Thing #27 Photobucket

Ok, I did the photobucket thing. It's pretty much like Flickr - but I found searching and browsing for things a little better. I did a Harry Potter search and put some images in my album. It's kind of interesting that when I did a Harry Potter search in Flickr, I got a bunch of pictures that people had posted. When I did the Harry Potter search in Photobucket the images were more of things that people had uploaded - like movie stills or goofy little sayings - very few pictures. I was also a little surprised at how vulgar some of the images I found were - it was a little disturbing in some cases. The find stuff option was ok - I'd rather do a search though.

Thing #26

I did the Widgets "yourminis" thing a while ago, but never posted about it. Too clustered and distracting for me. I just wasn't getting the point. I set up the desktop with all the little buttons and such - but then I just couldn't figure out what to do with it, and then, I just didn't care. Nor do I care now, so I'm thinking this isn't something of use to me, so it's time to move on.

Too cute for words!

This is a recent photo of Drayden. This was actually taken with a cell phone. Pretty good image. Already a Michigan fan. Gotta love it!

I LOVE BANNED BOOKS!

Silly me, I've been so caught up in other library things (you all know what I'm talking about), that I completely forgot that it is Banned Books Week! That special time of year when a young reader's fancy turns to those prized novels (and picture books) that scare so many that they feel they have a right to keep perfect strangers from reading it. So I ask all of you to celebrate with me this year. Pick up your favorite banned book and be seen reading it. Let the world know that you will not be curtailed by others fanaticism. To get you started here are the "10 Most Challenged Books of 2006" courtesy of the American Library Association:

1. And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell
2. Gossip Girls series by Cecily von Ziegesar
3. Alice series by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
4. The Earth, My Butt and Other Big Round Things by Carolyn Mackler
5. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
6. Scary Stories series by Alvin Schwartz
7. Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher
8. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
9. Beloved by Toni Morrison
10. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier

...silly me, thinking those penguins should take care of that egg rather than letting it die...

All right, I'm off to go pick up one of the Harry Potters and read it again. Supposedly I should be able to actually learn how to do witchcraft just by reading the book. Since I've read them about 30 times all together, why can't I make something float? I have a wand and everything. "Wingardium leviosa" - nothing - my computer monitor is still firmly on my desk, sigh... that would have been so cool.

(I suppose I have to include this disclaimer - these opinions are my own and do not reflect the place I work. If you're offended, take it out on me and no one else.)

"Oh, I am just a student, Sir and I only want to learn.
But it's hard to read through the rising smoke from the books that you'd like to burn"
--Phil Ochs, "I'm Gonna Say it Now"

Back to Bloglines

After looking at some other blogs, I see that they had their feeds directly on their blog pages, so I decided to attempt it. I like it. Much easier than going though to the bloglines website. It took me a little while to figure out how to do it, but I got it.

This post serves another purpose. It moves my Michigan M down from being the first thing I see when I open my blog. As much as I love my boys in Maize and Blue, their performace on Saturday was nothing short of disgraceful, and I'm all kinds of frustrated with them. Losing is one thing, but playing like you don't care is something else, and that's what it looked like in the first half on Saturday. They looked slow and unprepared to play football. After their loss to Appalachain State, they should have been fired up and ready to win. Sigh...

But on a brighter note, the YSU Penguins pulled off an exciting win against South Dakota State, beating them 23 - 17 in their home opener. Can't wait for this Saturday's game. Go Penguins!

The most wonderful time of the year!

I love college football - this is my favorite time of year. I also love the University of Michigan football. (Yes, I know, I live in Ohio - but my daddy grew up in Michigan so this is what I was raised to love!)

I know UofM had a rough time last weekend - but not enough props are being given to Appalachian State. They are two-time defending national champions in their division - and quite frankly, they just grow those boys big down there. So, Michigan may have been a little cocky going into the game - it happens. Now we move on to tomorrows game against Oregon.

GO BLUE!!! Beat the Ducks!

Thing #25 - My Own Newsletter

This was interesting. I made up my own newsletter - sort of a little journal about my golf "vacation" in June. I see lots of interesting uses for this site. And I think it's cool that it's free. However, I was a little frustrated with the formatting. Pushing enter automatically gives you a two space jump, so you can't go down to the next line directly below the text you typed. I also would have liked to justify the columns where all my text is, but it wouldn't allow me to do that either.

Anyway, here it is: http://letterpop.com/newsletters/?id=58188-ee18f5. Check it out, if you like, but it's not really that interesting.

Zamzar continued...

So, the amount of time it took me to type up my thoughts on Zamzar (which was just a few minutes), was the amount of time it took to have it converted and the link sent to my e-mail. Two clicks away and there was my pdf - bloody brilliant!

Zamzar

Ok, I didn't think I was going to do it, but I've decided to venture into the world of 2.1. Today was step #24, Zamzar. We had a brief introduction to this during on of our little PO staff meeings, but I hadn't gotten around to playing with it. I decded to check it out today. I uploaded one of my word documents to try to turn it into a pdf. I'm still waiting for the e-mail telling me it worked.

If this does work - it's fantastic. A couple of years ago when I was building my own website and trying to post my resume as a pdf, I was having to go through all kinds of hassle to get it converted. I didn't have the program on my computer (and then I found out it cost something crazy like $800), and I only knew of one computer that I could do it on at the Carnegie Mellon University library. If only I could have used Zamzar it would have been so much easier. I see much potential for this for lots of people!

Thing #23 - The Finish Line

Success! Here I am at the end. This has been a really cool experience. I flatter myself as someone being fairly technologically savvy, but there was so much out there that I didn't know. Starting with blogging - some of my friends have their own blogs, but I was hesitant to take that step and try to learn myself - thanks YPL for the incentive. I think the most outstanding learning moment for me was the RSS feeds. This to me was a foreign language of which I wanted to no part in having to figure out on my own. I love it now - I love knowing what the little orange button is for on webpages and I love going to my bloglines account and reading all my different feeds. I also just like the feeling that I'm not missing out on something anymore. There were very few things here that I didn't find interesting. I also enjoyed the process of helping others with their blogs, getting help for my own, and just checking out what other people are up to or interested in. I hope we have more learning opporunities like this. In the meantime, I can't wait for my MP3 player!