Task 18: Zamzar and Tiny URL

Look at this atrocious url.

http://www.thepurplestore.com/cgi-bin/product_detail.cgi?pstore_id=14343&product_line=Kitchen&page=1&column=2&row=2

Whatever am I going to do? I wish there was a way that I could make it into a shorter, more manageable url.

http://tinyurl.com/yhu4p2l

It's a miracle. Now this url is a manageable length!

This very same story is happening to countless multitudes everyday as they discover Tiny URL for the first time.

Tiny URL informed me that the old url was 115 characters long and this new one is only 26 characters long. Isn't that exciting?! Tiny URL is an interesting service. It seems to me that if they charged for their service, then no one would use it. I think the problem they are addressing isn't really as big of a problem as they make it out to be. If I want to put a link to something in an email or blog and it's excessively long, I copy and paste it and hyperlink it to the words "Click Here" or "Link." It's not that difficult to copy and paste and hyperlink--I still had to hyperlink my tiny url anyway. Oh well. All this is not to say that it's not nifty how it works and mysteriously makes shorter URLs--because it is nifty.

Zamzar is pretty neat, except that I wouldn't have known which format to convert this video to if Nancy hadn't mentioned that she converted hers to mpg. Otherwise I would have no clue. It still took me awhile anyway. Thanks person whose name starts with "lyn" for showing me where to find the video url. That was a quite a struggle for me (I keep forgetting to put the u in struggle--I'm too busy concentrating on whether the e or l comes first). I must admit that it even took me awhile the get the video onto my blog--for some reason I was thinking I should be able to copy and paste. But as you can see, I figured it out.



I feel like tasks like this are slowly making me more competent when it comes to helping patrons with computer issues, such as the computer not reading their files, etc.

Okay, That's it for this task. I have already said too much.

Task 17: LibProf Sites

I would just like to share that I enjoy shortening things to more manageable lengths--I especially like it when they are already shortened for me. Acronyms and initials aren't really all that exciting for me--nonsensical shortenings of words and phrases is what delights me. For instance, Lit Crit--much easier to say than "literary criticism"--the sheer number of syllables is enough to drive a person mad. I have found this to be true when asked what classes I have left to take--I just can't bring myself to say literary criticism (it is painful even typing it). I'll be taking Senior Sem next semester (or if you prefer, Seminar in Lit) and I'm happy to report that I will be all done with Brit Lit in about 6 weeks. Of course, my senior sem class is on Jane Austen, who was British. Hmm. Maybe I'll never be done. A year ago at this time, I thought I was taking my last ever lit course, but then I changed my major (from elem ed) and have had nothing but lit courses since then. It's funny how that works. I rather enjoyed Chil Lit when I took it. I like saying Pub Serv rather than "Public Services". This reminds me Of Tech Services, which reminds me of change... (I noticed that we got some new bar codes which are very sleet and trendy looking.)

What does all this have to do with task 17? you may ask. Well, nothing actually. But I'm feeling really uninspired by the task itself and I don't want to give you just a short little snippet. Oh, and if you weren't paying attention, I mentioned that my seminar in lit class is going to focus on Jane Austen--I am so excited (I know there are some people--whose names I will not say but start with jor and lyn--who don't particularly care for Miss Austen's work, but I happen to be a big fan. Yay, if this is supposed to be the hardest class that I will ever take in pursuit of a bachelor's degree and it's on Jane Austen, then I think I may actually graduate after all (quite honestly, I think lit crit will be way more difficult--oh well).

I looked at some stuff that I thought looked interesting on the library professional site. I clicked on "Information Wants To Be Free" because I liked its title. She was talking about teaching basic library research skills to college freshmen. It was kind of interesting and kind of boring (it was incredibly long). I do remember that in my English comp (who in the world says "composition"?) class we had a day or week when we went to the campus library and learned how to look up articles and stuff like that (I think we did it again in another class, too). Now that I think about it, it is really important to know. It's a no brainer for me now, but if I didn't know how to read the OPAC or use the research databases, then doing a research paper would be pretty difficult (wikipedia just doesn't cut it in college, people). This blogger was actually talking about whether college profs or librarians should be the ones teaching college students about library basics. This, I believe, is the great unanswerable question. I looked at several other links, but nothing really stood out to me--as in I really don't have anything intelligent to say about any of the other links I followed.

