Thursday, November 22, 2007

# 23 Is this really the end? Or just the beginning ...书山有路、学海无涯

What a web discovery journey! I am glad that I meet the deadline of this training and also finished all of my TAFE assignments at the same time. Now, I am standing in front of a new starting line...

What my favourite discoveries in Library 2.0 program are Wiki and LibraryThing. LibraryThing makes 'cataloguing' so much fun and easy. I am thinking to create a bilingual wiki in English and Chinese next year, connect my Chinese workers network and each party's resource together; create a Chinese community event calender linked it to the wiki; then introduce this wiki to our Chinese customers.

Never give up learning. Apply what I learnt in helping others is my life goal. Thanks to the Library 2.0 program, which tested my value and my action plan.

Share with you a beautiful Chinese Lyric

绿岛小夜曲 - The Green Island Serenade - 史逸欣 by Vienna Teng

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

# 22 Downloadable audio books




It is an exciting adventure to me to explore the eAudiobooks from the NetLibrary and the Overdrive digital media services. I have watched their online demos; read the featured library partners' websites (mainly in USA); impressed with their large collection and the well designed promotion tools. It looks like some of the USA public libraries are far ahead of us by providing the digital resources to their patrons.

This is also my second time to see the database of Dragon Source (Chinese language) Magazines and Periodicals. Hundreds of magazines are viewable online through the NetLibrary's website. Don't know how much the subscription fee will be. And hard to predict how the general readers at our public libraries would react to the digital magazines.

Enjoy listening to the first session of this free downloaded, MP3 format, human read, Hans Christian Anderson's 'The little Match Girl' audio book on my computer! Thanks to the World EBook Fair. I may download more books in the future.

Sunday, November 18, 2007

# 21 Podcasts

What I am confused with download the podcast is which destination is the right place.
I have tried three different ways:
(1) Pull the RSS to my Blogline account: 'woshuo' on http://www.bloglines.com/myblogs
(2) Past the feed URL to this blog address (see the 'uncontrolled vocabulary' and the 'events of the friends of Minneapolis public library' on the right panel).
(3) Registered at Podshow
Wondered how other people download their interested podcasts? Will ask my colleagues when I go to work later today.

#19 Explore some of the Web 2.0 awards

I have tried a few award web tools, for examples, the bookmarking tool - Ma.gnolia (similar to Del.icio.us, but not as versatile as Del.icio.us); online self publishing tool - Lulu (It encourages writers to upload their manuscripts, photos or digital files to Lulu.com to publish and sell to the online potential buyers. It's probably more appealing to the writers than to the readers I guess.); communication tool - Meebo (meebo.com is a website for instant messaging. People can also use it to access their Yahoo, MSN, Google talk, aim instant messages as well.); mapping tool - Google Maps (wonderful tool. I can use it to prepare my driving route, or simply use it to locate an address on earth).

There are too many tools are available online, most of them are free. The big question is 'Do we have time to use them all?'

Thursday, November 15, 2007

#20 YouTube, free express with audio and visual effects

YouTube search engine is easy to use. Choose a topic, it brings you a variety of free video clips, some are good, some are bad. The Birmingham public library has used it to promote their digital resources and other services in the web world. I bet many people won't know a modern public library can offer so much more.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

#15 My thought of Library2.0

Library 2.0 training program like a bunch of keys suddenly given into my hands. Being a lucky receiver, I wondered and explored the difference among the keys (the web tools), and try to remember which key is for open which door. Behind each opened door, this is a new world, not totally strangely new, but the combination and mutation make me feel excited.

As a learner and an information worker, my goal is to be able to wisely use the web tools, then share what I know and use them into serve the public at my library.

Reading the recommended articles make me aware of how behind I am of this information technology revolution. Harry up, need to devote regular time in my daily life to learn and use the new things.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

#14 Technorati

Have my blog/blogspot officially listed on Technorati on 13/11/2007.

Technorati Profile

Add to Technorati Favorites

#12 Roll my own search tool with Rollyo

I have created my online shopping searchrolls for the Christmas, plus a few selected starter search engines, I have added them to the right panel of my blog. By using the searchrolls, I guess I can save time to check each website individually to look for a present.

Saturday, November 10, 2007

#Week 8: Online Applications & Tools


Exercise of uploading my word document to Google Docs.

