Online Image Generator

I have had experience with these and they can be lots of fun if you have the time. I like them because you can put your face on someone else's body so you can look the way you always dreamed you wanted to look, or in my case, you can be in the picture with Robert Pattinson.

Overdrive

I am not a big fan of listening to books being read and especially not while I am sitting around my pc (in the car it is a little more tolerable, but I like music too much). I don't think that I would use overdrive ever. First, I kept having trouble loading the player onto my computer. Second, life is just too fast paced to sit at the pc and listen to music or books even though being able to put the media onto my ipod is an advantage. Third, there is not a big variety of things to choose from on overdrive. Fourth, I didn't like how you had to log onto the Overdrive part just to see the status of your holds because you can't see them where you can see your regular holds. That would be a nice feature but I am not sure it is possible. I would however suggest it to patrons that like to listen to books on tape and can't find something on the shelf. I think it would be advantageous for them.

Delicious

I tried out Delicious today. Since the title is delicious, I decided to look up yummy heartthrob Robert Pattinson and tag some sites about him (big surprise, I know). If I had to say what the advantage is of using delicious, I would say being able to access websites you have saved from anywhere not just on a certain computer. I think that aspect would be helpful to patons that come into the library and need to use a certain website. For me, I rarely ever use another computer aside from my computer at home so it didn't really save me any time. It was just another site I had to log into and I was still able to find the same websites by doing a google search.

Wikis

I previously knew nothing about Wikis, so I was a blank canvas. I must say that I was very overwhelmed with the idea until I watched the Common Craft video. I guess you could say they really "dumbed it down" for me. They used a practical application that anyone would be able to use them for and then, I could see instances in which they might be beneficial to me. Who knows, maybe one day in the near future I might use this new knowledge to create a Wiki for a project.

I can also see that Wikis would be beneficial to libraries when several people need to collaborate together to organize an event or ideas. When many people are involved in a task that needs organization, this would be faster than using e-mails making everyone involved more efficient.

Now I feel like I must personalize my blog since I am getting so technology savvy so here is a song that I am really into right now from the movie Twilight.

My Cutie Patootie Twin Nieces

While I am on a You Tube tangent and I do mean that I love You Tube, I thought I would share another video which is a little more personal. Here are my cutie patootie twin nieces Kara and Kyla with their rendition of Farmer and the Dell. Enjoy!

Youtube, Hulu, and Fancast- Streaming Video

I love these sites! I already had experience with Youtube before, but I had never heard of Fancast or Hulu before. I am so glad to know about these now.

It definitely wouldn't be my first choice to watch a tv show or movie on my pc since I have a big screen, but I would definitely use all of these sites. For instance, just a week ago I missed The Office because I was at a Superbowl party and forgot to set my DVR to record it. I was so bummed. With these sites, I can watch missed episodes the next day. How great is that? I think when I get off work, I shall do that.

I am not sure how the library could use these sites, but I am sure we may think of ways sooner or later.

The Youtube clip is of my future husband, Robert Pattinson. He is just too cute!

Friend Networks

This week was an easy week for me since I already have a Myspace and a Facebook account that I maintain on a regular basis. I was slow to warm to these sites for fear of viruses on my computer, etc, but once I opened up an account, I was sold on them. I love to be able to connect with friends from high school and family in Louisiana since I am living all the way in Washington state these days. I love being able to see pics of them and show them pics of me. They help people stay connected unlike anything before their invention.

Flickr

I tried out Flickr today. It was very user friendly and I like the fact that you can back up your pictures on the web like that so you don't have to worry about losing your pictures. The photo I uploaded onto Flickr for this assignment was a picture of my husband and I on a recent trip to Las Vegas in front of the fabulous Bellagio hotel where we stayed the night and saw a Cirque Du Soleil show. We had a great time and the hotel was so beautiful!

I have used sites like these in the past such as photobucket and I have added pics to Myspace and Facebook before as well. These sites definitely have advantages such as photo sharing.

Pandora and Streaming Music

I had a good time this week with the music streaming but it took a long time. I already had experience with Pandora on my iphone so I decided to try another site for this experience. I decided to try Finetune. I defintely found some advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages: You never have to hear a song you don't like. You can add your playlist to facebook or myspace so your friends can check out what you are listening to.

Disadvantages: With Finetune you have to have a minimum of 45 songs on your list to have a radio station and only 3 songs per artist. This was definitely a challenge in the fact that it took me an hour just to add 45 songs to a playlist. Very time consuming. Also, Finetune was not so user friendly. Most of the hour I was just trying to figure out how to start a radio station and add songs to it. I ended up creating three stations accidentally and then couldn't figure out how to delete them. Maybe I will figure it out soon!?

MSN's Top Ten Dog Breeds

I was informed that MSN came out with their top ten dog breeds. Here they are:
10. Shih Tzu
9. Poodle
8. Bulldog
7. Dachshund
6. Boxer
5. Beagle
4. Golden Retriever
3. German Shepherd
2. Yorshire Terrier
and the number one dog:

Labrador Retriever (like my baby Daisy Mae)

RSS and Feed Readers

I think I put this one off as long as I could, so I finally delved (I think that is the correct word) into the world of RSS and Feed Readers with the help of Maron. Thanks! (What would I do without you.)



This one was really difficult for me in that there really aren't any sites that I go to on a regular basis to necessitate the need for RSS feeds, so I had to find some that I wouldn't mind checking into. I added MSN top stories, my co-workers blogs, and the news from the Sno-Isle website. I added these feeds to my gmail account because I could not justify adding them on bloglines just because that would create another account for me to log into everyday which in my mind defeats the purpose to the feeds (I think that was a run on sentence, maybe). I figured I am already logging into my gmail account anyway so might as well put them there to save time.



I could see that RSS feeds would benefit someone who checks sites regularly to save time. It would automatically let that person see the latest and greatest things on the site without having to waste time logging onto that site especially if there are many different sites that person checks into on a regular basis. So, in "short" I can definitely see the advantage to RSS feeds.

IMing

Well, already I am into week 4 of web 2.o. This week was more encouraging than past weeks in that Maron is trying to encourage us to share our blog urls so that we can comment each other like we are supposed to be doing and also so that we can learn from each other.

I had a great time with IM this week. I have used IM on MSN before, however I have lots of contacts from my e-mail that automatically added IM users to my profile whereas, I didn't have any contacts from gmail to put into google talk so it was a little more challenging. I absolutely loved Meebo for that reason. I am so glad some smart person thought of that!

I think that IM can be a wonderful way to communicate but at the same time can be a curse for those of us that can't focus on other tasks and IM at the same time. I find it hard at home when I am trying to be productive to complete a task and communicate on IM with family or friends. I think it is great in that you can get a fast answer from a contact that is online without having to call them. In my opinion, it is all about balancing when it comes to IM.

Aggravated

I am a little aggravated with this web 2.0 process. The reason I am aggravated is that we are supposed to comment on our coworkers blogs but all coworkers that are currently involved in this process are not getting their blogs posted on the web 2.o site so that we can communicate. Coworkers who have blogs posted on the 2.o site have finished the 2.o process are most are no longer keeping up with their blogs. This makes what the rest of us are doing seem silly and a waste of time!