Love 2 Learn

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2010-11-05T13:58:00.001-07:00

#91 You Oughta Be in Pictures: Fun with Photos

2010-11-05T13:27:00.000-07:00

I used a pic of Beau (who else?) into both fotoflexer and BeFunky where I cartoonized both. By far, I like the result from BeFunky which was much more colorful and cartoon-like. Fotoflexer's cartoon was mostly gray, and I didn't particularly like the end result. It was really drab compared to BeFunky. I also placed her in a little kid's lion suit using FaceInHole. How cute! I posted my own FaceInHole as the Cowardly Lion from Wizard of Oz in front of this post, and I will post Beau's lion impression after. I am truly amazed by all the options out there.

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2010-11-05T13:26:00.001-07:00

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#90 YOU OUGHTA BE IN PICTURES: SHARING PHOTOS

2010-11-05T12:54:00.000-07:00

I was amazed by the number of photosharing websites. I have used Flickr, but really liked the review and features of Photobucket. I think I will definitely be a Photobucket convert and will be looking into that a lot more than I ever did with Flickr. My biggest concern with photosharing is privacy. I like to control who sees my photos. Copyright options also interest me as I have several pictures for which I would like to be solely credited. Photobucket has the most features offered, and the ones it does not include don't interest me that much although I do wish it had photo licensing. That is the only downside I see for my using Photobucket. Features I prefer would be safe filter, batch photo uploading, printing services and copyright options.

#89 YOU OUGHTA BE IN PICTURES: BASIC PHOTO EDITING

2010-11-05T12:42:00.000-07:00

After trying Picnik, Photoshop and Fotoflexer, I found that I really didn't like Photoshop all that well. It was not nearly as user friendly or intuitive. For practical purposes, I prefer Picnik, and for more whimsical photos, Fotoflex. I really enjoyed dressing Beau's picture up with the flower frame. We lost her to cancer at the tender age of 4, and this is one of my favorite photos of her. I sharpened the image, further sharpened up her face and then blurred out the rest of her. I cropped this from a picture where I removed the view of a cluttered desk and computer screen.

The editing feaures that I would use for the most part are the practical ones...cropping, auto-fix and resizing though it is nice to know that there are so many more options out there than I knew about. I really, really like what I was able to do with this photo of Beau.

THE FUTURE 0F MEDIA:#80: MOVIES

2010-03-03T09:22:00.000-08:00

I looked at Seven Years in Tibet on Hulu. I really don't care to watch movies online as I prefer a bigger screen.....that is why I bought a big screen tv! I think it would probably be good entertainment for someone with an iphone so that they could pass the time while waiting at the airport, doctors office, etc. It just isn't my style.

I think that the trailer sites would be helpful. I already go to the movie site each week to see what new movies I would like to see. I then add them to my Netflix cue. I might use them. I liked IMDB better. I have used that site before for movie reviews, however, did not notice that they had trailers as well or full length films.

I definiately like fee-based movies. We use Netflix as I previously mentioned. It really makes it easy to obtain movies that we really want to see rather than watching whatever happens to be on television at any given time. The convenience of not having any set return period is a bonus as well. We usually watch and return right away, but because we had a terminal health issue come up with one of our cats, we were delayed two weeks in returning it. No problem! No late fees! We also use the Roku streaming device with it, and that keeps us supplied with plenty to watch while we wait for our next movie to arrive through the mail. They also have interesting documentaries as well. I just watched one the other night on the making of a Kentucky Derby winner and am currently watching one about the audition process for selecting dancers for A Chorus Line. Additionally, they also offer foreign films as well. Their website makes it easy to make my selections, and they have a system in place that offers suggestions based on my preferences. We are saving a ton of $$ by not going to the movie theatre as often. I will definiately use movie trailers to help me add selections each week now that I know about them.

GENEALOGY POST #70

2009-11-07T07:27:00.000-08:00

I thought that the Look-a-Like Meter and the Celeb Meter were a lot of fun. It turns out that I split even between my mom and dad and didn't look more like one or the other. The same thing happened when I tried myself with my husband and one of my daughters. We have always said that no one in the family looks related to anyone else in the family so I guess that confirms it! The Celeb Meter was funny. I resembled Angela Lansbury. It was hilarious when I tried a picture of my 83-year-old mother. It came up with Larry King! (I didn't tell her!)

Footnote was interesting; however, the member comments were so wide and varied. I may try a subscription for a year along with my ancestry.com subscription to see just how helpful it might be. Definitely looked worth a try.

