Great Blog Jenisfamous

I'm not sure how I came across this blog http://www.jenisfamous.com/blog.html but I'm finding it fascinating reading. It has nothing to do with libraries or the Internet but is just plain fun. Jenisfamous is a comedienne who also has considerable writing experience. Many bloggers try to get messages across or just ramble through their thoughts but this blog has something about it that makes it different.

Web 2.0 Search

I've been having fun with Web 2.0 but didn't realise that it had spawned so many new search engines. How is a gal supposed to keep up? This list of the Top 25 Web 2.0 Search Engines published by OEDB is an eye-opener. The names, the applications, are all quite delicious (now where have I seen that word before?) and range through mashups, picture search, video search, tag clouds, social networks - and that only in the top 25!

Just Google it

Looking at last weekend's Dilbert comic strip I was reminded of a minor furore caused by a comment by West Australia's Education Minister last year Don’t learn it, just Google it: Ravlich.
Before emigrating to Australia I taught geography, English and art in schools in South Africa's Transvaal and Natal and, in order to get a post here, had also to teach history (with no previous knowledge of Australian history whatsoever), politics (ditto), law (ditto) and other social sciences. One thing my crash course in those subjects did achieve was give me a better background knowledge about my new country than many Australians. When I decided to leave teaching and obtain my Librarian's diploma some of that knowledge stood me in good stead as my first position was in a law library. I doubt if I could have swung that by a reliance on Google.

Lapse in fundamental Google product

Laughed myself silly over this comment on the latest Google flatline.

Open Source Software

Recently I had to clean up my old laptop and reload all the programmes. I do actually have legal copies of everything but get annoyed that, after uploading from a legal disc, I still have register various Windows programmes. I'm seriously considering ditching the Microsoft Office Suite altogether and switching to free, open-source software. Zoho has been well recommended in many blogs and I want to try that. The only problem is that my computer-challenged husband wouldn't trust anything that that he doesn't already use. When I downloaded Firefox to his snazzy, up-to-date laptop his comment was that he didn't need Firefox, all he wanted was Google!!

Open Source Teaching and Learning

OER Commons is a teaching and learning network offering a broad selection of materials that are free and open to use.
Subject areas currently covered are Arts, Business, Humanities, Mathematics and Statistics, Science and Technology and Social Sciences and the resources are divided into Primary, Secondary and Post-secondary levels. When I looked the top sites were:
Evolution 101,Case Studies in Terrorism Response, Masses & Springs, Introduction to Music Theory and Causal Reasoning.

Library TV

Library TV is a blog for exploring video as a training and promotional tool for libraries, on the web and in television. It is much more specific than this blog in which I sometimes ramble on about unrelated subjects with the excuse that this is really a place for me to communicate stuff that I think might interest friends and colleagues, though it did start with a specific purpose.

Internet Resources Newsletter

I love Roddy McLeod's Internet Resources Newsletter. It comes out regularly once a month and contains a good variety of interesting items; so much that I'm not going to pick any in particular but urge you to read it for yourself.

Articles from Research Buzz

Research Buzz points the reader to articles about a metasearch engine Zuula (Metasearch Engine Zuula Searches Useful Sites) and some new blog search engines (The State of Blog Search Engines: Depressing)

Feeling Cranky

I can't really say what my feelings were when I came across this search engine specially for folks over 50, http://www.cranky.com. Are we all cranky? Are we so illiterate computer-wise that we need to have things made easier? Are references to things that interest us not available on the major search engines? The top items of interest listed were

1. sex
2. jobs after retirement
3. travel
4. brain builders
5. arthritis

If I wanted to find out about any of those I'm sure there are other sites I would turn to first.

I'm back

After 5 weeks summer holiday I am back at work. I didn't go away but made the most of Perth's gorgeous beaches only a few minutes drive from my home. The only time I touched a computer was to play Morrowind which I am finding quite addictive.

