So, this is the end of our beginning

Well, for starters, I'd like to thank Joy, Gerald, and the many others who've spent a great deal of time putting this whole thing together and making it as fun as humanly possible. It's been very enjoyable and I've been able to try a good deal of different things that I probably wouldn't have otherwise. It probably hasn't greatly altered my learning habits, considering I've been into technology for most of my life, but it's given me a greater understanding of whats out there on the web. As for my favorite thing, I'd probably have to say it'd be a tie between Flickr and Youtube. I loved being able to flip through thousands of different pictures and videos of just about anything, seeing things I could have only imagined before. Definitely a good way to kill the boredom if need be. A site that surprised me, in a good way, was del.icio.us. I had absolutely no clue before trying it with Learn and Play the many different things that could be done with it.

As for the program as a whole, I can't really think of what could be done differently that could make it any more enjoyable or interactive than it was this time round. If the library chooses to offer a program similar to this one in the future, I would strongly consider participating in it. Once again, thanks to everyone who helped put this whole thing together. It's been great.

MOLDI

I've become a big fan of MOLDI ever since it became compatible with my Ipod. It's a service that I will most definitely be taking advantage of if for no other reason than it eliminates the hassle of having to reserve the books on CD, burning them onto my computer, and transferring them to my Ipod. Yes, I know that sounds like such an incredible hassle. Those precious several minutes I've lost having to do it that way. All in all, it's definitely a very nice and convenient resource.

Podcasts

Podcasts are a really nice innovation that can help keep a person updated on practically any subject matter they wish to stay up to date on. It's not something I'll probably get in to, but I could definitely see how others could enjoy the conveniences of podcasts, especially being able to download them to a person's Ipod or MP3 player. In terms of podcasts the library could use, perhaps we could do a weekly podcast talking about upcoming library/community events, a library staff member or customer doing a "book of the week" type of thing where they can do like a mini review of the book they're recommending. There's some good possibilities there.

Youtube

So, this one was especially easy. I've been on youtube dozens of times and like it a lot. You can find videos for just about anything you're interested in. Since I could not decide between two good youtube videos, I decided to post both of them. The first one is a cool video of a meteor falling to earth and the other is a restaurant in Japan that, because of the economy, is using two trained monkeys to wait tables in order to save money.

CML Toolbox

I decided to make this post especially easy on myself by choosing to write about easily my favorite web browser right now, Mozilla Firefox. It's the only browser I'll use on my home computer or laptop. It runs faster than Internet Explorer and has hundreds of what are called addons, which are little programs that run within your web browser and can help you perform a great number of tasks. It's really a great web browser.

Here's the addons page for Firefox in case you want to take a look:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/

Discovering Web 2.0 tools

Well, I spent a few minutes looking at some of the winners of the "Web 2.0 Awards", and wanting to get a little more play than work out of this particular "thing", I looked in the Music section and spent a good deal of time on the website http://www.pandora.com/

For those that haven't heard of it, it's basically an online music service that is customized to the type of music/artists you're interested in. When you first go to the site, you'll immediately be asked for a favorite song or music artist and once you've entered that in, it'll create a "radio station" playing songs similar in style to the artist or song you've chosen. As each song is playing, you'll be given an opportunity to further customize what types of songs you'll be hearing on that station by giving a thumbs up or down to that song. Now, you can also start fresh, create a whole other "radio station", and go in a completely different musical direction if you wish. If you want to save the stations you've created and be able to access them again, you can click on the register link towards the top of the screen and create an account, which is free by the way.

It's really a tremendous website for anyone who enjoys being able to listen to good music for free while working on the computer.

Web-based apps

I had actually never tried Google Docs before, but I had heard of it. I do especially like the flexibility it gives people in that they don't have to spend over a hundred bucks to get Microsoft Office on their computers if it doesn't already come pre-loaded on the machine. I also like the fact that documents can be saved to a person's google docs account as opposed to having to save them on a computer, flash drive, or in an e-mail in order to be able to access the documents on a different computer. Definitely something that can come in handy sometime.

Thing #16: Playing around with wikis

Well that was a pretty fun experience. I like how collaborative wikis are and how they can become a great source of information on all sorts of different topics for all those who visit it, especially amongest a group of people who can ask questions, share stories, pictures, etc.

