Thing #69: Feed my Inbox

I'm currently following 439 blogs using bloglines and receive between 200 & 300 updates a day.

With those statistics in mind I wasn't too sure about feed my inbox, but what the hey it is explore, discover, play, after all so I gave it a try.

On the feed my inbox home page you are asked to enter a website url and your email address.

Luckily HCPL Techincal Trainer had warned us in his post to enter the url of the rss feed and not the plain old home page url.

Once that is done you get a confirmation email from feed my inbox, and then updates from the website are emailed to you.

The feed arrives in your inbox as a standard email - with links as needed - (think email message version of usual bloglines update)

Given the number of updates I get each day I think I would prefer to have them sitting in bloglines waiting to be read rather than clogging up my inbox.

I could conceivably use it for sites that update only rarely - an email update would make sure I saw it and it wouldn't get lost among the bloglines.

However for the time being I'll stick with bloglines.

Thing #68: Filtering Flickr

1. FlickrCC

Keyword searches Flickr to bring up a patchwork window of pictures tagged with the search term. I searched for the term chocolate and this is what I ended up with...

All of the images are copyright with Creative Commons licensing, which encourages sharing. There is also an option to search commercial images as well.

2. Tag Galaxy

Now this one is a lot of fun though the documentation, as the author points out, is very basic. I started by searching for chocolate and when it brought up the matches I also got the option of refining my search by cakes, desserts, cream, cookies, etc...

This would be an awesome tool if it had the option of searching by creative commons attribution.
Here is my result for chocolate...

If, as I said, there was a search by cc option then this would quite likely be something I would use a lot. it would make a great display tool - all book covers by jane Austen for eg.

I also found tag galaxy more to my liking search wise although flickrcc had the major advantage of the creative commons search. I would probably use both of these again - as I can see work related potential in both of them.

Uploading the results to the blog

Basically I did a screen dump and then cropped them in paint (and one in picnik), saved them as jpgs and uploaded them that way.

There may well be an easier way - however this one worked for me...

Thing # 67 Stress savers

1. Dial a human. It's American (which is a shame as it would be good to know which buttons to push quickly to get a real person at the other end of the phone instead of a menu of numbers to select from.)




2. Custom Guide. This one's a keeper. It's a series of pdf quick (cheat sheet type) guides for Microsoft products for PC, and for Mac products. The sheets are not designed to be manuals but rather a reminder type (what does F4 do again - that sort of thing). If you work @ Boroondara think the 2 page tips & tricks guide we got when we changed to Outlook. I've already printed off the one for Evernote.
Suspect I'll be using this site again.


3. Where is your username registered? This had potential as I have *several* different user names on many different sites. You enter your user name and click cjeck and the site goes through and checks that user name on about 70 sites. I guess if your user name is truly unique then it would be more useful but I would use this more for fun than for anything else. I tried my most unique login name (which I have at gmail, yahoo, hotmail) and it was already taken on 51 of the 69 sites (and most of them were not me - so I guess it's not as unique as I thought!). I doubt I'll use this one again.


Of the three custom guide is certainly the most useful on a personal level and on a professional level. It's a site I'll certainly be recommending to our pc users (especially the novice users) as I think many of them would find it extrememly useful.

Definitely a site for the borrower toolkit.

Thing #66 Directory 2.0

I like the idea of customisable start pages which is basically what allmyfaves and 43marks are.

Previously I'd toyed with allmyfaves, netvibes, pageflakes, clutterme, and mysurfpad before deciding on mysurfpad.

What I liked about mysurfpad was the clean lines and the way I could customise to suit me. Having said that though I tend to have my 'must check' sites as home pages (tabs) in my browsers.

I've blogged previously about my own version of browser wars - when I log onto the web I open:

IE7: (home tabs - gmail, my website, yahoomail, hotmail, blog 1)

Firefox: (home tabs - bloglines, twitter, facebook, gmail, my website blog 2,)

Flock: (home tabs - my surfpad, gmail, blog 3, blog 4, webmail)

These are the websites I use regularly - and I have other favourite websites set up in mysurfpad so that I have minimal clicking to get to where I want to go.

I'd looked at allmyfaves previously - I didn't really like it as it didn't suit my style of working. It seemed way too cluttered to my eye and I found it quite busy & distracting. I would/could use it for one-off search categories although it is very US based (which could be good or bad depending). I'm sure it did everything I would want it too but I just didn't take to it (personal taste I guess).

43marks was new to me but after looking at it for this exercise I think I will stick with mysurfpad.

