My kitchen pics

For all those that commiserated with me through the long time of my kitchen having to get new flooring and cabinets due to mold, here are some pics:

My kitchen went from this: (moldy cabinet)



To this: (Ain't she purty?)



From this: (mold-eww!)



To this: (well at least it's mold free)



To this: (all patched up)



From this: (ah my lovely concrete kitchen floor-which I had for months)



To this: (new floors for both kitchen and dining room)




And finally from this: (the middle of getting worked on)



To this: (Ta-daa, done!)



There are some more pictures here at my flickr if you'd like to have a look. Have a good day :)

Thing number 23, Wrapping Up

(Does the Macarena) I'm done, I did it, woo hoo, yee haa! Celebrate good times, come on! Wait Web 3.0? Ahhhhhh. Yep I enjoyed this and will continue to be a lifelong learner. Knowlege is power :)

Gulp, you want a good post? Ummmmm. I thought it was party time? Lol. Well, let's hit the main points. "What was your favorite thing you learned about?" Gee, that is kinda tough. There's a lot I liked. Worldcat jumps in there, and YouTube, oh, and flickr!!! I find I'm actually using that a lot now. Didn't think I would. Oh and Librarything. And Google Docs! I'm definitely going to use that for collaboration on a story. And del.icio.us! Using that a lot already. Um.....can we say it's a tie of a lot of them?

"Conversely, what did you like least about Web 2.0?" Well now that is easy, Technorati, which never really worked well for me. I'm also not using Bloglines that much-um, or at all since I worked on it? Guess that one will take time.

"What areas of Web 2.0 do you think the library should get more involved in?" Well the library is already involved in del.icio.us and wikis and blogs. I'm kinda following the lead. Short of making some more really cool YouTube videos to talk about all the new services that the library of today has to offer I'm not sure what to say. I just did a Google search for ocean county library podcast and lo and behold found this:

Podcasting @ Ocean County LibraryOct 17, 2006 ... Listen to a Arashi Setsuna, original character, cosplay during the finals of our contest at Ocean County Library's annual Bookfest ...
oceancountylibrary.podomatic.com/

Guess you could do more updated podcasts and vodcasts-more videos of library programs to reach around the world.

"What Web 2.0 services have you shared with your friends and family?" Um, my mom looked at my blog-does that count? :) And I shared my blog with my online friends. Haven't gotten any feedback yet.

Well that seems to be that. Huh. I think I might post a couple more things to this blog, like my kitchen in progress pictures and maybe bracelets that I make, or even just keep this as my blog. I find, after all this, that I'm posting and enjoying posting to this more than I do my Livejournal (gasp!) Maybe it's because I've felt really free to be me. I've let out a lot of opinions I didn't realize I had, and this has definitely been a learning experience. I'm glad I did this and finished it, not just for the mp3 player but also because it has enriched me as a person.

Thank you for promoting this, and when Web 3.0 comes along, count me in to learn the Things :) Hope you have a great day!

Thing number 22, ListenNJ

My boss (Judy Roberts-she's the best!) was very nice and let me work on this tonight. Thank you!! Went to a PC Plus upstairs, went to ListenNJ, clicked on Self Help under Nonfiction, saw that the first book is ideal:

The 10-Minute Stress Manager
by Emmett Miller
Emmett E. Miller, M.D., the renowned holistic physician and author, brings you a truly effective stress-management audio program.

Clicked on it, and then realized it said "join waiting list". Sigh. Well,

101 Ways to Transform Your Life
by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer
101 Ways to Transform Your Life by bestselling author, Dr. Wayne W. Dyer, is a wonderful collection of "thoughts" that can lift you up each day. It is filled with Dr. Dyer's profound...

is available, so I clicked add to cart. Then proceed to checkout. Selected Ocean County Library :) and put in my library card number. Got this screen:

Check Out

Please review and confirm the selections in your cart before proceeding with check out.

101 Ways to Transform Your Life
Lending period: 10 days
OverDrive Audio Book (burn to CD allowed)

I clicked confirm checkout, and then clicked to download the software. I chose to open the Overdrive Media Player but it wants to save anyway. Um librarians upstairs, it's on the path C:\ProgramFiles\OverDriveMediaConsole\

It's installed and I'm downloading. Saving the book to desktop. Checkmarked the book. My it's taking its sweet time to download. Okay it's downloaded, I double clicked on it, it brings up a little screen with ListenNJ on top and on the bottom half cause it's kinda split it has Parts on the left and Media Markers on the right. Over ten media markers it looks like. And woot, it's playing! Ah the markers are like what I have on my DVD player at home, you can skip ahead every five minutes. So the seconds are ticking by. Yay!

Wait-I don't have to return this audio book, right? (Thinks back) Oh right, it just expires. Cool. Okey dokey, my next to last thing is history! (Oh and btw, I was nice and removed the OverDrive from the desktop and I clicked on Add/Remove Programs and removed it from there too, so we're all good.) So yeah, that was kinda cool, and if for some reason I'm not able to get to the library and need a book, I do see myself doing this at home for instant access. Technology rocks :)

Thing number 21, Finding and listening to Podcasts

 
Ooh watching the video makes me think of my favorite show, maybe they'll have that. I guess I can try to download iTunes-don't think it worked the last time I tried though. Heh, I don't have an iPod or mp3 player...yet ;) Ahh vodcast. Have heard of that actually. Hmm, vodcast is on...youtube! Heh.

