iGoogle

My iGoogle page now has a very sweet banner drawn by Michael Leunig. Interestingly, he did not come up when I tried typing 'Australia' into the search box for themes.

I have put in widgets for headlines from the ABC, BBC and Sydney Morning Herald, a 'to-do list' widget, Launceston's weather (the closest I could get to local), Library Thing and changed the horoscope to my month (Libra). These are in addition to the widgets for the Learning 2.0 course.

I tried to watch the working at Google youtube video but unfortunately our bandwith availability was pretty shocking and I just got the rather frustrating few words at a time.

Google docs, maps, books

It was interesting to have a look at some of these Google features.

Google Docs
Thought this could be quite useful either within our own workplace or within the wider SLT environment. I guess security could be a possible problem but if the subject matter was not controversial, e.g. compiling a booklist, then it would be accessible to many more people. While our own immediate workplaces do have drives that all staff can access while they are physically in the building, it does allow for more flexibility if you are away from your home base or (as I am now) working from home.

GoogleMaps
This is quite a fun application and it was interesting to see that our home is on the edge of the satellite picture for our town. Next door melts in to shadow. I also got up another staff member's home and she was interested to see that some trees that had been cut down the previous week were still in the satellite picture. The image was dated April 2008 so it will be interesting to see when it is next updated.

GoogleBooks
I was probably least impressed with this feature of the 3 I looked at. I guess this could be because there are not many (any?) Australian libraries listed, not many full-text versions of books yet. I tried a search on 'literature' and language 'english' but still brought up French, German and Latin texts.
The good thing about it was that if people wished to buy the item then Angus and Robertson and Dymocks came up as suppliers.
In Incite (May 2008 p30) Webb's Web has a paragraph on the Open Content Alliance at www.opencontentalliance.org which is another route that some libraries are taking.

Wrong dates coming up on my blog

I have just noticed that the post I put on today (Monday) is coming up Sunday. I guess this means that perhaps my profile is still in US time.

Facebook

I signed up for Facebook on Friday and now have 4 friends. I was rather afraid I wouldn't have any but my children took pity on me so I had 2 by the end of Friday, another (nephew) on Saturday and another (work colleague) today.
After I had put in my school leaving year, I thought that Facebook could be improved for us older married females by having maiden names put in as well. It is a bit tricky trying to figure out who some of the women who have come up as in my year might be and surprisingly, there do not seem to be any blokes names listed..

MySpace

I looked at a number of MySpace sites and I am interested to see the differences between them. My own feeling is that unless you are prepared to put in quite a bit of time to make your space attractive and interesting it is probably not worth starting at all.

Most sites had links to their library catalogue and address details of physical locations. Some had links to online databases and temporary online membership, an 'ask us' type facility, and top picks for dvds, music and books. A few had facilities for sending reviews. It did seem a good spot for pr for local activities.

Most did not seem to have all that many 'friends' although it would be interesting to see how many hits various sites got without people signing up as friends.

RSS feeds

Quite a while ago, I thought I had signed up for SLT email notification of new dvds but have never received an email so must not have got the subscription process right. I am now all excited that I might actually get it now through an RSS feed. Will have to wait until the end of the month to find out.

One or the other!

I was hoping to be able to 'compose' and 'edit html' in one post. After trying to add both to one post and losing the one I did first, I decided to add html on one and talk on the other.

The thoughts I tried to add to the previous post and then lost related to the fact that my Bloglines feeds would disappear down the body of the main text and it would be good to have them permanently somewhere up the top of the blog page. I think that in practice it would be easier to have Bloglines near the top of my 'Favourites' list and dip in from time to time.

Bloglines sub

Now you can easily subscribe to my blog

Although I am putting in this link, I suspect that it will get lost down the bottom of my blog as more recent posts are added. I will also be interested to see whether anyone subscribes!

Gettin' in the swing of things!

I am hoping this link to the image generator works as the SLT computers blocked this site and I did it from home.

Made with free image tools @ TXT2PIC.com

Library Thing link

Looking east along the North West Coast of Tasmania

DSCN0652
Originally uploaded by penguin7316

Have finally done it. I am not sure what I did/did not do the other day but it is good to actually have a photo posted.