Thing 47 Evaluation

I did it!!! I am so glad that I pushed myself to finish as it was a great learning experience. I wish I would have finished 23 things because I know I missed out on some of great things. I hope the links for these will stay accessible so we can get back to some of them as there was so much more that I didn't get to even see.

Thing 46 Webjunction Minnesota

I have a Webjunction account so I logged in and looked at the information. I looked at some of the training and went to TechAtlas, Training Resources and Webinars. I have participated in some of their webinars in the past. Minnesota reflections from the Minnesota Digital library is one of the best and coolest with old pictures that are being digitized. A great project.

There are many more links here that are library related for both large and small libraries so it is a good site for all Minnesota libraries whether they are public or academic. There is even a link to government information in the 21st century.

Thing 45 Cloud Computing

This is great! I had no clue what Cloud Computing term meant but it is a great analogy. More and more we will be using the internet to save and access data. Being able to backup our data on the internet provides off site storage in case of a disaster. I am concerned with this myself with my own data as I use a backup drive but this will not work if there were a fire, tornado or other disaster. I am definitely going to look into an online backup service but the cost seems to be the prohibitive factor. Moxy is free for under 2 GB so I may investigate that option at least for my genealogy file.

This list at Mashup and the other sites allow people to access their desktop computers from anywhere. It is an ever evolving exciting time in the technology field as more and more access is available. Learning and keeping up with it is a real challenge.

Thing 44 The Economy

There are several useful sites on money management, economy, bargain shopping, gardening, and other ways to save money in these tough economic times. Say it Visually shows a chart and how we and the government got into this financial mess. MyMoney.gov and some great government sites which I bookmarked to check out more thoroughly when I have time. Wallstreetfighter had the top new money management sites and some looked very interesting but I would want to check to see how secure they were before giving them my financial data.

Thing 43 Online TV and Video

Hulu allows you to search for television shows that you missed or want to watch. It is a great way to catch up on some tv shows on your computer. The sight is easy to use and to search for particular shows.

Joost seems to be more music videos and it was harder to find what you wanted. Every time I tried to search a tv show, a list of music videos would display.

I think that this will definitely be a viable option instead of cable where the charges are exorbitant with limited competition for pricing and options. It is a great option for people on a busy schedule and might not be home or think to record their favorite shows. I will definitely keep this in mind for when I miss a show although it is nicer to watch on a bigger screen.

Thing 42 Music 2.0

I tried blip.fm but they didn't play the songs I searched for so I don't know what I did wrong. Also I don't know if this sight is connecting to other potentially unsafe computers.
Last.fm was great and it groups like artist together and suggest others. It was great fun to set up a list of favorite artist/songs http://www.last.fm/listen/artist/Tina%2BTurner/similarartists#pane=webRadioPlayer&station=%252Flisten%252Fartist%252FCher%252Fsimilarartists

I plan to play around more with this site when I have more time.

Thing 41 Mashup your life

This thing goes through sites to combine your identities so they appear in one place, i.e. instant messager, twitter, email etc. Since I am not the active on multiple network sites I did not find these useful for me but others might. After looking at lifestream and friendfeed and what they do, I really don't want to have others seeing and following what I do nor do I want to see others.

Thing 40 Mashup the Web

This is using a combination of applications at one time or putting them together.
I tried Crime report for my area but they don't participate so there wasn't a report so I did the Minneapolis area. Flickr Memari has simple games you can play. Wheel of food lets you spin the wheel to choose restaurants near by to go when you can't decide. Walkable rates areas where you live to see if it is walkable or not. Ping.fm is for social networking and lets you send messages to multiple places all at once (i.e. email service, instant messaging, my space, facebook, etc.)
Let me Google that for you is something you could when someone wants to know the answer to a question that you googled to get the answer. Sending the link to them would start the google search. It was kind of cute! I can think of some circumtances where I could use this!

Thing 39 Digital storytelliing

This was a really neat feature with scrapbooking and photo editing links. I liked picnik which did some quick and easy edits and enhancing of photos although one needed to pay to get all the features.

Scrapblog was a another cool site.
This was made in scrapblog using scrapbuilder for making a Father Day card. http://www.scrapblog.com/04A1E7EB-6D21/3572125D-BB88



Smilebox was another great site with lots of scrapbook designs.

The only bad thing about all of this is that you have to give out your email address for everything!

