Finished at last!

After a last minute dash to finish some of the Things I skipped in the middle, I have finally reached the end! 23 Things has introduced me to internet tools I would never have dreamt of investigating on my own, and has, on the whole, been an enjoyable learning experience.

My favourite things are:

• iGoogle, where I can see useful things like email, Google reader, my delicious, the latest news and weather etc, all on one screen at the same time.
• RSS feeds
• Flickr (This encouraged me to buy a digital camera, something I'd been dithering about for some time..)
• Podcasts

Thank you, 23Things organisers for all your hard work

Twitter, twitter, tweet, tweet...

At last, I get to find out why all the world except me seems to be twittering away! I've done all the various bits, but am still finding my way around. The trouble is it's just one more website to check up on, so after the novelty wears off I suspect I'll forget all about it....but at least I gave it a try.

Facebook /LinkedIn

As I am not on facebook I only have a vague idea how it works. It would seem to be a user friendly way to let students know what's happening in the library.
I duly signed up for LinkedIn, but am not sure quite what to do with it. I may investigate it further whan I have more time.

Back tracking...to podcasts and YouTube

Having just completed thing 22, I now have to go back and fill in the bits I missed earlier!

I searched the BBC podcasts and listened to a bit of Gardners' question time, which is something I haven't heard for ages. I set up an RSS feed to it so I can catch up with the last few programmes. I then investigated podcasts from the University; I searched the RAI website and like my colleague Eleanor listened to some of Robin Kelley's Harmsworth lecture. Podcasts are something new to me; they seem useful things and I can see mayself using them in the future.

I then looked at a few videos on YouTube. Some of the library ones were amusing, others not so good. I looked at peoples comments but wasn't tempted to make any myself. Personally I could happily live without YouTube!

Gadgets and widgets

I added my Flikr photostream to my blog using a Blogger gadget, which was easy. Adding my delicious bookmarks to my igoogle page was easy up to the point where I had to tell the gadget my username; it wasn't very obvious (to me, anyway!)how I should do this, but Eleanor came to my rescue and pointed to the tiny words in the right hand corner which I needed to click on...et voila! Easy when you know how.

Google docs/Office 2.0

Google docs was fairly straight forward; I experimented with the formatting and shared a document with colleague Eleanor. ThinkFree took ages to load, and had trouble keeping up with my (very slow) typing. Competent typists must find it very frustrating. It did have more formatting options though.

Wikis/Wikipedia

It's against my nature (being a librarian!) to put anything out of order, but thought I'd skip a few "things" to do Wikis, which I know a bit about, and fiddle with the earlier things later.
I use Wikipedia quite a lot to look things up; I don't think I would risk editing anything, but found the history and discussion tabs interesting - I'd never taken much notice of them before. We have a library wiki, so I thought I'd check the missing books list and found one book on the shelf, so edited the list, and also made a few minor changes elsewhere. I've also turned my blog blue (was a bit tired of the pink.)

So many "Things", so little time..but on with Delicious

I  set up a Delicious account and downloaded the "bookmarklet", and then found a few random things to bookmark. I also added the VHL Delicious page to my network. I think this could be a useful place to save odd bits and pieces, and would save me scribbling details of websites on bits of paper, which inevitably get lost. I will try and add more things and see how I get on.

Flickr'ing Pics

I created a Flickr account, and then borrowed a camera to take a (rather gloomy) picture of the RAI. (Have now ordered my own camera, so may add more pics later...). Picnik looked interesting - my photo needed something drastic doing to it. After trying out various things I found one that turned it into a pencil sketch. Let's see if I can manage to add it to my blog...as you can see I succeeded (though I did need a little help).

RSS feeds

I signed up for Google Reader and also added it to my iGoogle page. I subscribed to the 23 things feed and a couple of other 23'ers,  plus the BBC monthly weather update, Gardners' World blogs, and the VHL blog (which I had never really taken much notice of up until now.) I have yet to work out how to mark an item as unread or how to stick a star on something  - maybe someone can enlighten me? It's bound to be something glaringly obvious!

Blogging

Despite registering my blog a week ago I've only managed 2 posts so far - I seem to spend too long browsing other peoples blogs and then don't have time to experiment with my own! I don't have many thoughts on blogs at present, being a mere beginner, but looking at the various library ones they seem to be quite useful things. My own blog looks a bit boring so I must try and add some interesting bits to it.....OK, done that now: I decided to add some friendly fish, which are quite fun (but which remind me that I have a dentist appointment soon!), and a bit of colour to the background...much brighter now!

iGoogling

This bit was easy as I already had a gmail account. I have just added useful gadgets so far - I did experiment with things like fish and penguins, but they very soon became boring. I picked a flowery theme to remind me that the weather will warm up at some point! I think having a customised start page will be quite useful, as I can check my latest emails and keep an eye on the weather and news without having to go to another screen.

Into the Unknown...

Twitter, Flickr, Delicious...I've often wondered what exactly these are, and with "23 things" I have a chance to find out. I'm a little nervous about it as some of the "Things" look a bit complicated, so I will probably end up pestering people with lots of annoying questions!