Week 7 * Thing 12

Well, I can sleep well tonight, because the Gnome Name Generator has revealed to me that my gnome's gname is Stewart the Lost Night Watchman of Wick. (As a Pratchett fan, I am of course favorably disposed towards the Night Watch.)

But honestly, do these people not have day jobs -- or is this what they do at their day jobs?

Not that I didn't have fun. I enjoyed the Letter James e-cards, and I may actually go back to that site. And the Pocket Emo Generator helped me in my quest to define and identify this new sub-cultural group -- wearing a messenger bag seems to be key.

Disappointingly, the Instant Salvation Generator did not live up to it name. The Merovingian Name Generator seems to have a leaning toward the lewd, but I guess the Merovingians did too.

Creating avatars was definitely too creepy for me -- I assume it's a sign of age. They just all seem too slinky and insidious, as though they might inexplicably mutate into a computer virus if I saved one in my computer. So I didn't.

Not a Week at All

Well, since my day job has been getting so excruciatingly in the way, I really have little of substance to add here -- at least, little that is on topic. As a diversionary measure, I will post this video on THE hot topic of current politics -- wren hunting.

Week 5 * Things 10 & 11

Well, talk about seductive! Opening up a Facebook account is like walking onto a fairgrounds - you're surrounded by huge collection of entities, all saying "Pay attention to ME!" It's easy to see how it can absorb hours of time. I'm afraid I cheated a little and streamlined my learning process by asking my daughter to help me figure things out. She agreed to be my guide as long as I promised not to friend her. Actually, the mechanics were pretty easy to figure out, but she has provided lots of etiquette help and navigation assistance.

Week 4 * Things 8 & 9

I'm not sure that being familiar with RSS techniques is going to make me a better person. Now that I know that the news feed from Topix on my town includes the local arrest reports from the state police, how will I ever be able to delete it from my bookmarks, even after this project is over?
I have never been a model of self-discipline.

Plus, trying to get a feed from this blog is making me use bad words in front of my children. I realize that no one in their right minds would want a feed from my blog -- but you guys seem to all have them, so I want one too. It's the principal of the thing.

I don't know how much I'll use RSS professionally. I only have a few blogs that I visit on a regular basis and it hasn't been that much of a burden to do it in person. But maybe it would help me keep up with ALA stuff. Hey, I bet Hornbook has a website too! I think I'll go check it out . . .

Week 3 * Thing 7

Well, this probably isn't the kind of technology the sainted Mara was envisioning, but --
check out this video. It shows a bibliotechnology on a scale I never dreamed of!


So, I'm hoping to gain karmic technology points for learning to embed a video. I found it mixed in with some others from the Topeka and Shawnee County Library that Grace G. sent links to because some of them are student-produced video book reviews. I think I've talked one of my teachers into taking on a video review project.

I have to confess, though, my favorite one was the adult-produced "90 Second Book Review" of Austenland.

Week 3 * Thing 6

Now I'm feeling like Granny Weatherwax -- powerful, but a little out of date and, as result of that, more than a little cranky. I can see some fun possibilities with some of those third party apps, but they aren't quite turnkey enough for a cyber-immigrant like myself.

P.S. I will send chocolate to anyone who can help me figure out how to make the Blogger slideshow work. I either get no pictures, or a slide show of somebody else's canoe trip.

Week 3 * Thing 5

Well, I did finally play with Flickr, and even managed to upload some pictures of my "library." It occurs to me that if we could teach our teachers to put their extensive digital photo files online, we could save a lot of space on our school server. I suppose that careful training in the privacy features would be required, but it might well be worth it.