The final thing, Thing #23

Dr. Seuss would be proud! We managed to proudly make 23 of his things...hmmm my bad they are quite different aren't they...Well on a happier note then, I would have to say that my favorite part of this whole process has been the image editors. I LOVED the trading card thing, and feel like we should have all the staff make a card and put out our own trading card set, or even better make a game out of it. Given the right ideas, it could be awesome fun and something we could let the kids play at the branches! Most of the program was pretty well done for individuals with no experience with online tools. Yes, I am putting myself high on that list of known tools (Ya wanna fight about it?) . But I will still walk away with alot of new things that I will continue to use, like RSS and google doc's :). But all in all, it was very fun and exiciting to play along. There really isn't much I could change to improve it though, I am a computer person so of course this stuff should be known to me, and given the chance I would still participate because even though we may have mastered some things, there is always room for improvement, somewhere down the line someone will use something you've not seen used in that manner and it will provide you with a whole new way to do alot more information. Take word for example, learning about the wildcard characters in the replace function I was able to edit several hundred pages of documents in a matter of minutes (rearranging information for an associate so that they were listed as name records and didn't contain all the pointless information that was also in the records) This process used to take him weeks, and with my help, it takes only a few hours (after all you need to verify the information changed is correct still) but I'm babbling now, good luck everyone!

Thing #22

Yaay, I'm so close to the end now I can taste it.

Netlibrary...yummy :). I have used it frequently to discover books we don't have in the system *coughs* about computer programming languages like C#, Cold Fusion, and a few others *coughs again* It is extremely helpful though, searching for books can be a bit rough you end up with loads of titles that are cross referenced and therefore pointless to my searches but still, I eventually find what I'm after and grab some much needed info.

Need INPUT!

Thing #21

Podcasts are sweet!

Ah yes, listen to rock and love the morning show, they do a podcast! Its great for people who work in the morning and can't listen. And it help support our local broadcast shows, go San Antonio!

Thing #20

Youtube!!! Talk about a technological revolution. Here you can express yourself and grab your 15 minutes of fame, assuming its actually good enough! I chose to embed Naruto abridged, kinda vulgar so YOU ARE WARNED, but insanely hilarious. Lets face it, if you can take something decent and turn it into something so funny you are practically begging for more...you know its good :) As for applying it to the library. All sorts of uses can be found. Public training videos, giving teens the ability to post things like game nights or tournament play on their personal myspace page (embeded video) would give them loads of pride and have them begging for more.

Thing #19

Hmmm what to say about the toolbox thing...

I chose to look at the widgets awards and went broswing the number one pick: yourmini's. I love widgets, don't get me wrong, but the ones they are coming out with these days are kinda boring and dull. I want something exciting like, oh I don't know, the binary clock I have on my personal laptop. Jeez, am I a nerd or what?!? =8)

Thing #18

Whoop!

So I created a document and wanted to start a kind of add-on letter with the SAPL system, but it turns out I have no contacts and cannot share it with anyone. Therefor everyone who reads my blog and tries things #18 add me as a contact and we can get this thing going.

Thing #17

Woo, now my blog is in a sandbox. I wonder if anyone will actually visit it and check me out. LEAVE A COMMENT! I do wanna hear from everyone. Wiki's are always fun and links are nothing new :)

Thing #16

Wiki's...ahh yes.

They are starting to turn into common things now, but several years ago My C++ instructor was encouraging us to use wiki's already. The ability to update on the fly, to allow others to access and update information, and still provide a solid and stable foundation for viewers to hit and retrieve pertinant information is truely a remarkable thing indeed.

Thing #15

Ok so, 'Away from Iceburgs' was rather interesting. I do agree we as a system need to seek out and use alternative methods to bring ourselves back into the main stream, but lets face it, getting on board with most of this is a requirement to stay afloat these days not actually move into the mainstream. If we really want to move into the mainstream, we need to come out with things no one else does with the access he was discussing in the article.

Thing #14

Tagging my posts, probably should go back and do that, the tool is rather useful though. Getting it noticed is a must for some, though not necessary for me, but I suppose it wouldn't hurt to help out someone else by doing it.