Went to Podcast.com and clicked on television and movies on the right, then clicked on more television... put in a search for supernatural and found the crossroads podcast of eps.

It wouldn't give an exact link, here is from the link bar http://podcast.com/

search for podcasts: supernatural crossroads

(The first time I just put in Supernatural and then went through a couple of pages till I saw that one.)

And here is what I clicked the little play button for:

Crossroads - Episode 25 - Salute
posted: 7 weeks, 17 hours, 48 minutes, 52 seconds ago This week, I tried out some new music for the podcast (Hopefully you like it), along with reviewing the mini-Supernatural convention that occurred recently, go through your e-mails along with the latest in news and spoilers. ENJOY!!!!

But it wasn't easy to control the player at all, till I went there again (refreshed it) and then the little player allowed me to pause it. I dunno, will probably have to give it a more thorough looking at when I'm not in a time crunch :) I have seen podcasts actually on livejournal, where writers will have stories in a podcast format for listening, and you just click a link. I'm guessing that's where you'll join a site so you can post or host your podcast.

Oh and hey, you can do a yahoo search for listen to podcasts and I found this: http://www.discovery.com/radio/podcasts.html I think there are a ton of places to listen to podcasts out there. The only problem is in having enough time to find and listen to them all, lol. Y'know, maybe I will click a link to listen to a story. I'm very visual and love to read, but listening to an author read a story the way they mean it to be heard can be a very authentic experience as well.

Thing number 20, YouTube

Yes, I did indeed know about YouTube before the web challenge. Been watching for awhile and have a few subscriptions. Oh hey, one video just popped in my head-Lego characters acting to a Michael Jackson tune, "Thriller". It's absolutely awesome. Just put "thriller with legos" in the search box. It's long though, but the amount of work it took that person to do this-now that is an individual suited to moviemaking, methinks. Anywho, back to the thing.

Oh cool videos. Actually I worked that night and we could hear the music at the circ desk :) Well I played around, and guess what? There are "how-to" videos for beading! Just put beading into the search box and you get Basic Beading and Beaded Jewelry making tips and how to make beaded jewelry. A more advanced search, how to make a beaded necklace, brings up:

How to Make Handmade Beaded Necklaces: Jewelry Crafts Project : Memory Wire Shears..., Learn how to make handmade beaded necklaces..., and How to Make Beaded Jewelry : Bead Design: Jewelry Making Basics among others. I did watch a couple videos on making earrings. I've got bracelets down but lacking funds I think I'll learn how to make the necklace my mom wants for her birthday online.

And...I had made a YouTube video! You can find it by searching windyfontaine bear in the search box, and here is the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMwrm-9uFxs

but I'm going to embed it :) You should see it below. You can also access it from my profile, I think I have it on a couple web pages, but now it's like right here to see. It was fun to make-hmm, maybe I should make a short video showing all the new bracelets I make to entice people to buy if I open a place on Ebay... This thing got me thinking, lol. Now this was a fun thing!

Thing number 19, Web 2.0 Awards

Wow, long list there. Oh, I've heard of Pandora. I actually have used something called Live365, where you can listen online. Oh colors-that's neat. Okay, clicked on Web 2.0 Awards and picked "Collaborative Writing and Word Processing". Aha, guess who is number one? Yep, that's right, Google Docs. I'm beginning to think that Google is to the internet what Ma Bell was to telephones till it was broken up-it's getting mighty big there. And the thing is, they have the money to back up their mouth. Their products and services are all first rate, from email to images to web search to shopping and now to documents. Hmm.

Oh, Employment and jobs-Standout jobs is number one? Here I thought it would be Monster.com. And the one I like, careerbuilder, is number two. Who'da thunk it?

Okay, "Create a blog post about a Web 2.0 Award winner that you would like to use and why."

I think I'd like to use Real Estate first place Zillow.com, because it'll be cool to see what places are available once I win the lottery. No really! It's called if you imagine it and program it and believe in it it can happen. I believed I would work in this library system. It took several interviews and over two years of putting in my application but I kept going to the library and seeing myself working in one of them and wala, today here I am. So if I look at all the houses for sale and say yeah, that one will be great, if I get x amount after taxes I can afford to pay for it outright then maybe I will win and can go to the site and use it for real :) The zip code search was very easy, and oh cool, it shows a satellite image of the area! Neater than realtor.com, where I go sometimes to look :)

Gonna try and get the rest of the things done tonight at work-wish me luck :)

Thing number 18, Web Apps

Mmm, Google Docs. Now that is cool. Oh, I've actually heard of Zoho before, when I was looking for a word processing program when all I had was WebTv. (WebTv, now called MSNTv, is a box that allows you to surf the web using your tv as a monitor. It doesn't download but you can send emails and visit web pages and I still use it almost every night and surf while in bed.) I never actually used Zoho because my brother made a computer for me (yes from parts!) but it looked good.