43marks is basically lists of bookmarks that you can customise - I didn't mind the look and feel of it and might have been tempted to use it had I not already found mysurfpad.

Sites I haven't used before.

Under shopping I had a look at shopzilla which is a US based shopping comparison site - having seen a Halloween party today I looked at Halloween costumes - couldn't decide between wonder woman or catwoman.

Under dating I looked at plenty of fish - before I even needed to register it had produced a list of men (and women) either in Australia or looking for Australians to meet.

I think maybe a novice user might find this extremely useful mainly because of the exisiting categories which give a very good indication of the sorts of lists you can create/personalise.

Once again I have nothing against 43marks - I just didn't like it enough to switch to it instead of mysurfpad.

Thing 65 - It's hard to think about anything else

I was curious about exactly why the US was teetering on the brink of depression and why (or how) the US economy had got itself into this position.

I started with the msnbc timeline - reasonably good but it did seem to assume some knowledge that i didn't have.

I then moved onto how stuff works - this was an excellent explanation of mortgage backed securities - how they work and what happens when home loans are defaulted on in record numbers. It also helped me understand the msnbc timeline a little better.

I finished up with kiplinger.com's 15 things you need to know about the panic of 2008.

Of the three - I found how stuff works to be the most useful for a non-us reader - I understood it all a lot better after that. (and some of the stuff I heard on the business news this morning suddenly makes a lot more sense.)

Thing 64. One Hit Wonders

Site:CopyPasteCharacter.com

What I thought: Could be useful as it's basically a stencil like sheet of characters (think wingdings or webdings) that you can copy and paste into a document. I can't think of a time in the recent that I would have used it if I'd known it existed (except perhaps the £ symbol for the requests module at work?)

Site:Kuku Klok

What I thought: I probably wouldn't use this one - my pc is in a different room and I suspect that I would sleep thru kuku klok as the alarm I chose (slayer guitar) was loud but probably not loud enough. I'll stick with talking clock and mobile phone alarm!

Site:Stormpulse

What I thought: Not being in a hurricane threat area I probably wouldn't use this although it was interesting to track the progress of hurricane Ike (the only active one at this particular moment). It gives you details such as the current location of Ike's centre, wind speed, pressure, & movememt. Like I said - interesting but probably not useful for me.

Site:Pixadus

What I thought: I was interested in this one as Gitte & I are currently 'working' on an online photos demo for early October. Pixadus is basically social rankings for photos - you opt for + or - for photos and they move up and down the rankings accordingly. I searched for Paris and found some ace photos (I voted for one fo them just to see what would happen). I think I'd use this site to search for photos but probably wouldn't get around to posting any of mine to it.

Site:Fake Name Generator

What I thought: Gotta admit this one was fun! I entered a name set of American and country Australia asnd this was what I got. (When I changed the name set to England/Wales I was Sienna L Patel!). can't imagine why I would use it (especially while I am not being evil) but it was fun to play with.

*****************************************

Your Randomly Generated Identity

---

Gender:	random male female		Name set:	American Chinese Danish England/Wales Finnish French German Hispanic Hungarian Italian Japanese Polish Slovenian Swedish
Save:			Country:	Australia Austria Belgium Canada Cyprus (English) Cyprus (Greek) Denmark Finland France Germany Hungary Iceland Italy Slovenia Spain Sweden Switzerland United Kingdom United States

These name sets apply to this country: American

---

Janet T. Laney
89 Creedon Street
Gowanbrae VIC 3043

Website: Babblevee.com
It looks like Babblevee.com is available! Click here to register it!

Email Address: JanetTLaney@mormoncoffee.com
This is a real email address. Click here to use it!

Phone: (03) 9605 2415
Mother's maiden name: Smith
Birthday: March 10, 1950

Visa: 4916 7608 6275 8186
Expires: 2/2010

UPS Tracking Number: 1Z V69 W36 43 5845 674 4

************************************************

Site: PicApp

What I thought: Okay this one I liked (and actually signed up for) - it searches photos such as Getty Images (eg editorial or creative). i searched for gymnastics beijing olympics and found some awesome photos that i hadn't seen anywhere else. I expect to make a lot of use of this one.

Two blogs that I read religiously (for web & library stuff)

What i learned today

Nicole Engard's blog about "Web 2.0 and programming tips from a library technology enthusiast, What I Learned Today… covers blogs, rss, wikis and more as they relate to libraries."

I find lots of interesting sites via her blog and it keeps me learning, and thinking about some of these sites could be useful to me both at home and at work.

