LibraryThing

Hi again,

I actually heard about LibraryThing a few years ago, and I did join it, but then I prompty forgot to update it and use it very much, and I forgot all about it. Evey now and then booklovers I'm friends with are surprised (and somewhat horrified) that somebody who reads as much as I do, doesn't use LibraryThing.

On account of the fact that I can't even remember what my old username at LibraryThing used to be, I created a new profile for 23 things, and started playing around with it. I quite like it, it could be immensely useful at the next lifeline bookfest. : )

Part of my biggest difficulty adding books in my collection from work was trying to remember if I owned the books, or if I'd just read the books. I didn't add my whole collection because it would have taken far too long, but I added a few.

Again, this is something I look forward to playing more with and using more now that I've set this up through 23 things. It was interesting reading some reviews people give. I'm not sure I'll ever write a review about a book, but I'll certainly enjoy adding them to my collection.

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/libraryearthling 

- library earthling

Dashboards with Netvibes

Hey Lovelys - it's Friday!

Dashboards....you know, I don't think I particularly like Netvibes. I can see how it can be useful, and I like the fact that you can basically link to anything and everything - so that it's a one stop store. You can access everything you ever wanted to access on the net through Netvibes.

But I feel it tries too hard to be bright and shiny, it's jumping around going, 'Look at me! Look at me!' which kind of bugs me. Additionally, a lot of the things I'm interested in looking at on the net I can access through the Feeders I've already set up, so it feels a bit redundant. And for anything else like facebook, I don't check it a million times a day. I check it when I get home in the evenings, and that's pretty much it. I don't care what happens during the day on my my profile or news feed of Facebook.

Also, the ways I check facebook and my mail are already simple and easy to do, I don't need another way to do so.

I mostly added news feeds, a couple of comics, and I set ESPN to MLB - Go the Red Sox!

- library earthling

RSS and Newsreaders

I could spend hours and hours scrolling through RSS links, and linking to information to baseball, to a British author, to a foreign correspondent working for the New York Times. I love this task. And to be honest, I never really paid much attention to RSS in the past, to linking to blogs, and I'm regretting this now.

It's fanstastic. I could become addictive to joining RSS feeds about things that interest me.

However, that does lead to essentially the only downside - if you signed up to too many blogs you would wind up suffering from information overload.

I can see how libraries could use newsreaders - it's so quick and easy to subscribe too something you're interested in, it just takes one click. But there's a danger that any information libraries put on their newsfeeder or blog could get lost in the crowd if people sign up to a lot of blogs and newsreaders. It would also be important that libraries update fairly regularly - not everyday, but once or twice a week.

I don't use a newsreader, but I'm tempted to now! : )

23 things might have created a monster.

- library earthling

Pixlr!

The Pixlr! Task I found was quite fun, and would have been very useful when I gave my parents and sister their christmas presents last year. It will definitely be useful for when I'm touching up or playing with photos after I've come back on holiday later on this year.

The above photo, as you may have noticed, is not of me. But it does demonstrate how I currently feel about 23 things considering my current failure with the last task (although I am determined to win against Yahoo). My feeling is essentially that I feel like burying my hands in my hands for minute to prevent myself from hitting my computer (which really doesn't deserve to receive physical punishment at the hands of an angry me).

 The photo was taken one day, last summer. The cat captured in film spends large quantities of his life trying to sleep in the softest, warmest places in the house, and if a human isn't available, will go to the next best thing which is a comfy bed.

Great fun, and already starting to improve my mood. : )

-library earthling

Flickr of Picasa?

Hey Folks,

Sorry that it's been awhile - I'm afraid I got distracted and busy with other work, and it's taken me awhile (perhaps too long) to get back to 23 things.

I'd love to give poisitive opinions about both Flickr and Picasa, but at the moment in time they're both just going up my nose.

Flickr is going up my nose because despite creating a Yahoo account like the instructions, my YahooID won't be recognised by either Yahoo or Flickr. Which means unfortunately I can't use Flickr. Which is frustrating.

I have attempted to get my ID send to my alternative email address, just in case I'm typing it wrong, but as it doesn't recognise the ID, it won't send the ID to the email address I'm telling it to.

Picasa is bugging me because I can't use it on my work computer. For me to be able to download the program and use it at work, I need an administrator to sign in on my computer, I don't have high enough clearance. So it isn't really Picasa's fault in this instance - but it is annoying nonetheless.

I will clearly need to wait until I get home to download Picasa and use it on my home computer.

In light of these two instances, I've decided to give Task 5 a break for now and move onto Task 6. I'm not sure that's entirely encouraged by Jake and Co., but my computer is in danger of losing it's life, if I continue to try to battle against my computer and Yahoo.

- library earthling