I already have a Google account, so that isn't a problem. I had to sign out of my account so I could sign in with the given id and password. Well, this is what I got:

"Google Docs

Unable to locate the requested document revision. Please check the URL and try again."

I tried it a couple of times. I was afraid your document was lost. Not giving up, I clicked on Google docs beta, aha! saw a few links, found Web Players on Google Docs, added my name, saved and closed, and let's see...

Yep, my name be there. And logged out. For a project? I don't currently have anything, unless...I do make bracelets and people at my branch love them. I guess I can make a Google doc and say what beads I have, and invite my coworkers to request their bracelets and what beads they want in it on there. Hmm. Also, not currently but in the near future I'll maybe be cowriting a story with someone and we can use Google Docs so I can add content and then she can edit it. Or this is a great idea for betaing-a fanfic writer can post a story to it, then the beta can make changes, and the writer can comment back, all done without email. Yep, I can see this definitely being a useful tool :)

P.S. below is a picture of an older bracelet I made :)

Thing number 17, Play in the sandbox

Okay, I logged in with the invite key. My name I put in as alisaslibraryblog. Hmm, first I have to find the sandbox. Well, I switched to classic mode, and sandbox appeared on the right. Hmm, I clicked that, but it looks strange, so I hit the back button. Ah, now the Sandbox link is usable! I added under the Luke Skywalker image, "My favorite library system is OCL." Hehe. Brownie points anyone? Have to admit I didn't see the other categories. Let's see if this saves. Yep, it did. Well, I added up to favorite energy drink is red bull. I tried making the bjorgul line bold, but no matter how I tried it just didn't take. Oh well :)

Okay I added my blog, and ah, it linked itself! Cool :) OH, and btw, I clicked on Comments too on the sandbox, just because. I can see how this can be useful for work, as library systems separated by distance can add to wikis-for instance maybe the Hancock County Library system can say its thanks to OCL in a wiki and maybe ask for a list of resources that OCL can then edit and then Hancock can say yes this one worked and oh, have you seen this? Silly example I know, but I see the great cooperative features that this can have, with information sharing. Anywho, on to the next thing.

Thing number 16, Wikis

Ah, wikis.

For exercise number 1:

And oh, the first thing I'm greeted with is that they had vandalism problems. Hmm, that's not good. Okay first off, it's created for librarians. And you can add stuff if it'll be helpful to other librarians. And

"...Anyone who wants to add to or edit topics on the wiki can do it. You don't need to ask before making a change -- this wiki belongs to the community of librarians who use it."

So....this is pretty much for librarians. Guess I don't qualify? :(

It does seem to have a lot of good links though, and heh-Tribal LIbraries? Neat :) Web services, self checkout, podcasting-this does seem to have a lot to offer. Interestingly though, when I clicked the History tab most of the entries/changes are from 2006, with only a couple from 2007 and only a few from 2008. Maybe there is a more hip library wiki? For me, useful-not so much, and you already know how I feel about things skewing just to librarians, so there you go.

For exercise number 2:

Yep, saw the

"The content of this article has been derived in whole or part from http://www.oceancountylibrary.org. Permission has been received from the copyright holder to license this material under the GNU Free Documentation License. "

under the discussion tab and clicked the history tab. I only saw changes from 2007. Hmm. Garnetpoint made revisions. Oh hey, I read about Sparks, clicked on the number 28 and on the bottom it says "This page was last modified on 16 May 2008, at 03:48." Cool :)

This wikis thing is definitely interesting-of course I do tend to go to Wikipedia a lot. I already know there are wikis on my interest-there is a wiki devoted to Supernatural and the many types of fanfiction it has. I've been known to visit it :) Now though I might actually try using the discussion and history buttons more often. Oh and p.s.-I just love those common craft videos ♥

Another thing down, on to the next! (Pant, pant)

Thing Number 15, Library 2.0

For the two perspectives I needed to read, the first I picked was "To a temporary place in time."

Man! Now that is a REALLY forward-thinking essay! Now from when I was a kid, I've always been into science fiction and futuristic stuff-my parents were watching Star Trek when I was a baby (yeah okay, so that dates me, lol) and I've always been into new technologies. (Remember my mini-obsession with the Asus eee pc?)

So I could already see it happening when on Star Trek the Next Generation most people were reading books on their padd's and having an honest to goodness print copy was a rarity. With the Self-Checkout's having made their appearance in the library system some people think libraries will not need people anymore or indeed may themselves become things of the past. But this look at the future of libraries gives one hope that libraries, indeed and especially librarians will never become a thing of the past but instead a thing of the future.

The way it described librarians having avatars on Amazon.com and books having online personalities and libraries having an environment that:

"...is authentic (true and good); humane (emotional, irrational); experiential (designed, theatrical); impassioned; relevant (understandable, timely); and participatory (open, lived, shared)."

Makes me think that libraries will be around for quite a long time, tailoring services to the people they are there for while also guarding treasured knowlege from the past and working towards the future. I really liked this short essay, and if or when those 3D VR glasses come out that will bring the library to me wherever I am, I'll be there :)

I started to take a quick look at "Away from the 'icebergs'", but when it starts with "...I don’t think there’s any question that we librarians are working hard,..." I backtracked. Libraries are not just about librarians(nothing against them and they are very important!)-being a career Library Assistant, and loving my job, I think I as well as all the other people behind the scenes and serving the public everyday are just as important. My friend who works in another library is not a librarian, but works on programming and cataloging and many other varied jobs that contribute to the functioning of the library and assisting the public. I know, the article probably means all library workers as a whole, this is just one of my pet peeves. Sorry!

