#18 Web-based Apps: They're not just for desktops

(I'm not doing #17 because I use wikis so much it would be a bit like trying too hard...)

It's taken me the best part of 2 days to work out Zoho. I've played with Writer and Sheet. Luckily I had a little project ongoing and it seemed a good time to go further with it and try out these tools.

What I don't like is the absence of menus. Some might find that good but it seems they have cut out some of the options normally available. Like undo. Did I miss something?? I can't find it. The browsers undo is greyed out, not surprisingly, but it seems you can delete mistakes but not undo.

What I do like is the forums. Often the help functions on office products don't cover some obscure thing you're trying to work out, and if that thing is something you just can't do there won't be any mention at all. It becomes a 2 or 3 step process: look in help > then go to a forum (or newsgroup, or mailing list archive or whatever), > and if there's no answer post a question for a solution. That works for me, I have always got an answer using one of these three methods, but this time when I couldn't find a solution I went to the forums, searched to find that someone else had posted the same problem in the past and an answer had been provided. If it hadn't I would have posted the question myself. (No I'm not fessing up to the problem coz it was silly - I should have known)

And yeah, I can see how handy this would be for people working distances away from each other needing to work together on documents, or for someone who was traveling without computer equipment.

And now, just to experiment, just to see if it works:




OOOhhh, it worked!

These are NSW LT and library assistant job ad stats over a few weeks. noLT is shorthand for those who don't have their qualifications yet. P/FT is permanent full time, P/PT is permanent part time, T/FT is temporary full time, T/PT is temporary part time, CAS is casual, CONT is contract. I have every intention of doing this for 1 year, just to get a general idea of what is happening.

I would definitely recommend these products for someone who didn't have enough money to buy expensive office products. I'll continue experimenting with these to get a better idea of just how much functionality they have.

#16 So what’s in a wiki?

I've been using Wikis for some time. I've edited existing articles on Wikipedia, my genealogy is on another wiki, I maintain a page about my fave singer on a music wiki and I contribute to the Library Technician wiki. My library doesn't use a wiki yet, but a similar library uses an internal wiki for their researchers so that when a subject is first announced for a paper all the researchers can contributed chunks of information before one person takes the job of writing up the paper. I've been browsing through the external wikis that other libraries / organisations have created and some are really coming up with good stuff.

These are the blogs (tho not the entries as I'm using separate identities that I'd like to keep separate) that I use:
http://librarytechnician.wikispaces.com/
http://genealogy.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
http://www.wikimusicguide.com/
http://www.wikipedia.org/

There's wikis about almost everything now. Just try a google search on your subject +wiki and see what comes up. You may have to broaden the search, eg, a search under your fave singers name may not get a hit, but music +wiki will.

#15 On Library 2.0 & Web 2.0 ...

They are very wordy aren't they. I guess they have to be to convince library staff and management of the need to change. My take on this:

Libraries and library staff have (mostly) tried their best to link users with information. Libraries and library staff are still doing that. Any library (as in management) or library staff who don't look at every possible tool that might help a user find the information they want isn't doing their bit and should go get a job that doesn't involve service to other humans.

Of course, it's a bit hard for library staff to do this if library management doesn't support them in some way or other, and it can be hard for library management to implement new tools and ideas if they are facing resistance from their staff.

Hurry up! Get a move on! Someone is wanting information and not getting it! I don't know all the ways web 2.0 can be used yet, but there's lots of potential. (On the other hand don't make the mistake of thinking print isn't needed anymore - not everything is available online yet)

#14 Getting not-so-technical with Technorati

Not very fussed with Del.icio.us. Not that I can't see what they are intending, it just doesn't appeal to me very much. I do like how it offers you tags if someone else has bookmarked the same site, but it just doesn't do it for me. I imported my bookmarks from my computer, that was remarkably quick for an old dialup. Now I'm trying out no 14, Technorati. We'll see how this goes.

Add to Technorati Favorites

#12 Roll your own search engine

Rollyo is odd. I've made a couple now, the first one on audio book downloads and the second on the Oz First Fleet. I think there is a scarcity of instructions. Maybe I just missed something. I think it's odd that you can make search engines without signing in, but then those search engines can't be made public. There isn't anything obvious on the front page that explains that. So then I signed up but discovered I couldn't take ownership of the search engine I'd created and couldn't make it public unless I renamed it. Awkward. So, I decided to trash the original and redo it now that I was signed on. Now it's public. I don't think the interface and instructions are too useful, but then it was only a minor annoyance because I ended up finding my way round anyway.