Technorati

Thing #13

Meh, not likey so much. I for one, don't really care how popular a bookmark is. If I like it, I like it no if's and's or but's about it. It might be useful to news companies or survey companies that seek to find out who is being hit the most though. Rather ironic that it has a popular link to wikipedia though, but thats just a programmer thing.

Thing #12

Rollyo

Hmm, not sure if I'll ever use this, it eliminates all the extra sites which is nice, but I do rather prefer google or simply putting in the sites address (which is usually pretty simple to guess if you don't have it memorized).

heres the link though enjoy :)

Rollyo Search
Rollyo Tag

Thing #11

Wow, 55 books with pretty much half being from one author (think theres a pattern here? LOL) good site, but I am lazy and hate having to get approval from my friends (even though I do like the added security)

Thing #10

Woo kinda stuck with my optimus thing aren't I? Yeah had to take him down last week so I'm preparing a memorial service and tombstone for him. Alas poor Optimus, we knew him well! *hides from quote nazi's*

Thing #9

OK so like the last one, I already do news feeds with RSS, more specifically to things like the wallstreet journal for financial information. Guess I'm on top of things more than I thought, hehehe.

Thing #8

Ok, so RSS isn't actually new to me. I've had goodreader for quite some time. I use it to keep up on financial information (gotta know how to get rich if you want to be rich right?) and most of my comic strips (For those that know about Dungeons and Dragons, Order of the Stick is Freakin awesome! After all who else but a gamer can come up with the baseline of evil being the theoritical offspring of Cruella DeVille and Sauron :) *throws back his head and cackles with insane glee*). They are very useful, and hopefully more and more things will start to pick them up.

Thing #7

Technology is the wave of the future!

In my first web programming class we were taught the most important lesson of technology: Technology will double ever eightteen months. Why is this important? Well Think about the implications that entails, in eighteen months YOUR electronic devices will be next to obsolete because technology has expanded beyond it. Your computer is now outdated, your ipod doesn't have the latest features available to it, your cell phone is old, and probably not touch screen yet like mine (oooooOOOOOoooooh, burn ;) hehehe). That being said what exactly can we do about it? Well unless your rich, probably nothing. My suggestion is simple, buy the very best you can get ahold of when you need to buy a new item. Why? Well Thing about this. Computers become obsolete in roughly 2 years if you buy the cheap, currently marketed, prebuild models. For most people these are their sources of the current technology status. That is fine, but you can do better. I bought my computer 5 years ago custom built for $1500. Expensive right? When I bought it, people were still using 1ghz processors, 256 memory, and 20 gig hard drives (technobabble, meaning average computing speed and storage) I however got a 3ghz processor, 1gig of memory, and a 120 gig hard drive. now if you don't know how memory works, it comes in quantites of base 2 (1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128,256,512,1024 or 1 gig, ect, ect) These can be combined for various results but typically people will stay with listed amounts. So as you can see I am many times the better than your average consumer in my computers stats. So why all the explaination? So I can tell you this, I am JUST NOW becoming outdated with my computer. By doing some research into what is ACTUALLY available to me, I can stay well ahead of the power curve and spend less money in the long run (well less for me, since I am a power gamer). But the same principles still apply to everyone.

Thing #6

Woo My own trading card. Kinda MTG style but hey it works right?

Thing #3

Ok so the 7 1/2 Habits.

The easistest for me is rather difficult to decide on. Its really a toss up between habit 6: Uusing technology to my advantage (I seem to have this lovely talent of taking things like computer programs or equipment and learning them to a level of above average in a matter of minutes) and Habbit 3: approaching problems as challenges, which I do daily. To me everything is a challenge and I just have to find the right way to approach it.

As for the hardest there is no contest: Habit 7. I have a horrible time trying to explain to other hows to do things. For me pretty much everything comes naturally, except things like history *shivers* and so I don't really understand how to explain it, it just is :).

Thing #5

Wooo so I did the flickr thing, not a big fan but hey whatever floats your boat :) Speaking of which, here is the image I commented on. After all I am a robot guy.