Karla G's Comments

Thing30 : More ways to use RSS & Delicious

2009-05-14T21:50:00.002-05:00

I don't like Delicious and will not use it.

I have the Google Reader imbedded in my iGoogle page. I like this a lot. I don't subscribe to very many RSS feeds, but it does display the occasional feed and I just read it from there. One of my favorite RSS feeds is Acrobat for the Legal Professional (http://blogs.adobe.com/acrolaw/). There are great suggestions for using Adobe Acrobat in law offices.

Thing 40: Mashup the Web

2009-05-14T21:38:00.002-05:00

Another Thing that I tried to find useful and just didn't. I tried Crime Report but apparently my little suburb isn't contributing. I did try the "Walkable" site to get the walkability score for my neighborhood, and of course we're car-dependent (43/100 - things are close but not within walking distance). Obviously the best place to live is near Snelling & Randolph in St. Paul (83/100 - "very walkable").

I do have a Lunchbox widget on my iGoogle page. Don't use it much, though. Looked at bkkpr.com but since I'm not a big fan of Twitter, I didn't like it much. Googled library mashups and did see some possibilities, particularly for making our library catalog more topically-oriented. "Exploring new ways to deliver library data."

Thing45:Cloud Computing

2009-05-14T21:27:00.004-05:00

At first I thought this was dopey until I read some examples and realized yes, I was already doing some of this. I don't store documents online but that could really be handy for group document work. I'm sure the MnPALS groups and task forces use something like this, or could. The one thing I do is back up my cell phone contacts on the Verizon web site. (I learned about this from another customer at the Verizon store counter.) It comes free with my plan, and my contacts are backed up at 2 p.m. every day. The best part is that I can go to the Verizon web site and ADD new contacts - better than tapping in that info on the phone. I just use the keyboard and the minute I sign off, it's downloaded to the phone! I think it's called '"Backup Assistant." If you have Verizon, check it out!

I do like CheckFree for bill paying and in general LOVE online payments. I also like communicating with our health plan through their secure web site (HealthPartners). If I have a simple question, I just email the doctor and usually get an answer by the end of the day.

Do communications between libraries count? At work, we request books from the State Law Library, Hennepin County Law Library, the Legislative Reference Library, and Ramsey County Law Library, all via their "Ask a Librarian" email addresses. Then we send our courier to pick up our requests or they scan and email copies which used to be photocopied. We send Attorney General Opinion copies to lawyers every day, requested through our library email address (library.ag@state.mn.us).

Thing44: The Economy

2009-05-14T21:17:00.002-05:00

I already have Internet banking, which I really like, and have set up online accounts with CheckFree or autopay most bills with e-mail notification. I knew about eRideshare because we link to that on our work Intranet. I did like fueleconomy.gov, and added that to my CARS folder of bookmarks. When I look for another car I will use this site.

Frugal Dad is nuts. I don't like the coupon sites because they want registration. Not worth it. I would love to sell my "stuff" but wouldn't use CraigsList (still considering eBay, but again ... lotta work!!!!!!). I liked all of the gardening sites and have used the U of M Extension web site before. My favorite "frugal" columnist is still John Ewoldt in the StarTribune - and no, I don't read it online, I have it delivered every morning. Best time of the day.

Thing42: Music 2.0

2009-05-14T21:05:00.003-05:00

Not into music - don't download, listen online, etc. Don't listen in the car and rarely play CDs any more. Used to - still have over 100 vinyl albums! I didn't create a last.fm or Pandora account because I don't need ANY MORE social networking beyond what I'm already involved in. This is very nice that it's all out there but come on - WHO HAS TIME FOR ALL THIS?

I would be interested in talk radio. Checked out Live365, which has possibilities. I liked the tagging - GREAT selection! "old time radio" "spoken work" old mysteries and others would be interesting. I think I could also get into listening to baseball games, commentary on baseball, and maybe specific sporting events (Olympics, Kentucky Derby). However - I like listening in my car, so I'd be more inclined to get Sirius radio in my next vehicle. It's the only place I can really listen, and it makes long car rides go faster.

