Corvo Island is the smallest of the Azores Islands. There is only one town on the island with a total population of approximately 425 people. The rest of the island has forests, rocky ledges and a huge crater in the middle of the island that was created by the collapse of a volcano. A small but very beautiful place!
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Thing 19, Week 8 (Actually done on Week 8)
Well, I did my list - here is the link:
http://www.librarything.com/catalog.php?view=dsazor
My books varied from really popular, to somewhat popular to very low popularity. I like this website because not only does it allow you to keep a list of what books you've read and like (or disliked) but it also then gives you a list of books that are similary in nature that you might enjoy.
A very fun website and also one that would be nice to have available to our library patrons - if at all possible.
Week 8 done - things are lookin' well!!!
http://www.librarything.com/catalog.php?view=dsazor
My books varied from really popular, to somewhat popular to very low popularity. I like this website because not only does it allow you to keep a list of what books you've read and like (or disliked) but it also then gives you a list of books that are similary in nature that you might enjoy.
A very fun website and also one that would be nice to have available to our library patrons - if at all possible.
Week 8 done - things are lookin' well!!!
Thing 18, Week 8 (Actually done on week 8)
Well, I did the ZOHO writer document and thought it was pretty cool that you could make a document that looks exactly or is very similar to an "MWord" document but that you don't actually need the "MWord" software on your computer.
A very useful tool and one that I wish had been in existence (or if it was in existence - that I had known about it) when I was still in college.
I tried to publish the ZOHO document on my Blog but was not successful but since it's not necessary to post our actual document on our blog --- ONWARDS TO THING 19!!!
A very useful tool and one that I wish had been in existence (or if it was in existence - that I had known about it) when I was still in college.
I tried to publish the ZOHO document on my Blog but was not successful but since it's not necessary to post our actual document on our blog --- ONWARDS TO THING 19!!!
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Pico - the mountain...
This is a picture of the volcano on the island of Pico, Azores. The volcano is 2,351 meters high (7,713 feet high). People hike up this volcano and the trek usually takes about 4 to 5 hours. I've never hiked up the volcano but I did see it when I was in the Azores. It is very big and very beautiful - definitely a sight worth seeing.
Thing 17, Week 7 (Actually done on week 7)
I'm caught up once again - let's see if I can keep it that way.
So I added my blog to the Favorite Blogs page and then I went ahead and added my favorite TV shows to the Learning 2.0 wiki. I put the name of those TV shows on the list but I shall keep the identity of those shows a secret here on my personal blog since I didn't add my name to the list of shows on the wiki - but I will say this - they are awesome shows. How's that for leaving out the details!
So I added my blog to the Favorite Blogs page and then I went ahead and added my favorite TV shows to the Learning 2.0 wiki. I put the name of those TV shows on the list but I shall keep the identity of those shows a secret here on my personal blog since I didn't add my name to the list of shows on the wiki - but I will say this - they are awesome shows. How's that for leaving out the details!
Thing 16, Week 7 (Actually done on week 7)
Well, here come the wiki's...RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!!
All right, so now I finally get some information about wiki's. It was nice to read about them because I am a fond user of Wikipedia but I really wasn't sure how it worked exactly. Now I do - thank you Library 2.0.
Now, I took a look at the library wiki's and found them to be very interesting. These are the 3 I liked the most: SJCPL Subject Guides had general information from the difference between biographies and memoirs, to links of websites and journals under different subjects, for example - health, jobs and homework were some of them. The next one I really liked was Book Lovers Wiki this had book reviews done by library staff, dedicated volunteers and reading club participants. I really liked this wiki because I am one of those people that will go to Amazon.com and see the user reviews of books before I pick one up. If it is a book I'm interested in and it has between 4-5 stars on Amazon I will definitely checkout the book and read it. Of course, once I start reading it if I find it's not interesting then I'll just return it but the Amazon rating system is a big help. So I liked that Book Lovers Wiki was doing something very similar. Finally I looked at The Albany County Public Library Staff wiki this wiki had library procedures documented by staff. I didn't think this wiki was very well made but I thought the idea was very good. It's a place where Library procedures can be posted and then when changes occur (which they always do) it is very easy to go into the wiki and update them.
I think all 3 ideas for these 3 specific wikis I listed are something libraries should all use. I thought it was a great way to use wiki's in a way that is useful to both patrons and staff.
