Rollyo took some warming up to. Perhaps my topics were too obscure when I tried out the search rolls for e-Books, rare books, photos and quotes from Thing 28. Ironically, most of the photos in Free Photos were from Flickr (I had already created a Flickr account!), so I didn’t find this search roll too useful. I was able to find some interesting quotes in Quick Quote, but the book searches were dissatisfying.
This search tool didn’t thrill me at first, because I had to create yet another profile. Again. I had originally planned to do option 2 where I just checked Rollyo out, but I didn’t find the experience particularly enlightening. So I gritted my teeth and registered for a Rollyo account.
It took me awhile to get the hang of how Rollyo worked. For instance, the searchrolls showed up as a dropdown menu on the top of the screen instead of a new window even when you’re at the bottom of the screen. It was easy enough to create my own searchrolls: I clicked on the tab, chose a title for it, and typed in the URLs. I could have also copied searchrolls from other Rollyo users, but I wanted to create my own searchrolls with websites I’m familiar with. I ran into a little trouble, because I wanted to link back to Rollyo account in the blog, but I found out that I had to make my searchrolls public for anyone to use it. I thought my searchrolls must be simplistic compared to other users’ searchrolls. However, when I searched through some of the searchrolls similar to mine, I was pleasantly surprised to find that mine were comparable, having more websites than some, less than others.
Rollyo wasn’t too exciting until I tried to use them for searches. When I entered a topic in one of my newly created searchrolls, it pulled up results from all the websites I selected. I was thrilled by the ease of searching multiple websites with one search. Rollyo feels like a combination of Google and Del.icio.us, with a search engine searching through sites I’ve added to a list as I did with Del.icio.us. At the worst, if your searchrolls yield no result, you can have Rollyo expand your search to the Web as well.
Showing posts with label hands-on. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hands-on. Show all posts
Monday, February 18, 2008
Friday, February 15, 2008
Flickr Exercise, Take 2
This is my attempt to post a Flickr photo through Flickr's Blog It feature. Interestingly enough, I could write my blog in Flickr and it wills still show up with my blog! Unfortunately, there's no formatting features, and I have to go back into Edit Posts to fix that. Now if I can retroactively go back to my first Flickr post and add the picture right...
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
This Comes from Working in the Library
Who would have thought that so many people would feel the need to categorize all the books they’ve ever read and liked? Clearly, this is a popular hobby because Library Thing has so many members that it can boast about being the largest online book club in the world. Membership is free up to 200 books in your catalog, and then you have to pay for a yearly or lifetime membership. That little tidbit sort of took the fun out of cataloguing my own library; I now have to worry about staying within my limit when I have so many favorite books I want to add. I ran into Library Thing back in Thing 19 and have been slowly adding books into my library since.
The work to get my Visual Shelf from Library Thing to show up was practically another triple lesson for me! In addition to learning about Library Thing, I learned to add links and other page elements to my blog, to make certain text in my blog hyperlinks, and to search for the html code for materials to embed into my blog. For the longest time my blog was extremely plain without any Widgets or decorations, but after all these extra lessons (mostly from other co-workers), I can proudly say my blog isn’t so bland anymore. I went on a slight detour from the discovery exercise to adding hyperlinks in some of my previous blog entries, to find widgets for my blog (I had a slight disaster on my blog when certain widgets were inserted too many times; I also tried to alter the dimensions of a widget to fit it into my blog), including a list of links to some of my fellow bloggers on my page, and adding a cool photo slideshow on my page!
I found the experience overwhelming when I searched for favorite books, because some titles have lots of different editions and I have the option of choosing the edition that I liked. I found some books in my favorite series grouped together, but their pictures rarely appeared while on my bookshelf. I found it slightly confusing how to include and modify tags, especially with the older entries; I still find myself unable to edit the tags on them. Library Thing has the option for you to add favorite authors, but the process sometimes work and sometimes doesn’t (or I fumbled my way onto the correct path the first time and now can’t repeat the steps).
Library Thing clearly offers more to readers who become members than those who just want to browse around. If you’re not a member, you can still get quite a bit out of the experience. Non-members can search Library Thing’s catalog for information about a favorite book, read the posts from discussion groups and look at the statistics for different categories in Library Thing, People can get book recommendations for titles they might like (and even recommendations for books to avoid based on the title they searched for!).
