Calendars:
There is a link to the Web's Best Calendars in Wired magazine (2/20/07). The link to Kiko doesn't work. It appears that Kiko was bought by TuCows (based on further searching), perhaps for that company's internal use?
Scrybe looks quite interesting with its calendar drag and drop features and types of integration and context and multiple time zone tracking and use as a personal organizer. However, it is no longer accepting beta users.
Backpack looks interesting too, though in a way it seems to be a personal type of wiki to me.
The PDF converter looks very cool.
The file type converter from Zamzar also looks useful, but it only has 128 bit SSL (secure converstion) with the non-free account options. Something to keep in mind in a pinch, however! Don't like all the ads on Zamzar though.
Regarding personal pages. Yes, I think I do want to have one...PageFlakes looks especially interesting since it doesn't have the amount of ads of Yahoo and I don't think that Yahoo keeps your info all that secure??? Will look at them some more before deciding!
BTW: the countdown widget on the 23 Things blog is not visible to me either.
Other apps: Mozy back up is something I am going to look into.
The 2007 guide to free software and webapps is also something to keep in mind.
Monday, April 7, 2008
Friday, April 4, 2008
overload! overload! thing 13
My brain is on overload! I am looking at all these tools in thing 13; online productivity tools and feel that I will never be productive if I get involved in figuring out the value or not of these tools!!!
So far, what I have found useful is the Top Ten Sites to Boost Your Online Productivity article, which had a link to the tiny url maker, which I just used to make the link. I always wondered how to do that!
And I bookmarked some sites using Deli (I can't get the dots right in the spelling consistently either) which is a first and I can see its use.
I can also see that having one page to go to all these places would be very very useful. It is too overloading right now to figure out which one and their advantages.
I admit, I haven't looked at all the tools in this thing yet. This thing is too big!!!
So far, what I have found useful is the Top Ten Sites to Boost Your Online Productivity article, which had a link to the tiny url maker, which I just used to make the link. I always wondered how to do that!
And I bookmarked some sites using Deli (I can't get the dots right in the spelling consistently either) which is a first and I can see its use.
I can also see that having one page to go to all these places would be very very useful. It is too overloading right now to figure out which one and their advantages.
I admit, I haven't looked at all the tools in this thing yet. This thing is too big!!!
thing 12; digg, mixx, etc.
I looked at this book review in the NYT and found I could "share" it as a permalink by embedding it into the blog. The NYT says that access to the article will be ensured, even after it becomes part of the NYT archive.
I looked at Digg, Newsvine, Reddit, Mixx, StumbleUpon and my eyes began to glaze over. Some of them (I forget which at the moment) have advertising...not what I want to connect to from a work site and one of them even said something about receiving ad revenue back if you write something in a column in your account, which is not ethical in a public entity like our library.
Each new thing (and iteration of the details of the thing) requires learning some other site or utility's organization. It is too much.
In reality, I am seeing these kinds of newsfeeds and popularization/prioritization every time I log in and out of a personal Yahoo email account. This is good enough for me.
The ability to add a permalink into a website or blog, as the NYT offered is more useful and more productive than getting yet another account.
I looked at Digg, Newsvine, Reddit, Mixx, StumbleUpon and my eyes began to glaze over. Some of them (I forget which at the moment) have advertising...not what I want to connect to from a work site and one of them even said something about receiving ad revenue back if you write something in a column in your account, which is not ethical in a public entity like our library.
Each new thing (and iteration of the details of the thing) requires learning some other site or utility's organization. It is too much.
In reality, I am seeing these kinds of newsfeeds and popularization/prioritization every time I log in and out of a personal Yahoo email account. This is good enough for me.
The ability to add a permalink into a website or blog, as the NYT offered is more useful and more productive than getting yet another account.
Thing 11: tagging and del.icio.us
Tags work a little differently in different environments (see what I wrote about LibraryThing)!
I have looked at the del.icio.us material and set up the widget and tag function on my IE browser and started the import of one of my browser "favorites" folders. I am still waiting for the import to finish as I am writing this.
The idea of being able to get to my bookmarks from whereever is a great one. Anything that helps organize bookmarks will be great. Mine need a greater degree of organization. I don't know if del.icio.us will help enough or not until I can see how the imported ones appear and what else I should do with them.
I think it is also something that could be useful for some of our library users.
I also looked at Furl and Pagekeeper, which appear to have a better visual interface.
I have looked at the del.icio.us material and set up the widget and tag function on my IE browser and started the import of one of my browser "favorites" folders. I am still waiting for the import to finish as I am writing this.
The idea of being able to get to my bookmarks from whereever is a great one. Anything that helps organize bookmarks will be great. Mine need a greater degree of organization. I don't know if del.icio.us will help enough or not until I can see how the imported ones appear and what else I should do with them.
I think it is also something that could be useful for some of our library users.
I also looked at Furl and Pagekeeper, which appear to have a better visual interface.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Thing 16, Assignment Calculator and Research Project Calculator
I am familiar with the Assignment Calculator and have code to add it to areas that I control, though I haven't yet.
The research project calculator is interesting. I find in it so far a lot of content similar to what I used myself in a long one shot (four hour) course I taught on repeated occasions at another college on information literacy and basic research skills, how to organize research, steps in research, etc., evaluating sources.
The research project calculator is interesting. I find in it so far a lot of content similar to what I used myself in a long one shot (four hour) course I taught on repeated occasions at another college on information literacy and basic research skills, how to organize research, steps in research, etc., evaluating sources.
