THING 47. MORE THINGS THAN YOU CAN SHAKE A STICK AT--EVALUATION

THE END

I'm done. I started last January and now it's December.

These are a few of my favorite Things
Thing 39 Digital storytelling. I liked scrapblog. It was fun and easy to use and best of all, no paper clutter. I don't know how I would use it in my job. I liked exploring the world of Internet radio in Thing 42 Music 2.0 and online TV and Video in Thing 43. I am making another list of TV shows to look at on Hulu.

Things I didn't like
Thing 24 Refresh your blog. I was ready to move on to something else. Thing 41 Mashup your life. I've had enough of mashups and social networking. Thing 27 Twitter. Thing 31 More Twitter. Does the world really need more Twitter? On second thought, it was fascinating to watch how Twitter was used by protestors in Iran a few months ago to get the news out to the world about the election there. If the Internet, Twitter and cell phones had existed before and during World War II, what would have been different?

Useful Things
Thing 47 Webjunction might be useful as a source of training. Some of the Things were useful for keeping up with trends in libraries and society. Thing 35 included a discussion of the future of books, reading and how the Internet is changing reading. After doing Thing 45 I had really cool conversations with friends about clouding computing. Thing 38 Screencasting could be useful if I can find a website that is compatible with the Java version I have, doesn't require downloads, and has terms of agreement I can live with.

My library and Web 2.0 tools
What has my library done with Web 2.0 tools? The library now has Facebook and Twitter pages as well as a reference wiki. This year the library had classes for the public including social networking (featuring Facebook) and blogging. The library now has AquaBrowser. AquaBrowser has features similar to social networking sites. It is interactive and users can contribute content. Users can make lists (which can be public or private), tag items, review items and score items. They can also make personal profiles.

My use of Web 2.0 tools
Things I use: I regularly use the Gmail account I opened last year for the original 23 Things. I have a feed from the New York Times emailed to my Gmail. I have a Photoshop account. Now that I have a digital camera, I want to try more of the websites that use photos. I tried Typealyzer again. This website analyzes the personality of your blog. When I tried this in February I repeatedly got the message "Detected language Vietnamese." Now it says my blog is an ESTP. What a laugh. My blog is an extrovert but I'm not!

I'm on to the next thing: MERRY CHRISTMAS!

THING 46. WEBJUNCTON MINNESOTA

After signing up for an account, I searched two names in "Find a friend." Didn't find them. I looked at the Minnesota Library Community Calendar of Events. The listings include conferences, teleconferences, workshops and webinars. This could be a source of training opportunities.

I looked through the courses. Didn't sign up for anything. I subscribed to Crossroads, the monthly email newsletter. The newsletters for November, October, and September are online. I read through them quickly.

I clicked on the Library Services tab and then on Readers Advisory. There are several booklists and discussion threads.

46 DOWN AND 1 TO GO.

THING 45. CLOUD COMPUTING

I've been computing in the cloud and didn't know it. The accounts I've opened for the Things are in the cloud. I have Gmail, Delicious, Photoshop, Facebook and I can't remember what else. The big advantage to me of cloud computing is having access to applications on any computer. I use different computers, and it is handy not to be tied down to just one. On the other hand, privacy and security issues concern me. I don't want a lot of my personal information stored on the cloud. I don't want people collecting information on me so they can target me as a buyer.

Libraries and the cloud: Many of our patrons don't know that when they create a Word document and want to save it, they have to use a jump drive. Otherwise, the document will be lost when the computers go off automatically at closing time. Patrons could use Google Docs, Zoho or something similar and be able to access documents later on any computer (assuming they logged off before closing time).

CommonCraft has just released a video called "Cloud computing in plain English." It explains how with cloud computing you use technology that is not at your site, but at another location-- "in the cloud." Using the web, a business can access servers not on-site, and doesn't have the expense of buying and maintaining the technology. The video uses the term "cloud companies," which I hadn't heard before.

