Thing 10: Apparently Eight Ate My RSS Because It Was Delicious.

So I explored the Thing that is just soo tantalizingly Delicious, that millions of users are doing it too. And as I suspected, I don’t really find this to be very useful. I’m just not going to login to something just to see the few websites that I already go to anyway. I don’t spend that much time on the internet when I’m not at work.

As for applications at work, again I don’t see it as really useful. I guess that I could create a cloud (that’s correct, right?) based on some topic the students are interested in, but the truth is the students already know how to get to all the time wasting stuff they want to know about anyway. When it comes to research and finding legitimate websites, there are better ways then me sitting here trying to find those sites on any given subject that the students can utilize in preexisting tools. I can’t know every subject that will have a paper written on it ahead of time, nor should I collect that kind of information for the students. That’s kind of the point of research and learning how to research. If I do it all, then they don’t learn what they are supposed to be learning. Much too many a student’s chagrin, I don’t think making things easier for them is doing them any favors. I am all for extending the utility and function of databases and making our OPACs more accessible, but I still think that having the students learn to be self sufficient in the pursuit of reliable/factual information is a far better service than hand feeding them.

A big part of this Web 2.0 craze that has taken on the library world is the widespread access to lots of info. I don’t agree with all of it, and this particular Thing I find to be useless; at least in my situation. Personally, I find it an utter waste of time. I don’t see the appeal to this type of website. I am also not into being social on the web, so that might be the disconnect for me. As a way for individuals to show their likes and dislikes to other individuals, I suppose it makes sense, but why would you? I guess I just don’t get it.

Well enough of my ranting, so I was not impressed with this Thing. I did try to make a Delicious Badge, but the code it gave me created the same errors that I was getting when I tried to put the slide show on my widget bar. So I kept removing code until it stopped giving the error, and all I have left is the little message directly under the Meebo box. Maybe some one who might read this would know how to properly place the Badge on the blog. I keep trying to put it in with the widgets so it will appear with everything else. I am not sure what language the widget script is written in, but this Badge script was in JavaScript, but I was getting an xml error. Should I try to put it out side of the frame for the widgets?

Anyway, I am quite over Thing 10, so lets see what Thing 11 is like.

Thing 9: All better now.

Ok,

So yesterday I made a slide show on Zoho, or Zo ho or whatever, and I found it to be fairly easy to use. Power Point has more bells and whistles, literally because you can add sounds to your presentation (as well as animation), but for the simple access this provides, I think it is great. If you are going to be traveling around while giving a presentation, you don't need to even bring a flash drive or worry about whether or not the computer where you are going will be compatible with your slide show. This allows you to always have access to your work, unless the internet is down where you go, or the server crashes on the Zoho site, or the little purple people who live in the walls finally escape and bring our civilization crashing down around us.

If the last scenario happens, admittedly the last thing you need to worry about is your presentation, unless it is a presentation on how to defeat the little purple people who live in the walls in the event of their escape. In that case, you had better go ahead and bring a backup flash drive with you, we may need it.

But I digress; I initially tried to put my slide show into the area where I stuck the Meebo talk thingy. That is when I got all the error messages about the xml needing a ";" after the occurrence of the DOC something or other, blah blah blah computer speak. I know just enough html to be dangerous, but I haven't tried my hand at xml, so I don't know what it was talking about. Then I thought,

"Hey, I should try and see what happens if I just post the iFrame into a post."

Look out, because that worked. I am not sure what the difference is, but I assume that the code used to create the left side navigation was not designed to accept an iFrame; a widget yes, but not an iFrame. And yes I do talk to myself while blogging, so be glad that my sanity-or lack thereof-doesn't show here in the written word.

So there you have it, on the post below, my slide show. I had to adjust the width of the iFrame in the code so it would display correctly, but now I am satisfied with the outcome.

It is the same Mr. Shoe story I created in Flickr, but I think it has more of a narrative quality in this form. I did not use anymore photo driven Things this time, because I need to increase my Flickr holdings so I am not repeating the same images over and over again. I'll make a point to do that soon.

