Viva La Webolution

#23

2009-11-15T12:34:00.000-08:00

I really don't know if there was any task more useful than the others. There were certainly some that we use more often, i.e. placing holds, reader's advisory, etc. but whenever there's someone wanting to put some youtube video into a powerpoint (which isn't that common, but I find rather annoying because I'm not entirely sure myself) I can always point them to zamar now.

My favorite was probably... well, I don't really know. I just liked reading what other people had to say.

#22

2009-11-14T13:13:00.000-08:00

I really liked both of the first sites you two listed. I too am of the opinion that recipe books sans pictures are obnoxious. makeuseof was like a webolution unto itself. Almost too overwhelming in its vastness, but very cool none the less.

Both of my favorite sites have "all" in the title. Maybe they're related, maybe not. I'm too lazy to look into this coincidence.

The former is similar to tastespotting but a bit more searchable with similar recipes showing up on the side of each page.

Allmusic is just plain awesome. It's incredibly diverse in its scope, has a lot of depth, can be searched by genre, subgenre, and moods. For every artist you normally get a discography, artists similar to other whoever you're looking at, groups that are influenced by a said group, and bands that influenced that artist. The more obscure the musical artist you search the less information you get, but that can be expected. And, on top of all that you can sign up for a weekly newsletter that shows most (not all, that would be next to impossible, so we'll ignore the implications of the site's name) albums that are being released that week.

#21(Teddy K's Facelift)

2009-11-10T17:30:00.000-08:00

This was fun. I can see how it would be very useful to people in the downstairs area. These are my before and afters. Or rather after and befores.

#20

2009-11-08T14:02:00.000-08:00

On the county's website I looked up their 2009 Program Drivers under the 2010-2011 Strategic Plan. On pages 28-29 they discuss growth and development. They state that natural gas is an important part of the growth of Mesa County and that "although the industry is in a current downturn, it is anticipated to re-emerge as a significant growth factor."

An interesting Did You Know: Did you know that I really don't like the influx of gas and oil workers that the community gets with their Redneck ways and giant Hummer buying tendencies? I also don't like anything that could ever endanger pristine pretty to the eye nature.

Now. That means that this statement on pages 28-29 lead me to have a distrust in the government, which is, coincidentally enough addressed on page 33 of the same packet.

On the State's site I found out that it is possible to renew a driver license online as long as your license did not expire more than one year ago and you have a Visa, Mastercard, or American Express credit card and valid email address. It will take approximately thirty (30) days to arrive in the mail.

Task #19

2009-10-31T12:04:00.000-07:00

I got 100%. Who ray!

I thought this was helpful. It was a nice tour through the wiki to show everyone where things are located.

Task #18

2009-10-25T14:09:00.000-07:00

The Flaming Lips recently released a new album. I had heard that it was similar to their older work, and I do rather adore the "Oh My Gawd!!!" album (among others), so I thought I would look up allmusic's review of the new one, "Embryonic," which can be found here:
http://tinyurl.com/yj9cfzq.

As for Zamzar, I think it has a very spiffy name and is also a very spiffy little tool that I will tell patrons about.

Task #17

2009-10-21T18:06:00.000-07:00

The first link I clicked on was the 100 best links for librarians of the future. And what is at the top of this page? "Learn-gasm". I was intrigued. By the way, that reminds me of something else; votergasm:

http://www.votergasm.org/

I remember stumbling across that in high school during a government class assignment. It's important to keep things exciting I think.

Anyway, from the 100... area I found a link for bookslut and thought that I would keep up the running theme. It's some fool's blog so I wasn't very interested in it because I don't really dig on blogs, but I did like that they were anti-ebook. I could relate to that.

(Upon proof reading I realized that by saying both "fool" and "dig" I was sounding a bit Mr. T-esque. It was unintentional, but upon review, I like it and will keep it so.)

The next link I found, again from the 100... area was the Days and Nights of the Lipstick Librarian:

http://www.lipsticklibrarian.com/blog/

Another blog, and it starts out with a humorous view on the librarian fetish.

