beginning at the end

What a great experience. There are so many good things I have learned. I have gained confidence and have been able to actively work on many new things. There are so many applications for all of these emerging technologies. I've found some that were perhaps more fun than applicable to library users and services but really, the whole point of this program is to encourage your curiosity.

books on netlibrary

NetLibrary is of course linked to UNSW so I was welcomed immediately! I created my own account and saved a book to favourites.

As always, I would like an app that I could place in my blog so that I can link to NetLibrary and any books I've saved there.

NetLibrary is a very useful tool for students. I can easily see all the metadata for books and the subject headings are also good. I also like how the keyword search picks up words within the book, a good way to hone in on a particular topic.

On the downside, as it says Favourites and Notes, I thought I might be able to add my own notes to my favourites - doesn't look like it.

The help is also not very helpful. I want to know more about Notes and ways to customize NetLibrary. As usual, I am googling my questions and sometimes I get an answer in another blog. Perhaps I'll find more applications for NetLibrary in the future.

I will probably not use the eaudiobooks - but I guess they could be good to download to an ipod for a long car trip. In fact, I don't think there are any in our collection?? It is not really clear, hmmm, note to self, more exploration needed.

podcasts

Here are two podcast feeds I will add to my ipod:

This one is on Edtech talk:
http://edtechtalk.com/?q=node/feed

And one of the early ones, Mugglecast:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/mugglecast

Here's the podcast player I will download:

youtube-ing

the machine is using us


are you blogging this? kinda cute


this one is just for fun!

great sites

The Web 2.0 Awards, May 2007:
http://www.seomoz.org/web2.0/short

This is a great site to keep up to date with good sites! Quite a collection of sites to explore.

Lulu for self publishing!
Findory builds a home page for each reader, recommending content based on what each person has read and what new content is published!

Lots more to go back to here. Not sure yet of what I would recommend or apply to libraries

Now, here's something interesting - Wufoo:
http://wufoo.com/examples/
Forms that could be created and shared, i.e. user survey, seminar registration, research resources needed ...
a rival for reftracker forms?? - Yes, I know, these ones won't collect the stats.

web based apps for work

zoho sounds good.

I've already used googledocs

I've added a powerpoint sharing app to facebook

All very useful and save you having to remember your memory stick


The main problem I can see with all of this is all the usernames and passwords I have to remember!!

exploring wikis

here is a link to a wiki subject guide

http://www.libraryforlife.org/subjectguides/index.php/Main_Page

where to web 2.0?

lots to talk about here

lets not lose the social, interactive role of a library - there are still benefits to talking, learning and experiencing face to face

hello technorati

Technorati Profile

I found this technorati tag to the program - quite interesting. will go back to explore further:

http://technorati.com/tag/PLCMCL2

technorati, bloggerati

this says it all ...

"Currently tracking 112 million blogs and over 250 million pieces of tagged social media."

phew!

bloggerati is the australian version - quite useful

delicious tags

I set up a delicious account some time ago but have just added a delicious cloud tag to my blog and i like it!
delicious is a great way to have portable bookmarks. I also like the way suggested or popular tags appear when you first add a page - prompts you to add useful tags.
I will definitely use delicious more often.

gotta get a tag cloud!

OK, I've added my own Thing ...

Thing 24:
Create a tag cloud.

I've done it already on both of my own blogs and it worked like magic. Much improved on the "Labels" offered in these blogs.

So, all I did was google blogger tag cloud and then I clicked on the first link:

phydeaux3: Code for New Blogger Tag Cloud / Label Cloud

This was a straightforward and easy process, I just followed the directions. I was even able to fiddle with the html, changing the font and colours.

rss via bloglines et al .....

So, bloglines. I've added multiple feeds, blogs, news items, a podcast, and created my public url thingy at rujaly

Have to admit, not sure what this public url is for - I gather it is for others to see my bloglines? I guess so, but ...?? Isn't bloglines for me, to make my life easier? Who would want to look at other's bloglines when they might be having enough trouble keeping up with their own. OK, I guess I might learn about other good sites/blogs/feeds/ete from someone else, but I'm still to be convinced.

