Jigsaw Mashup Week 10

I've just got my new toy (a lovely new Canon 450D camera) and was playing with it in the back yard (ok so it wasn't my own back yard) and thought I'd play around with some of the image mashups available on bighugelabs. I can see myself playing with this site a bit over the coming months.

Week 10 Mashups

Not sure if this is going to work.....it should be either a link or a pic of a wallpaper of a Duststorm that we had recently. I took the photo out the front of our library (the storm was winding down as this photo was taken).

Week 9 Podcasts and Audio

I was really looking forward to this week, but found myself given a quick lesson in frustration. I love my Podcasts and Vodcasts (video podcasts), but I have come to the conclussion that accessing them is WAY easier and less stressful with iTunes and my iPod. Having said that I will also state that I did get something useful out of this weeks lesson. I now know how to easily add feds that aren't easily tracked down using iTunes (some Australian websites have great casts that aren't accessed through the iTunes search and RSS) and that I can actually access podcasts without my iPod or iTunes (though not as easily).

So I ended up splitting this week into two days, I just got to frustrated using Juice (the program I ended up using to download and manage my feeds on my work computer) and needed to let my mind simmer on how it really worked. After letter it simmer for a night I came back the next day and got it to work soo easily (compared to yesterday). While it works and does the job I still prefer my iTunes. It is just so user friendly. You tell it what you want and walk away from it and the next time you log onto iTunes it downloads what you want really quickly (I used to be impressed with iTunes speed, but after waiting for the downloads on Juice I'm even more impressed) and then you can either watch it on your computer or plug your iPod (or mp3 player) in and it dumps it all on there for you to take away! How easy is that? (In case you hadn't guessed I'm a Mac/Apple fan from way back)

I breifly trawled through some of the Library sites that had casts, only to find that some of them were near impossible to find the cast, while others were simple to find and interesting to see what they were using podcasts for. I loved the idea of using the casts to get readers into a book, or to keep them up to date with what was happening in their library. But I found it really frustrating when the link said that they had podcasts and no matter where I looked I couldn't find it....might have just been me.

Also loved the education casts, I've found a couple that I'll probably look into more when I have a spare couple of hours....ok so maybe I'll get them for my iPod and try learning them while I sleep :oP

As for using Yahoo Podcast Search? Well I guess I must have been doing something wrong because while I could search for audio and video the results that I got were not what I'd call podcasts. Yes I could download the stuff I found (and some if it was from pay sites which I didn't do for this) most of what I found were from file share sites or peer to peer sites. The only way that I could better search for podcasts of any discription was to type in the key words and put podcast or video podcast at the end of the search.

So my conclusion after this week?

I'm sticking with iTunes and my iPod.

Week 8 Explore, Discover and Adventure

Answer Boards and Social Searching, what can you say about that. In short, I think it can be a great resource. But like with all resources available it can be prone to abuse and misuse. I have acutally used Yahoo Answers to answer a reference enquiry in the past because we had exhausted all of our resourses, and though I only got a couple of answers to my question (it really was a strange one) the answers I got were exactly what we were after, so it was all good! But having looked around a little on Yahoo Answers this time I was surprised at some of the answers that were being posted, one or two word answers (ok yes sometimes that is all you need) and sometimes the answers didn't even stand up to the most basic of research. However there are some out there who really do give great answers and they make all the difference!

I love the idea of "slamming the boards", it's a great way of reminding people about libraries and that we don't just have books anymore we have soooo much more! But we need to find a way to get that back out to the people who don't use libraries because they either don't have the time or they think of them as dark dusty places where you have to be quiet (I love that one, definately not quiet here or many other libraries that I've been to recently) that only has shelves and shelves of books that are hard to find.

We have talked about (and been asked about) having an answer board type thing on our web site, and while we have talked about it the one thing that keeps coming back is time. I know that finding time to just keep our website up to date and working is very hard what with all the other jobs that we have to do around here, and the thought of having a "ask a librarian" component is both exciting and terrifying. Simply put we just don't have the time to do it :o(

However having said that we don't have the time, I can see myself spending a little time every month doing my little part "slamming the boards".

For the adventure this week? Well lets just say I used it as a two fold exercise. First up I was putting in my time doing this fun course :oD and then also taking some time to exercise my net searching skills looking for some answers. I had a ball! And ok so I researched a couple of questions that I didn't actually post answers to but still it was great fun doing the research.

Now it's time to start fighting my new addiction........answerboards!


Oh and if anyone is interested the picture was found on Flickr and is by *regina*

And one more time!

And here's another one just to show that it really does work....that plus it was just to funny to leave :oD

Week 6 Revisit

Ok so if this works it's thanks to bambino :o) Thanks for the comment, it's much appreciated. I did try doing it the way you suggested last time, but it didn't work...so I'm thinking it was me having a bad day. So I'm trying it again (posting a google video) and hopefully it'll work this time. Hope you get a laugh out of it, it sure made my day a little better :oD

Week 7 Adventure

Library Thing! I was really impressed at just how easy this site was to use. Within minutes of getting to the site I was happily searching out some of my favourite books, although I did have trouble finding one or two of them, but I'll try searching for them with ISBN later.

I also love how easy it is to check out reviews for the books. This is just such a great site that is so easy and fun to use...I can see me spending a lot of time just playing around with this site, and recommending it to others as well!

Week 7 Discover 2

Ok I played with Techonrati earlier (back around week two or somthing) and I wasn't really impressed with the site, yes it allows you to search for blogs, but is it really user friendly? Not really. And after playing with it again this week I'm still not a huge fan of it. But having said that it does get around to making links to a lot of blogs. I was really surprised, ok so I was really tired at the time and wanted something mindless to search for, I did a search for my user name to see if it had picked up this blog yet but found that it had found my other blog over on Live Journal. Very cool I must admit :0D Ok and I will admit that it was easier to use now that I am more familiar with it....but for those who are new to Technorati...maybe not.

Library Thing is WONDERFUL. I love it :o) It's a one stop pit stop for all those who love to read! And the fact that you can sort your own library and books you've read is just so much FUN! Also good if you know what your looking for so that you can see what other people have thought about it (no more getting stuck buying really crappy books) and you can leave your own reviews....what better way of sharing books are there (ok for you purists out there the face to face way is probably preferable, but for those of you like me who tend to read at 2am and do computer stuff at odd hours it just rocks!) But more on my adventures with Library Thing in my next post...when I have more than 30 seconds to spare :o)

Extra

I've just added two links at the bottom of my blog for sites that I think are great!

One is for a site called Zoho, it is a free web-based word processor with so much more. It is great for those of you who are using multiple computers and don't have access to networks or flash drives (or can't be bothered to track your flash drive down). You don't need to install anything on your computer to use it, all you need is an internet connection (how good is that for all of those who aren't allowed to install ANYTHING on your computers!). Check it out.
Zoho
The second link I have added is for a site called Angry Alien Productions. This is a very entertaining site, especially if you want to see a movie but don't have time to watch the whole thing. These are 30 second cut downs of movies using annimated bunnies as the actors. No movie is safe from these bunnies as they have done things like Broke Back Mountain, all three Spiderman movies and the Rocky Horror Show.
Angry Alien Production
Check them out and enjoy!