THING 44. THE ECONOMY

Over the past year, I've had many discussions with friends about the economy. Who predicted the meltdown? When will the economy pick up and start booming again? Are we headed for inflation? After the economy recovers, what's going to cause the next bubble to burst? And what are the signs to watch for?

I watched the video "Understanding the financial crisis for kids & grownups." It gives a good summary of mortgages and investing and how combining the two after deregulation in 1999 led to the present crisis. I also watched the CommonCraft video on saving and compound interest.

I looked at the websites for this Thing. Frugal Dad offers 75 hints-- #56 is Rediscover a local library. Gas Buddy-- enter a zip code and gas prices for that area are displayed.

Recently I cataloged a book on keeping chickens. This seems to be a topic of increasing interest. I looked at the websites Raising Chickens and MadCity Chickens. The city of Shoreview (along with Seattle, Spokane and Madison) now allows residents to keep chickens, with certain restrictions. No roosters allowed. I have a feeling my townhouse association would not take kindly to me raising chickens in our common area. My grandmother raised chickens and I have many memories of Sunday dinners with fried chicken.

THING 43. ONLINE TV AND VIDEO

This was another Thing I liked. Since I don't have cable, I asked coworkers for suggestions for cable shows they like. Here's what I found on Hulu:

Burn notice had many interviews. I watched one. Didn't see that full episodes were available.

Breaking bad. You have to sit through 2 minutes of ads before seeing an 8 minute minisode.

Life after people. More ads. Watched clip on what would happen to animals if people disappeared from the earth. Wild animals would multiply. Domestic animals would die or turn feral. Gorillas would be the top mammal. Then watched clip on trash and no people. The worst trash would last a million years. A single styrofoam cup could last indefintely. And on that cheery note it's time to move on.

I discovered Hulu is more than TV. There are movies on Hulu and trailers. I watched the trailer for Bride and Prejudice, a Bollywood version of Jane Austen's book. National Geographic specials are on Hulu--excerpts as well as some full length programs.

It was while looking through the National Geographic lineup that I had a eureka moment. The trebuchet question. Every year I get the trebuchet question. A patron, usually a young male, wants information about the trebuchet, a medieval siege weapon. I found clips on Hulu from the History Channel showing what trebuchets look like and how they work. I can answer a reference question with Hulu!

What happens when you subscribe on Hulu? Some shows have a subscribe icon. I looked all over the website for an explanation of the features. Hulu's how-tos are buried in a pulldown box I got by using "subscribe" as a search word. There's a list of videos explaining various features, including "How to subscribe to a show." Why isn't there a link on the home page for Hulu how-tos?

I don't watch much TV except for the news. Hulu is fun to play around with, but I don't think it will drastically change my viewing habits. I don't have time to watch hours of TV and movies. With Hulu, you have to spend a lot of time searching, and maybe the full length show you want isn't available. I like the free, on-demand access of Internet video. What impact will Hulu and similar websites have on viewers? Internet TV competes with broadcast and cable TV. It must cut into their number of viewers. How much, I don't know. I can't predict that it will replace them. I have heard of people who watch TV mainly on the Internet.

THING 42. MUSIC 2.0

This Thing could have come sooner. I have heard about internet radio and streaming for some time but have never delved into it. Since I listen to music often on the radio, this Thing was very interesting to me. I have heard of Sirius Radio, so I looked at their website. I could have signed up for a free, 7-day trial, but I'm tired of signing up for accounts. Using the Internet, I listened to news on BBC World Service and to music on MPR. I listened to 365live. I tried Radio-Locator, but there was a problem with Windows Media Player. I made a personal list with Pandora, but I didn't sign up for an account. I also tried out Grooveshark and Songza.

I created a quilt album widget with Aretha Franklin albums on Last.fm. The only part that uploaded was the red border. I tossed that and tried to upload a widget of classical radio stations from 365live, but that wouldn't upload, either.

I hope internet radio does not totally replace broadcast radio. I'm concerned that if it does, we'd have to pay for all radio. Besides, it's easier to turn a radio on and tune to the station you want. I don't want to have to log on everytime I listen to the radio.

