As usual, I'm blocked by the firewall at school. You know how much inappropriate content is out there. Besides, can't you see the kids all surfing YouTube instead of working on their assignments? At home, I don't have enough bandwidth to make it easy to view videos. However, I'm at my sibling's house this weekend - and they have DSL! Speed and access...yippee!!!
Unfortunately, I am still unable to link anything to my blog...hmmmmm....oh well, at least I gave it the ol' college try. And got to watch some of my favorite commercials at the same time.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Thing #17 - ELM Productivity Tools
It's frustrating when you're trying to follow the directions and half of the things you're supposed to be doing for the first time don't work as advertised. I never could get the RSS feed link to appear in Cengage Learning. From reading the comments in the 23 Things blog, it looks like I'm not the only one. However, it did work for some people, so I can't say for sure which bugs me more. It makes me wonder what I'm doing wrong that it doesn't work...
The EBSCO Page Composer went pretty well, but why do I need to do it? I guess I didn't get the drift of this one. ProQuest is cool...I've used this one a few times already. The e-mail feature is cool -- you can e-mail your sources to a colleague or patron and save trees.
I couldn't find the correct book "101 Ways to Promote Your Website" in NetLibrary. So I chose another one of the titles that the search returned. The Notes feature is kinda cool. Again, you have the "stuff" you did in a previous search or dig at your fingertips.
These tools could be very helpful for a research librarian, especially if people ask the same questions over and over again.
The EBSCO Page Composer went pretty well, but why do I need to do it? I guess I didn't get the drift of this one. ProQuest is cool...I've used this one a few times already. The e-mail feature is cool -- you can e-mail your sources to a colleague or patron and save trees.
I couldn't find the correct book "101 Ways to Promote Your Website" in NetLibrary. So I chose another one of the titles that the search returned. The Notes feature is kinda cool. Again, you have the "stuff" you did in a previous search or dig at your fingertips.
These tools could be very helpful for a research librarian, especially if people ask the same questions over and over again.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Thing #16 - Student 2.0 Tools
Never do today what you can do tomorrow...wait, I'm supposed to not be procrastinating anymore. At least, that's what I told myself at New Years. I like the idea of having the assignment calculator spell out exactly what you need to do and when you need to have it done by. This tool could be invaluable for research papers and thesis paper writing. I do wish it was a little more customizable though. Maybe I'll have to dust off my rusty programming skills (they were never trusty though, trust me) and make my own. Maybe tomorrow...
Thing #15 - Online Games and Libraries
As usual, I'm blocked by the firewall at school and don't have enough bandwidth to do this at home. Online gaming is okay I guess, but I can definitely live quite well without it. I went to college with a guy that actually flunked out because he spent all his time online in a MMORPG (back in the day it was called 'mudding'). And as open-minded as I consider myself, I would definitely have a large problem with someone sitting for hours in my library sucking up valuable resources playing games.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Thing #14 - LibraryThing
LibraryThing is really easy to use! The only thing that bothers me is having my reading preferences out there for the whole world to see. Do you see a pattern of not liking to expose myself to the whole world? I can see this being useful for new book lists, lists of books being discarded and recommended reading lists. It also looks like a quick way to see what other people that have the same book are reading. I'm always looking for a new book to read =)
Thing #13 - Online Productivity Tools
Here's a scary thought...the deadline for 23 Things on a Stick put in black and white.
If I had to choose a new home page, I think I'd go with PageFlakes. I like the layout. As for the calendars, I can see applications if you're away from home. Also if you're working on a project with other people in different locations. Personally, I prefer to have my calendar in easy-to-grab planner form that slips in my bag. Same goes for the to-do lists. I don't want to write it down on paper and then have to transfer it to computer. Guess one could say that I'm not dependent on technology to survive. Pen and paper are still well-used friends of mine.
The Zamzar file converter looks like a nice tool. I'll experiment with it to see if it works as advertised.
If I had to choose a new home page, I think I'd go with PageFlakes. I like the layout. As for the calendars, I can see applications if you're away from home. Also if you're working on a project with other people in different locations. Personally, I prefer to have my calendar in easy-to-grab planner form that slips in my bag. Same goes for the to-do lists. I don't want to write it down on paper and then have to transfer it to computer. Guess one could say that I'm not dependent on technology to survive. Pen and paper are still well-used friends of mine.
The Zamzar file converter looks like a nice tool. I'll experiment with it to see if it works as advertised.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Thing #12 - Do You Digg?
I am definitely not digging Digg...or at least sharing something in it. They seem to want your whole life's history (or at least your vital statistics) to register and then you can't "Digg it" because you're not logged in. And reddit has a fit if it thinks you're clicking or typing too fast...here's the error message I got: "...too fast. Try again in 9 minutes." Like I'm going to wait nine minutes to share it again. I'm moving on to the next thing.
I think right now these tools are more of a productivity detractor. I know I spent more time clicking on stuff, especially in reddit to figure out what it really pertained to than actually reading the articles. And of course, like everything else, it's a popularity contest for these services. If your article is getting read by lots of people, it moves up the list and is easier to find. If not, then it moves down the list, making it more difficult for people to find.
I think right now these tools are more of a productivity detractor. I know I spent more time clicking on stuff, especially in reddit to figure out what it really pertained to than actually reading the articles. And of course, like everything else, it's a popularity contest for these services. If your article is getting read by lots of people, it moves up the list and is easier to find. If not, then it moves down the list, making it more difficult for people to find.
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