The next Thing I tried to do was make a database with Lazybase. The link worked just fine from the 23 Thing @ NELIN blog, but when I tried to create a database, I got a server error, so I assume they are having issues. Maybe I'll try again at some other time. It could be fun.

Next, the Thing that is known as 10!

Thing 9: AHHHHHRRRRGGGG

So far I can't get my new slide show to embed. I keep getting an error in the xml, which I don't know how to write in. Let's see what happens when I post it here.



More on this Thing tomorrow.

U_T

Thing 8, Ahhh Thing Eight, But Just What did It Eat? Maybe that Is Why My RSS Looks Hungry!

So IM, or as those of us like me who don’t really do much of that would refer to it, instant messaging. I looked into creating a Google Talk account, mainly because it doesn’t require a download to work. As I have stated previously, I use more than one computer for this, so downloads would be prohibitive. Google Talk does have a system that requires a download, and then they have one that is linked into G-mail. So I went with the G-mail option. Now, if I understand everything, I need to chat with other people who also have this G-mail based IM. So that is limiting. I did see a link that mentioned something about linking to other IM accounts, being outside of Google I guess, but I did not explore using this function since I don’t know anybody to try and contact. So I am at the very least becoming exposed to these services, but I don’t really understand them yet.

After setting up my Google Talk, I went and created a Meebo account and embedded a chat box onto this blog, as can be seen to the right. There is probably a better way to put it on the blog, but I just followed the html and stuck the Meebo code just above the widget codes. It looks ok like this, but I might try to tweak it again. So far I have not chatted with anyone, but I’ll try to soon. So that is my grand IM experience so far. As far a chat goes, I think it is good when there is a specific time to be available. I don’t mind doing Ask A Librarian, and this is very similar. Minus the extra links and screen sharing.

As for the other mini-Things in 8, email is not really a Thing to me because I, and most of the people I know, am not just familiar with email, but proficient with it at this point. We use email extensively at work. Using IM from time to time would be a good means for communication when two of us are at a computer at the same time, but for the most part the phone is easier to use than typing. E-mail is a great tool for asynchronous communication, where as IM is far more demanding.

Texting, well I just don’t use it. I know some libraries do, but the cost is prohibitive, and not to sound old fashioned, but we should worship more than one god, and fear the sun. No, just kidding, but the whole text language short cut mode of typing is, well, lazy. Having our students use actual language with complete thoughts framed out in a coherent manner is a far more productive use of their time. A well written email is far superior to texting. We have students try to use text language in formal papers. There is a problem there. I am not resilient to change just for the sake of being stubborn, but sometimes I don’t think that we are doing ourselves any favors by encouraging sloppy communication.

As to the web conferencing, I think it is great; the more of this type of communication that we have access to the better. It is a little strange at first, but once I had experienced using a couple of different systems, I really like the environment. I had used products that require phone usage in conjunction with web displays, and used products that are strictly online. I like that strictly online mode myself. Having the voice over power point slides with chat is great. Having multiple voices at once is not so great, so mediation has to be tight. I played around with some of the OPAL presentations, and I think it is a good product.

So, now to Thing 9, and we get to share, isn’t that cool.

Thing 7: This Really Shouldn't Be Available for Me to Play With.Part 2

Well now, it is next week and I have gone back and continued to play around with Image Chef and Letter James. Both are pretty cool and each has a functionality all their own. Of course that functionality would increase if I created accounts in each, but I am avoiding that for right now.

Letter James is sort of like the Bus add from the Generator Blog. You can add text to whatever image you can access, and then keep the image. Again I can see using this as a way to create different graphics for our web presence. Here is the image I made:



Next I went over to Image Chef. They have a very similar utility available, but they also provide you with scenes that you can manipulate to create your own fun Thing. Like this:



I am still interested in working in Toon Doo, and if I can get my account to work, I will have one more part to Thing 7. Otherwise I am on to Thing 8.

Thing 7: This Really Shouldn't Be Available for Me to Play With.Part 1

WOW, I am having fun! So I tried out a couple of things so far. The first was Toon Doo, and I had lots of trouble with that one, which is too bad because I have some ideas I would like to exercise on their site. It maybe a temporary issue, but I cannot log in, and when I try to ask for my password to be reset, the link in the email they send gives a system error when you use it. I'll tyr again next week.

