me, animated

o.k; so maybe some of this is fun. Check out the widgets and my avatar. These were definitely fun.

Bloglines

This exercise took about an hour to complete. Finding and subscribing to the RSS feeds is easy; getting the information onto my blog via layout changes was not so easy. I tried to make a link in my layout that you could click and get right to the blog roll, but I just can't figure it out. Here is the link: http://rpc.bloglines.com/blogroll?html=1&id=catbird
However, I can't figure out how to make it a hot link.
I like being able to put baseball scores and Pearls Before Swine daily cartoons within really easy reach. I can see putting a bunch of this stuff on My Yahoo, since I am a regular Yahoo user.
Libraries can take advantage of this technology by requiring librarians to subscribe to particular feeds for technology updates. We can also get updated bestseller lists, blogs from other library systems, or blogs from within our own community.
I don't like having a public account for my bloglines; putting personal info. out there for all to read seems to me to be an invitation to nutballs everywhere to respond. People follow links, and they can eventually get back to us. This makes me uncomfortable. I plan to take down this entire blog at the end of the project.

I've been tagged! EEK!

The Sports and Technology Fan tagged me. These are the rules: Each player lists 8 facts/habits about themselves. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning before those facts/habits are listed. At the end of the post, the player then tags 8 people and posts their names, and then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged, and asking them to read your blog.
I can think of 8 facts/habits with no problem, but who wants to read about me?!
*1. I start every day by filling my bird feeders and cleaning and refilling my birdbaths. This takes about 30 minutes.
*2. I buy 125 pounds of bird seed every two weeks, a bit more in the winter. I also feed the squirrels. They eat about a pound of peanuts a day, and some of the sunflower seeds I put out for the birds.
*3. I am an O's fan through and through; I even had my tix to the '97 playoff games that never happened!
*4. I taught literature and writing to approximately 7500 urban youths.
*5. I am married to my high school sweetheart, and have been since 1974.
*6. Both of my sons are musicians, both interested in very different types of music; I love
listening to their music.
*7. My parents live downy ocean.
*8. My diet excludes anything that has (had) a face. We have a deal; I don't eat animals, and they don't eat me.

Now it's your turn: I tag 23 Things (Library Lady), Bibliotecaria, Psychobabe, Library LunaSea, Learning 23 Things Program, Cat's Meow, Diary of a Librarian, Cleaniac.

Technology

Well, I've reached the end of Photos and Images week. Flickr etc. were interesting sites, but I doubt that I'll have much occasion to go to the mashups or third party sites after these exercises.
The assignment is to create a blog post about anything technology related that interests me. I began to write that I don't have much to do with technology, but I guess that's a stupid thing to say. I find a cell phone useful sometimes, although I prefer my land line. I find Google very useful and interesting; it would be hard to do my job without it. The Mapquest technology is very useful. The technology that allows us to watch space shuttle missions is amazing. I guess that I appreciate the technology that has seeped (or charged) into my life, but I don't go out of my way to explore new technology. That's why MD 23 things is probably a good thing for me. At least I can learn more of what's out there.

Trading card

Today I decided to try the trading card.
It seems to have worked. I'm not terrible creative with cute sayings or quotes or such; I just give you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
I had to do this at home rather than at work; there doesn't seem to be time to do this all at work. I'm also much more comfortable with my iMac than I am with any pc.

mdlearning2 part 2

This goes with the two SRC photos in the previous post. I couldn't figure out how to get the text on the post with the photos. I chose option 2, which is described as an easy challenge. Phooey! Taking the photos was easy; using the software on the library computers to download and label, etc. was not. I ended up taking the camera with photos home so I could use my I-photo program on my Mac computer to download and edit the photos, saved the photos to a memory stick, and brought the stick back to the lib. so I could continue with this "easy" challenge. Doesn't sound like much, but it took all my off-the-desk time on Wed., and Thursday morning I was finally able to get the photos on the blog. I can't figure out how to tag them, though. I tagged them when I tried to upload them from flickr, but the photos wouldn't show; only that red box with an X that shows an image is missing. I ended up using the blogger upload feature, but there was no way I could find to add the tag, so it's in my subject line.
I chose this challenge rather than the one that has us going through photos, just because it seemed more like something I would use in the future. I don't really enjoy going through hundreds of photos to find something cute or distinctive or funny. As I said in an earlier post, this is work for me, not play.
In the end, I certainly learned what I needed to do to complete the challenge. I feel good about that.

mdlearning2

7.5 habits

The easiest habit is to accept responsibility for my own learning. If not I, then who?
The hardest for me will be to play; it's still too much like work: reading stuff and
clicking all the hotlinks and reading that stuff and looking at dozens of blogs and
pictures. Where is the fun in that? For me, fun is in no way connected to a computer screen.

adding a picture...

shouldn't have been this hard, but it was definitely worth it.
I found and uploaded this beautiful catbird that's on my blog page.
So I've figured out another thing; two things in two days.
Bill Murray and I take baby steps.

blog the first

So far, so good.