Thing 22 week 9 : NET LIBRARY - EBOOKS

This is a part of our library job, however I didn't have a Net library a/c, but that was ok, I've got used to signing up for new a/cs & it is no more a stress.
I browsed through Net library web page it is quite interesting, a wide range of topics are covered. Right from kids to old age people. Like I came across an ebook for kids to learn numbers which was so basic & the other useful ebooks like beginner's guides to different subjects.
I looked through ebook of Arther Miller's "The Crucible" , what is really good about this source is it not only allows you to read through the pages of the book but also you get other information like "Contents" which gives the list of the contents of the book & we can choose what we want to read instead of turning the pages. But I still get feedback from the customers as they still prefer to have a book on hand rather than looking on to the computer screen, I personally also of the same opinion.

Thing 21 Week 9 : PODCASTS

Podcast is a digital media file distributed over the internet feeds for playback on portable media players or PCs.
That was quite interesting going through different PODCASTS. I tried the library ones, like "Book Review" "Book Clubs of library", that was cool. But I couldn't get to listen to any as the computer I was using was not compatible to play those Podcasts , looking forward to listen to them sometime later. Although I feel these are somewhat similar to You Tube videos, but a Podcast is not necessarily be a video, but some Podcast have presentation or speech which we could listen to, some have video presentation. I feel great after learning something new & makes me feel proud when I show my blog to my family. All the credit goes to "ACL 2.0 team".

Thing 20 : Week 9 : YOU TUBE

You Tube is very popular not only amongst younger generation but also older people. It is a fantastic media to watch music videos of any kind and nationality. We @ home watch a lot of Indian music videos, especially old movie videos of my local dialect!! It is a great way of spending some free time watching these & keep in touch with advanced technology. I watched "Conan the Librarian" video, if Conan as a Giant was replaced by a smart & humble librarian, I'm sure that kind of video clips on our website showing either different sections of the library or a model using the self-checks ( our new self-checks are a challenge for some of our customers). I looked through quite a few videos but was not happy having them on my blog! So here's a library video on You Tube.

Thing 19 Week 8 : WEB 2.0 AWARDS

From the short list of awards I picked "Newsvine" from the Social News category. This is like browsing the online newspapers which I do regularly. It covers updated news from National, International & World . A wide range of topics like Sports, Entertainment, Politics, Science etc., are covered.
Newsvine which is continuously updated by people is the instant reflection of what the world is talking about at any given moment.
I was quite curious to look into their "Science" section. There I was with more surprises by seeing the topics covered, these topics will be published & seeded by top seeders. Over here I read an article which said "Migraine brains are different". That was interesting. And ofcourse the "Helath" section was informative too. Yes I did have a good time browing through these pages.

Thing 18 Week : ZOHO WRITER

ZOHO WRITER

I signed in for Zoho writer & spent some time looking through its features.
Hey this is a wonderful tool. It is a combination of several things like

word processor

Excel Spreadsheet

all the features of Microsoft Word & much more . As you can see I've tried using the word features I did try to insert few columns of excel spreadsheet & published it from the Zoho writer, but when I viewed by blog those boxes of rows were just looking like thick lines. So I deleted them by editing. But publishing the Zoho document straight onto my blog was awesome. I was thrilled! I'm also imoporting an image.

Thing 17 Week 7 : SANDBOX WIKI

Oh that was a simple task but in the beginning I kept worrying what I should be doing. In the discovery exercise it says add an entry to "Sandbox wiki" when I got there I tried to edit the page to include my blog & nothing happened, tried couple of different things but all in wane I couldn't add my blog to the favourite. Then I asked my colleague & in was so simple. I wish they had better instructions in the discovery excercise so that we can finish our tasks quickly without disturbing others.
Anyway I've added my blog to the favourite blog list.

Thing 16 Week 7 : WIKI

When I first heard my colleagues talk about this topic "Wiki" I was wondering what it could be? until I started working on week 7 discovery exercise. Hey "wiki" is the short form of Wikipaedia which we regularly use in our daily work to help the customers. I quite like to use Wikipaedia instead of Google, because as a librarian I should be showing some new resources to the library users rather than Google which is very common.
I watched the video here about using wiki, it is very simple , a easy way of telling people about what it is all about. I didn't know that we could edit the website. This is a great way of involving the library users by considering their views & suggestions in the improvement of library services. We can also make use of it in our work.
I read in an article here which says, "Wiki" means "Quick" in Hawaiian. I created an account for wiki & tried to edit but could not at this moment but I'll definitely try later.

Thing 15 Week 6 : Library 2.0

I've read through a number of articles about Learn 2.0 & watched few videos. It is good to know that Library 2.0 attempts to harness the library user in the design & implementation of Library Services by encouraging feedback and participation. That also includes online services such as the use of OPAC systems and an increased flow of information from the user back to the library.
It is quite easy to google when I'm looking for something rather than going through the related book as it takes a while & you need to have the proper book.
With any amount of improvement in the technology & usage of internet , book lovers would still prefer to have a book in hand rather looking on to the computer screen. For instance the projects given to kids in school, they ask for information collected from 2 to 3 different sources, in that case we need both internet as well as a book. So it is hard to say whether internet will overtake the usage of books? I would say they should go hand in hand!!
I'm very greatful for the people who provided this program, through these I'm improving on my internet knowledge.