Then I went to The Generator Blog and am playing with some of those. I have noticed a tendency for many of these generators to be funny, but not allow any sort of input by the user, like the Create a Greek God Name Generator. I did find one I liked, and here is the result:

My Brand New Christmas Card for You

I was unable to save the image anywhere directly, so I at least got the url. The image could be a little larger and the letters are hard to read, but it was fun to play with.

I also created an inauguration speech for the president, which reads like this:

"Barack Obama's Inauguration Speech

My fellow Americans, today is a superlative day. You have shown the world that "hope" is not just another word for "aardvark", and that "change" is not only something we can believe in again, but something we can actually ate.

Today we celebrate, but let there be no mistake – America faces blue and rotten challenges like never before. Our economy is cute. Americans can barely afford their mortgages, let alone have enough money left over for bicycles. Our health care system is swampy. If your little toe is sick and you don't have insurance, you might as well call a librarian. And America's image overseas is tarnished like a swamp thing sprocket. But chucking together we can right this ship, and set a course for Hollywood, Florida.

Finally, I must thank my snotty family, my soft campaign volunteers, but most of all, I want to thank The Attila the Hun Appreciation Society of Bismark for making this historic occasion possible. Of course, I must also thank you, President Bush, for years of gacking the American people. Without your thrust efforts, none of this would have been possible."

So that was also fun. So was this:



So next I am heading over to Image Chef.

Thing 6: Fun with Images Part 3

Yummy Food
Originally uploaded by uptown_toodeloo

Ok, and now my crowning achievement of the day: BACON!
This was lots of fun. Creating your own stuff is a hoot. So again, I had a little creative fun with this, and no I wouldn't use it for the library, but I can really see using a tool like this to enhance our web presence.
So all in all I can really see how these tools could be applied in a constructive manner. Or I could just burn tons of free time amusing myself, which ever. Thing 7 awaits.

Thing 6:Fun with Images Part 2

Tree Puzzle
Originally uploaded by uptown_toodeloo

In Big Huge Labs, I tried my hand at two different application. The first I am going to show is this spiffy picture poster puzzle. I thougt it might be an actual functioning puzzle, which would have been way cooler, but I'll take the poster.

Thing 6: Fun with Images Part 1

Ok, so it can be pretty fun to mess around with the Mashups. I admit it.Creating fun graphics to use on the libraries web site might just have some positive implications. So I tried several Mashups and here is my Spell with Flickr



Pretty cool so far.I also looked at the Clockr and Flickr Color Pickr. These are pretty neat, but not something that we would have a direct practicle use for. At least I don't think so. Next I looked at Big Huge Labs.

Thing 5: Mr. Shoe Thinks Flickr Is Just All Right with Him.

So now I have to blog about my brand spanking new Flickr account. For anyone who might looks at this, I am going to have some fun with these accounts. I can’t seem to keep myself from doing that, so why bother? I found Flickr to be fairly easy to begin using. I had to play with it a little to create a flow in the photos that I am using. There seems to be loads of functionality that are outside the parameters of what I have an interest in. Getting the images into this here blog so I can blog about blogging about them was none too hard either. For anyone who might see these images, enjoy.

In as far as looking at other photo sharing websites, like the 23 Things @ NEFLIN mentioned Picasa, I did flirt with using that briefly, since it is created by Google. I was interested in not creating a separate account (for my own sanity), but to the best of my understanding there needs to be some kind of software downloaded in order to use it. Since I access these accounts from various computers at work, it seemed prohibitive to need specific software just to put photos on the web. Of course, I could have misread the info on the Picasa sign up page and the software is not needed to do online basic photo hosting, but when I took a look at Flickr, it seemed more intuitive to start using, so I went with Flickr. And here is a photo from the album I created.



Very Scary, Right?

Also, I put a widget on the top left hand corner of my blog that directs you, or whoever, to The Wild Adventures of Mr. Shoe in the Library. Next up, playing around with other image stuff.