Evaluation

Again, I enjoyed the "things on a stick." I found out about some new things, and got to play around with things I hadn't used much. This is a nice incentive to experiment with various applications to see how well they fit in with what I need.

I was resistant to Twitter in the first round, but I decided to play around with it this time, thinking that I'd probably drop it after a few weeks. Ha - I should have known better. Twitter is a lot of fun - even when self appointed "Library Theorists" (aka DLK) don't approve of what you say. Of course, if he worked in a real library, he'd perhaps find a semblance of a clue. I had never really heard of this guy before the reading for thing 34, and have seen nothing from him that's worth the time it takes to read it. Self promoting, ignorant blowhard. Other than this, I'm really enjoying Twitter.

That being said, the rest of the things were fun. It's great to have an excuse to do scrapbooking at work, and to see Lutefisk working on one too. (He is an artsy guy, after all.) I've decided I prefer last.fm to Pandora, since I've discovered new artists there. And, of course, I'm always up for LOL cats.


Even if I don't use all the "things" on a daily basis, I like knowing they're out there; you never know when something will come in handy.

46 Web Junction

I've looked at this before, but didn't really use it. For this thing, I looked at it again, found a few friends...but really don't see much else to do. For example, some of the discussions that looked interesting didn't have any activity for a year or so. I found the main page most useful for news and updates. I think it does have potential - especially in a time when budgets are being tightened, the training modules could be used instead of a system having to reinvent the wheel.
I'll keep this in the back of my mind for future reference.

45 I really don't know clouds...at all...

Well, actually, I do - I just thought that was a catchy title. Most of us who use the internet use cloud computing, whether we know it or not. I haven't used online "OS" and probably won't in the near future, but it is useful for those who need it. I use flickr, google docs occasionally, library thing occasionally, I've saved pictures on facebook, I listen to music and various programs online, email, delicious, etc. etc.

I save important things like pictures to flashdrives, as a backup to online storage and the card in the camera. I hate it when I lose pictures, so I stash them in more than one place. But it's so convenient to be able to log onto one of my accounts to show someone pictures., or to use a document when I'm not at "my" computer. One of our fellow "thingers" commented that some schools are encouraging the use of Google docs so the "my printer stopped working" excuse will be obsolete. The student could just log onto google docs and print the document - but of course, the "printer broke" excuse usually meant the student hadn't done the work. :-)

There can be problems - security can be an issue, and there are always trolls. Even when something is set to private, there are ways around it. I wouldn't be comfortable having private data stored in the cloud - it's too easy to get to if someone is determined. I'm also a bit concerned about ownership issues - (in fact, facebook just started using creative commons.) Some sites claim any content stored becomes their property rather than yours, so user beware. :-) What if the "cloud" you're using starts charging - will you be able to retrieve your data?

But for some things, the convenience of using cloud computing is unbeatable.

44 It's the Economy....

I've been doing online banking for a long time for many of our bills. I tend to go in as soon as I get the bill and set the time for it to be paid, so I can just forget about it. The trick is, of course, to have the money in the account at that time. :-) Fortunately I manage to time that correctly.


I did check fuel economy when I bought my last car, but the predictions aren't necessarily all that accurate. One site I like to use to check gas prices is http://www.twincitiesgasprices.com/. It's pretty surprising that there would be that much difference in price in the same metro area. I usually put gas in near my work - it can be as much as 15 cents a gallon cheaper than the stations by my house.


Along with Craigslist and Freecycle, another source that's available is http://www.twincitiesfreemarket.org/. It's an open list that one can read/post to without having to subscribe. That's something I didn't like aboutFreecycle -I had subscribed some time ago, but there wasn't much activity so I stopped following it. I love Craigslist, and have gotten several things this way. Plus I reunited someone with their dog the a while ago because I noticed a Lost ad, and a found ad a few days apart, and wrote to one of them. It was their dog! Woof!


I follow a few Deals/freebie sites on Twitter, but haven't done much with those. I did like looking through Wise Bread. Frugal Dad was ok, but nothing really new. I'll probably browse through some of the other frugal bloggers on occasion. I do shop at thrift stores sometimes- it's fun to just browse because you'll never know what you'll find. I even found some of our Noritake stoneware at Valu Village and it was certainly much cheaper than we got married!