Web 2.0 Thoughts

In my humble opinion, I think the library of the future is mostly going to serve as a hub of transition into an age where digital information will be the norm and printed items will more rapidly become obsolete. We'll serve as a source of internet access for those that still do not have it available at their homes and through our trained staff, a source of information on how to use the technology the customers need to find the information they are looking for. With more devices like the Amazon Kindle on the horizon, a portable device that display books, magazines, and newspapers digitally, customers will simply be able to download the item they want to their home computer or a portable device. In the future, perhaps libraries could continue to loan these items digitally for free, because these items are going to cost something regardless of whether they are in physical or digital form.

Library Wikis

So, I spent a little while checking out some library wikis and found them somewhat helpful, but containing mostly information that can be found fairly easily using the reference resources on our own website. I did find, however, one thing I think can be applied to our organization and that's creating a wiki, linked through our main website, where customers can submit reviews of the books they have read. For instance, if a customer is looking for a item on our website, a customer could see a link to the wiki in the item screen where they could find other customers' opinions of it, which could help them decide whether or not they wish to check the item out. Just a thought.

Del.icio.us

Well, I am certainly enjoying some of the new things we're trying out here for Learn & Play. Like some of the others, I had heard of del.icio.us before, but had never tried it. I especially like the tagging feature, which gives people the ability to find numerous sites by topics or other keywords just by doing a search. The thing I've always find most irritating about using most search engines is that you often have to know exactly what site you're looking or else it'll take you a decent amount of time to find what you're looking for, if at all.

Twitter

Twitter is actually a fairly interesting site where you can find out pretty much everything that's going on in someone's life, in the world, etc. in a matter of seconds. The main use of this type of site for library purposes would be a kind of answer and question sort of thing where people can get a quick answer by phone, e-mail, or web browser.

Just in case you're interested, and I just know you are, my twitter user name is: Maverick4527

LibraryThing

This is actually a pretty nice site that, among other things, gives you book recommendations based on the books you've added to the site that you've already read. Since it was early in the morning when I was surfing the site, I simply added the last 5 books that I've read to the site.

Here's the link to my profile page on the site with my 5 books: http://www.librarything.com/home/Maverick4527

Online Image Generator

Well, that was pretty fun. I had actually never used an online image generator before and knew next to nothing about it. Well, here's the image I generated.
FYI, I used http://www.letterjames.com/

Finding Feeds

I liked the bloglines search the most. It was the easiest to understand and, in my opinion, gave better search results than the other ones.

RSS Feeds

So, I spent a little bit of time checking out some of the various RSS feeds available on the web. They cover just about any topic one could think of. To be honest, I can understand how it could be useful for someone with a busy schedule and would like to be always up to date on the things they're interested in, but otherwise I don't see the great advantage to it for someone like myself. For the most part, I can just spend a few minutes surfing the net and find the exact same information. To each their own I guess.

Times certainly have changed

I guess you could consider me to have at least a decent grasp of modern technology. It probably has a lot to do with being raised by a father who's a computer programmer and spent many days when I was younger talking to me about computers and showing off the computer stuff he had just bought. I still remember just how excited I was when we were first able to connect to the library's catalog using our 2400 baud dialup modem. Looking back on that, I sometimes can't believe I was so excited over technology that seems so archaic nowadays, but it just goes to show that in another decade or so, we'll probably be thinking the same thing about some of the technology we have now.

Flickr Mashups

Well, I had a pretty good time going through some of the Flickr mashup and tool sites. It's amazing the kinds of things that can be done with just a bunch of various images grouped together. I especially liked the Flickr Color Pickr tool letting you find images on Flickr just by clicking on a particular color. I especially liked this image that was generated when I clicked the dark blue color on the palette. It's a chagall stained glass mural at the Chicago Art Institute.

Flickr Post

Prince Mononoke
Originally uploaded by aknacer

Well, after doing some surfing on flickr.com and looking through a bunch of interesting images, I came across one that definitely stood out for me. The person who uploaded it also has an explanation as to how the image was created.

Here's the post with backround of this image:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/aknacer/2868952863/

Welcome To My Blog/ 7 1/2 Lifelong Learning Habits

Well, I finally did it. I created my blog. I'm little late to the game I suppose, but I'm anxious to make up for lost time.

Alrighty, here I go. I'd say out of the 7 1/2 habits on the list, using techology to my advantage would probably be the easiest for me. I spent most of my childhood and adult life thus far surrounded by new types of techology and always have had at least somewhat of an interest in it. Probably some of my nerdiest moments have come when I've gotten a new gadget to play around with.

As for my hardest, I'd say it'd be viewing problems as challenges. It more often than not does provide me good motivation to learn how to solve certain problems I may encounter. Like most, however, sometimes frustration can get the best of me if the solution doesn't come relatively easy.

Ok then. Thanks for taking the time to read my first post. Adios.