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Pod Casting, Web Casting, and New Computers April 28, 2008

Posted by Vicki in continuing education.
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We are in the last week of the Continuing Education for MLA on Social Networking. Last week (and I didn’t blog it then…) we studied podcasting and webcasting. Last week was also an extremely busy week for me, including getting my new laptop to replace my older desktop.

There’s an unfortunate side effect of a new computer that I forget until it happens again. Many of my setting in the browser, software programs (like my Word icon menus), audio programs, etc, disappeared and have to be reset. Some of them are, but not all.

Among other things, this affected listening to the podcasts that were assigned. I didn’t have the proper players downloaded any more, so had to stop and reinstate a few of those. Since I couldn’t start the lesson until Thursday, I didn’t finish listening to those until Friday.

The YouTube webcasting had a different set of problems. I love a YouTube piece called Interval Library.

But when I tried to add it to this blog from YouTube, YouTube kept giving me an error with connecting to WordPress. I then tried entering it through WordPress and finally was able to make it work. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

There is another video I saw recently that I wanted to add to my personal blog, which is through Blogger. I had no problems inserting that one through YouTube. I found I couldn’t edit later, though, because there’s a missing end tag that I haven’t discovered yet. If I leave the post alone, it works fine. If I try to add tags, it won’t save again.

Once again I know our library isn’t ready for using podcasting or webcasting. I appreciated their uses through the universities and hospitals for lectures, repeating programs, etc. It would also be useful for the safety videos all hospital employees have to watch.

As I’ve said before, we’re different here. There is no obvious use for the technology now. I appreciate having the knowledge and ideas, though. I wouldn’t be surprised if in the next 6 months or so something will come up that could benefit from this. If so, then I’ll look into using seriously rather than for fun right now.

Blog This Photo April 17, 2008

Posted by Vicki in continuing education.
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Jim Butcher 4-5-08

Originally uploaded by vcrom

This week we are working with online photograph services like Flickr. I already had a Flickr account established. I added a new picture today that I took about two weeks ago when I was being a fan rather than a librarian.

Jim Butcher writes an urban fantasy series featuring wizard Harry Dresden. They’re based in Chicago and Harry is one of those good guys who comes on on top after he has taken lots of beating. I’ve been reading the series for years. Butcher visited San Diego to promote his new book. Now I have my own signed copy.

What was new to me was using Flickr to send a photo straight to my blog – interesting. Next I’ll have to try sending this photo to my Facebook account..

I have already used Flickr for work. When we had the open house for our new space I took pictures of the party.Then I uploaded them to Flickr and sent out an invitation for everyone in my division to see the pictures. A few people checked them out. Later I did the same with our Christmas party photos. More people checked those.

Since we don’t use photos much in my library otherwise, I don’t see myself using this site for integral library work. I may surprise myself, though. One of the advantages of this class is the ways thoughts perk in the back of my mind. What I can’t imagine using right now may be very helpful next week or next month.

Sharing Documents Online April 11, 2008

Posted by Vicki in continuing education.
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One of the interesting facets of this MLA social networking course is being forced to try these different tools that I’ve heard about in different places (such as LifeHacker or from David Rothman). When I signed up for Google Docs I wasn’t sure because I get a 1984 (“Big Brother is watching”) feeling.

The next day I was presented with a potential use for it that could be beneficial for my coworker. One task she has is to creating meeting minutes weekly for the executive group. She sends an email asking for agenda items, collates them, then sends them out to be ranked, and then creates the agenda after receiving rankings of importance of the agenda items. This requires multiple emails between people. Google Docs or a similar type program may work for her.

But I’ve had collaboration problems. I created a short presentation in preparation for the talk I’ll be giving next month. I tried to share it as per our instructions, one with the above mentioned coworker. It doesn’t seem to have worked. I tried a second time, still with no success. To increase the frustration, there appears to be problems at Google today. When I was switching between Docs and Reader, my browser froze. I ended the program and couldn’t restart it. I finally had to shut down my computer and start all over. My browser finally started working again.

Because of it, I don’t know if my second collaboration attempt succeeded. I’ll talk to the recipients later.

Right now I’m still ambivalent about using Web Office tools. I looked at Zoho and Microsoft Live. The Microsoft Live review link was to PC Magazine, so I checked the other online office tools programs as well. PC Magazine’s Editor’s Choice is for Google Docs.

del.icio.us – Duh April 1, 2008

Posted by Vicki in continuing education.
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Would someone tell me why I have been avoiding del.icio.us? As part of our assignment I signed up yesterday and started seeing good applications today. I have a few medical research search engines in my regular bookmarks. There are others I’d add but it’s getting messy, especially when I don’t remember what the brief title means.

So I started opening them and adding del.icio.us tags to them. Plus I came across another one today that I didn’t have time to investigate. So I tagged it and can easily go back to it without feeling like I’m adding to an unwieldy list. The del.icio.us personal bookmarks screen is easy to read and the tags are easy for me to follow.

I also quickly decided to set up two accounts – one for professional tags and one for personal (i.e. fun) tags. That way if I decide to share my del.icio.us account later with my colleagues, it won’t be cluttered with my book review or scrapbooking sites.

While del.icio.us will probably be a good tool for me personally, I don’t know yet if it will be helpful at my work library. Before I could consider adding it (or any of the social networking tools we have been using in this continuing education class) I’d have to consider how to present it so that my patrons would think it’s the best library help since emailing them a pdf file (they love that one for quick articles) .