#23 Albino Bowler gets embedded

Had recently posted my very own video onto Youtube for the first time. It was easy! Though, due to traffic on the site, it took nearly eight hours for it to become posted.

(no this is not my video)

A really cool new website offers free Youtube video conversion vixy.net/
This way you can capture those videos and view them offline. I like this for finding music videos. I can capture and convert for use on the Ipod.

Before this website came along I would first have to play the Youtube video through. Second find the file in the temporary files folder and drag it out. Then third place .flv at the end of the file name so that the FLV player could play it. (Did I forget to mention that one needed to download a FLV Player software? oops)

The first thing that comes to mind for KCLS in using Youtube is for story times. This seems to be already being done with those annoying Dewey and Sketch characters on the library's Youtube account http://youtube.com/user/kcls1947 Would be nice to have actually story times taped and placed onto the site..

#22 Choose Your Own Adventure

Looked over some of the sources that were listed on Web 2.0 Awards and the Webware sights. Was overwhelmed by all of the websites that had such cool things to offer.

In the end I chose http://www.avvenu.com/ for my in-depth study. This site allows for you to stream tour iTunes play-list from your home pc to wherever you want.

I found that this idea could be beneficial for KCLS in the future. Instead of having CDs, that could easily be damaged, the system could have the music it owns online. Think e-audio, but instead of just books, music!

#21 - the labs of Google

Here in Kirkland we are blessed in having a large number of Google workers. It is always exciting to hear of what innovations they are working on. Often I am thinking "wow what a great idea" or "wonder why that had not been thought of before?" They are sharp cookies. At least the ones who we talk to at the library are.

As suggested in the lesson plan I played with Google Trends. Found something interesting. Most of the people who had searched for the term "Albino" came from Italy. Those who searched for "bowler" came from Australia. Does that mean that The Albino Bowler is popular worldwide? I would like to think so. However this does not show the statistics for both words being used together. This would help in deciding what key words one should use when posting a website. But does little in the way of seeing how popular that site would be on that particular subject.

#20 - Online Software

Had used Google Docs for some time now. Love the ease of not needing to carry around a disk with the hopes that the software needed to work on it would be on the next pc. Most all computers have the word processing software. However Excel would be harder to come by. Thus I keep a lot of the spreadsheet/database sort of files there if I know that I will be away from work for a length of time. That way if the dreaded call comes asking for something it would be somewhat more accessible. Oh yeah, also not all pc’s carry the same version of software. The file being online helps that as well.
Having used the Google software I was interested in trying out this Zoho. Wow. Was really impressed with all the added features and software they had to offer. Since I am finding that all my eggs are stating to rest in one basket (Google) I am left hoping that Google will modify and improve their offering.

Library/Web 2.0

Yep. Web 2.0 is the way of the future. The drawback that I could see is that changes would come quicker and thus would make keeping up with it very time consuming. Constant monitoring of changes would be a must. It all (on the outer edges) sounds so much like marketing research. With so much change, in order to meet the goals and demands, it is my hope that guidelines for systems would be in place so as to protect the basic services and to prevent financial waste. What is popular at the moment may not be a short time later while a system is still paying for it.

Anyone know which branch

this book was based from?

Comparison of Rollyo and Google Custom Search

Search term: ‘Bowling’

Rollyo has the look and feel of something that was slapped together by a drunk monkey. The search results were similar to that of Google’s. However Rollyo does not bring you directly to the page that contains the information. Found that it drops you off at the homepage of the website thus leaving you having to do more searching. What good is that? Google Custom Search did better. Plus Google has the all important (to me) cached text option.

Winner: Google Custom Search

Set up an account with Google:
http://www.google.com/coop/cse?cx=018398384221980440518%3Adx1jrwk_gim

Image Generator Makes "Albino South Park"

"Artist" depiction as to what the Albino Bowler

may look like as a South Park character.

Wiki wiki wooo..

Found the idea and practice of Wikis as having great promise for being useful in everyday use. Information being so open makes for a more direct form and structure of getting like ideas together into a workable form. Imagine no meetings and discussions on what content should or should not be inputted. Just do it and sort it out through a group effort without having to be at the same location!

Of the example Wikis given I found this section highly interesting:
http://instructionwiki.org/Library_2.0_in_15_minutes_a_day

This shows what other library systems have in the past or are currently doing to educate their staff on technology. There were a lot of other programs like KCLS’s Learning 2.0 and it was neat to see that the different systems were sharing these lesson plans. Open source is great!