Thing35: Books 2.0

2009-05-14T20:54:00.002-05:00

I've looked at these tools at least 5-6 times, thought about their uses, and again was overwhelmed. I won't be cataloging my personal library - not a priority. I do have my knitting books set up in Ravelry. I tried looking for book groups on Facebook and gave up. Either just a few members, or weird, or not for me.

I'd like a simple tool to list what I've read, very briefly, that will be compatible with a mobile phone/mobile PC device (which I currently don't own, so don't feel any pressure to get this set up).

Otherwise these tools just didn't appeal to me. I'm not interested in online book discussions, I can use the "what should I read next" through my library web site, read reviews on Amazon, go to favorite author web sites, and do it on my own. Maybe I'm spoiled with WorldCat and MnLINK?

Thing39: Digtal Storytelling

2009-05-14T20:50:00.003-05:00

Digital scrapbooking makes me just as crazy as regular scrapbooking. It's overwhelming - it just takes too much of my time. I am a fan of Picasa and have loaded a few photos there, but again - this can be a huge investment of time that I'm not willing to make. Nice, but don't have time for this.

Thing43: TV and Video

2009-05-14T20:35:00.002-05:00

At home; I can watch TV when I want! Advantages: watching things when I couldn't be home; watching TV shows that I usually can't stay awake for - I might see Saturday Night Live yet. There were a lot of 'web exclusives' - like a bunch of interviews with The Biggest Loser contestants. Missed the finale; I could watch it here. Biggest advantage - my husband and I have some pretty different tastes in TV, so I can just watch it online! This could really be fun.

I don't think anyone but me will watch TV on a laptop. But this is a definite plus. I do like watching TV. My only complaint is that it's harder to do something else while watching online - I'm usually knitting or looking at a magazine besides watching TV. You have to focus on the smaller screen - with a 42" plasma it's like going to a movie. But the online has the advantage of scheduling, since we don't have TiVo.

Effect on cable - it could be a plus. I would skip the regular programs and go for pay-per-view or on-demand movies, figuring I could catch the regular episodes online. I like this.

Thing36: Comic Relief (Generators)

2009-05-07T09:25:00.011-05:00

First, this Thing's title is misleading. I'm not going to use work time to build an avatar or create a library comic. However, there are incredibly useful generators and little tools in this obviously catch-all Thing that would be useful to me in my work as well as when building web pages. Summary:

PDF converters. Liked PDF Online's interface better, but I think our work spam blocker nixed the email delivery, since I didn't receive it. Useful for the occasional conversion. Wonder if I'll get email solicitations now.
Thought I'd like the note generators but they didn't do much for me. Not a college student. I LOVED printablepaper.net though! I was going to a Twins game the next day so printed a baseball score sheet. Now, if I just knew how to score a game ... This is a terrific site when you need one or two sheets of graph paper for a knitting project. NICE!
I thought Stripemania would be good for previewing yarn combinations for knitting, but it wouldn't work (at work again). Couldn't pick a color. I gave this 30 seconds and thought, "Nope - I'll look for another one."
both citation generators would be good tools, but again for college students. Nothing for legal citation - Bluebook needs to add this. BB does have an online subscription, but it didn't look like it built the citation for you (which is what everyone wants).
Timeline creator - would be useful for genealogists. Don't like the signup, but might do it. Will see what ancestry.com and Family TreeMaker offer - they may have built-in timeline creators as well.
Image generators - disappointing, but there are probably others.
Signs & labels - acme label maker didn't work - 404 page not found. TinyTag would be useful to generate a custom graphic for our Intranet page. Will try & remember it!
Password generators - will definitely try sometime. All looked useful.

Thing46: WebJunction Minnesota

2009-05-05T08:57:00.005-05:00

Good grief. AWOL for a month. Oh well - I may not finish but I'm choosing a few of the remaining nine items.

I had an account w/WebJMN already, but looked it over well. The online courses are most valuable. I would like to learn Dreamweaver and this seems to be the place to do it. However, the "self-paced" gave me pause, considering that I didn't stick to More Things all that well. Nonetheless, the "FREE" is a tremendous benefit to librarians. Ironically, I decided to go to library school when I realized that I'd have to learn a lot of programs to continue in the printing prepress field. I figured if I had to go back to school, I was going to go do something new that I wanted to do. Interesting that I can now learn Adobe Illustrator & Photoshop for free on WebJunction!

