#91 Fun with Photos- part 3 of 3- You ought to be in pictures

1.FotoFlexer, mentioned in the first post, has effects similar to BeFunky and BigHugeLabs. Choose a photo to edit in FotoFlexer and either BeFunky or BigHugeLabs (Cartoonizer, Warholizer, etc). Compare the two. Were the results the same? Do you have a preference?
I took a photo of the Dome and played with different effects. I liked this image the best. It was done using Stencil which gives sort of a grainy old fashioned photo look. I took the same picture and played with FotoFlexer until I found a blueprint effect. I like both of them.

2.Use one of the image generators to spiff up a profile picture. You can search Pho.to or FaceInHole for different scenarios - be creative with your search! Share your newly generated image on your blog.

Okay, so I tried all these and played with putting my head in the FaceInHole's Monet. It didn't look very good. I tried some cartoon characters like Santa and an Elf. Pho.to was not as easy to use and I never could get the zombie one to load my photo. But I did go back to BeFunky and had fun re-imaging myself. Here I am.

#90 You ought to be in pictures- Sharing Photos

Exercises

1.Watch the video for an overview of photo sharing. I watched the video on photo sharing. I watched it twice because she spoke so fast I couldn't understand what she was saying the first round through.

2.If you aren't familiar with any of these sites, browse through the public areas and their features or tours.
Flickr: I went through the guided tour on Flickr.
Photobucket:I toured Photobucket's "about us" section. The photos on the home page didn't look like anything I would want. I clicked on Happy Birthday to found more drawings and cartoons than photos. I couldn't see the slide show information without registering.
Picasa: I watched the video about how the Picasa web album works explaining tagging photos and how it can recognize similar faces-just plan weird. Picasa is part of Google so they had my email already listed.
Facebook: I restarted my Facebook account in order to complete this assignment.

3.What features are important to you when sharing your photos? Are privacy or copyright/creative commons options important to you? Which site do you prefer?
Privacy of my photographs is important. The information connected to the photograph concerns me more. Copyright is only important if I were going to publish the photo or use it for a presentation. Acknowledging the photographer or source is important to remember.

#89 You ought to be in pictures-basic photo editing

1.Upload a photo to Picnik, Photoshop or Fotoflexer. Use at least one editing feature (red-eye fix, cropping, sharpening, resizing, etc.) and one creating feature (framing, adding text, touching up, captions, etc.). Post the edited photo on your blog.
I tried to use red-eye on one of my photo's and ended up with a very dark face- looked more like a burglar. Then I never could get it moved from Picnik to my blog. I did play with the editing techniques , just was not able to figure out how to move it to my blog. Using Fotoflex I was able to edit the photo of woman telling a story at Garner State Park. I sort of erased or colored over their styrophone cups using the color marking and then added the window with text.

2.Which photo editing features are important for your use? Which of the listed sites would best meet your photographic needs? Post your answer in your blog.

The photo editing features important would be the red eye and maybe sizing. It would take more playing time for me to become proficient in this and see which site is the most helpful. It was a major operation just loading them on the blog.

#88 The Web according to Google: Wave, Buzz and Mobile

1.How do you think you could use Google Wave or Buzz for collaboration?
Yes when I am trying to get a time and place to have dinner with my friends. This would streamline the results immediately instead of calling each or even emailing each and then waiting for them to respond.
Do you currently use any online collaboration tools? No

2.Read a little about one or two of the Google Mobile apps available for mobile phones. Which ones do you think you would use the most and how? I would use google earth. It is great for finding out what a building looks like if you are traveling. I signed up for the calendar which might be helpful also.

3.Make a post in your blog with your answers.
I have chosen to copy the question and just type in my answers. It seems easier and faster than chatting about my experience.

#87 Google Cont.- Google Reader

1.Take the tour or sign-up and try the service out. Do you currently use a feed reader? If so which one do you use? Yes, Bloglines. Would you switch to Google Reader if you don't already use it? Why or why not? Yes, it looks like it would be easier to search through and delete without opening up each entry.

2.Take a look at some of your favorite sites. Do they have feeds? If they do, subscribe to one of the feeds. Hint: Our website has feeds.
I usually use the web to find information and have not felt a need to know about web site updates. I didn't see a link on either Texas Parks and Wildlife site or Houston Audubon. Both have a place to sign up for email alerts.