My Bloglines feed box was full and I am slowly sifting through it to add useful things to this blog. Firefox makes it so easy to open several tabs at once that it's only when my screen becomes too full or I have to leave the PC to do something else that I have been saving to Deli.cio.us.

Flow Charts on Gliffy

“Whether you’re creating flow charts, floor plans, or pretty much anything you’d consider a diagram, Gliffy actually looks like it can handle it.”
“This is really cool if you’re looking to share flowcharts"
http://www.gliffy.com

Library & Medical Blog Search Tools

LibWorm: An RSS based search tool searching library blogs and feeds & MedWorm for health and medical feeds. Thanks to ResourceShelf for noting this.

LibWorm is an RSS search engine specifically for library sites. They have over 1000 RSS feeds that they index. It is a really handy way to quickly look for a subject and find out if the biblioblogosphere has been discussing it. You can also browse by categories or specific subjects, handily each category and subject has its own feed. This means that you can subscribe to a subject like library 2.0 and have all those posts delivered directly to you!

More about RSS Feeds

Found two good entries about RSS in Marshall's Web Tool Blog; they are My intro to RSS and Teaching RSS: A Discussion. RSS is a difficult concept to explain but Marshall has some great suggestions. He also advises how to organise your feeds into folders and spend less time reading the less important feeds.

LRSN Forum presentation

"Blogs, Wickis and Other Stuff"

Getting started with RSS http://frl.bluehighways.com/frlarchives/000123.html

Blogs

Library Stuff http://www.librarystuff.net

LISNews http://www.lisnews.com

Resourceshelf http://www.resourceshelf.com

The Shifted Librarian http://www.theshiftedlibrarian.com

Librarian.net http://www.librarian.net

Swan TAFE http://www.blogger.com/posts.g?blogID=30672805

http://www.icvet.tafensw.edu.au/resources/blogs.htm Updated by Steven Parker, TAFE NSW Illawarra Institute

How to Start a Blog
http://www.windley.com/essays/2004/how_to_start_a_blog.shtml

Blog Software Breakdown --

http://www.asymptomatic.net/blogbreakdown.htm

Why and How to Use Blogs to Promote Your Library’s Services --

http://www.infotoday.com/mls/nov03/fichter.shtml

Overview of the Weblog Tools Market -- http://tinyurl.com/67bpn

Weblogs: Do They Belong in Libraries? --

http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/area-dna-155ue40/public-libraries/

Time to Check: Are You Using the Right Blogging Tool? --

http://www.ojr.org/ojr/stories/050714gardner/

Blogs for Libraries --

http://webjunction.org/do/DisplayContent?id=767

Dr. L. Anne Clyde’s Internet Courses: Weblogs --

http://www.hi.is/~anne/weblogs.html

Blog Glossary -- http://www.samizdata.net/blog/glossary.html

BlogBib -- http://blog-bib.blogspot.com/

Blog search

Searching weblog content.

Feedster http://www.feedster.com
Blogdigger http://www.blogdigger.com
Blogstreet – http://www.blogsteet.com
Waypath http://www.waypath.com
Daypop http://www.daypop.com

Web 2.0 websites http://2.0websites.com/

Meebo Instant Messenger http://www18.meebo.com/index-en.html

Wikis

Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki http://www.libsuccess.org/index.php?title=Main_Page

The Shifted Librarian Wiki http://theshiftedlibrarian.pbwiki.com/

WikiMatrix allows you to put wikis against each other and get side by side comparisons. Plus, there are forums and articles that will help in the decision making process as well as assistance throughout the early stages of your "wiki-ing".
http://www.wikimatrix.org/

Social Networking

Flickr http://www.flickr.com/
Deli.cio.us http://del.icio.us/
Wink http://wink.com/
LibraryThing http://www.librarything.com/
Stumbleupon http://www.stumbleupon.com/

From The Shifted Librarian blog

Flickr Explained for Librarians

By Jenny

If you're doing a Learning 2.0 initiative, implementing an emerging technologies committee, or just trying to help your colleagues keep up, check out this article by Connie Crosby about Flickr, which includes this excerpt from an interview with Michael Porter.

