Week 9: #21 Podcasts, Smodcasts!

Explored with all three of the podcast directories and PodcastAlley was my favorite of the three but the way I've found all of the podcasts I subscribed to already, before this exercise, was through the organization's website. For example, National Public Radio was where I went to subscribe to StoryCorps. At recording booths across America, everyday people interview one another about their lives. StoryCorps creator Dave Isay showcases these first-person stories in this weekly podcast. StoryCorps airs Fridays on NPR's Morning Edition. They are a quick listen. I found some library podcasts but none of them posted on what I would consider a regular enough basis to consider subscribing to them. I looked at the list of the top 50 podcasts on PodcastAlley and didn't find much of anything worth listening to. I found some neat podcasts in German which my daughter and her German teacher might be interested in so I created a list of about 6 or 7 of them and emailed the web addresses to them. For now though I am off to go read my book club book, Love in the Time of Cholera.

Found New Reference Tool

GPO Creates Its First Ever On-Line Guide To Members Of Congress
This website has easy to search information on all Members of Congress. A simple click will bring the user to a picture and biography of any current member of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate. This information previously was available in separate databases, but now can be accessed from one central point.

Call Me Ishmael

Michael Rogers' article “To the Last I Grapple with Thee" brings to our attention that "today marks the 156th anniversary of Moby Dick’s publication." Check out his article for some interesting information about Herman Melville.

Ken Burns at the Wortham Center in Houston

Went to see Ken Burns speak tonight at the Wortham Center. We had a lovely dinner at Birraporetti's (alittle on the pricy side for food that was just ok. The service was good and very friendly). It was still a nice evening to walk around downtown, have dinner with just my husband and then go to hear Ken Burns speak.
The Huntsville Men's Choir opened the evening with some wonderful music which was capped off with a tear jerking playing of Taps on the trumpet. Everything Mr. Burns had to say was exactly what I think we as Americans need to hear today. The two things that resonated with me the most were:
He mentioned something Arthur Schlesinger Jr. once said. He said, "There's too much pluribus and not enough unum." And he believes that embedded in the endlessly fascinating stories of the Second World War is a sense of what unum means. He also quoted Abraham Lincoln's First Inaugural Address as the most perfect sentence ever:
"The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."
Make sure you catch The War the next time it airs on PBS.

Week 9: #20 Discover YouTube and other video sharing sites

Again my daughters have shown me many videos from YouTube - a particularly fun one was the Cupid Shuffle. We were doing the cupid shuffle everywhere for days. Another one of our favorites was part of our book club discussion one night, yes as you can see our topics of conversation sometimes really get away from our book! This one is called Vietnamese Beauty Salon Lady.
One of my favorite things to share is Stupid in America which you can find on YouTube but I have found a better quality version on viddler.com. I think everyone should know about the things they discuss in this episode of 20/20 about the educational system today. I'll warn you now, some of the things that go on today in our schools will make you hot.
And lastly I was particularly intrigued by the place the internet in general is playing in the 2008 election. There is an incredible document called The 51st State: The State of Online By Shirl Kennedy, Senior Editor, from the November/December 2007 edition of Searcher, The Magazine for Database Professionals. This is a pdf document with LIVE Links which means it offers a click-through page containing all the live links mentioned, there is no need to retype URLs. You’ll find information about online fundraising, political blogs and discussion forums, how candidates are making of use of social networking tools, and how the mainstream media is using the Web to cover the 2008 election. A detailed chart compares the features of major candidates’ websites, and includes links to candidates’ pages on social networking sites like FaceBook, MySpace, Flickr and YouTube. Steve Grove, head of YouTube's news and politics section, says this: "These YouTube questions -- a lot of them, anyway -- are intimate, emotional, personal. That person is in his/her surrounding, and that person is bringing you into their world, their reality. That makes it a very powerful experience." I think this could possibly give the candidates a whole new perspective on who they are representing.
Stupid in America as seen on YouTube:

Just in time for the Holidays!

I was at Kroger the other afternoon getting groceries for that evenings dinner on my way home from work when I found myself absently tapping my heels to the music when a fellow shopper pointed out I was doing so to Christmas music and how she couldn't believe they were playing Christmas music already.

Because I am having trouble sleeping (for which I know I'll be sorry tomorrow) I found a searchable database of lyrics for more than 120 Christmas Carols. AskSam has created a database to search the full text of some of the most popular Christmas carol lyrics. You can search and view both online and offline(via a free download).