Took a quick look at "To more powerful ways to cooperate" and okay, collective intelligence is good. Ooh-open Worldcat? "Our next major effort in this area will be the release, this spring, of a search box that will allow anyone with a Web browser to search all of WorldCat, no authentication required." Sweet! Wait-can't we already search WorldCat? I noticed it on the Library's catalog page, accessible from home. Hmm. That was much better :)

Okay, I'm on to the next thing, but "Library 2.0 - It's many things to many people. What does it mean to you?" Well, quick thoughts as I'm behind-it means that the library isn't just that dusty one room book-containing place with the lady behind the big desk and card catalogs missing some cards that I grew up with in grade school :) It means downloadable audio books and being able at 11:30 at night to access the catalog at home to see if they have that book on ghosts I need and being able to put a hold on it so it gets pulled the next day and going on the internet at the library at lunch if I need to check my email and telling my friends on MSN Messenger that sure, we have this title, let me look it up and give you a short summary of it so you can decide if you want to order it from Amazon and, well, you get the idea.

It means that libraries will not disappear but will be around for a long time to come because as long as there has been civilization there have been libraries to hold its recorded memories, so future generations could know their past, where they came from. It means that I will have a job at least till I retire because I'm not only willing but eager to embrace these new technologies as they come, and promote them to people I know. It means goody, I get to have fun searching books and databases anywhere, anytime, and I think I'm going to stop now so I can finish these things :)

Thing number 14, Technorati

Well, we're back at Technorati. Not being able to get the quicktime video of Technorati tour to work quickly-hehe-I just scrolled down to so, in summary, and okay, whoever did summarize their achievements did a good job because I think I thawed a bit. It's still not my favorite site, but this:

"If there's one thing I'm sure of, after 20 years of building internet services and web businesses, it's that we haven't got it all right. We're going to spend a lot of time listening to you, and fixing, tuning, and tweaking. What have we got wrong? What is still broken? Believe me, I have a list about 3 feet long of those! What have we missed?

I'd appreciate it if you can use the tag technoratifeedback on your posts, or send a trackback or comment on this post. I can't promise I'll get back to everyone with an immediate answer, but I promise that I'll read them all."

Does seem to say that this is not a static site but indeed a growing and an evolving one. I did the keyword search for Learning 2.0 in the search box, and got this:

"Sorry, there was an error when running your search.

Try running your search again, it might have just been a hiccup.

If that doesn't work, we might be experiencing some temporary problems. We've been notified that a search didn't go through and we're in the process of fixing it."

Maybe it's just me, or maybe it knew I didn't like it that much? (Cue Twilight Zone theme) Oh wait, never mind. I ran it again and did get results. Weird. I got this:

Games 2.0?
http://gametomorrow.com/ blog/ index.php/ 2008/ 05/ 28/ games-20/
So I was at the Web 2.0 Conference a month ago (good grief, a month ago already?) ... it. And it's not just "games learning from Web 2.0" — the reverse is just as true, as games, especially online ...

(P.S. Don't you just love copy and paste? I do, I really really do...)

But that was on the Posts tab. When I clicked on Blogs, I got this as one result:

eLearning Technology
http://elearningtech.blogspot.com
Authority: 266
Ongoing discussion of eLearning, eLearning Technology and the impact of technology on the future of learning.

As for popular, well I'm usually not into popular stuff. TV shows I like tend to not attract the mainstream, likewise books and interests, but in one case, top search number one was, surprisingly, Dell. Seeing as I'm kinda interested in computers and laptops and heard a lot about Dell, that's cool. Another search top is icq-I have that but haven't used it in awhile, I'm usually on MSN Messenger. One of the top blogs by fans is "Blog Tips to Help You Make Money Blogging - ProBlogger"-hmm, money for blogging-now that's an idea. Well hey, I'm doing my best to catch up so my blogging gets an mp3 player, so there you go.

I didn't really find any blogs I'd continue reading, but I'm pressed for time and might go back later. I tried a search for beading, but it came up with the same error page as earlier so I think I'm done with Technorati for now. Ditto for the optional part. As technology oriented as I am, Technorati and I don't seem to be on the same page at the moment. But that's okay, I'm having a lot of fun testing out plenty of other Learning 2.0 things.

Thing number 13, del.icio.us

Ah, del.icio.us! Actually, this one I already know, courtesy of Staff Development Day 2007. I took the class on social bookmarking with del.icio.us and loved it. I already have an account, and some bookmarks, and for this exercise added the tagging buttons to my Internet Explorer again-when I updated IE the buttons disappeared.

I listened to the podcast and watched the Common Craft video and watched/listened to the ottergroup tutorial, and I'm sorry, but the Common Craft one was much better. The 8 minute ottergroup tutorial, at least on my home computer, had a tiny little screen that I could barely see, and wouldn't get bigger no matter what I tried. I tried saving it and watching with Windows Media Player and it was no go. So I finally just watched it on the webpage, but it was distracting trying to listen and keep up with the tiny changing screen and it didn't really help me much at all. It was much easier just to surf around the del.icio.us site itself.