OK, here's the answer, from The Things:

"Why have a public account? To share blog rolls with others, of course. That's how the L2 participants list is updated; it's powered through a public blogroll. :)"

hmmmm! I just found some people had similar thoughts to me, so I posted on The Things, in reply to this comment:

I use Firefox at home and have a variety of feeds there. I like that because it reminds me that I have them while I have to remember to go to Blogline.

My reply was:

"I agree - in fact, I was just investigating how I might be able to incorporate bloglines into MY blog, or on my igoogle page. At the moment, I also use firefox and googlereader feeds and find these very straightforward. Bloglines is a little complicated to set up and there are a few things that are not very well explained.
Bloglines is a good idea - but it is really just another site to have to remember to visit."

RSS is very useful of course. I've added to my igoogle page before, plus to firefox as well. I'll say it again, I wish that bloglines could be incorporated into my favourite places because it's just another page to visit. I will keep looking.

I think bloglines layout is a little dated and don't really like the colours. (Gee, there's no pleasing me today is there!) But it is a useful one stop shop for all the feeds you could dream of - how many are too many, begs the question. When am I ever going to read all of this?

Of course it has great applications for both work and my personal interests, keeping easy tabs on what's new. We are using RSS already on our homepage for new books in the Library and I receive that feed in igoogle. So yes it's a good thing.

ode to Pluto

"Pluto - our lost brother" - 4Naccarato, originally uploaded by Auntie K.

I like this image. It's a tribute to a planet that is now dwarved but remains a planet to all of us that grew up with it.
I've joined a great facebook group When I was your age, Pluto was a planet and there's some great images there too!

aaah, I'm dreaming of a galaxy with pink skies, where planets are still planets ...!

new tech

I've had a play with flickr, mashups like spell (hmm, I did go overboard with this slightly!), montagr, magazine cover, the colour wheel thing, plus found lots more I will go back to and play with some more.

I've been reading TechCrunch, a blog about new technologies. I read a few interesting posts this week, one today about Amazon developing Dynamo, a new type of Web operating system that treats all of those connected servers (applications that have moved to massive grids of computers on the Web, like the ones that power Amazon’s e-commerce site or Google’s search engine and online apps) as one big computer. Sounds pretty amazing or perhaps I should say amaz-on!!
And they offer this quote:
"At the start of the last century, the great engineering project was the creation of an electric grid that could deliver power to millions of users with a reliability and an efficiency that were previously unthinkable. Today’s great engineering project, of which Amazon’s Dynamo is but one manifestation, is to build a computing grid that can achieve similar breakthroughs in the processing and delivery of information." This is from somebody called Nick Carr - quite a guy!

There was also a new social network called Wixi - I signed up to it's beta invite. Here's what it is:
"Wixi users get 3GB of free storage that they can use to share photos, videos, and music with their friends and family. While the service is browser-based, Wixi designed the interface to feel like a desktop environment with drag-n-drop functionality. Files hosted on Wixi can be accessed through the Wixi website or displayed on users’ websites using an embeddable Flash Player."
There is so much going on, a blog like TechCrunch makes you realize how much there is to keep up to speed with.

I discovered some new names the other day too - Jeffery Zeldman and Howard Rheingold and Virtual Dave Lankes. Must read more about them.

Oh, and I heard back from Laurel Papworth who I had contacted about her social networking workshop. She suggested a few options, one of which was running an inhouse course for us. Might be a good way to do this.

OK, one more go with this! ....

spell with flickr

Bar Beach sunrise

Bar Beach sunrise IMG_2337, originally uploaded by OZinOH.

My old beach. Many's the morning I've swum down there in this early morning light. Brings back lots of good and happy memories. My mum grew up on it in the 20's and 30's, running wild, riding her horse Tony right up the beach, past Dixon Park to Merewether and through the railway tunnel. There is family graffiti (hmm, should I admit to that??) on the rocks near Big Rock - that's the little mounded rock on the edge of the water, poking up out of ALL THAT SAND! Wow, there must have been a huge dump of sand here, but if I remember correctly, there are king tides around Christmas (around the time this photo was taken I think).