Thing 9, Online Collaboration Tools, OR: the case of the refreshing screen
I requested permission to edit the Declaration in Google Documents. The request must have triggered some message to the 23 Things people or account, because I also received in my gmail account, a link to the Zoho version...which I don't recall requesting!!!
I totally agree with the comments in the 23 Things blog,
which I read before starting this thing
a. the Google documents editor drove me nuts! The screen refreshes so quickly that you can't make your edit and save it in a timely way. It appears that the screen is on its own timer for refreshing and it is not keyed to whether you are keying something in or not. Finally, I just rushed in and clicked on something and managed to get the word truth in the first line edited and saved into a larger size.
I could not edit the copy of the Zoho document that was sent to me. After reading the Books Rock! comment on the 23 Things blog, I decided that it wasn't worth it to set up an account...Books Rock! said that the document goes away after login and she/he could not find, retrieve or upload the practice document.
Given the quirks of these document editors, though they are a good idea, they appear REALLY flawed and why would we want to share document editing this way? There must be better tools....or am I missing something here?
What would the founding fathers think?
I imagine that the concept of collaborative editing would appeal to them very much, though perhaps only Franklin and Jefferson would become beguiled by our 20th/21st c. technology!
I totally agree with the comments in the 23 Things blog,
which I read before starting this thing
a. the Google documents editor drove me nuts! The screen refreshes so quickly that you can't make your edit and save it in a timely way. It appears that the screen is on its own timer for refreshing and it is not keyed to whether you are keying something in or not. Finally, I just rushed in and clicked on something and managed to get the word truth in the first line edited and saved into a larger size.
I could not edit the copy of the Zoho document that was sent to me. After reading the Books Rock! comment on the 23 Things blog, I decided that it wasn't worth it to set up an account...Books Rock! said that the document goes away after login and she/he could not find, retrieve or upload the practice document.
Given the quirks of these document editors, though they are a good idea, they appear REALLY flawed and why would we want to share document editing this way? There must be better tools....or am I missing something here?
What would the founding fathers think?
I imagine that the concept of collaborative editing would appeal to them very much, though perhaps only Franklin and Jefferson would become beguiled by our 20th/21st c. technology!
Thing 10, Wikis
Below is the entry that I added to the 23 Things wiki
"The idea of setting up a wiki so that our library users could list items that they would like us to get (not that we have the funds for acquisition...another story) is something we are going to give some thought to. No idea that this was so straightforward. I can see other uses for wikis outside of the library too, in other collaborative areas of life!!!
(4/3/08, Fire/EMS/Safety Library)"
The You Tube video from Common Craft on wikis was excellent!
The other links were a bit superfluous, other than the one, Wikis, A Beginners Look slide show. In general so many links in a thing are so time consuming and I feel that I just get in deeper and deeper. Each thing takes quite a long time and I end up with many windows open on the computer. Today, probably because earlier work at the library involved downloading some large documents, the computer froze and I had to empty the download cache to continue working on 23 things!!!
I created a private wiki for a group with whom I am collaborating, using PB wiki. I am learning as I go along. I am a bit confused about the notification or not. Will the people I have invited get a notification via email every time the wiki is edited (unless I turn the notification off)?? The idea was to avoid lots of email among the group.
Prior to viewing the Common Craft video, I knew that wikis existed but didn't have a good idea why they would be useful.
I can see how this is a cool collaborative tool!
On Wikipedia: hmmm....I know it is useful for some really obscure information. As an academic librarian, however, I do feel that researchers and students should verify information found there in other sources, including print-based (e.g. reference and article databases) ones.
If I were making an assignment, I would instruct students that Wikipedia could be a last resort, not a first one.
There are many instructors who do limit their students to information by format. This is increasingly interesting to cope with in the library since many journals are no longer held in print format and the student cannot get the most relevant information in print.
However, I do think that it is important for every student to have the experience, at least once, of finding an article (from a citation) in an actual print journal so that they know about this process as a tool.
"The idea of setting up a wiki so that our library users could list items that they would like us to get (not that we have the funds for acquisition...another story) is something we are going to give some thought to. No idea that this was so straightforward. I can see other uses for wikis outside of the library too, in other collaborative areas of life!!!
(4/3/08, Fire/EMS/Safety Library)"
The You Tube video from Common Craft on wikis was excellent!
The other links were a bit superfluous, other than the one, Wikis, A Beginners Look slide show. In general so many links in a thing are so time consuming and I feel that I just get in deeper and deeper. Each thing takes quite a long time and I end up with many windows open on the computer. Today, probably because earlier work at the library involved downloading some large documents, the computer froze and I had to empty the download cache to continue working on 23 things!!!
I created a private wiki for a group with whom I am collaborating, using PB wiki. I am learning as I go along. I am a bit confused about the notification or not. Will the people I have invited get a notification via email every time the wiki is edited (unless I turn the notification off)?? The idea was to avoid lots of email among the group.
Prior to viewing the Common Craft video, I knew that wikis existed but didn't have a good idea why they would be useful.
I can see how this is a cool collaborative tool!
On Wikipedia: hmmm....I know it is useful for some really obscure information. As an academic librarian, however, I do feel that researchers and students should verify information found there in other sources, including print-based (e.g. reference and article databases) ones.
If I were making an assignment, I would instruct students that Wikipedia could be a last resort, not a first one.
There are many instructors who do limit their students to information by format. This is increasingly interesting to cope with in the library since many journals are no longer held in print format and the student cannot get the most relevant information in print.
However, I do think that it is important for every student to have the experience, at least once, of finding an article (from a citation) in an actual print journal so that they know about this process as a tool.
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