End for begining

Finally I got to task 23 (phew!!!).
As many people will say I learned a looooot from this Web 2.0 training. RSS, flickr, Wikis, Podcasts are not stranger to me any more. Blogging becomes part of my life now.
I know there are so many new techniques out on the internet. I have to keep on learning. But always we have excuse for ourselves not learning new things. This Web 2.0 training really pushed me to read, digest and learn the new stuff. I have to say That July 2008 has been the month that I read most since I left Uni.
I want to thank people who prepare this programme and made it as interesting as possible. I look forward some similar training in the near future.

ebooks

I quite like the idea of Netlibrary to allow customer borrow ebooks (there is expiration date set up) and renew them if needed (certainly you have to be a member). The problem with ebooks on Netlibrary sound like too big. ebooks got a lot of new stuff and best sellers. But you have to pay it otherwise you can only read the excerpt.
Project Gutenburg, on the contrary, provides old/classic stuff (but they're free!!!). I found Pride and prejudice, Ulysses, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer etc. on Top 100 EBooks yesterday(7-27-2008).
The book I may want to read is called Stories of Birds by Lenore Elizabeth Mulets. I can either read online or download from main site, mirror sites or P2P in plain text or HTML format.
Talking about ebook reader such as Amazon's Kindle I think it's only an option or a toy for those busy, wealthy businessmen to relax during their flights. For the real book-lovers I'm sure they still like the black letters on white paper feeling.

Podcasts & Vodcasts

I don't need an iPod now because of Podcasts although I never had one (I have a MP4 player instead).

Couldn't open Podcast.net. Couldn't find any Podcasts directories on Yahoo Podcasts. Finally tried Podcastalley.com successfully. Listened to couple of Comedy podcasts from Comedy section. Ironically none of them can make me laugh. I searched podcasts on "Auckland" and guess what, AUT (not Auckland University) got a lecture podcast on it. None on "Manukau".

I found another podcasts directory--Education Podcast Network from Podcast TECHTORIAL. Obviously all podcasts on this site are for education which I think Podcast is best used for. For example learning Mandarin with Serge Melnyk. Some podcasts that I'm interested don't have feeds on them. So I couldn't add them to my bloglines. But I managed add some finally.

Again we can use podcast or vodcast for our library orientation, reading stories for children or reading books for people with hearing problems etc. (anything to do with tutorial or entertainment for people who like or need to listen over and over again).

YouTube and others

YouTube doesn't sound as new as other Web 2.0 stuff. But today is the first time I really sit down and surf it. I found a very funny video talking parrot. The parrot is a real living Einstein. Obviously I chose this vidoe because I love parrots especially the talking one. They are so clever and cute. I always dream to have one like that as a pet.

I wish I could be as powerful as Conan- the librarian (but not chopping people in half because of overdue books). Put a video script on library websites to promote Library Week, FAQ of library rules, orientation of libraries is actually a good idea. They are fun and easy to follow especially for the boring stuff (I mean rules, training etc.)

The things I don't like YouTube are some videos' quality and content are not good for our eyes (children's in particular).

Web 2.0 tools

I tried HairMixer and Comiqs from fun stuff catagory first. Here are my jobs from HairMixer. One is Owen Wilson's face mixes with Will Smith's hair. The other is the new hairstyle I choose for Angelina Jolie. lol

(I can't see any potential use of this app in library though.)

It's a shame that I couldn't publish a comics I made on Comiqs about a parrot's family because it wouldn't let me to register (although I made up my mind to do that). So can't show you today.

One tool I think will help my job is Upcoming Events. You can browse or search events in your area by dates or catagories. You can save your events, view your friends' events. The most useful part is you can advertise your events on it (still it needs register first).

Zoho Writer

Created an account on Zoho Writer (yes another one to remember). After reading the introduction file about Zoho Writer I thought I should have known this earlier. We always have customers have problems to print out from their floppy disk, people need CV templates on learnet. All these become no problems in Zoho Writer. The most amazing function I think is you can work offline if necessary and changes made during offline editing will be synced with the online version once you switch. It's more powerful and got more functions than Microsoft Word.

More task 17

Searched ABBA, one of my favourite bands on MySpace, listening to mamamia and waterloo etc. Watched couple of BBC WorldWide LoveEarth programme and some funny videos. I spent a lot of time watching though because of the slowness of broadband. One is called gaytown. I don't like Facebook signup-first policy. Kind of fed up with these signups. I alread use a word document to save all these logins from Web 2.0 training.

