down, they had to make up an alphabet as they went, writing the language by phonetics and then making sure it was consistant each time...and if there was an incosistancy, make sure it wasn't just a different tense of the same word. All by hand. Then there was actually writing the bible translatioin down by hand. Each book of the bible...I think it was the book of either Mark or John that my dad rewrote over 7 times by hand because there were no computers to hit "copy-paste" with.
It seems like such a silly thing to be grateful for computers like this, but...I don't know. I'm pretty happy for them myself.
I remember when my parents were traveling around America to raise support for going back overseas for their mission work, and my dad would always joke to audiences about how he believed computers were made for Bible Translation.
Before they had computers, my parents had to do Everything by hand. Keeping track of phonetics, keeping track of the words they'd learned handwritten phonetically and what they meant...since my parents knew that the language had never beenw ritten down, they had to make up an alphabet as they went, writing the language by phonetics and then making sure it was consistant each time...and if there was an incosistancy, make sure it wasn't just a different tense of the same word. All by hand. Then there was actually writing the bible translatioin down by hand. Each book of the bible...I think it was the book of either Mark or John that my dad rewrote over 7 times by hand because there were no computers to hit "copy-paste" with.
It seems like such a silly thing to be grateful for computers like this, but...I don't know. I'm pretty happy for them myself.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Change Pirate Day 2: Post #4
I'm having trouble getting ahold of which Creative mp3 player exactly is going to be given away (sites are a beast to wander through and actually find things with, it's like they expect you to magically stumble across everything), but here's what I'd love to get from Best Buy.
SanDisk Sansa Clip MP3 player
Here's some of the basic specs for the link-skittish:
Warranty Terms - Parts: 1 year limited
Warranty Terms - Labor: 1 year limited
Product Height: 2.2"
Product Width: 1.4"
Product Weight: 0.9 oz.
Product Depth: 0.7"
Storage Type: Flash memory
Built-In Storage Capacity: 2GB (actual formatted capacity less)
Included Removable Memory: None
Removable Memory Type: None
Digital Audio Format Upgradable: Upgradable firmware enables support for future audio formats
Computer Compatibility: PC
Voice Recorder: Yes
Music Service Compatibility: Best Buy Digital Music Store
Digital Audio Formats: MP3, WMA, WMA secure, Audible audio
Battery Quantity: 1
Battery Life: Up to 15 hours
Connection Transfer Rate: USB 2.0
Tuner Type: Digital FM
Station Presets: 40
Headphone Type: Earphones
Included Accessories: Clip, earphones, USB 2.0 cable, quick-start guide, user guide and installation CD-ROM
System Requirements: Microsoft Windows XP (SP 2) or Vista; Windows Media Player 10 or 11; CD-ROM drive; available USB 2.0 port
Bluetooth-Enabled: No
If you're like me and
1) Loathe and despise iTunes. I've tried this program and I am not fond of how it organizes my music. I like Windows Media Player entirely too much-the simple media properties editing, titles, the freedom it gives you to leave everything in your own format...iTunes digs in it's heels at anything that is basic mp3 format and usually tries to convert everything into it's own special format that is useless to anyone who isn't using iTunes unless you burn everything to a cd first. (It's a setting you can change,b ut the fact that it tries is highly offensive to me)
2) Don't need to use an mp3 player as your entire music storage backup. I have two laptops and a desktop and trust me, I make good use of making sure all my music is backed up safely. 2GB of space (less when formatted) is fine by me for a few days of what I'm currently listening to or getting to know.
3) Don't want to have to install other software that has to act as a bridge between the mp3 player and syncing up the music. I don't want to l earn to use another new player or risk it messing up my playlists, or recopying songs to it's own locations so I have duplicates clogging up my computer under different names or different organization.
4) Want to have a songlist that you can look at. The Creative Lab Zen Stone doesn't have a display screen to list the song titles so you have to pretyt much guess and check to figure out which song you're listening to. Since I listen to so much foreign music, learning songtitles and bands simply by their lyrics is much more difficult-I need the band name and song title to help me keep track.
5) Cost. All this for $59.99, which doesn't seem too bad to me when I thinka bout it. With a $40 gift card, that's another $20+shipping if bought online. Not bad to get an mp3 player like this for $20.
Granted, all of this is subjective to change when I get the chance to fully compare the mp3 players.
SanDisk Sansa Clip MP3 player
Here's some of the basic specs for the link-skittish:
Warranty Terms - Parts: 1 year limited
Warranty Terms - Labor: 1 year limited
Product Height: 2.2"
Product Width: 1.4"
Product Weight: 0.9 oz.
Product Depth: 0.7"
Storage Type: Flash memory
Built-In Storage Capacity: 2GB (actual formatted capacity less)
Included Removable Memory: None
Removable Memory Type: None
Digital Audio Format Upgradable: Upgradable firmware enables support for future audio formats
Computer Compatibility: PC
Voice Recorder: Yes
Music Service Compatibility: Best Buy Digital Music Store
Digital Audio Formats: MP3, WMA, WMA secure, Audible audio
Battery Quantity: 1
Battery Life: Up to 15 hours
Connection Transfer Rate: USB 2.0
Tuner Type: Digital FM
Station Presets: 40
Headphone Type: Earphones
Included Accessories: Clip, earphones, USB 2.0 cable, quick-start guide, user guide and installation CD-ROM
System Requirements: Microsoft Windows XP (SP 2) or Vista; Windows Media Player 10 or 11; CD-ROM drive; available USB 2.0 port
Bluetooth-Enabled: No
If you're like me and
1) Loathe and despise iTunes. I've tried this program and I am not fond of how it organizes my music. I like Windows Media Player entirely too much-the simple media properties editing, titles, the freedom it gives you to leave everything in your own format...iTunes digs in it's heels at anything that is basic mp3 format and usually tries to convert everything into it's own special format that is useless to anyone who isn't using iTunes unless you burn everything to a cd first. (It's a setting you can change,b ut the fact that it tries is highly offensive to me)
2) Don't need to use an mp3 player as your entire music storage backup. I have two laptops and a desktop and trust me, I make good use of making sure all my music is backed up safely. 2GB of space (less when formatted) is fine by me for a few days of what I'm currently listening to or getting to know.
3) Don't want to have to install other software that has to act as a bridge between the mp3 player and syncing up the music. I don't want to l earn to use another new player or risk it messing up my playlists, or recopying songs to it's own locations so I have duplicates clogging up my computer under different names or different organization.
4) Want to have a songlist that you can look at. The Creative Lab Zen Stone doesn't have a display screen to list the song titles so you have to pretyt much guess and check to figure out which song you're listening to. Since I listen to so much foreign music, learning songtitles and bands simply by their lyrics is much more difficult-I need the band name and song title to help me keep track.
5) Cost. All this for $59.99, which doesn't seem too bad to me when I thinka bout it. With a $40 gift card, that's another $20+shipping if bought online. Not bad to get an mp3 player like this for $20.
Granted, all of this is subjective to change when I get the chance to fully compare the mp3 players.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)