Twenty-three of Twenty-three

I hate to admit this, but I would have glad done this without the MP3 player reward at the end. What fun it has been. I promised myself I would find at least three things I would use, rather than just complete, and that has been an easy goal to exceed.

Flickr alone provided lots of useful tools and I have used several already and will continue to do so. Now I have to discipline myself not to ogle the pictures I have on my PC.

Zoho is so easy and useful for customers. I think the trend toward web-based mail, picture-storage, document storage is such a boon to libraries in communities where there is a technology gap and many customers may not have the hardware they need.

Blogging alone was worth the trip, and adding videos was really a satisfying accomplishment for me. I could communicate with my puppy people so much more effectively that way. I might even be tempted to get a video camera now that I could share videos.

I know that the things I have enjoyed about this experience are not the same challenges we get regularly from the public here in the branch, but I have decided not to feel guilty about my pleasures. (except about taking an mp3 player for them) Any experience with making things work properly on the computer is valuable in troubleshooting a customer's problems even though they may be doing something simpler. We hear a lot of why-am-I-getting-this-message questions in the branch and the more different experiences we have with different technologies we have the more likely we are to be able to figure that out. Confidence, too is invaluable in troubleshooting, and this training opportunity has afforded all of us confidence aplenty.

Bailey Makes The Catch

My beautiful puppy is all grown up - His mother Tally can be seen at www.friendshipbeardies.com

Sites on the Web 2.0 Awards list

I was just beginning to think there weren't many sites that were really useful to me beyond some the I had already looked at earlier in this process, when I found BeGreen. I found it a little rigid to use, but its "heart" is in the right place. The only problem I had was that aside from driving a car too much (so I can listen to all those audiobooks) I already do all those things. Then I found Farecast which seemed a really good idea, but having just had BeGreen discourage air travel I was torn about when I would use it. I will go back and see what else I can find....

Zoho

Hmmm... I think I like this Zoho tool. They even sent me a confirming message and so many other "accounts" I have signed up for on this journey have failed to do so - a real upper! I like all those pretty icons too

Now to see if I can put this on my blog...

Week Seven

Veni, Vidi, Wiki

Del.icio.us

The tutorials will not load with Aberdeen's connection, but we are using it on our Info Desks in the Branch. While it is difficult at first to see what advantages it offers over a well organized Links bar, I know I will get accustomed to some of the features that are not available on the Links bar.

We have used headings on our Links bars like, "General", for weather, Google, Marina, etc and "Government/taxes for First Gov.gov, IRS, "Prices and Values" for BUC and ebay, etc , "Book Jobbers" for Amazon, Bibliomania and so on, "Children" and Maryland for sites that fall in those categories. We have started with similar categories in Del.icio.us.

Podcasts! I love podcasts!

I have recently discovered how many wonderful podcasts there are with directions for crafts and discriptions of places and things I might never have seen. This is a link to one inwhich a blithering idiot talks about her sock machine:

http://letsknit2gether.com/blog1/?p=35