Hooray for me!!

Well, here we are at the end, but where to start...

Well, first of all, why are there so many website missing the letter "e?" tumblr, flickr, do they hate the fact that it's the most widely used letter in the english language they felt they had to punish it, or did the creators fail remedial english?

But I digress.

Over the past few months, I have found quite a few useful tools, (loving bloglines, facebook and this bloggin' is pretty ok) and some that I wish I'd never wasted my time trying (thanks for nothing, technorati.) More than anything, though, it has given me the opportunity to check out some new technologies that I otherwise would not have spent the time learning. I discovered that I kind of like this blogging thing, and will probably delete this so that I can keep using the name of the blog for my own personal nerdiliness. It was fun, educational and useful to have the training, and I really liked the self guided aspect. Thanks,

20 more minutes lost

A large percentage of the budget for Monty Python and the Holy Grail was donated by members of Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd.

Unable to prevent the use of the word “spam” to represent unwanted email messages, the Hormel company now uses all-capital letters in referencing its canned pork product.

Anyone who knows me knows that I LOVE stupid trivial tidbits of information, which is why have been hooked on Mental Floss' Amazing Fact Generator. I can't even stop long enough to write about it.

Tried some of the other generators, and the only one I really liked was the trading card generator that I already played around with. Art projects really aren't my cup of meat. They bore me.

overall, while the generators are quirky and fun to play with, I don't see any way to bring them into being a useful communication tool. Fun, yes. Useful no.

wiki- wiki- wik

Let me start be saying that if I have just watched the common craft show about the wikis, I would probably not ever use them. I Google Docs rocks just as hard for collaboration, and I have used it for that purpose many times. Luckily, though, I am an open minded person that has ventured out into the world to peruse wikis of all sorts of sizes and shapes. While I am a HUGE fan of Wikipedia, it scares me how much people trust it as the absolute truth. Any Tom, Dick or Harry can claim to have expertise and edit information on it. I realize that there is a very active wikipedia community that keeps an eye out for bogus posts, but they can't catch everyone...

Then I come across wikihow. Maybe should call it wikiwow! It's like a collaborative instructables with a more eye friendly format. Maybe I'll add some of my knowledge to it....

No instant gratification

That's what I think of Twitter. I could just as easily text message everyone in my phone, or send an email to everyone I have addresses for and feel that I made more of a connection that when I use twitter. It may be due to the fact that I only know one other person using twitter and he never logs in... Twitter to me seems like a instant messaging that limits you to a certain amount of characters.

Tumblr seems to have a little more potential for me, but I will have to flesh out what it can do for me in the coming days. It may be that it is just shinier and thus more likely for me to look at.

worse than crack

Youtube is worse than crack. At least there are rehab centers to help you with a crack addiction. Youtube will just slowly eat your life away until all you have are distant memories of your family, while waiting for Chris Crocker's new post.

I've been playing Portal at home (part of the Orange Box for xbox) and have found numerous fan videos about the game and its quirky characters. I found this video that follows a day in the life of a gun turret. I realize that this has nothing to do with the library, but it was fun nonetheless. Oops. I guess that I didn't quite listen to this earlier. Sorry. it's gone now. Phew!

As for applications in the library, I believe that youtube could be used as a fairly powerful training tool. I'm not sure how long a video can be, but say in 10-15 minute segments one could put together a sort of "Welcome to FVRL, and here's a brief overview of what to expect" video. It may save quite a bit of time in the long run. I'm not saying to replace the system we have now, but in addition to it.

Sam's one minute critic is a good example of how we can use youtube in the library. I wonder if our performers would allow us to record their shows during summer reading and post them...

podcasting

First time I heard about podcasts, I remember thinking how stupid it sounds. We already have enough talk show hosts milking their 15 minutes as it is, now everyone can do it. While I still feel a bit like this, I am starting to soften ever since I discovered coverville. Sorry, but I came close to nodding off listening to the library feeds that I had to find something to wake me up, and super-wow I am in love. All cover songs, updated about twice a week, as the podcaster fills the time. I'll try again to find some more "professional" podcasts soon, but until then, I'm filling my ipod with some of the oddest cover songs that one could ever hear.