Went to the OCL Webthings favorites, and heh, you tagged del.icio.us itself! Ooh, and Netlibrary and Worldcat too. Cool. If you want to look up AdwareBlocker in the search box, you'll find Ad-Aware 2007 Free - Lavasoft-it was saved by one lone person-me, aka windyfontaine. Now let's see, click on a bookmark-okay, I clicked on the Amazon.com saved by tons of people link and yes, saw the user notes and tags. Some were to shopping, some to books, etc.

As for research assistance, most definitely. If you search search, say, searchengine, you get a load of search engines. I like to use www.bjorgul.com, which is saved to my favorites. It's a meta search engine page. Plus now I'm probably going to be using it to access my bookmarks anywhere-I only had a few on for the class, but now that a lot of places I visit on the web are using it, it's reminding me that I can use that more often.

Finally, tried to add the tags like OCLWebthings has, but it looks different. Hmm. I'll work on that later-still have a bunch of things to catch up with :)

Thing number 12, Netlibrary and Worldcat

Hi, this exercise is for Netlibrary and Worldcat. (Rubs hands in excitement at Worldcat-I already have used that and love it.)

I signed up for a Netlibrary account. I already have an account with Amazon.com, which I do purchase from every once in awhile. That is an amazing site-they have pretty much any book or movie you can imagine in their records. But I did give Netlibrary a try, and it is cool. I tried a few titles which weren't in the system-no Field Guides to demons here-but once I got the hang of it I did a keyword search for writing and came up with 82 titles. What I didn't realize at first is that this is all ebooks-not every title the library possesses is in ebook form. That being said, I did find a book for the exercise.

"Writing for Quick Cash: Turn Your Way With Words Into Real Money by Oberlin, Loriann Hoff.
Publication: New York AMACOM Books, 2004."

I clicked on the book picture, and got the cover of the book with a sidebar of options. Apparently you can even print out these books if you wish, as well as save a copy to your computer or send a link to it in email. I clicked on annotated table of contents, and then clicked a little + (plus) sign above the image of the book to make it bigger. At first I had no idea how to advance to the next page. Then I notice the "Next" on the top right, went duh!, and clicked on it, and got the next page.

Heh, I even found the definition of an online term for the chapter-lurker. That's when you read something by an author and don't comment, in my fanfiction world. Their definition says it's someone who lurks without participating in a newsgroup. They think it's a good idea, as you can find out the proper netiquette prior to posting so you don't offend. Huh. I had to stop and take a break, and when I came back to Netlibrary it had gone back to the default page. Guess you can't leave it alone too long. Or maybe one of my coworkers had a look, lol.

Well, all in all, Netlibrary was pretty easy to use and I could probably show a customer how to use it. Mainly they would be accessing it at home I would think, but I guess some customers would benefit from being shown what to do first at the library so they have no problems when they are on their own. I still like Librarything better though. On the other hand, if I can't get my hands on a book and need it right away and it's online, this is definitely a valid alternative.

Worldcat...ah my pretty, who got me the book I wanted :) Before the Webthings Challenge, I learned about Worldcat and surfed around the site. It was how I found out about The "Supernatural" Book of Monsters, Spirits, Demons, and Ghouls by Alex Irvine. Being obsessed by all things Supernatural, I looked for books and DVD's on the show, curious as to what other libraries had. To my surprise, some had this book. Thinking what the heck, I put in an ILL request at the reference desk, also suggesting they buy it, expecting that they wouldn't. But aha, OCL did indeed buy some copies, and I got my greedy hands on one, that I've renewed a couple (cough) times. So I'm already enamored of Worldcat. It was also how I got the Field Guide to Demons-this time as an ILL.

Now to do new for this exercise: Search a recent book title. Let's see...Condo Owner's Answer Book. (It was the only nonfiction book on the New Book cart, lol.) The location box was already filled in-I guess it gets pre-filled if you're in the library-to 08721 Toms River. And surprise, the closest library that owns the book is Ocean County :)

Hmm, Details lists the Contents and description, Subjects came up with Condominiums -- United States. Apartment houses, Cooperative -- United States -- Management. Advanced search-oh lookee! You can search by keyword, title, author, subject (like, for instance, Supernatural), and ISBN or ISSN or OCLC Number. I did a search for Supernatural in the format of DVD video, and wala, got Supernatural the complete first season as the number one result. Clicking on it-yes, I do think WorldCat will help me and customers with the request form.

So that's another thing done, and I definitely see myself using Worldcat in the future, and possibly Netlibrary-that one will mainly depend on if it gets a title that I'd like. Hope you have a good day, and I'm gonna try and seriously catch up now, lol. Cya! Oh, and if you want to hop over to my writing blog, I posted a short fic on there, based on my favorite tv show. (Waves)

Thing number 11, Library thing

Now that was probably one of the easiest things :) I was going to try and find out how to add the widget to show my library and it just flowed from right after I added books to my new Library Thing account. So now you can see the books I added. Bet you can't guess the theme :) (Hint: yes, it's ghosts and writing, lol-ok that wasn't a hint, that was telling, but I don't have a present for if you guessed it, hehehe cough.) I can see how people would easily reach the free 200 book limit and want to add more. It is kinda cool.

