The last blog - summimg up.

I found Web2 much better this time. It seemed easier but that could just be because I had a vague idea this time of what I was doing.

Being shorter made the whole exercise much less daunting from the outset.

The complete star of the piece was undoubtably the wonderful Zamzar. So useful!

Social networking is not really me but at least now I do know what is going on which is useful for customer service.

All in all, this time round was a much more positive experience for me.

One thing I really have enjoyed is finding my Lolcat pictures for the blog start and my inspirational quotes for the end. So sad that they are doomed to flower almost unseen.

I have done the survey so all that remains now is ---

The final inspirational quote -

'Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, "Where have I gone wrong?" Then a voice says to me, "This is going to take more than one night!". (Charlie Brown)

Week Six - Face booking

Facebook. What can I say. A vital social tool or the biggest time waster invented? Opinions differ although I would love to know how many person hours per day are spent Facebooking, farmvilling etc. World wide, I would think upwards of a googel.
On a personal level I must say I am not a facebook user so the whole thing was new to me. I had real problems getting the site to work when I created the account on the Learn.net but when the intial set up was done from a private computer there were no problems. (Did anyone else report this happening?)
Would I recommend this site to our customers? Don't have to, that's mostly what they come in for.

Final inspirational thought -
'Some people are like slinkies - not really good for anything but they bring a smile to your face when pushed down the stairs'
(This applies to the low-life who just stole a computer mouse from the learn.net!)

Week Five - The music thing

Free music downloads. They probably are OK for the teenage set but I have to say most of the artists and titles I had never heard of. This is not really a criticism of the sites so much as a reflection of my age!

I choose a couple of sites to look at in closely. One of them seemed easy to navigate round but when I tried to download a track all that happened was I went round in a loop and got nowhere.

The whole process would have been simpler if I had not have had to do it on the Learn.net as MCC had blocked the site I was using without trouble from my MCC computer 10 days before.

All in all, this week was not a happy one.

Thought for the week - no relevance - I just like it.

'Change is a tool used by the inept to create the illusion of progress'

(Attribution unknown and I may not have it quite right as that is from memory)

Week Four - Books and social networking

I visited Goodreads. I may never come out. This is a really good site. I particularly enjoyed the lists of things, even if I violently disagreed with some of them. Who on Earth could not finish Catch 22, one of my all time favourites! It was top of the 'couldn't finish' list.

I have just ( no more than 10 minutes ago) passed on the website address to a borrower who is an ardent SciFi reader and Internet user for bookish things.

As a means of keeping track of my reading I would have to say MPL's own My Info with the reading history turned on is better, it's automatic.

All in all, a good site well worth visiting for inspiration and for recommending to Borrowers.

The inspirational thought for this week.

' Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read'

(Groucho Marx)

Week 3 - Twitter

Twitter. Well named IMHO. I don't know where Twitter began, USA I guess, I also imagine that in the States 'twit' is not another word for 'rather stupid'. I would not use this site. Not being a brash, in ya face type of person I am not convinced that the whole world is waiting breathless for my opinion on something - anything!

As more and more of these 'social networking' sites appear I am beginning to worry if anyone out there actually talks to anyone else face to face with real words.

Enough of my rant. Here is the quote for the week, from the same book as the quote last week.

"If you throw paint on a wall it's vandalism. If you put a frame around the splotch, it's art"

Week Two - Zamzar

The amazing Zamzar! What a useful website this is, no fancy do-dahs, just easy to use and very useful.
I actually began playing with Zamzar in week one when I first saw it. I converted an image from bmp to jpeg. That worked fine so this week I did the pdf to doc thing, also fine.
The really neat thing about Zamzar happened yesterday. A customer had a Works format file which doesn't work on the Learn.net but with a quick zap of Zamzar to a doc file she was able to use her file.

Quote for the week, relevant to nothing except I just read it in a book about the benefits of disorder and liked it.

"If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what then, is an empty desk?"
(Albert Einstein)

Week One

Web 2 - Week 1 - Blogging time

Here we are again.
Once again I shall start each blog with an attractive picture and end with an inspirational quote (even if I have to make it up).

