Spring Cleaning #30 Take a load off our drives

1) I deleted from the s drive the file I had placed there 2 weeks ago for a dog training program.

2) I looked over the p drive and did delete a few items. Overall, I have been fairly judicious about what I place there to begin with.

3 & 4) Deleting items from my personal z file is a work in progress! So many files - so little time! My oldest file was from 2003, the year I started working for HCPL. I didn't find I was more organized than I thought - I found I needed to delete lots of files!

Spring Cleaning #29

1) I already have personal email accounts.

2) I also already have set up folders for my work account - I found out fairly quickly that if I everwanted to find an email again, I better start organizing!

3)I must admit I never set up my address book. The good news about that is that I don't have to clean it up!

4) I will try to become even more diligent about deleting unwanted emails - since I have learned about how much space attachments take, I will be especially careful in the future to delete or move those emails.

Spring Cleaning #28

I signed up for Remember the Milk since I do have a penchant for writing lists and then leaving them. I can see where this website could be handy - it does look like it would take a great deal of time, however, to set everything up on this website.

I liked some of the hints for GTD - especially the one about the 2 minute rule. I can see implementing that. I already do alot of those hints and do try to review and delete email often.

Sound #26 Making (or Listening) to Music Together:

I did visit each music networking site listed and looks like what they offer are ways to allow people who are really into music to get even more into music! Now I see how it happens that people can add music into their facebook and other accounts.

Since I share the same carrier for my cell phone as other family members, I thought I would sign up for Phling!, but really was not wild about my cell phone number being on the application, so opted instead to join Mog. Sorry to say, but don’t really think I’ll be using Mog, either. Boy, do I feel old! (But informed!)

Sound #25 Am I a music pirate?

First of all, let me make one thing clear – I am not a music pirate! I am quite content listening to whatever comes on the radio, so this exercise was truly new for me.

I did have difficulty following the directions from Harriet, but then again, it was all new. With the help of a coworker, I did download my saved song to a cd. (Seems like the options to click were in different places than shown on the directions, but I know that all it takes is one misstep and poof! you’re on a different screen.)

Occasionally, I’ll save something to a cd and of course, listen to music or books on cd.

The discussion about sharing music online and copyright is very interesting. I can certainly understand the benefit that musicians and songwriters get from strict copyright enforcement and tend to agree with them – they do need to make a living. Enforcement is just a very difficult thing.

Sound #24 The Sound of Music

I looked at the different types of pay sites for downloadable music –starting prices ran from $6.00/month (Yahoo Music) to $12.99/mo (Rhapsody). Napster had the least impressive webpage, especially compared to Yahoo, which sucks you in with all the interesting things to click on. I don’t have an Ipod, so ITunes did not have a lot of appeal. Rhapsody had some possibilties…

I downloaded the song, “Sing Again” by Chris Walla to the computer and then to a MP3 player and checked to see that KILT (the station I play in the car while commuting) does allow listening through their website.

I was blown away (again!) by the options provided through the internet for sound. Downloading was painless and I’m glad I went through the process to see what all the fuss (music downloading) has been all about.

Week 10 #23

My favorite exercise (most fun) was using online image generators, in particular, Meez.
The exercise that I have personally found the most useful so far is bloglines – being able to efficiently keep up with different websites is a real time saver. There are many other exercises I was really impressed with, such as Flickr, Library Thing, Library Elf, and Zoho.

This program reinforced what I always knew – that you should never stop learning. When library work is your profession, this is especially true. It is so important that we are familiar with coming technology. If we are not expert at it, at least we should be aware of the basics.

I came away with unexpected outcomes – I was really expecting just to learn about things like My Space and You Tube, sites which I really didn’t anticipate using much, if at all. However, I was pleasantly surprised to learn so much more, such as the sites mentioned above, which I think are immensely useful.

As far using these technologies at HCPL, as a reference librarian I can readily see suggesting a source such as Zoho to patrons working on documents on our pcs. Also suggesting sites such as Library Thing, Library Elf, and Flickr. The system is already using Biblioicious and Flickr and there’s an ebranch blog. There’s a possibility we could have more blogs, but monitoring and time can be issues.

What else do I want to learn about? Everything! You don’t know what you don’t know, and just as I was not aware of many of these sites and technologies, I’m sure there are many more out there and many more to come. Bring them on!