My only complaint is that it is difficult to determine which classes in a series (e.g. Dreamweaver) to take first. Multiple classes in a software program should be listed in suggested order of completion. I didn't see a "getting started with Dreamweaver" - so does that mean I should be familiar with the program? The prerequisities are daunting - familiarity with HTML and building web pages, yes, but XML and Javascript? If I knew that well enough I wouldn't be looking to complete a Dreamweaver course.

The calendar of events and friends are just more overlap for me. I get notifications of courses via email in triplicate and participate in FaceBook and LinkedIn sites. Enough.

The groups are not geared to small, specialized libraries. Guess I'd have to START a group? Overall, this is a wonderful resource. It's that TIME thing - I know I should take those free online classes but am working on my discipline to do so. Maybe that's what fees do for you?

Thing34: Online Answer Sites

2009-04-01T13:26:00.002-05:00

This was a revelation to me. I really didn't know such sites existed. I did read the future of reference articles, and thought Stephen Abrams' Evolution to Revolution to Chaos? was particularly good.

Comments on online answer sites:

I hope reference librarians in libraries are NOT getting 90% of these questions, but I’ll bet people ask everything. Seemed like a lot of opinions, e.g. what color eye shadow should I wear with prom dress? (Beauty/Style question) There seems to be a need for these sites AND library reference. However, I think library reference will move more in the direction of training users to search and being the “expert” who recommends resources rather than answering questions such as those posted to Answer websites. More complex questions, obviously, should not be posted to these sites and require advice of professionals (legal, financial, etc.).
Somewhat frightening that people are asking experts’ advice about bankruptcy, mortgage foreclosure, etc. However, some sites have legitimate “experts” who seem to be qualified to answer (AllExperts) v. more “open” sites (Yahoo, ChaCha). As long as they qualify the answers as being only an overview (avoiding the unauthorized practice of law or other licensed occupations), the answer site can be helpful.
The appeal of these sites is that the person with the question doesn’t have to interact with anyone face-to-face. This may explain some of the questions that surely come from younger people (middle-school or very shy high schoolers). Plus, anyone who doesn’t want to express their ignorance or embarrassment can hide behind anonymity.

Sites I reviewed:
Yahoo Answers - Interesting mix of questions. Good search engine, categorization, and indexing.

ChaCha - Fewer categories; meant for mobile phones. Could be handy.

AllExperts - Amazing number of categories; very complete answers. Liked the Question Index - helpful for browsing.

Mahalo Answers - Interface to Twitter. Warning about “Criminal Law” questions (wise move, Mahalo). “Friends” feature, statistics about person answering question, ratings/points/”belt” colors. Relatively new feature of larger Mahalo web site. Not familiar with this. Competitor to Yahoo?

Thing37: Photo Tales

2009-03-22T11:49:00.002-05:00

I downloaded Picasa quite awhile ago. I recently added a few more photos and today I tried sharing my Knitting photos with my two stepdaughters (good evaluators). If that works, I want to scan some old college pictures and send to some recently-located friends. They sent pics of how they look today; thought we needed something for comparison's sake.

Will try to learn more about Picasa's tools.

Thing41: Mashup Your Life

2009-03-18T14:31:00.001-05:00

I set up an account with LifeStream.fm. It's OK. So far I prefer the iGoogle home page with Widgets to show me what has activity.

Thing32: Google Maps & Mashups

2009-03-18T13:22:00.005-05:00

Need directions to my house? I used the My Maps function in Google maps (unlisted map). Now THIS is useful. I like the idea of having a central place on the web to annotate. I love this!!

This would also be useful to create directions to my library, along with available parking areas in downtown St. Paul. Lot of people don't know downtown St. Paul and would find it intimidating - but it's really easy once you know the main streets. Finding parking is trickier but there are a few good ramps which could be included. Could easily imbed in an email. Very, very handy tool. Will use again.

Thing33: Travel 2.0

2009-03-18T12:56:00.003-05:00

Looked at some of the sites; here are my reactions to Travel Blogs & Podcasts:

Notes from the Road - nice photos, but reverse type is very dfficult to read
Tips from theT-List - search wasn't very good; searched for San Diego and got results for Chicago? didn't like it; couldn't zero in on my chosen destination.
Window Seat (Travelocity) - too commercial.

