Inspiration

Gaming

2007-05-09T10:43:00.000-07:00

The only gaming on the computer I have done until now is watching my daughter play Sim City and online poker. I played Spider solitare which we already have on our computer but I wasn't thrilled with it. I downloaded Cake Mania on Yahoo Games and got a chuckle when I couldn't make the right cake on time and had two angry customers. I can see that gaming could be fun and you could spend a lot of time playing them. Students have grown up in this gaming world and are very comfortable in this environment, it may induce them to use the library more through gaming.

Browser Tools

2007-05-09T10:00:00.000-07:00

Firefox Add-ons

I chose Picnik under the Extensions - Photos and Media to add to the toolbar on Modzilla. It was easy to install. When I have more time it will be interesting to see how Picnik works on editing images.

Bookmarklets

I chose to install Keyword(s) Anywhere in the Favorites on Internet Explorer. It was pretty straight forward. I was amazed when I highlighted the word "shipbuilding" on a webpage and clicked on the keyword in Favorites and went directly to the Morris catalogue. I think this is a very useful bookmark to have.

Delicious

2007-05-07T18:53:00.000-07:00

Setting up an account in delicious was time consuming as it took several attempts to select a unique user name and password.

Delicious would be useful to access your "Favorites" when you are not on your home computer.

The related tags in Delicious gives you more search options to think about and you can see what sites are popular by the high number of saved sites.

I think Delicious should make more use of colours instead of having all the tags in blue. It looks too busy and overwhelming. I prefer Google.

The computer I am using at work is shared by my co-workers so the Delicious buttons were added to the toolbar by someone else.

Facebook and MySpace

2007-05-07T17:43:00.000-07:00

I have been on Facebook for a couple of months. I find it great for communicating short comments with my daughter who is overseas. She seems to prefer to be on facebook rather than email. I get to see her photos of her travels almost immediately. It is interesting looking up people (mainly friends of my children) and a lot of time passes by while I'm at it. This interest will probably die out when my daughter returns.

MySpace looks more commercial than Facebook when you first see the site. The profiles are more colourful and you can be very creative in setting up your site, although some of the sites I checked out were so busy with creative artwork and designs they were hard to read. I prefer the consistent template of Facebook.

Spring Bluebells, Scotland

2007-05-07T12:12:00.001-07:00

Spring Bluebells, Scotland
Originally uploaded by borderglider.

First photo sent from Flickr

Flickr

2007-05-07T12:09:00.001-07:00

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Flickr

2007-05-07T11:48:00.000-07:00

A link to the photo Spring Bluebells, Scotland

http://www.flickr.com/photos/borderglider/486864187/

Wetpaint & PBWiki

2007-04-24T16:42:00.000-07:00

I found PBWiki pretty straight forward to use but the Wetpaint was not so user friendly.

I think Wikis would be useful for a group working on a document, skedule, etc. to organize, edit and keep them up to date. It would save a lot on duplication and the problem of not knowing which copy is the latest version.

Exploring Applications & Tools

2007-04-09T19:27:00.000-07:00

I checked out the following:

Google Docs and Spreadsheets:
A good use for this site would be for students who are working in a group to create their report online without having to worry about using different versions of Word or Excel.

Flickr:
Easy to spend hours looking at photos. Would be a good place to share photos with others.

RedKid.net:
The banner was easy to create but the others were more time consuming to figure out.

Library Thing:
This is a great site and I look forward to signing on and exploring.

LastFM:
This site is just what I have been looking for.

Playing with the RSS Feed

2007-04-07T17:06:00.000-07:00

I like Search4RSS better than Feedster. It is better organized and easier to search, although if you found a term with many items it takes a long time to process the search. Although I found some interesting sites there was nothing I wanted to subscribe to on a regular basis.

I went to the Globe and Mail homepage and subscribed to their feed under to headings of Art, Business and Health.

RSS

2007-03-11T09:37:00.000-07:00

Adding the RSS feeds was a little more complicated than creating the blog.

First Post

2007-03-06T17:15:00.000-08:00

This is my first post