The End

This has been a great trip. It has been educational, and I have to say that is not always fun! Sometimes I was tempted to call it quits when a site would not work the way I wanted, but after struggling onwards and with the help of Kema DeSagrado and Curt Beadell, I made it. Many thanks to Kema and Curt! (Kema, if I have spelled your name wrongly, please forgive me!)

Thanks also to the JPL Training Team for thinking of this. Great going, and keep going.

Thank you.

Podcasts

Now, this looks like serious fun! I would love to try it and will check the cost of the equipment. I notice he did not say how to stop your dog from barking at the wrong moment—I suppose you have to come up with that idea by yourself.

However, having broadcast before, although not using my own material, I do not feel daunted by the thought of addressing people I cannot even see.

But be warned! When you are broadcasting, you may have the urge to stop and ask, "Is there anybody out there listening to me?"

I have to say that being on a stage with a live audience beats radio any day. It's the rapport across the footlights that does it!

Overdrive

What a mine of information this is! I watched some of it but, without an MP3 player or similar, I did not watch the entire thing. When I have finished this course and have the little gadget to hand, then watching will be a positive joy.

Do our patrons all know about this, or is it a well-kept secret? I should think there ought to be a rush to get books this way and have story-time whenever you feel like it.

Technorati and all that

I hope this is sufficient for Technorati to find me! I have had a hard time with this one. However, here is the link you asked for.
[JPLL2]
And here is the tag--I think!
[JPLL2]

iPods and all that

I have checked out the sites given and liked Odeo. I found a podcast on Harry Potter and another offering stories.

Unfortunately, while I have Itunes on my pc (I do all this at home), I don't think it has the capacity to hold the latest version, so I am including links to both of these podcasts to prove I really was there!

Click!

Click again!

Needless to say, I am looking forward to hearing these.

Web 2 Tools, etc.

The list given in the web site was quite lengthy, so I chose the Philanthropy category. I am involved with the Springfield Animal Care group (www.sacarc.org)who are always looking for funds from philanthropic groups. The winner in this category was Care2 Make a Difference.

This group does not promote one particular needy cause, but allows visitors to select a cause that interests them. Of course, I chose animals and discovered that they list groups that range from those who need help to care for abandoned domestic pets to those who care about wild animals and the environment.

To visit their site, click here.

This site is a definite winner.

Baking on You Tube

After finding out that scones (by the way, the pronunciation is sconns!) in Jacksonville are unreasonably priced, I decided to brush up my scone-making skills. This is where You Tube came in very handy! Here is the video on making Irish scones. They are the same as the original Scottish scones, so enjoy with lots of butter and your favorite jam. The addition of Devon Cream (available in one or two stores in Jacksonville) will add to your enjoyment.

You Tube is the place to go if you want to see some of the most interesting as well as some of the worst home videos available. Luckily, the categories mean that you can go to whatever interests you without having to wade through some very tasteless material!

Valuable for the library? I am not sure about that. I have a suspicion that most people go to You Tube for amusement rather than education.

Zoho

I h ave tried Zoho and found that I do not like it. I am not sure that I like the thought of a variety of people I have never met before being able to change what I might write there.

However, I think it is somewhat like PBwiki in that it could have a use for a business or classroom setting.

I cannot get it to send the page over to this blog, so here is the page.

Here is the page from Zoho.

Learning the Value of Blogs!

While checking into one of the blogs I liked—The Guardian newspaper in London—I discovered a new book site devoted to offering excerpts from books, flash fiction and poetry. Ursula LeGuin is one of the founding members.

Needless to say, I have added it to my list.

It is called the Book View Cafe

And now on to what I am supposed to be discussing here.

I enjoyed Library 2. It seems that a library should change with the times or even ahead of the times. Language must change, adapt and develop in order to stay alive, so it makes sense that libraries, these cathedrals of language, should also change, adapt and develop in order to stay alive and be of service to the public.

After checking out the blogs from various libraries in the country, I have to say that this looks like the way for Jacksonville to get people interested in the library and what we have to offer.

The SJCPL Subject Guides interested me, since I had a customer who wanted to know if she could find out what fiction we had that was set in the 18th century. A blog with that type of information could be helpful to those who simply want to read historical novels of a specific period. Fairfax County Library has a list of popular fiction, although I noticed that the readers did not post any reviews!

JaxCat and LibraryThing

OK, that was an easy one! I think I got the JaxCat right, although I have not checked it to see if it actually works.