Review Sites: Trip Advisor - quickly learned to add state w/city. I liked the Rating and popularity index. Didn't dig into this too deeply but this would be my first stop prior to traveling. Seemed useful.

My Screencast

2009-03-10T15:38:00.006-05:00

I was going to upload my screencast on "How to Use the Links Toolbar in Internet Explorer" but it's too big. Blog accepts 100 MB max - my screencast is 6 minutes long (hey, there's a LOT of information!) and is 200 MB. Oops. I'll have to figure out where I can upload this thing.

3-20-2009: Today I tried a trial version of Digital Media Converter ($40) to convert the screencast from .AVI to .WMF (Windows Media). There is an excellent article about .AVI files (they are HUGE) on the Deskshare (vendor) web site. The trial version plastered a big "TRIAL" across the screencast, so you can't just use it and split. However - I think I'll do this ONE MORE TIME with a slightly lower video resolution. The converter reduced my file from 200 MB to 52 MB. Impressive!

3-25-2009: Re-recorded the screencast with lower audio and video settings in SnagIt. Always check the website of the product you are using for tips on reducing the size of AVI files. Here's the SnagIt article on Reducing AVI File Size. Using new settings, I went down to 85 MB.

Thing31: More Twitter

2009-03-10T13:54:00.004-05:00

Learning more; following more people. Added MinnPost to "followed." I'm at http://twitter.com/gedellkr. Updated profile a little and added myself to Librarians' Directory. How do you add a photo to directory? Added TwitterGadget from twittergadget.com to iGoogle page; I like this. Don't like the advertising but it looks like they all do this?? Suggestions a different gadget, anyone?

3/18/2009: OK, now I'm semi-addicted to Twitter. Enough so I have it open a LOT. I added the widget which is helpful and tried an @reply. Also am following Anoka County (saw article in Strib that they were using this) and Anoka County Libraries. At least I can see the possibilities.

Thing38: Screencasting - Take 2

2009-02-25T11:27:00.005-06:00

I've spent the morning fiddling with SnagIt. I can record both audio and video using SnagIt 8.0. The first file, made with default settings, was 570 MB. I changed the audio to 8-bit instead of 16-bit, and lowered the frames/second ratio. My second and third attempts had file sizes of 75MB and 93MB but I'm getting "ghosting" of the images and that's pretty ugly. So back to the default frame setting and 8-bit audio and see how that goes. Definitely have your script all typed out FIRST! This is going better than expected, actually.

2/26: Settled on 230MB - 75 frames/sec. & 8-bit audio. No room for errors while recording! Will sit on this version and revise after others review it. Downside: no editing in SnagIt. Would like some highlighting capabilities. May try one of the other programs with editing options (download a trial) just to get a flavor of a software with more functionality.

Thing38: Screencasting

2009-02-24T16:21:00.001-06:00

I really have been working on this. Last weekend I bought some headphones with a microphone, and wrote the script for the "Using the Links Toolbar" screencast. I've been working on that. Now to figure out how to record the audio!! So far no luck. I plan to use SnagIt to record the video but it's not easy. It would really be nice to have a ready-to-go package like Camtasia, but ... More when I've figured this out.

Thing29: Google Tools : Alerts

2009-02-13T15:35:00.002-06:00

This is something I've already used, so I'll just Comment ...

This is extremely useful for anyone who is charged with finding news stories on a topic. For example, one of our support staff was supposed to search news databases to find out if any other Attorney General offices across the U.S. had sued a particular mortgage company. We set up a recurring search of Google News to retrieve stories in the past 7 days, delivered to her email. Alerts are also available in ProQuest and EBSCO, if you have access to those databases.

The Library staff helps users set up queries, choose sources, and keeps copies of the alert query (useful when the user forgets to renew the alert). If you're doing this for someone else, I'd recommend setting the end date to "never" - and then still keeping a copy of everything that went into that alert.

Thing28: Customized Home Pages

2009-02-13T15:09:00.003-06:00

I liked this. I chose iGoogle, even though the reviews weren't that great. They were correct - you should be able to "add by URL" and that was nonexistent; also dragging from one tab to another didn't work. A search confirmed that others had this problem. Still, this will be handy form my home PCs and eventually on a mobile device (still shopping).