Genealogy #69

2009-10-10T14:06:00.000-07:00

I tried going on to Heritage Quest Persi and looked up "Kercheval" to see what I could turn up. I have a great-great uncle who wrote the History of the Valley of Virginia. I did find a listing for him! He was listed in the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography V. 67 Issue 3 in July of 1959. I think I'm going to have to order a copy of that one!

Genealogy Post #68

2009-10-10T09:51:00.000-07:00

I became interested in oral histories when it was too late to do much about it. Most of the relatives that I would have liked to get an oral history from were no longer alive when I started doing research. I definitely would consider it is I had anyone to go to. The only living relative I have is my mother so I will probably pursue that before it is too late as she is now almost 84. I am most interested in her mother's family; however, my grandmother did not want to talk about her family so I have hit a deadend there.

The cemetery I looked at is in the Barnes Community Cemetery in Indiana where my paternal grandparents are burried. The oldest grave belonged to Thomas Stonehouse. The date of death was illegible except for 19, 1841 ; however, since the stone stated "months 18 days."

Genealogy #67

2009-09-25T14:18:00.000-07:00

I have been doing genealogy for a number of years off and on. When I first started, there was one particular person that I was looking for who was our family's "black sheep." I was determined that I would find him no matter what it took. I looked high and low for that scoundrel for several years and decided to give it a rest. I worked on other family trees for several years before I decided to try again. The two things I learned in all of this that I would like to pass on is

#1 Don't give up! When I decided to take a break, my search had met dead ends in many states and places and was beginning to appear to be an impossible task. Ultimately when I returned to searching I met with success.....at last!

#2 What kept me from being successful in my pursuit was that I kept trying to find him as a head of household. The sad truth is that he was hiding in plain sight....or pretty close. Once I got it out of my head to pursue males as heads of households and I tried his sister, Lucy. Low and behold....there he was! He left his family and moved in with his sister across town while they lived under a cliff. Nice guy! The interesting thing in all this is that as I progressed in my search I found out that his uncle had written The History of the Valley of Virginia. Both his father and uncle were well respected lawyers. I have a family member who corresponded with Abe Lincoln and one with letters from Thomas Jefferson that are actually in three genealogy libraries! Didn't see that coming from the family of this guy that was a scoundrel! Just goes to show that genealogy can be a really interesting hobby that is full of turns and twist.

#30

2008-04-08T13:28:00.000-07:00

Pre-wedding Statement

I have placed items on the S: drive before so I skipped that part of item #30. I went through the P: drive and did a bit of clean up there as well. I have already removed some things to a flash drive several months ago so that has aided clean up. The oldest things I found were some mileage and budget forms from 2006. Those have now been deleted. The process of paring down continues with the email and the file clean out. Because of the upcoming wedding, I wanted to get as much done before hand as possible. I currently have about 1/3 of the total of emails that I have seen on occasion in my account and I will continue through month's end to rid myself of that nemesis. All in all it has been going better than I thought it would. I am saving this as a draft in the hope that I can add a paragraph at the end of the month with the proclamation that "I am free at last.!"

Post Wedding Statement

Well, I am not totally free, but I am much, much closer, and definitely feel that I will be free by the start of summer reading at the very latest and hopefully much, much sooner!!! I am down to about 1/6 of the total of emails that I have seen piled up in my account. I am also dealing with and getting rid of new emails as soon as I can after receiving them.

#29

2008-04-02T14:29:00.001-07:00

Well, I created a gmail account for myself instead of adding yet another bunch of email to my lonestar.edu account. I cleaned out my address book and deleted some folders that were passe. I have a large number of unread emails that I intend to attack and delete first, and then I will look to see what I can put into folders and after that what can be deleted. Since I have a large glut of unread email, this is going to take some time, but I hope to have the unread emails cleared out by week's end. One thing that I wish we could do is stop all the superfluous email that we receive from the college that has absolutely nothing to do with the library. It is really annoying to have to deal with that, but guess we are stuck with it. Because I have a large number of posts to sort out, it is not something that is going to be able to be accomplished overnight. I have been trying to get all the email read and definitely get rid of ones that are no longer necessary. I am going to try not to skip over messages, but either read, file or delete them as they come in. I intend starting today to purge or file at least 25 emails a day until my account is cleaned up. Because I will be taking two weeks of because of the wedding, I will not be able to be totally finished with this project in April; however, I am setting a target date of May 30th. Because of the size of my account and the fact that some days there is not enough time available to work on this project with summer reading coming up, I feel that this is a reasonable deadline and one that I can meet or beat.

