Thing of the Month: All Consuming

This looks like it could be fun if I ever have the time to use it. I was dismayed to find that the information I was entering did not post correctly. I said I was consuming the Venetian Betrayal by Steve Berry. It shows correctly when you search it, but when it posts what I am consuming it says I am consuming the Venetian League by Steve Berry. Oh well. I am still extremely busy here at work so I don't know when I will get a chance to explore in depth. Anyway, I liked it. It looks really cool!

Thing #23 - the end or the beginning?

My favorite discovery by far was Pandora. I will use it everyday. Flickr is another discovery that I will most likely use a lot.
I think this was a wonderful "1.0" edition of learning about new technology. I hope we will do this again. I think we can improve this experience by not trying to cram so much into each week. How about only doing one thing per week next time? It may be too slow for some, but I feel we need to go much slower in order to have the maximum staff participation through to the end of the program. I would also encourage one of the first steps of the next learning experience being to create an identity online that would only be used for the library exercises so we wouldn't be "putting ourselves out there" on the web as much as we had to for this program. If I had known where this was going, I would have made up an identity with a Yahoo email address so I could remain anonymous.
If you offered another discovery program like this in the future, I would most likely participate. However, it would be important to me to remain anonymous to staff with the exception of the people administering the program. I would also suggest a less busy time of the year for the program. Thank you to all who worked so hard to make this discovery process a reality.
Now I am done! I have completed all 23 things.

Thing #22 - Audiobooks (or "The end is in sight")

I personally will not be a user of LibriVOX. It is great if you want to read books in the public domain, but I read most of those when I was in school. I did a test download of one of the titles several months ago and the sound quality was good. However the book downloaded in many parts instead of just one or two. At this time, I would rather rip the CD's from a book on CD that I have borrowed from the library and load it into my iPOD for listening if it is a title that I don't want to buy. If it is a title I do want to buy, Audible.com is a great way to buy audio books. I downloaded World Without Us and am enjoying it immensely.

Thing #21 - Podcasts, Smodcasts!

Ok, now you're talkin'. Podcasts are almost an addiction for me. I subscribe to many and I am always looking for new ones of interest. There is so much content out there! Granted, not all of it is quality. The most difficult task for me is to search out the good stuff. For this exercise I went to Podcastalley.com and added Knox County Public Library's Podcast to my RSS feed. This is a new podcast so I wanted to give them some support. I long ago subscribed to Pierce County Library News through my RSS feed. The discovery exercise asks "Did you find anything useful here?" My problem is that I find way too much that is useful! It is difficult to find the time to listen to it all. I must join a 12 step program. Hmmmm, do you think they have a podcast for that?

Thing #20 - Downloadable music at Spokane Public Library

This was fun! I had not yet investigated this resource, but I really enjoyed my couple of minutes exploration. I will definitely be back. There is a lot of music I enjoy listening to that I do not own. It is wonderful that on a lunch or break I can whip out my headphones and enjoy some soothing tones. What a great way to explore music that I might want to add to my personal library. Thanks Debra for ordering this. I will be visiting this site often in the future.

Thing #19 - Discovering Web 2.0 tools

Oh no. I have been sucked in by "The Goog". The site I decided to visit/explore was Start Pages - Personalized Google. I like my privacy so I have stayed away from the evil Google because they save every bit of information about you and use it to target the advertisements you see. I just don't like that idea very much. I hate knowing that there is so much information out there about me already. I know I am just fooling myself that by withholding information online I am keeping a bit of myself to myself. Anyway is 5 seconds flat I made a personalized homepage that I LOVE. It was automatically linked to my blog. I have to admit it is pretty cool. Now that the Goog has me in its evil clutches, I might even use some of the apps that I have been refusing to use due to privacy issues. Privacy, what privacy?

Thing #18 - Online Applications and Tools

Here I am again 2 weeks behind. Sigh. Zoho Writer actually looked like something I might actually use after this exercise is all over. I love the versatility of the program but best of all it is FREE. Who needs to spend a bag of money on spreadsheet or word processing programs when these free programs offer so much? I plan of exploring Zoho Planner in depth on my own time. On to thing #19.