Perhaps, Library Thing is the solution for some of our customer woes. Take for instance those customers who always want to know what the title of that great book they’ve read (and then bemoan the fact that the Library doesn’t keep records of previous checkouts). If they have a Library Thing account, they can save the title in their very own catalog! Those people who want to join book clubs or find others with similar reading tastes? Well, Library Thing has plenty of them—surely there is going to be something for everyone! Now, all we have to do is persuade those same customers to check out Library Thing while making sure they still have reasons to visit the Library.
The work to get my Visual Shelf from Library Thing to show up was practically another triple lesson for me! In addition to learning about Library Thing, I learned to add links and other page elements to my blog, to make certain text in my blog hyperlinks, and to search for the html code for materials to embed into my blog. For the longest time my blog was extremely plain without any Widgets or decorations, but after all these extra lessons (mostly from other co-workers), I can proudly say my blog isn’t so bland anymore. I went on a slight detour from the discovery exercise to adding hyperlinks in some of my previous blog entries, to find widgets for my blog (I had a slight disaster on my blog when certain widgets were inserted too many times; I also tried to alter the dimensions of a widget to fit it into my blog), including a list of links to some of my fellow bloggers on my page, and adding a cool photo slideshow on my page!
I found the experience overwhelming when I searched for favorite books, because some titles have lots of different editions and I have the option of choosing the edition that I liked. I found some books in my favorite series grouped together, but their pictures rarely appeared while on my bookshelf. I found it slightly confusing how to include and modify tags, especially with the older entries; I still find myself unable to edit the tags on them. Library Thing has the option for you to add favorite authors, but the process sometimes work and sometimes doesn’t (or I fumbled my way onto the correct path the first time and now can’t repeat the steps).
Library Thing clearly offers more to readers who become members than those who just want to browse around. If you’re not a member, you can still get quite a bit out of the experience. Non-members can search Library Thing’s catalog for information about a favorite book, read the posts from discussion groups and look at the statistics for different categories in Library Thing, People can get book recommendations for titles they might like (and even recommendations for books to avoid based on the title they searched for!).
Perhaps, Library Thing is the solution for some of our customer woes. Take for instance those customers who always want to know what the title of that great book they’ve read (and then bemoan the fact that the Library doesn’t keep records of previous checkouts). If they have a Library Thing account, they can save the title in their very own catalog! Those people who want to join book clubs or find others with similar reading tastes? Well, Library Thing has plenty of them—surely there is going to be something for everyone! Now, all we have to do is persuade those same customers to check out Library Thing while making sure they still have reasons to visit the Library.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Someone Clearly has Too Much Time on His Hand
I can’t believe some of these huge image generators originate from people’s blogs! Really, someone must have a lot of time to make all these generators for us 2.0ers to enjoy. The Generator Blog had 927+ generators for playing around with different names and images!
With so many image generators to explore, I guess it’s no surprise to run into some duds. The Christmas Tree decorator reminds me of one of the Facebook applications, just a little trickier to find and “give” gifts. The Snowflake generator made a snowflake that looked unremarkably like the star drawn by an elementary school kid, and the snowflake looked the same no matter how you moved your mouse. The Brain Scanner generator looked fun, but it seemed random how your name gave you certain brain cells when your brain “scan” was generated. Alas, the result wasn’t so amusing because my brain scan only had angry or sad faces.
I tried a couple name generators and didn’t find them particularly impressive. The Tibetan Name Generator sounded interesting, but the link didn’t work. I found a Chinese Name generator where you could even choose different styles of calligraphy from ancient style to handwritten style, to have it written horizontally or vertically, but the unfortunate thing is that it generates a Chinese name only based on the phonetics of your name, so it’s really meaningless gibberish.
This generator is for someone who adores chocolate.
This link is to the chocolate I personalized. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the image to show up in my blog without creating an account with the site, so I included a link instead.
This is a variation of the Ninja text with a wizard instead.
I actually spent less time on Letter James and FD Toys in this exercise. Letter James didn’t seem to offer much image generating fun and felt more like a money-making venture. Back in the Flickr exercise, I had already checked out FD Toys. It didn’t have as many image generators, but they were easier to customize and often did (unfortunately) require you to have a photo file to play with. All in all, a little fun makes learning go a lot faster.
