twitter

Great way to share information in fast and concise way. Relatively easy to scan and pick up anything that you are interested in. However, this ease of sharing information also allows many tweets to be generated extremely quickly potentially making it difficult to navigate and fully search previous tweets. But I guess it is impossible to do the same with regular chit chat anyway so...

librarything

While don't think I personally would use librarything anytime soon, I have recommended it to several patrons who are avid readers. All were excited about such a site (and similar sites such as goodreads) as they enjoyed recommending books to friends and keeping track of what they had, were, and planned to read. In addition, these sites offered them another another tool to come across recommended reading. In a much more approachable, interesting, and humanistic way than some of our databases allow.

unproductivity tools

I don't know if its just me but I find that productivity tools have a tendency to make me more unproductive. I admit that I am scatterbrained and often forget or misremember many things and so 'technically' I should benefit from these tools however, I find that having so many tools and gateways available it makes me more unlikely to make sure I'm up to date with everything. My ratty day timer seems to be the most appropriate tool for me.

Flickr and YouTube

The quality can definitely vary for media posted on these websites however, there is sure to be something to entertain nearly everybody. The one thing I like about flickr compared to YouTube is that you can search photos users have placed in the creative commons. YouTube doesn't offer this but you can find creative commons videos via wiki media. Easy to use and entertaining as all get out.

RSS (really... so simple)

Pretty straightforward. I found a few of the suggested subscriptions interesting and was able to sign up for regular feeds from other websites I like. I don't find that I am checking too many websites to be updated so we'll see how often I use this. It probably does save time if you have to keep up to date with a lot of things.

like ketchup... with an s... good on almost everything

Sketchup is a really great free tool that lets you build 3-D models of pretty much anything for free in a matter of minutes. Did I mention that it's free? There is no wonder, with its simple navigation and multitude of options, that many architects and designers choose this software over other brain-cramping and expensive industry standards for many applications. No need for years of post secondary training in a design field though; anyone can begin to design and build in seconds.

This program also lets you upload your models to google earth which has resulted in real-ish 3-D cities popping up everywhere. Still, sketchup does have limitations. Some modeling is pretty difficult to achieve and the result can be clunky looking but all in all great to get your feet wet.

no... this is MY space

Since when has a space of your own been one that can be accessed by hundreds of others?

It seems everything and everyone, from the family dog to NASA, is riding the social networking wave. It's a zoo out there, to borrow from surfing lingo, and to be frank I'm getting sea sick. I understand the appeal, having been an avid ICQ user, but I think it has gone a little too far in replacing day-to-day conversations and spawning a TMI pandemic.


Although I do have a facebook account I rarely use it. Most of my friends know this however, I was recently slighted when a friend called me up an hour before a surprise birthday party for another close friend, a party to which the invitation had been delivered by facebook. Because she remembered that I didn't use facebook often it was thought that a follow up call on the invitation would be nice but she had forgotten only to remember an hour before the party as mentioned. I was slightly annoyed but appreciated the phonecall nonetheless only to find out later that I hadn't even been sent an invitation at all most likely because I am known to not use facebook.

Anyway, at the risk spreading the TMI infection I will cease...

Status: hurt and bitter, social networking done me wrong