I feel like this was only an introduction. Suddenly I find myself with an urge to going back to previous steps and checking whether I forgot to save any of the URLs taking to those useful sites. I really needed to get in contact with the social networking web trend that's going on for some time now, as I never got a chance to do it before this Learning 2.0 program. Being a web professional, it's important to know what's being used out there, other than regular web sites.
My mind now is all turned to doing the library's sites make use of at least some of the Web 2.0 resources, but for me personally, life is going to be a little better with audio books for my long commute, online editors to ease my day and tags to help with my searches.
For librarians in general it is essential to keep updated on what patrons are using/will use and to even understand what's being said. Ultimately, librarians may be the ones referring Web 2.0 tools to patrons.
Monday, May 5, 2008
Exploring Web 2.0 Awards nominees
Although I am always trying to find new songs and musicians that I may like, I invariably get tired and go for the ones my brain already assimilated, specially when I want just background music while I'm doing something else. That's when Pandora, an Internet radio station, comes handy -- I can choose the music I want and it finds songs with similar styles. It asks you to vote (yes or no) on the songs so it can build a "private catalog" with your preferred style(s), using what they call the "music genome". Most of the times it does a perfect job, and now it is the only Internet radio station I use.
Among the features it offers: it shows the album cover containing the song currently being (or recently) played; you can share your "station" and find other shared ones, and you can send them to friends; you can listen to it on a mobile device for some carriers; you can bookmark songs or artists, and even print someone else's list and use RSS to get updates to it; and you can do searches for songs.
As for a use for it on a library, I guess one could find new artists and songs and build a list of prospective CDs to borrow. The album cover image can help when browsing through the actual CDs to look for a specific song.
Among the features it offers: it shows the album cover containing the song currently being (or recently) played; you can share your "station" and find other shared ones, and you can send them to friends; you can listen to it on a mobile device for some carriers; you can bookmark songs or artists, and even print someone else's list and use RSS to get updates to it; and you can do searches for songs.
As for a use for it on a library, I guess one could find new artists and songs and build a list of prospective CDs to borrow. The album cover image can help when browsing through the actual CDs to look for a specific song.
Friday, May 2, 2008
My First Zoho
Zoho Writer -- online text editor
I immediately thought of how many times I needed to open a document in someone else's computer just to find that there wasn't a program associated with that file extension. That is in addition to all the other support problems that Murphy's Law is all about, and in the middle of which the need for a word processor/text editor came up. And for collaborative work, I can't see a better way to do things. It will probably be a while until people get used to online editors and the idea behind them, but I can see why they may soon be replacing the traditional locally installed software.
It took me some time to figure out how to publish to this blog, but then I found it among the menu options... "Publish", what else? In general, it looks as easy as a desktop editor with added collaborative resources.
Wikis
The first idea that came to my mind when I first heard of wikis was the possibility of vandalism and addition of incorrect information. That is probably the biggest issue since the first wiki came up, and I noticed some of them now require registration or identification in order to be edited. I can't see it any other way, if one wants a trustful wiki.
I heard news that a huge German wiki is being put to print media and will go to bookstores. There were talks on how each collaborator would receive their share of the sales, and the answer was that they would be collaborating not only online, but also in the physical world, to the wiki in question. I'm not sure there would be another way of doing it, but I also suspect someone is having more than his/her fair share of the cake.
Our library has a wiki on our SharePoint server. The IT staff has been using its own wiki site to store and share all the tech and web support documentation and also useful files. It's so much simpler to find what we need this way, instead of having to find pieces of info in several different physical folders. We are only beginning to explore SharePoint's capabilities, but we will certainly implement wikis for other departments in the future.
I heard news that a huge German wiki is being put to print media and will go to bookstores. There were talks on how each collaborator would receive their share of the sales, and the answer was that they would be collaborating not only online, but also in the physical world, to the wiki in question. I'm not sure there would be another way of doing it, but I also suspect someone is having more than his/her fair share of the cake.
