You Oughta Be In Pictures #91: Fun With Photos

Excercise One. The last post with the Dog Should have been numbered 91 instead of 90. I oversized one photo so I redid it.
Excercise Two.

You Oughta Be In Pictures # 90: Fun With Photos

You Oughta Be In Pictures # 91: Fun With Photos

Excercise 1. See above photos

You Oughta Be In Pictures #89: Basic Photo Editing

Excercise 1. I uploaded a photo to Picnik of Sam the dog I found at the library. I used one editing tool, red eye to fix the red eyes on Sam. I added text to the photo. That is the creative tool I used.
Excercise 2. With the number of photos I take that have red eyes, I'm sure the red eye feature would be an important feature to use. I think the cropping feature would be another important feature as would be the sharpeining feature. I found Picnik an easy website to use. I registered on Photoshop and could not figure out how to use it.

You Oughta Be in Pictures # 90: Sharing Photos

Exercise 1 and 2: I watched the video on photo sharing and browsed the sites.
Exercise 3: I think the most important features would be how easy it is to use a prticular website. Security is right up there, too. I'm not sure how secure any of these sites are once you send your photos out but I guess one must just get used to it. The copyright/creative commons options would be important to me as an artist. If I had manipulated a photo into a work of art, I would not want someone else to claim my masterpiece as their own. These sites seem to make it easy to share photos on the social networking sites. The photo gifts would be fun too.

The World According to Google #88: Wave, Buzz and Mobile

Excercise 1. I do not currently use any online collaboration tools. Google Buzz reminds me of Facebook with a new twist. Google Wave would be a good business tool for conference calls and such with more visual interaction.

Excercise 2. I checked out Google Moblie apps for your mobile phone. I would use Google Maps on my phone if I'm lost and need directions. It would be helpful to check email from my mobile phone too especially on trips or if you did not have access to a computer if you are away from home. I communicte with my son by email on his Google phone. It is hard to reach him by phone.

Excercise 3. See above

The Web According To Google #87: Google Reader

Excercise 1. I took the Google Reader tour. I do not currently use a feed reader. I am not into social networking. Is all this really necessary?

Excercise 2. I don't have favorite websites. I find internet searches beneficial when I need to gather information. I don't feel the need to link to sites to get my information.

The Web According to Google #85: Resistance is Futile

Excercise 1. I use Google maps on a regular basis and Get Directions. Also I use Google Docs and Blogger at work. I can't really compare them to another competing product because I haven't tried any. I am satisfied with Google.

Excercise 2. I investigated Google Labs. I searched for my husbands patents but only found one of the five. I liked Google Reader Play and Gesture Search. Google Earth is fun. Go Mobile would be a useful app from a mobile device to get directions from your phone whereever you are. Love You Tube.

Exercise 3. I searched Google Books. They did not have any books I looked for. This would be helpful in the library for customers to keep track of previous books they have checked since we are not able to. Also back issues of magazines could be found if needed by customers.

The Web According to Google #86: Calendar and Documents

Excercise 1. I have created or should I say jointly created a Google Calendar at work before. Certain indivivduals were to post certain things on the calendar related to the library. I had to post events occuring in Tomball. The calendar was to prevent scheduling conflicts. I might use Google Calendar at home for scheduling with the family but would not care to share with my friends.

Excercise 2. I created a spreadsheet on Google Documents. It is similar to Excel that I work with daily. I uploaded a file from my coumputer. It was pretty simple. If I had to work from home I can see how Google Documents would be helpful instead of a desktop application.

Publishing Evolution # 84: Writer Communities & Author Websites

1. I have never contacted my favorite author or gone to their websites. I don't feel the need to know anything about them. I searched for my favorite author (I don't really have one) and this is what I came up with: Robert Ludlum died in 2001 yet he has writtem 12 novels since his death. Go figure? No website or blog for Ludlum either. I did not find a website for Maurice Sendak but he did tell parents to go to hell if they thought his book, Where the Wild Things Are, or now movie is too scary for kids. No website or blog for Sendak. So I looked at a more popular author Mary Higgins Clark. She has a website with a blog. Great advertising for your books. You could blog with Mary. I have no desire. Get a life.

2. I would have less faith in the material if the book was published by popular vote. This is not American Idol.

Publishing Evolution #83:Paper to Pixels (or e-ink)

Excercise 1. I prefer paper. I like to read a newspaper or hold a book. Call me old fashion but that is what I have always done and still like to do. Although the new iPad looks interesting.

Excercise 2. I would pay full price for a book I was really interested in. I think a digital copy should be cheaper since there is no paper or printing involved.

Excercise 3. I checked out the iFiction website. I like the idea of previewing a digital book before you pay but once again as in the previous post I did not recognize any of the books.

Publishing Evolution # 82: Print On Demand

Excercise 1. Printing costs increase in POD because there aren't any books in storage and printing occurs when it it is requested. I visited all of the websites to checkout some of the published books none of which I had read or observed circulating in the library. Did not see anything on the listed websites that appealed to me. I have read a book that was self published, Juliette Ascending, by Rosemary Poole-Carter. She came to the library for a author visit and I purchased all three of her self published books because they were about Louisiana (my adopted home state).