What to blog about? The school holidays? Over and done with till next time. The public toilets have been 'redecorated' by the teens, so thoughtful of them.
I am doing this blog in Google Docs and am rather concerned to see the banner that says 'Google Docs is not supported in your browser'. Does this mean I won't be able to use my Google Docs anymore?

Inspirational quote for week one.
" Sometimes I aim to please but mostly I just shoot to kill "

Week 9 #23

The end.

At last, here we are at the summing up. Web 2 good or bad? A bit like the Curate's egg really, good in places.

There is a vast amount of stuff I simply will never use. There are also many goodly things here.

GoogleDocs - yes. Flickr - yes. RSS - maybe. YouTube - you bet! And more.

Podcasts (not iTunes) - no. Tagging etc - mostly no. Ebooks - no. Bebo etc - don't think so. And more.

The problem is that unless you use these apps. frequently you forget not only how to use them but even that they exist. Life is full of an awful lot of stuff that you don't really need to know.

The trick is to sort the wheat from the chaff.

Which leads me to -

Inspirational quote for today

"As you go through life

Make this your goal

Watch the doughnut

Not the hole"

Farewell to all my faithful readers.

Grizabella

Week 9 - YouTube, Podcasts, Ebooks

The last week. Oh joy.

Youtube : I like YouTube. I mean, what's not to like? You want videos of cats being stupid? youtube's your place. you want to see dogs being stupid? Look out the window!

Best clip for me just now is 6 minutes plus of Andreas Helgstrand with his beautiful horse performing in the freestyle final at the 2006 World Equestrian Games. Absolutely mindboggling and no way would you ever see this on NZ TV.

Podcasts : With the exception of iTunes I think podcasts are cr*p. The sites either would not load or if they did they just sat there like electronic lemons. The only sites that did anything simply flicked you to YouTube so why bother.

Ebooks : OK, the sites all worked, the layout was pretty, the sites were easy to use, I really can't moan about anything except - what is so wrong with paper pages? There is something very clinical about the idea of reading a book from an electronic device. I mean, you can't really snuggle up in bed with a good laptop can you?


Inspirational thought for today

"The greatest wealth is to be rich in friends
but if possible let them be
rich friends.

Week 8 Google Docs etc

Week 8 - Online Applications & Tools

I am creating this in Google Docs. So far so simple. I assume I can save this someplace and return to it at my pleasure.
Which is what I will do as I must away now to wait upon my adoring public. ($2.00 for Bebo)

45 minutes later.
The adoring public does not need me so I'm back. Docing away on Desk! This is brilliant!!!! Why wasn't I using this all the time? And on the Council Internet too!!! What gives? I thought all this was blocked.

Many weeks later!!!
Christmas was nice. I hope you all had a nice time. School holidays in Public Libraries are sheer hell. Then I had 2 weeks leave (and needed it!!)
Holidays over, leave over. Back to "$2.00 for Bebo". Sometimes this job is really boring.

The plan here is that I can upload this into my blog. Copy and paste should work. I'll 'give eet a go' as they say in Aussieland.

A few seconds later.
Well, it worked - sort of.
I had a nice photo at the top which didn't come through. Can't think why. Copy and paste worked well.

Few more seconds later.

The picture is now at the top. I had to do it the usual way. Whatever!

Inspirational quote for today

" If you love something, set it free

If it comes back, it's yours

If it doesn't -

Hunt it down and kill it!!"

Week 7 - Social Networking

Anyone who does not understand why this is funny (and clever) is missing out on a great website and I'm not going to tell you which. Ha Ha!!!

Social networking. What can I say. I looked at Bebo and FaceBook, also My Space.

Of the three My Space was by far the best from a 'lurker' point of view. The viewer was allowed to move about in the site without having to register much more than either of the others.

My favourite bit was the find a friend stuff. Just register your heart's desire and up he/she popped complete with photo. (Yes, of course I did! And the only bloke who looked at all interesting wrote that he was gay!) You really can't win.

All that aside. I don't have any use for such sites but can see the value for families who are spread about the world. An easy way to show off the latest grandchild etc.

To sum up - Social Networking has it's place in the world but should not take the place of talking to real live breathing smelly feet and all people.

