So I haven't quite completed all 23 things yet (vacation really threw me off!), but I still can summarize my thoughts on what I've done so far. Then if I have more thoughts on those things I haven't done yet, well, that's what the "Edit Posts" function is for! :)

Overall this has been a really good experience to introduce me to some things that I hadn't really considered before. I had heard of almost all of the things in the 23 tasks before, although there were many that I hadn't actually looked at, or that I hadn't looked at beyond a cursory glance. A few were things with which I was already pretty familiar, which tends to be par for the course in just about any learning experience. After all, starting completely from scratch on something is frequently extremely difficult!

I had a lot of fun with Facebook, since that's something I'd been meaning to get around to eventually anyway. The mashups, image generators, and poking around on YouTube were all a little more time-consuming than I would have liked, although that's just due to the fact that they were fun to play with. It's good to have set tasks, since a cursory glance or quick play with various tools often doesn't really provide you with enough information to know whether you really want to use them. I enjoyed the Second Life workshop, and although it's technically not Web 2.0, it's one of the "extra things," so I'm counting it here. I wish I had more time to explore many of these resources, as I suspect I'll be hearing and learning more about them in the future.

Podcasts

Just as with feeds (don't you like how I'm tying two posts together?), I tend not to go out looking specifically for podcasts. I suspect that if I had an MP3 player, I might do it more, especially if I could make myself get back to the gym, where I'd actually be likely to listen to them. I do listen to several regularly, though, Car Talk and Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me (both also heard on NPR) being by far the most regular.

By the way, if you ever feel as if you don't know what's going on in the world, Wait Wait is a very fun one-hour summary of what went on in the world over the past week. It's also good exercise (ooh, now I'm tying two paragraphs in this post together), since you spend a lot of time laughing, and laughter is supposed to be very good exercise.

When I went searching for podcasts through the directories provided, I came across this reading of the news in German especially for non-native speakers. This gives me a little more hope that I can get back into my German again!

RSS and newsreaders; finding feeds

Although I subscribe to a few RSS feeds via other sources, I've never actually tried to set one up or actively searched for them. I generally just either stumble across something with a feed I want or already know of something with a feed that I want to keep an eye on. Although it did take a bit to really figure out what was going on and find some feeds that I wanted, I did end up finding some that I think will be useful. As far as the search tools for feeds, I may be showing some of my weirdness, but the one I liked best was Syndic8, largely because it focused on text rather than the pretty formatting of the others. When I go looking for news or other information, I prefer to not be distracted by all the other neat things that are out there (well, I don't mind finding out about other things, just not when I'm looking for something in particular!). One problem with setting up and subscribing to feeds like this is that, while it helps to cut down on time spent reading or listening to a variety of sources, it encourages you to subscribe to even more than you (or at least I!) normally would, which doesn't help to cut down on time. But ah, well, I guess that's the price we have to pay in this information-rich world. I can definitely see using a feed for comments to this blog, since I don't have Blogger set up to automatically email them email to me.

YouTube

I was going to use the Monty Python Gorilla Librarian sketch for this post, but someone already took that. So instead, here's one of my other favorites - the Sesame Street library skit.


I've seen a lot of library-related videos posted on YouTube. Some have come across through the AL email newsletters (March of the Librarians, anyone?), while I've seen others because of links folks have shared in other fora, or friends have sent them to me. I try to avoid spending time browsing YouTube, because I'd end up stuck there for hours on end, never to see the light of non-computer-monitor again.

Facebook

I kept meaning to get around to joining Facebook. I originally wanted to join back when you had to have a college/university email address, but I wasn't in college or working for one at the time, so I couldn't. Then they changed that rule, but I wasn't so into the idea any more. After all, I have other ways of keeping up with many of my college friends. I'd been toying with the idea again lately (okay, I'll be honest: I'd think about it periodically for the past year or so), so this was the perfect opportunity to go ahead and actually do it. Side note: Isn't it funny how you're most likely to think of something when you can't do anything about it? Seems I'd only remember that I wanted to join Facebook when I was either away from my computer or involved in something else and couldn't do it at the time.

