Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Web 2.0 Awards GENI

Well it seems I have already been exploring as we constructed a family tree some time ago. Geni came second in the genealogy section for the web 2.0 awards. It is a private forum for members to construct a family tree and history. Members can upload photos , add news etc. Before each persons birthday Geni sends out a reminder email so you can send the birthday person a message. Very handy as you tend to forget. You can also see your place in the family tree and who you are related to.
I think it is a well thought out site , fairly easy to use and useful to keep track of family scattered over the world.

I also had a look around this health site.
http://www.revolutionhealth.com/
As with all these exercises you need hours to explore.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Zoho writer

Well I am amazed at what is out there. Before I started this programme I had no idea that all this "stuff" was there. I have learnt a fair bit on this journey but you need hours to play and get familiar with each site and someone to point you in the right direction if you get stuck.
Zoho writer is a site that needs(for me ) hours spent on it.I just looked at it, and as I did not have hours, just used online word processor to type up this recipe.I was busy coping it for a friend and as I could not think of anything to write about thought I would use it. I could not get my computer to co-operate and download clip art so I just used this picture .

Monday, August 18, 2008

Tarts

 



Fridge milk tarttart


1 litre of milk                                       125g margarine

3/4 cup of cornflour                              1packet plain biscuits

1 cup sugar                                         3 large eggs

Vanilla essence



Layer a dish base with the biscuits. Mix the egg yolks and the cornflour with 1 cup of milk from the litre.

Add 1/2 tsp vanilla essence. Boil the remaining milk with the sugar and the margarine. Add the egg mixtureto the milk stirring all the time.

Mixture will thicken like custard. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold into the mixture. Pour mixture gently over the biscuits.

Allow to cool and decorate . ( whipped cream etc.)






Friday, August 15, 2008

Rollyo

http://www.rollyo.com/tifftaro/
Royllo allows you to create your own "personal search engine".You only receive results about any blogs or from any websites that you have included in your searchroll.
Very useful for research, especially if you have preferred search engines.

Library thing

Library Thing is fantastic.What a fun way to catalogue your own little "at home Library". It was simple to join and easy to add books to and search.This was a great exercise.

http://www.librarything.com/profile/tifftaro

Image generators

I played around with flickr jigsaw to create puzzle pictures.
It was fairly simple to upload a photograph and turn it into a puzzle.This will be fun to use for my scrapbook.It also gives you an option to buy the photo puzzle.

This is the URL for the image generator.

http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/jigsaw.php

This is the URL for the puzzle photo I created.

http://bighugelabs.com/photos/40c1ebcb3efa238efb365524423b0544/jigsaw3602087

I also had a play with http://www.jellymuffin.com/ but did could not figure out how to save the picture.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Fun with wetpaint

In the beginning I found exercise #12 difficult as I could not log in to the site. But after emailing for help and discovering I was not the problem, I felt better about continuing onwith this journey.

Wetpaint is an easy site to use - through discovering and adding this to the site. It is so simple all you have to do is click the edit button and all the instructions are there to follow.
Even linking my blog page was easy to do - I thought it would be hard but I was pleasently surprised.

Tiff

Monday, August 11, 2008

Wikis

I knew about wikipedia and that anybody could edit and add information. The danger of this is incorrect information. I did not realise that wikis could be restricted to certain people or organisations.
Patrons are always asking for recomended reading material so perhaps shore libraries could start a recomended "good reads" wiki. Patrons could be responsible for adding material and comments to the wiki.We have so many avid readers within our libraries perhaps a couple of them could get it started and manage it.

Sunday, August 3, 2008

Web 2.0: Where will the next generation of the web take libraries?

Personally I hope we retain some form of human interaction. I do understand why so much information needs to be stored on the web but I think it will be really sad to be mainly computer based. Far too many people already spend most of their time in "blogland/computerland"interacting with faceless people rather than with family or friends etc.

I wonder if in the future people will loose the ability to socialise ?

In this stress filled, hurried world a smile or greeting from those you come into contact with is often a bright light in your day. You can blog, get information from the net to your hearts content but at the end of it all its just you and a machine.

In my mind nothing electronic will replace the smell and feel of a good book in the hand.

Saturday, August 2, 2008

Exploring bookmarks and tags

This challenge was easy - it is a great way to research topics. It is so simple to bookmark and the idea of tags is great.

Looking at the delicious website gave me more insight on how to tag effectively. I have used bookmarking before so it was really simple.

Looking forward to the next challenge

Tiff

Friday, August 1, 2008

Searching for RSS feeds

This challenge was more enjoyable as I could search for what really interested me and put it in my feeds on bloglines.

1) Bloglines was easy to use and I enjoyed finding my own topics to include on my
feed.

2) Technorati website was more user friendly and easy to search.

3) Topix website was very busy to look at with lots of information to look at.

4) Syndic8.com website was offline when trying to search for feeds.

When there is a purpose for searching it is easier to develop your knowledge about feeds, rss etc.

RSS

When I was reading the homework I thought I would be searching for medical sites - RSS sounds very medical. Once I watched the video it gave me more insight to the weeks challenge.

Setting up a bloglines account was simple and user friendly. Putting the feeds onto my account were just as simple and I enjoyed reading the links that came up. Searching the net now I am more aware of the feed icons.

However time is still a barrier as you can sit on the computer for hours and not beware of the time passing by. So think about what really interests you before you put it on your feed.

The links on the exercise were interesting - unshelved had good cartoons and the readers club website was easy to use.