All right, so now I finally get some information about wiki's. It was nice to read about them because I am a fond user of Wikipedia but I really wasn't sure how it worked exactly. Now I do - thank you Library 2.0.
Now, I took a look at the library wiki's and found them to be very interesting. These are the 3 I liked the most: SJCPL Subject Guides had general information from the difference between biographies and memoirs, to links of websites and journals under different subjects, for example - health, jobs and homework were some of them. The next one I really liked was Book Lovers Wiki this had book reviews done by library staff, dedicated volunteers and reading club participants. I really liked this wiki because I am one of those people that will go to Amazon.com and see the user reviews of books before I pick one up. If it is a book I'm interested in and it has between 4-5 stars on Amazon I will definitely checkout the book and read it. Of course, once I start reading it if I find it's not interesting then I'll just return it but the Amazon rating system is a big help. So I liked that Book Lovers Wiki was doing something very similar. Finally I looked at The Albany County Public Library Staff wiki this wiki had library procedures documented by staff. I didn't think this wiki was very well made but I thought the idea was very good. It's a place where Library procedures can be posted and then when changes occur (which they always do) it is very easy to go into the wiki and update them.
I think all 3 ideas for these 3 specific wikis I listed are something libraries should all use. I thought it was a great way to use wiki's in a way that is useful to both patrons and staff.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Sete Cidades - Seven Cities
This is the area called "Seven Cities" in the biggest island of the Azores - Sao Miguel. I don't know why it's called Seven Cities but I do know that it is one of the most famous tourist attractions in all of the Azores and it is also one of my favorite places in those nine beautiful islands. Here you go!!!
Thing 15, Week 6 (Done in week 7)
Yes, with this post I'll be done with week 6 exercises...I'm beginning to see the finish line where Blog #23 is waiting. :)
The 3 perspectives I read were: "Away from Icebergs", "To more powerful ways to cooperate", and "To a temporary place in time...". I'm gonna talk about "Away from Icebergs". I saw what he was talking about - making the library more user-friendly, challenging the idea of having such a huge physical collection of books, and making the library go to our patrons instead of making the come to us. These are all very wondeful ideas and I agree with the idea of making the library more user friendly - that is wonderful, I just, personally, don't have a lot of ideas on that front that don't cost an arm and a leg (maybe 2 arms and 2 legs). I disagree a bit with the author's idea that we don't need such a big hard copy collection. In the end, we will always have people who will need the hard copy and the idea of having everything digital is all very fun and wonderful to talk about but it really is just a dream. We are going to become more digital but our hard copy collections shall always survive. Finally the idea of going out to our patrons, digitally, seems great, but again it seems more a dream then anything else. The author said that we shouldn't expect the patron to come to us either physically or virtually. I agree that we should make our library accessible so that people can visit our resources digitally from home without having to put foot in our library - that's great. But not expect them to come virtually - I don't know how that's done and I don't think it's possible. We should be able to make our website have as many sources of information that the patron will need, but the patron at least will have to type in www.sjlibrary.org and press the "enter" button. It's not to much to ask from our patrons - at least in my humble opinion.
Finally what does Learning 2.0 mean to me: it is a program that is allowing me to learn some things about the web that I had no idea existed. I'm enjoying the experience and even though I had cold feet when I started; I truly am very happy that this program was brought to our library and that I can take part in it.
The 3 perspectives I read were: "Away from Icebergs", "To more powerful ways to cooperate", and "To a temporary place in time...". I'm gonna talk about "Away from Icebergs". I saw what he was talking about - making the library more user-friendly, challenging the idea of having such a huge physical collection of books, and making the library go to our patrons instead of making the come to us. These are all very wondeful ideas and I agree with the idea of making the library more user friendly - that is wonderful, I just, personally, don't have a lot of ideas on that front that don't cost an arm and a leg (maybe 2 arms and 2 legs). I disagree a bit with the author's idea that we don't need such a big hard copy collection. In the end, we will always have people who will need the hard copy and the idea of having everything digital is all very fun and wonderful to talk about but it really is just a dream. We are going to become more digital but our hard copy collections shall always survive. Finally the idea of going out to our patrons, digitally, seems great, but again it seems more a dream then anything else. The author said that we shouldn't expect the patron to come to us either physically or virtually. I agree that we should make our library accessible so that people can visit our resources digitally from home without having to put foot in our library - that's great. But not expect them to come virtually - I don't know how that's done and I don't think it's possible. We should be able to make our website have as many sources of information that the patron will need, but the patron at least will have to type in www.sjlibrary.org and press the "enter" button. It's not to much to ask from our patrons - at least in my humble opinion.
