Thing 7: Image Generators

tinytags picture,
originally uploaded by Librarian1.5.

Okay, here's my first try at using an image generator. It seems like it will be lots of fun, and I'm planning to play around with it a lot more this weekend at home. Stay tuned...

Thing 6: Flickr Mashups

Thing 6, Flickr Mashups, was a fun thing, and I’m looking forward to Thing 7, too.  I tried out some of the different options, and I admit that I didn’t much use for some of them (like the Flickr Color Pickr, for example) in my life.  I can see where it might be of value to artists, but I can’t see myself ever needing it for anything.  It was pretty neat, though. 

I used Splashr, and at the bottom of the blog, you will see my results.  I removed my slideshow of photographs from the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs, and I added those same photos in a Splashr product at the bottom of the blog.  Scroll down and click on the small, white button in the center of the photos.  Click on the small letter “i” in a circle at the bottom right to make the photo labels not display, and then click on a photo to see a larger view.  If you click on the button between the two arrows at the bottom right, the photos will act like a slideshow, automatically moving from one photo to the next. 

I also enjoyed Spell with Flickr, and underneath the Broadmoor photos you can see my results.  I thought Spell with Flickr was really fun, and I can see myself using that sometime for crafty-type things.

As for using these things in my library, I could see using them for posters and other marketing tools, and some of the tools might be nice ways to display photographs from library events if we had a library blog. 

I have mixed feelings about online photo sharing.  The convenience of being able to post photos online and give a URL to everyone you want to see them is nice, and for many things is fine.   I do, however, feel like you should have someone’s consent before posting a photograph of them on any public site, and I’m sure some people do that, but I’m also sure that not everyone does. It's a lot of work to get consent from everyone at an event, and I really doubt that most people do that, but maybe I'm wrong.

Thing 5: Flickr, part 2

I have finally figured out how to add a slideshow of every photo in my Flickr account.  (Fortunately there aren’t many.)  To get this far, I read Blogger helps, I read Flickr helps, and I consulted with my co-worker who, after much trial and error, had managed to get her Photobucket slideshow in her blog sidebar using the slideshow gadget.  Unfortunately, the same process that worked for Photobucket did not work for Flickr.  I then resorted to “Googling” my issue.  I found that there are others like me out there who are having or have had the same problem, and I found a solution that enabled me to post the slideshow of every one of my Flickr images: 

Look at the last portion of your Flickr URL.  What you see there is your Username.  If you select the User button in the slideshow gadget instead of the Keyword button and then enter this Username that appears at the end of your Flickr URL, you too can post a slideshow that consists of every photo in your Flickr account.  If you only want your slideshow to consist of a certain set of photos, you’re on your own because I haven’t been able to figure out how to do that yet.

But wait...I had one more idea of something to try, and it worked!!!  If you select one of your sets in Flickr, copy the portion of the URL starting with your username and going to the end of the URL.  Paste this into the Username box on the slideshow gadget, and you will see, much to your delight, a slideshow consisting of only the photos in that set.  I can finally let this rest now that I’ve figured it out.  The slideshow gadget has not defeated me!

Much thanks to this blog post which got me going on the right track.

Thing 5: Flickr

West Branch,
originally uploaded by Librarian1.5.

Hopefully you will see a photo that I took of the West Branch Library. If you don't, I have failed Thing 5 and will have to try again later. If you do, Yippee!

Part 2:  Yippee!  The picture is there, so I'm not a complete failure, although I was not able to figure out how to add a slideshow from Flickr using Blogger's slideshow gadget.  I could figure out how to add it by using HTML code from Flickr, but that made the slideshow much larger than I wanted it to be.  I have a co-worker who was able to add a slideshow from Photobucket, so maybe she will be able to shed some light on this process for me.

I thought this Thing was kind of hard.  That may be at least partially due to my tendency to jump in and try to do things and then go back and read the directions only if I can't figure it out on my own.  I did create a Flickr account, upload some photos, tag them, and sort them into sets without too much trouble.  The confusion came when it was time to link my blog to my Flickr account so that I could add a picture to the blog.  After going back and reading the instructions, help screens, and FAQs, I was able to figure out everything except the slideshow thing, but I'm not giving up on that yet.  Keep watching, I'll figure it out eventually.

Thing 4: RSS & Newsreaders

Okay, I love the whole RSS feed and newsreader thing!  It solves my problems about how to keep up with my co-workers’ blogs without having to go to each and every one to see if it’s been updated.  That’s been one of my big questions about the whole “blogosphere” thing:  How does one follow blogs that one is interested in without spending huge quantities of time checking to see if there’s anything new there?  Now I know.  If only I had asked sooner...

