End of the Road

or is it really the beginning? I've learned a lot, some of which will support my work life, and some of which will support my other life. I will definitely continue to use del.icio.us and bloglines to organize my information, and Flickr to organize and share my pictures. I had fun with mashups and image generators. It's helpful to be aware of these new technologies even if they don't have an immediate impact on my life, in order to assist customers who may be interested in them, or need help. Since technologies tend to build on each other, being familiar with these will help with learning about future ones. If we had the option to explore other discovery exercises, I would do so, but it'd be nice if they didn't conflict with Summer Reading LOL!

Technorati

I tried out Technorati, and found it about as useful as the other search engines. Some of the keywords I used linked me to what I was looking for, but others led me astray. I can't imagine that what I was looking for doesn't exist in blog form, so I just need to keep working to find the right keywords. Since this is time consuming, I can't see myself using this tool on a regular basis.

del.icio.us

I could really get to like this site. I know Annette is thinking "I told you so" right now :). I created an account and have added a few of my favorites to get started. This will great so I can have access to my favorites no matter where I'm working (or playing!).

http://del.icio.us/pmg755

Podcasts

This has been the most frustrating exercise of this whole project. I found the search engines less than useful. Of the ones I tried, Yahoo Podcasts came closest to my searches, but it says at the top of their page they are closing the site soon. When I did finally find a podcast interesting enough to subscribe to, I didn't have the right software on my computer. Quite a few of the choices I selected were also that way. Some I could listen to, but not subscribe to. For now, I give up. If I have time at home, where I have itunes and several other listening choices, I may try again.

Library 2.0

I read several of the articles about library 2.0 and the future of libraries. I'm still processing what I think the libraries of the future will hold, but it seems that some of what is mentioned as forward thinking we're already doing here. I definitely see applications for 2.0 technologies in our libraries, but I guess I don't see some of our reasons for being changing, only the method of providing it. While the articles I read all seemed to talk anly about the technology aspects, I still see the need for traditional services--pleasure reading and viewing, programming, literacy support.

Web 2.0 Awards

I checked out the 2.0 Award Winner for City Guides: Yelp http://www.yelp.com. First I looked for MD locations and found nothing close by--not even Baltimore, so I searched Pittsburgh. I liked the links to the "best of" categories, allowing browsing. Maps were useful as well. This site would be useful for people relocating to new areas and wanting overviews of services available, or for people trying to decide where to relocate. The site is easy to use, making it possible for people with fewer computer skills to navigate.

Google docs

This seems easy to use, the functions are all familiar. The benefit is being able to store documents, etc, making them available on any computer, without resorting to the use of floppies or CDs.

I created this test on Google Docs and it was easy to publish to my blog. I also tried out Zoho Writer, with similar results.