Swiss Army Librarian

Brian Herzog's blog about 'the hitchhikers guide to fear and loathing at a public library reference desk' is another that leads me to all sorts of interesting sites and ideas - his post about using firefox on public library pcs is almost a' bible' to me - I so want to do this where I work.

There are a lot of other blogs that I more than skim read ( I'm following 380-something blogs on a wide range of topics) but these 2 are 2 of the best imho (and for my purposes) as they frequently inspire and seldom disappoint.

Thing #63. Foxit reader

I don't like downloading stuff onto my laptop - mainly cos the hard drive is almost full and the replacement twice-the-capacity hard drive is sitting on my desk staring at me as i type this (Note to self: must install new hd)

I've downloaded foxit reader onto my usb drive of portable apps (aka as the surfboard if you are rifling thru my usb drives for any reason)

I suspect this could be another useful tool if I need to fill in a PDF form online.

Once again I tried the US Postal Service- online job application and found foxit a little more 'tapsister friendly' than pdf escape when filling in the form. It's hard to pinpoint why I preferred foxit - I think it's probably just a 'personality' thing, no real reason just personal preference.

I did wonder whether zamzar (my favourite conversion tool) would be useful for these online pdf forms?

(wanders off to upload us post office job app to zamzar...)

Thing 62. PDF Escape

This could be a very useful little program. I couldn't think of a site that I'd accessed recently that I'd use it on so I followed Mary's example and used the employment form from the US Postal Service.

I also followed Mary's advice and registered with PDF escape from the getgo.

I found PDF escape easy to use, although I did get a little annoyed by having to 'insert text' for each line I wanted to enter info into.

Mind you if it had been a real job application I would have been obsessively resizing text boxes and the like.

I'll have to try and remember this one for when I do come across pdf forms that can't be filled in online.

#61 Facebook & libraries

I've done the whole search for library on fb previously and friended and fan'd several - some because I'm interested in them- they're located close by, I work for them, I went to uni there etc, others I follow to get a feel for how they are using fb to promote their library service.

Our ILS vendor is, I think, almost ready to 'unleash' a fb application to search our catalogue which I think would be great.

The libraries that to me have the most effective fb presence are those that have a catalogue search widget/application rather than just a link on their page.

In the realms of fantasy (or way outside my programming league) I'd love to see library patrons being able to do most everything from our facebook page (think library elf meets e-resources).

I'd like to be able to do things such as renew my books from the fb page - the catalogue search app is a good start but how about being able to join online via fb?

Something to think about?

#60. Facebook

I was watching tv yesterday morning (breakfast tv - I feel so ashamed) and the 'Today' show was 'interviewing' a technology guy who was basically saying that fb was on the decline - that the number of people signing up was decreasing, the number of regularly active accounts was decreasing, and so on.

I found that interesting as a couple of days ago I read a blog post that said that there were more applications currently being written for bebo than any other SNS.

I think Facebook and other SNS sites are great for libraries - it gives us a presence where our users (and potential users) may be, it enables us to publicise and promote our events to a wider audience, and it enhances our virtual library.

I've been on fb for a while now - I'm not the most active of participants, but I do check it most days, and I like to experiment with different applications.

I only wish more staff would get involved with the online tools available and see them as an opportunity, not a threat.

#59 Authors on the web

I have used Authors on the Web previously and whilst can be a useful resource I seldom use it anymore.

One of my most visited websites is Fantastic Fiction which answers pretty much all my book related queries such as series order, forthcoming books by favourite authors, and the like.

Authors on the web seems to be very US author based.

For example I searched authors on the web for 2 of my favourite British authors (Danuta Reah, Hilary Norman). Neither of them were listed. On FF I got a list of their books in series order and a link to their homepage/s.

AoTW is a useful website but for me I find FF to be more useful at home and at work.

#58 Being green

Last month I blogged on the library ning about a list of green resources that I'd come across on the virtual hosting blog.

As I worked my way thru the (mainly American focused) list I came across one little gem of a program that I blogged about here.

One resource I really, really, did like - I've downloaded it and use it at home all the time - is greenprint.

When you click on print a document you get the normal print screen but with greenprint as the printer.

It then displays the document in a print preview format with what it thinks is unnecessary pages highlighted in red (you know when you're not paying attention and you print something and the last page is just an ad?)

If you want the page printed you just 'unhighlight' it and the document prints in the usual way. You can also remove logos, banner ads etc before printing.