#86 Google Cont. Calendar and Documents

1.Create a calendar in Google Calendar and try adding some events or tasks to it.
I created a calendar for my work email and entered my ihcpl training time. I also gave myself a reminder to not forget to watch Lost on Tuesday night at 8pm.
How do you think you would use Google Calendar in the workplace or at home? I don't see how this could replace my calendar I keep in my purse because I don't have Internet access on my phone or a mobile device and I do not have text on my cell phone. At home I could use it if I want to access the Internet at home, which is really not very practical for me. Unless I bought a laptop, my PC is not very fast or accessible.
Do you think you would find it helpful to share calendars with coworkers, friends, or family? Yes, sharing a calendar might be helpful. At work we already share calendar. This takes a certain amount of discipline to fill in all upcoming events which right now may not be important enough to go to the trouble of logging on and filling out.

2.Try creating a file Google Docs and uploading one from your computer. I uploaded two files, one made it the other didn't. I never received a "save" message but the last one is still there. Not sure what I did wrong. I uploaded one of my Continuation spreadsheets which are quite large.
Can you see yourself using Google Docs in addition to or instead of a desktop office application? Why or why not? This might be helpful for seeing files to view at home or sending to others who may not have excel. I don't have excel at home but it looks like I could still be able to view this file at home through my Google account.

#85-Web according to Google: Resistance is futile

1.What Google products do you use on a regular basis?
Google earth and the search engine.Why do you use them and what makes them better than a competing product? I use google earth because it is easy to use and very fast. Unlike some maps it doesn't require a number of layers that confuse me and are hard to figure out. By just putting in an address you can see an aerial shot and then by clicking on the little man you can see the street view.

2.Check out Google Labs. Did you see any new products that you want to try? Yes, I would like to try the Google Chrome as a web browser. The google books product I had seen before but it has added many more books and magazines.

3.Search or browse Google Books. Do they have the book or magazine you looked for? Yes, I first looked for crib notes for the Scarlet Letter. It was easy to find. Did you find any gems? I did a search for Waldon by Henry David Thoreau. I was surprised to see magazines with the same title . They had the 1854 edition of Waldon from the Stanford Library. The reproduction even included the binding cover in color. How can this be used in the library? I specifically looked up Scarlet Letter because we often had students searching for cliff notes at the last minute and our two copies were not on the shelf. This is an easy alternative.

Searching #75: Google and Beyond

1. Type 3 searches into Blind search, which one did I choose as best.
On two of my searches there pretty much was a tie because the top two listings were the same for each. But the third search gave the correct answer from Bing.
How did my favorite rate on each search?
My favorite has always been Google and it was second choice on two of the searches but on the third search it didn't come close.
Will that affect my future searching?
After these results I plan on switching to Bing for first search.
2.What search engine was number 1 on Hitwize the week of my searches? Google was number one.
How did it compare to the competitors?
Google had 71% of searches while Yahoo had 14% and Bing 9%
Did usage stats match with my favorite? No- Bing usage was minor compared to Google.

3. Marketing of search engines- explore features offered by the top three, Google, Yahoo and Bing. What new things did I discover that were useful.
I choose Bing and discovered they offer a cash back incentive using their searches with certain stores. They have a separate Travel search that streamlines all info together- airline costs, hotel etc to your destination.

BOOKS READERS AND BEYOND: #54 Social Networking Through Books

Exercise One-
Post on your blog whether or not you ever been a member of a book club. Also discuss whether you prefer joining a in-person or online book club.
I have never been a member of a book club. It usually takes me a couple of months to finish a book and the pressure of reading a book by a certain time makes it difficult to enjoy. It might be fun to try out an online book club.

Exercise Two
After viewing the resources above, what ideas come to mind for implementing a book club into your library. Post your thoughts and ideas onto your blog. Using one of the "live" book club resources, also look for a title that your book club could discuss.
My idea would be to have a revolving genre book club. One month romance, the next thriller, the next mystery therefore you might catch different groups each month. In Library Thing , I looked up the mystery writer, Deborah Crombie. They had a list of her upcoming appearances at libraries and bookstores. One was Murder by the Book in Houston on June 25. I picked her book Dreaming of the Bones to discuss in a book club. It won some awards and had good reviews. Since it is just one in a series readers may want to continue reading her other titles after finishing this one.

Exercise Three
Search for one of the books you selected in the first post on at least two of the social networks. Do the ratings for the book differ on each site, or are they similar? Did you find anything surprising?
I only saw "Dreaming of Bones" listed on Shelfari and everyone gave it 5 stars. It was not listed on Goodreads or Reading Group Choices. I didn't see anything surprising.