I also love getting a list of the news headlines from my local newspaper and from national news sources all in one location.  I’m really going to have to get my husband to set up a newsreader for himself.  He likes to read online newspapers from lots of different places, and he spends a lot of time going from site to site doing just that.  I think this could make his hobby more enjoyable for him and less time consuming, and then he’ll be able to spend all that time he’s saving doing chores around the house (not!).

Here’s what I don’t like:  I haven’t been able to figure out how to make things go away or how to adjust the amount of time that they stay on the list.  I’m the kind of person who makes a list and includes things I’ve already done just so I can cross them off.  It disturbs me a great deal not to be able to get rid of the stuff that I’ve already seen.  I’m using Google Reader, so if anyone out there in the vast blogosphere knows how to accomplish this, please add a comment telling me how and I’ll be eternally grateful.

Thing 3: Blog Search Tools

Well, I definitely learned some things from Thing 3.  I had never heard of Technorati or Ice Rocket (Rocket Dogs, yes...Ice Rocket, no), and I honestly had no idea that there were ways to specifically search just blogs.  I guess it's one of those things that I haven’t needed to do, so I never really thought about it before. 

In an effort to compare blog search tools, I decided to search for a blog that I read about over the weekend in People.  I could remember the generalities about the blog (a man was raising his child alone after his wife died from a blood clot just hours after the birth of their daughter) but none of the specifics (his name, her name, the baby’s name, the blog name).  I started with Technorati and searched using different search terms until I found the blog.  It required four Technorati searches before I located the blog.  (Searches for “single father” and “People magazine” seemed to get me nothing but blog entries about Ricky Martin, Kevin Federline and The Bachelor.)  I made notes about each of the four searches I did, and then I moved on to Google Blog Search.  I repeated each of the four searches, and I was able to find the blog with every one of them.  In three of them, the blog was on the first screen of hits, and in the other it was on the second screen of hits.  I also tried the searches on Ice Rocket and was able to locate the blog I was looking for with two of the four searches.  I looked at Sphere, too, but I couldn’t even immediately figure out how to do a search on Sphere.

Based on my searching experiment, I will probably use Google Blog Search in the future even though some of the other options have cooler names.  Technorati did have some features that I liked, like its Top 100 Blogs list and its listing of popular blogs.  From Technorati I learned that, although I didn’t realize it, I do follow a blog almost daily.  CNN’s Political Ticker is apparently a blog, although I never really thought of it in that way.  Apparently TMZ is a blog also...at least it’s listed in Technorati’s Top 100 Blogs.  I don’t read TMZ, but I’ve certainly heard of it without knowing that it is considered a blog.  (As you might have noticed, today I also learned how to make a word or phrase a link in my blog post.)

So, all in all, Thing 3 has been a productive learning experience that’s made me feel good about myself for learning something new, but not as good about myself as I felt last night when, after watching me do my   (semi-)daily Wii Fit, my six-year-old son told me, “You rock, Girl!” 

Thing 2: Web 2.0 & Library 2.0

Initially, I had little interest in participating in the 23 Things project.  The terms Web 2.0 and Library 2.0 have never really held any allure for me.  I know, though, that it’s important for me both professionally and personally to keep up with emerging technology.  Things (not one of the 23, just things, in general) change so quickly that if you don’t make a conscious effort, you can easily find yourself still standing in the station long after your train has left. 

After hearing and reading more about the project, I began to nurture a spark of enthusiasm.  I know myself well enough to realize that I’m probably not going to sit down on my own and learn about each of these (23) things, but I’m very goal-oriented, so the idea of having 23 specific assignments is very satisfying to that part of me...and the “extra-credit” challenges that are available as options also speak to the little overachiever that lives in me.

I’m excited about some things (RSS feeds, flickr, image generators) and not so much about others (YouTube, tagging, podcasts, blogging), but hopefully, working in the parameters of this project will give me the motivation that I need to tackle even the most dreaded technologies.  ttfn.  

Thing 1: Blogs

Okay, here's my first blog post to begin the 23 Things journey.  Setting up the blog was relatively painless, and I can see that there are lots of possibilities (really almost more than I can handle) for making changes in settings and layout.  I started to make changes to some of the coloring, but decided that for now, I should probably leave it alone.  The default colors on the template will probably look better than something my less-than-artistic eye can imagine.