Invasion of the Podcasts

Doing this excercise at work was pretty limiting, either the correct software wasn't installed to listen to the podcasts, or the library filter blocked content. Yeah, I know I could get the filter turned off. Anyways, I searched for stuff, and i suppose there was material I woud be interested in; its hard to tell because none of the search tools provided were very well thought out. There wasn't decent descriptions of the podcasts, and the results were difficult to wade through...like a river that had tons of jello powder thrown in it. I found a podcast called'Metal Gear Awesome', I didn't get to listen to it however. If its humour based on the Metal Gear Series, count me in. That's the one I added to my bloglines account. There were also library podcasts, but once again the results were not presented in a manner that encouraged me to look through them.

Podcasts for the library...what could we do with them..hmmm. Weekly updates about stuff going on at the library is one idea. Another would be to record the programs we have at the library and make them available as podcasts. That way people could suscribe to a branches podcasts, and never miss a program hosted at that library. I'm a genius. hoozah.

why don't YOU tube?

Youtube is addictive. I can waste much time browsing the site. One of the things I like to browse the most on youtube is musical performances. In particular, I have found a lot of cool performances by guitarists doing covers, or arranging various pieces of music. Video game music arranged on guitar is usually pretty impressive, especially stuff from the Final Fantasy series. A lot of people will perform some of the more obvious choices, but one performance I was really impressed by was this older gentlemen who arrange Final Fantasy X's "Silence before the Storm" for guitar. That piece was always one of my favorites from final fantasy X, and i learned how to play some of it from watching this guy play. I give this guy big props for tackling this piece, and arranging it. Here is the video:

Power tools page

Okay, I messed with a variety of things on this page.

One thing I looked at was the makezine page, it has instructions for all these do-it-yourself projects. The coolest thing I found was the tank someone built with working pneumatic cannon that can fire hot-dogs, or other things. Awesome.

I read about G-Mail on the tooling around page. Eh, nothing to exciting, e-mail is e-mail, but good to know.

Boing-Boing is another sweet page. They had a link to a funny comic about music piracy. It talks about how if you pirate a song, you get to keep it, and it will always work. However if you buy it on i-tunes, you might not be able to recover it if you get a new computer, or have to re-format your harddrive because of drcm-locked files. This is true, and very lame. If you buy something, you should be able to re-download it in instances of catastrophes. My nephew bought several seasons of scrubs on i-tunes, but because he had to re-format his harddrive, or something like that, he lost everything he bought because there's no way re-download things you already purchased. I had to get a replacement ps3 from sony, and i could only back up certain things on my harddrive, that doesn't include game installs that I downloaded from the Playstation Network, but at least with the Playstation Network, I was able to redownload the games I had already purchased.

Another cool thing on boing-boing was a small post about researchers trying to develop thought-based communication. Apparently they are going to map language on the brain and make it possible to send electronic messages like text messages, or e-mails, for example, with the simple power of thought. Whoa. Synthetic Telepathy they call it. They said it may take 15-20 years. I must live to see the existence of that technology.

So yeah, I found some cool stuff, so thank you.

Hit me up with them recipes, keyys

I cook a lot, and I like trying to cook just with whatever is in the house, so this website, recipekey.com, is ideal for that sort of thing. It was a little confusing to use at first, but I think I got the hang of it. I didnt go to in depth in exploring all the options, but you can make your profile and list ingredients you have in your pantry so when you search for recipes it will tell you what you already have. Also, say you happen to have 64 slices of american cheese ("mmmmmmm, Homer would say, before spending all night eating every slice one at a time) you could search for that as a main ingredient to find recipes that feature that ingredient. The site also offers search options like prep time (filters out those recipes that require overnight rests), cooking method, dietary restrictions and so forth.

You know what's also interesting? A 24 year old male picked out this site from all the other options...Oh sighh.

I played in the Learn and Play sandbox and the other kids ostracized me

Yeah, its easy enough. Its cool to edit stuff. It would be really fun to actually go crazy with it, and try to make the pages look good. Like people even messing with other people's text to make it look uniform and organize the information. Even putting in links on someone's text to another page that has related information. I could see how it could get addictive editing a giant website. Also frustrating if some jerks kept messing with all your work. The pages look messy, noboby messes with other people's text, politeness I guess, but I think that's what you have to do to really take advantage of a wiki. But yeah, I added some favorite movies and tried linking a few to the quote page to add some favorite quotes. A sucessful excercise if I do say myself. Need I say more? Well I hope nottt because that's all there really is to the subject!

Web based appliances..toasters, ovens, and refrigerators, oh my!