THING 41. MASHUP YOUR LIFE

Mashups would not make my life easier, because I'm not a big fan of social networking. Mashups would be a drain on my productivity and not a booster. Too time-consuming. I don't see myself using this Thing much. I haven't looked at my Facebook, Ning or Twitter pages for some time. However, I can see why people who have multiple email accounts and social networking accounts might want to bring them together in one place for easy access.

I looked at most of the websites. I tried Superglu several times on different days. Not there anymore. Apparently Superglu didn't have much sticking power. I thought about signing up for Fuser, but I don't have the right version of Internet Explorer.
I looked at TabUp and watched the demo, but I didn't sign up.

On to Thing 42.

THING 40. MASHUP THE WEB

I liked Lunchbox. You plug in a zip code and find a place to eat. Wheel of food is fun and colorful, but hard on the eyes with all the spinning. I searched TimeTube using the keywords "CDC H1N1." Imagine my surprise when I pulled up a single video called "Swine flu rappers." After looking closely, I saw I typed in "HiNi" instead of "H1N1." I searched with the correct spelling and pulled up a timeline with several YouTube videos. I tried to embed it in my blog but it didn't work. Couldn't view the terms and conditions.

Crime reports lets you plug in an address to pull up crime reports in that area.

I tried Walkable to find out the walkability score of my neighborhood. The score was 35 out of 100--"car dependent"--only a few destinations within walking range. No argument there. I sometimes go for a walk in my area, but I don't run errands by walking. I tried my old address in Roseville and the same score came up--35. I have to disagree with that. I lived across the street from a movie theater and a grocery store. I was within easy walking distance of a drug store and the bank. I walked to Como park. I even walked to the library sometimes!

THING 39. DIGITAL STORYTELLING

This Thing was fun. I used Scrapblog to create a page using pictures from the Japanese Cultural Fair held at the library in August. Scrapblog was easy to use. After uploading, you click and drag the photos to make the layout. I played around with cropping the photos and the arrangement. I added a simple background and text balloons. You can change the type style and size for each balloon. I didn't embed the finished result in my blog because of privacy issues with the people in the pictures.

THING 38. SCREENCASTING

I had never heard of screencasting, but after reading through this Thing, I can see the usefulness of it. Perhaps many of the tutorials I've watched online were done with screencasting and I didn't know it. Screen-cast-o-matic looked good, but it requires a different version of Java. I was all set to use Screen Toaster for embedding a tiny tutorial in my blog. Then I read their privacy agreement. Not private enough for me. I looked at the screencasting sites that require a download. Our Computer Services people frown on downloads. I decided to go on to the next Thing.

THING 37. PHOTO TALES

For the giraffe picture on the left, I used Tiltshift. This creates photos that look like model miniatures. You do this by making some parts of the picture in focus while other parts are softer. This picture didn't work too well to get the effect. I didn't have the right kind of picture to use. The giraffe's legs are out of focus, but it doesn't look like a model miniature.

I used Image Mosaic Generator for the photo on the right. Same picture, different effect. This generator uses jillions of tiny pictures to create a mosaic. The mosaic is more interesting when it is big. Then you can see the little pictures that make it up. I couldn't upload the big size to my blog. When I changed the zoom from 100% to 25%, it worked.

THING 36. COMIC RELIEF--GENERATE SOME FUN

I liked this Thing. It was a change from the last two which were mostly reading. I tried several generators. I liked the Tiny Tags, the talking squirrel in Newspaper Front Page (talking cats and talking owls are also available) and the Tartan maker. I even liked the forms generator. I couldn't get the stripes to work.

I don't know how I would use these beyond adding them to my blog for fun.

THING 35. BOOKS 2.0

The next time I get the question "What can our book club read next?" I can go to Reading Group Choices (in addition to suggesting my library's Book Club in a Bag). The Top Book Club Favorites has titles for 2002-2008. Featured Books has summaries and reviews of titles published in 2009.