Then I visited Hennepin County Library. I think it is good because it has links to library website, ask librarian and a library search widget. It also has a post wall for people to comment although there aren't that many. Maybe people don't like sign up too. The picture is from comedy forums called Name 3 things you wish you hadn't done... from MySpace.

Week 7

I set up an account on Bebo (finally). The first thing grabbed my eyes is a pop-up window telling me that I have a new message. After I click check message and another window pop up saying one of my friends has crush on me. Soon it changed to 2 people got crush on me. I can see why so many people are hooked on Bebo now. Then I went to Auckland City Libraries page and got shocked by a D'mite video "Read a Book". I don't think it's a positive or proper way to persuade people reading. Then I adopted 3 bunnyheropets. They are very cute freechi(chick), freepan(panda) and freepin(penguin). Click more on right-bottom you can feed them for me.

Sent a request to add as friend to ACL and I'll get an email if she accepts it.

Library 2.0 & Web 2.0

This task makes me thinking a little bit deeply and seriously about Web 2.0 technology. I metioned before that I think Web 2.0 will not only enpower but also challenge us at the same time. On one side we want to apply as much web 2.0 techniques as possible in our websites & our online catalogue. On the other side we must not confuse our customers. A good example is mobile phone. Japanese people make it so multifunctions. But what people really need is making phone call mobility. Remember not everybody has the patience and time to explore the manual or help files. I like the idea of Michael Stephens. He thinks that "the Library is human". Librarian 2.0, then, is the “strategy guide” for helping users find information, gather knowledge and create content.

Librarian 2.0 sounds like X-men 2. Cool!!!

Technorati

I did a keyword search for “Learning 2.0” in Blog posts, in tags and in the Blog Directory in Technorati. The result is 6760/638/6577 respectively.
I noticed when I explore popular blog, searches and tags the top one blog got authority of 27,437. So I looked up the help file and found that Thechorati Authority is the number of blogs linking to a website in the last six months. The higher the number, the more Technorati Authority the blog has.
The other interesting is within the popular videos list that people are talking about right now, ordered by new links to YouTube in the last 48 hours 3 of them are Japanese. Claimed my blog and added 4 searches to watchlist. I tagged this post with Manukau

Tagging

Tagging sounds like a very poplular word nowadays. We have teen's tagging (most of them are damaging). We have RFID tagging (legal but a lot of checking jobs for staff). Now we have website tagging or social bookmarking (now we rely on internet or computers even more!).
Anyhow I learned how to tag my favourite pages on Del.icio.us by creating my account, intalling buttons on my IE. Did a little bit search. Guess what there are 28741 items tagged with "Web 2.0". 118 tagged with Manukau including Manukau libraries Catalogue.
This reminds me the over-one-page long favourite lists on our library computers especially with generic logons' branch. With social bookmarking technology's help staff will find their own favourite useful sites easily.
By the way I really like delicious' free-form, seperated with space words searching method.

More Wikis

After I watched couple of videos about how to use Wikis and visited Manukau Libraries Wiki. Added my favourite numbers, holiday destinations, music and a new page of favourite tasks of Web 2.0 training. I feel like a chief editor. Powerful eh! But somebody may delete my page. But that's exactly the beauty of Wikis. Anybody have the same authority to the websites. When I was doing the editing a question came up my mind: what if more than two people try to edit the same page?

Wikis

The first time I heard about Wikipedia I thought the name maybe related to "kiwi" in some way. Now I know Wiki means something fast in Hawaiian. Wikis does make us communicate or organize faster than sending emails to each other. I like the video demonstrating wikis. It makes the learning so easy and simple.
From SJCPL Subject Guides I found a bird society in Indiana.
Just like the video shows us that Wikis is very good at organizing or coordinating a project such as ALA 2006 New Orleans Wiki. This Wiki provides a guide to the conference. I think it's a fantastic idea. I wonder if somebody can do a similar wiki for this year's NZ library conference at Auckland to help librarians from other cities or countries find their way easily.
The other good application of Wikis is (let me call it) Community square where people can share their book reviews, other community information or just tips of everyday life.
Last but not least I think we can use Wikis for our staff online learning and training. How about a Web 2.0 Wikis where staff can share their skills or tricks they learned from this training.
Thank Web20 training give me a completely fresh view of Wikipedia.