The LibraryThing was easy, too. I picked five books, as instructed. Two of them I have waiting for me, but the other three have been read. It reminds me of the tee shirts that were around a little while ago: "So many books and so little time."

The hard part will be getting a link to my library, so let me go explore that, and I shall come back.

OK. I am back and here it is: My library!

Now for the picture generator game. Very good fun, indeed. As you can see, I created a poster for the class I will be teaching for the next 10 weeks. I shall keep you informed of the progress of my students and, of course, my gradual decline into insanity when I find out they can't tell a noun from a verb.

Supposedly the JaxCat is on the page, so let us go and have a squint at it.

No sign of it, although there are a couple of crossed spanners or something, so click on the top one and the coding for the gadget will appear to show that I tried.
Yes, I did, I really did!

(Added later) I did get it there, but you may have to hit the refresh button to see it. I tried to resize it following the instructions, but it did not work.

Party Cat

Party Cat
Originally uploaded by Blethers

He is ready for the fun at the Jacksonville Landing!


My thanks to Kema for showing me some of the tricks of using Flickr. When I have more time, I shall investigate some more, because it looks like fun.

RSS Feeds etc.

This was the most challenging exercise so far. I had a hard time finding feeds that interested me, but did come up with some. No way do I want loads of news—it tends to be too depressing these days—so I went for just what interested me.

My thanks go to Ed Lein for all the help he offered. Without that, I would still be floundering. Maybe I am, who knows!

I have had a problem with the code given for showing my blogroll. Not sure if my own code will work or not.

Try this!

Ye gods! It works!!

Blogs

I was about to shelve a book the other day when its title caught my attention—Petite Anglaise. It is the story of Catherine Anderson, a Brit ex-pat who lives in Paris. She writes of the life she leads, and it seemed so much more interesting than other blogs I have read. Maybe I am indulging in some wishful thinking? So I have included it in my list of blogs.

Hi-Tech Stuff

There were some interesting links and information about phishing and other such scams on the internet.

I sent an email to someone I did not know and was astonished to be told by my email service that the address was suspected of being a home for phishing scams. So I promptly dropped that email. I get enough of the ones from strange banks asking for account information or telling me I am about to receive millions if I will just comply with their wishes.

A new type of article called a charticle is now making its appearance. Apparently, it is a compilation of text, images, and graphics that are taking the place of articles. According to my source (Freelance Writer's Report for November), these are appearing in the Florida Times-Union among other papers. See www.grumpyeditor.com if you want to keep up with what's happening in the newspaper world.

So, we are supposed to be writing three blogs this week. Or last week. Well, this is the second one, but I am not entirely certain what the third one should have been about.

Just hold on, folks, for the next instalment when all will be revealed.

Flickr

OK! Set up some photos on Flickr. They are the animals in my life, all of them except one a rescue animal. And mostly with thanks to SACARC, the Springfield Animal Care and Rescue Club, which works hard to save animals that are neglected, abused or homeless in Springfield.

I enjoyed doing that and do hope I am doing it correctly. Here is the address: www.flickr.com/photos/blethers , so let me know if it looks OK for a beginner!

Here is a link to SACARC's website so you can see for yourself what they do, and perhaps you might feel like making a contribution to help them. Every little helps this totally volunteer organization! www.sacarc.org

Let's Start Meandering

OK, I think we are really supposed to be marching purposefully rather than meandering, but I would rather stop and smell the roses along the way. So please join me in a pleasant journey of 7½ steps to my goal.

Of course, so far I don't know what my goal is, so I suppose I should define that before starting the journey. Self-improvement, it goes without saying, but what part of me should I improve? Not the exterior; I am well used to that and do not want to spend time becoming acquainted with a reorganized face. No, that can stay the same.

So it's the interior landscape that has to do something. And the offer is something to do with learning my way around cyber space. Well, I am already familiar with some of it, so I will head off in new directions and see what else I can learn.

I remember being told in school that we should never refuse to learn anything, since learning is carried in our brains and does not cause us any problems with hauling it around.

Seven and a Half Steps to a New Me

Oh, Yes! I need a new me. I need to have a new image, not the face-lifted, stretched-skin with staring eyes look, but a new me as far as talent and thought and goals are concerned. Yes, I know. I need a goal. That is something that requires thought and consideration; I won't be announcing it any time soon.


So I am meandering along these 7½ steps, taking them one at a time. Once I have decided exactly where I am headed, I will get there. But I plan to enjoy the voyage of discovery.