Ta da! Check out my very own search engine - So much Supernatural!
I was thinking about doing one on books, or anime/manga, but decided to focus on my other love instead - the tv show Supernatural! It's a Friday, ok? It's on my mind! ;-P
I've never heard of Rollyo before, and the idea is certainly a great one. However, sometimes it was temperamental - it wouldn't connect properly, and kept showing up with a "didn't connect - too many connections" error message. Really frustrating. In all honestly, this is a "Thing" that's really quite simple enough to speed through, but it took much longer than I anticipated.
Also, I used a couple of Wikipedia pages as a source, but it ignored the specific address (if that makes sense!) and when I did a test search it searches ALL of Wikipedia. That's a little disappointing. I deleted them as sources because they were finding irrelevant results.
Just for fun, I also created a search box. Though I almost gave up it took so long to connect!
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Monday, October 26, 2009
Thing 10
I've created a profile and catalogue with LibraryThing - you can check out my 'library' here! Note my awesome Warholized profile picture! \o/
There are so many more titles I could add, but when it comes to thinking of them, I draw a blank. So I have Nicholas Sparks under a "Favourite author" collection, and there are a few still "To read" (there are still heaps and heaps to be added here!). A lot of the books are those I've read recently, and youth fiction. I've added my own tags to some, and rated those that I've read.
I absolutely loved Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater, and am dying for its sequels, so I went looking for recommendations based on it. I found Prophecy of the Sisters by Michelle Zink, which I've heard a bit about - but what has grabbed me is that the audio version is narrated by Eliza Dushku, who is one of my fave actresses (Buffy and Dollhouse, etc). I've added this title to my "Wishlist" and I think I'll track that one down and give it a go. :-D
I've also joined the group Hogwarts Express...fitting, huh? I found another group that looked fantastic - they read a youth book a month and discuss - that I would've loved to join but there hasn't been any comments since about July, so I guess they've stopped. Maybe I can get it re-started, yeah? ;-)
Overall, LibraryThing has been easy to use and somewhat interesting...I look forward to investigating further!
There are so many more titles I could add, but when it comes to thinking of them, I draw a blank. So I have Nicholas Sparks under a "Favourite author" collection, and there are a few still "To read" (there are still heaps and heaps to be added here!). A lot of the books are those I've read recently, and youth fiction. I've added my own tags to some, and rated those that I've read.
I absolutely loved Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater, and am dying for its sequels, so I went looking for recommendations based on it. I found Prophecy of the Sisters by Michelle Zink, which I've heard a bit about - but what has grabbed me is that the audio version is narrated by Eliza Dushku, who is one of my fave actresses (Buffy and Dollhouse, etc). I've added this title to my "Wishlist" and I think I'll track that one down and give it a go. :-D
I've also joined the group Hogwarts Express...fitting, huh? I found another group that looked fantastic - they read a youth book a month and discuss - that I would've loved to join but there hasn't been any comments since about July, so I guess they've stopped. Maybe I can get it re-started, yeah? ;-)
Overall, LibraryThing has been easy to use and somewhat interesting...I look forward to investigating further!
Friday, October 23, 2009
Thing 9
Online generators! \o/ I've wanted to Warholize myself ever since I saw that I could. It's a little faded looking because the photo wasn't great, but I love it!! If you go to my Flickr photostream, you'll see that I also turned myself into a trading card, and I am now officially a museum work of art! Wee!
I found these generators fun and easy to use, and I especially liked that they linked to Flickr. This way I didn't have to re-upload photos but could select from my photostream, and easily upload the finished product. I'm impressed and my mind is already tinkering with ways these could work with the teens and our monthly events...
I found these generators fun and easy to use, and I especially liked that they linked to Flickr. This way I didn't have to re-upload photos but could select from my photostream, and easily upload the finished product. I'm impressed and my mind is already tinkering with ways these could work with the teens and our monthly events...
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Thing 8
I love mashups! So, so much fun...which is very bad, because like I've said, I'm a procrastinator, and I could waste a lot of time playing with these!
I played with the Montagr mashup, which was cool. It took me a moment to realise that even the photos that made up the chosen image were tagged the same. Depending on what the image was though, not all were very clear.
I also went through the Mashup Award winners for Flickr, and there is some interesting stuff there. So much to do with Twitter though, which I don't use.
My favourite mashup however was Flickr Memari - a Flickr memory game! LOVE IT. I've always been endlessly amused playing that game, and it was awesome with photos. If I create my own photo set on Flickr with over 18 photos, I can play using them, and that's even better!
I played with the Montagr mashup, which was cool. It took me a moment to realise that even the photos that made up the chosen image were tagged the same. Depending on what the image was though, not all were very clear.
I also went through the Mashup Award winners for Flickr, and there is some interesting stuff there. So much to do with Twitter though, which I don't use.