The lifehacker article was good - I'm going to check some of these out. One site I've used for years is http://www.pricegrabber.com/ . It's pretty interesting to see how much prices can vary for the same item.

43 TV and beyond

I've used Hulu before and like it. Joost seems pretty similar. I've also used surfthechannel.com and like that as well; I've been able to find things there that weren't available elsewhere. Many of the things I searched for weren't available, or just were promo clips. My husband travels a lot for work and will miss episodes of shows he likes, so we've been known to just go to the network website and watch catch up on the episodes that way. I watched a short clip of Henry Cho (a comedian I like) on the Craig Ferguson show via Hulu (searching Joost brought up no results). It took forever at work - everything seems to be running slow today.

While I like these services, I don't know that they'll replace network/cable tv in the near future, but it's a convenient alternative for those who have the equipment to utilize this. Some problems at this time include being tech savvy enough to use/troubleshoot this services. One also needs a computer and connection that is capable of streaming these types of casts - higher bandwidth, RAM, etc. You'd want a larger monitor, too- many people are bothered by the smaller screen. I didn't mind that so much. There's also the issue of hosting that type of website - could get pretty spendy.

I mainly tend to use this to catch up on something I miss, and I don't even do that too often - I don't watch much tv, I guess. And usually if I miss something, I catch the rerun. :-) For me, it isn't going to affect broadcast tv/cable, and it's still hit or miss finding something to watch. Netflix is considering not using DVDs anymore, just streaming. (I still prefer DVDs, myself). I don't know that it will be soon, but eventually I would think more entities will follow suit, or at least make it an attractive option.

42 Music

I've been listening to music online for years. I listen to music all day long - at home, in the car, at work....I log on when I'm at my desk, and listen while I'm working on other things. I used to listen to specific radio stations, such as KFOG from San Francisco (the station I listened to most when we lived there.) I have XM in the house, and a player in my car, and our pickup has XM as well.

Comparing Pandora to Last, Last.fm seems to play more variety, Pandora plays more of the artists you specify. For example, if I ask for Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Pandora plays a lot of his songs, (which is good, because that's what I said!) but repeats a lot of the same artists, too...lots of Jeff Healey, Stevie Ray Vaughan...which is fine, since I like them too, but part of the reason I like online radio is that I want to hear things I don't know, or a wider variety than on commercial radio. Last.fm played a lot of different artists, even a few tracks I didn't know. They both played Natalie Merchant for Aimee Mann - yuck. I don't dare ask for Tricia Yearwood or Mary Chapin Carpenter, since they would probably play Reba McEntire, which would ruin my entire day. I may use the player option as a quick way to add things to my Zen.

I've used Hype-Machine off and on for a few years - I hadn't looked at it lately, and the interface is much different. I like HM for new music, especially. I listen to XM online, as well, as long as I still don't have to pay for it. And i've listened to MPR/NPR online for years, especially for classical. My husband and I play "ID that composer" sometimes. :-) I listen to the Current as well - depends on who the DJ is though. :-)

I added the "Recently Played" widget from Last.fm - it will be interesting to see what changes as I create stations.

41 LIfe Mash

I looked through the mashups, but haven't much interest in them. I don't use so many social networking sites that I need another site to keep track of them . I don't want to spend all my life on my computer, so no thanks. Besides, I'm more interested in the Music stuff, which is next.

40 Web Mashup

I played around with the two music mashups, but I don't see much use for me. I prefer to just listen - not repeating songs, saving them, etc. I create a station and listen - I'll skip or "dislike" a song, but tend not to save them since I'm interested in hearing new things.

I might use Lazy Library occasionally - we get people all the time who have to do a lst minute book report, or who just might want a quick read. I would like more results, but it can at least be a "mind jogger" when you draw a blank. BookTour might be handy if it didn't call for a download...:-)

Libworm was interesting. I liked just clicking on a tag and seeing what comes up. I didn't set up rss feeds, but that is a convenient option if there was a topic I wanted to track in more depth.

I like the idea of Lunchbox, but it's got a long way to go. :-) It didn't find much around the zip codes I entered, even though I know of other places in those areas. Wheel of Food is a fun idea, but has the same basic problem. Functionality was a but limited, too - tried "spin again" and that doesn't work.

According to WalkScore, we're a 38/100; car dependent. It would be somewhat useful if I were househunting, perhaps. It is handy to see exactly how far away Walgreen's is, since I tend to walk there. :- ) Crime reports was pretty limiting for me, since my city isn't listed. It's a good idea, although you can usually get crime reports from the police if you're interested, or google it.