BOOKS, READERS AND BEYOND: #53 Finding Books Online

Exercise One
Find and report on your blog the three booksellers that are closest to your branch or facility. Do they have an online presence? If they do, please describe it in twenty-five words or less on your blog.
B. Dalton Booksellers- BookStop on Alabama, Borders on Alabama at Kirby and Brazos Bookstore on Bissonnet. B Dalton turned out to be Barnes and Noble website. Borders quick search didn't work but I did find a paperback of Greg Bear's Darwin's Radio by using the advanced search. Brazos Bookstore had an interesting website giving staff and customers reading picks along with store suggestions. They listed upcoming events. I was able to find books about Houston I had not seen before.

Exercise Two
Search for one of the books you selected in the previous post. Is it available from a bookstore? Which one, and at what price? (In dollars or in other books.) Can you find an eBook or Audio version online? On which site did your find it? (If you can’t find it online, please list in your blog the sites you searched.)
Greg Bear's Darwin's Radio was available from Borders in mass market paperback for $7.99 The Wrath of the Grinning Ghost by Brad Strickland was currently out of stock in Barnes and Nobel but I could pick up 19 used copies for as little as $1.99. Borders did not have it listed. I checked Amazon for online or audio and found neither for Grinning Ghost. The Greg Bear book, Darwin's Radio was available to read on a Kindle for $6.64 from Amazon. Audio CD was listed for $88.67 also a downloadable copy was available through "Audible" for $13.13.

Exercise Three
Download an eBook. Spend at least half an hour reading it. Write about your experience on your blog. How did it compare with reading a traditional print copy? What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages of each format?
This exercise required me to browse some of the free ebooks online websites in order to find a book I wanted to read. Barleby.com had the Harvard Classics. I first chose a Robert Burns poetry book but found it was hard to tell if I was looking at a book or just summoning up a poem from the Internet. Then I clicked on the link mentioned called 20+ Places for Public Domain Ebooks . This was very helpful because it not only listed the URLs for public domain ebooks but gave a brief description to guide me. PlanetPDF was listed as having " a decent sized collection of classic novels all in PDF format". I browsed the titles until I found "Emma" by Jane Austen. After increasing the font I found I could read it easily on the computer screen. One advantage for using an ebook would be if all the library copies are checked out and student needs to read it for an assignment. It's cheaper than purchasing from a book store. Disadvantages are that you must have Internet access and a computer in order to read. Not everyone has this equipment at their house. When reading a book online you can't really see how far you've gone. I enjoy seeing if I am a third through or halfway by looking at where the bookmark falls in the book. Reading a paperback in the backyard or at the beach does not work with an online book. I enjoy reading on the plane or while waiting in airport and doctor offices. Paperbacks fit easily in my purse and I don't need Internet access or a laptop.

BOOKS , READERS AND BEYOND #52 What to Read?

1. How do you find a read-alike? Pick a title by one of your favorite authors. Search Novelist Plus to find a read-alike. Now perform the same search using two of the other sites listed above. Were the results the same? Compare the two searches and the results in your blog post.
To find a "read-alike" go to the database Novelist and type in an author's name. After choosing the correct author, they usually list many with the same or similiar names, click on it's name. The author profile will appear with a tab at the top "read- alike". Click on the tab and a number of similar titles will be listed . I typed in Elizabeth George into each and also Dick Francis. The Morton Grove Public's FictionL List had lots of lists but I had to scan through all to see if my authors were there. I never saw them listed. What I should read next seemed fast and easy. None of the authors or titles matched any I had pulled from Novelist. For Dick Francis one author appeared in both. The Library Booklists and Bibliographies lead me to Mayo County library's read- alike section. They had Francis but not George.