Our library has a wiki on our SharePoint server. The IT staff has been using its own wiki site to store and share all the tech and web support documentation and also useful files. It's so much simpler to find what we need this way, instead of having to find pieces of info in several different physical folders. We are only beginning to explore SharePoint's capabilities, but we will certainly implement wikis for other departments in the future.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
On Web 2.0, libraries and what's next
Web professionals are surely ones that know what it is to deal with technology changes. We also know that not keeping up with technology means certain extiction. I am not rarely trying to find my profession under a different designation, because as web technologies change, so does the range of knowledge involved and the main function that used to name my job. Right now I am a Web Specialist, and although I could still be a Web Designer, at some point I had the clear impression that designers were not needed for the web anymore -- at least not graphic designers. But throughout the years I became aware that not every technology, for more upstream, sensational and innovative it looks, gets promoted to the next level. Expectations change, and the new technologies that boosts some sites may very well bury them later on.
The print media has been greatly affected (mostly, improved) by every wave of new technology, but for several reasons not yet replaced. Nevertheless books will soon have their electronic equivalent improved to the point that there will be no advantage in having paper books. I foresee a day when authors will have to deal with the same problems musicians have with the distribution of their songs. By that time (and now we can already see it coming), the greatest technological challenge will be to manage the information available in a useful way. Web 2.0 is the start of this process, along with the social networking trend.
Librarians are having the chance to learn and apply what's being already used by patrons. If the libraries of the future will become just IT staff updating websites and databases, that's a good question (currently we are frequently understaffed and undervalued), but in any case, not learning what's new carries the risk of loosing the chance to survive.
A sign of the times: while exploring Library Thing, I found the complete (free) electronic version of an old book I loved and once lended to a friend that never returned it. I will finally have a chance to read it again.
The print media has been greatly affected (mostly, improved) by every wave of new technology, but for several reasons not yet replaced. Nevertheless books will soon have their electronic equivalent improved to the point that there will be no advantage in having paper books. I foresee a day when authors will have to deal with the same problems musicians have with the distribution of their songs. By that time (and now we can already see it coming), the greatest technological challenge will be to manage the information available in a useful way. Web 2.0 is the start of this process, along with the social networking trend.
Librarians are having the chance to learn and apply what's being already used by patrons. If the libraries of the future will become just IT staff updating websites and databases, that's a good question (currently we are frequently understaffed and undervalued), but in any case, not learning what's new carries the risk of loosing the chance to survive.
A sign of the times: while exploring Library Thing, I found the complete (free) electronic version of an old book I loved and once lended to a friend that never returned it. I will finally have a chance to read it again.
Two wonderful things
Talking about family and things, these are my kids at Universal Studios last week.
Using Technorati
Definitely, there's no one using HPL as a tag -- at least not at Hartford Public Library. The first HPL tag I found on a search was from baldingblog.com, which wasn't so pleasant, considering the existent solutions aren't really what they look like and I could surely make use of working ones... Anyway, I couldn't find a connection between the tag and the result.
This tag thing is a new idea for me, I still have to get used to it, and certainly I have to convince myself that I should use it. My searches are invariably done through Google, and that's still the best way to get what I need, I think, unless I am looking specifically for blogs -- and I'm not really sure why I would do it.
It may be a good social tool to be exchanging tags and comments on other people's blogs, but that's probably too much social (virtual) life for me. Besides, I have a family and my time is limited...
This tag thing is a new idea for me, I still have to get used to it, and certainly I have to convince myself that I should use it. My searches are invariably done through Google, and that's still the best way to get what I need, I think, unless I am looking specifically for blogs -- and I'm not really sure why I would do it.
It may be a good social tool to be exchanging tags and comments on other people's blogs, but that's probably too much social (virtual) life for me. Besides, I have a family and my time is limited...