Excercise 2. I think self publishing is a wonderful idea. I don't really care how a book gets published as long as it is interesting to me.

The Future of the Media # 81:Get Out Your Crystal Ball

Excercise 1. For now I pick Blu Ray as having the most influence. I'm not sure that people are ready or have the equipment for only live stream but that will probablry be the next mainstream development. 4G, that is the technology that will have a big impact on everyone next. We will be able to access email and computer data from our phones and that will be all we need. I think Sprint offers a 4G phone right now.


Excercise 2. No, I do not have to have every new gadget as it comes out. You will not find me standing in line to have the next big thing or pay an outrageous price for it. I just got a DVD player 2 years ago. I can remember when Television first came out and when we got our first set. I still read the newspaper everyday. I sure hope they don't disappear. I don't text but I don't know what we would do without our cell phones.

The Future of Media # 80: Movies

Excercise 1. I tuned into Hulu to watch Seven Years in Tibet. I did not watch the entire movie yet I think this is something I would do under the right circumstances. I would prefer watching DVD's on my television but if I was on a plane or stuck somewhere to pass the time I could watch a movie on a computer. It was a good picture.

Excercise 2. I tried to watch the trailer for Diary of a Wimpy Kid on Apple Trailers but I had to download QuickTime so was unable to watch. I think this would be a great way to keep up with current films to watch the trailers on these websites although I did not recognize many of the films on this site.

Excercise 3. I would consider using Net Flix. My son used it and it seemed pretty simple to watch movies when you want and take as long as you want and not be penalized. The live streams would be OK but I don't think I'm ready for this. We have On Demand on our cable service and I've never used it. I never have the time. I am not the biggest movie fan. I think actors are way overpaid and consider themselves to important in our society. I mean really what do they really do? I think movies are hyped so much that when you do see them they really aren't that good.

Future of Media # 79: Television

Excercise 1. I have watched full episodes of The Office on Hulu. There are lots of my favorites on Hulu: The Daily Show , The Simpsons, The Today Show and The View for example. The coverage available on Hulu is mostly movies and TV.

Excercise 2. I have not watched a TV show on my cell phone. I can think of times in my past when I would have. For instance: Kids...waiting in line to pick them up from whatever activity, I would have watched a show on my cell phone.

Excercise 3. I have never posted a video to a site. I don't watch any live streams on a regular basis but I may start watching the puppies. I have seen live streams from the zoo, you know, pandas, giraffes, elephants things like that.

Searching #78: Video

Excercise 1. Since I'm a news junkie I looked up news videos on both websites, Truveo and Blinkx. I chose the recent killer whale in Orlando at Sea World video to locate on both sites. It came up on the home page on Truveo. I had a few more clicks to find it on Blinkx but I thought this was a better looking website.

Excercise 2. I checked out the HCPL You Tube Channel. I wathched Samantha at NW's puppet show. I think our branch video at Tomball might be of interest to internet searchers as to ways to help keep libraries open in this down economy. A joint library between the college (LSC) and the community of Tomball is an example of how other communities may pool their money to keep libraries going.

Searching #77: Images

Exercise 3. Thanks I finally did it! I published a photo to my post without help! It took me three tries to do it but I did. See above post for picture.

Searching #77: Images

Excercise 3.

Searching # 77: Images

Excercise 1. Using AllFreeClipArt it took me four clicks to get to a color Santa that did not look like a troll.

Excercise 2. I read 10 Places to Find Free Images Online. I checked out Flickr. I had joined Flickr in a previous iHCPL excercise. I like it because it is free. Great source to share photos with family and friends. I also liked fotogenika. Looks like fun but expensive. One can tour local areas, Houston by helicopter or Kemah all without leaving your own home.

Excercise 3. Next I am going to log into the HCPL clipart program and post a picture from there.

Searching #76: Sound Effects

Excercise 2. I am posting the sound effects from Simply the Best because last time the did not post. Here we go.

cowbel.wav

drum_roll-1.wav

fanfare.wav

I put these on my blog but had trouble making it work where the links actually worked. That is why my previous post was blank. When I clicked on the above link icon nothing happened. Hope I have sucess this time around.

Searching # 76: Sound Effects

Excercise 2: Simply the Best

Searching # 76: Sound Effects

Excercise 1. http://www.gatorland.com/sounds/beargrowl.wav
bear growls
61k, mono, 8-bit, 8000 Hz, 7.8 seconds

http://hootytuts.com/MusicDLs/Hw3/growl.wav
dog growl
51k, mono, 8-bit, 11025 Hz, 4.7 seconds

http://www.ndrr.com/rmr_faq/Sounds/lion_roar.wav
lion

# 75 Google and Beyond

Exercise One: I ended up with 2 Bings and 1 Google. I might try to explore Bing in the future.
Exercise Two: The week I searched on Hitwise Google was #1. It was almost 75% usage compared to Yahoo with 10% usage. The usage statistics match my own personal choice of a favorite because before this I strictly used Google as my search engine. I may try Bing now just to see if it is any good.
Exercise Three: Google has added ways to keep track of your personal life with various connections to other websites, calendars and for example our schedules.