Since both of these were under areas titled as being blog related, I can't really blame anyone but myself for that, but I had to stick with the theme, you know.

I probably wouldn't visit any library related sites in the too distant future. For now I feel that webolution is giving me plenty of library knowledge.

Task # 16

2009-10-14T18:01:00.000-07:00

So Open Office, I have an on again off again love affair with this program. Mostly because I'm shallow and think she's ugly, otherwise it would only be an "on" love affair.

I use Open Office in lieu of Microsoft Office because I do not have disposable income to put toward such wastes as computer software. I think its writing program works just as well as Microsoft Word, although I mostly just use it to view .doc files while I use Microsoft word processor to type papers.

I think that open use software is very much in the spirit of libraries. Free things that are good for everyone and convenient. Also, I hear that if we used open office instead of paying tons of money for Microsoft user codes we would save a ridiculous amount of money. I also heard once somewhere from some grapevine sitting little bird that there is open software that could replace millennium\OPAC. Now wouldn't that be nifty.

#15

2009-10-07T17:20:00.000-07:00

So, I am apparently the first person to webolt on the lower info desk as I still had to install the clipmark application.

It works well for what it is made to do, but it seems kind of lack luster. What am I reading that I can't just finish it? I also don't see this as being any less work than copying and pasting into a word document.

On the clipmarks page there is an area where you can see what other people are clipping and some kind of inane babble back and forth type of thing. Next to this is something about a widget. I had only heard this word in reference to beer. It's what's in Guinness bottles, that noisy thing that rattle about when they're empty. So, I did a quick wikipedia search for widget and found that widget is used in a variety of contexts. This is one of them:

"In computer programming, a widget (or control) is an element of a graphical user interface(GUI) that displays an information arrangement changeable by the user, such as a window or a text box. "

That was taken directly from wikipedia. The only hard part about that was taking out all the html code so that it wasn't underlined and blue and bold and other obnoxious things in various areas. It was very easy. And, if I really needed to finish reading that article and it was of importance, I would remember "widgets" and be able to find it easily.

I'm sure this is useful for somebody, but I don't find myself likely to be using it in the future.

#14

2009-10-04T12:04:00.000-07:00

1. I looked at the FAQs and checked out the software whilst covering a break for Betsy at the info desk yesterday.

2. I browsed about the catalogs of both but didn't download anything.

Because I'm a Greedy Capitalist and I'm Copying a Certain Lunch Meat

2009-09-29T15:31:00.000-07:00

Let's see, what's in my blog that would make ads appear? So far nothing.
Well, my last name sounds like Listerine, which is a type of mouth wash similar to Scope and Plax.
I often drink soda like Coca-Cola, Jarritos, Pepsi, Orange Crush.
I work at the library, which has lots of books, kind of like Barnes and Noble, Borders, Dalton Books, the Tattered Cover in Denver, CO and other places; only of course for free.
Let's see what else might cause things to pop up over on the right... um... Micorsoft, Best Buy, Apple, Hewlett-Packard, McDonalds, Fender, Gibson, Mesa Boogie, Random House, Dreamworks, Pixar, Kill Rock Stars, Saddle Creek, None Such, Alive, la dee da dee da.

Task #13

2009-09-26T10:19:00.000-07:00

On the sound snaps website I was able to find a sound clip of a "wren twittering and whistling." It was also a vintage recording I'm told. I think these sounds would make our library website incredibly obnoxious.

I'd already looked at jamendo during our original CC page so I skipped down to artistserver. It was lack luster. Despite being open to all types of music, it is still predominately electronica (something I have great difficulty getting into) and was just a being smattering of blandness.

Next I looked at Last Fm's page of free downloads, something I had not noticed on the earlier task. This is nice for looking into artists that you may not know and have a word of mouth I heard about them a while back interest in.

I'd actually heard about amie street a while back but had not looked at the site. The idea of being free until you're popular is interesting, but there's something kind about that that strikes me in a weird way. Anyway, it was very nice if you're into the whole downloading music thing.