If you don't need a hard copy of a document you can save it as a pdf.

There is a free version of greenprint or a pay version. I use the free version at home and find it quite useful.
It also keeps track of the money you've saved (in ink, paper, energy, terms) by using greenprint to stop printing the extra pages/logos.

If you're the type of person who always looks at print preview before printing then you may not need this but for the rest of us it is useful.

#57. Feeding my addiction - Tastespotting.

Sandy via Jamie warns us not to visit Tastespotting if we are hungry - so true.

Much as recipe sites/blogs/whatever are not my cup of tea (or should that be homemade biscuit), how can you not like a site where the first picture is of homemade marshmallows with 100s & 1000s on top?

I added the widget fairly easily to my blog, the hardest part was finding the widget to add.

I used my standard cookery search terms - corned silverside and chocolate mousse (separately, not together) and found several photographic recipes for each. (and as a result I am now seriously hungry).

I much preferred Tastespotting to I'm cooked (Thing 50) as I like to look at the pretty piccies of the food rather than the video. In fact I've already looked up several recipes that I plan to cook in the future.

I like that the site's not just about the recipes, there are blogs from people, some about food, some about recipes.

#56. Smilebox

I'd downloaded Smilebox a while ago, played around with it a little, and then went back to Picnik.

Whilst I quite liked Smilebox I didn't want to shell out US$5 per month for the added features. (the main added feature I wanted to use was to add my own itunes music to my photos)

It has a lot of useful feaures, especially in the 'paid' version but I think the main thing against using it in a work situation (apart from the $) is that you need to download it.

We are not really able to download stuff onto our computers at work so this limits Smilebox's usability and usefulness.

At home I'm happy with Animoto, picnik, etc for all my photo fancifying needs although some of the design templates in smilebox are really cute...

#55. Slideshare

I first encountered slideshare at the Beyond the Hype conference where one of the presenters mentioned that her presentation was freely available on slideshare.

I checked it out (both the presentation, and the site) and discovered a wealth of relevant (to me) presentations that I could view and/or download.

There are a lot of web 2.0, and library, presentations available there which means that you can almost see it as a sort of defacto way of tailoring a conference (or should that be unconference) to suit your own personal needs or interests.

I found it a useful creative commons site for storing and sharing online presentations.

#54. Bookjetty

I'd heard of Bookjetty but never looked at it until, at VALA, Polyxena went to a presentation by Schubert Foo and came away really interested in this application.

She told me about it and, like her, I could see the potential for public libraries.

So, of course, I checked it out and, of course, I joined up.

At the time there were only a few melbourne libraries on bookjetty - it has really come into its own since more libraries have added their catalogues to it.

From a library point of view the more libraries that are available to be searched the more valuable it will be as a tool. Being able to access multiple libraries with one search is a definite plus.

#53. LitLovers

It feels kind of weird posting this seeing as I submitted the 'thing'.

However I've completed the first lit course (which deals with formula romance fiction)

It consists of a 'lecture' (15 slides), readings, a study guide and a quiz.

once you've submitted your answers to the quiz (there are seven multiple choice, and a couple of free response questions), it is 'marked' instantaneously and then there is a link to print your certificate.

There doesn't seem to be a pass/fail type option so if you're serious about literature then you probably won't get a lot out of it.

However if you're getting back into lit. or have never read for discussion previously, you may find this a bit interesting.

#52. Clipmarks

Polyxena and Annabel have been singing the praises of Clipmarks for some time and I signed up a couple of weeks ago to see what all the fuss was about!

It's a little gem of a tool - instead of saving (as I am prone to do) the urls to thousands of blogposts in bloglines I can save the posts themselves, or parts of them, in clipmarks.

Depending on my mood the clips can be:

• private (only seen by me when logged in),
• my network (can be seen on my Facebook, myspace, blog, etc.) pages
• public (viewable by anyone)

I still like bloglines and use it a fair bit but I am gradually replacing the saving of posts with clipmarks.

I can see great potential for clipmarks if I could clip things directly to Zoho or Buzzword (that would be soooooo useful)

#51. Libraries and the social web

Lately I've been doing a lot of thinking about libraries and how they can use 2.0 & 2.1 applications.

This is partly because I took myself off to Brisbane to the Beyond the Hype symposium (which I have blogged about here), and partly because I got to go to some sessions at the VALA conference in Melbourne (2 as part of a shared registration, and 2 because other staff members were ill).