Thoughts on Facebook:
-I'm slightly annoyed that you can't pick more than one option for the "I am" and "School Status" parts of registration - what happens if you fall into more than one category?
-I'd really like some assurance that, since I have to provide my full name, they won't be posting it anywhere. I like to keep the various aspects of my life as separate as possible.
-The registration process could have been a little quicker.

But enough ranting. Here's what I liked as I registered and beyond:
-the ability to import and find friends from my address book and AIM. Timesavers! Even though most of the ones found were folks with whom I work instead of the college and grad school friends I'd pictured it finding. ;)
-Registration is broken into steps, which is quite nice.
-Lots of ability to personalize and edit the information shown.
-Finally getting around to registering and playing around on the site!! :)

Web-based applications and the Web 2.0 Awards

Zoho Writer is something I wish had been around a few years ago when I was in library school. One of our mandatory classes involved an enormous group project in which we analyzed workflow patterns for an organization, documented them, and made recommendations. Our group of four (or was it five?) people spent countless hours meeting and cooperatively editing the various documents required for the class and the final presentation to the class and all of the organizations that had been involved. While ZohoWriter may not have helped as much with the final product (I'm always suspicious of any type of file conversion when there's a set of very specific rules as to the formatting and presentation of the final product), it would have been a great help as we shared our various portions of the work.

I'd heard of Kayak.com before, and since I'm always on the hunt for good airfares, I decided to try it out by searching for fares from Ft Lauderdale to my hometown. I was slightly surprised to see that it found a good variety of fares, as my hometown airport isn't exactly known for a large number of options (it's always funny when the pilot announces that we're first in line for takeoff - the only other possible travelers in line for takeoff would be of the feathered variety). While I'm not sure that this particular tool is as useful for me as it would be for someone going to a larger city, it certainly helps to be able to search multiple travel sites at once. I also appreciate that it searches airline sites as well, although with only two airlines (we just got a second last year!), and a grand total of 5 flights out daily, it's not a particularly difficult task to search the airlines' sites myself. I do appreciate the ability to easily email or print the fares found, and the ease of adjusting preferences for layovers, departure and arrival times, etc. Another thing I found myself appreciating here was the lack of graphics. Even with a fast Internet connection, ads (because let's face it; that's what the majority of the graphics on standard travel sites are) are annoying and take time to load. So I suspect that I'll be using Kayak.com more in the future, even for booking flights to my tiny hometown. I love one-stop-shopping!

Rollyo

This is completely new to me, but oh, so useful! I'm used to going either to the search engines on a variety of sites or using Google to search a specific site if I need to, so having everything in one place is a nice thing - another tool in the arsenal. Since I enjoy playing around with math-related topics, I decided to search several of my favorite math websites. Here's the result.

LibraryThing

I used to have a LibraryThing account, but I forgot about it. Now I have No Clue what my username and password are. So I made a new one here. I like the different ways to view your lists, as well as the community and reviews. Possible favorite was the "Author Cloud," although mine was pitifully small. I looked at the cloud for one of my friends who uses it regularly, though, and it was very large and very much in line with what I like to read. Not that our shared reading preferences were news. ;)

For those of you who are familar with such things, doesn't the font on the top of the page look like the font that Unshelved used to use?

Playing with image generators.

The virtual fortune cookie is quite fun, but it doesn't provide code to copy, and I don't feel like editing a screenshot right now. I guess you'll just have to go and play with it yourself! I have yet to get the same fortune twice.

Then I tried the Web 2.0 application generator, as it seemed appropriate.

I then attempted a Delft plate (click on "Tailor Made" and then "Design Your Own Plate"), but it hasn't arrived in my inbox as of the time I'm posting this.

And remember those 3-D pictures that I, for one, never could see properly? Look, mom! I made one! I still can't see the image, but I did learn that my handwriting on a computer screen is at least as bad as my handwriting on paper.