Apparently, however, my choices for books are not shared by thousands of others, lol, not that I expected it. Surprisingly, 237 other people have the Field Guide to Demons, etc. in their libraries-and to think I had to interlibrary loan it. Now let's see, are there any discussions about the books? Okay, that was harder, but I'm guessing that Talk must be involved.

Okay, went to Talk, and then clicked on Your Books (which would be the books I entered into my library) and aha, here are "Topics mentioned books in your library":

Topics unread/messages Last message

50 Book Challenge : Ilithyia in '08 - less tv even more books!
Grammar snobs are great big meanies : a guide to language for fun and spite 83 Ilithyia, Yesterday 6:36pm

Writer-readers : Choosing Names for Characters
The Writer's Digest character naming sourcebook 43 felinette, April 5

Dewey Decimal Challenge : The 400s: Language
Grammar snobs are great big meanies : a guide to language for fun and spite 10 _Zoe_, January 19

List Five Books Parlour Game : Infinitives
A field guide to demons, fairies, fallen angels, and other subversive spirits 19 dihiba, July 2007

The Green Dragon : The Crystal Bible: A Definitive Guide to Crystals by: Judy Hall
A kaleidoscope of crystals :update : the reference book describing the metaphysical properties of the mineral kingdom 9 darrow, July 2007

List Five Books Parlour Game : Old Scratch's Lair
A field guide to demons, fairies, fallen angels, and other subversive spirits 13 Antares1, June 2007

Hogwarts Express : What useful non-fiction books do you own get the strangest looks from friends when they learn about
A field guide to demons, fairies, fallen angels, and other subversive spirits

So it seems that The Field Guide is pretty popular. Who knew? Oh, and just found out what the conversations thing is. You click on the book, say "Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies: A Guide to Language for Fun and Spite" and you get a rectangular box with information:

Members Reviews Popularity Average rating Conversations
101 8 33,433 (3.8) 2

And the conversations for this book would be 2. Cool. Okay, for a couple more to fullfill the exercise:

The Field Guide had 3, a couple of writing books had none, Love is in the Earth, the crystal book, had 1, the Character Naming book had 1, a few others had none, so the winner with the most is once again The Field Guide to Demons. Hmm, maybe the library should look into Field Guides...they do seem pretty popular. We can have the Field Guide to controlling your runaway Westie puppy, the field guide to getting fur off your computer keyboard from having your cat sit on your lap, and the ever popular field guide to buying comfortable shoes for standing at the circulation desk for hours on end :)

Um, okay, I'd better stop now, lol. Hope that I've now done this thing, cause it's gonna be closing time soon. I'd do the advance exercise, but I'm pretty far behind so maybe once I catch up I can come back to it. Have a good night!

Story I wrote for a contest

Hi, said I'd be sharing fic, and this story I wrote for a writing contest. I did show it to some of my coworkers among others and they all liked it, so if you'd like to read it just click the link below. Hope you enjoy :)


Click me to read story!

Thing number 10, Technology blogging

The discovery exercise says to "...simply blog about anything technology related. Yes, it can be anything that relates to technology! Just share a few thoughts."

That's it? Well hmm. How about this?...(is drooling):

Asus Eee PC I found on flickr.



Ain't she purty? A light laptop you can take anywhere, and connect to the internet wirelessly. Boy do I want one :)

How about pictures? Digital cameras are definitely technology. To that end, this picture is one I edited. I took a picture of the Pacific Ocean when I visited my brother and nephew, and then put some other pictures I had into that picture using the Microsoft photo editor on my computer to make a wallpaper.



More: this photo I scanned in (scanners are Technology) is of me holding a present my friend gave me for my birthday, a Palm PDA (personal digital assistant). With that technology I can download stories from the computer and read them at my leisure.



Oh and one thing I do agree will impact libraries are e-books. My PDA came with "The Wizard of Oz" and "The Last of the Mohicans" already installed on it. It's not the same as reading a nice physical book, but just like audio books can now be downloaded from the computer it's just a short hop to novels and the latest bestsellers. And I'm wondering-maybe home borrowers who have access to the computer might find that a convenient way to read their books? Without waiting for volunteers to come by. Hmm. Hopefully though that is a long way off-the sheer amount of children's books that go out in a day makes me think libraries won't become all digital anytime soon.

Now I'm off to go comment on a coworker's blog :) Have a good day!

Fun blogthings thing

How's your spelling? I found this while trolling the net for fun things, and turns out I could win at a spelling bee :) How about you? Follow the link below if you want to try. Have fun!

Your Spelling is Perfect

You got 10/10 correct. Your spelling is excellent. You also have a great memory and eye for detail.

How's Your Spelling?

