#11 All About LibraryThing

Ok a little bit of confusion as I couldn't seem to find the 'sign up here' button. Figured out that I don't need a long complicated sign up page. Just pick a username and password (numbers and letters only) and away you go. It was almost too simple! :P lol

This is another new thing/Thing that I'm really pleased to have found/been shown. Fantastic tool for keeping track of all the books. Although I don't have very many books myself, I know a few people that I will be telling about LibraryThing!

Didn't have much trouble inputting books either. Some of my older David Eddings books needed a bit of fiddleing because Amozon.com (the default searcher) only had the newer ones. Lucky for me UNC Chapel Hill had all the old seperate books. Although they don't have
pictures of the covers.

Most exciting for me it that I have managed to put a widget of my library on my blog! If it keeps working (fingers crossed) it should show a random selection of book covers from my library. :)

Check out my library catalogue at:
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/branchbaby
or click on the link in my widget. I'll try and add some more of my books later.

#10 Playing with Image Generators

I'm actually finding that I am having more fun! I must admit that until now it's felt a bit like I'm back at High School and trying to find a balance between doing an A+ job and trying to get it finished on time. This doesn't even seem like work/school at all. (Although it kind of is because I have to write about it. hehe :P)

The Generator Blog was a huge help in finding funny things to play with. Having them all listed like that made it easy to scroll down and read about the generators that looked interesting to me. Lots of hilarious looking things to play with!

Doppel Me was fun. Did anyone else ever play with those paper dolls with all the different clothes when they were younger?? This was just like that, but without having to spend 5 mins trying to fold the tabs right so the clothes would stay on.

JWebGen Pony Generator was a blast from the past. It allows you to play with My Little Pony images. You can chose which colors you want it to be and after you've made a father and a mother you can blend them into a baby pony. Very cute!

Pocket Emo -I did make a pocket emo but it wasn't very fun to play with. Very sad teenager type who only seemed to be happy when I gave it a diary to write in. Even then it scribbled away for a few seconds and then the very depressing thorght bubble above it's head proclaimed "at least my diary understands me". Not sure how this is fun but poked him for a while and fed him lots of hamburgers.

I'm having trouble sticking pictures where I want them so I've put them down the bottom for now. :)

Pony Generator:

Doppel Me:

#9 Finding Feeds

Well I'm not having a lot of luck with this one. I did a search for 'gardening tips' on feedster. It came up with all kinds of things. From dating sites to an article about computers being used in street raceing!

I was very pleased when I found my own blog by searching on Google Blog Search. Although I don't think many people would try and the combination 'branch baby' and 'learning 2.0' and 'the sandbox'.

I did stumble across a feed which looks good. It's an ABC2 tv guide. I'll have to see if I can get guides for all the stations....not that I ever watch tv. I do like to watch movies though. I did a few searches on IMDb, I was hopeing that I could put in an actor and it would give me updates on any new movies/tv series they were in. I couldn't find any rss links on there though. Am I doing this wrong? Or missing something?

I'm looking forward to reading what others have added as I think my main problem in finding feeds is that I can't think of anything to look for! :)

#8 RSS & Bloglines

RSS (Really Simple Syndication)

When I first listened to the podcast I was impressed. This is a fantastic little piece of technology. I didn't even know it exsisted. Bloglines makes it so much easyier to keep track of it all as well. Although I did have it put my thinking cap on for what to add. And at least half the newslinks that I added are things that I wouldn't normally look up.

I was disappionted to learn that not all sites have rss. (I thorght I'd be able to keep track of all my interneting in one spot).

It took a little bit of fiddleing and searching but I also found a real estate site which will update me of new houses for sale in my area. Very cool tool for keeping track of the market.

My Public Bloglines is at:
http://www.bloglines.com/public/BranchBaby

#7 Blog About Technology

I was trying to think of a Technology that I couldn't live without. Something that I use all the time and which still amazes me. I considered the internet and telephones, cars and planes, television and dvd players. There are so many things we can thank technology for, in big ways and small. I decided that my newest toy should feature.

In a recent fad of healthy eating, I decided that I would need a blender to make all the smoothies that I was going to be drinking at least once a day. After staring at the rather overwelming range in Harvy Norman for a while (and with the help of a lovely sales assistant) I eventually came home with slightly more than I had set out to get. The very shiney blender/food processer from Moulinex now has pride of place on my benchtop.

Now why did I feel that I was getting a bargin by spending $200 more than the base blender I hear you, my mother and my housemate asking? Well, at the risk of sounding like an infomercial, it slices, it dices, it chips, it grates, it grinds, it mincers, it presses, it whisks, it extracts juice from vegies, it juices oranges/lemons, it liquidisers, it kneads, it blends AND it has an LCD display which has pre-programed recipes in it. Thats right! If I one day wake up and decide that I would like some Pear Moelleux, I can find the recipe under cakes on the display. It tells me what ingredients and what attachments I need to make it and then steps me through the process.

This is perhaps a piece of technology that I could live without....but wheres the FUN in that? :)

#6 More Flickr Fun

Loved the mash-ups, etc. Had a lot of FUN! Played around with some of the different things. The Trip Planner looks great. Couldn't resist jumping in and trying some of the trading cards. I made a few of my friends and emailed them there own cards.

My brother used to play the card game Magic. The cards looked just like this (well pretty close). Now I just need to find a color printer.....

#5 Discovering Flickr

Well I've found week 3 to be a bit tricky. Mostly because it was hard to choose a picture out of the millions available. I orginally wanted to get my digital camera up to the library and take some pics and then post them on flickr. I made a yahoo account and a flickr account without too much trouble. Unfortunatly I never got around to remembering my camera. With everything we've got going on at our branch atm (rearranging non-fic, school holidays, etc) it always seemed to slip my mind.

I did decide mid-week that i would just bite the bullet and stick any old photo from flickr onto my blog and I'd add some of my own later on in the program. Thats where things got tricky. There are so many pictures and photos it was hard to choose! I spent a while looking at Kilted MadMan's wedding photos, which had a definate pirate theme going on. The cake was amazeing! I found some cute kittens and some interesting arty pictures. In the end I found some great landscapes which were taken in Ferntree Gully and decided that would at least have some relevance. (I work at FTG branch of ERLC). Wrote my post and stuck the pic on. Was ready to post when someone mentioned copyrights.....eeeep!

So I emailed the helpful learning 2.0 people and ascertained that I could only use the flickr pictures that were marked as free-for-all or creative commons. It was about this time that I came down sick and was in bed recovering for the rest of the week.

So now I am back at work and a bit behind (another challenge to overcome). I've found this wonderful picture of a wave crashing. Fantastic timing on the part of Breno Peck, who all credit must go to for a wonderful photo.

*EDIT*
I've added some photos to my flickr account, check them out at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/branchbaby