So far our Library Service has:
*a web page (connected to the Council web page)
*a Facebook page
* our catalogue is available on Bookjetty;

we are working on:
* a myspace page
* a bebo page (if I can just get the bl***** logo to skin)

We are also running the Library 2.1 program through a ning, as well as a Local History ning.

In the setup for staff to play and learn on category:
* we have a blog
* a ning

Independently staff are working on:
* wikis (for Local history and library in general)
* suprglu (blog aggregator)

Hopefully we will have a blog for the public to access up and running in the next couple of weeks.

Scarily of the 25 social networking tools list I have accounts on all but 3 of them.

I like to try the different tools and then use the one that I like the most, that suits the way I work etc.

So mnay tools, so little time...

#50 I'm cooked

"It's like you tube for cooks" We ll can't argue with that!

I'm cooked is a video recipe sharing website. The idea is you film yourself cooking something then upload it to the website for others to see.

Now while others cook vats of plum sauce or bake lovingly - I don't. I cook because I can't afford to eat out every night!

The thought of being filmed as I look in the fridge, rummage in the cupboard for ingredients is not a good one, nor is my recipe for "it's in the fridge so can go in spaghetti sauce" one that should be handed down from generation to generation.

However I searched for corned silverside and watched a couple of videos of silverside being cooked. One with ginger beer, and the other with the more traditional(?) vinegar and brown sugar.

Would I use this site? In a library sense I doubt it; in a personal sense maybe - if I wanted to see how to cook something rather than just reading the recipe - could be helpful I suppose.

After playing with this site I was mega hungry - thank goodness I didn't look at video recipes for chocolate mousse.

#49b Musigy.com

Musigy is basically an online music conferencing platform (think teleconferencing or videoconferencing) where musicians can jam with other - in the next room or halfway across the world.

As stated in previous posts I am not in the slightest bit musical (I wish I was but that's another story).

So I asked my friend Benj (who's a sound engineer & muso) to give it a go.

He thought it sounded pretty cool so he has installed it on his pc and is trying to arrange to play a duet next week with a friend of his who lives in France.

(They're busy IM'ing each other trying to decide on a song now.)

In Libraryland it would make a good activity, perhaps as part of Battle of the Bands or similar, for teenagers and younger library members.

#49 Soundsnap

Okay, I can see the YSL's having fun with this.

Soundsnap is basically a website containing a collection of sounds - I looked in sports and listened to a basketball being dribbled, a pinpong ball bouncing, a baseball bat making contact with a baseball etc.

Each 'sound' was 1-20 seconds long. So ideal as a background for a link on a website.

Under film & comic fx there was a 2 second 'splat' or a 1 second 'squelch'.

Some of the stab/swish/weapons sounds would be fun if we were having a crime fiction discussion on the website.

You could string some of these sounds together and have a Batman like (1966 tv version) Kapow, splat, holy gatorade Batman' type soundtrack running beside parts of your website.!

Holy soundtrack Batman!

#48 music.download.com

Once again this is a site I would probably use more at home than at work.

It is extremely easy to use, although I couldn't find many (free to download) songs that I wanted to download.

There was some ELO under rock and pop as well as a sub-genre of glam rock. They have a function that makes it easy for you to download stuff to you ipod (you nominate a genre and they stream the songs for you).

If you only look for music online then there's heaps here, but if, like me, you have racks & racks of cds you may not get as much use out of this.

#47 Jamstudio

I am not in the least bit musical (more's the pity) so Jamstudio was not that exciting for me.

Basically you choose a style for each of a number of instruments, choose a key (if you want to) and press play. Voila instant song.

I 'created' a song called (creatively) yukk!

If you have some vague idea about music then you would probably find this to be great fun as you can be as original and/or creative as you like.

In a library sense you could use it to create background music for events or podcasts etc I guess.

#46 Groundhog Day

Learning 2.0 (the first 23 things) was, for me, a chance to play and experiment with some new, and not so new, applications.

During the program I was focussed on finishing the program, now that I have finished I'm focussing more on how those apps can be used at/for work.

So much so that, in tandem with this blog, I am redoing the first 23 things (partly as a training aid), mainly thinking more about how they can be used at work and less about how I would use them.

The real eye opener for me was how many American Public Libraries are using these tools as part of everyday library life, not as an added extra sort of thing but as an integral part of the library's presence - a sort of not so much thinking about web 2.0 as doing web 2.0.