25 sites is a little limiting, but it also makes you use a bit of discretion.

Someone else had done an engine for the First Fleet but when I got almost no hits on the name of an ancestor I put together one of my own. The odd thing that happened there was the First Fleet page for Wikipedia defaulted back to the main page and so I got lots of strange hits I wasn't expecting.

I would like to see a statement on Rollyo about how far into a website it searches. I doesn't seem to follow links, understandable, but it doesn't say what sort of websites should be used. And then it's difficult to work out how to get directly to a website if you want to use their own search facilities.

Nevertheless: http://rollyo.com/profile.html?uid=58107

#11 A thing about LibraryThing

I've been to LibraryThing before and my account was still active. I've added some books but I find it frustrating that I can't do 'proper' catalogueing in it. Having the publication and dimensions fields put together is a bit annoying. I can't access marc. Can't figure out if I'm actually suppose to be able to or not. The tutorial doesn't have images the same as is visible on my part of LibraryThing. I can't find the 'Book information' for the library quality data. Is that something you get with a pay account? I only have 10 books on so far. It takes me a little while to put each up because, even though there are records available for each of the books I've chosen so far, I have to add extra info to improve them. Plus it bothers me that there is no authority files. Actually I can't see how you could have them on LibraryThing. You would just have to use your imagination a lot if you were trying to find everything that would normally be easy enough to find with authorised headings.

I don't mind the tags in this context. I don't like them (or index terms) on a regular library catalogue of any size. If you put Australia in an index term it isn't a useful way to search on a catalogue of 60,000 items specialising in Australian publications in an Australian library. In our library we filter out the index terms (653s). We add LC subjects if there aren't any or we add extras if they don't suit us. In the context of LibraryThing the tags become a visual way (in the cloud format) to get an idea of what is in a persons collection. Not a bad use.

Not being my work catalogue I can add other information that I think people might find useful, eg "Includes: How to make and use herb preparations, Glossary of medicinal effects and herbs that produce them, Plants applicable to various conditions and body organs, index by common name and Latin names, and bibliography."

It's all about context. LibraryThing is fine on the net as another social networking thing and an encouragement for people to read. It might be useful in a small library. I'd question it's usefulness as a model for a library of any size.

Anyway: Includes: http://www.librarything.com/catalog/jayoval . More will be added later.

And, of course, 200 books doesn't go anywhere near my collection ......

#10 Play around with Image Generators

From here, Text to Logo, : http://www.text2logo.com/ I made this:



and from here, Sign Generator, http://www.signgenerator.org/ I made this:


They were easy to use, but every time I wanted to change the font or the background it would just back to page 1. Jumping back to the last page you were looking at might be more useful.

I made a couple of logos with the names of my great niece and nephew and email them with links to the site so they can play too.

#9 Finding Feeds

Being a cataloguer I find the keyword searching for blogs to be very annoying. I wanted blogs on subjects, not 50,000,000 individual posts! I eventually found I could do the searches I wanted but they don't make this obvious and I had to hunt for it. Ok in the end, the list of blogs and news feeds I'm watching on bloglines has grown.

RSS #8

http://www.bloglines.com/public/jayoval

I've used RSS before, and because I use Firefox for my browser I don't need a separate reader here at home. At work I've just talked to one of the techie boys and I'm getting Firefox loaded on my work puter so I can do RSS at work as well. Only for work purposes of course. Subjects at work will be library, information and tech related. Here at home it's sci fi, vegetarianism, more tech including Linux and arts of varying sorts.

I haven't used bloglines before, very handy for keeping all the rss feeds together in one place. Took me a little bit to work out the public url, and I think it's because I've joined up with so many things in the last few days I'm getting my accounts mixed up in my head! The screenshot on Learning 2.0 didn't help - there's no share tab! Don't know why.

Technology #7

I always want more technology. Life could get very complicated if I had more money because the only thing that's providing any limit at the moment is my pay pack.

My ipod died a while back. I don't really know why, and I still have it on the off chance I'll learn something that will allow me to bring it back to life, but probably the hard drive has a fault. I finally said it but I still don't believe it. I'm keeping the dead ipod. Yes I have changed the battery, twice, I worked out how to do that.

I really miss music and talking books on the train. I travel about an hour each way each day and that's 10 hours a week to fill in. Yes I do read, yes I read paper versions, but I do love my technology. What I really want is a UMPC. Ultra Mobile Personal Computer for those not familiar. Usually bigger than an ipod, maybe a 7 inch screen, often folds like a laptop. Fully functioning pc. Play my music and do everything else. The best ones are also phones. They are expensive with the cheapest being over $1000 is Aus dollars and the ones with 80 GB or bigger hard drives being A$2000 or more.