Inspirational thought for the week

"Jesus is coming!" look busy!!!

Week 6 - Tagging etc

An interesting concept, tagging. Around here more commonly associated with Vivid markers, spray cans or little square sticky things with electronics in them.

Once I realised "tagging" was just another name for "keyword" - as in keyword searching - the whole concept began to have personal uses to recommend it.

My enormous file of photocopied recipes for example. Instead of searching for ever for just where did I put Jo Seagar's Beer bread recipe I could simply tag it. "Bread" would do but Bread and Beer would bring it up at once. Of course I would either have to scan them in to a database or maybe, and this appeals more, allocate each a code number (call number).

The same thing applies to my CD collection although that needs more thought.

To my mind the real trick to tagging would be to remember the tags used.

And I never found the Beer Bread recipe either!

Thought for this lesson (although not quite true)

"I like learning stuff like that. It's precise, pleasing and quite without use" (Joe Bennett)

Week Five - Wired World of Wiki

OK. Wikis. What can I say. The three Library blogs we were asked to look at were interesting. One is now just an archive, another is staff only password protected for updates, and the third, Library Success, requires permission to add to the blog.

Blogs where anyone can add or delete stuff will always be unreliable as reference tools. Unfortunately many people using internet believe everything they read on the theory that if some clever person has put the info into a blog it must be true. I suspect these are the same people who 'win' the Spanish lottery and happy send away their bank details!

Of the three library blogs looked at Library Success was the best for me. I may well revisit this site in the future.

Just had a quick look at weeh 6 - looks good. Must go now as this is all happening on the Learn.net.

Sammy and Bungy

Sammy and Bungy
Originally uploaded by grizabella2008

Two of my favourite people. This photo uploaded to the blog thanks to the magic of Flickr. What a cool site. When I have finished my Desk duty (yes, they do make me work) I shall have a play with the editing stuff. Catch you later.

Much, much later.

I had a go at loading PicNic, several goes in fact, but the site was so slow I gave up in frustration. I'm sure there are faster and better photo editing sites out there in cyberspace.

Week Three continues!

I finally got back into LibraryThing - Here is the link : http://www.librarything.com/home/grizabella2008

Now, please excuse me, I must Flickr off.

Week Three continues -

Playtime week. Not really my thing, playing on computers but Some of this was fun. I liked the lolcat generator thing. The cat in the planter is (was) Sammy, a much loved family member for many years.
Other entertaining stuff-
The acronym generator, where you put in a word and it generates the full title.(Acronym)
Alphabet soup word
Automatic poetry - every bit as good as the real thing! Makes you wonder, really.
The best so far by miles would be - Blackadder quote.
I'm sure there are many more, I have only got to the Bs as you can see.

LibraryThing

This is more like it!
I used LibraryThing to make a short list of some of the many books I would like to read but haven't as yet got round to.
At this point I was going to add the link to my LibraryThing but LT has come over all coy and refuses to let me sign in.

Thought for the week (last week of school holidays)

"Hell is empty and all it's devils are here" (Will S.) of course

Week Three - Playtime

Lesson Two - The RSS Thing

One of my friends -

I have decided each post will start with an amusing picture and end with an inspirational thought.

RSS - OK. At the beginning RSS gave me GBH of the brain and OOS (that's RSI for you older SSRs) of the fingers (just love these TLAs).
Thinking of TLAs. The human brain will always try to make sense of nonsensical stuff, we attempt to make a word out of letters. Which is why RSS is just crying out to be pronounced as arsss.

However, back to RSS. Once I finally got my head around it this turned out to be easier and more fun than I had anticipated. The ability to send to email is handy indeed.

I don't see myself personally using the blog bit but RSS - YES.

Thought for the week: -

"When you're up to your RSS in alligators it's hard to remember your primary function is to drain the swamp" (with thanks to my nephew Justin)

Read in reverse order

I have just discovered these posts are newest first. To make any sense of the following start with the oldest post and read up. You graphic novel nuts should have no trouble with that concept.

ICL 1900 series

This is a photo from the internet of a 1905 model. Bigger and flasher and no doubt, faster than I used to know and love. The keyboard was used for the computer to send messages and request information not the other way round!