Women In Art - On YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUDIoN-_Hxs

Week 10: #23 I Am... Complete!

They say it's harder to open up and learn new things as you get older.
But despite some griping, and doing exercises on some topics I wasn't interested in, this was the best training exercise I've ever been involved with at HCPL!

I know I was exposed to a ton of technological tools and ideas that I wouldn't have been otherwise. Some I cared for, some I didn't. But I'm still grateful to have been introduced to them all.

I couldn't estimate the enormous effort involved in preparing and running the program for us, monitoring those involved, and helping out the totally clueless folks. But I sincerely appreciate the effort in our behalf, and the fun things I got to learn [or finally play with on work time].


FAVORITES
YouTube - a great video collection site! I could get very addicted.

Downloadable Media - lots of audio fun for this big fan of music, books-on-audio, and old-time radio.

Flickr - it's a lot of fun, but it can eat enormous amounts of time digging through this huge "shoebox" full of photos.

LibraryThing - I like to make lists and picture catalogs. I'd love to make my DVD collection on this sometime.


LESS FAVORITES [only because of what suits me personally]:
Blogs - I'm not the kind of person who enjoys maintaining a blog, or surfing to read other peoples. Maybe a celebrity's on-line journal, but even that's a lot to keep up with for me.

RSS Newsreaders - would love to have the time to surf my favorite feeds with these. But I have to get up from the computer and walk around sometime.

Avatars - a necessary visual, I suppose, to show some personality, yet maintain some on-line privacy. But awkward for me, since I've never been all that comfortable dressing up as a character in a costume in real life.

Social Networking - my life is so very full and enjoyable as it is that I don't have much desire to reach out and network with even more people on-line. I know I wouldn't have the time to maintain those additional relationships anyway.

Passwords for everything - sheesh!

Podcasts - too much like listening to the damn radio for my taste.

Thanks!!!

Week 9: #22 Downloadable Media - Deal Me In!

I think I could really enjoy this. I found lots of down-loadable audio to interest me in HCPL's collection. And some video too, [although my video-watching plate is pretty darn full these days so I don't think I'll be downloading even more].

But audio I can download to a CD, and listen to in my car during commutes to and from work is very desirable to me. Because it's only in my car that I have the time to listen for enjoyment without being restricted to headphones.

I found various New Age music titles I want to hear, and a lot of Jack Benny radio shows.
As to mystery books I found the original Sherlock Holmes short stories, and Rex Stout "Nero Wolfe" novels. In the classic novels there's "Journey To the Center of the Earth," "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea," and "Walden."
In comedy books I found "I Shouldn't Even Be Doing This," Bob Newhart's autobiography.

So I found lots of audio that I want to listen to. I'm just limited by my available free time!

Week 9: #21 Podcasts Were Pointless

I'm not just trying to be a wet blanket here, but podcasts wound up being pointless for me. I'm saying that despite the fact that I feel very positively about the iHCPL training topics and exercises.
But I'm a music fan and audio collector, and I've had years now to build a great collection. So I'm used to listening to exactly what I want to hear when I want it. I avoid listening to the radio almost entirely, [except when the radio plays while I'm in the process of popping CDs or audiotapes into my car player]. Even satellite radio is of absolutely no interest to me.

But I realize that podcasts could be useful, informative and fun if you find exactly what you're looking for, but I spent hours searching found almost nothing. It was like scanning back and forth through a hundred radio stations trying to find favorite songs and never catching any.

I tried podcast directories, topics, genres and keyword search combinations. I tried favorite TV show websites that I though had related podcasts and updates. The directories all seemed to either be very wide in topic and take a lot of browsing to narrow down, or were all by two-bit radio "discjockeys."

I added the RSS feed to my Bloglines for NPR's "Performing Arts" topic, but that's as close to a feed for actual podcasts as I could get and still find one on a topic I cared about in the slightest.
So I consider podcasting useful, but didn't find any to suit me whatsoever.

Week 9: #20 Me Discovering YouTube

I am fairly impressed with YouTube and find some of its content quite exciting.

I discovered it for the first time late one night about 2 months ago when I'd fallen in love with a song in a music video in an Apple Nano player TV commercial. I had the commercial on our digital video recorder [in the middle of a show we'd taped]. I played it a few times trying to make out the lyrics, and then tried turning on the closed-captioning and was then able to read the lyrics.

Still didn't know the artist's name or the song's title, and the simple main lyrics, "1 2 3 4" made me think identifying it was going to be tough. But I then tried the Apple website on my home laptop computer, pulled up the TV commercial and credits, and was able to find the corresponding album on Amazon.com for the song, "1234" by Feist. A reviewer's comments there mentioned the YouTube video, and that was it.

After watching the Feist video I went searching for Neil Diamond, [who I've been a serious fan of for over 30 years]. I was amazed at the rare performances content I found. Many common clips too, but just as many that were unique and unknown to me of Neil in his prime in the 1970's when I first discovered his music. I was astonished to watch so many intense, dramatic performances of songs that were still fairly new at the time, and I stayed up watching till close to 1am.

