The Final Goodbye....Wrapping Up

Well I have to say that this webthings challenge did teach me alot. Some of the things I knew about already, but some were completely new to me. Some I probably will never use again and some I will probably never go another day without using.

With that said, my favorite thing was probably Thing #8 Make Life "Really Simple" with RSS & a Newsreader. I use bloglines all the time now and have even changed my homepage to bloglines on my home computer. It has made my web surfing 100x more efficient and has cut down the time i need to spend on the internet in half. On the other hand, Conversely I least liked the ListenNJ.

I feel the library should get much more involved in YouTube. It is one of the most popular things to do on the internet today and has spread like wildfire since it's inception. The library would have much to gain by tapping into this resource on a regular basis.

I have shared RSS feeds with many of my friends and most of them are already hooked on it. It is one thing that I can say will probably become commonplace fairly quickly because of the fact that it cuts down the amount of time you need in order to individually look through each website. That fact alone will catapult it to the top spot because as we all know anything that can give us more time for anything else in our lives becomes an instant hit.

ListenNJ

ListenNJ is a pretty good site for digital audio books. Their database of books is fairly extensive and the fact that you can essentially put it on your mp3 players makes it great for people who travel alot. The thing I don't like about ListenNJ is the fact that you need to download their specific software in order to even listen to the audio book. Also, Ipods and Zunes are not even supported yet. Ipods and Zunes are two of the most popular mp3 players out there at this time and the fact that they do not currently support BOTH of them means they are missing out a huge share of people with mp3 players.

The fact that the whole setup process in order to get to the goal of listening to my book was complicated and confusing makes me dissapointed. After merely downloading their special software I was ready to X out the page and move on to another site.

The final thing I have to say about ListenNJ is that in the end it is easier to just get the book you want from a library than for me to download a special program which takes up room on my harddisk just to listen to a book.

Anyway, I've so far never had negative thoughts on any of these particular webthings, but I cannot advocate this digital audio book solution. It just seems like too much work for me to just listen to a book.

PODcasting...what more is there to say???

I searched through podcast.com for drifting and the number 1 podcast in the list was The DriftZone. The podcast follows all of the drifting events for Formula D, a professional competition for drifting, and conducts interviews with drivers. The podcast was very informative with what happened at the particular event, driver tips to getting into drifting, and upcoming projects that are being worked on. PODcasts are very fun.

The link to The DriftZone podcast is http://www.thedriftzone.com/index2.php?id=87

The YouTube Paradise...

This is the YouTube video that I found. My favorite sport is drifting and I have been actively following the drifting scene since 2004. This is a little compilation video with some awesome background music to really show you what drifting is.

At the Virtual Red Carpet of the Web 2.0 Awards

After much searching through the winners of the web 2.0 Awards I have found that Pandora was my favorite Web 2.0 app. It's search features are incredible and the ability to customize your own stations to play only the music you like is amazing. I merely entered the name of one favorite artist and within 30 seconds I had songs by more than 20 different artists, all of which, were part of the same genre of the artist I had first entered. It seemed as if in 30 seconds Pandora had read my brain and knew exactly what kind of songs I listened to. I was amazed that within 5 minutes of being on the site I had gone from not even having an account to listening and adding artists to my radio station. I'll definitely recommend this site to all of my friends because of the fact that within 5 minutes they will be listening to their favorite music. Best of all is it's commercial free!

Web Apps...Email attachments are a thing of the past!

Google Docs is one awesome document editing tool. Coordinating projects within the library can be a snap using this tool because of the fact that it can be accessed from any computer which makes working at home a breeze. Instead of having inefficient meetings where you must spend countless hours trying to pick a time that is good for every one's schedule you can easily coordinate on each persons own free time.

I am currently coordinating my own gaming program for the first time within my own branch and this tool could help me if I was working with someone else for planning what snacks to bring as well as having a tournament bracket system that is viewable and editable by staff or program leaders.

Making some Wiki Sandcastles...(^_^)

So today I decided to play on the OCLWebThings Wiki page and did a little editing in the Sandbox page. It was fun and I didn't know there were so many versatile editing features available. I played around with links by adding my blog to the list of blogs and adding a couple comments to the Sandbox page.

A PBWiki could be useful within the workplace for when working on a collaborative team project or even planning a program. Even for simply having a company newsletter where employees can add in new programs that they have founded and perhaps whether they were successful or not. Other employees can then leave comments either congratulating or offering tips to make a program better in the future. PBWiki is a multi-functional tool that has, in my opinion, a lot of potential.