Week5: Exercise #12 Rollyo

This week's exercise is extremely useful. I think Rollyo is a powerful reference tool which is like a miniatured search engines. I like its sharing feature and the flexibility of editing posts. The library definitely can use this tool to customize the reference sites to enhance service quality.

I created a Rollyo account with the topic: Legal Research following this link My Search Roll.

I also created a search box in the following.

Select...Legal ResearchSearch The Web

These are the web sites that I compiled for legal research.

SITES SEARCHED:
law.cornell.…
stu.findlaw.com
gpoaccess.go…
kids.gov
kids.gov
consumer.gov
consumer.gov
science.gov
thomas.loc.gov
lib.umich.ed…
lib.law.washingt…

Week5: Exercise #11 Explore Web 2.0 awards list

This award list is a good reference resource which contains broad categories that most people would feel interested.

Over all, I think this award list has its high standard of evaluation and credibility since I observed there are some categories without any winners.

I am impressed by the categories of Classified &Business Directories and Collaborative Writing & Word Processing. I like the Craigslist for its comprehensive coverage, free services, clean layout and ease of use. This is a useful classified list that I would recommend to the library customers when they are look for housing, free stuff, jobs, sale items etc. I heard a friend who purchased an used car with reasonable price; therefore, I assume this might be a good place for car purchase too.

The Collaborative Writing and Word Processing list is a wonderful resource to know. I have been using Google for a long time but I never knew Google has this online word processing feature. I would recommend this list to the library customers who want an easy collaborative word processing tool for group projects. I explored all the three winners in this category and recommended they were excellent tools which are easy to use.

Week5:Exercise #10 Online image generator

Obviously, this week's exercise has more fun than the previous one. To me, the main reason is I enjoy the beautiful colors and images; I think that is a powerful channel to deliver a clear message. For example, I love music and had learned to play the piano for a couple of years.
Then the following image will just tell the message perfectly.

Week4: Exercise #9 Locating Library Blogs and News Feeds

The week 4 of exercise is confusing. Honestly speaking, I do not enjoy much. After I stared bloglines account, I do not know how to subsribe the blogs and share the blogs. I submitted some questions for exercise #8 above and hope I get the answer of how to solve the problems.

Exercise 9 provides four search tools. I found out each has its strength and weakness.

Feedster- The layout of this site is simple and clean. It is easy to navigate. I like best the function Subscribe to this search which locates right after the search box. The position is obvious that the users won’t miss it. Also, there is less advertisement for this site.
I think this is a good choice for the users who want quality search results.

Topix.net- This is an excellent search tool which contains a wide range of information. I like the menu bars best which gives a clear idea where to start. I especially found out the organization of all topics and forums are useful. This is a good search tool for all levels of users. It is especially helpful for the users without any searching experiences. The well constructed topics are helpful for them to start a productive search.

Syndic8.com-This is an open directory with free submission. There is no wonder that I found out the information is disorganized and chaotic. I do not think this is a good search tool.

Technorati- It seems to me that this search tool is most appropriate to the users who want the information about popularity. The three broad categories, Popular, Top Searches and Top Tags, display the popular interests. I would use this search tool if I want to find the news feeds and blogs that are appealing to majority of people

Week4: Exercise#8 Learning about RSS feeds and Set up Bloglines Account

This week's exercise is no fun and confusing to me.

First of all, I would like to say RSS feeds is an advanced technology to get the most current news in a simple and efficient manner. It allows me to browse the headlines and filters the ones that I am interested and rule out the ones that I do not enjoy.

Setting a blogline account and add news feed is simple to me.
However, I encountered problems when I followed the instructions to find the Share tab within my Bloglines account. The screen print is not the same as what I saw on my bloglines account.

Could you tell me how to do the following things?

1. How to share it with the public: I cannot find the share tab to make it public.

2. How to remove the feeds that I do not want to subscribe: I have the problem of removing the feeds when I accidentally added it. I could not take it off.

3. Can I arrange the feeds into folders?

Thanks!

Week#3: Exercise 7 New technology

Technology is developing with an accelerating speed. It brings a lot of convenience to life.
The technology that I like most is the invention of digital camera. It saves me the space to store the photos, the money to develop the photos and the time to organize them.
I can view in the computer, modify the imperfect parts and delete the ones that I dislike.

The other technology that I like is cell phone which allows me to talk to friends without restriction of time and places. However, it also brings certain discomfort to life too. I know some friends who work in the field of computer engineering. Now their private life was spoiled because the cell phone call from their boss at the night from different time zone. That is a pain... I feel pity for them.

Oh well, technology can be sweet or bitter.....

Week#3: Exercise 6 Exploring Flickr and 3rd party sites

Exploring Flickr mashups and 3rd party sites is fun but time consuming. Now it is the fourth week of learning but I am still working on the week 3 exercise. I hope I am not behind too much. There is no wonder we need to learn the lesson of 7 & 1/2 learning habit at the very beginning. I wish I can finish to the end.

In this exercise, I found Fd's flickr toy sites is fascinating. I tried a couple of them.
I used the same 4 photos for exercise 5 and made a mosaic photo.
I am sure making a trading card is fun too. I will try that when I have more time :-).

Another 3rd party tool that I found helpful is the trip planner from Yahoo. After I entered a planned date for a specific destination, a list of hotels with star ranking showed up. There is also the information from other travelers who wrote about their traveling experiences and photos for that place. I think this is marvelous to get the comprehensive information at the same time.