Tuesday, June 10, 2008

#5 making puzzles with Flickr mash ups

My creation


Okayyyyy.....I've been trying to post this to my blog for about 5 minutes. It would show up twice, with a bad photo space in between when I tried to add the photo with the 'add photo' feature or not at all when I tried to use the URL into the 'add photo' feature. (kinda fun playing around and seeing what works:-)

I'm going to try making a puzzle out of another of my photos and posting (the creating of the puzzle and uploading it to Flickr was the easiest part of this!!!!!):-)

My creation

Edit: Yea!!!! It works!!!!!!:-)

Oh, yes, the blog---well, yes, it would be interesting to have in the library--I would like to see more on the library webpage or blog. I'm not so sure about the 'sharing' of photos--I remember hearing about some company using pictures for their ads, and the people in the photos were not aware of them using it for that until someone that knew them told them that they had seen their picture being used. The fun of the technology is that everything else (law, copyright, licensing) is still catching up!:-)

Another try at Flickr

The Old Library">The Old Library " border="0" alt="" />





Found a really beautiful picture of a library by (Erik).

Hmmm. For some reason, the photo didn't show when it first got put into the blog. I tried the 'share it' feature on Flickr, and had first tried the 'grab the link' which didn't seem to work; I then tried the 'embed it' which seems to have worked (a little too well). Well, something to work at--I'm wondering if it is the hang time as the blog posts that I'm not seeing the photo right away (too impatient:-)

Havin' fun with Flickr






Well, let's see if it works. I had fun browsing through Flickr, esp. the photos from the LOC site from the 1910s. I'm trying to load one of a racecar driver to the right here.


I enjoyed what St. John's/St. Ben's did to their book display (even looked up a few of the books for more information:-) Made me more interested in their library holdings with all of the tags. Some of the tag windows on the pictures in the LOC were really dumb; kinda what you find on a lot of newsgroups; very few were decent posts that added to the image.


I really liked looking for photos of places I've been to on Flickr. I think I'm going to have to scan old ones from past trips--it would be fun to be able to send them to people instead of having them sit in the photo album (like the YouTube video stated:-)


Here is the link to the photo I'm trying to post:


http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ggbain.09237



Edit: Ok, I went back, since the photo didn't post at first (had the blank spot with the red x box at the top), found it on the site, clicked on a link for a better JPG image of it, copy and pasted 'that' link, added it in, and the new one works (for whatever reason the other one didn't). Just got rid of the 'failed' one by clicking on it and hitting the delete button. So now I just have the 'right' one I wanted. Will have to play around with it more to get really good--not that difficult, just have to play around and tweak it a little. I might go to Flickr and locate the photo I liked and try to post it in another post, since I already have a Yahoo account and can log in.

another Edit: whoops, forgot to post the other URL for the pix:

http://memory.loc.gov/service/pnp/ggbain/09200/09237v.jpg

Monday, June 9, 2008

RSS feeds at #3

The set up of the RSS feed didn't take long, as I had set one up a few months ago in Google (and forgot to check it--had over 1,000 stories that got 'read already' in a second:-)

The thing I like about RSS is that you can see all the stories/updates that occur without missing any (if you didn't get on computer that day or was unable to access one). The downside is when items aren't posted for long intervals (like blogs that quit) or too many get posted (like news channels or newspapers that repost stuff every few minutes). It gets a little overwhelming when that happens.

The newsfeeds would come in handy to keep up with technology/library sci. stuff in professional area blogs--in personal life, it would be a nice way to keep up with friends who blog, without checking everyone's page every day to keep up with what they're doing (MySpace allows people to subscribe to blogs if you are a member; Facebook gives a News page that does something similar--lists what your friends have added/done with their personal pages). I was able to easily add another 23 sticks bloggers' page to the feed by pasting their URL in--I was surprised the same didn't work at first when adding the CMLE blog--it worked only when I clicked on the 'add RSS feed' that was at the right hand side of the page (so used to looking for logos, I didn't notice the words at first).

Friday, June 6, 2008

Library/Web 2.0

I found most of the posts for and against naming the 'new technology' 2.0, to be interesting (one or two were no longer accessable). I've always pursued information by tracking down references, so for me, the hotlinks in documents is a natural procession (but frustrating when the links are dead). I don't know if you really could consider it to be 'Library 2.0' or just the further use of the technologies now available to us. Internet service has been available in public libraries for years and this is just another offshoot of that.

Libraries, or actually, public libraries that I've worked at in the past, do not seem to be on the cutting edge of technology--because of budget (esp. because of budget)--they tend to have a wait and see attitude to see what will become the established technology (our local public system is currently getting rid of the last of the cassettes in the collection (CD & DVD is the standard for purchase now) and just last week, implemented a public IM for reference questions---which is interesting, because at the academic library that I work at, we have been using the IM for reference for the last few months, along with using a group blog for the last year and a half. (we used a wiki before that but I like the blog better--it just works better for what we use it for).

In my own knowledge of the 'Web 2.0', I'm a little savvy but I'm not coding up my own webpage (yet:-). I do have a facebook and youtube accounts (and have to sit and create a myspace so I can stay in better contact with some friends)--it really does boil down to time.

The Internet at work can be a time saver; locating materials quickly that without it's use, I'd have to send away for with ILL. The Internet at home can be a time waster--I can kill a couple of hours on Youtube quite easily:-) I'm hoping to save some time by having created an account on Youtube so I can save favorite videos and I can go and watch/listen to them without trying to refind them everytime or keep a written list next to the computer, which inevitably gets mixed up or reduced to scraps in a larger pile, making it a pretty useless system:-)

By working on the 23 things, I'm hoping to get a better understanding of some of the newer technologies, get to try some out that I might not have on my own, and get more familiar with the ones I currently use or want to use.

I'm looking forward to the trip!

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Starting.... again

Ok, I've re-registerd the blog and I hope to actually get through all 23 things this time:-) What I remember when I first started this blog: Creating the actual blog in Blogger is quite easy. I had fun creating the avitar (could have made a dozen different ones) with a little hiccup with getting the URL for it posted in the right spot so it showed up (helped me to print out the instructions so I had them at hand when figuring it out instead of flipping between open windows). Otherwise, not too bad. I looked over the list of things and realized that I've used most of the tools or have started using a few in the last few months on my own (I just set up a YouTube account yesterday night and added favorite videos to it for a few hours, after dawdling for a few months :-). I'm looking forward to working through the list and adding to my knowledge.