Thing 7: Online Image Generators

I wish I had a real sign like this for Teen Lounge. I would also like this text to be next to the sign, not under it.

On the right is a picture of my dog after being put through the
"Warholizer" at Big Huge Labs. (She's a medium-sized mutt.) I think kids of all ages would enjoy seeing images of themselves like this.

A lot of the stuff on the generator blog is just plain silly. Here is a surrealist compliment I generated.

"In your presence even my shadow acquires the sensation of touch. "

Okay. That's enough for today.

Thing 6: Flickr Mashups

I went back to the mashup I've used before to see if it had improved any. Called retievr, it lets you choose a color and draw a shape. It then matches what you drew with Flickr photos. It is still pretty ineffective.

I went to check out Montager, but there was a warning that it may crash your browser. I'll try something else.

Check out this lush purple. It is by eason at http://www.flickr.com/photos/eason/35585494/sizes/s/in/pool-31917163@N00/. I found it using the color fields color pickr. If you're into color, go here! There is also a slide bar that allows you to adjust brightness. But, the great thing is that there is a slew of categories to pick your images from.




This one, by funkandjazz http://www.flickr.com/photos/phunk/6173317/sizes/s/in/pool-49503134345@N01/http://www.flickr.com/photos/phunk/6173317/sizes/s/in/pool-49503134345@N01/ , is from graffiti. ( A few Google ads along the side might be useful to those who need graffiti removal services. Ha!)

I just spent WAY TOO MUCH TIME on findr. This site groups together photos by tags. For example, I picked Tokyo and then narrowed it to Tokyo + Harajuku, then narrowed it to Tokyo + Harajuku + portrait. I got some wild photos, but I gave up looking for one that could be shared. This is addicting! Frustrating, but addicting!

Then there are your truly useless mashups, like clockr. Wait! I take that back! At first the numbers weren't changing, but now they are. Still useless, but cool.





by spell with flickr

Thing 5: Flickr

I've enjoyed looking at photos on Flickr for some time now.

I want to give full credit to the person who took this photo, found after a search for the items under "Cerrillos, NM". It was done by Oceandesetoiles. Here is a link to the picture: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ocean_of_stars/2550067047/sizes/s/

I searched for many photos and found many I liked, but the many of them were copyrighted "All Rights Reserved." The above photo was marked "Some Rights Reserved," meaning I could share it if I wanted to. I'm glad, because I like it.

I've struggled with the concept of stealing bandwidth. If you click on the "add image" icon in the "Compose" section of your window and then on "Learn more about using web images," there is an explanation. It includes the following: ". . . you shouldn't use an image location that is hosted at someone else's expense without their permission. . . because every time your blog loads, the image is loaded from their server, and this person likely incurs an expense." I'm not sure if I'm using the above image correctly. I saved it to my desktop and then took it from there using the

"add image" icon. If anyone can shed some light on this, I would appreciate it.

In the meantime, here is a picture that I put on my own Flickr account a while back. I got the text in there using a drawing program.

BTW, one of my favorite features on Flickr is the World Map. Go anywhere in the world, and look at the pictures that have been uploaded from that area. You might see some guy showing off his newest piercing, but you may also see some unique perspectives on a particular place.

Thing 4: RSS

I've never followed blogs or websites consistently, but here goes. I choose Google Reader as an aggregator.

http://www.epnweb.org/ This is the address to the Education Podcast Network which brings together podcasts on education and learning. There was no feed for this one.

I am now following four blogs, all belonging to my co-workers. We are all working on the 23 Things. In addition to those, I am also following a blog called Library Storytime and David King. David King talks about tech in libraries, social networking and such, so that would be a good one to keep an eye on. I also signed up for feeds for the Huffington Post, Google News, and TED.

Thing 3: Blog Search Tools

Though blogging is "firmly entrenched in the mainstream" according to Technorati's State of the Blogosphere, I am pretty much still on the outskirts. I have two blogs of my own now, one for class and this one. As far as contributing to other blogs, I am what they refer to as a "lurker", someone who hangs around looking, but doesn't reveal themselves. Sounds creepy!

I am going to record here Technorati's definition of the active blogosphere: "The ecosystem of interconnected communities of bloggers and readers at the convergence of journalism and conversation."

“Video will also become increasingly important to convey complex messages that are often lost in text - while audio will continue to fall away to this new medium, save those 'casts with high production values." This quote by Chris Pirillo made an impression on me. I'll be learning how to do podcasts in one of my classes. Maybe I'll see about video, too!

From Technorati: Blogs are not just personal diaries.

I started exploring by going to the subject list. I clicked on Real Estate (under Business) and ended up following the advice of a blogger to listen to a radio show featuring Peter Schiff. I looked under celebrity gossip and didn't find anything compelling. Literature didn't suck me in, either. I tried the videos section, but that didn't grab me. I can watch only so many Christian Bale remixes.

One of the exercises for Thing 3 is to do a seach in Technorati and compare it to a search of another database. I chose Google Blog Search. I looked up chemical injury. I was a little surprised to find that Technorati did not yeild all that much that was relevant. I tried clicking on the box that allows you to choose "most authority," and still got results that seemed "silly" to me. Maybe, because I'm in school, "authority" means something different to me. I believe that the way that authority was defined in Technorati, was the number of links to an external website in a blog. That's a different type of authority than what I am used to thinking of. Google Blog Search seemed to yield more relevant results. In fact, the Search Engine Journal does give it higher ratings for relevance than it does Technorati. What's the authority of the Search Engine Journal? It is difficult to know which sources to trust!

The Google Blog Search is now not letting me in for some reason, so I'll have to postpone further comparisons.

Technorati allows for sorting of various types. In addition to how much authority you want to choose, you can also choose language, whether you want to search photos, blogs, or videos. I am highly sceptical of blogs when they don't cite their findings. But, it is fun to see the blogging trends. For example Blogpulse lets you compare, for instance, blogging on auto loans, college loans, and mortgages. Mortgages was by far the most active, spiking in mid Novemeber 2008.

Interesting fact: Some people are profiting of their blogs. Mean annual investment is $1,800 and mean annual revenue is $6,000.

Thing 2: Library 2.0

The way I understand Library 2.0, based on Web 2.0, is that it involves a shift from static viewing/reading to interactivity. Another idea that often comes upregarding library 2.0 is that it meets users where they are (not necessarily in the library).

Two impressions from the Steve Abrams video: 1) in order to learn this stuff, you have to be immersed, actively learning by doing, and 2) you will be most successful if you are engaged.

To be fully engaged is a challenge, I find, because we are so very busy. However, as Abrams points out, you have to make a commitment to find those fifteen minutes a day.

John Blyberg's blog post: Interesting to me is the "peer-to-peer" ideas that Blyberg speaks of. He says that libraries are going to need to "pool their resources." I wonder how that would work.

The Ongoing Web Revolution, article from Library Technology Reports: Director Josie Parker of the Ann Arbor District Library reports that, after two years of blogging and commenting, there was only one case of profanity (by a patron). Wow.

Thing 1: Overdue!

Ignore any posts from 2007 when I first started the 23 Things. I am starting over!

I have done a blog before for class, but used it just to track progress, not really to interact. I will take it a step further this time and actually comment on others' progess. Feel free to do the same to me!