Photoshop Tutorials - recommended by Mashable

Many people are going gangbusters with digital photography, so correcting and organizing digital photos is a big deal.  This year, Adobe Creative Suite 5 promotes use of Adobe BRIDGE as an organizer, and it is better than iPhoto. In addition to the Photoshop textbook or class, Mashable recommends a number of beginner tutorials for Adobe Photoshop. 

Week 9: LibraryThing and YouTube (#19, 20 Thing)

Week 9 is the final week of SJLibrary 2.0 and the first exercise asks us to look at LibraryThing, something I did back in Week 6 when the focus was on tagging. We were invited to look at MoBuzzTV.com for a story on LibraryThing, but I couldn't find the story even when searching their archives. MoBuzzTV has lots of interesting and short technology stories.

Another assignment (#20) is to check out YouTube and look for other similar sites. Humm.. this also seems like a repeat for me from Week 6. Two of my favorite "library themed" YouTube videos are Library Dominos and Ray of Light. Library Dominos is short, mostly silent, yet sweet. ray of Light has great music and is "a day in the life of a library" - a real treat and tribute to all who work at the St. Joseph's County Library.

WEEK 7: Created Unofficial Conference Wiki (#17 Thing)

Moving along... today I got an e-mail announcement reminding me of a November library conference, so I created an "unofficial" conference wiki using available and new information. Remembering that ALA annual conference had a wiki, I also looked at that for topics and ideas.

PBWIKI -- also known as Peanut Butter wiki -- was my free platform, but there were tons of promotions for upgrading to a fancier version. That was a bit distracting at first.

After my PB exercise, I sent a note to the library conference chair to see if there was interest in a conference wiki -- maybe eventually my "unofficial" wiki will become official. It is easy to add items and there is a "sandbox" for experimenting on all PB wikis. How cool.

WEEK 7: Who's Doing What With Wikis (#16 Thing)

Discovery exercise #16. Introduction to wikis and how libraries can use the. Webjunction article by Meredith Farkas describes library uses of wiki:

• Subject guides
• Catalog annotations
• Community wiki
• Librarian wiki

Library wikis I like:

• Book Lovers' Wiki, where people can write reviews of books they've read. It has a "featured review" and a Summer Reading Club.
• Library Best Practices is a wiki called Library Successes.
• idea of an event wiki, like for ALA.

One of these day's I'll create or contribute to a wiki, but for now I'm happy with my blog. If I still taught a course, I might want students to contribute to a wiki. So far, my favorite use is for book reviews or abstracts on a topic -- such as library advocacy. I might create a Mother-Daughter Book Club wiki, even thought our daughters are no longer in elementary school and are headed to college! Time flies.

WEEK 6: Technorati (#14 Thing)

Humm... how did the name come about?
I see Technorati is San Francisco based, so that is good -- a local virtual company.
I "claimed" my Advocate4Libraries blog. It was easy to "claim" it, but when I tried to move the location of Technorati from the top left to the bottom, my blog took forever and ever to "save." In fact, it is still trying to do that.

What a discovery! When I searched Technorati "tags" using "Library 2.0" as a search term, what did I find but a YouTube video of Helene Blowers announcing the winners of her online series, Discovery Learning 2.0 (To answer the question, are results different when looking at the same search term under the three categories: blog posts, tags, and blog directory -- yes, they yield very different results. Guess the lesson learned is to check all three and discover all sorts of things.)

WEEK 6: Tagging and Del.icio.us (#13 Thing)

Tagging is an open and informal method of categorizing that allows users to associate keywords with online content - I tag each post, but call them "labels." To me, it is key word searching.

• LibraryThing describes itself as a new site for book lovers. It helps you create a library-quality catalog of your books. And because everyone catalogs online, they also catalog together. LibraryThing connects people based on the books they share. I took the tour. OK, yes it it very cool. I created y own library starter set of recently read books. The site also has gift items available at CafePress.

Del.icio.us will help me organize my favorite urls.

• I watched the Otter Group Del.icio.us tutorial
• Also read Us.ef.ul: A beginners guide to Del.icio.us and started a Del.icio.us account.
• I added a network badge to my blog.
  

WEEK 5: Rollyo (#12 Thing)

For some reason, I have something similar to writer's block when it comes to Rollyo. Maybe it's the name -- Rollyo -- or just that I don't feel like learning yet another web 2.0 thing. I forced myself to create a Rollyo account and two "searchrolls" of websites. I used a hotlist I already had on gifts for book and library lovers and called my new Rollyo site "Gifts4BookLovers." Somehow, three copies of my roll appeared on my "dashboard." Next, I created a searchroll related to Mother-Daughter Book Clubs, again using one of my existing hotlists.

I don't think I want to add a "searchbox" to my blog yet, so I passed on that optional exercise.
Hopefully, the WEEK 6 Discovery Exercises will interest me more.

WEEK 5: Award Winning Sites - ansaTHAT.com (#11 Thing)

This Discovery Lesson urges us to explore at least three award winning 2.0 sites. Here are my favorites: DailyMotion (video site), Wayfaring (mapping), and HipCAL(organization.)

DailyMotion.com won first place in the web 2.0 awards. It is something like YouTube, which won second place. Showing was a hilarious daily "research" program with James Black at ansaTHAT.com -- "The place where YOU ask the questions and WE find the answers."
see the January 30th or February 1st programs to capture the craziness of this British bloke -- is he a librarian? Good question to ask him.

Wayfaring.com is something like Google Maps. Problem so far with mapping applications is that they ignore our southern neighbor, Mexico! In any case, it won first choice, followed by Frappr and HousingMaps.
HousingMaps is a visual way to look for housing including available rooms to rent.
Frappr is for individuals to map where they are, attach a photo, and socialize with others in their Frappr map. One group consisted of people who own/ride horses, for example. This could be an interesting way for specialized librarians to have a national conversation.

First place site for organizing was HipCal, it's about time -- a site for creating calendars. This has potential for library room reservations, and possibly reference desk duty. Website indicated this was just acquired by second place winner, Planzo.com

Other places I checked out:
Shopping web.20 site ETSY is for buying and selling handmade things. OK, but I'm not much of a shopper.
So much to explore, but need to absorb possibilities before touring some more.