39 Scrapbook

I used Scrapblog to whip up a couple pages - it was easy and kind of fun, and simple to upload the pictures from flickr. It was a bit limiting, but since it's free I'm not going to complain very much. For the one of the cats, there was a neat music background I wanted to use but the stickers colors didn't work. (They are named Fermata and Fantasia, after all.) It was quite user friendly, and fairly intuitive. The second page is a few shots we took in Scotland.

These could be fun to use for programming - take snaps of an event at the library and scrap it online. It would be fun for staff events, too. Home use could be even more fun. I'm sure everyone has embarrassing pictures of family members they're dying to use!

37 Photo Tales

I've been using flickr for quite awhile, and after we went to Scotland/Ireland I went ahead and got a pro account. I didn't want to put music to the slides, because it would mean I'd have to use a of slides to make it synchronize. We did a slideshow on Powerpoint for my Dad's funeral, using George Strait's "Love without End, Amen" and it was an awesome way to pay him tribute. But I wanted to keep this one simple. I have used Animoto before and like it. I like some of the other slide ideas, and will play around with them another time.

I decided to use Pictobrowser, and, so that it wouldn't be so large, used the pictures I'd tagged Comayo, for County Mayo, Ireland. It's added to the bottom of my blog. Kathleen in the pictures is my third cousin once removed. We didn't know about each other until probably a month before we went over. Who knew genealogy would be so much fun?

Pictobrowser was very easy to use - it only took me a few minutes. It would be easy to make various shows using different tags or sets; it would probably take more time to do the tagging or making the sets than it takes to use Pictobrowser itself. It's easy to add to the blog, too - just use Edit Html and add the code.

I posted an lolcat in the last thing, but one can never have too many lolcats. I used roflbot, but also have used the uploader at Icanhascheezburger.com. (This is Fantasia, by the way.)
I've played around with Piknik but didn't like anything well enough to upload it. Generally, by the time you enlarge your picture enough to see it, it's so blurry that there's not too much to be done. :-/ I wasn't able to try splashup due to computer restrictions at work, but it looked like it could be interesting.

I guess if I'm stretching it I could call my pictobrowser a story - no?

36 Comic Relief

I probably spent too much time on this one - I enjoy playing around with these. I made a few of the various signs/posters etc. I'll go back when I have more time and create another slideshow - I did a zoho slideshow in the first things, so I have an idea how they work. (plus I've done a million powerpoints...)


A few of the sites that looked interesting were down. It looks like they may be back in the future, so I'll check occasionally. I've used both of the citation sites, and have recommended them to friends and others who may need them. I really enjoyed the Label maker, and will use that again. I've also played around a lot with the LOL cats:








I didn't do this one, but it's one of my favorites. Possibly because it's so true!!

This is one of my nieces, Kathryn and Shorty the cat. Anyway, these are a lot of fun and could be used for kids programs, etc. Children especially like these kinds of things, with their faces and their friends on them.

What's especially nice about many of these generators is their ease of use. Just plug in your details, and off you go. This is a quick and easy way to whip up some last minute publicity, or even make up a little souvenir for kids at a program. It would be easy to make up magnets, stickers, buttons or the like with these generators, especially since you can save them and reuse them if you like.

I didn't make a comic, although I did explore the sites and read quite a few. Some are definitely beter than others. One I usually read is Shelf Check by Poesy Galore: http://shelfcheck.blogspot.com/

Comics could be used for programming, library tours (just whip up a quick strip or two featuring whoever is coming for the tour) and the like. I have some Boy Scouts coming next week - maybe I'll make a few strips about how to search for the city's history. :-)

35 Books 2.0 part deux

I've used Reader's Choices and Reader's Group Guides quite a bit when helping people with book clubs. They've been around for awhile and are a nice "one stop shop" for bookclubs to get ideas about what to read, and discussion questions. Booksprouts wasn't very interesting to me - but it might be useful if I wanted to run a bookclub. Didn't check the other two.

Open Culture looks pretty interesting - I think that's one I'll spend some time playing with later. Someday when I'm more organized, Book Mooch could come in very handy. I almost prefer Paperback Swap - I liked the way you can browse. Book Mooch didn't have a separate category for mysteries, which was sad. :-( I might just use Swaptree if I want to get rid of some of my cds - of course, I'm sure I'll find just as many I'd like to get...

