Task #6

I've always found youtube and google video to be a very useful tool. People are looking for, well, anything and you can find it on one of these two sites. The other day, I was looking for a movie made off of the novel "The Girl, The Gold Watch and Everything" written by John D. MacDonald in 1962 (Also famous for his Travis McGee novels). And, I found it on Youtube, made into a TV movie in 1980, starring Pam Dawber (Mork and Mindy) and Robert Hayes (The Airplane movies). Frankly, the book was a lot better.

This was the first time that I'd ever heard of TeacherTube, but I like the concept. Many colleges other schools are uploading vids of basic courses and this is a great site for students.

Overall, I would rate Google videos as the best, chiefly because they post vids from other sites as well. Sometimes you can't view the video on the Google site, but you can always follow the link back to the original site.

The video that I've posted is an example of Hsing I, one of the martial arts that I practice. What's being practiced is called the Five Element Fists and the gentleman who is doing it is not linked with our style. So, the way that he's doing it is somewhat differant from the way that we practice.

Ironically, Google does have video of Kenny Gong, the master who taught my teacher and who has since passed away. But, apparently the vids were posted without permission and so, I'm kind of leery about re-posting

Task #5

I found this to be very interesting because of the contrast with what I had learned previously about photography and privacy laws.

I've been through journalism school and we were always told that the standard was "Expectation of Privacy".

For example, if somebody is walking down the street, they are in the view of the general public. If I take a photo of that person walking down the street and post it online, I'm adhearing to the same standard that he was, I'm just showing the image to a wider slice of the public.

On the other hand, if I post the picture and say that his name is "such and such" as well as his address and phone number, that's actionable. Nothing in his appearance condoned the release of that information and he has a reasonable expectation of privacy towards that information.

This, by the way, is why the press can be more intrusive with celebrities. They're much more public figures and a lot more of thier lives are commonly known. If I post a picture of the President and say that "He lives at the White House, here's the phone number", it's not exactly a secret.

I can see why many libraries are being carefull. In dealing with the general public, it's always better to have that "Extra Mile" worth of Ettiquette. But, if the event that you're photographing took place out in the pubic, written consent forms are a bit much.

Furthermore, I don't think that privacy would be much of an issue in using photos from Flickr. Because it's been posted into the public domain, any privacy (Or copyright) issues would be targeted at the person who posted them. Any person or institution that used the photo afterwards (Such as a library for a school report) would simply be an innocent bystander.

Finally, I found that I preferred Flickr over Picasa simply because of the fact that with Picasa, you have to download a program. If I was a hardcore photographer, I might prefer the software. But, for a casual user (Like me and, I suspect, most of the rest of the public), you just want to get a picture for particular purpose, leave and be done with it. In that case, the software is just one more thing to clutter my computer.

The photo that I chose from Flickr? No special meaning. I just chose it because it looks cool.

Task #2

I've revisited Task #2 in order to fully complete it. Watched to short video, went through all the details, revisited blogger, etc. It never hurts to cover the same ground twice, because you never know what kind of details you've missed the first time.

Task #4 The Reader

Catch the Movie reference?

Seriously, I logged into Google Reader and subscribed to three different blogs: Dojo Rat (A blog posted by a Martial Artist in Seattle), Next Big Future (A blog about cutting-edge science and new developments in technology) and Instapundit (a general/political blog). All three are pretty interesting and you should check them out.

In examination of the RSS feature, I, personally, don't see what the big deal is. Yes, it is nice to have everything in one spot (Brought to you on one plate as it were), but I really didn't see how the old way was such a travailing experience.

When you go to a blog or newssite, all you have to do is go to Google, type in the name of the site and you are there. It's a process that takes only a few seconds. 99.9% of the time you spend on a blog is taken up with reading content, which you do with a reader anyway.

Secondly, a blog is often more than just the posts. A lot of times, I've found new and interesting blogs because I've followed the links posted in a sidebar and the reader didn't have that.

Admittedly, I've only tried the Google Reader. Others may have that option.

I won't be using a RSS on a regular basis, but this was good to learn so that I'll know enough to talk about it to patrons that ask.

Note

I skipped #2, because I already have a blog set up.

#3: Cloud Computing

Task #3 is one of those things where you have a moment of recognition and say, "That's what they call it. I've been doing that for years."

To me, the biggest advantage of Cloud Computing is the proliferation of small computers. Notebooks are really starting to take off and a lot of cell-phones are beefed up to include features that you used to only see on desktop computers. Add in the fact that Wi-Fi is constantly becoming cheaper and more accessable.

In order to save memory and computing power, instead of having software installed, you just use the online options whenever possible. This way, instead of having a dozen computers rooted to one spot, you could have two dozen notebooks for the same price that a patron can use anywhere in the library.

Texas Two Step #1

It was interesting to see and hear of all the various interactive possibilities for library patrons af the present and the future.

One particular thing that blew me away was the mention of Second Life within this context. I've been reading articles about how online Avatars are becoming more interactive and even learning to adapt to a user's own needs and wants. But, I've never considered such a thing in connection to a library.

Think about it. An online program that, after years of seeing what you check out at the library, understands your preferences well enough to suggest books and authors that you might like. Some people might think that's cool. Others will consider it to be a little too "Frankenstein' for thier tastes.

Me, I'm in the "cool" category.