Today I went searching to find a particular music video of the Mason Williams guitar instramental, "Classical Gas," and found it [more or less]. I'd seen the "music video" during a Smothers Brothers TV episode in the late 1960's, but not since, and it was always one of my favorite pieces of music. I found a recreation of the original video, which is what I've linked to on this blog.

I like what I can find on YouTube, but I wish the clips were of larger size, better resolution, and recordable to DVD [in case they disappear from the web at some point without warning].

I'm not sure what features might be interesting if applied to library websites, since they too would suffer from the limited resolution and screen size. Videos might have to be limited to "talking heads" because of the lack of viewable details?

Neil Diamond - Holly Holy

Neil Diamond - Solitary Man

Classical Gas Video Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour 1968

Week 8: #19 Zoho "Not-So-Good" Writer

I like the idea of an on-line office programs such as Zoho Writer, but after trying to use it several times it just annoyed me.

Working Space: Zoho won't let me see as many lines of text at once as I need. The web insists on using the top 2 inches of my screen for itself. Then Zoho Writer takes several rows for it's tools and settings, and empty space at the bottom for it's Find tools, leaving me a dozen lines or so of text visible at a time.
Throw in double sets of scroll bars for both the web and Zoho, and it's a lot of back-and-forth work to use.

Lag Time: it often took 30-60 seconds to load, save, or make changes, leaving me twiddling my thumbs.

Unpleasant Surprises: I experimented with many of the tools to learn how they worked, but they often took me to parts of the program I couldn't predict and then couldn't get out of.

So, I've used my share of word processesors and desktop publishing programs, and I might have better luck with Zoho on a different day, but we didn't get along well today.

Week 8: #18 Social Networking... Or Not!

I see the many plusses of on-line social networking, but can't say I'm interested in it myself. I don't keep much of a daily journal, and networking would mean "putting myself out there" a lot more than I care to.
My wife and I lead pretty happy, quiet lives together and we're sort of homebodies. We like our house, garden, cats, computers, TVs, books and collections of cool stuff!
We like to dine out once or twice a week and go shopping together. We don't travel much or socialize with that many folks. We have friends to have fun with when we like, but can have solitude and some peace and quiet whenever we choose without having to "humor" unexpected guests.

So we've got a real nice balance to our lives already, and I'm glad people have this option for sharing on-line with others, but I'm really thankful that I don't have the need. Amen.

Week 7: #17 Blogging, Technology, "the World of Tomorrow" and me!

When it comes to modern technology, I choose to believe that there's hope for me!
What I mean is, I'm at that awkward age; not too old to try new things, but not young enough to have always been immersed in modern tech.

For instance, I love DVD's and Compact Discs, and especially love having machines at home that let me record my own. When it comes to collecting my music just the way I want it, I work from my record albums, audiocassettes, and CD collections. Yet I don't seem to have much interest in downloading MP3's or getting an iPod. [maybe when I surf the web more and preview music and discover I really, really want to burn things to CD?]

And I've got a new laptop computer at home with a 17 inch screen. It's got wireless access to the web [which I had no hand in setting up - it was done for me by a tech friend].
I do so enjoy surfing the web and discovering things about my hobbies that I was completely unaware of before, and might not have discovered any other way. But then I hate the times when I want to find info, but waste hours surfing and finding squat!

One one hand I could blog and chat with folks on-line for hours if I so desired, but on the other hand I could just as easily encounter a bunch of idiots in the process [just like in real life]. Such are the problems of being content, and having more interests than free time.

I was slow to get cell phones for my wife and I. We had more and more instances when cell phones would have come in pretty darn handy! But then we just got basic model phones. No cameras, no web access, and no text messaging, which suits us just fine.

Gee, maybe I'm floating between two worlds. Or maybe I just have the best of both?
These days I have most everything I want to entertain me at my fingertips, so I know contentment! But I also know that there's more to discover and fascinate me anytime I want it.
I have contentment and challenge, so I just consider myself incredibly lucky! In this great, modern technological "world of tomorrow," I only lack my flying car and my jet pack!

P.S. I posted a comment to "Ferretnews" who said "I read through a couple of people's blogs. I feel uncomfortable "invading" someone else's privacy. Basically most technology is fine; there's no way to avoid it. I have let a lot of technology pass me by; ipods, fancy cell phones, etc. just don't interest me. Cell phones [and their obnoxious invasion into everyday life] bothers me a great deal. I have been enjoying learning about the various computer technologies through this 23 things training. The exercise I liked the most was photo editing and uploading. That was useful and fun. I'll post to Scott McCullar's blog."

My Post:
Thanks, Libby! I wanted to post to yours as well! I felt the same way about a lot of the tools. Very interesting, and I might play with them more later if I figure out how I might use them for my hobbies and such. It's weird thinking that I've "let technology pass me by," but I prefer to think it's just a matter of time management and having lots of fun stuff that I'm interested in. I'd like photo editing tools more if there was one that let me edit or eliminate parts of pictures, and combine parts of one with another. But they all seem affect entire photos at once. Unless you buy Photoshop, I guess! Go, Ferrets!