Thing 14 Week 6 : Technorati

Technorati : I've browsed through the web page. It is quite interesting. It has everything right from music to travel, famous perople, videos, youtube ... One of the site which has a funny name "Boing Boing" under popular - Top favorited Blogs : It says Boing Boing is a weblog of cultural curiosities & interesting technologies, well I hope so. Technorati site is nothing much different from the other browser sites.
Under the youtube search, I watched a video from an Indian movie, which was very good. Kept me going. I love youtube, we use a lot at home. It is really an amazing tool for the music lovers. We can get to watch mostly anything & everything in music from different countries old & new.

Thing 13 Week 6 Del.icio.us

Social bookmarking!! What is it? That sounds something like social network , social activities

Del.icio.us is social bookmarking service that allows you to save bookmarks to an account on a web site, so that they are accessible from anywhere with a browser & internet access. It also allows to look at list of sites bookmarked & tagged by others.

So I created yet another a/c to make a good use of this tool. Actually there are 3 steps involved while creating the a/c, step 1 is just giving the details & setting a/c , Step 2 was adding a button on to the browser, which I didn't try because I was working on a work computer. So I'll definitely try working on step 2 & 3 from home. At the moment I think it is just a easy way to create bookmarks that can be accessed from anywhere, but eventually pretty sure will be used for researching. I really enjoyed working on this.

Thing 12 Week 5 : Rollyo

Here is my Rollyo search engine . Rollyo offers the ability to search the content of a list of specified websites, allowing you to narrow down the results to pages from websites that you already know & trust. Actually I quite enjoyed working on this. These excersises builds more confidence in us in using internet for advance searches. My topic here is "Ayurveda Health Science". Ayurveda medicne is very popular in India & is quite similar to Naturopathy which is based on the herbs & shrubs. Hope someone will be benefited by using this search engine.

Select Search Engine...AyurvedaSearch The Web

Powered by Rollyo

Thing 11- Week 5- Library thing

Working through library thing was quite easy & yet another account. However it gave me the feeling of being & working as a cataloguer without a required qualification!!
Created a library thing a/c, adding books on to my library was like making a list of books that I've read, kind of reading history in the library language. One good thing about this is we can view the list in two different ways. One is the list view & the other is cover view. I like the cover view better. Here's the link for my library thing.

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/wildweta

Thing 10- Week 5 : Image Generator

That was fun working ont the image generator. Only thing which is a bit irritating is to have to sign up & have several log-ins. Anyway I think I'm getting a hang of all this blogging. I chose to do a slide show with beautiful flowers , I love flowers, I keep looking at them thinking abouth the amazing creation. Here's the link for the slide show: http://www.slide.com/r/4EpP5dIzwj_CaDLtN44S9LfAOO8Y6qx7?previous_view=mscd_embedded_url&view=original

You have fun too.

Thing 9 : week 4 : RSS

Well it is RSS time now. I was really surprised that I had never noticed the RSS logo on the right hand corner of the web link. RSS feeds are automatic alerts sent to you about topics that you choose as soon as it becomes available. Using RSS "news reader" you can monitor several "feeds" in on place. Most news readers allow you to subscribe by copying the link from your browser & pasting it into the news reader. That was great copying my colleagues blogs & pasting.

Thing 8 : week 4 : Bloglines

So I've a Blogline account. Choosing the news feeds was cool. What I understand by this is Bloglines are like shortcuts where I can store the links to my favourite sites which has RSS feeds. Another good thing about Blogline is it gives the updated list of the sites, so at a glance we can which feeds have been updated instead of visiting each site.

Thing 7: week 3 : Skype

Skype is a wonderful software program which allows its users to make phone calls between to skype computer program users. Another way of using this program would be to ring someone local or overseas on their landline or cell phones. I recently dowloaded this program & tried ringing overseas both on landline & cell phone. It works great. It has got very good clarity compare to Google talk. It will be a wonderful tool for video conferencing as well. However it is free to talk from pc to pc but pc to landline or cell phone will cost. Who cares, I enjoyed talking my people overseas for over half an hour without any disturbance. So go Skype go.

Thing 6- Week 3- Flickr mashups

Working with Flickr was really good & informative. I had recently used flickr when I had to change from my Yahoo photo album to Flickr, the reason is known to all. With the new technology we can do many tough tasks very easily & also have fun while doing it.

I tried the FD Toys link & that was fun. For no good reason it reminded me of using paint & brush in the good old days. So I chose a blue mountain pitcure by browsing through & decided to go for autumn leaves frames. I just love their colour & shape of the leaves. Though these are quite simple tasks but they are good to work with, may be you can see the results. I also tried creating a calender with diiferent picture & formats.