I tried watching three of the video interviews in BooksVideos.tv, but they kept starting and stopping, so I gave up.

I don't have an iPod or MP3 player so I didn't spend a lot of time on Audio Books. I did find an interesting article in Open Culture called "10 unexpected uses of the Pod." One professor has used his iPod for storing the entire 3 human genome (3 billion chemical letters).

I looked at a few of the video reviews in One Minute Critic. I was surprised by how much could be said in one minute. I didn't find a way to search books by title or author.

Lookybook sounded promising but is gone because of the economy. I looked at Storyline from the Screen Actors' Guild foundation. Busy parents can park their kids in front of a computer screen while actors read books to them. The list of stories available is buried in the FAQs. I watched Me and my cat by Satoshi Kitamura, read by Elijah Wood. Pictures from the book are displayed with shots of Wood every now and then.

BookCrossing sounds like fun-- but also a time waster.

What's the future of reading? Judging by the traffic in the library, the popularity of book clubs, the summer reading program, and the rise of Amazon, books and reading are still here. The article "Literacy Debate: Online R U Really Reading?" discusses how many teenagers spend more time reading online than reading print. Is the Internet the enemy of reading or has it created a new kind of reading? What I wonder is what happens when these teenagers grow older and they take on more responsibilities-- family, job, a home. Will they spend as much time on the web? Will they get tired of the web? Will they look elsewhere to spend their time? In 10 or 20 years will they join books clubs? Will book clubs even exist? Will the Internet be vastly different?

THING 34. ONLINE ANSWER SITES

People use online answer sites to get answers quickly. They might not know where else to go or whom to ask. They don't think of calling or visiting the library. Or perhaps because the web is such a big part of our lives, we just naturally go online to find answers to questions. One of the questions on WikiAnswers is "Why do some people ask this community when they could have found an answer themselves by doing an Internet search?" There's a lengthy answer that starts out by saying people are too lazy to search by themselves. It goes on with other reasons: not everybody uses search engines easily, many people don't have good research skills, many questions asked at Wiki Answers aren't asked elsewhere.

If I have a question I often try a Google search. Many of the questions won't have answers that can be quickly found in print sources or found at all. I haven't searched the answer sites deliberately. I have only been vaguely aware of them. Until I started working on this Thing, I didn't realize there were so many of them.

I looked at the answer sites. Many of them are a mix of pop culture trivia and more practical information. ChaCha has a list of popular topics (Michael Jackson questions & answers take up several screens) as well as browsable categories. Under business I found two Mall of America questions: What is the Mall of America's address and What year did the Mall of America open? Is someone in PR at the MOA planting questions? Are many of the questions on these sites planted? I found many home improvement and car questions on different answer sites.

Could the questions on these sites be directed to a library? Some yes and some no. Some of the questions ask for opinions or advise. (Should I rob a bank? Is now a good time to buy GM stock?)

I read about Slam the Boards but didn't participate. I think it's a great idea. On July 10 (the tenth of every month is Slam the Boards day) I looked at some of the answer sites to check for responses tagged by librarians, but I didn't find any. I don't know if there is a way to quickly pull these out.

THING 33. TRAVEL 2.0

ARTICLES ON TRAVEL 2.0

Next Wave of Travel Sites feels like MySpace describes travel 2.0 as the "second wave of travel sites on the web". What's different according to author Gregory Lamb, is the use of social networking. Travelers can post discusssions of their trips and answer questions from those planning a trip. The article discusses TripAdvisor.com, Farecast.com and Gusto.com. So far my use of the web for travel has been limited to checking flight schedules and airfares. After doing this Thing, I'll look at travel 2.0 sites when planning a trip.

Under TRAVEL BLOGS & PODCASTS, I looked through The Lost Girls. This was the winner of the 2009 Lonely Planet Travel Blog Award for Best Destination Blog. I looked at this around Easter. The Easter events on Oahu listed among other things, a $78 Sunday brunch at the Monarch room of the Royal Hawaiian. Meanwhile the Four Seasons Resort Lanai had a cheaper brunch for a mere $65. Remind me not to go to Hawaii for Easter.

