zoho trial December 23, 2008

Laura Gottlieb
December 23, 2008

To do before Christmas

• Wrap presents
• Make cookies
• Finish work
• Play with Nathan

I will now insert a table:

Sent Christmas Cards	Bought Presents	Made Adam’s present
Did not have to go to store to buy presents	Working on web 2.0	Made Nathan’s presents for family
Still very cold here	Isn’t this a nice table?	I prefer ones you can eat off of.

Now I get it! December 23, 2008

When I started this whole Web 2.0 thing, I was most skeptical of the more highly hyped 2.0 features–Facebook and Twitter.  Why would I care who was going to lunch or what was happening at another desk?  I had no interest in updating another spot or checking in on people.  If I needed to know something, that person should tell me.  I just didn’t get why these things were so popular beyond college kids who had nothing better to do all day.

And now that I’ve completely solidified my prematurely old-coot status, I can say that I tried twitter and facebook and must admit that I like them.  It’s fun to chat with people at other branches.  I’m getting to know folks that I’ve never spoken to except to ask them to check on a book for a patron.  It’s nice to hear what’s going on at other places beyond the official memos.  Even though we all work for the same place, we tend to operate as 15 seperate “companies”, and already I feel more like a whole team.

Facebook too has been a lot of fun.  I’ve found many of my old high school and college friends, people I’d lost touch with years ago but kind of wish I hadn’t.  Even though I still had most of their e-mail addresses, I’d hesitated sending that “Hi, sorry I dropped off the face of the earth, how are you?” message.  But I can send a friend request (though I did have to screw up courage for that), and then post a short hi on their wall.  Maybe we’ll reconnect, or maybe I can just drop in on their page occasionally to see how they’re doing.  I can really see why it’s so popular.  My generation tends to spread out all over the place, we don’t stay within the same hometown, so it’s really tough to stay connected in even the superficial sense.  Social networking (and man I hate that term) tools give us a way to keep in touch when we don’t have the time to send personal notes.  It may represent the death of etiquette, but the connections are still nice.

Online Libraries December 22, 2008

I tried out Library Thing and Good Reads, and I wasn’t really a fan of either.  Or rather, I liked parts of both of them, but neither of them seemed to work for me.  I liked the ease of adding titles in Good Reads, and I liked that it had a non-flash widget that I could put in my wordpress blog (though I don’t like that it’s all one line).  In Library Thing, I liked being able to tag books, which would make it much more useful for Readers Advisory and provide a handy way to search and sort the many, many titles we have jumbled in our heads.  I also liked the full cataloging it provided (I am a librarian, after all)  However, adding new titles was very clunky and it seemed to take awhile for each one to load.  I think that Good Reads would be a handy way to track what I’ve read for my own personal enjoyment, and Library Thing would be a good tool for readers advisory, but neither really works for me.  Wish there was a way to combine what I like of both, so I guess I’ll keep my eyes out for new versions now that I can see the possibilities.

Twilight December 8, 2008

I know, I know, haven’t we all heard enough about this by now?  Sorry, I couldn’t resist adding my two cents.

I finally jumped on the bandwagon this weekend (what can I say? It was starting to pass me by) and read the book.  Truthfully, I enjoyed it.  It was not great fiction, but I didn’t expect it to be.  Cleolinda described it best when she referred to it as a “twinkie“.  Speaking of which, if you’ve read the book you MUST read her hilarious plot summaries which can be found here.  She also has some very insightful thoughts on the whole Twilight phenomenon, to which I can only say “yes.  I agree completely.”  And then I laughed out loud, repeatedly, because she’s  just that funny.  (A big thank you to Orangerful for posting the link which sent me there.)

I understand better now why it’s become so popular.  Besides being incredibly easy for teenage (and older, ahem) girls to identify with, it moves quickly and was incredibly entertaining.  I didn’t even skip ahead, and those of you who know me IRL know how incredible THAT is.  The whole time I was reading it, I was thinking it was sheer fluffy drivel, and yet I couldn’t. stop. reading.  Now, of course, I’m lamenting the long long waitlist for New Moon, and then there’s the others, and when am I going to have time to read them all, and see the movie, what with Christmas, oh, and the boy, to take care of.   Sigh.

Twitter December 5, 2008

I skipped ahead and signed up for twitter.  Truthfully, I was feeling a tad left out from all the cool kids who are tweeting all over the place.  I’m pretty new to the system, and there’s a lot of people I don’t really know, or have just met once or twice.  This seems like a great way to keep up with folks who are at another branch (or have left the system, sigh, orangerful and cheshire cat).  It also seems like a great way to waste time on official work business (or should I not mention that part).  It has sucked a lot of my time in lately, of course that could be because I also felt the need to upload a picture and redesign my site.  Perhaps I should return to my never-ending weeding list, and the two programs I’m doing next week.

Should you be so inclined to follow my musings, I’m shshingexercise.