Now, I've never understood the appeal of this. I really like album art. Of course, I do have a large collection of burned CD's that are lacking said art, but on the whole, if it's a band or album I really like, then I buy the CD. And why have just one song by an artist? What, you're too busy to listen to more of their catalogue? I mean, why would you shop on itunes when a lot of artists still offer vinyl versions of their albums (and often with codes for free digital downloads so you can have it on CD as well)? You get awesome artwork that is huge and you can actually see details in it and it invites pretty, shiny packaging. In fact, did you know that most of Funkadelic's early releases are now being reissued on vinyl? It's true. And it's not downloadable either. But it's better than that. Also, don't you love going into record stores and browsing shelves? And how fun is it to just grab things willy nilly random and slip on the headphones and go through a stack of CDs being surprised both with disgust and amour at what you didn't know was there. And, if you're outgoing enough, you can get into great conversations with people around you about what they just grabbed or what's in your pile and it's music nerd mania.

I don't know, I guess this is just more of my deep seeded hatred for what I see as superfluous technology.

Oh, and on a related note; guitar playing mock instrument video games are a horrid idea. Go learn a real instrument, hosers.

Task #12

2009-09-10T16:26:00.000-07:00

So I looked up the Stephanie Plum books by Janet Evanovich for the series. As I assumed, there are fifteen, but also some bonus ones that don't have numbers in the title that are supplementary.

I looked up Annie Dillard for the read alike and I think that Sue Hubbell's "A Book of Bees - And How to Keep Them" sounds appealing. I like solitary ruminations conducted in nature.

I then went to the Nature Writing section of the Recommended Reads and I didn't find anything very similar to "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek." Maybe it'd be under the memoirs or spirituality section. Who knows. I do know, however, that I am not very interested in ornithology. Did you know that there is a whole romance sub genre called Men in Kilts? I wish I was Scottish. I'd wear a kilt. I may anyway just for kicks.

Task #11

2009-09-10T16:12:00.000-07:00

The Book Report Network I found to be rather uninspired. It could be handy for the mentioned reason of the an author's bibliography, but eh. I'm lukewarm to the website web o' sites.

I learned that in the olive tree next to where Federico Garcia Lorca was shot people often carve quotes from his poetry and plays. This makes me sad for several reasons. One, fascists killing artists is always sad and so are reminders of such actions. Two, that poor tree, hasn't it seen and suffered enough already? And three, why are these people living vicariously through the memory of a not quite martyred poet from the 1910's? Go home and do something constructive.

Task #10

2009-09-08T13:41:00.000-07:00

I went to Consumer Reports and looked up information about Leica cameras. It's very handy to be able to limit the search by date with a simple sliding device they've placed on the right.

I then decided to read up on Leopold and Loeb on the Biography resource center. Did you know that the boy they murdered was actually a distant cousin to Loeb who was later murdered in prison? Also, although both were sentenced to ninety nine years for kidnapping and life for the murder Leopold "became a model prisoner who won the respect of guards and prison officials. He enrolled in correspondence courses in advanced mathematics, physics, and classical languages from the University of Iowa.

Interested in prison reform, he persuaded the faculty at the university to help organize correspondence courses for prisoners and to replace textbooks that had been lost in a fire. He also convinced the prison staff to make it easier for inmates to borrow and read books. During World War II (1939-45), he volunteered for medical tests intended to advance knowledge of the causes and treatment of malaria. Some people regarded Leopold's behavior as a self-serving ploy to gain early release. But others were convinced by it. Impressed by Leopold's apparent rehabilitation, Illinois Governor William Stratton commuted his ninety-nine-year sentence to eighty-five years, which improved the possibility for his ultimate parole (early release).

