Friday musing

Google Book Project is not as impressive as I thought it would be. I enjoyed finding a lengthy "snippet" of Jack Finney's "Time and Again." Since I had stated on Good Reads that this is my favorite time travel book ever so my visit to the snippet equaled a chance meeting with an old friend in a strange city. However, when I started searching for full text volumes in their entirity, the titles at best were very old, probably in public domain, and with the exception of "Rootabega Tales" most of the the titles attracted absolutely no attention from me. I had been extremely concerned when reading the media about the book project, but if most of what they are scanning is practically in public domain then I do not have much of a problem with the concept. If full text best sellers are scanned for the project then I am so not comfortable with the idea. The search was entertaining and I will surely repeat the journey, but I still maintain that it is much more fun (and comfortable) to curl up with a real book instead of a computer.....

I just spent a goodly amount of time on Del.icio.us. This could be a good way to find very specific topics using tags. I set up an account and then looked for such esoteric topics as Turkish coffee tutorials, left handed knitting and crochet. I especially liked a site with videos demonstrating stitches for left handed people. I did not search for scholarly information, but information that is a little in left field but something anyone might want to seek. I book marked my favorites and will return to download them later to my personal computer. This process is fun, but again, unless you have very specific terms or tags you could go all over the universe searching. I do like creating my own tags as prompts, it works much as key word searching in any search engine, but being able to customize the information for personal retrieval is excellent.

Digg

I am trying to do a lot in one day. Being a news junky, I thought I would just love Digg, but it is way too slow, and I find that I responded much as I did with the RSS--too much information!! I did read on it that Paul Newman has cancer which prompts me to plead "say it ain't so." At 83 he remains one of the sexiest men on earth. Joanne Woodward is one lucky woman! It is a shame but some of us are feeling our age today.

Something I enjoy in technology is actually on the list for a later week and that is podcasts. I am in the Rotary Club in Sylva and if I miss a meeting (they have to be made up) I can listen to a podcast of the missed meeting, let the club secretary know that I have done so and viola one make-up completed. Also, being a big fan of "All things considered" and "Speaking of Faith" on NPR I can listen to the programs at my leisure thanks to NPR's website. That means, if I can't be near the radio when either program is first presented I can listen to a missed program often with extended information at my leisure. Great resource.

On what incentive I would like--I would like an mp3 player. Actually, I already have one, but have ripped some of my own cd's to my pc at home and loaded them to the player. The music on that player is intended for meditation/relaxation and reflection so is already "purposed." I would like a second mp3 for more upbeat and lively music and to download books, ergo that is my choice.

Good Reads

I have had an account with Good Reads, but never got around to adding any titles. Finally added about 8 today and well as inviting some friends. Thanks, Rand for asking me to be a friend. I plan to do more with this particular cyberspot as it is one I can enjoy any time.

Ah, the child of the '60s just loves the warholizer!!! More getting buggy at the library. Is all of this learning experience this much fun?????????

Mash-ups

Again, what fun. I often think in images rather than word so I had great fun sketching and seeing what the related images might show up. It's amazing what stars can turn into. Send a post card to a friend using the term rainbow as a search, but did not send the traditional rainbow.. I like this because it pushes the edges a bit and intend to add this to my list of things to explore further. Great visual experience and mind expanding as well.

another musing

I have not done anything on the 23 things for quite some time because we had a death in the family and by the time I was off for nearly two weeks -- I was so far behind! Well, now I am hoping I'm in a groove. I just played around in Flicker and it is great. Jane has taken so many pictures with her digital camera that have gone virtually unviewed. With a tool like Flicker we could store and organized some of them. Then we might be able to view, share and remember the time the picture was taken. While in the explore mode, I really enjoyed viewing some of the slideshows. One tag I used was "purple" my favorite color and found a wealth of great photography. I especially liked the case of purple and green artichokes. It has texture and depth. Who knew that exploration could be so satisfying to the mind and the eye! The shots were wonderful and evoked almost a zenlike experience. I am very taken with this cybertool as opposed to the RSS feeds which seem useful, but contain way to much information for someone with limited patience. I am going back to Flicker so I can get the name of the slide show I was watching.

Okay, I could not find the exact one, but entertained myself with some of the others. I imported a picture to my blog, scroll down. We did some occupational therapy at our weekly staff meeting; creating bugs or channeling our inner bugness.