Spring Cleaning - Don't Clutter Up

2008-04-01T07:00:00.001-07:00

I was amazed to find out how much it cost to store files on the computers! That was a real eye opener and for that single reason alone I will be paring down my files. I signed up for a Ta-da List as that would be my preferred method to keep track of things on line as opposed to Bla-bla, Google calendar or the Milk List. My daughter is getting married on the 19th so I am already putting it to good use with a last minute checklist.

Week 10, #23

2007-12-11T16:32:00.000-08:00

Wow! What can I say? This has been a much more interesting and exciting journey than I ever thought it could be. I am so glad to have taken a peek "down the rabbit hole" and fallen in. I had more than enough hours for the year as I usually do. I always like learning new things and have more hours than I need every year. Having made that statement, I now have to confess that I was jarred out of my complacentness by the offer of rollover training credits.....as though I will need them.......go figure.

There were a number of things that I about which I enjoyed learning. I really liked enhancing photographs as well as utilizing mashups and tools. One surprise was creating an avatar. I wasn't that interested and was just going to do something simple and not spend a lot of time on it. Silly me! Once I found the ice skates, I had to completely redo my avatar! In addition, I felt the same way about Social Networking, but discovered there were a couple that were of interest to me. I was amazed to find decorating and cats in the social networking sites. I enjoyed Library Thing and thought I would make use of it, but so far I haven't. I do like Library Elf. I didn't think I was going to, but I actually like him better than my HCPL reminder emails. YouTube was an interesting experience. I was not planning on spending much time on it, and once again, I was drawn in.

The downloading media experience was awesome as well. I found books to read to myself, and books to record for others.

Some of the things I won't probably use again, but am happy to know about so that I can help someone esle were the RSS Feeds and Web-Based apps. Maybe at some point in the future the web-based apps will apply more to my life, but right now they don't.

This whole experience has been an amazing journey. I was a reluctant "tourist" at first, but am thankful for the trip.

I look forward to new an exciting experiences in the future. All aboard!!!

Week 9, #22

2007-12-11T14:07:00.000-08:00

All I can say is WOW! I had looked at OverDrive a bit before, but had never heard of WOWIO and LibriVox. I was immediately excited about LibriVox. Before moving down here 20 years ago, I had been studying Braille transcribing and was just about to submit my manuscript to the Library of Congress for certification. Unfortunately, we had to move before I could complete the book and so I was unable to take my transcribing machine with me. I was very disappointed, but today I found something else that I can volunteer to do and that is record books. Fantastic! I am so excited! I have my account set up and hope to soon be joining in with the rest of the readers. WOWIO took forever to sign up for, but they had several books that I immediately placed in my Queue. I put Logic Puzzles, a biography on Neil Young called Being Young, Adams vs. Jefferson, Backyard Wedding Makeover, and Vinegar: A Guide to the Many tpes and Their Uses Around the Home. That should keep me busy for a bit! While I do like OverDrive and it's multifacited delivery of the titles, I found that WOWIO appealed to me more because I found more titles that I couldn't live without.

Week 9 #21

2007-12-10T12:03:00.000-08:00

I added LibVibe, childrensbookradio and Uncontrolled Vocabulary podcasts to my RSS feed. Most podcasts I looked at were interesting, but in general, I did not find many that I would want to follow on a continued basis. I think that it is great that it provides a creative outlet for those who would not normally get the chance to appear publicly to speak about subjects they are passionate about. It is a great forum for those looking for a place to express themselves.

Week 9 # 20

2007-12-10T11:14:00.000-08:00

Well, my first attempt at embedding a video didn't go so well so now I am going to attempt it again! With a better video, I might add!

Week 9, #20

2007-12-08T10:34:00.000-08:00

I enjoyed exploring YouTube wandering thorough funny animal and hockey videos. One thing I didn't like about the site was that one can pull up a very humorous video that is great at the start and then degenerates into some pretty risque material. I saw a number of videos, that I as about to make the decision to share, went blue in content

I think that the library could use these types of videos for any number of reasons from training employees and teaching patrons as is the case wih ihcpl. Programs past and future could be promoted. It could be used to help make it easier for visitors to search for books or to navigate our website or to just plain promote reading in new and fun ways. The possiblities are limitless.

