Week 2 - Picapp

Well this looks like quite an interesting site, you could spend ages searching for pictures that you liked for different things. Personally I like the animal pics best. I found one I liked to use for my blog.
This could be a good site to recommend to the customers but I am not sure what they would use them for, but if kids are doing homework or projects the images might be really useful.
Well I have just spent ages trying to get the photo to load, i copy and pasted the embedded code but it just kept telliing me that it was an invalid code. I will try again but I might give up if it doesn't work

Web 2.0 round 2. week one Box.net

Well here we go again.
I am off to a slow start this time round, not sure why but making a start now.
I have had a look at Box.net and watched the tutorial video. I haven't made an account yet but will do that in the next day or so. We seem to be making a lot of accounts during the process of web 2ing. What will happen to all these accounts, i wonder? Will they just stay out there in cyber space? Do we have to retrace our steps and delete all the accounts we no longer require? I think that's what I will be doing.
Well, I gave it a go but I prefer to save anything I need on either google.docs or email it to myself. I wasn't keen on Box.net Oh well, on to week 2 .............

The final summing up

Now that I have completed the six tasks I can comment on the whole experience. I have to say that this time round I found it much more pleasant and enjoyable than I did that last time we launched into web 2. I am not sure if the tasks were simpler, or the explanations were better than last time or whether I am a bit more confident with computers now, but whatever the reason, it seemed much more straight forward and logical this time.
I would also like to thank Catatonia for all your helpful comments and I will follow up with some. I am especially grateful for the link on week six.
It has been a journey of growth, and I know there is still a lot to learn but each time I learn something new it adds to the knowledge I have already gained. At this rate I should be a genius by the time I retire, well maybe not, there will always be more out there to baffle me. Just as I think I am gaining ground there are more things invented or thought up to keep me on my toes. But I am keen to keep learning and keep on keeping on.
I would like to finish this session of web 2.0 with one of my favourite sayings, by Émile Coué de Châtaigneraie -
Every day in every way I am getting better and better.

Week six Facebook

So here I am at week 6 and Facebook. I have had a Facebook page since we last did Web 2 training. I set up my page at that time, but didn't use it for quite a while. Once I got the hang of it and started adding friends, I began looking at people's profiles, photos, sending messages and writing on people's walls! I was hooked for a while, but I wasn't interested in playing Farmville or the other games on there. Anyway, finding myself getting bored with it, I decided it was time to cancel my Facebook page. It was then I found out you can deactivate your account but not delete it! Unless someone can tell me how to delete an account?
A couple of weeks later Web 2.0 came along and guess what? Week 6 was about Facebook. I was able to log back into my Facebook page and reactivate the account and add my name to the Manukau Libraries page.
I added my recent book to the discussion board, as required. I have only reactivated my Facebook page temporarily while we are doing Web 2.0.
However, it is a good way to keep in contact with people or to find old aquaintances and it is quite easy to use. Once you browse through it and find out about all the applications it can be fun for a while, but I probably won't be keeping my page going after this has finished. Lots of people using the Learn-net have Facebook pages and they seem to be able to use it quite easily.

Week five MP3 and music downloads

Ok well this one had me a bit confused. This discovery exercise was one I thought I would really enjoy, but I didn't really. I looked at some of the sites briefly but couldn't make head nor tail of them. So I made a log in for one of the sites that I thought looked quite user friendly. But alas, it was not to be. I am still a newby to these sites and the songs that were coming up were completely foreign to me. So I tried to do a search and look for ABBA (everyone knows ABBA) so that should be an easy search, right? Wrong! I couldn't find any ABBA songs. I couldn't find anything I knew, so I decided that was BORING and gave it a miss. At the moment I am not likely to want to download any music anyway and if customers want to download music from the internet then maybe we will have to work through it together. There is still such a lot to learn, but I am getting there slowly. I might have another try again with another of the recommended sites. Maybe the songs I like are too old now, I was a teen in the 70's when the music was great! Most of my favourite songs and artists are from that era.
Anyway moving right along with Web2.0 ........

Week Four GoodReads

I found this a rather interesting site. I signed in and added some of the books I have read over the last couple of years. It is a good way to keep track of what you have been reading. I didn't write a review on any of them though. I think the site is quite good and it will take me a bit of time to work my way around it. It is quite a good one to recommend to customers, but whether I will or not remains to be seen. As I become more familiar with the site I am more likely to recommend it.
One of my all time favourite sites for looking for books is the one recommended at best sellers training called Whichbook.net I think it's great!

My friend Indy

Zoey says, "It is annoying when my friends want to play with my toys. I don't know how Indy thinks she is going to pick up a tennis ball! She doesn't chase it very well either. She is not as fast as a labrador retriever!"

Week three - Twitter

Still trying to figure Twitter out. I set up an account and had a look. I am now following Manukau Libraries on twitter. I have posted two little tweets, but nothing of any importance. Just practising really. I don't think Twitter is for me though. I can't see how I would use this in my job, besides being able to blog about it. Although, after saying that, I would recommend anyone who is interested in Twitter, to follow the Manukau Libraries' tweets. It's a good way to keep up to date with what is happening in the libraries. As for celebrity gossip, I hear all the gossip I need to hear on the radio. The announcers often mention interesting tweets that they have read, so it saves me having to read them for myself.
I am not able to search for other people yet, since I am not sure who has a Twitter account but I am sure most of my work mates will probably have an account on Twitter by now or very soon. I can't think of any celebrities to search for either. I haven't noticed any customers using Twitter or maybe they just haven't needed any help with it.
But there was a customer today, who was trying to convert a file on the Learn-net, so I was able to christen Zamzar on the Learn-net, Yay for Zamzar!!!!