I don't think the book is going away any time soon. Even with the convenience of handheld readers, people of all ages still seem to prefer the paper format. Online or books in other mediums are a great option for classrooms, though. I'll read journals online in a spare moment.

More Travel - 33

I love the idea of user driven travel sites - who better to get the real scoop from than someone who has been there? I've had the experience of thinking a place looked really interesting, and then being disappointed when I got there. (For example, my husband and I both thought that if someone had planned an entire trip around the Alamo, they would have been very disappointed!) I played around with a few of the sites, using places I'd been as examples - San Francisco (lived there) and Scotland. The sites I spent the most time on were Boo, Gusto and Igougo.
I liked the guides on Boo - there was even one for Helensburgh, the town where my niece and nephew live. There were quite a few pictures that looked similar to ours. :-) I think all men take a picture of John Logie Baird, one of the inventors of television...Of course, there will be more information for the larger cities, but that's to be expected. I did have more luck in the Travel guides rather than trying keyword searches.
I didn't think Gusto had as many places to choose from, but I did like the individual travel guides created by members.
I tend to use flickr or facebook more as a travel journal - post the pictures and add commentary to them as I go. For the next trip I take, I may use Vicarious or My life of travel.

31 More Twitter

I'll confess - I'm enjoying Twitter a lot more than I expected to. As of today, I'm following 248 and 126 are following me. (oops - make that 127.) Most of these are unknown to me, and many are following me because I follow them.
I haven't played around much with the new apps, although I have been reading about and looking at some. Many of them need to be downloaded, and I can't do that at work and haven't done it at home. I do use my phone to update both facebook and twitter, although I don't have notices sent to my phone. I did bite the bullet and get the unlimited text and data (only $30 a month. When I first started using FB, I had the updates sent, but as I was on it longer and had more going on - it got to be annoying.
I did add the twitter badge to my blog, and added myself to "We're following" and "Just Tweet it." I've also used both of those to find people to follow. I've tried to look at most of the other participant's blogs, and added them if they seemed to be using Twitter. I'm also following Mr Tweet, and look at the page occasionally. I've used Twitter karma, and found it interesting.
Looking at the various Twitter apps, I see some that look interesting and may try some of them in the future. Big Tweet might be interesting; Twitpics will be useful if I post a picture...Maybe one of my sister in law's kitten! Group Tweet might come in handy for planning activities, etc. with others using Twitter. Twitter Alerts seems like blog or google alerts, alerting you if your search/name is mentioned. I didn't find Twellow or TwitterTroll particularly useful.

Thing 30

I'm back! Anyway - looking through the possibilities, the two that piqued my interest the most were Feed my Inbox and Feed my Search. I still use bloglines, but I don't log in often enough to get benefit from calendar alerts, or filters via RSS. (That's what my phone is for!)
I set up a few sites to come to my inbox, and so far I've been finding that useful. I haven't done much with feed my search since I couldn't think of a search I do often, but it would certainly be convenient for research, etc. It seems similar to Google Alerts, just going to a reader instead of email.
I am still using delicious occasionally. They've changed the browse function - it seems to limit the results to one page instead of being able to scroll through more than one page of new/popular bookmarks. I tend to like to browse through various bookmarks, saving ones that are interesting. Popcaular's fun - I usually check at least a few of the links to see if I'm interested in them. I've also used the tag search a few times when I'm interested in a particular topic.
I've loosely organized Bloglines into rough categories for my feeds, and tag sites in delicious according to how I'd think to look for them later. Both of these tools could be useful for classes - an instructor could set up an account for the class, or share links/feeds of interest with students.

Google Tools

I've played around with some of these off and on for awhile. I've been using google "text" on my phone for some time - for example, I'll text weather minneapolis to 466453 and it will text me back with the weather for Mpls. I'm still trying to resist getting a data plan on my phone - I'm on the computer much of the day as it is. GPS would be handy though.

I set up a few google alerts - Franken, my last name, and the name of my blog. When I set it up for the blog, I didn't use quotes, so I'm getting some interesting results. I may just keep using this; changing or adding alerts as something strikes my fancy. I do have a gmail account, but don't use it very much.