I'm surprised by the number of people at CoBLS that haven't 'embraced' 2.0 - some people I thought would be all over it are just not interested (can't understand it myself)

Some staff seem to thing it will bring about the end of libraries and librarianship as we know it. To those people I say "that is what people said 25 - 30 years ago when OPACs were being introduced"

The use of Web 2.0 will not replace Desk shifts, or booktalks, or storytimes, itwill complement and enhance them.

It gives patrons extra options for using the library and allows us to expand our services into the community and to the public.

I'm tempted to setup a mini learning 2.0 program, using just a few of the 23 things, to give those who haven't tried it a taste of the 2.0 experience.

You never know you might just enjoy it...

#45 (d) Mindmeister

Well I think this is the one. Once I worked it out (I may have been paying too much attention to the tennis) I was hooked!

It's very easy to use and suits my style of working extremely well. It automatically saves the mind map as whatever is written in the main box (nominally a good idea, but at one stage I had 7 mindmaps called Ian Rankin. Exit Music.)

I like the linear style far more than the flowchart/cloud style but I realise the more creative may prefer bubbl.us.

This one very much comes down to personal choice. Whichever mindmap style suits you - they are both equally as good, it's just a matter of personal preference.

#45 (c) Bubbl.us

Seeing as flow chart still hasn't sent me an invite I've moved onto the mind map portion of this week's entertainment.

Bubbl.us was surprisingly easy to use (once I'd stopped hitting enter and making many unneeded little boxes.)

I came slightly unstuck when I tried to upload my mindmap to Blogger. However I *quickly* worked it out. (hint: click on menu at the bottom of the page and you get several different choices.)

I was going to embed the code but the left hand column is looking a bit cluttered so instead I exported the mind map as a jpeg and uploaded it as an image.

Will now finish playing with mindmeister and post a comparison.

#45 (a) Going with the flow (chart)

Given how excited I was about flowcharting Gliffy was a bit of a disappointment.

When I first signed up I found it very unresponsive to my typing. For example typing in a login name - press t wait for letter to appear on the screen, press next letter, wait for it to appear on screen and so on.

Now I'm no touch typist but I found it unbelievably slow, and therefore frustrating.

I had the same problem when I finally got to create my flow chart. Perhaps It's my computer but I haven't had the problem with any other site. Gliffy looks like it should be easy to use.

In flowchart mode there is a range of shapes that you click and drag into position.

Likewise in floorplan mode there is a range of popular shapes (door, stairs, wall, window etc) that you drag into position.

#44 Jott

Jott is not available in Australia so, instead of playing with Jott tonight with a view to blogging about it tomorrow or Tuesday, I can tick thing 44 off my list.

I have a vague recollection of reading something about an australian equivalent so if I can remember what it was I'll blog about it later. If not I'll probably replace #44 in the CoBLS learning 2.1 with another application (probably shelfari)

Besides #45 is flow charts and I've been hanging out to get to it...

#43 Midi Files

Clicking on the link in the Midis post takes you to a site called midimart.net which allows you to download midi files for free. The rub is that to be able to access these free downloads you must first join midimart (which costs 15.50 GBP).

You can join the forum for free which gives you access to midifiles before they're posted on the main board (I think). However my application to join the forum is awaiting approval from an administrator (still) since Friday. So far it seems like a lot of palaver for an application that I'm not that interested in and may never use.

#42 Google groups/usenet

I did as instructed and had a look at the society.libraries.talk group. It was classifed as low usage although usage from year to year seemed to be increasing.

Interstingly the previous ten posts on the this group about libraries all seemed to be spam type postings. There was an earn $50-$100 online job posting; a posting about how to win a free i-phone; and 8 postings about persecution and MI5.

I then searched google groups for tap dancing (well, why not). The first hit was a tapdancer come motivational speaker; the next half dozen were all linked to a religion discussion group (it had picked up on the phrase 'tap dancing' as in 'tap dancing round the issue'). A salutary lesson on search terms there.

I even searched for a couple of groups I belonged to when the service was called Dejanews but nothing leapt out at me so I'll probably stick with the few Yahoo Groups I belong to.

#41 Live mocha (Ca plane pour moi)

Ever made the New Years resolution that this year you are going to learn a language? Then Live Mocha could be for you.

It bills itself as a social networking site for learning languages. When you sign up you nominate a language that you wish to learn and specify your level (beginner through to native). Ichose Italian - no problems there - however a bit further on, when I went to enrol in a course, Italian was not an option - I could only choose from English, German, French, Hindi, Spanish, or Mandarin Chinese.