Thing 38 Screencasting

I really liked Jing and will be able to use this in my job. Often times staff want to know how to do something either in Aleph or some other program. Using Jing I will be able to video capture the screen and email it to them. I only used it a little bit to test it but once I get proficient, it shouldn't take too long to do. I tested how to setup and run a particular report in Aleph and saved it and then did another one to retrieve the report. You can save these and reuse or edit in the future. I tried twice to upload the video but it was almost 2 mg so maybe it was too big. Screencast is similar to Jing but I didn't get a chance to play with it. There were other programs also mentioned that need to to purchased. Skitch also looks really good but I didn't get a chance to try it. Jing can have text added and from what I saw of Skitch you can draw on your video. I would like to learn more about both of these when I get a chance to play with them.

thing 37

Thing 37 Photo tales

I used animoto to create a video incorporating music and pictures. Pretty cool!

Thing 36 Comic relief

There are some useful tools here like Online generators in Technology magazine using cooltext.com to generate buttons for web pages. There were links that went to silly things like generating a Dewey Decimal number for your name which ended up also telling you something about yourself. I wanted to do the vinyl record one but it didn't work.

Thing 35 Books 2.0

I think some would really like some of the links to review books, exchange books, keep track of and organizing books and children's books that you can read online and save for reading later to your kids or grandkids. Many good links that I explored. You can even get books through an RSS feed although I don't know how you regulate how often you get this to be able to keep up reading it.

Thing 34 Is this our competition--Online answer sites

This thing discussed the Reference desk and how librarians need to rethink giving reference service even to the point of getting rid of the Reference desk. We have two Reference librarians at our Reference desk most of the time and the links on this site brought up good points that their time might be better spent in other ways of doing Reference service. Click on The Future of the Reference Desk and there are several articles on this page http://laurenpressley.com/library/?p=722
that discuss the Reference desk and also near the bottom on one of the comments this power point
http://www.bcr.org/referencerenaissance/docs/BrunskillReferenceRenaissanceFinal.ppt which points out the research at this library and how they provided research help on their website.
Also how they renamed the Reference Desk to Research Help Desk which I think is more meaningful in light of today's technology.

Think 33 Travel 2.0

Many interesting sites like realtravel http://realtravel.com/ and trip advisor http://www.tripadvisor.com/ where you can find reviews are very useful.
There were sites where you can post your travel pictures or see others before you visit a destination or sites to setup a blog of your travel so you can journal for the places you visit.

Thing 32 Google Maps and mashups

Lots of useful links on this site. Maps of 100 best tools and mashups. Maps of route planners, nautical maps, weather maps, recreation, etc. This one would be a good one to bookmark to return to later.

Thing 31 More twitter

Even after reading more about Twitter I don't think I would ever use it. Time will tell as this evolves.

Do we really want people watching our every move! Even if one thinks they are their friends, some could be predators!


This site below has links that tell how tweeter can be used on the go or while driving.

http://mashable.com/2009/01/18/how-to-use-twitter-on-the-go/

This is a really scary thinking that people are twittering and texting while driving!

Thing 30 More ways to use RSS and Delicious

I can see that some would find RSS feeds useful but as of yet I couldn't think of any information that I would want on a continual basis. Delicious is a great way to be able to access your bookmarks from other computers. That way if there was a bookmark you had at home or at work and you wanted to find it when you were at the other location or on the road traveling you would be able to get to them.

Thing 29 Google tools

I found WetPaint very interesting but didn't take the time to setup a website. It is amazing that they let everyone setup a website for no addition costs. Lots of links on the WetPaint site.

Thing 28 Customized Home page

I checked out the features of both IGoogle and Netvibes. I did not want to setup another email account so would not use IGoogle but it looks OK. Netvibes has a Yahoo link so it can be used to check your email. Since I have a Yahoo email account and can also do something similar to this in MyYahoo I have customized their features for my Yahoo account.

Thing 27 Twitter

I did not find Twitter very useful for the normal active person. It seems that if you have nothing better to do and lots of time to sit around and see what everyone is saying or want to know someone's every move, which I don't, then twitter. It seems like there should be more useful meaningful things in life to do than to be online waiting for a response from someone to see what they are doing. I just don't care! I would rather pick up the phone and talk to them.

think 26

I joined 23 things on a stick Ning. I scrolled throught some of the people on here and did find some others that I know from around the state. I suppose this site is a good way to connect with other library people but I am probably not going to take the time to log in and check here for messages.

Thing 25

Thing 25 had some really great links for photos, videos, etc. I especially liked some of the free photos and links to use to turn your photos into slideshows.

There were some web site tools like MapStats to track where people are coming from that visit your web site.

Lots of gadgets and gizmos on thing 25.

Thing 24

Changed my avatar to a beautiful mermaid. I edited my profile and added a recent picture I took at the Phoenix Botanical Garden of the Chihuly exhibit.