This Thing had us wandering about in the list of Web 2.0 Awards nominees, and picking one to write about. I picked the music category and what do I find as nominee #1? Pandora! One of the single best music sites on the Internet.
Here’s how it works. You start with an artist or a song that you like and create a "station". That song is then played for you, followed by another, and another, and another, all fitting into the same general style as your original song. To adjust the types of songs that are being sent to you, click on the thumbs up or thumbs down for the song currently being played. Too much bass in that song, thumbs down. That song’s perfect, thumbs up. It’s a great way to hear artists you may not be familiar with.
I mostly use Pandora at home. Despite an extensive CD collection (thousands) most of which is not yet on my network, I’ll often got to Pandora on the laptop hooked up to my HDTV and have Pandora supply the soundtrack for the afternoon.
Here’s the favorite of my stations based on the classics of Miles Davis. This and my other stations can be access through my profile page.
I had an account and I didn’t even remember that I did. Good thing that my browser remembered for me…
Anyway, I’ve been using Google Docs lately due to my recent acquisition of a Cloudbook. This tiny computer does have a hard drive and USB ports but I figured it would just be easier to do my work online and be able to pick it up from any other computer. Trouble is, I’m jus tnot all that impressed with Google Docs’ lack of features.
Now, this Zoho Writer thing, which I’musing to write this post, is, at first glance, impressing me a whole heck of a lot. I see lots of formatting buttons and even a Collaborators feature allowing me to bring in others to edit documents along with me. (Not having anyone to test that with at the moment I’m unclear on how well it works. For example Google Docs allows multiple people to work on the same document at the same time (sort of) so I wonder if Zoho Writer allows that same level of fucntionality.
Hmmm, maybe I’ll have to try Zoho Writer next time while on the Cloudbook or on my office laptop during a department meeting.
All that being said, let’s see how easy it is to publish from her to my blog. If you’re reading this you can assume it went off without a hitch.
I’m a firm believer that PBWiki is a great way to get your feet wet when it comes to creating and editing a wiki. My only complaint is that the WISIWYG editor locks up Firefox. Oh, well, off to IE I go. I added to the Favorite Music page in our wiki. Check it out if you’re wondering.
I’m a fan of wikis but when used appropriately. In other words, no matter how much you like wikis at a technology, that doesn’t mean they’re right for all situations. Here’s a way to think about it: blogs are for conversation, wikis are for collaboration. Just because you have three people editing your Web site, that doesn’t mean it should be based on wiki software.
Additionally, those that say that Wikipedia isn’t a good resource, are using a different Wikipedia than I am. I use it almost daily. Occasionally I find myself looking elsewhere to verify the information Wikipedia contains but generally it is right.
I’m going to cheat on this one and post a screencast created by my friend Cindi Trainor since I agree with every word she has to say about the topic. (The text is small in the embedded version so you’ll want to click the Full Screen icon once it starts playing or view it on blip.tv directly.)
I have a love/hate relationship with blog-specific search engines. On the one had I long-ago "claimed" this blog in Technorati to make sure that it was indexing my content. I also appreciate that those of us attending conferences like Computers in Libraries can tell those who wish to follow along to just watch for the conference tag in Technorati.
On the other hand, I don’t use it for searching at all. I rarely find myself asking "Gee, I wonder what’s being said about this topic in the blogosphere." Is it that I don’t care what bloggers have to say about a topic, no. It’s just that I already follow via RSS the bloggers I care about so I already know what they think.
I suppose I could use something like Technorati more and maybe I should give it a second chance, but it just doesn’t come to mind when I need to search for things.
I use Del.icio.us a lot! I’ve still got a a set of my most used bookmarks in my browser for quick access but pretty much everything else goes into my Del.icio.is account. Most importantly I use my account to post the links that are relevant to my workshops and presentations. For example, I’ve tagged all the links for my blogging workshop with "class-blogs". This way, I can sent all of the blogging workshop attendees to http://del.icio.us/travelinlibrarian/class-blogs instead of giving them a piece of paper with a long list of sites and URLs on it. Also, with this method, after class, attendees can return to this URL whenever they like and see the most recent resources that I feel are relevant to the topic. I’ve been doing this for a little over two years now and all my students have grabbed onto the concept quite well.
I’ve played with Rollyo in the past and didn’t find it of much use as I don’t do many subject specific searches. However, on further investigation, I could see a library setting up some specific topic-based searches for use on the reference desk. For example, Lincoln City Libraries setting up a search that runs against all sorts of Lincoln-related resources.
I did end up creating a pseudo ego search for myself. Use this one to search against all my different sites and profiles that I’ve got online. For example, if you want to see what I’ve posted online involving the commission search the box below for NLC, choose "The Travelin’ Librarian" as your search engine, click Search and see what you get.
I’ve been using LibraryThing for a few years now and love it! You can find my profile here. I’ve paid the $25 for a lifetime membership and (geek that I am) imported all of the ISBNs from my home catalog into my account to get started. Since then I add all my new books as soon as I get them home. Just seven more books and I’ll have 4,000 in my account. My favorite part of the whole thing is being able to access the mobile version of my account on my cell phone in order to be able to answer that age-old question: Do I already own this? LibraryThing has come to my rescue many times. I’ve also met Tim Spalding, the creator of LT and he’s both wonderful and intelligent. If you’re interested in knowing more, check out this talk that Time gave to the staff of the Library of Congress in 2007.