Flickr is the Web Photo Tool Preferred by Superheroes and Librarians

"The ability to easily comment on and discuss images, put them in subject specific groups and have discussion threads within those groups makes Flickr much, much more than simply photo sharing. It actually helps deliver some of that 'promise of the Internet' we’ve always wanted more of. Understanding Flickr and all of its features (like groups, mapping, commenting, setting friends, tagging, etc) is also one of the very best ways to get a grasp on all of the “2.0” business that seems to be all the rage in library (and other) circles now. There is a reason you hear that '2.0' term all the time at conferences and in professional publications and 'getting' Flickr can be an amazingly fun, practical, engaging and psychologically rewarding 'Library 2.0' learning experience."[LLRX.com]

Information Literacy

Like most librarians I am preoccupied with the information literacy skills (or lack of them) of our clients. We conduct classes and have online tutorials but I'm always looking for something new. Here's an idea from the University of North Carolina Greensboro Libraries - The Information Literacy Game. I have tried it briefly and think it would be a fun addition to our training.

New Tags

Over the past few weeks I've tagged several interesting sites on Deli.cio.us but have been very remiss in not blogging about them.

I have StumbleUpon installed on my PC at home (it is too time-wasting to play with it at work) and one of the preferences I've ticked is iPod.

The Seven Phases of Owning an iPod - An Illustrated Journey is amusing and oh so true.
Are you frustrated with having a lot of tunes on your iPod but not being able to transfer them to your computer or share them with others? Try How to get songs off your iPod w/ iTunes or SharePod

More on music; if you use Pandora but sometimes find that you inadvertently close your browser and lost your current selections then you may want to try CFDan.com - Wrapper Application For Pandora Running In Task Tray.

A new search engine TWERQ featuring tabbed based results directly within the website and ton of other practical time saving features is still in beta but I'll be testing it to see if its features live up to their promise. Search results are based on your choice of Yahoo! or Google.

Internet Trends Workshop

Sylvie Huveneers and I presented two workshops for staff and students at Central TAFE last week to educate them in the use of blogs, wikis and RSS and to bring them up to date with some of the new, fun social networking sites. We had a few hiccups in the first presentation but learned from our mistakes and the second one ran smoothly. We are hoping to add it to the College staff professional development programme next year and tailor it specifically for lecturers, administration or support staff.

Next week I'll be doing something similar at the LRSN Forum and the full presentation will be posted on the Forum website. I'll also be posting a page of links on my blog as an alternative to providing handouts - that's one way of driving traffic to this site!

SEOmoz's Web 2.0 Awards

I will never be able to keep up with all available Web 2.0 applications. The best thing about them is their interactivity and pure fun. SEOmoz's Web 2.0 Awards uncovers the most useful and popular Web 2.0 sites and recognizes the top three in each category for their innovation. Some of those at the top surprised me and others that I thought should have been in the top three didn't make the grade.
Who has time to validate what is best in each group from Blog Guides to Wikis? I know the public is asked to nominate favourite sites and I hope the final choice doesn't work in the same way as some of the reality shows on TV (eg Australian Idol or dancing with the Stars) where popular vote overrides evaluation by well qualified judges.

Firefox 2.0 is here

Complete with bells and whistles, the new Firefox browser was launched within days of IE7. I've been a big fan of Firefox for over a year but unfortunately some web developers are slow to catch up and I still have to use IE to do any administration on the College's website. That is, however, the only time I do use it. Here is an excellent review by Percy Cabello Firefox 2 Review
Although Firefox now has some of the old extensions built in there are still people out there who love creating add-ons to give it even more functionality. There are currently 491 Firefox extensions! They can be found at The Extensions Mirror.
In Cybernet Technology News I read "Two of Firefox’s slogans are “the browser you can trust” and “safer, faster, better” but maybe we can beef up the security a little more with the help of Firefox extensions. You can do everything else with extensions so why should adding more security and a little privacy be any different?" See the article and Security and Privacy extensions here