2. Using one of the resources listed above find two books suitable for a fourth grade girl interested in animals and another two books for her thirteen year old brother who is interested in ghost stories. Post which resource you used and the books you located.
Using Novelist basic search screen I typed in "animals" and checked the box to limit results to "older kids". Then I sorted the list by popularity. The top two were E. B. White's Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little. Both fell in the fourth grade reading level using the Lexile score. Also Black Beauty by Anna Sewell fell in the top of a fourth graders reading lexile range. All three titles are found in HCPL.
For the 13 yr old brother I found several titles. Using the advanced search I typed in the subject "ghosts" and limited it to "teens" and "male". I also clicked "Novelist Best" hoping to narrow it to popular titles. One was "Ghost Canoe" by Will Hobbs about a 14 year old boy in the Pacific northwest. Another "Kit's Wilderness" by David Almond about a 13 yr old boy living with his grandfather in a coal mining town in England that is haunted with ghosts from the past. I also found a nonfiction title "Ghost Liners, exploring the worlds greatest lost ships" by Robert Ballard.
3. A customer tells you that he's read every book written by Dean Koontz and asks you to find an author who writes similar books. Using two of the sites listed above, find three new authors to recommend to your customer. Post the sites you used and the results in your blog.
Novelist Plus suggested Greg Bear, Dan Simmons and Robert McCammon.
Wake County Public Library through a link from Library Book List suggested:
Greg Bear, Douglas Clegg and Mathew Delang.
Novelist was easy to use, the Library Book List had a search box but did not lead you to the page, so you had to read through every author to find the link. Once found it lead you direct to another link or the Wake County Public Library, North Carolina website.
4. A customer has read Alanna: the First Adventure by Tamora Pierce. She would like to read the other books in the series in order. Using one of the above resources, post the series title, the order of the books in the series, and the resource you used.

Song of the Lioness quartet
Book 1 Alanna: The first adventure
Book 2 In the hand of the goddess
Book 3 The woman who rides like a man
Book 4 Lioness rampant
I found this in "What's Next?, Books in a Series. http://ww2.kdl.org/libcat/WhatsNextNEW.asp

#30 Spring Cleaning - PC drives

1. S Drive: I have placed files on the S drive in the past concerning the Reference Librarians Meeting handouts. And I have deleted those files. Most of the time I am looking in the S drive for branch pictures. I haven't used this drive to transport files but instead have placed them on the Material Selection part of Harriet. Since the files on the S drive are deleted after two weeks we usually want the lists to be available for a longer time.

2. M Drive: I do not have access to the P drive but our department does use the M drive. I deleted some files from the Continuations folder which dated back to 2003. These were copies of the Continuations database created from Access so they were quite large. I no longer need or use these. Our M drive was reorganized by Scott and seems lean.

3. Z Drive: This is the one that really needed work. I deleted many old files. I had an entire folder of ILL communications that dated back to 1994! I found a random time sheet that covered Sept. 11, 2001. I left work at 3 pm that day. I must have been so out of it that I saved my time sheet in the wrong file. I had some old lists of email addresses that dated back before we had a directory. My files were not that disorganized and I was able to merge some and get rid of others. I did find some personal files that I moved to my personal computer at home by mailing as attachments to my personal email. I did not think about burning them to a CD.

Photographs: I did find some photographs that I was saving to use as wallpaper. I moved these to my Flickr account. This was some accomplishment because I had such problems with this assignment during the iHCPL- 24 things.

#29 Spring Cleaning- email

1. I have a personal email account on yahoo. I set it up this past year and have been changing any previous communications so that now most personal emails go to that yahoo account.
2. I already have many folders created. I move emails every day if I have time or at least weekly. I may get behind when I come back from vacation but try to catch up within the following weeks. Since reading this assignment, I have been going in to each folder and weeding folders and emails no longer needed. I have worked through a third of them. I will continue doing this on a weekly basis until finished.
3. I don't keep an address book anymore. Since anyone I have emailed recently pop-ups when I start to type, I don't need to have an address book.
4. I intend to keep working on deleting folders until I am able to go through all of them. I also intend to keep up with my inbox, deleting and moving emails to folders if relevant.

#28 Spring Cleaning -don't clutter up cyberspace.

I have read through this blog entry. I read the Wikipedia entry for G.T.D.

Even though my organization process may not be pretty I can organize and get things done. I normally have a list going which I cross off and update on a regular basis. Sometimes items take a long time and will stay on the list, other times they are simply calls I need to make and get through fast. So I can relate to some of the techniques- like anything that takes less than 2 minutes to go ahead and do immediately. I did go to David Allen's website and listened to a video showing him talking to a group. This may be sinking in but I admit it all sounds a little abstract right now.

Google Calendar- I took a tour of the site. It looked sort of like our department calendar.
Remember the milk- I took the tour- never could figure out what this looked like. I might like it because it sounds like it is more like lists. I do like lists.
Ta-da List- I am not sure I saw the advantage in this one. It looked like the same as my hand written lists. It would take me more time to log on to my computer- remember the website- remember my log in - then sit and make the list than if I just sat down and made the list with a pencil and paper. I don't get it?
Bla Bla List- I read through the FAQ because I couldn't see a tour of the site. They said they were like Ta da except with more options- like R.S.S. Again maybe because I have never used these- they seem like more effort than it is worth.

