Thing 13: Productivity

I found that thing 13 to be very interesting and something that I would like to discover when I have more time especially some of the related articles like the 2007 Guide to free software and webapps which had some really interesting items like utorrent which allows me to download BitTorrents which are usually web shows like Torchwood which we don't get in the US. However, though I like some of the productivity tools some of then I think would in actually waste more time then they would save. An example of this is costuming you Google or Yahoo home page. I did this at home with my Google Home page and I am really sorry that I did because now it takes twice as long to upload that page for information I really don't look at especially when I just want to move onto another website.
I have used Google Calendar extensively because at our library we offer meeting rooms to the public and I put all that information into a Google calendar. What I like about Google calendar is that it is easy to work with and easy to understand especially for people who don't work with it as extensively as I do. What I mean is that other staff members can use this calendar to find out if rooms are available fairly easy. What I also like is that you can add more then one calendar and then have them all be different colors; which is what I did for each meeting room. Also, we have several meeting that occur monthly and this is a really great feature because it saves me a lot of time that I would originally have to use imputing information. On the same line there is also the duplicate option which allows me to create multiple entries for the same group at different time very easily. So, if you cannot tell I love Google Calendars which has made my life and I want to think staffs life a little bit easier. So, calenders are a really helpful tool even if you don't have meeting room it is great for keeping track of library events.
I also looked at the Ta-Da Lists which first I needed to create an account and then I could create several lists which I did find interesting because you can check off items and within your list it will show up as another list of done items. The Main page shows each list and the amount of items you still have to complete. The final thing I looked at was Backpack and Stikkit which I took tours of. I found both to be interesting and similar. As, both include lists, notes, documents, pictures, tages, calendars, and much more. I found them especially good for sharing information like a Wiki but better formatted and when your library is a large region this could be a good thing.

Thing 12: Media

Social Media Sites are something I have seen but didn't realize what they were. I had already been on Digg watching videos that people have submitted to the 9, which is a web show created by Yahoo and hosted by Maria Sansone. If you have never seen it check it out, it sometimes has some really good websites. Back to social media sites, as I said before I have already experienced Digg which unfortunately you have to sign up in order to digg something. I did look at the other three media sites and found that in all of them you need to sign up to rate and submit news articles, pictures, and videos. However, the rating system for some of them were very interesting; you either vote up or down which brings the total higher or lower giving almost an average total. You can also add comments to the stories and etc that you look at. I liked the outline of all these sites besides Reddit because it was just straight lists with no pictures. Finally, I tried to join Digg to add an article to it however digg didn't want me to join because every time I would press Join Digg it would just bring me back to its home page. :( So I decided to join Mixx instead. It was really easy to sign onto Mixx they just asked your email address and a password. Once I had signed in I went to the BBC website and I firstly tried to submit a story about China but it had already been submitted. So I found a better story about Bruno the bear, a wild bear which touched the hearts of Germans for weeks in 2006 is stuffed and put on public display. The article is short but interesting, I tried to add a link to the title; just click on Thing 12: Media so that you can look at the article. This took me a long time to figure out how to add a link and were it is but I finally figured it out. Lastly, I think that Social Media Sites are a great idea as we have so many news junkies that come into our library; however the only problem is we don't have enough computers for all the people who would like to use these sites.