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.