Sunday, October 28, 2007

15. On Learning 2.0 and Web 2.0

What does Library 2.0 mean to me. I Really liked some of the points made by Rick Anderson in Away from the Iceberg as it makes alot of sense to focus as much energy and time as possible into building up a electronic collection then in expanding a print collection as with a electronic more information can be stored and accessed by a greater number of people than a print collection could be, plus it would be alot easier to maintain.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

14.Getting not-so-technical with Technorati

Technorati is a great site if you want to track down blogs about anything or everything really. The only thing i am a little worried about is that they don't seem to be very authoritive which isn't really very good in the library profession, however if you wanted to know about the latest technology which is being released as they technology sites seem very informative. I didn't tag my blog on technorati because i don't really want it to be easily accessible to anyone on the web.

13. Tagging, Folksomonies and Social Bookmarking in Del.icio.us

Del.icio.us sound like a very useful site. I had a lot of trouble trying to register for Del.icio.us as our network does not allow us to download anything onto our computers so i started a registration but couldn't get past the username and password section which was a bit of a pain and i didn't really get a good idea of how the service works from the discovery recouces because they were just written and it didn't really have any screen dumps or anything that could give you a better idea of how the site actually work but from other peoples accounts on the Del.icio.us site the service is a really useful tool for anyone who likes to keep up with whats happening on the web.

Monday, October 22, 2007

7. Blog about Technology

Ooops i just realised I forgot to do task 7. The technology I am going to blog about is something that is used greatly at our library, this is a DAISY player. DAISY stands for Digital Accessible Information System. These machines a like MP3 Playings except it allowes you to navigate through talking books by chapter or page numbers like a sighted person could. The Machine also talks to you, which makes it much easier for people with vision problems to figure out where the buttons are are how to use the machines. There a two different types of DAISY machines they are Plextor and Victor and these machines a made in Japan and Canada respectively. These machine are invaluable technology as it gives Vision Impaired people a opportunity to enjoy books just as much as sighted people do without having to rely on technology that is over 20 years old (like the old cassette tapes).

Monday, October 15, 2007

12. Roll your own search engine with Rollyo

Rollyo. This was fun to make but i found the instructions for adding it to the blog really really confusing. There was no template button on the dashboard you had to go into another page before you could find it and the HTML screen was confusing because there was one above the add and arrange page element but there was also one in another page. I am to blog illiterate to figure that out unless it is really set out simply and step by step, but i got some help from a collegue so i figured it out eventually.

The Rollyo itself though was really great to do. I made a beading Rollyo as one of my hobbies is beading and it is good to have a search engine that comes up with everything i am looking for in one spot instead of having to troll through a google search which sometimes brings up irrelavant information.

Sunday, October 14, 2007

11. All about LibraryThing

LibraryThing, I'm not so sure about this one. The instructions of the site are really really confusing and i cannot figure out how to do the widgets or anything. I click on the links fill in the information and click OK and nothing seems to happen. Anyhow I set up a very mini library of the last 6 books i have read recently and two i am just about to start to read. Here is the link
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/casfowler

10. continued again

I couldn't figure out how to add two pictures to one posts so i have posted another one. I found this generator and just had to add it to my blog. It is so cool. Some of the combinations are amazing. Wouldn't want look at them while you had a hangover especcially some of the flashing texts.
I found this weeks exercise really cool. It gave you an opportunity to inject some of your own personality into the blog while still doing the tasks.