Thing 41: Mashup Your Life

I tried Lifestream.fm and Friendfeed and both were interesting sites but I don't really know when I will ever use these features. Also, it seems to just add to the several social networking sites I use. However, some of the other sites seem to put everything together into one site which may add time in that you only have to go to one site to view all your social networks that you belong to. However, there are many features that are unique to facebook and twitter that I think in some ways you loose out in how these originally sites are set up. So, in some way these services make your life easier but in the end I don't think I will use any of them. But it is good to know about them.

Thing 39: Digital Storytelling

I tried both Scrapblog and Smilebox. I liked both programs but found Smilebox easier to use and less complicated. Smilebox, I feel, is used by the layman Scrapbooker. What I mean by this is that it was really easy to manipulate the pictures and though you could change how many pictures you want in each frame; you couldn't change much else like changing the layout of the pictures or how the background looks. Within Scrapblog though you could change anything in the layout. If there was a background picture you didn't like you could erase it. You can change the location and size of any picture or even add pictures or clip art. Also, if you didn't like the background you could change it. These is just so much more to manipulate or change with Scrapblog. I think this would be a fun to use. What I liked about Scrapblog is there was no downloads and it saves your finished blogs. So, you can retrieve information from any computer. Also, in Scrapblog you can input pictures easily from Facebook or Flickr while in Smilebox they only have you upload pictures from your computer. I feel people would really like using these programs and we would have a lot of turn out if we taught a computer class on them. I don't know if I would use this program myself but in all it was really fun and easy to use.

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Thing 37: Photo Tales

I tried FlickrSlidr because I have sets already created in Flickr but I could never get the pictures to show up. I don’t think I was putting in the right URL. The same happened to Slidoo; I really don’t know what I am doing wrong but it just doesn’t seem to work for me. Oh, well on to something else. I tried Mosaickr which was really interesting but I had to wait for the finished product. What I really like about Mosaickr is that it allowed me to choose what pictures went within the Mosaic however; the original picture that I use was one that I took from Kyoto, Japan. So I used only my pictures from there and other Flickr pictures that were tagged Kyoto. Finally, I signed up on a sight called Animoto. What I liked about this site is that it could retrieve photo from other sites like facebook because I don’t have any photos on my desktop where I am doing More Things On a Stick. I made a short video using my pictures from Kyoto and the featuring the music The Entertainer. The finished video is no on my blog and it is really kick ass. In all I found this Thing to be a lot of fun but I don't know if I would ever use this in the library. Finally, I will put my finished Mosaic on my blog once it is done. Hopefully sometime this year.

Thing 22: Continuing to Blog

I have learned a lot with 23 Things and many aspects I will continue to use throughout my day to day life. Like Google Reader which has me linked to my local paper, fun blogs, interesting librarian blogs, and other news related information. I may continue my Nic23 blog however, I feel like I will start to blog more on Facebook and MySpace instead now that I feel more comfortable with it. I will also be using Flickr more and try to store all my pictures on my page. So, in conclusion there is a lot that I am taking away from 23 Things and a lot that I will continue to use.

Thing 20: MySpace and Facebook

I found thing 20 to be really easy mainly because I already have a MySpace and Facebook account. I first created a MySpace page just for the fun of it one day but I don't really use it that much. In fact, I don't really know of anyone that is on MySpace and sad as it is I don’t have any friends. I then created a Facebook account; mainly because my friend forced me to and again I didn't use it that much until recently. Facebook is a great way to keep in track with friends; by seeing what they are doing and reading their wall. MySpace I think is the better social network for a library to use because it has become really popular with teenagers and that is all I see them using in the library. Also, it is really easy to showcase pictures, books, music, and etc then on Facebook. Finally, I find MySpace less confusing to maneuver then Facebook. So, MySpace is the social network I would choose for a library to use; but for individual use I find Facebook to be the better social network.