Thing Number 9: Finding Feeds

Well for Thing Nine it was to look at search tools for finding feeds, and I did visit Technorati, Syndic8, Topix, as well as the ever useful Google where I clicked on "More" and to my surprise found blogs there-thanks WebThings! I wouldn't normally have looked there. I also watched the Technorati Tutorial, during which I exclaimed aloud (luckily not too loudly as I was at the Circulation desk, lol): "This is supposed to be helpful?" :) So here are a few of my thoughts on these things.

Technorati Tutorial: aptly named, good for Techies already familiar with it. Watching it I figured I could learn more just fooling around the site myself. My own opinion, of course :)

Technorati.com: Eh. It's okay, but the results definitely skew to the news, even if you put in something like cats in the search box. Seeing as the only news I really want to see is in a store's sales circular, it doesn't really work for me ;)

syndic8: Which I just realized would stand for Syndicate-hahaha-is interesting I guess, but I'd have to spend a bit more time to really look at it. Put something like cats in the "search for feed" box, and you definitely get some cat blogs. Plus it gives you extra information like when it was created, what its status is, and a bunch of other information I'd need some more time to look into (when not being interrupted by pesky customers, lol-just kidding!).

Topix: Which says "Your town. Your news. Your take." I suppose to say it means that it can do more local information. It's just that most news that news sources want to bombard you with is too depressing for me. Basically, it's kinda like news on a Yahoo homepage, and on that I can customize it to show the less depressing and more interesting to me news (like what computers are hot, for example). Its search also skews to the more depressing news, so I'll be giving Topix a pass.

Now the two sources after all that that I would probably use to find feeds if I was looking: the ever-useful Google, and Bloglines search. Also: you can do a search for, say, "blogfinder" on Ask.com, and it comes up with a bunch of links to blog finders :) Ditto for "find feeds". I'm very comfortable with the search engines I already use, so inertia being what it is, I'll probably stick with them. But this was an interesting exercise anyway :)

Thing number 8: Rss and Bloglines newsreader

Well actually, I was looking forward to this one because I was one of the people that had no idea what "RSS" was. I'd be reading in Livejournal and see the little orange icon but didn't know what it meant. Now I do, and it's cool. Oh and thanks to J*** from Ocl Web Things for answering my question about feeds.

I did join Bloglines, and currently have 13 feeds, which I'm sure will increase by the next posting. Some of the feeds are:

APP.com's living
Ocl Web Things Challenge :)
Upcoming Events at Jackson Branch
My town's weather from Weather Underground
Uploads from windyfontaine, my flickr account
and Fanfiction.net, where I read and write and post fanfic.

Also subscribed to a few blogs from my coworkers (so I can sigh with envy at how good theirs is, lol).

It's actually much easier than I thought it would be. Oh and the video from Commoncraft of RSS in plain english was kinda funny, but also informative. I got a little distracted by the hand continually tossing things away, but it is good for the first timer. Note-If you are one of my friends and have no idea what I'm talking about and just clicked this link to be nice, this is where you can find a copy of it-apparently there are many from a short search of YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0klgLsSxGsU

So now I'm actually thinking, hmm, where do I normally go a lot that would have an RSS feed? And well, I think I got it, except there isn't one for the WeatherChannel that I could find easily so I went with Weather Underground. I also looked on beading magazine sites and Bob's Rock Shop show calender, but nope. I guess some things I'll just do the old fashioned way, lol. Actually though, I probably will still go to all the web sites, because that's what I'm used to doing. It takes a little time to get used to new things. I am glad I now know what feeds and RSS are though, so thanks OCL!

Thing Number Six, More Photo Fun

Library pics plus 014
Originally uploaded by windyfontaine

Well I'm way behind in blogging, but I did manage to take a bunch of pictures around the library.

This first is from the Welcoming Information Monitor in the library that you see when you walk in the door, also called the Powerpoint Display (Thanks boss!).

I also went upstairs to the break room and took pictures of the plants around the library and also the stairs. Hmm, now I think of it I missed the elevator :) Anywho, I think I'm beginning to like flickr a little more. It does upload very easily. Here are some pictures-the exercise said to take one but I went a little crazy, lol.

Plant in break room:



Here's another from the welcome monitor-the display keeps changing (I had to wait till it scrolled through a couple times to get some cool images):



This is a plant upstairs by the phone books:



These are of the Jackson Library Quilt, that very talented people sewed-not me, lol. I did pick out a design though, but I have no idea which one it is :)





Oh and if you go to flickr, my oclwebthings photostream is public, under the name windyfontaine. That's my nom de plume for my writing identity. (Looks around) Yikes, it's like Bruce Wayne admitting he's Batman, lol. Well, I'll just trust you all :)

This is the Series DVD area, otherwise known as Blockbuster. Hehe, joking. On the other side are the items in Spanish.



The stairs to the upper level:



And a picture of a picture of the library :)



Like I said, I went a little picture crazy. And I did take more on my flickr account. But I think that's enough for here :) Have a good day!