So, a major chain department store (I don't give away advertising) has laptops in their catalogue, 120 GB hard drives and 1GB of memory. Ok, it's not 7 inches, more like 15, but they only cost $798. But I've been away at the LT conference in Melbourne for a few days and I've missed the beginning of the sale. I see the ad 4 days after it's begun. I decide I have to ring first, no use getting anyone to drive me all over the western suburbs going from store to store. 1st says they only have the floor stock left. 2nd has two but they are only the 80GB. I play cards on the puter and think. Go back to the catalogue and there's a store in the burb, about 20 minute drive away that I'm planning to go to in the arvo to watch a movie. Ring the store, they have 2 left and I ask them to put one away for me. We drive up there, I get my hands on it and because I just can't resist I open the box at the coffee shop and find the battery is charged so I have to put it in and start it up and load the operating system and explore to see what it's like and I look at the C drive just coz and I find that it only has a 70 GB hard drive. Damn. Oh well. Bummer.

I take it back, thankful that I haven't gone too far, keeping it turned on so I can show the people at the store. I'm nice to her, it really isn't her fault, there's nothing on the outside of the box that shows the size of the hard drive, she's nice to me, I get a refund and walk away without a laptop.

Good news is the first store, when Julie went to them today to see if the floor stock is still available and see if she can bargain them down on the price (she's good at that, I'm not), finds that even though it has been sold they are getting 10 more in and seeing as I've had such a drama getting one they are putting one away in my name. They don't usually do that they say. Now I just wait for the phone call, and hope they can get one in on their order......................

Flickr tools #6

I've been using Flickr for a while but I haven't explored any of the tools. My fave at the moment would be the Warholizer. This is Julie:


I was very pleased to find I could save the image to my hard drive.

I'm trying out the spelling tool ... here's an experiment:

Well, so much for that. I can't figure out how to put the coding in so that it will sit right. It keeps leaving out the spaces between the words.

(ps, I did work out a way of using the spelling took, I just took a screen shot and saved it as a jpg. Now I have a fancy header!)

Flickr

Ok, Flickr. I already have an account but I hadn't discovered the map feature. Getting the pics onto the map is a chore with dialup, but I managed. The map isn't very detailed so some are best guesses and one was so hard to place I had to use the the satellite pics and follow the roads to find the right place.

Link to one of my faves: http://www.flickr.com/photos/74455825@N00/355307472/ which is a best guess location on the map.

Continuing learning

Already I have had to do 'things'.
I haven't been able to view anything needing Flash for the last little while because my last update of my Linux operating system didn't include an updated Flash reader. I hadn't been able to work it out quickly and I didn't really need to view the things that needed Flash so i was putting off finding a solution until 'later'. I needed Flash for the 7 1/2 habits. I went back to the forums for my distro, PCLinuxOS, and found I didn't need to post it as a problem because someone else had and the solution was sitting there waiting for me.

So now I can view Flash things and I've viewed the 7 1/2 habits.

Now I'm also registering on 43 things. Next!

Start!

I'm going through the system at http://plcmclearning.blogspot.com/. I do know some already, but I want to consolidate what I do know and fill in some gaps.

I love learning, always have. I do courses and read and do tutorials online. I read instructions and manuals and work things out. Sometimes I get other people to explain or show something. I can't work out which of the 7 1/2 habits would be easiest or hardest. I will add a couple of points from my own experience: I do quite a lot of learning. Some of the things I start I don't finish. I don't have a problem with that because quite a lot of what I start I do finish. I work out reasons why I don't finish some things and they include: the timing wasn't right and other priorities took precedent, sometimes I have chosen the wrong learning environment or method, and occasionally I find I don't really want to learn that thing anyway. Some of the things I have dropped I have picked up again and completed (for example, when other life events become less urgent) and some I've changed my way (such as realising I'll never learn Italian from beginning to end in one go and it's better for me to do bits and pieces over a longer period of time). Some things I lose interest in or can't find a better way (the only class available was with a terrible teacher .... maybe I'll try learning by myself later).

This condenses to: I don't whip myself for failure. I succeed at enough that failure isn't a major problem for me.

My other point is I'm not sure where in the 7 1/2 habits comes: having so much enthusiasm for a project that you over estimate what can be done. Figuring the point where you have to back off and slow down is hard because it is disappointing. Even knowing it can still continue, or be picked up again later doesn't make it less disappointing to put down something you really want to continue with.............