Week 10 or is it Week 15? # 23 The end.

Now that I am at the end here are some comments;
1. Favorite discoveries- Library Elf- even though I only have one library account and receive emails from HCPL, I like the reminders and the calendar from Library Elf.
2. How has it affected my lifelong learning goals?- It has pushed me a little further into exploring the social Internet.
3. Surprises? I was surprised how hard it all is and how long it takes to do something when there are no instructions. What I thought would be an hour a week turned into several hours for a number of days each week. I usually gave myself a 2 hour window and after that I stopped.
4. Ideas to use technologies in libraries? It needs to be more user friendly and more people turned on at home. The last thing I want to do when I come home is log on to the Internet but I guess I am in the minority. It still feels like a clique or club and not something available to all the public.
5. What else to learn? I would like to explore blog making and figure out how to add all the neat things I see others adding.

Week 9 #22 Downloadable Media

1. I browsed the HCPL Overdrive site and listened to the overview. It has been a few months since I looked at this. I did check out one e-book, "The Alamo" which I will download once I get home. I have downloaded music before on my home computer. I don't have a MP3 player so am somewhat limited. Maybe Santa will bring me one this Christmas. I am always curious as to what is most popular and sorted many of the areas by most popular. I was amazed so much of the titles (fiction romance) could be burned to a CD. I did not remember seeing the little fire before to indicate what can be burned. That makes it easy to spot.

2. LibriVox- This site was primitive compared to Overdrive, but all I did was scan some of the recently cataloged titles and read through the FAQ. Since these are only titles in the public domain they are older and not as popular. I did recognize some, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin , and may come back to it on my home computer.

3. WOWIO- This company says it started in August 2006 and they are located in HOUSTON! They have an attractive website including cover art which is very important. Titles are provided straight from the publisher so they are fairly recent. The subject pull down menu makes negotiating the site easy. I saw many titles of interest but these are still not what library folk would call "best sellers" or high demand titles. Some may have interest but I don't think you will see them on the NY Times BS list.

Week 9 # 21- Podcasts -smodcasts

1. I looked at the podcast directories- Podcast Alley, Podcast Net and Yahoo.
Podcast Alley- I did a search for Book reviews. One I listened to was "Rachel's Reviews" Rachel sounded like a young adult. Her podcasts gave short reviews and she ended the book description by rating it one to ten bookmarks. Since I had just watched the movie "Holes" and really enjoyed it, I listened to her review. She liked the book and gave it 10 bookmarks. Then she had a friend come on to tell their favorite book. It was the Hobbit.

Podcast Net- I narrowed the search to animals and found two video-podcasts. One was from the Dog Whisperer and the other was from Wildlife Chronicles. They seemed kind of long so I just watched the beginning and cut it off.

Yahoo- I was able to get some searches for book reviews. Most of the searches led me to music for purchasing. The book reviews came up with three - An online news hour with Terrance Smith.

2. I subscribed to "Rachel's Reviews" on my Bloglines account.
3. Did I find anything useful? Not sure but it was fun.

Week 9 #20 YouTube and Video sharing sites

YouTube has always been easy to navigate and fun to look at all the funny personal videos. I have several favorites.. the cat flushing the toilet, the montage of cats jumping, running and sliding into trouble. I took a little closer notice when my nephew starred in a home made film and posted it on YouTube called "The Mill". It was directed by a friend who is in film school during their summer vacation in the Adirondacks. The following summer they made a sequel.
Here it is
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zmph93kLF8

YouTube could be used by libraries to show special services available. The library website could have a short video explaining how to get a library card or how to use a self check out machine. They could have advertisements for upcoming programs. Pictures are great learning tools and the library could use these for staff training. People surfing the net or YouTube may be drawn to library websites to find out more and be inspired to visit in person.

Week 8 # Parade of Avatars

I did create an avatar. I added it to the S drive and it appears in the Parade of Avatars.

Week 8 #19 Zoho writer

zoho
I signed up for Zoho writer. I exported an excel file which listed the Large Type circulation stats for 2006 for all branches. This is a file I had exported from Web Reporter. I will try to add it to this blog? No can do. Nothing happened. Second try- no longer able to use excel so I tried to import a word document. This worked and I save the doc in Zoho. Then tried to publish on blog- no can do. Can's seem to get to my blog. Oh well- At least I exported and saved a doc. Maybe next week...