WEEK 9, #20

2007-12-08T10:22:00.000-08:00

WEEK 8, #19

2007-12-08T08:54:00.000-08:00

Well, I actually managed to get my work document sent to my blog. (See below)
Yea!

Blog Remarks

2007-12-08T08:49:00.001-08:00

WEEK 8, #19

Well, I am going to attempt to publish my comments to my blog from Zoho. I found it to be another good additions to my list of "Things I Didn't Know Before." I floundered a bit doing it, but I created a Teen Volunteer Application to complete online. That was really cool. When I tried to get it to my blog, however; I failed to be able to complete that task so I decide to try this document instead. The buttons in word make it much easier and faster to make any changes such as colors etc., but I was disappointed that the font choices were so slim. I looked at the Notepad as well as several other applications. I can see how this would be handy if you didn't have the Microsoft applications on your computer.

Week 8 #18

2007-12-07T13:38:00.000-08:00

I started out looking at the first few social networking sites and thought......this is really not for me. I can see how the younger crowd would be attracted or if I were single, but it just didn't appear to be anything that I would be remotely interested in. I have to admit though that I got roped in when I came across the ratemyspace and the catster sites. How cool! I actually did find something that interested me. I haven't signed up for one yet because I am afraid it would take up too much of my time, but at least now I know there is something out there for me. Who'd a thought!

Week 7 #17

2007-12-03T07:00:00.001-08:00

It boggles the mind as to how much technology has advanced when I look back at the first 25 years of my life and compare it to the second 25 (ahem!) plus years. The reality of it all is beyond amazing. I remember when we were in awe of the first family in the neighborhood to get a color tv. That was about as exciting as those first 25 years got! We have moved way beyond that in my second quarter century. I remember when I first started using the computer, it was pretty much a glorified typewriter that I used to earn a few bucks, while I was a stay-at-home mom, typing papers for local chiropractic college students. Later, when I entered the world of the internet, a whole new world opened up to me. I remember my kids teaching me how to IM and use mIRC. I made friends....some very good friends....all over the globe! I balked at shopping online wary of security, but have moved past that to happily ordering books, music, videos, flowers, clothes and cookware! I am a survey freak and have made $400-500 in less than two years doing something I enjoy doing. Who would have thought? Three years ago I learned Excel and have made good use of it at work. I used Publisher a bit at work as well, but in the past year have utilized it to publish our subdivision newsletter. I wasn't going to participate in ihcpl because I didn't think I had enough time to keep up with it. I am so glad I decided to give it a shot as I have learned so much about a great deal more than the web has to offer. Some I will continue to use, some not so much, but I feel that I have progressed a great deal with new technology since starting this endeavor.

Week 7, #16

2007-10-31T13:36:00.000-07:00

I added my blog to the Favorite Blogs page and added a post to Favorite Animals in the Sandbox. Wikis allow many ideas and suggestions to be discussed in every subject imaginable. They can serve libraries in any number of different ways be it marketing or information sharing. It would also offer a great way to brain storm without having to get everyone's schedule together for a meeting.

Week 6 #15

2007-10-31T11:50:00.001-07:00

I think the most interesting thing I read was that non-cataloguing librarians and customers as well were going to be able to contribute to WorldCat. That is awesome!

It is sometimes hard to let go of the old and embrace the new, but that is in many instances, what Library 2.0 and beyond is all about. Not everything willl become passe, but we need to be open to change, and in some instances help to create it.

Week 6, #14

2007-10-31T11:08:00.000-07:00

In searching "Library 2.0," I found results to be similar, if not identical, between the keyword search, tag, and Blog Directory search. What brought forth the major difference in the three was when I did an "exact phrase" search under keyword search. It yielded much more of what I had been searching for instead of coming us with a "2.0" here and a "library" there and a bunch of unusable search returns.

Week 6, #13

2007-10-22T12:22:00.000-07:00

Del.icio.us? Yes......yes it is. Wow! I just want to start singing the Disney song, "A Whole New World." I thought I would only be organizing my current bookmarks. I thought I had come across most of the useful storytime sites; however, by looking at other peoples tags and comments, I have actually turned up a few new ones that I hadn't seen. I am hoping that I have only scratched the surface, but only time will tell. Meanwhile, sign up for a del.icio.us account? I'm there!

I can also see the value in being able to bookmark useful sites as they turn up while at the reference desk as well as searching other people's tags for reference sites.

