Google Docs and Online Gaming...

Verdict: Both Addicting!

The picture above is of my favorite online game, Bookworm. I actually had the game installed on my computer a couple of years ago and had to dis-install it because I was spending waaay too much time at it. Another online site that I love is Garfield.com. The two treasure hunt games are such fun--what could be better than looking for donuts?

Back to Googledocs: I've used Googledocs for at least the last 2 years. I started because a laptop I had been using, that had a ton of writing and documents on it, completely crashed and there was no saving anything on it. Can you say pissed off?

Anyhow, discovering Googledocs was awesome. I have all sorts of documents saved on it, and learned how to do easy spreadsheets through it as well. Way easier than Excel IMO.

Another neat thingy I discovered through a coworker yesterday is Dropbox. It's an online storage "box" for your documents/photos/presentations that you can share with other people. You can even back up files to it, sync stuff... it's pretty neat and will be a lifesaver as I finish up my final paper for my MLIS!

YouTube Fun

I guess this video "dates" me, but I love the Little Rascals, always have.

Considering that sites like YouTube and Vimeo reach such a huge audience, and considering that virtually anyone, anywhere might see what you record, it could be useful and successful... or potentially your worst nightmare, depending on what you post and how you present it.

I could see libraries using YouTube to advertise Summer Reading for kids, for soliciting donations, for publishing book trailers (Our Teen librarian has created a few of them for us this year!) and perhaps even for just sharing the love of reading through a different media.

Podcasts and Webinars

Sorry I missed last week; I was taking a much-needed vacation. And luckily for me, I've done both of the items for last week! I have podcasted multiple times for my work and once for library school, and have attended webinars for work as well.

On to the next week...

So Many Things, So Little Time...

Wow, what a lot of things this week! Good thing I have done two of them already:

I used to use Yahoo! Messenger all the time several years back. What I loved best about it was the emoticon people, especially that grungy old guy that would yell "Oh, YEAH!" when you clicked on him. He was hilarious. My son loved the guy that puked.

Although I am not on GoodReads or LibraryThing, I have been on Shelfari for at least 2 years, maybe longer. It's very similar to the others and it is nice to have a virtual "shelf" of stuff that I have read. I usually don't post reviews, but I tag my favorites and rate the books as well.

As far as Facebook and Twitter are concerned, well... I have concerns about Facebook's security, and frankly, I'm pretty private. I will likely join twitter instead, but I'm trying to think of a cool theme or slogan for my account. Blank so far.

Need to look into the ALA thing some more. Maybe tomorrow.

Flickr, tagging and images, oh my!

First, the image (everyone say 'awww'):

Okay, now I'll start gabbing.

The above is from a needlework my mother did ages and ages ago. It's this big wildlife scene that's very detailed and sweet, with all different types of animals on it. The bunny happens to be my favorite one. Next image:

Some seasonal cuteness I did last fall. I discovered awhile back that I'm much better at smaller projects like this one because I actually stand a chance of completing them.

Now on to this weeks' assignments:

Though I have had a Flickr account for quite some time, I had forgotten about it. It was nice to re-visit and mess around with some of my pictures. Weird thing is that even though I reset my defaults to "anyone", as the assignment suggested, still some of my pictures were saying "visible to friends and family only". So I have to go to them one at a time and re-reset them individually I guess. Tagging was something I never thought of until I went through this assignment; it does make sense to put some kind of label on your images so if you want ONLY the shots of grandma but not the grand canyon, you can tag them as such and it will sort them out on a search.

I have played around before with a lot of the word imaging sites like Image Chef, etc... My personal favorite is Wordle, which creates word clouds out of your writing... it can be customized for font and color--just keep clicking! I had a lot of fun making my own mini lego guy too--there were WAY too many color and style choices, I could have played on that thing all afternoon.

Below I embedded a video of sorts onto this blog and it worked! Huzzah! Give a listen; it's truly one of the funniest things I've heard in the last year.

Movie Testing

Okay, I think this is going to work, and if so, huzzah! It's probably the funniest phone message I've ever heard.

Firefox and Wiki Wiki Wikis

I use Firefox all the time, at work and at home. While overall I like it, one complaint I have is that many times their updates "cannot be installed" for some reason or other when I try to install them. I now usually wait until they've sent me notices to upgrade this or that at least three or four times before I upgrade, because it never seems to work otherwise.

I had to participate in a wiki when I took my Access class in library school a couple of years ago. While the process was educational, the topics we had to wiki were BORING and I got really tired of posting to the wiki. Thankfully, once I had a grade, I could stop!

I've decided to create a wiki for 21 Things all about youth librarians' favorite topic: Summer Reading!! (I know, I know, try to contain yourselves, lol...)

I figure, Summer Reading never really ends. If you're not actively doing it, you're planning for it somehow. So why not have a wiki where ideas/thoughts/concerns/complaints/brainstorms/braindrizzles/eurekas can be shared?

Right now I'm waiting for PBWorks to send me my confirmation email so I can get started.

(checking her watch, checking her mail, tapping her foot...)

UPDATE: Here is a link to my Wiki: SummerReadingNeverEnds