Image Generators

The first time I tried this I thought I had managed very well. I found an image and copied and pasted it to my blog. Unfortunately when I checked the end result I found I had the title and a whole lot of code, but no picture. Probably just as well as it was meant to be a Black Forest Cake and that would have made me feel peckish everytime I opened my blog.

Then I got some help and with two of us working through it managed to get the pictue across to my blog in the form of a jigsaw.
http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/viewpostcard.php?id=82116-6f439

I used Letter James to get the picture and FD Toys to make a jigsaw.

Perspectives

I had omitted this exercise as I really do not like reading anything too long on line and wanted to print off the various articles to read at a later date. Then I forgot about it and now having read them I think I must have forgotten about it deliberately. Dare I say what a load of pretentious claptrap! I honestly couldn't even understand the English written on some of them and English is my first language. The outcome of the articles as far as I could make out was that the Web and everything connected with it, such as YouTube and Blogsites should be easily accessible and if patrons won't come to the Library than the Library should go to them via the Net. Also I felt the articles were slanted towards university libraries as opposed to public libraries.

Sandbox wiki

I managed to add my blog to the Favourites Blogs page with no trouble. I went into work to look at the discovery resources as I knew it would be far quicker than using dial-up at home. However it is now a week later that I am writing this blog and to be honest I have forgotten everything I looked at. Hopefully Iwill be going onto broadband in a couple of weeks and then I can go back to this exercise and maybe add some more to this blog.

Wikis

The concept of the Wiki is a good idea as a way of sharing resources, but the fact that it is open to anyone to add, edit or delete information can be open to abuse. Can you believe everything you read? I noticed that on a couple of the library wikis patrons wanting to open an account to edit a wiki now have to provide their email address first so that a link can be sent to them confirming their address. This is due to vandalism problems. I confess I do use Wikipaedia, which I find very useful and interesting but realise that if I need specific information on a subject then I need to do a check somewhere else as well.

There was an interesting item on the late news on TV on Friday 29th August about Wikipaedia. Do not believe everything you read on the site as it is easily doctored.

Technorati

What can one say! I reckon one must have an awful lot of spare time to use this site. It is not for me. I got 732 results in 'Posts', 343 in blogs and got an error message first time when looking for tags. Was told there was a 'hiccup' and to try again later. When I did there were 1385 results.

Delicious

Thought the Del.cio.us sight was most interesting and could see a lot of potential for the site It's no wonder that schools are using it . As so many of the kids today are computer savvy I am sure they would far rather use something like this site for doing school projects than having to come to the library and find that the books they need are out. Providing that the local schools would let the libraries know what projects the children are studying it would be worthwhile setting up the site on our homework computers, but that probably would mean a lot of extra work for the children's and/or information services librarians.

For me personally, when I have some spare time, the thought of being able to access relevant recipes quickly, instead of thumbing through my various cookbooks, sounds like a great idea. Also finding information for travelling. This is one site I will probably go back to at a later date.

RSS Feeds

Found the first part of this exercise rather confusing and had to get some help with it at work. Even when I had managed to subscribe to a few newsfeeds and they were entered on my bloglines account, when I opened them there was nothing to read there.

For the second part of the exercise I managed to look at all the search tools recommended and liked Topix.net, as being local it contained Auckland news as well as overseas news. I managed to find the RSS icon and got it into my bloglines account. Hurray! Haven't checked it yet to see if there is anything there when I open it though.

Mish Mash

I had a look at Trading Cards and some of the things there look as if they could be fun and interesting to do. I have noticed now that when getting thankyou' cards for weddings, births etc, that people are using their own photos on the cards. I haven't yet seen one that would qualify under 'mash-ups' but there would be no reason why that couldn't be done. The picture programme I have at home can do collage's, albums and photos can be put on the Web.

Age and Technology

Is it an age thing that I find some of the new technology hard to follow or is my brain just wired a different way? No rude answers please!
I have mastered how to record on the video recorder and play DVDs on the DVD player , though when they were first purchased I wasn't much good in tuning them in. I have a mobile phone (but with a black and white screen and no camera) and have learnt to text. I have no wish to buy a fancy phone as they seem so complicated to use and as for a blackberry!
Digital cameras are great, though it took some time for the mindset to change to realise that I could take photos of everything and anything in sight as I could just delete the unwanted pictures at a later date and as long as I had a big enough memory stick, the number of photos taken wasn't limited. They could then be downloaded to the computer where one has been used as the background to the desktop and our screensaver is an ever changing slide show.

Exploring Flickr

What can I say. I found this very time consuming, not least because I am only on dial-up and my server will insist on cutting the connection if I stay on the line too long. I checked out some of the links but I think I am technophobic as I really couldn't understand a lot of it. I don't think my mind goes in the same direction as all the people who have displayed their photos and tags. I some how ended up with a map of Oxford first time round and then managed to get Carfax Tower but tried again when I had to go back in to get the web link and then managed to find the images straight away.
I looked up photos of Carfax Tower as it was one of my teenage haunts - the meet and greeting place of all young lovers and others. Some of the photos were of the tower itself and others were taken from the top looking down on the streets around and surrounding districts.

Oxford a town of dreaming spires
An education to which one aspires
Undergrads in gowns they strut
A contrast to the village slut
At the crossroads where four main streets meet
Stands Carfax Tower, a place of meet and greet.
Young lovers gaze into each other's eyes
While those stood-up try to walk on by.
Climb to the top and what do you see?
A view all around across city and lea.
Cars are now banned, there are buses galore
If you don't maind waiting, that's for sure.
Tourists abound, what languagesdo I hear?
French and German, like music to my ear.

The link is
Photos of Carfax Tower, Oxford