Week 5, #12

2007-10-22T08:15:00.000-07:00

Library Elf is very easy to use. I liked the fact that it had a book suggestion for me when I went in to check on my items out. I wish that it would list the titles that were intransit. If you have multiple items on hold it would be good to know which ones are actually headed your way. It was also handy to have the book lists such as the New York Times Booklist linked to that page as well.

Week 5, #11

2007-10-22T07:14:00.001-07:00

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/librareeladee

I really like this. What a great way to keep track of books you have read or books that you have lined up to read! Very nice! So many ways to find new reads. Librarything has a wealth of information. Whether you are looking for reviews, suggestions or just trying to track down your favorite author's books, this site would appear to have it all. Adding the widget was a great feature as well. (See the bottom of my blog).

Week 5, #10

2007-10-17T06:31:00.001-07:00

This was SO much fun. My favorite generator by far was Meez.com. The others paled in comparison. Meez had so many choices to use in building my character. Every detail could be tweaked until I was actually able to come pretty close to the "old" me from about 40 years ago when I figure skated. Could I possibly be THAT old? Reality check!

Week 4, #9

2007-10-16T12:47:00.000-07:00

I have to say that the seach tool for feeders that I most prefer is Syndic8. I was looking for some topics that were not easily found on any of the others. Feedster was the least helpful with so many non-related hits that it was far too time consuming to try to ferret out what I was looking for. I spent about as much time on Feedster as on Syndic8, but for opposite reasons. Syndic8 gave me so much material of interest that it took a while to look through it all, and Feedster took forever to find anything that was worth looking at to start with. Feedster was the one out of the three that I would not bother to use again.

WEEK 4, #8

2007-10-16T08:20:00.000-07:00

Setting up the Blogline account and RSS feeds were pretty easy. I discovered that if a site didn't have an orange RSS button that you could just copy the site address instead and then it would search out any available RSS feeds for the site. Only disappointing thing was that many of the sites for which Iwould have liked to have RSS feeds did not have any in existance. I had really hoped to get a lot of stuff out of my email box and onto Bloglines. Oh, well......maybe someday.

Week 3, #7

2007-10-15T10:38:00.001-07:00

I used pixer to edit the left-hand picture and picnik to edit the right. I prefer pixer as I was able to achieve the end result more quickly, and I was happier with the end product.

WEEK 3, #6

2007-10-15T08:24:00.000-07:00

Wow! It is so hard to pick just one thing that intrigued me. For a while there I thought I would not make it to the next lesson because there were so many things to examine and play with. I love to play games so it was really difficult to not to get sidetracked by them. One that both intrigued and disappointed me was Flickrball. I think I would have really enjoyed that, but for some reason could never access it. I would really have liked to see if I could get from point A to point B. I also enjoyed the Guess the Title game. Many of the picture titles were very challenging.

I was amazed by Findr as well. You can get a plethera of photos on one subject.

In addition, I also liked Captioner, Movie Poster maker and the Lolcat Generator. It is amazing what you can do with just one photo.

Beau

2007-10-13T10:30:00.001-07:00

Beau
Originally uploaded by librareeladee

This is my private secretary, Baudelaire, named after the main characters from a book series entitled A Series of Unfortunate Events. She is very good at fielding calls from unrelenting telemarketers.

Internet Safety

2007-10-12T14:23:00.000-07:00

In this day and age, parents need to be particularly vigilant in protecting their children while on line. Children are very trusting and don't realize what danger might lurk at the end of the connection they have made with their computer. It is very easy to start typing and not really consider who one's audience is. Kids like to vent and it is very possible that they might find a seemingly kind and willing listener with bad intentions and not have a clue to what they might be set up for. In many ways, it might seem easier to express oneself when not speaking face to face with someone.

I am very careful not to give out personal information while online. When you consider that you would not walk up to a stranger on the street and start telling him/her the most intimate details of your life, why would you do so with a stranger whose face you have never seen? The internet is a great and powerful thing, but the prudent thing to do is not to put everything out there for the world to see. Common sense must rule.

2007-10-12T13:57:00.000-07:00

How will I approach all of this? Motivation is not a problem. I have avoided many of these things because of a number of reasons......didn't have time.....didn't need to use, etc. Now I have no excuse, so here I am. I want to learn more about these modern day conveniences and time savers. I am a fairly organized person, but can see how some of these tools might prove to be very beneficial.

Here I Am

2007-10-12T13:54:00.002-07:00

Well, I have arrived!

Test

2007-10-12T13:54:00.001-07:00

test