Google Books (task 11)

Has many features like LibraryThing. I would gues it has more users as it is Google and linked to your Google account (which many people already have). But, I must say, I've had a google account for a while and never looked at Google books.Some of the older books fully digitised are great - like Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

LibraryThing (Task 10)

OK, the intro to this task didn't really inspire me. I wouldn't call myself a "book lover" and creating my own virtual bookshelf to share with people isn't really my thing, but I must say, one thing so far that I thought was really quite cute was when you register for an account on LibraryThing and they then ask you to fill in the words off the screen to virify your not a bot signing up for accounts (as many sites do now), instead of having the dodgy looking words that your trying to figure out what all the letters are, they show you an image of a book cover and ask "To verify your humanity, please enter the author from the cover below." Very nice.

I've added some books in a series I've been reading. Some of the discussions/comments are good to see. I may revisit it in the future if I am looking for a recommendation of a good book to read.

Library RSS (Task 9)

I've used Google Reader to subscribe to Digg, NLA, SLQ, ALIA Board Blog and UQ News. On checkin gmy previous subscriptions I note that BBC have about 150 just from the last 24 hours - way to much - have now segregated into 2 different folders in Google reader, one for Brisbane news and one for Other News (BBC is in other news).

RSS (Task 8)

I tried Google Reader for this exercise, as per the under review note. Very good and easy to use. I particularly like the ourbrisbane.com feed and the abc news brisbane feed.

Task 20: Podcasts

Well, the first interesting thing of note is that 2 of the 3 links to explore inthe exercise don't work anymore: Podcast.net and Yahoo Podcasts.

I think podcasts are great for lecture recordings and I particularly like one's for kids. I have a few Sesame Street ones on my iPod which can be very handy when I'm out and about.

ABC put out a lot of good PodCasts too. You can listen to one of their many radio programs or many of their current affairs or news programs anytime and anywhere - download LateLine and listen to it on the train on the way to work in the morning?

Task 19 - YouTube

I heard a song on the radio this morning on my way to work which I quite liked but didn't know the title or artist. A quick google of one of the lyrics revealed these details. It also gave a link to the song on YouTube. The whole song - this doesn't always exist with copyright etc.The song is a little odd but the chorus lyrics and melody are great. If you don't like profanity in music, maybe don't watch the YouTube version (the radio version blanks out the profanities).

The other thing which YouTube is quite fun for is children's music clips. I have an AppleTV at home and one of the things you can do is play things on YOuTUbe through your TV with it. My kids love taking over the remote control and looking up nursery rhymes or Wiggles songs. You should see how many versions of the rainbow song there are on there.

Task 7 - Comment on Blogs

Commented on a couple of blogs. Very easy to do. Whether or not anyone reads them - or cares about my input is another matter. There is definitely a place for this sort of thing though. For example the blogs on Blackboard work quite well for the students in some areas to ask questions and the lecture can easily put out a public answer - saves them answer the same question over and over to individuals.

Task 6 - Picasa Images

It's interesting logging in to Picasa for the first time as it is part of all the other Google accounts. It already had included the martindale image I had uploaded to this Blog in my Task 5 post. It also has pinched my profile image from somewhere else and is already showing it. I have accessed Picasa in the past to look at a friends photos that have been posted, but this is the first time I have activated my own account. I tend to take a minimalist view when it comes to uploading my personal photos onto the server of such systems as they are not always the most secure systems, and I must say the thought of pedophiles out there trawling the net and coming across a picture of one of my kids is a bit off putting. I know such sites are used alot, I have many friends who use them and most younger people don't think twice - but once a photo is out there, it's out, even if you do later delete it, and how secure are the friends only or general public viewing controls.

Task 5 - Flickr

Just gone to login to Flickr for the first time. I don't have a Yahoo account but it gave me an option to "sign in with another account" and Google was there. Great! I already have a Google account and it's annoying having thousands of different accounts floating around everywhere.

Why do they want my DOB when I create an account? I stongly object to giving my DOB out to random internet accounts as that is a security question often used to verify identity over the phone. I think putting your DOB out there everywhere is opening yourself up for identity theft - why make it easy for the criminals? My Flickr account has a DOB of 1 May 1900 - looking pretty good for 110 years old!

Uploaded a photo I took earlier this year of the current edition of Martindale (2 volumes), a common Pharmacy reference book, and a reprint of the very first edition, originally published in 1883:

Facebook (task 22)

I explored MySpace a couple years ago when it first became big. Last year I joined Facebook. My primary motivation for joining facebook was to track down the whereabouts of I few friends I had lost touch with in the last 5 years. I must say, it was GREAT for this. I found 4 out of  5 good friends on there and found out 2 had now finished their studies and were working as doctors, a third had got married to her long-time boyfriend and was living in the UK and the 4th had befriended my sister on Facebook. I also linked up with my US "big brothers" from when I was a teenager.

I don't use Facebook too much, but jump on occasionally to see if any of my friends have been doing anything interesting - like getting engaged. I mainly use it to keep track of friends I don't physically see much. My group of friends is quite small and I like it that way. Security on Facebook is a big issue and I'm careful not to put too much on there and to change the Facebook security settings so only my friends can see what I put up (although it's arguable how secure Facebook's security settings are - best not to just rely on them).

I guess I don't particularly see my day-to-day happenings as very interesting and therefore I'm not sure why anyone else would find them interesting - so why put them on Facebook. I also think people need to be aware that once they put something on Facebook it's out there - even if they later delete it, it's still out there.

Twitter at ALIA Access (task 21)

I had my first leap into the world of twitter at the ALIA Access conference last week. Each speaker had it's own twitter stream, so I pulled out my iPod touch, contacted to the free ALIA Access wireless at the convention centre and downloaded the twitter app. Most were very quite, but the ALIA camp stream was tweeting wildly - a lot of the newer librarians in this one I think. A lot of the tweets contained little substance and many simply repeated statements made by the speakers. There was one round of interesting comment that went on regarding LIS education. However, after looking over someone's shoulder during a conference session to see their laptop open with four twitter streams running and seeing this individual regularly tweeting themselves - I do wonder how they were able to pay much attention - if any - to the speaker presenting up the front? Indeed the few times I picked up my iPod to see who and what was tweeting I know I missed what was being said in front of me.

Lifelong Learning....thoughts (task 2)

First thing that springs to mind after watching the lifelong learning video is - why can't the speaker say learn-ing instead of learnin' - quite irritating.

Anyway, easiest for me is probably #1 - I tend to consider the end result quite easily. Hardest - this is a bit harder to pick, ironically - maybe #7, I don't tend to find the time to teach or mentor others about things I've find, when I do have the time and opportunity, great! But it doesn't happen too often.

It's also annoying me to have to go back into my published posts to change the date and time - can you set a time zone on this thing???

Hello.......it's me! (task 3)

Hello Hello

For those of you I haven't met, I'm Wendy Furlan, the Pharmacy librarian across the river at PACE. It's far too mentally draining at this time of the afternoon to come up with an interesting persona, so you are just stuck with the original.

I've finally got around to starting 23 things.....at a time when I don't have 23 other things I need to be doing (maybe only 15 at the moment). And hope to push through. Not sure if I'll make it by the cutoff though, working half time with 2 weeks leave thrown in, but we'll see what happens.