I have a calendar set up in google that I did some time ago. I'll confess I haven't used it much because I tend to use Outlook calendars for work related things, a print calendar on the side of the fridge (so my husband can see it too!) and my cell phone calendar to sound off to remind me of things: "Don't forget the cat food!" It could be useful for collaboration, I just haven't needed it for such a thing.

Sites could come in handy for projects - maybe if I get ambitious, I could set up a genealogy site for all my Irish relatives to contribute to. If Jim ever gets going on my Swedish genealogy I could do one for that too. :-)

Thing 28

I set up a page using iGoogle during the 23 things. I tend to look for what I'm interested in at the time I want it, rather than using a collection of things in one place, so I don't use it daily. I so use it occasionally, mainly to read comics. It's convenient to be able to read them backwards, instead of being limited to just one day. I enjoy looking through the various widgets/gadgets, and I had fun (earlier) choosing different skins for the various pages I set up. I like using igoogle for google reader - I can just go ahead and click what I want to see. I did like the layout better when they had the tabs along the top rather than just the tabs on the side.
I looked briefly at the others - I also have a page in yahoo but don't really use it. I didn't see any compelling reason to sign up for any of them. Some of the widgets I added include Pet of the day, various comics strips via Custom Comics, Daily Puppy, Hangman, Bonehead of the day...Obviously I seem to have chosen more recreational things than "useful"...I think I'll still fool around with widgets, just because they're kind of fun.

More Twitter

I forgot to add my twitter name - Jeannebr.
I finally got the phone updates to work, but made sure to turn off the auto messages, since I only get 300 messages a month. :-) The fb2twitter works really well - you add them as a friend on Facebook, and when you update your Facebook status it updates Twitter as well.
I added a feed to my blog, too- I ended up copying the code and adding it that way; the auto option put it in a weird spot. The template I'm using has room for widgets all over, and put it on top.
I've read some more of the various articles, and find some of the apps/writings to be quite silly. A Tweet plan? So not happening here. I'm not going to use Twitterific since I don't have an iphone. Instead of Tweetscan I'll just use search.twitter.com and search there. Twitterholic could be fun - seeing who uses twitter the most. Barack Obama came up as number one today, but I haven't gotten one yet. Should I be insulted?!? This could also be a way to find more tweets to follow.
There are some apps that could be useful were I inclined to use them. Twizon bills itself as Twitter meets Amazon, and seems to tweet about things found on Amazon. Buy Later lets you know when something comes back into stock at Amazon. Remember the Milk is a twitter app now - wasn't something like that on the earlier 23 things? I tend to use my phone calendar for that, but it could be handy if I had updated enabled. Twittercal meshes your google calendar with Twitter.
It seems to me that many of them are for hard-core users, which I probably won't be. I do enjoy reading tweets, for the most part, so I may keep it up. Plus it will be another background design thing that I can tweak and play around with.

Thing 27 Twitter

I've signed up for Twitter, read some of the info, and send a few tweets. I found a background that I liked and changed the standard background. (I have as much fun figuring out or designing backgrounds as I do posting on the various social networks.) I'm still fooling around with the apps, and was trying to sych my phone sms so that I can send updates via text messages. So far that doesn't seem to be working too well. I do updates that way for Facebook a lot. For some reason, I've been synced but my messages don't show up. So I added fb2twitter, and that's working really well so far.
I'm following 39 so far, and have 10 myself. I'm thinking both numbers will increase as more people get to this thing. Except for Jim the curmudgeon, that is..:-)
I like going into the twitter search (www.search.twitter.com) and popping in a term and reading the tweets on them - for example library. People going to the library, working in the library, eating in the library... The live stream is fun to read too. I like the short blurbs - I still read reddit and mixx just for the heck of it, too.

Thing 26 Ning

I joined the 23 Things Ning in the first round, but didn't use it too much. I tended to comment via blog comments if I had a question or comment. I did upload a few pictures and joined an Irish ancestry group for the heck of it. Maybe I'll join a few for crafts or genealogy or something, too.
I think a Ning could be useful in a classroom setting - set up a ning for the class and people can participate in activities that way. Teachers could post discussion questions, students could ask questions, etc. and it would be a convenient way for everyone to be involved.
While a Ning could have use for a far-flung family, I'm finding that Facebook works better for that. It's much easier to keep track of what everyone's doing that way, plus I can see when they're on and have a chat.