My favourite mashup however was Flickr Memari - a Flickr memory game! LOVE IT. I've always been endlessly amused playing that game, and it was awesome with photos. If I create my own photo set on Flickr with over 18 photos, I can play using them, and that's even better!
Thing 7 (part 2)
I created my very first account with Flickr, which was easy - but I didn't really like that you also had to sign up with Yahoo. I used to have a Yahoo account a very long time ago, and it's not a huge bother, but I don't know, it's just one more thing, you know?
For this 'thing', taking the photos was more of a challenge! I tried being creative, but I don't think I have an eye for photography. I also don't think many of these photos would actually be good to use as promotional material for the library, but I had fun!
The one I've chosen for here is a shot of part of the youth collection. I like it, though I think there's a little too much of that accidentally on purpose strategically placed sign in the corner. Still, I also got the very new "Youth Fiction" sign in, so yay me!
Uploading the photos was also very simple - nice and easy step by steps, just a few clicks of some buttons. I realised after I'd uploaded a couple that I hadn't rotated them first, and thought I'd have to start all over, but Flickr has a rotate button that worked like a charm! Love it.
I think I'm going to have even more fun with the next couple of Things! :-D
For this 'thing', taking the photos was more of a challenge! I tried being creative, but I don't think I have an eye for photography. I also don't think many of these photos would actually be good to use as promotional material for the library, but I had fun!
The one I've chosen for here is a shot of part of the youth collection. I like it, though I think there's a little too much of that accidentally on purpose strategically placed sign in the corner. Still, I also got the very new "Youth Fiction" sign in, so yay me!
Uploading the photos was also very simple - nice and easy step by steps, just a few clicks of some buttons. I realised after I'd uploaded a couple that I hadn't rotated them first, and thought I'd have to start all over, but Flickr has a rotate button that worked like a charm! Love it.
I think I'm going to have even more fun with the next couple of Things! :-D
Friday, October 2, 2009
Thing 7 (part 1)
I've always known about Flickr, but have only ever browsed photos briefly. There are SO many! I liked having a better look this time around - I never realised there were groups, or that you could edit photos! That is really cool. I also loved the idea of interestingness, it was fun to browse them. So many beautiful photos...most of which were copyrighted, so no link to them here. In the end I decided to go to the Creative Commons page and searched for "eiffel tower" (of course!), and I found the photo Eiffel Tower at night by Alarzy which is an awesome shot...kind of looks like a bit from a sci-fi film! Tags are certainly helpful for searching, but it's still pretty time consuming browsing through the thousands (or more) it locates. The more keywords you use, the more sepcific you are, might have better luck...but only if the person who uploaded the photos tagged it the same way you think, I guess.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Thing 6
So I've been busy adding feeds to my Google Reader, and it's been fun. I've added some authors like Stephenie Meyer and Sarah Dessen, as well as youth fiction blogs and a couple of anime related feeds. I found searching through the Google Reader to be somewhat time consuming, as searching for a keyword(s) would find if it had been used at some point rather than a feed devoted to it. Much like a normal Google search then! Even the browsing by categories was way too general. In the end I much preferred just visiting websites and blogs I had in the past, and subscribing to them if they had feeds.
I don't know if I have my head fully wrapped around RSS quite yet though. Sure, I understand the concept, but more in terms of how I do it. I don't know if I'd be able to fully explain it to someone else! I'm not really sure how it affects the way I find information on the internet...other than how I don't have to check multiple sites for updates anymore.
I've noticed that libraries use RSS on their websites and blogs, and it's certainly a useful tool. Being able to keep people updated with the smallest amount of effort on their part is great. They might even be more likely to keep better informed that way. But they'd have to know about feeds, and I'm not sure how many do. Wicked! can be added to a feed reader for instance, but I doubt any of the teens we try to target are aware of RSS.
I don't have a weirdest feed, and I didn't really see one in my searching, but my favourite at the moment is the Hey! Teenager of the Year blog. Pretty impressive!
I don't know if I have my head fully wrapped around RSS quite yet though. Sure, I understand the concept, but more in terms of how I do it. I don't know if I'd be able to fully explain it to someone else! I'm not really sure how it affects the way I find information on the internet...other than how I don't have to check multiple sites for updates anymore.
I've noticed that libraries use RSS on their websites and blogs, and it's certainly a useful tool. Being able to keep people updated with the smallest amount of effort on their part is great. They might even be more likely to keep better informed that way. But they'd have to know about feeds, and I'm not sure how many do. Wicked! can be added to a feed reader for instance, but I doubt any of the teens we try to target are aware of RSS.
I don't have a weirdest feed, and I didn't really see one in my searching, but my favourite at the moment is the Hey! Teenager of the Year blog. Pretty impressive!
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