mcresur

The end of the road.

DISCOVERIES:

• I previously thought IM was dumb and annoying, but now I’ve learned to like it.
• I’m not 100% sold on downloadable library materials since they’re unusable for non-computer owners. As for Apple people, I’m guessing that since I have Windows Media Player on the Mac I could probably use OverDrive at home after all.  (Or maybe not!  1/13/2009)
• Flickr is more beautiful than Photobucket.
• Google Apps can make PDFs!!! My life is changed for the better.
• Google Earth.
• Google Maps street-level view: better than Google Earth?
• There are lots of ways to make funny pictures online for people who don’t have Photoshop.
• Someone thinks that Second Life is not only fun, but useful for libraries? And, on a related note…
• RSS and Del.icio.us – I hesitate to call them useless, but for me they are, perhaps, worthless? Hey, but at least now I can make an educated dismissal of them!
• Some people love to blog about themselves (me), while others are infuriatingly anonymous. Infuriatingly boring, vague, impersonal, and anonymous.

As for changes that could be made to the format of this project? I agree with the comments that have already been made, re: we participants should be more connected to each other. There must be a way. As I mentioned in an earlier blog, Livejournal has a nice “Friends” function which arranges all your subscribed friends’ blog entries by date, so you can read everything your friends wrote yesterday, for example. You can also just read all the posts from one friend at a time. I think that would have worked great for this project.

Download the new Bonnie “Prince” Billy record when you get a chance.  It’s real good.  I downloaded it from iTunes, but I’m going to (have my husband) buy the LP too, because it is BIGGER.

Well, I just spent about 20 minutes playing Sudoku on Yahoo Games.  I’m scheduled off desk right now, but I can’t help but feel guilty as the carts of holds line up needing to get shelved, and bins of returns overflow.  Luckily though, this is a relatively quiet library, and the back up disappears quickly.

My brother asked for a new Game Boy for Christmas.  He has a sit-around job and could feel his brain turning to mush, so he wanted to be able to play brain-sharpening games at work.  He’s 25!

I am recovering from a nasty addiction to JigSawDoku.  I got hooked when I wasn’t working – when I was supposed to be cleaning the house and stuff.

I still don’t like board games though.

Okay, I’m going to do some work now.  Oh wait, I need to take my break too…

I am hesitant to download things, but okay, you twisted my arm, I’ll download Google Earth.

GOOGLE EARTH!!!!!!!!!!

I like it.  I like Google Earth.  Ist gut.  Second Life is a bummer, but Google Earth I could stare at all day long.  I’m not here to play games – I’m here to look at Google Earth.

Is it better than Google Maps?  Honestly, I think they’re equally great.  Very great.

I just got back from vacation today.  Right before we left, the display on our laptop went on the fritz, so we were without the internet – without Google Maps – for 2 weeks.  I’m able to bring it up on my phone, but it’s so little and slow.  Where is coffee?  Where is pizza?  Where is record store?

When will Google manufacture their own brand of GPS?

I thought this type of thing had died in the 90s! I remember the boys playing MUD when I was in high school – we’d go the computer lab at the student union at IU. No age restrictions, no student ID, no signing in, no time limits… that was a looong time ago! Anyway, I thought MUDs and Sims and the like were long since over. Wrong again!

Recently I used “Anna”, the virtual IKEA girl, to help me buy some slipcovers. The appeal of IM’ing with an actual person is huge, in a retail situation (easier than making a phone call), and I can understand how clothing the IM session in the guise of a little animated character is helpful too.

Second Life is creepy though. I mean, I’ve got a man! When I see Second Life, all I think of is a world of people staring at computers. I cannot separate the imaginary virtual fun from the fact that people are sitting in the dark staring at computers. Depressing!  How about a First Life?

This is interesting. You can get an RSS feed of Henry Earl’s arrests. Previously you had to check his real-time incarceration status on his fan site. Yay Web 2.0!

But now I can’t find the old website.

A revelation. Here I was, faced with having to save an image as a PDF with out Photoshop (anyone out there have a recent version of Photoshop for Mac?), when lo and behold 20 for 2.0 brings me Google Docs. Yay!!!

I can imagine Google Docs and Zoho being very useful for anyone who needs to send a document to another person. This would eliminate the weirdness caused by using 3 different browsers on my home computer (Safari, Mozilla, and Firefox) and the general Office 2004 for Mac versus Office 2007 for windows peculiarities we’ll sometimes see as Mac users in a PC world.

Speaking of which, I was all hot to download Gimp (an imaging program that supposedly rivals Photoshop), but it turned out to not be Mac compatible? Can this be true? I’m not paying $700 for Photoshop just because my loser friends only have the PC version.

Still being difficult:

Ick, I don’t like these other search engines one bit. I remember the old commercials for Ask back when it was Ask Jeeves – that was funny. I like the idea of just typing in a question and getting an answer, but that would require the engine to, like, understand the information and not just gather it. I remember using Alta Vista and HotBot in college. Alta Vista seems like it was good for typing in pieces of song lyrics and getting what the song was. Amazing!

I usually search for objects on the internet; commodities rather than information. I’ve been looking for a new coffee table and none of these search engines helped.

I like Google because when they do add some new tool, it’s something useful like Maps or Images. I’ve been enjoying my little widget-filled iGoogle homepage too. I’ve got a translator, Google Maps, weather, Google Talk, and the date / time all right there.

Librarians are not supposed to use Google. I used it all the time during my stint at a reference desk, and I was very embarrassed.

I’m not trying to be difficult, but I looked through all the podcast directories and did not find any I would listen to. In fact, I cannot imagine a situation where I would listen to a podcast. Unless I had to do it for work.

….

Once, I listened to some old samples of people talking on a website related to that “Do You Speak American?” show that was on PBS. That was interesting. I think accents are interesting. America is interesting. I am curious about the USA. I think it’s funny (crappy) that no one can remember where Rob is from: “one of those ‘I’ states in the middle of the country”. I think it’s funny when I mention that I’m from Indiana and people say stuff like, “Oh, I had a roommate who was from Minnesota,” as if Minnesota and Indiana are near each other. Rob feels that people out here lack curiosity about the rest of the country, besides NYC and Florida, occasionally Chicago. This is inconceivable to me, because every place, every town, is so different. Who would have guessed, for example, that a state as small as Indiana could be divided up into so many regions, with distinct cultures? Visit Gary, Bremen, Jasper, and Bloomington and it’s like 4 different countries. I don’t understand why someone living in Washington would visit Tibet before they visit Spokane.

I have 8 states left to visit: California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Alaska, Hawaii, and Maine. At the end of this month, my family is driving out from Solsberry IN, and we’re all going to go down to San Francisco. Together we’ve seen the Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico, and every Great Lake, but this will be the first time my parents will see the Pacific Ocean. And, in true Resur fashion, they’re taking a different route back to IN so they can pick up previously-unvisited Nevada along the way (they got Utah last year).

…..

I am interested in lots of things. I don’t have any hobbies, but I think I’m an intellectually engaged person nonetheless. I’m interested in making podcasts, but not in listening to them.

I’ve been looking for an image generator that would transform me into a manga character. This is the one I found:

St Andrews

I forgot to save my image, but believe me, it was horrifying, those gigantic watery eyes!!!

You can also make yourself look Asian, white, black, old, young, etc.

I think teen librarians and their charges could have some fun with this.

*** Okay, I did it again. Here’s the image:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don’t have any particular beef with Oklahoma.  Rob made this up.  It’s sung to the tune of that song.  Rob has never been to Oklahoma.