As the deer pants for the water

So my soul longs after you

You alone are my heart's desire

And I long to worship you

神啊,我的心渴慕禰,

如鹿渴慕溪水,

惟有禰是我心所愛、

我渴慕來敬拜禰。


Chorus:

You alone are my strength and shield

To you alone may my spirit yield

You alone are my heart's desire

And I long to worship you

禰是我的力量、盾牌,

我心單單降服於禰。

惟有禰是我心所愛、

我渴慕來敬拜禰。


I want you more than gold or silver

Only you can satisfy

You alone are the real joy giver

And the apple of my eyes

我愛禰勝過我愛金銀,

只有禰是我的滿足,

禰是我真喜樂的源頭,

是我眼中的瞳仁。

Chorus:

You alone are my strength and shield

To you alone may my spirit yield

You alone are my heart's desire

And I long to worship you

禰是我的力量、盾牌,

我心單單降服於禰。

惟有禰是我心所愛、

我渴慕來敬拜禰。


You're my friend and you are my brother

Even though you are a king

I love you more than any other

So much more than anything

禰是我好朋友, 我兄弟

雖然禰貴為君王。

我愛禰超過世上一切,

超過這世界所有。


Chorus:

You alone are my strength and shield

To you alone may my spirit yield

You alone are my heart's desire

And I long to worship you

禰是我的力量、盾牌,

我心單單降服於禰。

惟有禰是我心所愛、

我渴慕來敬拜禰。


Thursday, November 8, 2007

#11 LibraryThing

I've just added a few books to my catalog on the LibraryThing. It's so easy to do so. It seems like most English books have been catalogued on this site.

#7 Blog about technology - sharing photos online instead of sending photos by airmail

The development of technology greatly affect the way I communicate with my overseas' families.

Since I left hometown ten years ago, I kept posting letters to my parents via seamails or airmails. A year past, my life became busy. I wrote less letters, but rang home. Initially used home line to dial IDD, then used much cheaper telephone card, which was diverted to the cable Internet or satellite telecoms.

Later on, we downloaded a free software, Skype, to the computer. Used it to make free international phone calls via the Internet. What you do is - first, you need access to the Internet, then connect a web camera to your PC, wear a headphone, type in the phone number you want to dial, hope the other side party is log on to the same program at the same time, if so, you can talk online for hours for free. You can also see each other, no matter how far away the physical distance is.

We used to send print photos with the letters mail to my overseas' families. When the digital cameras became available, we took heaps of photos, burned them onto the CD ROM, then mailed to overseas. Mum learned how to retrieve the images from the CD ROM on her computer. She was happy to be able to see more photos we could send.

Of course, emails with attached image files is another solution. Now I have learned how to upload photos to my blog, or use the Flickr to share photos online instantly. I can choose to make my photos accessible to the public or just available to my families and friends.

Don't know what future technologies will lead me to. But I determine to learn them to improve my life.

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

#10 Image Generators and #5 Flickr

Now I know how my friend manipulated the photos, made them look ridiculous and email around. So they knew how to use the image generators! I was just shocked by those unreal images in my emails.

By using the Calendar Generator (http://www.freephotocalendar.net/free-printable-photo-calendar.php) I easily made a calendar for kids. But this PDF file took ages still can not be saved to my blog.

In the FD Toys Creator, it has so many features. I have created a framer, a cube and a bead art. They have been uploaded to my Flickr account: woshuo.zenmele .

Sunday, November 4, 2007

Week 7: Wikis

Enjoy watching Leelefever's Youtube video of 'Wikis in Plain English'. His style of explaining things is unique. Watched a few video clips he made on different topics.

By exploring the St. Joseph County Public Library's Subject Guides, I was inspired to invite my Chinese network partners to create a wiki to link our different organisation resources together. Each party uploads their upcoming events to the wiki, so the whole network people can check the community event calendar and see what's coming up, instead of sending and forwarding a lot of emails to each other. Wiki is definitely more efficient.

The Wikipedia, first time I use it was two or three years ago. Amazed by its multilingual conversion feature. It helps me heaps of understanding the content of the information in English and in my first language. I can do the comparison.

Also, I found the Wikipedia is an easy to use, broad encyclopedia. Once I was doing research on 'blackwork', first consult the Britannica, nothing came up; then did a simple search on the Wikipedia, found really good information and links about the topic. Better than the general google search.

Saturday, November 3, 2007

Catch up with my flickr exercise tonight

由于忙着应付TAFE作业及日常工作,还有监督孩子的学习, 我有阵子没有查看我的网上日志了。今天复习一遍前些日学的Flickr,顺便看了看感兴趣的网上相片,在把我上载的相片连在此博客上看一看。恐怕我的同事没有谁看得懂我的中文,但是没有关系,我是写给我自己的。继续努力吧。

Enjoy looking some photos under the tags of 'architecture', 'color' and 'London' via the flickr. Uploaded a couple of photos to my flickr account and made a flash badge, but for some unknown reasons they can not be seen on my blog.