Here some random information that you don’t really need.....

When I was in High school I developed a new take on procrastination. Whenever I had an assignment in English to complete I used to take ages and think about it, feeling guilty all the while without getting any work done. My theory was that I was developing the idea in my brain until the very last hour.

This exercise in web 2.0 round 2 has taught me that I haven’t really learnt anything or changed much :). I decided to do all the exercises 1^st and then just blog about them all together (in separate posts of course). It’s not the doing that’s hard it’s the blogging (well for me anyway). On the bright side I got it done and not at the very last minute.

Awesome was

Tastespotting...thanks for forcing on us a delicious break although it did make me really hungry at work

The generally super clear instructions

The people who have read or are reading my rambling (even if you were forced to)

Difficult was

That the links didn’t open to a new webpage (or tab)....I ended up spending a lot of time clicking back (my brain doesn’t hold thoughts very well)

As mentioned previously I am easily distracted by pretty colours……hence I really enjoyed the navigation on Encompass Culture. I really like the compass with the floating titles and topics. Although the way the results were presented was a slight letdown after all that. I did however like that it gave age groups for children’s books as this is something i struggle with when recommending to children.

This is definitely a useful website for reader’s advisory and I probably would recommend it to customers. I would use this website again as part of work and to assist in customer enquiry. On a personal note I prefer the good reads website although the searching is not nearly as enjoyable. This might change with further exploration of the website.

Yay six weeks completed and now the only thing to contemplate is what image to use for my final post (and yes I do contemplate these things :)).....Are we having another round?

Slideshare is an interesting concept for a website. It was relatively easy to navigate. I was surprised at how many presentations there were relating to libraries and to Web 2.0. Here are a couple of presentations I found interesting (Be warned I am easily distracted by pretty colours)

Beautiful Libraries in the World
Next-Gen Libraries

Although it is useful I would probably only recommend it customers in response to a query. I do however think that I would recommend it to customers perhaps not as a slide sharing website but as a source example slideshow presentations

I probably won’t join or use this website to share presentations unless I was promoted to perhaps by someone who had already joined the website or wanted to share a presentation.

How many ways are there of saying delicious? I didn’t even mind registering for this website …....it was just so yum

I would definitely use this site again and will introduce my family and friends interested in cooking to it as well as a source of inspiration and recipes

We have learned a lot about websites directly related to work but it is nice and refreshing to deviate completely now and then.From a work prospective I would recommend Tastespotting to customers who like cook books

Everything was so delish looking it was hard to decide but just loved this image and description of recipe.

I love the tagline to Feed My Inbox “RSS made easy” and surprisingly enough it was. I was apprehensive at first and it did not help that unfortunately the tutorial video did not seem to want to play but it seemed doable or so I thought and I went for it. The website is actually quite easy to use and understand.

I was being blonde all around so I also didn’t read the instructions well and tried to add all the library blogs suggested instead of just 1. Of course being on the free account it inactivated the sixth blog that I added. Which brings me to my main point only 5 feeds being free makes me reluctant to return to the website. It seems quite restrictive and I (not a fan of RSS at the best of times) just can’t be bothered. Also not to whinge too much but It doesn’t even send an email to confirm that the feeds will start (that might be just me)

I think I would only recommend this site to customers who had this specific query (none so far but you never know). It does have the plus of being easier to explain

I enjoyed Picapp but probably for the wrong reason entirely. It was fun to type in words and look at different associated images. For example typing Cat got me lots of images of a CAT scan and not so many cats. I do like that the website offers options of searching editorial or creative pictures

I have to admit it is a good website for searching for people. Personally I am not currently at the stage where I worry about picture copyright for my blog (should I be worried???) so Google images is much easier and more rewarding at moment. Though in saying that it is a good source when trying to find celebrities and I would use it if I needed non copyrighted images. I would also recommend it to customers looking for non copyrighted images.

For my image of choice I decided to Creative search for dragons. I really liked this particular one sitting and guarding the building (I need to get me one of these :) )

I had a relatively good experience with Box.net. The sign up was quick and easy except that they wanted phone contact details. Did anyone else find that strange??? For some reason I find it okay to give out my email address at random but pause to give out my phone details over the internet (probably just another paranoia of mine). Uploading was also quick and easy for me….though I think that was just pure luck listening to some of the stories.

The only other major detail for Box.net was the amount of storage up on offer. I am anticipating that 1 Gigabyte of storage might run out a bit too soon. I probably won’t use the site again due to the storage issue. I currently recommend Google Docs to patrons but it is good to have options

Yeah I do realise this is a weird post but it seemed strange to start without mentioning that it’s the start of another round....Am I right :)

Zamzar Revisited

Nope I didn't suddenly realise that I was made to blog but I thought before I abandoned blogging I should share the first question I got asked relevant to the web 2.0…..Strangely enough it was to do with Zamzar (Who saw this coming I was almost sure it would be Facebook ^_^ )

I had a customer ask me to help her convert an Open Office file (a free downloadable alternative to Microsoft Office) to a .doc so she could make changes before printing. The customer suggested the Zamzar website and was quite willing to pay for email to retrieve the document.