When we were children we would climb up Big Rock and jump into the bar when the tide was high enough. There is also Flattie, just in front of it (but you can't see it in this shot) - it was perfect for diving from, just when the right wave rolled in. We would swim all around the bar underwater, catch waves when it was high tide or just loll in the water.

But the mornings ... coming down here for an early morning swim, not a soul on the beach, the light clear and bright, the air salty and fresh. The beach always looks clean and untouched at this time, no footprints - well perhaps just the odd seagull trail. It almost feels like your own private beach. Plunging into the water, the sea cold and refreshing, you feel like a new person within minutes.

This is a very special place for me.

Storm Clouds At Wamberal

Storm Clouds At Wamberal, originally uploaded by ansend.

Here's a great shot of a looming storm over Wamberal. I remember that sand, it is strangely yellow/ochre on this beach - it's much paler at Bar Beach (I'll post a shot of this when I find a good one)

This beach hails from my earlier days, 0-8 yrs old. A really beautiful place, where rainforest meets the ocean. We had an orange orchard behind our back garden. We lived in the old farmhouse and our garden spread out magnificently around the house. We had a macadamia tree, a miniature banana plantation, a formal rose garden and a vale of tall spreading trees with swathes of big purple violets beneath them! Sorry for the waxing lyrical but it was a bit like living in a pastoral idyll. The orange orchard still had patches of rainforest on its edges and our garden was visited by all sorts of exotic tropical birds like the Regent Bower Bird

And did I mention the pink and white frangipani trees on each side of the back verandah door. Or the purple budleigha tree outside the side door that smelt of honey and attracted bumble bees. Or Kooka who visited often for handfeeding, or the possum in the roof that kept coming back, or the tawny frogmouth in the banana patch .......
A child's wonderland!

montages, postcards, rainbows and more

How much fun can you have creating things via flickr? I've set up my account, loaded one photo, added a comment to someones fantastic sunset sky shot, created my flickr webpage, and am now creating some postcards. One thing I notice is that the apps take forever to load so you do have to be patient.

More about the Charles Darwin Walk

Here's another way to post a photo. I found some photos on webshots and I think I can post this link to a photo of the start of the Charles Darwin Walk, so here goes ...


We set off about 4.30 and had an easy stroll along the track, past egg and bacon bush in flower and even some native violets. Birds were calling and we saw a tiny black, silver and yellow bird among the bushes. A black dog appeared, a bold and friendly expression on his face. I think he was just as surprised to see us as we were to see him. His owner appeared behind, smiling a hello.

This is as far as we got on Sunday evening ...

A creek in the Blue Mountains

Water and a Log, originally uploaded by danpalmer.

I was trying to find a photo from the Charles Darwin walk at Wentworth Falls but unfortunately the only one I found on flikr was blocked to bloggers!
This photo reminds me of the pool we came to on our walk last Sunday afternoon. It's a beautiful shot, capturing the movement of the water and the colours of the bush. There's a lovely spot on the track that I must return to and photograph ... and I'll add it to flickr for all to see or blog about!

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

It's 'Learning101' for me ...

Having created a blog before, this part is not new, but I know there will be lots of new things to come in the 23 things that I am embarking upon.

This is Step 3 in the Learning 2.0 program, a library focused self-directed course on emerging web technologies and the way people access information and communicate with each other. I will use this blog to record the steps in the program as well as what I learn along the way. This will be a learning curve for me, not too steep I hope, but one where I will try to challenge myself on each step, trying something new or different as often as possible.

Step 2 involved us thinking about the 7½ habits of lifelong learners. We were asked to think of the easiest and the hardest habits. For me, the easiest would be the last: to play. I always find it a great way to learn things. It really works for me - play, try things out and see what happens. The hardest habit would be the first, start with an end in mind. I'm not sure what I am going to do with all these new skills, but I guess one way of thinking about this could be ...
I will have a range of new skills at my fingertips and new opportunities may arise from it all.

So, here goes ....!