Thing # 22

I hate to say this (more negativity, watch out), but I still find our ebooks instructionpage difficult to understand. It's probably because I am an Apple user and I'm not able to practice at home. It seems like there are too many steps. We are getting special training soon so hopefully all will become clear. I don't feel able to give the customers the best service in this area. The music downloads seem cool.
The Gutenberg site is cool all over. I took off to their Sci-Fi list and from there to the Baen Free Library. To read a book online, just click on the title and there it is. It may not be worth reading, but it is easy to get to.

Thing # 21

I know, I'm being a really bad sport (my usual role), but I am up to the top of my ears in new accounts and I'm drawing the line at Yahoo! Podcasts. I listened to a few. Many of the book reviews didn't seem to want to play with the media player on the computer I was using. The library news "casts" were mostly boring or were going to take 40 mins. or more. I can see podcasts being very useful for communicating a lecture or other information to a wider audience than is able to physically attend. There is certainly a lot of fun stuff available via podcast. Keeping media noise out rather than subscribing to more would be my personal goal, but there's that bad sport attitude again. Send me a link for something that really hits the spot but please don't expect me to invite a regular supply of "casts" to flood my Bloglines account or my email.

Thing # 20

I set up ANOTHER account with YouTube so that I could post my current favorite Medieval Help Desk (with English subtitles), but I got caught in a loop on the YouTube site. You'll have to search for it yourself if you haven't seen it. It is very apropos for librarians, especially the technologically challenged. I also loved "March of the Librarians". The adjacent clip of a conversation with John and Misch (or thereabouts) was boring, but library related. It sounded like wanting to invent something like already exists in lii.
The important feature of my two faves is humor. Altho' humor can be tricky when used in public places since not everyone sees the same things as funny, I think it is important not to take ourselves (or the latest technology too seriously).

Thing # 19

You might think that for such an avid reader as myself that Library Thing would be a goldmine. You can see my minimal list at gualalagrandma/pointarena. Some of my choices are on the list of 100 or more people and a couple were listed by only 30. Does that matter? There was some discussion about one in particular but I didn't find the comments erudite or informative. I don't read the customer reviews much on Amazon either. Maybe I can spend more time with it at a later date. Since there are already so many books, so little time I don't know that I need any more ideas of what to read next.

Thing # 18

I created the following document in Zoho Writer. It was very easy to use and fairly easy to post to my blog as you will see. I would recommend this tool to anyone and might even use it myself, if I ever write a document again. I like it's look better than the word processing program that came with my iBook (don't tell Mr. Jobs).

Dear Mom,

You wouldn't believe what they are "making" us do at work these days. I think you left this earth at the right time. It seems like people have to cooperate all over the place. You can imagine how difficult that is for me to get behind. Squeezing words out of me is difficult enough without posting it on some site or other, with various possible means of comment or editing. Don't touch my stuff!

You probably haven't heard that cousin Jeff died a couple of weeks ago from a heart attack. He must have weighed about 500 pounds. Maybe he's where you are and you do know already. You can imagine how difficult this must be for your sister. It doesn't pay to live too long. Speaking of this your unfavorite-est son-in-law (I hope you've forgiven him by now) had a heart attack a couple of months ago. Fortunately his was a mild one and he got prompt, excellent care. He is back to his part-time job as a shuttle driver for the city of Frederick, MD. Chrissie is still looking for a suitable job, but she has interesting possibilities. I guess you don't have to worry about them yet. It must be nice to be in heaven where I assume one no longer has such earthbound worries.

I plan to bring an Easter lily to you and Dad. We'll be on our way to Santa Cruz for Easter dinner with D, J, et. al.

Love and kisses,

Lynne

Thing # 17

I added a favorite restaurant to the list, and I created an account. I don't think I got from one to the other without a break in communication so you probably won't be able to verify my presence there. You won't have missed anything important.

Thing # 16

I have drifted around a little in wiki world. I liked the idea of the community wiki that might yield the answer to the question, who is the best Toyota mechanic? Maybe we could do away with Bay Area Checkbook then. The user interface of the Rochester Community Guide is especially good, I thought. I also dropped into the libraryoutreach wiki and I found it difficult to navigate to the point of locating any actual content. One example I came up with in our system that might use a wiki is a Patriot Day community story site as long as it had an inviting and simple front end for the less tech-savvy customer.

Cooperative learning experiences seem to be the fashion in education so wikis are likely to feel comfortable for today's students and may even be the most efficient approach to team projects. I'm not sure when anyone knows when the project is actually complete.

I am a little uneasy about wikis to the extent that I am often not in a position to evaluate the accuracy or worth of an entry, but because it is there, I am tempted (just like our public) to accept it as verified fact.