I used the article " Riding the Waves of Today’s Online Web Tools " as a guide. Most helpful. As I read it, I made an outline of what I wanted on my page and a rough layout. I used Widgetbox to find gadgets. On the Home tab (3 col. format), I have Enhanced bookmarks, Google Reader, Google Map Search, and Lunchbox (a restaurant finder). On a second tab called "More things" I have a CNN feed, Weather, Traffic, and dr. Gadgets Calculator. It was very easy to set up. However, if it keeps suggesting stuff I might also like, I may switch to another format.

I looked at creating a gadget for our library, but didn't like the extent of coding knowledge required.

Thing25:Toolkit, Again

2009-02-11T08:53:00.002-06:00

All right, that's enough of the Blogger Toolkit. I actually edited the HTML for the template to make the sidebar 100 pixels wider - just so my little YouTube thingie would fit. Baby Steps, huh? At least the video titles aren't cut off! I got the sound to work too. There are sound settings in about three places, including speakers, so check them all.

Then I logged out and back in, and the gadget didn't show up - just the title bar. Re-saved and now it is OK. Odd behavior.

Thing25: Blogger Toolkit Take 2

2009-02-10T08:11:00.004-06:00

See, I'm more alert at 8 a.m. Went to Widgetbox and got this little YouTube widget. I had created a YouTube account over some weekend and set up my Favorite YouTube videos. I'll fix the width later.

Since I can't have a cat (it's a cat or the hubby) I watch Simon's Cat. "Let Me In" is the best one. A cousin's husband who is a crew chief in the SD Air National Guard sent me the "How to Marshal Jets" link - I'll bet that thing has been viewed around the world. Enjoy!

Thing27:Twitter

2009-02-08T10:35:00.003-06:00

Learning about Twitter today. Uses TBD. Could see this w/mobile phones or family (although one side of my family already uses MyFamily.com for posting our activities). Had trouble posting a background photo from my PC. Was NOT too big. More later.

Thing26: Join NING

2009-02-06T16:52:00.003-06:00

Gee, I was looking at Pat Post's blog and her discussion said we don't have to do these in order!! Looking ahead, I see that I've joined NING and I am really enjoying that. I started a CALCO group there and we have eight members. Yay! I like NING - although I like LinkedIn better and wish More Things were on there instead. However, I also have signed up for MySpace and Facebook, and people are finding ME. Good grief.

Overall, I use all of these social sites to FIND people at work. They DO show up on these sites! They are fun, really, but do take up a chunk of time. Oh well. Learn as we browse, eh?

Thing25: Blogger's Toolkit

2009-02-05T20:47:00.002-06:00

Thing25: I know what I want to do - add links to my favorite YouTube videos. I've established an account in YouTube and added my blog to that. I can post directly, but that's not what I wanted. I'd like to add a miniature slide show too. Must read more.

Fixing the Mouse key: won't happen. Stopped in Computer Revolution (Roseville) over the weekend and the mouse "Assembly" is $99 and they want another $100 to install it. I've plugged in my wired mouse from my desktop. Cripes. I thought the plumber was bad last week.

Thing24-Refresh Blog

2009-02-02T09:58:00.000-06:00

Well, this is interesting. The background color of this blog on my laptop at home is drastically different than on my PC at work. What I didn't want to do was spend a lot of time designing this blog. Wanted to concentrate on writing, learning, etc. Oh well. I'm still trying to find my way around. Any CALCO staff participating in More Things?

5 minutes later: Oh, OK - found the templates. DUHHHHHH!!!

Later 2/2: Get used to this. I'll do a little in between projects, maybe late in the day, and definitely while watching TV. So, I didn't do 23 Things so I'm creating this Blog. I even changed it between Saturday and Monday.

Thoughts on uses for blogs: task forces and other "closed" groups, hobbies, travels (for those who are home), etc. Keeping in touch. Otherwise - who cares what I'm thinking today?

It's a Start ...

2009-01-31T11:06:00.001-06:00

Blog created 1/31/2009. Mouse button sticking on laptop; must fix!!