Monday, April 28, 2008
Too fast and too flawed
Yesterday I bought an incredible digital piano, with not only a grand piano sound, but also its feel -- it actually feels exactly like playing a piano, to the extreme that you can swear you hear the hammering noise of its keys. But once I turned it off and on again, it wouldn't work. I had to repeat pressing the switch until it finally worked.
Last year, I had a laptop die fifteen days after the warranty expired, and my daughter has a digital camera from a reputted brand that randomly requires removing the battery and inserting it back in order to work -- and it also happens with a friend's camera from the same brand.
So what is it with all the advanced technology that seems to forget the basics? Is technology advancing too fast? In that case, how will companies where technology is crucial deal with flaws (Can you imagine NASA dealing with a faulty camera from the brand I mentioned... in Mars)?
Last year, I had a laptop die fifteen days after the warranty expired, and my daughter has a digital camera from a reputted brand that randomly requires removing the battery and inserting it back in order to work -- and it also happens with a friend's camera from the same brand.
So what is it with all the advanced technology that seems to forget the basics? Is technology advancing too fast? In that case, how will companies where technology is crucial deal with flaws (Can you imagine NASA dealing with a faulty camera from the brand I mentioned... in Mars)?
OK, so it's time to play! I found a very appropriate book cover generator and couldn't resist:
http://www.oreillymaker.com/link/16467/go-public/
http://www.oreillymaker.com/link/16467/go-public/
Amazing flower
From my new Flickr account: this is an incredible flower that I found hidden where I used to live.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
RSS
For those of you who liked the idea of having news gathered in the form of RSS feeds, there is another form of reading those without having to go to any specific sites: I use a program called RssReader that can be downloaded at http://www.rssreader.com/ and which, after installed, puts an icon on your task bar (the Start bar) that can be clicked on to open the feeds. It can be configured to show pop ups when updates are made and also to sound a warning along with those.
The 7 & 1/2 Habits
View problems as challenges have always been a problem to me, specially if I don't like what's involved. Hopefully, there won't be any problems -- hey, that's a good thought to begin with!
As a web designer/developer, constantly learning new things is part of my job, and using technology to my advantage is obviously my daily routine; to teach/mentor others is part of my job description and something I have been doing online for quite some time, but to do it in person is a new thing for me, although so far I've been successful.
One interesting aspect in this case is that the range of technologies I have to learn and update myself with is so wide that I frequently have no time to try new ones when not job-related. And that's when I'm grateful for working at HPL: I have the chance to be familiar with things that are made available to the public and which interest me to be aware of, and hopefully to know more about them. Yes, it's possible to know how to build web pages and, despite that, not know how to use some of the web services made possible through them -- it's too much info for too little time!
By the way, for you getting familiar with the Web 2.0 stuff, you will notice that so many interesting places to go and do things require more than the 24 hours we have a day...
As a web designer/developer, constantly learning new things is part of my job, and using technology to my advantage is obviously my daily routine; to teach/mentor others is part of my job description and something I have been doing online for quite some time, but to do it in person is a new thing for me, although so far I've been successful.
One interesting aspect in this case is that the range of technologies I have to learn and update myself with is so wide that I frequently have no time to try new ones when not job-related. And that's when I'm grateful for working at HPL: I have the chance to be familiar with things that are made available to the public and which interest me to be aware of, and hopefully to know more about them. Yes, it's possible to know how to build web pages and, despite that, not know how to use some of the web services made possible through them -- it's too much info for too little time!
By the way, for you getting familiar with the Web 2.0 stuff, you will notice that so many interesting places to go and do things require more than the 24 hours we have a day...
The Learning 2.0 list of 23 things
I'm late, very late. I should probably have been one of the first to go through the list, but I've been as busy as I can doing web updates and creating new stuff for both the library and the city. But I finally was able to begin yesterday, and hopefully I'll reach the end of the list by May 7.
Following directions
That was easy enough! I confess choosing a title and subject was the hardest part. But there's always that feeling like sending a bad e-mail that you can't take back -- when you realize what happened, it's too late. Fortunately, that doesn't apply to blogs :)
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