TRAVEL MASHUPS

I looked at Fastfoodmaps.com. I am not a big fan of fast foods, but I looked at this anyway. When I clicked on caffeine maps, a map of the U.S. comes up showing dots for 10,709 Starbucks (this is as of July 2008). You can't zoom in and there are no street addresses. Just dots on a map.

The map for fast foods shows markers for places around the country for 10 fast food chains. Minneapolis is on the map, but there are no markers-- meaning there are no fast food places there. Not very accurate, I'd say.

THING 32. GOOGLE MAPS AND MASHUPS

I created a map called "Walking and eating in the Roseville area" (exciting title, huh?). I outlined Bennett Lake in Central Park, Lake Como and Snail Lake. I clicked on places of interest and then under dining checked Seafood, Italian and other. This adds dots to the map to show the location of the restaurants. So far so good. How do I take some of the restaurants off the map and leave others? I can't find a way to do this. Also I discovered that the restaurant dots disappear when you sign out and then sign back in.


Google Maps: 100+ Best Tools and Mashups has many interesting maps. I looked at these two:

Prescription drugs in drinking water across the United States-- The only drug that showed up for Minneapolis was caffeine.

If the earth were a sandwich-- This is the point on the earth that is the exact opposite of the selected point. I selected Minneapolis. It's opposite was somewhere in the Indian Ocean between Madagascar and western Australia.

THING 31. MORE TWITTER

It's been weeks since I checked my Twitter page. I'm not a big Twitter fan. I looked at many of the suggested websites for this Thing. One of them was Twitterfall. You can see trends on Twitterfall by reading tweets as they roll down the screen. The tweets go by fast. Retweetradar.com shows trends on Twitter as a cloud. One of the tags that caught my eye was Ayn Rand. I looked at some of the tweets for her. A few weeks ago a friend told me that Rand's Atlas shrugged has been mentioned several times on talk radio because of its relevancy to the current economic conditions. I had never read the book, so I checked our catalog. All the editions have a request list. I added my name to one list and am now reading the Cliffs' notes.

RCL now has a Twitter page. It has notices of upcoming events and other library news.

THING 30. RSS AND DELICIOUS

I haven't looked at my RSS feeds for awhile. Had to stop and think of what they are on. Oh Yes, Google Reader. I added feeds from .Gov, Traffic.com and rssWeather.com. To set up the weather feed, I clicked on Ramsey County and then Shoreview. I have organized my RSS feeds into folders for News, Library, 23 things, Health and wellness, and Traffic and weather.

I signed up for FeedMyInbox. I now get the New York Times feed sent to my email. I signed up on a Monday evening. The first feed showed up the next afternoon.

I looked at Spreed. It is supposed to help you speed read information. Instead of seeing the whole text, 2-4 words flash on the screen at a time. It is very eye catching and dramatic, but also tiring. I don't think I could get used to it.

I set up a Delicious account with the first 23 Things. I liked it. Then the buttons disappeared from my homepage after computer Services did some cleanup operation. I have tried unsuccessfully in the past few days to reinstall the buttons. The process seems to be different from last year.

THING 29. GOOGLE TOOLS

I signed up for Google News. I customized my screen and tried some archive searches. That would be useful for students. Once I get past this Thing, I doubt I'll use Google News. I'm already confusing it with my iGoogle page. Maybe I'm Googled out.

I have two email accounts, my work email and Gmail. I started using Gmail last year with the first 23 Things. I love the no-spam feature. I wish I could say that about my work email. I watched the video on using Gmail. I was amazed at the comment from the person who said his band uses Gmail to compose, edit and record original songs and then email them to each other. I haven't gotten much beyond the basics.

If I ever want to put up a website, I'll try Google Sites. Right now I don't have a need for it. I watched some of the videos on getting started. It looks fun and easy-- and a whole lot cheaper than paying someone to design your website.