I chose German, (thanks to my CS reading I figure I already know a few key german words about food!) and enrolled in German 101. Most of the '101' level courses appear to be 50 hours, and it is self paced learning. It is divided into units (the idea is one unit per week) and you can pause and resume the units as often as you like.

Within 30 seconds of signing up I was being IM'd by a guy from Afghanistan who was learning Spanish - not sure what we had in common as it certainly didn't appear to be languages.

If Italian was an option I'd probably be using this site quite regularly, as it stands I'll check back occasionally to see if italian's been added but that's about it.

#40 Retroland (stars on 45)

Okay this was a real walk down memory lane.

Retroland describes itself as a social networking site where you can connect with others who have the same (embarassing!) memories about their past.

The site is very american - almost all the foods in the food tabs were unknown to me or known only to me via (bad) american tv sitcoms.

The music tab brought back some 70s memories - Bay City Rollers (long stripey sox, tartan trews, platform shoes), The Sweet, Abba, T-Rex, and so on.

Couldn't find much australian music (unless you count the bee gees) apart from ac/dc; no Sherbet or Skyhooks for example.

Not sure how we'd use retroland in a library sense, unless we were having a themed 70s (or 60s, or 80's) activity and wanted to capture the era.

#39 Animoto (Video killed the radio star)

This was waaaaay cool. (and very easy to use).

You select some photos, upload them to animoto, choose some music, and voila - video clip.

A 3o second video clip has about 15 photos in it - ample for a trial run.

If you choose from animoto's music, the genres are indie rock, hip hop, latin, singer/songwriter, electronica, (no 70s glitter rock, or show tunes) from up-and-coming bands.

You can upload your own music but I couldn't be bothered.

It occurs to me that if you can upload music you could upload voice - say for a virtual tour of a libraries on the website.

Might experiment with that when I'm in better voice.

ETA. The resolution on the photos was surprisingly average - will look for some higher res. piccies and edit.

#38 Comic relief (toondoo)

I may have to leap ahead to Thing 45 as everytime I log in to explorediscoverplay I am tantalised by #45 - Flow charts. (uber-nerd/geek alert obviously).

Anyway #38 Toondoo is a diy comic strip creator. Many talented people have created comics on it; many untalented people have created comics on it.

I gotta admit this thing did nothing for me. I have absolutely no creativity in this area.

Objectively I can see that this could be useful in the library as a promotional tool if you have the talented people to exploit it. Alternatively it would make a good school holiday program type activity for kids/teens.

#37 Last. fm (76 trombones)

Unfortunately Pandora is no longer able to be accessed from Australia (it's based in the U.S.) so that left Last.fm

It allows to create your own playlist and embed it on your blog. I first searched by genre/tag for musical theatre. Among the results it returned was the cast album of Spamalot and Phillip Quast's Donmar album.

Last.fm gives you the code to add to your blog and you can also link directly to Amazon to buy then music you're listening to.

Useful for home, perhaps not so much for work.

#36 Picnik (Do-re-mi)

Before. Me at Cadbury World a few days before Christmas 2003.
After. Me in Christmas mode.

I decided to try Picnik and found it to be a lot of fun and potentially very useful.

From the red eye correction mode (when I forget to use the setting on my camera) to the ability to manipulate the photos I can see quite a few uses in a library setting especially to promote events and booktalks.

For some reason I'm envisaging promo type ideas along the lines of the free postcards used to advertise many different events and organisations, something a bit different from our usual fliers/flyers.

#35 Twitter (I taut I taw a puddy tat)

Twitter - think miniblog (140 words).

I tried to enlist in jaiku but it is in the throes of joining the google empire so I must wait for an invitation (when an account becomes available).

I'm not really sure what I would use twitter for - it seems like an online version of sms (although you can access it on your mobile phone as well). Between my 'normal' blogs and sms on my phone.

I must say I love how mashable describes the evolution of blogging (and the need for twitter)

"To some, it really feels like Twitter has stumbled upon a new blogging paradigm - short, to-the-point messages that let your friends, family and the world know exactly where you are and what you’re doing, every second of the day.
But others are asking: what’s the point? Those people just don’t get it. Clearly, Twitter is an amazing new way to blog about your cat."

I'm guessing I'm one of the 'what's the point' people.

#34 A fridge full of leftovers and nothing to eat

Fitday and Nutridiary - scary tools to be looking at on New Years Day with the Xmas leftovers and chocolates still filling the fridge.

Both work in similar ways. You enter your height, weight, age, type of job, and you use them as a personal weight loss diary, calorie counter, diet planner etc.