Finally what does Learning 2.0 mean to me: it is a program that is allowing me to learn some things about the web that I had no idea existed. I'm enjoying the experience and even though I had cold feet when I started; I truly am very happy that this program was brought to our library and that I can take part in it.
Thing 14, Week 6 (Done on week 7)
Well, here I am...behind again. Aargh!!! But only by one week so no big deal. Moving on... So this exercise was less interesting then previous ones. I just wasn't into it as much but I still did what was requested. When I put Learning 2.0 under the three searches, different material came up - both in quantity and quality. For Blog Posts - 33,964 blog posts were found. For Tags - 185 blog posts were found. And for Blog Directory - 319 actual blogs came up. For me the best quality search was the Blog Directory, I found the info that came up was more useful and interesting when it came to Learning 2.0.
Then I went and checked out the popular blog, searches and tags. Nothing really surprising came up. I sort of would've like to know what the blog was about that was all in Chinese characters (at least I think it was Chinese...could be Japanese). I was curious about that, I guess that was a bit suprising to find one of the most popular was not in English. I didn't know Technorati was so popular worldwide. That was something interesting that I found out. As for interesting, I found it funny (and interesting) that one of the top searches was for barcamplondon2. It was interesting to me because it seemed to be a technology conference and it was named "Bar Camp" - I guess I have a weird sense of humor but...oh well.
I can see how tagging can be useful so that it makes it easier for people to find our blogs. But as for the optional exercise of tagging my blogs I think I'll leave that on my "possible" to do list.
Then I went and checked out the popular blog, searches and tags. Nothing really surprising came up. I sort of would've like to know what the blog was about that was all in Chinese characters (at least I think it was Chinese...could be Japanese). I was curious about that, I guess that was a bit suprising to find one of the most popular was not in English. I didn't know Technorati was so popular worldwide. That was something interesting that I found out. As for interesting, I found it funny (and interesting) that one of the top searches was for barcamplondon2. It was interesting to me because it seemed to be a technology conference and it was named "Bar Camp" - I guess I have a weird sense of humor but...oh well.
I can see how tagging can be useful so that it makes it easier for people to find our blogs. But as for the optional exercise of tagging my blogs I think I'll leave that on my "possible" to do list.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Torre de Belém
A famous "mini" castle in Lisbon, Portgual. One of my favorite Portuguese monuments. I truly hope to see the Torre up close and in person some day. But for now, I'll enjoy the pictures - here's one for all to enjoy!!!
Thing 13, Week 6 (Actually done on Week 6)
Well, del.icio.us is actually a very good idea. It's true, I do have bookmarks on my home computer and my work computer. My bookmarks at home have to do with things that I'm mostly interested in personally with a couple work related bookmarks. On the other hand, my work computer bookmarks are mainly work related. It would be nice to have one place that I could go, be it from home, work, a coffee shop, kinko's or a friend's computer and be able to get any and all websites I have bookmarked. I definitely like this website - del.icio.us - and can see myself actually registering and making an account on it sometime in the near future. I have to admit that this Learning 2.0 experience is showing me a lot of useful tidbits on the internet that I didn't know existed. Onwards to Thing 14!!!
Thursday, February 8, 2007
Thing 12, Week 5 (Actually done on Week 5)
A década de 80 Originally uploaded by S.L.Benfica
YES!!!!! I have actually caught up now and finished all the Week 5 things in the actual Week 5. All right, the searchroll I created with Rollyo is this one:
http://rollyo.com/debus/benfica/
This searchroll is made up of websites that have information on my favorite Portuguese soccer team - Benfica. Now, everytime I want to check up on my favorite soccer team I can just go straight to Rollyo, use my searchroll and find out all that's going on with Benfica. What are their standings, victories and losses and any other info I want about the team I can now get by going straight to one source. I like Rollyo a lot - it's one heck of a cool idea!