After several attempts to upload files onto Zamzar I stumbled onto http://www.freefileconvert.com/. Not only did it work faster but you don’t need email to download the converted file.

I don’t know what to write my final post, although that’s mainly my fault because I am doing the final post a week later instead of immediately after finishing.

So here goes

The Good

This web 2.0 was blissfully short….thanks for that ^_^

I found the instructions easy to follow and it was well organised (Thanks, made life very much easier)

The lessons were varied and definitely included things that I wouldn’t have done if I hadn’t been forced to for example Twitter (Is that a good thing thou?)

I know at least 2 people read my posts which was nice even if they were both from Manukau Libraries and sorta had to (my blogging was not in vain)….Thanks Tosca and Zoe

The Bad

I only have 2 followers in a library filled with staff (How sad is that???)

Some of tasks I felt weren’t as relevant for example I have never been asked about Twitter (nope not once but hey it could happen)

It was annoyingly hard for me to find the Manukau Libraries web 2.0 blog address

And The Ugly

Nothing that bad really….no really ^_^

And my 2 cents I am really glad that I didn’t drag out this lot of tasks for web 2.0 learning (made me whinge a whole bunch less) and it would be really useful to look at online sharing websites.

Okay will see everyone in blogging world next time I am forced to ^_^

Bye

Facebook...... even I am a member and I am slightly paranoid when it comes to sharing all the teeny tiny details of my oh not so exciting life with the world at large. Being a member helped because of course I didn’t have to go through the signing up process. I had a slightly harder time trying to find a library to check out their updates (shows how much time I spend on Facebook :)). The Library of Congress basically updates different events taking place at certain times at the library and some additions. Some libraries also had links to free downloadable ebooks.

Facebook is one of the sites that customers use daily. Having a Facebook account for Manukau Libraries makes us more connected with patrons, definitely worth promoting :).

Hi......almost done, made it to the fifth week task and without too much frustration. This week we have to explore the best kind of music and mp3’s..... the free kind. The first website I looked at was MP3Raid.com which I have to admit I really didn’t like. The website was too busy without a clear layout and just made me annoyed. I couldn’t leave it at such a bad note so I looked at another few including Amazon MP3 Store and Purevolume.com both of which I quite liked. Purevolume.com was especially great mainly because I didn’t have to sign up to listen to free mp3’s and I even managed to find a Paramore track on it.

There is a wide variety of websites on the list ......many of which i didn’t know about. Ease of use for customers depends on individual websites and it’s good to know a couple in order to make recommendations. Onward to week 6

I think good reads is a really good concept....It a formalised version of what I generally do when I am trying to find new authors to read “see what other titles people with a similar taste to mine are reading”. I did take the tour but I decided not sign up for it, at least not yet (will decide in another week). Something I particularly liked about the website was the popular lists which included “Best Teen Vampire Fiction” (we all could have done with this one) which was compiled from votes of more than 1000 members. Conclusion: a useful website for readers’ advisory.

This is probably one of the websites I would recommend to customers for not only finding new authors to read but also keeping track of the books which they have read and which they are looking forward to reading. I do think that this website has many similarities with the new Manukau Libaries websites which is a great direction for us.

I clicked....I signed up and I tweeted. Also I may never tweet again. Don’t get me wrong I amazed by the enormity of twitter and the sheer amount of stuff that can be shared through twittering but I personally don’t want to share everything that happens in my life with everyone else. I am also pretty sure that I am not alone in this sentiment or that everyone else feels the same. That is not to say that I won’t use twitter..... I have actually quite enjoyed reading the tweets of the people and organisations I am following.

Twitter was easy to use and I don’t regret signing up it (in case a patron asks not that anyone has yet). I have to admit I like the concept of micro blogging (all the power with fewer words).Manukau libraries is already promoting the newish website and posting links of reviews on the library website. It would also be really great for notices such as vacancies and changes in opening hours during public holidays. That’s it for week 3 ^_^

Zamzar, I really like the name....apparently it based on the name of the main character of a novel. As for the website itself....it was very easy to use. The conversion was on the home page and it took approximately 3 minutes to convert and receive it in my email address. I think it would be useful in our workrooms but perhaps not as much in our learn nets as you have to receive the document link in your email.

I probably would use it again and promote it and similar sites such as http://www.youconvertit.com/ to customers willing to use email to get the converted document

I’m back ^_^ (Okay would have been a really good starting statement had anyone actually missed me) but here we are…..

We have progressed (and I use the word loosely) from Web 2.0 to Learning 2.0. Good news this is only 6 weeks which is actually really great… better to keep up and much easier to keep track of things I have and more likely haven’t done.

I decided to use my old Blogger account which worked out great once I remembered my password ^_^. I did decide to set up a new Blog “More Words of Misery’…. (Not much thought process required there). The great thing about using an old account is that you don’t have to go through choosing names which you are just going to hate anyway :)

My expectations this time around is to complete tasks each week instead of trying to squeeze everything together and to definitely use at least half the things I learn and not forget that they exist when the blog is done.

I think blogs are a really useful way of sharing thoughts and information. Next Reads and New Books would make a really great blog subject for libraries.

Emailed through my blog to share the insanity and checked out the blog register and week 1 is done