In 1958 Leopold presented his fifth plea for release. Writer Carl Sandburg--with whom Leopold exchanged letters--and University of Iowa professor Helen Williams spoke on his behalf. Shortly before his release, he announced the formation of the Leopold Foundation to aid disturbed children. The foundation was funded in part with proceeds from his Life Plus 99 Years, an autobiography serialized by the Chicago Daily News and published in book form in 1958. It featured an introduction by crime novelist Erle Stanley Gardner. While the book did not discuss the murder of Bobby Franks, it gave a detailed account of Leopold's life in prison. Most reviewers praised the book.

On March 13, 1958, after thirty-three years in prison, Leopold was released to the custody of the Church of the Brethren, to which he had been converted while in prison. He worked for $10 per month in the church's medical mission at Castañer, in Puerto Rico's hill country, where he taught mathematics and helped raise funds for the church. He also took correspondence courses from the University of Puerto Rico, earning a master of science degree in June 1961. Three years after his release, he married Trudi Feldman Garcia de Quevado. Leopold died of a heart attack in 1971. In accordance with his wishes, his body was donated to the University of Puerto Rico's School of Medicine." ("Leopold and Loeb." Outlaws, Mobsters & Crooks: From the Old West to the Internet. Vol. 5. U*X*L, 2002.
Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, 2009. http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC)

Task #9

2009-09-01T18:22:00.000-07:00

I will now pull a Wes.

I made a website. I'm not sure what to type about my experience. I'm lacking inspiration to describe the aforementioned process. Here's the url : http://jlister.weebly.com/

Good Day.

Task #8

2009-08-26T17:27:00.000-07:00

I agree with the sentiment that copy right laws are draconian. I also really like that word.

I did not know about this at all, but it is amazing. Did anyone else see jamendo? It's amazing. Browsing around by tags is so cool. French independent phyloxera, and Brazilian psicotropicdelica, and other stuff I don't have a clue what it is. Wow.

And I did know about NIN's last album being released as DRM free. When you download it you can even get the CD insert to print out and assemble yourself if you're so inclined. When it came out, it reminded me of Radiohead's "In Rainbows" album. They released it independently and you were allowed to pay what price you wanted for it (including $0.00) before they formally signed to a different label and released it. So that's the same thing, right? Or are copyright laws different pertaining to it since it was done differently and is no longer available as a free (or reasonably priced) download?

Also, just a related thought that popped into my head, if you ever buy vinyl from the Saddle Creek record label, you get a code for a free mp3 download of the album along with your luscious wax discs which is a rather nice thing for them to offer.

Task #7

2009-08-20T16:23:00.000-07:00

I decided to sign up for a Goodreads account. This decision was made primarily because when I visited the Boulder account I looked at Stacie's page (I tried to visit Davetoe's account, because it reminded me of our own Dave Goe, and he had a baboon for a picture and I'm fond of primates, but I wasn't hip enough for access to his page) and I too wanted to take the never ending book quiz. I had a score of seventy percent after fifty questions. I'm not very well versed in Shakespeare.

I think that it would be a suitable compliment to our current site and facebook page. (Although, I also like Betsy's staff pick shelf. Wouldn't it be nifty if that was one of the perks you received when you became a regular employee? You could get three slips a month to fill out with a brief description of the book, or why you like it, or whatever short blurb you wish and you could add to that display. Plus we would get the added bonus of knowing who suggested what which I personally think would be interesting.) I probably wouldn't contribute too much to an online goodreads account (have you read my previous posts?) but a real life "good reads" shelf would be very cool.

(This post is dedicated to parenthesis.)

Task #6

2009-08-19T15:46:00.000-07:00

I was actually lucky enough to have Cari show me these sites once before, so I'd actually navigated around a bit on them already.

While on the New Staff module I looked into the cataloging area and learned the basics of what goes on in the magical building across the street. The customer service 123 was very nice. I liked their assumption that if you are getting perfect scores then you are highly annoying (and other such entertainingly trivial observations).

And so it goes.

Task #5

2009-08-14T15:11:00.000-07:00

I've logged into my library account before to place multiple holds but had never used the book bag. For some reason I kept getting logged out of my account and that was rather irksome. The book bag however was very easy to use and convenient because, aside from not being continuously logged out, you don't have to click where to send each item every time. I think that this would also be easiest for patrons to use at home.