I preferred Fitday mainly because it has a cleaner, less cluttered look; and because it accepted that I knew my weight in kgs (metric) and my height in ft & inches (imperial). This, however, caused nutridiary to have conniptions as it assumed I would use the same measuring form (metric or imperial) for both -doh, and it couldn't cope with the concept that I was 5 metres tall...

I tried the learning exercises on both of them and the results were unsurprisingly similar (once I worked out what my height in metres was).

BTW those results will NEVER be published...

#33 String spin (Fun, fun, fun)

I chose to play with string spin (v2).

I started with v.1 and that was fun but a bit tame, so in v.2 I opted for my name then watched as what started out as a rather passable version of my signature suddenly was spun into "art".

You could spend hours playing with this stuff and I'll be introducing my neice to Mr Picassohead as I think she'll have fun creating with it.

Word of warning though stringspin can, and will, crash your browser if you get too carried away with your spinning!

#32 Omnidrive

I've been using omnidrive for a while now. When I was studying I'd keep a copy of my notes stored on omnidrive so that If I forgot my usb drive (or was using one of the many pcs at uni with dodgy usb ports) I could still work on my notes or essays or whatever.

The free account offers 1gb of storage which was more than enough for me for study purposes.

It was also useful for group assignments - we could all access the most up to date changes to the assignment rather than having to email the others when we changed our part.

Since the demise of my PDA (pause to mourn briefly) I've uploaded the files that I kept on my PDA to omnidrive so that I can access them from any computer anywhere. (Drawback is that I need computer/web access - not always available in 2ndhand bookshops...)

I would have liked to explore box.net more, however it can't be accessed on the work computers (it's classified as peer to peer so is a no-no) and if I can only access it at home and 'on the road' it becomes 33% less attractive.

Having said that I've played at home and like the look of it and will probably use it as a backup drive at home.

From a library point of view both programs could prove useful for patrons to save documents they're not finished with, or if they just want to print something they've created at home (but don't have a printer); staff wise given the network setup it would probably only be used if we wanted to work on a document from home.

#31A Get organised with Jotlet

Loving Jotlet.

After playing with it for an hour or so I'm liking it's style. It's basically a calendar program with options for tasks and notes to be added in. It (so far) has good clean lines and display options that suit the way I (allegedly) work.

I've set up desk shifts and meetings in it and will trial it over the next few weeks as I think it is more what I want than plaxo. We shall see.

#31 Get organised with Plaxo (now pulse)

I love organising tools but have yet to find the perfect online one. I've toyed with google calendar, yahoo calendar, remember the milk and tada lists - they all have their good points but none is exactly what I want.

Back in April 2007, Plaxo was mainly an online address book/calendar type setup; you could import contacts from a range of email programs (outlook, yahoo, gmail etc.), now it seems to almost more of a social networking tool.

Like linkedin and facebook you can invite people to become contacts (friends) and you can get plaxo to cross reference your existing email address book with the list of plaxo members.

Plaxo has tabs across the top for calendar, tasks, notes, address book which could be useful. I've set up some recurring tasks, and put in my desk shifts and some meetings and set notifications, so I'll see how it goes. (It is currently counting down to my desk shift tomorrow)

Ideally I would have all this stuff set up in LotusNotes but as that is work access only I need something that I can access from home and from work so may be Plaxo is the answer.

#30 LOLCats (jellicle cats)

At the risk of incurring the wrath of all those above me - what is it with library staff and cats?(the miaowing kind, not the singing kind).

This 'thing' is all to do with cats being cute, adorable and funny. Not that I have anything against cats I'm just curious as to the correlation between books and cats.

I liked this Pirates of the Caribbean lolcat. (Like I said, nothing againts cats, just curious..)

#29 Scrapblog

Hmmmmm, I thought scrapblog looked like a lot of fun as I created my three pages using a mixture of photos and stickers.

However, I am now on my third attempt at publishing my scrapblog and, after 20 minutes, it is still publishing page 2 - this seems like rather a long time and is rapidly decreasing my enjoyment of scrapblog...

I will post my scrapbook pages when and if they finish saving. Well 4th time was the charm, I was able tos ave my scrapblog and post it as a page element on my blog.

Or you can see it by clicking here

#28 Well we're big rock singers...

I'm possibly less enamoured of this thing - I can see it's uses as a publicity tool, making promotional posters etc. but I think I preferred the earlier one where we could create 'for dummies' book covers.

I s'pose with Time and Rolling Stone we could have a bit of fun promoting the periodicals collection.