THING 28. CUSTOMIZED HOME PAGES

I set up a home page using iGoogle. I added the weather, Dow Jones, a sticky note, calendar, CNNMoney. com, the BBC news, the National Geographic picture, Hulu and other features. Many of the news organizations came up by default. I chose a theme for the top. This was easy and fun to put together.

I was concerned that if I created a home page with iGoogle, this would replace the home page we have on our staff Intranet. I didn't want this to happen. After asking around, I learned that to change the home page default on Internet Explorer, you have to go into Tools and then Internet options. So I won't do that. Come to think of it, I didn't find a link on iGoogle where you could make that your home page. Netvibes has an obvious link at the top of the screen to set that as the default home page.

THING 27. TWITTER

First of all the malfunction du jour. After posting Thing 26, I went to blog preview. All 26 posts were missing. The rest of the blog was there-- the title, the strawberry, the graphics down the left hand side. I logged in different ways. Still no posts. Went to lunch. When I came back and tried the blog, still no posts. I nosed around Blogger Help. I went into Settings. The time zone was set to Pacific. I changed that to Central. When I went to the blog, all the posts were there.

Watched the Common Craft video and the YouTube video on Twitter with Perry Belcher. He says he spends 3-4 hours a day on Twitter. How does he have time for that? Who does the vacuuming in his house? Belcher says he follows Steve Jobs and the first ten people Jobs followed. I found Steve Jobs and Bill Gates on Twitter and read through their updates. I have looked at other Twitter people and found that many use it as a business and marketing tool. Also news organizations. Found Obama's Twitter page. Last update was Jan. 15th, Martin Luther King Day. I guess he's been too busy to tweet since then.

I signed up for Twitter. At one point it asks for your email and email password. Big red flag. It says your password is submitted securely and they don't email without your permission. I noticed in small print at the bottom "Skip this step." I did. I don't see using Twitter very much. I'll exchange user names with people I know and then go on to the next Thing.

THING 26. NING

I haven't looked at Ning since last Fall. I thought I had several friends. When I checked my page, I was down to one. Does Ning take away your friends if you don't post any comments for awhile? I have been adding friends and comments. I joined the Ning for Ramsey County Librarians working on Things on a Stick. I added the CNN gadget and a video to my page. Both those were easy. I tried several times to add the large Ning badge to my blog, but it didn't work.

I am more likely to use email or IM to contact others in the library.

THING 25. MORE TROUBLES ON A STICK, OR, BLOGGERS' TOOLKIT

Are we having fun yet? I was until I tried adding gadgets to the layout page. I tried several different ones, but was not able to add any. Worse, for several days I couldn't scroll through my blog or sign in. I was trying to add the gadget for the Wall St. Journal when this happened. When I previewed the blog, a message came up saying Internet Explorer can't upen the blog URL (even though I had just been in it). When I clicked on OK or Close to get rid of the message, the white screen with "This screen cannot be displayed" came up. Shutting down the PC and starting up again didn't help. A different PC didn't help. Today I tried logging in through Blogger instead of my Favorites bookmark or a Google search. That took me to the Dashboard. I deleted the Wall Street Journal gadget (does anything on or about Wall St. work these days?). Then I could see my blog.

The Typealyzer needs more tweaking. A lot more tweaking. When I tried to find out my blog's type, the message came back "Detected language Vietnamese. The only supported languages are English and Swedish." My blog is in English.

THING 24. REFRESH YOUR BLOG

It's been more than two months since I've posted to my blog. I changed some of the colors on my blog. Not a big change. I tried changing the background color, but I couldn't find a way to do that with the fonts and colors tab. I've added to my profile. When I tried adding Blogger Gadgets for the NY Times, the BBC and the Wall St. Journal, the links wouldn't work. I was able to add Google News as a gadget at the bottom of my blog. I never created an avatar for Thing 1. When I got to Thing 23, I had fun creating a dancing avatar on meez.com. I like what you can do with meez, but after reading through all their legal stuff, I decided not to keep the avatar.