Now I have some James Brown and Tito Puente items to look forward to which is nice.

Task #4

2009-08-14T08:28:00.000-07:00

So I'm a wee bit of a Luddite and have no desire to ever make a Facebook or other such networking site page. I'm snobbish and find it abhorrent. It's like an illiterate sea of cold, despondent, idiocy that allows people to blather on about things that they don't understand or on things that are completely superfluous and do so all in unabashedly poor English and obnoxious abbreviations while having no real meaningful interaction with the outside world; like pale, sun deprived tapeworms suckling a robotic teet. Like, 4 reel, eye hate et. LOL!!!!!

(Feel free to point out anywhere I make grammatical and\or typographical errors; I realize that that's kind of what I'm asking for with that opening)

Now, that having been said, I decided to visit the facebook pages of Barack Obama and Josh Penry. There was something odious to me about signing a virtual cast for a Supreme Court judge who, one, is a stranger I don't know, and two, doesn't have any broken bones. Josh Penry's strange widow peaked baby face continues to creep me out as it always has.

So, why do I think that this horrible thing is so popular? Well, I believe that we have all installed a fear in older generations that the "technology gap" will leave them behind in some obsolete world where as they grow old no one will be around to change their colostomy bags because we will all be twittering as they set helpless in a nursing home. This coupled with the fact that the younger generations, i.e. my peers in age, are mindless, consuming fools who will gobble up anything with a shiny package that is preceded by the letter "i" in it's name. So, when companies like Coca Cola need to ensure that they will have a loyal market and be hip, they turn to where teenagers and twenty-somethings are, so the internet. When you want to be the super cool political candidate and you want that massive untapped demographic of young voters that never seems to have any high percentage of turn out, you turn to facebook to reel them in. It boils down to subversive mind control tactics to manipulate your voting and buying habits.

This is an evil, banal scourge that is hurting our language and our bodies. Where will future cyborg generations (because you know the iBody is coming in only about twenty years with high speed wifi enema and itunes storage in your left kidney) get vitamin D? There are only two natural sources of it - the sun and mushrooms, and mixing fungi with a hardwired body is a bad idea, like athlete's foot mixed with a trojan virus.

So please, I'm begging you all, walk away from social networking sites. Go out and really spend time with someone to show them that you care. Actually talk to someone to find out what they think. Monitor politicians' voting records to see what they stand for and read the text of bills to know what they actually contain. We desperately need to stop this strange social trend that's isolating people and cutting off the outside world.

Task #3

2009-08-14T08:19:00.000-07:00

I missed the first question right away. I knew you could find it on the library catalog page and so I put that down as my answer without looking. Wrongness is what you get when you're too lazy to look into the other options I suppose. I got all the rest of the answers correct though, giving me a 93 1\3 %.

Also, like Carol, I couldn't find the place for when the foundation was started so I guessed. So that one was just luck, but now I know.

Task #2

2009-08-13T10:41:00.000-07:00

So like most people who ever venture into the back check-in area I was already familiar with Pandora. I had not, however, ever used lastfm.com. I liked that the latter did not require any setting up of an account. However, the web design was ugly and very unappealing. It was also having issues while I was trying to use it and kept crashing. So I'll be sticking with Pandora while crashing through courier bins.

On a related note, when I was listening to Pandora earlier today I typed in the band Melt-Banana. They're a fun, hyper-active Japanese noise rock band that provides a welcome pick me up in the lazy, hazy, cloudy morning; something akin to the whirring buzz saws transmitted through a megaphone. You know, happy peaceful music. The station of course dabbled into other similar artists' catalogs. One such band that I hadn't heard before but that I quite liked was Boris.

And so ends task number two.

Task #1

2009-08-13T10:26:00.000-07:00

I've completed the first step; I made a blog.

I would also like to take a moment to officially state that I do not in the least bit enjoy quiches.