Week two

Well, what can I say about Zamzar? But it is great. I actually used it today for real! I had a pdf file emailed to me and it was a form I had to fill in. At first I printed the form out then I wrote on it in pen but it looked scruffy, and then guess what? Lesson two, Zamzar! So like most things on the net, it takes me a bit longer than others to figure out what I am doing, but i did it! (with a little help from my friends.) I wanted to convert the form to a docs document that I could type into, so I had to send it to an email address. Ok so first attempt I put in my work email and ooops! tried to download it and found it was blocked. (I probably did something wrong there too when trying to open it). Second attempt sent it to my gmail address and managed to download it ok. After that I completed the form and emailed it back to the sender and lesson two, done!
I will use this again, as long as I remember it. I will try to remember it, as I think it is great, and best of all, it is free!
I am sure the customers will find it very useful, we often get customers asking about converting files and things like that. As long as they have an email address they can send it to.

Week one April 2010

Well I finally made it back on to my blog. What a time I have had!!
This has been a learning experience all on it's own. What have I learnt? Well firstly, if you have a blog and then change email addresses, and delete your email address, you cannot access your blog. Luckily after a few frustrating hours of trying to log in and then reset my password, I managed to access a recovery password that luckily reactivated the email address, and, guess what? Here I am, logged back in and ready to go!
What do I want to learn from this blog? I am not sure yet, but lesson one went well, I made it back.
After doing the Web 2 the first time around and not really being sure of what i was doing, I feel I have learnt quite a lot. And since then, what with helping customers and exploring the net even more I think this will be a handy tool in my job. I am looking forward to the discovery exercises each week.

The 23rd Thing

Now I have completed my Web 2 learning it is time to reflect on what I have learnt.
Some of it is very useful for me and I am sure that I will be using some of it at a later date but some I found quite confusing. Not being a person who finds these technical things second nature, I needed help with a few of the steps along the way.
The RSS feeds, for example, was completely foreign and I didn't really understand it.
It was hard to get into some of the sites from our staff PC's which meant having to use the learn-net and to be honest, I find that if I am at a strange computer and not in my own surroundings, then it makes it even harder to concentrate and understand.
The social networking and You tube were the best part of the whole experience, but soon I suppose it will all be obsolete anyway. Then we will be on to Web 3!

EBooks

E Books are ok but I wouldn't want to read a book online, I prefer to read a book that I can hold.

Podcasts

I had a look at the site, podcast.com and found it quite interesting, I was watching the ABC news and found the quality very good. There was a news story about Barack Obama and the picture quality was great.
My preference though, it Youtube, but maybe if I had time to browse more, I might find more interesting things on podcast.com. This is probably not something I would look at normally but as it was part of our web 2 training I found it rather interesting.

Google Docs

I have managed to successfully transport my instructions for the staff fax machine from google Docs to my blog.
It wasn't too hard but I needed a bit of advice from others. It doesn't come naturally to me like it does to some people, but once I am shown what to do, then it all makes sense.

Instructions for how to use staff Fac...

Instructions for how to use staff Facsimile

Make sure the paper if face up in the tray

Press the green facsimile button

Press the little round button : on hook dial

dial 1 for outside line,

dial the number required 

Press start

after transmission the fax will print a transmission slip 

 

You Tube

Well I had a look at You tube and found a video clip that used to be one of my favourites, it was the song Star Trekking Across the Universe. It is a fun song with lots of cute characters. An old favourite of mine.
This is the link for Star Trekking

http://www.youtube.com/v/AM_fpspCq2c&hl=en&fs=1">
http://www.youtube.com/v/AM_fpspCq2c&hl=en&fs=1"

Web 2.0 awards

I have had a browse of the Web 2 Awards websites, I went into the category of fun stuff to see what was there and low and behold! I found the number one category was Cocktails. Just in time for the weekend, look at this web site for some tempting inspiration, http://www.cocktailbuilder.com/ White Russian sounds nice or what about a bit of Fuzzy navel? Yum

Google Docs

I had a go on Zoho writer but I wasn't very keen on that one, it seemed to take forever to load and then I couldn't get in to it to write on the blank document page. However, google docs is much better and so I opened a document wrote some instructions for our staff fax machine and then saved it.

http://docs.google.com/Edit?docID=dc78239h_15zdj5dds

Week 8

Discovering Web 2 learning.
This is a site I will investigate some more. My favourite sites are food sites http://ifoods.tv/web/

Week 7

Social networking. This is one I found a bit easier than the others, social networking sites are more familiar to me than blogs. I have my own Bebo page which I have added to over the last two years, although not so much recently as my home computer has become too old to handle it. I found one advantage is when you or a family member are travelling overseas they can add photos or put highlights of their trip so friends and family can read what has been happening.
I have started a Face book account which I am dying to get started on but when they emailed the confirmation back to my ymail account and I clicked on it to confirm it, it was blocked by Manukau Gateway, that was frustrating!