Week 7: #16 Wiki Fun

I added my blog site to the favorite blogs page on iHCPL, and posted to HCPL's wiki on these two Favorites topics:

FAVORITE RESTAURANTS:
Scott/ADM-I may come to realize just how pedestrian my tastes run by listing my favorites like this, but here goes:

• Outback Steakhouse
• The Olive Garden [the "Tour of Italy" dinner]
• Boudreaux's Cajun - the "Chicken Fried Chicken" & gravy
• Pancho's Mexican Buffet
• Lam Bo's Chinese Buffet, and Hunan Chef II [on Highway 59 at Greeway Plaza].
• Sweet Tomatoes salad buffet
• Baytown Seafood
• Papa's Barbecue
• Yia Yia Mary's Greek Restaurant, Galleria
• Bombay Brasserie in the Village
• Fuddrucker's hamburgers
• La Madeline [breakfast]
• Taco Bell
• Jack in the Box [Bacon Ultimate Cheeseburgers, what can I say?]

Mind you, I only dine at one of these once or twice a week at most. Honest!

FAVORITE TV SHOWS:
Current Shows I really like:

• LOST - it fascinates me. I like the characters, plot twists and entwining mysteries. I've avoided visiting on-line discussion groups about it so that I can still "have a life."
• Pushing Daisies - I love the quirkiness and cleverness of the plot progression. The characters have witty and funny dialogue and the visuals are fascinating. I know it's a production from movie director, Barry Sonnenfeld [who did The Addams Family and Men In Black movies] but it also has a look-and-feel of Tim Burton comedies too.

Older Shows I really like:

• Nero Wolfe - just made aware of these 2 seasons of Timothy Hutton TV mysteries by a friend. Fantastic! Even more so because I love his dad's TV mystery series, Ellery Queen.
• Banacek - TV detective starring George Peppard. First season DVD is out, 2nd season coming in January.
• Eureka - on SciFi channel.
• Keen Eddie - 9 episodes about an American police detective working in London.
• 3rd Rock From the Sun - starring John Lithgow. I'm constantly amazed by how often I laugh right out loud while watching episodes of this show!
• Night Gallery - particular episodes of the Rod Serling show.
• The Venture Bros. - Cartoon network animated show. Hysterical parody of the old Johnny Quest cartoons.

More favorites, but that's enough for now.
Scott-ADM

WIKI PROJECTS
I'm not sure offhand how I could use a wiki for collaborative projects.
But the first possible project that comes to mind is Admin's recent Fire Safety Preperations. I've been contributing Fire Exit maps and notes to Support Services efforts to update our fire safety plan. A wiki could work well for writing a collaborative draft document between Ron, Lonnie, Ekesha, myself and others that could ultimately be shaped into the official policy, and be used for fire plans for the branches as well.

Week 6: #15 Library 2.0 Philosophy - I Like Getting What I Want!

I'm very much a believer in a "Library 2.0" and the future of collections. And I'm excited by the possibilities, because I like getting what I want!

I own a variety of personal collections myself. And every time I get to "play" with them I notice new things, which raises new questions about them. And I like going on-line and getting my answers quickly. [cause there's hardly anything more fun than finding the elusive answer to an annoying question].

I love being able to literally "ask" the world wide web [or library on-line databases] and get the instant gratification of an answer. Especially at work, when I can then stop at a store on the way home and know exactly what item I need to purchase .

Or when a bothersome trivia question pops into my head, and I can get a quick answer and go back to my duties [instead of having it nag me all day].

And I'm a library customer as well as employee. There've been many times when I've learned of an interesting book, music CD, videocassette or DVD, and been anxious to see it, and been thrilled to learn I could obtain it easily from my own library system!

So, because I have fun with my own collections I appreciate new concepts in storage, access, space-saving formats, and anything else that can give me a new perspective on a favorite collection.
Because I like getting what I want!

Week #6 #14 Technorati Not-Me?

I have to say I didn't find all that much in Technorati to interest me personally. I enjoyed poking around in the popular topics to see what was there, but I was never able to surf too deep before any one topic seemed to peter out on me. And the search tags and widgets didn't seem to be much help to me.

I tried searching topics, wandering through the 100 most popular ones, reading what people had to say about my favorite interests and what news they contained about any of them...

...but it never seemed to result in very much. I tried multiple times on multiple days on multiple topics to find things of interest, but just about the time I thought I had moved beyond "investigating and learning new things" into actually "wasting work time web surfing" is when the topic would more-or-less dead end for me.

Of course, it may also have something to do with my general lack of interest in blogging and on-line socializing to any real degree. I enjoy the web and the tools and information it offers me, but I'd rather use my time to discover and read things of interest than communicate and debate with others over what I've found. Even knowing that sharing with others is a great way to discover things in the first place, I'd rather use the time I'd spend communicating back and forth with others on my personal research [since my free time is particularly valuable to me].
But at least now I know Technorati is there if my needs grow to wanting to use it.