With so many image generators to explore, I guess it’s no surprise to run into some duds. The Christmas Tree decorator reminds me of one of the Facebook applications, just a little trickier to find and “give” gifts. The Snowflake generator made a snowflake that looked unremarkably like the star drawn by an elementary school kid, and the snowflake looked the same no matter how you moved your mouse. The Brain Scanner generator looked fun, but it seemed random how your name gave you certain brain cells when your brain “scan” was generated. Alas, the result wasn’t so amusing because my brain scan only had angry or sad faces.
I tried a couple name generators and didn’t find them particularly impressive. The Tibetan Name Generator sounded interesting, but the link didn’t work. I found a Chinese Name generator where you could even choose different styles of calligraphy from ancient style to handwritten style, to have it written horizontally or vertically, but the unfortunate thing is that it generates a Chinese name only based on the phonetics of your name, so it’s really meaningless gibberish.
This generator is for someone who adores chocolate.
This link is to the chocolate I personalized. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the image to show up in my blog without creating an account with the site, so I included a link instead.
This is a variation of the Ninja text with a wizard instead.
I actually spent less time on Letter James and FD Toys in this exercise. Letter James didn’t seem to offer much image generating fun and felt more like a money-making venture. Back in the Flickr exercise, I had already checked out FD Toys. It didn’t have as many image generators, but they were easier to customize and often did (unfortunately) require you to have a photo file to play with. All in all, a little fun makes learning go a lot faster.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
The Order: Play with Flickr.
What can I say? I am thorough. When I first created Flickr and looked at its features, I sort of already explored some of the mashups and third party applications available. However, I did stop to look at the mashups mentioned if I haven’t explored them before.
I wasn’t too impressed with Mappr, since it didn’t look too attractive with photos on a map (unless the map is huge enough) and it would be a bit of work to print off something huge enough to see the photos. I already looked at the Color Pickr for #20 and was amazed at the pictures pulled up in shades I thought would be hard to find. Spell with Flickr had some interesting effects, but I didn’t care for the images of the letters used and I didn’t like being unable to choose the design for the letter. It was fun in the randomness, but a letdown in the lack of personal input.
Mongtagr was pretty cool, pulling photos from Flickr to make a mosaic of a particular picture. Unfortunately, Montagr pulls any pictures of the right color even if it’s not part of the theme. I looked at sunsets and felt the effect was ruined when I saw that some of the photos were of people who made up the right colors for the sunset Montagr put together.
I checked out the Trading Card Maker from FD Toys and had a little trouble because the picture I used was too big. I didn’t realize the size of my picture mattered, and I can’t see how to resize the picture before inserting it. Otherwise, I thought it was a fun way to make our own library-themed cards to use. Hmm, my brain’s whirling with ideas for what we can do with them!
Learning 2.0 is all about discovery and playing around with the internet tools available to us (if we know about them), but I can’t believe we actually need to be assigned to play! Really, what workaholics we are.
I wasn’t too impressed with Mappr, since it didn’t look too attractive with photos on a map (unless the map is huge enough) and it would be a bit of work to print off something huge enough to see the photos. I already looked at the Color Pickr for #20 and was amazed at the pictures pulled up in shades I thought would be hard to find. Spell with Flickr had some interesting effects, but I didn’t care for the images of the letters used and I didn’t like being unable to choose the design for the letter. It was fun in the randomness, but a letdown in the lack of personal input.
Mongtagr was pretty cool, pulling photos from Flickr to make a mosaic of a particular picture. Unfortunately, Montagr pulls any pictures of the right color even if it’s not part of the theme. I looked at sunsets and felt the effect was ruined when I saw that some of the photos were of people who made up the right colors for the sunset Montagr put together.
I checked out the Trading Card Maker from FD Toys and had a little trouble because the picture I used was too big. I didn’t realize the size of my picture mattered, and I can’t see how to resize the picture before inserting it. Otherwise, I thought it was a fun way to make our own library-themed cards to use. Hmm, my brain’s whirling with ideas for what we can do with them!
Learning 2.0 is all about discovery and playing around with the internet tools available to us (if we know about them), but I can’t believe we actually need to be assigned to play! Really, what workaholics we are.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Capture the Moment…and Then Share It!