Thing 11, Week 5 (Actually done on week 5)
Well, this was a fascinating exercise. I decided to check out the Web 2.0 awards for Music. I came upon http://www.last.fm and I have to admit I both liked it and disliked it. This website allows us to pick a band or a type of music and it then plays that style of music or music similar to the band which you chose. Then you can choose to say that you love that track, or that you hate it, or you can just let the Last.fm radio play and play. This way the Last.fm software gets closer and closer to choosing the music you like most often then not. You are also able to see what tracks and songs other people who are members of the site like and enjoy. The thing about this site that bugged me was that the radio software was a tad bit flaky. I had a lot trouble starting up the radio feature and also when it was playing it would sometimes stop playing for a moment and start up again. So even though I did enjoy the concept of the website it actually got to a point that it was annoying when it couldn't load up the Last.fm radio and kept saying that it had a problem connecting. So what began as a happy discovery sort of turned into a disappointing discovery. Oh well, that is life. As Confucius would say:
"Things that are done, it is needless to speak about...things that are past, it is needless to blame."
In other words, (to translate that quote to the present situation) I might as well not waste to much time on my disappointment and just move on to Thing 12.
"Things that are done, it is needless to speak about...things that are past, it is needless to blame."
In other words, (to translate that quote to the present situation) I might as well not waste to much time on my disappointment and just move on to Thing 12.
Wednesday, February 7, 2007
Thing 10, Week 5 (Actually done on Week 5)
Well, I thought that asking one of the wisest men who ever lived if my blog was a good one would be a good idea...it didn't turn out that way. 
Well, I guess I have some work to do but as Confucius would say:
"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."
So step by step my blog will become grand and amazing...hopefully. :)
Well, I guess I have some work to do but as Confucius would say:"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."
So step by step my blog will become grand and amazing...hopefully. :)
Well, this image generator was definitely fun to play with, even though it took me a while to get the hang of it. I thought I'd have a little fun with it while poking a little bit of sarcasm at my blog. Hopefully it is slightly funny. lol
The image generator that I ended up using was:
I looked on the web for other ones but out of all of them I ended up liking this image the most. Well, Thing 10 is now done and finished!
Thing 9, Week 4 (Done in Week 5)
Well, this was a less interesting item but I did it nonetheless. Slowly getting closer to that magic number of 23. All right, here's what I found. The bloglines search tool, Topix.net, and Technorati were all easy to use and I found that they did bring up useful newsfeeds/blogs. On the other hand I found that Syndic8 and Feedster just weren't as interesting and with Feedster I found that it really didn't give me many newsfeeds or blogs that really went with the topics that I used. The one I liked the most was Topix.net. I liked the presentability of the website and I found that what I searched for came back with more useful feeds. Well, that's it for this week - now onwards to the things for Week 5. Hey, maybe I'll get caught up this week!!!
Friday, February 2, 2007
Serenity...
Here's another photo from Sao Jorge, Acores. After that last exercise (Thing 8) I needed a nice picture that spoke of serenity - this one definitely made me feel very serene when I looked at it. Enjoy!
Thing 8, Week 4 (Actually done in Week 4)
AAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!! This one took a while, maybe I spent to much time trying to find interesting blogs but still, yeesh! Anyways, so the ten newsfeeds were pretty much made up of this - I am interested in politics, of course I do my best to never argue or discuss politics or religion at work. Someone once gave me that advice so I try to stick with it. And thus the newsfeeds I chose were each from one of the following perspectives - Conservative, Liberal, Green, Moderate and finally Anarchist (I admit that the last political perspective isn't one people would usually associate with me but...oh well). Then I chose one from San Jose Mercury news having to do with local politics. Then Reader's Club Latest. I chose another local news blog - I like to keep up on what's going on in our wonderful city (I actually mean wonderful). And of course I picked the comic one of "Unshelved", a comic strip about a library - how could I resist. Well, those were the main ones. In the end I had 11 newsfeeds. It was an interesting exercise and I hope to be able to keep up with the news from those feeds - most of them really looked interesting.
Thing 7, Week 3 (Done in Week 4)
Well, the thing I'm going to talk about, technology-wise, is laptops. I just finished getting one and...Wow, the convenience. You can take it anywhere and do all the stuff that you could do on a regular desktop - oh the joy! :) Yes, I know, laptops are an old thing but since I never had one I never understood the complete and wonderful convenience that they really are. So there, laptops, that's my wowzer technology gadget.
Thing 6, Week 3 (Done in Week 4)
retrievr by System One Labs, that is the mashup that I found interesting. You are able to sketch something (vaguely) and it gives you a bunch of pictures that are supposed to be similar. It doesn't work to well but I found the concept very fascinating and if they were to improve the technology so that the pictures that came up REALLY look similar to a person's sketches that would be a very fun website to visit...at least for me.
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