Technology related

It's really an eye-opening training for me to do this Web2.0 training. I've learned a lot. I knew Googleearth before this training and I used it to find house pictures all over the world. To use Googleearth you have to download a software to your computer and then you can get a really clear photo of any house you're looking for. Now I know Google Maps and Wikicrimes etc. I knew there are lots of information available on internet and we can use search engines to search them. Now I know above these information appear those searching tools with Mashup technology to enpower or challenge us. How much information we can get from internet depends on how well we're good at using these tools!

More Flickr

Played around with some Flickr third party tools or games. The one intrigues me is Wikicrimes. It's a website where internet users can report crimes by placing pins on a GoogleMaps based map. The website classifies crimes as Robbery, Theft or Other by pin colour. I wonder if this connects to the police or if police use them in real life.
Created one Trading card for myself and uploaded to Flickr. Don't know how to move it to the Librariantradingcards cluster though. Also created a badge to remember this Web 2.0 training.

Read through the explanation of mashups on Wikipedia. Not quite sure what it's talking about.

Flickr

I went through task 9 Flickr's Discovery Resources. It's a lot reading. Found some interesting photos like this Parrot eating with hand.
What a clever bird.
Another photo I found is tagged with Web2.0 called 2.0 RLY
I also upload one pictures of my garden to Flickr and make it in sets Garden.

It sits next to Digital Service team & Cataloguing team beautifully.
Also add Manukaulearn to a group called Show us your Library 2.0!

Rollyo

I created an account on Rollyo, and also a search roll of my own My dictionary. At first it doesn't work after I linked to my blog. Then I found when you created your search roll the sites you add must be a URL. In other word it must start with "http://" not what we are used to "www."
I also tried some search rolls from other people. eg Girls dress up games etc. Some games allow you to upload your photo or anybody's picture so you can play with different hair style, makeups, clothes etc. Interesting.
The potential use of rollyo I think is huge. We often have customers asking books by samilar authors or particular themes or subjects. If we use rollyo on our blog or website it will make our work much easier and faster.

LibraryThing

My LibraryThing account is Freebirdworld LibraryThing
I've added 6 books to my library and tested "Blog widgets" and pasted the code to my blog. It looks so cool with books cover and title links on my blog.
When I tried LibraryThing Local, after I input Manukau, within 5 or 10 miles area, only City Centre came up. What happened to other branches. Don't they exist? I wonder where they get the original information. Auckland area libraries looks more reasonable.

More generator

Do you like my Studio Neon? It's flickering now. Thanks google help group to solve the problem. Today I got another job to show you. A free, first-class air ticket to Paris.

Tried LetterJames today. It doesn't work for me. Too slow.
I like FD Toys magazine cover generator. But needs a good resolution photo. Do you like my magazine cover?

The 3rd week

Now is generator time!
It's the most fun part of this training up to now I should say.
I tried 3D face generator. Put in one of my friends'name, age , gender & eye color etc. and after minutes or so I got an old guy who looks like 100-years-old with wrinkes all over the face. Of course I didn't tell my friend that's him.
Then I used Magnigraph to create a red, white parrot picture. The Old-style photo is really a good generator. I made children on our libray events photo look like they live in a 1920's countryside.
Then I found Animated Neon Sign So here is my work:

More RSS in bloglines

Carry on with task 4.
Tried some more search tools to find feeds for my bloglines. To me Syndic8.com & Technorati is easier than Topix.net. I felt lost on Topix and could hardly find any useful feeds.
On Syndic8 & Technorati there are standard orange RSS or XML icons for people easy to tell that they are feeds.

Task 4

I cann't wait to start week2's task: RSS. I found it's easy to add feeds to bloglines with help of the instructions and video. Although find feeds from websites which both interest you and got RSS or ATOM feature is a bit of challenge. I added couple of colleagues' feeds and some news links finally.

The difficult part I found for task 4 is make your bloglines availabe to public. It took me 2 nights 1 day (not every minutes) I mean at least 3 tries to find it actually is as simple as to select the right option in Blog Settings. Anyway if you want to read my bloglines it is : http://www.bloglines.com/public/freebirdworld

First 3 tasks

Today, I just started and finished the first 3 tasks of 23. It is interesting and fun to play around with the template the pictures setup etc. I got my blog now. Yeh!
What is next? I guess just follow the links and keep going. I need to find some pictures for my blog...