I started off my Flickr experience with a groan. I have to create yet another account/profile? With Yahoo this time. At least Flickr makes it easy to upload images from Flickr onto your blog, though you have to set up that between Flickr and your blog account. After grumbling about it some more, I finally sat down to explore Flickr, and I was impressed with the photos I saw there. Then I grew overwhelmed. With all these great photos there, why do I need to add mine?
To avoid the topic of which pictures to upload to my account, I looked around at some of Flickr’s services and features. I stumbled onto Flickr’s Interestingness feature that has highlights of some of the remarkable photos from different dates to look at. And Flickr’s boast that it is easy to loose track of time while looking through these photos was definitely true. (This is how I found my interesting image to share.)
To avoid the topic of which pictures to upload to my account, I looked around at some of Flickr’s services and features. I stumbled onto Flickr’s Interestingness feature that has highlights of some of the remarkable photos from different dates to look at. And Flickr’s boast that it is easy to loose track of time while looking through these photos was definitely true. (This is how I found my interesting image to share.)
It was exciting (and humbling) to see what other people have used Flickr for in the third party applications of Flickr services. If you want pictures of a certain shade of color, you can pick one from the Color Picker; I was awed by some of the pictures I found matching the colors I selected. You can make motivational posters or customized movie posters by simply selecting a photo from your files, filling in the information blanks and then you get an instant poster! I was tickled by the busy message while your poster is made: “Digitizing your wisdom, great one...Please wait.”
I gave a cursory glance through some of the libraries using Flickr, and it reminded me of the photo archives in our W drive except online. This got me thinking. Wouldn’t it be great to have an online photo archive? This way, all the photo files won’t take up so much room on the W drive. We would also be able to share these photos with other libraries from all over the world!
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Simply Del.icio.us! Food for the Mind
Wow, this was practically a double (or triple) lesson for me. I’ve rarely bookmarked before (not enough to grasp the usefulness of bookmarking), and now I’m learning to bookmark and jumping to social bookmarking and tagging at the same time! I am on a roll here.
Reading about the articles on social bookmarking left me completely lost. I’ve only bookmarked maybe once or twice before, so I fail to see why social bookmarking is such a big deal, how it could be useful or why people practically swear that it is a lifesaver. I felt more confused, because tagging sounds like it depends on social bookmarking, or it’s a big part of it, at the least.
I figured that the only way to understand social bookmarking was to create a Del.icio.us account for myself. I created one, but that didn’t help my understanding much. After I talked with a co-worker who used Del.icio.us before, and she bookmarked and tagged a website with me, it made more sense. I can see more potential use for social bookmarking now.
A fellow 2.0er raised this point: What if we offer computer classes and we have tons of useful websites to recommend? Instead of giving patrons a long list of complicated URLs, we could just give them the URL of our Del.icio.us account or create one for library use containing all the suggested sites that they can browse at their leisure. If we update it, when the students access the URL, they have the most current information!
If there’s a group doing research, then saving all the links to one Del.icio.us account makes it accessible to all the members and doesn’t take up room on the library’s shared folders. All in all, social bookmarking bears a striking resemblance to RSS readers, sharing a lot of similar features with each other. Uh oh, is the RSS reader, this tool of 2.0, is becoming obsolete already?
Reading about the articles on social bookmarking left me completely lost. I’ve only bookmarked maybe once or twice before, so I fail to see why social bookmarking is such a big deal, how it could be useful or why people practically swear that it is a lifesaver. I felt more confused, because tagging sounds like it depends on social bookmarking, or it’s a big part of it, at the least.
I figured that the only way to understand social bookmarking was to create a Del.icio.us account for myself. I created one, but that didn’t help my understanding much. After I talked with a co-worker who used Del.icio.us before, and she bookmarked and tagged a website with me, it made more sense. I can see more potential use for social bookmarking now.
A fellow 2.0er raised this point: What if we offer computer classes and we have tons of useful websites to recommend? Instead of giving patrons a long list of complicated URLs, we could just give them the URL of our Del.icio.us account or create one for library use containing all the suggested sites that they can browse at their leisure. If we update it, when the students access the URL, they have the most current information!
If there’s a group doing research, then saving all the links to one Del.icio.us account makes it accessible to all the members and doesn’t take up room on the library’s shared folders. All in all, social bookmarking bears a striking resemblance to RSS readers, sharing a lot of similar features with each other. Uh oh, is the RSS reader, this tool of 2.0, is becoming obsolete already?
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