Wouldn't that be cooler though? Web based appliances? Wouldnt it be awesome to not have to save that old turkey in your own refrigerator..but rather upload it on to the web..where you can share it with your bestest friends?

This is another tool that would've been useful to have at the beginning of my stint in college. I have had a few annoyances where I thought my paper was e-mailed to my professor and was all dandy..only to find out they couldn't open it. I like the idea of web based applications for basic things like word processing, power point, and spreadsheets. We shouldn't really have to clutter up are computers with programs for such basic functions..and on top of that have to worry about which version of the software one has. I would definitly use this. I have never used power point..i've never had the software..but it would be really cool to make a presentation..and be able to show it anywhere I go by simply hopping on the internet. I also made a mini presentation that i started on and sent it to a friend to collaborate...The project is secret. Only they would understand....

I've had a lot of times where customer's documents they had on disc couldn't be read by the current software version on our computers..so they had to wait for a software update to download. It would also be a handy tool for saving their work if they don't happen to have a way to save their work. Usually if they can't buy a floppy, I suggest they e-mail it to themselves..but this would be a lot more effective.

Cool.

Wiki wiki, what!

I didn't know that wiki was a format for a whole wealth of things, I just thought there was wikipedia, a web encyclopedia edited by the public. Well, we all know that one thing wikis have problems with is vandalism, since anyone can (unless there are restrictions put in place) make their own entries on a wiki. This was quite evident when Stephen Colbert insisted his audience make an entry about bears on wikipedia..or something. I'm not sure that was it, but suffice it to say, the webmasters were none to happy.

I have to agree with the comment someone made about the library wiki examples that were put up on Learn and Play: They are quite unattractive. I wasn't inclined to browse these wikis..they were boring. I think that's the problem with how this excercise was thought out...unless you are involved with the Wiki yourself, a Wiki is probably just going to look like a boring, poorly thought out website. Well..that's not true..wikipedia is very entertaining. It's just that i don't think with these examples we were shown the true potential of wikis.

I thought of an interesting wiki we could create for our library, though. It would involve having entries about issues that we get asked about by customers involving the internet computers. Questions like: putting music on to an mp3 player, questions about particular websites, and so forth. It could be a wiki where we enter topics as they come up, and then patrons can view the wiki to see if their issue is covered. Wouldn't that be cool!??!

Stuck in web 2.0 with a giant rss feed coming to eat me!

One of the concepts that was touched upon in a few of the perspectives was how a librarian would evolve along with technology. Wendy Schultz put forth the idea of "collecting librarians" in order have them help one locate, compare, and provide perspective on information. That's an interesting concept, with less and less emphasis on having a print collection, librarians might the only type of employee from a library that would still have a job in that sort of world. Ohhhh, you self-serving librarians. JOKING. Or am I??

I think we're a long way from printed material and library services being obsolete because one of the principal reasons people use the libraries that wasn't touched upon is that its an affordable way to for people to access information. A lot of people still don't have computers, and the library is the best place to find what one is looking for. As internet computers have been integrated into the library experience there has already been some shift in how we help patrons. Customers increasingly need help with computer, and internet applications, like how to write a resume...or play Halo (which I am really curious about...where are all those kids playing the first Halo for free at?).

The question is, when print collections do become obsolete..how will the library distribute and purchase materials? With the shift to completely digital information we would no longer have an issue with limited collections, thus we wouldn't have to impose limited loan periods. Yet as we do live in a capitalist society (which maybe with all this economic bailout bussiness we're finally learning a lesson about having a free market) there is an issue of copyrighted material. Obviously publishers wouldn't be happy about libraries purchasing materials once, and than distributing them an unlimited number of times, for indefinite periods.
This problem already comes up in a way: a lot of kids ask how to download songs with file sharing programs..which I guess we're probably not supposed to do. So i think it would be necessary for the library to get involved with digital music, and other multimedia in someway..or another. Not that I care...you capitalists.....

Bookmark this...jerkface!

Aye. This looks like it could be quite useful. One thing I might use more it for rather than saving bookmarks, is for finding sites. It would be a good alternative to search engines like google if you search by tags. You would know the sites you find are at least useful to someone. Also, if you find someone who has a particular bookmarked site you like, you can see what other kind of sites they have bookmarked. I don't usually bookmark sites, I don't usually come across that many that I would either want to save, or would have trouble remembering.

The research aspect is intriguing..but you would have to be organized, and be the social networking type to get something together. However, if find people that know what they're doing, it could be useful, since it's hard to find reputable information on the internet that a college professor would accept as a resource.

Would've been a good resource back in the day of trying to find "punch Rush Limbaugh in the face" flash games.