Thing 7.1 Online Image Generators

I did have some fun with these but like most of these "homegrown" online magic tools their functionality is spotty. I must say that Toondoo has a loyal following. Within hours of posting my cartoon I had 4 comments on it. The best one was: NICE BUT I DONT GET IT--obviously a user of the web and not a philosopher of it. I was surprised when I pasted in the html code for the cartoon that it didn't post it as a static 2-frame cartoon but that you had to mouseover to see the second frame. But it gives more movement to my blog.

Thing 6: Flickr Mashups

Warm Fuscia wall - Greece
Originally uploaded by mnadi

Captured this door from Colr Pickr, a Flickr mashup. This mashup uses 11 prechosen photos from Flickr in several categories. This category was Doors & Windows. Then a color wheel is displayed in the middle and you can choose another prominent color and it will change the photos to represent that color. 11 orange doors; 11 pink doors; 11 blue doors--a different set of photos for each color. Now who in the world had the time to set this all up is beyond me. And the practical use of it is fleeting but it's fun for a quick entertaining mashup. If you find a photo and color you want to capture you click on the photo and it takes you to the original Flickr account where you can click Blog This and it sets a posting in your own blog with the picture embedded and you're able to write your own text with it--as I am doing, voila. This door is from nice back alley near the marina at Matsouki, Kefalonia, Greece.

I went through several of these types of mashups--they are mildly entertaining, barely usable and huge time wasters. Some of them are not working correctly. The eBranch could use them in adding pictures to the website for promoting a program (for instance Spell with Flickr) or within the site to add color and eye appeal.

Thing 3: Blog Search Tools

After reading Technorati's State of the Blogosphere, my eyes hurt. Not sure I needed all those statistics about blogging. Statistics can be used to prove anything so I guess the conclusion the world is blogging but what percentage of the world? Seems to me that those that blog are do a lot of it which skews the statistics of how many people actually blog.

And blog--what a word! who thought that would be appealing?

I tried searching on all four blog search engines. I now know there's a person with my name that invented the Dump-A-Matic, a device that turns any pick-up truck into a dump truck in a matter of minutes. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with that information but he's very popular on the blog scene.
Google gave me the most hits (of course), Technorati's list seems more relevant; BlogPulse gave a scarce half dozen and nothing about Mr. Dump-a-Matic; and Bloglines had 4 results. In looking at them all: Google--there's nothing to look at; Technorati--obviously wants to be the leader in everything about blogs; BlogPulse has some cool tools and is coming from a business analysis perspective; and Bloglines is pushing its blog aggregator (I'm going to return to that feature later and use it).

Thing 2 What is Web 2.0?

To all those who just can't see why we're doing this:

"No profession can survive if it throws its core principles and values overboard in response to every shift in the zeitgeist. However, it can be equally disastrous when a profession fails to acknowledge and adapt to radical, fundamental change in the marketplace it serves. At this point in time, our profession is far closer to the latter type of disaster than it is to the former. We need to shift direction, and we can’t wait for the big ship of our profession to change course first. It’s going to have to happen one library—one little boat—at a time." Rick Anderson, University of Nevada, Reno Libraries

Thing 1.5

I've enhanced my blog today and yes indeedy I am learning things. I delved into adding more gadgets. Gadgets, widgets--real time wasters but very fun.
1. I added my picture--I know it kind of blows the whole anonymous thing--but I'm not concerned. It's always good to practice cropping, resizing (wish it would resize me), etc. I find adding pictures whether using flickr, camera software, downloading from the web, etc to be one thing I have confidence in doing.
2. I added a blog list--decided to make it halfandhalf, personal interest and librarianship. Obviously my personal interests include politics so I won't make that list right now.
3. Added a text widget to explain my blog title
The functionality of the blogger gadgets makes enhancing a blog a simple process. I have noticed that gadgets that aren't "Blogger" gadgets can be troublesome.

Thing 1 is a snap

The hardest thing about Thing 1 is deciding what name to call the blog. Blogger is indeed a simple process. I have just used Blogger for another blog we started at the library so it wasn't my first time. But I found it intuitive then and so similar to Microsoft Office functions that it's instantly friendly. It will be interesting to add cool things to this one and then use that knowledge on the library blog.