#10 Play around with Image Generators

I have thoroughly enjoyed this exercise. I will say, it was very time consuming and enjoyed a little too much. First, I was glad to come across FD Toys, bighugelabs.com/flickr. I had been looking for a good site to make my own products from photos and this site was great. Maybe a holiday toy in the works. However, the real time on this exercise was spent on The Generator Blog, generatorblog.blogspot.com. There are so many site and options on the side that lead to hours of fun. Of note, I loved the personalized Dylan song, the sudoku generator and, of course, the Simpsons' character generator. I have been looking to making myself a Simpsons' character since the Tracy Ullman show. Enjoy.

#9 Feeding Frenzy

In order to make sense of more and more information, I looked into four tools, Feedster, Topix.net, Syndic8.com and Technorati. Of all of them, I was most impressed with Technorati as it was excellent at searching for photos and videos more than then others. I thought Feedster was good for its advanced search but it really needed it as a regular search bring up too much information. I did a search for "Belgium" looking for a good RSS site to get the latest news, but was overwelmed by investment banks. I could have used the advance search in eliminate banks, but I lost interest. Topix.net was great for seeing the news of cities and towns around the world but the real uniquness was the interactive graph that shows how often the term was in the news. For example, I searched "Croton" on Topix.net and there was a huge peak in April. When I clicked on that spike, I saw a list of topics about the great spring snow strom which was in the news at that time. Synic8 was OK, but I found little special from the other search tools.

#8 Make life simple with RSS

Although it may be true that RSS makes finding information more simple in such an information drenched environment, I am not sure my life has been made simpler. I am the first to state that I prefer as much information as possible, but now I am starting to see the extent of that statement. I do think it is helpful to search sites such as Feedstr for specific news items. However, when one is searching blogs for authentic information, it would certainly need to be verified. I look forward, I think, to going through my 10 news feeds everyday and seeing how this really works.

#7 Blog about Technology

Being able to blog about anything technology leads me to talking about two things with a common theme. With the birth of my second son recently, using tools such as email, digial camera, flickr and blogspot has enabled my wife and I to share our news with so many family and friends in a short amount of time. In the past, we would have taken photos, brought them to the store and wait for development and then mail them to selected people. We would ahve also made phone calls, but certainly not as many as the number of people we were able to email. Finally, anyone who has been to a hospital understands that technology is keeping people alive. 100 years ago, woman were still dying from chid birth and yet that was never a concern for my wife. So, tech keeps people healthy and enables me to share that good news with many.

#6 More Flickr Fun?

So I explored many of the third party sites related to flickr and I must say that it confused me a little. My first idea was to take some of my photos I have load and make a nice montage of them. I thought it would be fairly straight forward, but few things are. I am still in the dark on this application and inlew of spend too much time on this, moved on to see what others have put together. I found this interesting site called FlcikrNews which takes photos of the news of the day. It can be found at www.jakeliefer.com/flickrnews

Enjoy

# 5 Explore Flickr

Panorama of the New Croton Dam
Originally uploaded by Nicky Pallas

The photo you see is the great Croton Dam, located in Croton-on-Hudson, NY. As it was in my hometown growing up, I would often bike there with friends or on my own. We never got tired of taking in the greatness of this structure. Even though I found a panoramic photo, it still does not do justice to the size of this dam. Even today, it is one of the world's largest human made structures in the world, created with simple machines and the hands of laborers. If ever in Northern Westchester, I highly recommend seeing this great site.

#4 Register your blog

I set up my blog, which was easy, and registered it today with QL Learning 2.0 so I can get credit for doing it, get my $25 gift certificate and maybe a laptop (that is always nice). I believe that this is the easiest step of the 23 1/2 (except for maybe the half). I am starting to look at other QL Learning 2.0 blogs and there certainly is a range of activity and postings. Soon it will time to upgrade with photos and sound and move to the next level.

#3 Grab yourself a blog in 3 steps

Being a blogger in three steps - nonsense. Or that is what I thought. I had an idea that it was not a hard thing to set up, but I really didn't know the steps. Using Blogger really did make it easy and, yes, I am pleasantly surprised. My favorite part was choosing a new and a template and then it was just a matter of typing (that I knew I could do). My purpose, other than using this for the QL Learning 2.0, I am still unsure of that. Communicate with friends, family, strangers like others do? Maybe. Like so many things, I believe my blog will be driven by necessity.

#2 Lifelong Learning

Lifelong learning. That is one of the main reasons I became a librarian in the first place. I love passing information on to others and also enjoy learning things for my own benefit. However, before this project, I would not have formalized the process. But I have and here is part of my learning contract to myself:

• I will have a better understanding of emerging technologies by the end of the 13 week course.

Sounds simple, but the it is in the details that we find the challenges.

#1 Play. Discover. Have a Blast.

As part of the Queens Library's Learning 2.0, I am looking forward to learning 23 1/2 things about emerging technologies. It is great to be able to have this opportunity as I might not take the opportunity to learn this on my own. Even setting up a blog is a new idea for me, even though it has been all around me while I only have dipped my toe in the water before this project. By making this part of my week to week activities, I hope to keep up to date with what is needed to move forward in library land. And who can't use a $25 gift certificate as payment for self-improvement?

In cyber space, no one can hear you Clash

So, this is how a blog begins, not with a bang, but with slight confusion. I wish myself the best of luck as I move forward into cyber space. Here we go....