WorldCat

For the CML toolbox exercise I decided to explore WorldCat. I'd heard of it before, but never spent a large amount of time trying it out. It has some neat features with it, like having a list of libraries that have the item your searching for in order by distance (and even tells you how far that library is). It also links to Amazon.com if you want to purchase the item.

Unfortunately for me, the books I was looking for could only be found at librarys at least 300 miles away, and are out of print, so there aren't even that many options for purchasing them. I also wish there was more information about the books on WorldCat. Then again, these results probably aren't typical since the books I was searching for are very specific and don't have the mass appeal that others might have. I should search for something I know should have more detail to see how it compares.

Web 2.0 Award site

I've been wanting to create my family tree for awhile now. Mostly, I want to see how far back I can go, but there's always that hope that I'm related to someone famous. So I decided to play on the geni.com site.

It's really easy to use--just click on the arrows to select people you want to add. You can add pictures, video, and all sorts of information to each person's profile. You can even have the site give you birthday reminders. And there's a map where you can show the different areas of the world where your family lives. Most of mine live in the same area, but I can appreciate a tool like this.

It took me awhile to figure out how to add exes into the mix. For a little while I had some relatives that appeared to be married to two people! The site also assumed that my great-grandparents were deceased, which isn't the case (my great-grandmother is still alive). The only other gripe I have about the site is that there isn't a selection for adopted children. Sure, adopted children aren't technically part of my family, but it would be nice to have them in there so they aren't left out.

Another good feature of this site is the share feature. Only you, or members of your family, can view the tree, but you can e-mail relatives the link so they can make changes. That way the tree can grow without a lot of work from one person. Then again, my grandmothers, who would know the most about the family, don't really use the computer much, so I'd probably still have to do it the old fashioned way and just ask.

Wikis, part 2

Making changes to an actual wiki was easier than I thought. I did have a little trouble with creating a link to my blog, but other than that it was very straightforward and didn't require any html or code that I had to provide.

I edit webpages occasionally for one of my jobs, and there was definitely a learning curve when I opened up Dreamweaver for the first time. I didn't find that with wikis.

I doubt I'll use this info in the future, though. It kind of makes me nervous that someone could get on the wiki and change what I've written, especially when it's my personal opinion. I'm not afraid of that happening on the learn and play wiki, but it's definitely a concern for all the other ones out there.

Google docs

Yet another application that will make my life easier...well, at least for the most part. I have another job (for those of you keeping track, I have three) which is an office-type job where I can work from home about half the time. I'm a little behind the times and don't own a flash drive, so I'm forced to send e-mail attachments every time I want to make changes.

Only yesterday, when I was supposed to go into work, I forgot to e-mail myself the newest attachment. So I couldn't do any work on that particular project unless I wanted to start over.

Luckily, I can now upload my documents to the internet and not e-mail them to myself or print them out. The documents are easy to upload and functions are similar to their Office counterparts.

I only have one gripe about it so far. I uploaded a fairly complex spreadsheet (complex in that some of the words in my headers run vertically, not horizontally) so they don't display properly online. If I can't read the headers, having the document online is kind of pointless. Nevertheless, any application that can make my frantic lifestyle a little less so is okay with me.

Playing with wikis

Wikis are another piece of technology I knew nothing about until I started Learn & Play. I have looked on Wikipedia before, but haven't really done much with it, since I didn't like that anyone could edit an entry, whether or not they were "in the know" about a subject. It was good to see there were some wikis that are a little more selective in the people who can make changes.

Seeing different book reviews and synopses were probably the most interesting part of this exercise for me. I generally look at Amazon.com to see if an book is worth checking out or buying. (Even though I do what I want regardless of a few bad reviews). But I've found that some of the reviews aren't very helpful, or relevant for that matter.

Library 2.0

What does Library 2.0 mean to me? I'm still trying to figure that out. I guess the main purpose is to make librarians aware that technology is ever-changing, and even though some of those changes are fads, we need to be aware of them to better serve our patrons.

It's true what they say, the only thing we can control is ourselves. By being flexible and learning what is out there only helps our credibility as sources for people with questions. If someone walks up to us and asks about Flickr, for instance, and we give them a confused look and ask 'what?' then that person would be less likely to go to us in the future.

That's why I think Learn and Play is so beneficial. A couple of months ago, I had no idea about the different applications and tools that were out there that would make my every day life just a little better, or at least a little more interesting.

Del.icio.us

Where has this internet feature been all my life! I am constantly on the computer for one of my jobs and I occasionally find a site I want to find later. It was a pain to do it before, because I wasn't working on my home computer. Now when I do research for one of my jobs (where I occasionally work from home) I can find all the sites I need no matter where I am.

My bookmark list on my home computer was getting pretty massive when my computer crashed early this year and guess what, I lost all of them because they were just connected with that computer. Before the crash, I tried to organize the bookmarks using folders, but that just made things more complicated in the long run. Tags are soooo much easier.

I'm also writing a novel, at least I was until I got bogged down with life, and there is quite a bit of research involved. Del.icio.us would make that research a lot easier because I could weed out the less than helpful sites without much effort. The research is something I really need the internet to do since there aren't many current books on the subject, but I was afraid to use the internet before (except for online journals) because I've been taught to be weary of internet sources.

I can't wait to play around with del.icio.us at home (and get rid of that pesky bookmarked list)!

Twitter

I'm a little conflicted about Twitter. On the one hand, I like the idea of posting a short amount of information at a time. I'm pretty busy, so even though I want to post more on my blog, I just don't seem to have the time. Twitter would give me a chance to say what I want to say without having to come up with something more substantial than a sentence.

Although, I tend to be pretty wordy, so keeping posts to under 140 characters might be hard for me. Plus, I don't really think my life is that interesting that someone would want to read about it. For instance, one of my tweets was about getting double my discount at the retail store where I work. I'm not sure anyone would really care about that.

I did find a couple of accounts that interest me. I started following the TwitterLit one because I like the concept. I'm always looking for interesting books and this is a way for me to get an idea of what I might like without having to physically pick up a book and read the synopsis on the back. You can tell a lot about a book by its first sentence.

The other one I found was a crafting magazine. If there's one thing I look for more than new books to read it's new crafts to try. The tweets for this one have links for instructions on craft projects that seem really cool.

Bottom line: jury's still out on this one. I need to fiddle around a little more to decide if I like it or not. If you want to follow my Twitter page, it's under craftykatie32.

Ode to LibraryThing

This is by far my favorite part of learn and play so far. I love to organize, so being able to catalog my books, as well as my thoughts about them, online is great.

It's also been the easiest "thing" for me. I can't wait to add the rest of my library and see what other people think about the books I'm reading.

My friends are talking about starting a book club but we're a little too busy right now to do it the traditional way. This would be a good forum to do that without having to connect everyone's schedules.

This is definitely something I'll continue with after Learn and Play is over.

Image generators

This task was a little harder for me than the other ones. Did I have trouble finding the right picture? No. There were lots of them that I wanted to play with. I had trouble thinking of what to change in the picture.

When I was in school, I had no trouble coming up with clever things to say. But now the words fail me when I need them.

Complaining about the price of gas isn't really something I wanted to do, and not to pick on Disneyland at all, it just seemed to fit. I live in the eastern U.S., so if I drove to Disneyland, regardless of what the price of gas is, it would amount to a lot of money.

Anyways, I enjoyed this part of Learn and Play. I think I'll play with image generators more when I'm feeling a little more witty.

If you'd like to make changes to the Disneyland sign, here's where I found it.