Oh and p.s., a last note-I did take a look at the "...online photo editors, such as FotoFlexer, Splashup and Picnik." And the result? I'm going to join Fotoflexer, because darn, it's cool! It actually has one thing I've been looking for to help me make my banners-to be able to cut out a figure from a scene and place it in another photo. Now that? Useful. The others don't have anything more special than my Microsoft photo editor already on my computer. Okay, think this Thing is done :)

Thing number five

LITTLE MUSHY
Originally uploaded by jessesavag_e

I found this on flickr, titled LITTLE MUSHY. Obviously he looks different from my mom's puppy Mushy :) He's a bulldog. Here's my mom's Westie that I uploaded to my new flickr account:


Well, it seems that Little Mushy has gone walkabout, so here is a link to another picture of a dog named Mushy:

Mushy Bandit on Flickr

It's a little blurry but the living room lights were off so we could enjoy the snow :)


And here is another pic of Mushy from my Photobucket:

I've been working with Photobucket longer, and I think I like it more than flickr. Although flickr does upload very easily and there are tags and stuff and you can organize, you can do the same in Photobucket with the added ease of being able to include a pic in a webpage or a post. It's easier for me I think, maybe because I'm more used to it, but I'll try to work some more with flickr and see if I like it any more.

Mushy making puppy eyes

Mushy making puppy eyes
Originally uploaded by windyfontaine

And this is my mom's puppy Mushy, also a Westie.

Another Westie

Big black eyes
Originally uploaded by Jurica G.

Here's a pic I found of another West Highland White Terrier while surfing photos on flickr for thing number five.

Fanfiction story I wrote

Hi, this is a story I wrote (told ya I'd be sharing) for a show that I love. A lot of people, fans of certain tv shows and movies, write fictional stories based on those shows, called fanfiction. It's also called fanfic. The fans don't own the shows or their characters, but just want to share their love of that show with others (and in my case start honing my writing skills on something fun). For this particular show, "Supernatural", the creator, Eric Kripke, is fully aware of and encourages fanfiction. (Or so he has stated at one of the fan conventions held for the show, according to the site that I belong to.) In fact, many ideas that have come up in the show in Season 2 are eerily similar to many fanfiction stories that had been written during and just after Season 1 ended...

Short summary of the show (which for this story you don't really have to have seen): Sam and Dean Winchester are brothers that hunt the supernatural; the scary things that go bump in the night. They grew up learning and hunting, and are quite good at it. They have faced (in the show so far) vampires, ghosts, Wendigo, vengeful spirits and other creatures that no one believes exist. That's about all you need to know for this story.

Story summary: "Foiled by the Winchesters" This was written for a fanfic challenge. Slacker Todd finally found what he wanted to do with his life-be a vampire. Unfortunately for him the Winchesters keep showing up and "saving" him from his fate. One shot, humor.

Warnings: Contains imagery that might be upsetting to some individuals. However, it is meant in a humorous context. Also contains a bad word or two, but it's in character for the characters.

Click the link below if you'd like to read the story.

Link to story :)

Hope you like!

Have a good day :)

Thing number 5, photo fun

Hi, for the challenge we were to look around Flickr and learn about tags and groups. I don't have a Flickr account but I do have a Photobucket account. Will look some more for a Flickr photo, but above is one from my Photobucket account, a picture of chicken soup that I used in a post to make someone feel better. Cool, it worked! I clicked on the add image icon and put in my link. Neat! Up next-maybe a banner I made from the show I watch.

Cool, that uploaded too! The sink and the missing wall are actual photos from my kitchen :) I added them to two photos from the show Supernatural to make a banner. Maybe I'll blog about the saga of my kitchen someday, lol. Have a good day!

7 and 1/2 lifelong learning habits

Well for work for the OCL Web Things Challenge, they wanted us to : "Use one of your test posts to create an entry about the habits among the 7 and 1/2 lifelong learning habits that is easiest and hardest for you & why. "

Hmm, well I guess the easiest would be Habit 7 and a 1/2, Play! Because who doesn't like to play? I read a lot, and am curious about new things. I watch a show sometimes called "How It's Made", that shows how lots of items you might take for granted are created, from computers to guitars and a whole lot of other things. But if that doesn't qualify, then, I guess I'll go with Habit 6, Use technology to your advantage. I live to research. When I was introduced to the world wide web, I took to it like a duck to water, and absolutely adore learning things online. I'll use many different search engines, and I have a ton of links. I also learned a lot from a class I took about del.icio.us that was in the last Staff Development day.

Hardest habit? Umm, maybe Habit 2, Accept responsibility for your own learning? Although I love to surf the web and learn things online, I have a class that I took a couple of years ago at Brookdale Community College on building web pages. It was a self paced class that you could do anytime, but for one reason or another I never actually completed it. I still have the book, and the cd-rom that goes with it, and one day I plan on finishing it. I got a bit distracted by other things in my life-this was before I got the job here at the library and had a lot more time :)

This though has been fun and maybe I can get back to that book. Or maybe it just wasn't the right way for me to learn and I'll find another. I've found that having flexibility in life and learning makes things a lot easier. Bye for now!

My first post!

Hi, I'm Alisa, and I work at the Jackson Branch. And yes, this is really an imaginatively named blog, isn't it? Lol. Um, lol is an internet acronym for laugh out loud. And if you have any questions about what something like LOL or ROFL or something like that means, I'll be happy to explain it, or rather send you a link to a whole bunch of them. I love to research on the web :) Although I started this for work, I may share some of my writing on here as well, as I love to write. Anywho, hi there and hope you have fun surfing!