So if you are like me and can't sleep download those lyrics and make your own songbooks for your Christmas caroling this season. Do you do that (Christmas carol) in Texas? It just doesn't seem right without the winter coats, mittens and SNOW!

My Video

Week 8: #19 Take Two

And this is my blog entry using Zoho Writer:

Discovery Exercise:

1. Create a free account for yourself in Zoho Writer. Account Created
2. Explore the site and create a few test documents. Created several test documents and this blog posting too!
3. Try out Zoho Writer's features and create a blog post about your discoveries.

This was very easy to figure out - if you can use Microsoft Word you can use Zoho Writer.

I can also still imbed web links in my blog posting just like I do when I type my posting from my blog.

Week 8: #19 Web-based Apps: They're not just for desktops

I tried Google Docs to make a blog entry using their document creator.

I found this webpage http://www.google.com/google-d-s/intl/en/tour5.html in the tour of google docs and read about some of the ways that people are using online applications and only then did I truly understand the value as it applied to my life. In particular I liked the following:

From Frank, ardent member of Red Sox Nation I am a Red Sox season ticket holder who moved to St. Louis. Although I can't make it to Fenway more than a few times per year any more, I've kept my season tickets and let my family and friends buy them. Historically I created an Excel spreadsheet and e-mailed it to one person at a time, but it was always a hassle waiting for someone to pick their games before being able to send it on to the next person. I'd get calls from people demanding the spreadsheet, and I'd have to say "you're third in line, be patient". Or people would be miffed that they didn't get the spreadsheet earlier (where are all the Yankee games? Why are all the Saturday games taken? How come you sent it to him before me?). With [Google Docs] the logistics are far simpler, now I can just e-mail everyone and let them pick whatever games are available. And instead of the process dragging out for months, I wouldn't be surprised if this year it takes a week.

From Ken Leebow, Author: 300 Incredible Things to Do on the Internet book series Just wanted to let you know how much I enjoy using [Google Docs]. I'm looking forward to the day when all my applications are online. As an author who does a tremendous amount of research on the Internet, during the day, I am at several different computers. By using [Google Docs], no matter where I am, I have a current copy of my books in process. It has increased my productivity because whenever I have an idea or information to place in the book, I just go to the nearest computer. In addition to always having a current copy online, I can share the book with my editor. Thus we are always working on one copy and it is always current. Thanks for providing this service.

I also just purchased each of my girls a flash drive for school as they are no longer allowed to use discs. How easy would this be to create a document at school using one of these online services and save it and then be able to access it from the library, from home or a friends' house. I think the school would even benefit from this situation but then I am wondering if the filters at the schools would block these services?

I think this would also be beneficial for our patrons because I have many who have difficulty creating a word document on one of the public computers and then being able to save the document to a disc (and these users don't even know what a flash drive is yet) and before you know it their time on the computer is up as they have waited to long trying to decide wether or not to ask for assistance. These services would be great because their document would be on the internet accessible without any additional hardware (flash drive, disc, etc.) even if the hour flew by without them noticing and they didn't get a chance to print it before their time was up. They don't even have to remember to click save as I see your document is automatically saved periodically while creating it. I look forward to the opportunity to show the right patron one of these services soon.

Week 8: #18 Social Networking: Making friends in the comfort of your own home

Social Networking is nothing new in our house since I have two teenage daughters I am a routine visitor to my daughters' MySpace pages and one of them has a Facebook page as well. I also created a Xanga page while in school pursuing my Masters' degree. I liked Xanga but I didn't keep up with the page after graduation. Alittle like this blog, I am wondering if I will keep it up after the exercises are completed. Maybe there could be some sort of exercises post Dec 21st that would be just for fun that might keep everyone blogging? I know I will miss reading the blogs of some of my talented co-workers.

I looked at Rate My Space on the HGTV site and enjoyed looking around there for a few minutes turned into hours and I loved Dogter: the dog lovers community.

I liked the Social Networking in Plain English Youtube video however I just don't think I am that interesting of a person to attract all those "people" to my network.

I took the tour of Facebook as well because I am not as familiar with Facebook as I am with MySpace and Xanga.

I was unable to acces the Newsweek article on the growth of Facebook but in my search for it I did find a rather interesting article on the 25 Hottest Schools which was of interest to me as a parent of a high school junior.

Not really sure why I would want a social networking site and a blog? so I didn't sign up for a social networking site.