I think this is a good little site for library professionals, but alas, I am not a library professional (if you read the first part of this blog and did not just skip to the end, you would know that I am taking Jane Austen classes just to get my B.A). All this is to say that I personally, at this point in my life, don't forsee myself using this particular resourse (which I think is great for actual library professionals, just not for me).

Task 16: Open Office

I was relieved to find that following on the heals of such a frustrating task (see title of task 15) is a relatively painless one. I married into a word-processorless Dell. It had crashed sometime ago and lost the software it did have. My husband (see pictures between tasks 13 and 14) had been using Notepad to write his papers (or he would just go to the school library). My brother-in-law told us about Open Office and we downloaded it to the aforementioned Dell. It was hard to believe at first--"What, it's free? Nothing is free." As a result, I have been writing all of my papers on Open Office Writer this semester. It is very similar to Microsoft Word--the older version, not 2007. It's kind of a bummer because I had just gotten used to the new and improved Word, and now I'm having to go back to the old look and layout. Oh well. The only thing I had trouble with was figuring out how to insert page numbers (in proper MLA fashion) using Open Office. I finally figured it out, and I'm good to go. I just save my documents in .doc format and I haven't had any trouble with my stuff opening up in Word on the school computers. One other thing that it doesn't have that Microsoft does is the synonym function when you right click on a word. I am addicted to that function, so it's kind of a bummer not to have it in Open Office. All in all, considering that it's free, I really can't complain.

I think that the idea of open source software aligns with libraries in that it gives people free access to information--key word "free."

I've been given a pop!

Something curious happened to me yesterday. I checked my email and Clipmarks had sent me a message telling me that I had been given a "pop". So I clicked on the link and found that somewhere in Clipmarks world, my post had been posted and someone from Ireland had given me a pop. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to feel about this. Hmm... I still wish it would've posted to my blog like I wanted it to (and like it told me it would do) and not to a Clipmarks account page that I didn't know I had.

Task 15: The Nighmare Task

Not only am I really hungry right now and have two more hours of work and only one little child-sized granola bar to eat, but I'm also really frustrated by this task. I looked at other people's blogs and saw that everyone was having the same problem, so that made me feel a little better--but I'm still hungry. I just wanted to use the Clipy thingy to show you guys this super awesome video footage of Anne Frank (if you haven't already) and now I'll just have to give you the link. LINK I hope you can figure out what I intended for you to look at since you're seeing a whole entire web page, and not just the parts I would've clipped for you.

The task description made it sound so simple, but in application it was a living nightmare (almost as bad as the one I had about my library card being replaced and my number being changed). I think trying unsuccessfully to use Clipmarks put a damper on my whole afternoon, but at least I have taco night to look forward to. I'm not sure that I'd use it very much even if it were working properly. I'm not on the Internet very much, nor do I search for stuff on it. I usually only get on to check my email and do Webolution. I heard about the Anne Frank footage on the radio.

I seriously tried at least four or five times to upload my clips to my blog and each time it said it was successful. Why, why would it lie to me?

Task 14: The Dreaded Downloadable Audiobooks

I downloaded Anne of Green Gables from OverDrive. I found it to be amazingly simple (at least as far as downloading it to a PC goes). It's on the lower info desk computer if anyone is interested. I was a bit confused about the way the check-out works. From my understanding, OverDrive lets you download the item, and when it has expired it is no longer accessible: "Once the lending period is over, what happens to the title I checked out? You do not need to return a borrowed item. Once the lending period has elapsed, the title is automatically 'returned' to the library. Although the file(s) will remain on your computer, the file(s) will no longer be accessible." I'm wondering what you are supposed to do if you burned the audiobook to a CD. Do they want you to destroy the CD after the lending period is up?

NetLibrary seems like a really good resource as well. It would seem that it has the electronic books as well as audio books--very intersesting.

I must admit, I didn't try downloading anything to a portable devise, because I don't have one. I wonder how much more difficult it really is, because downloading to the computer was really easy.

You don't have to care...

...but if you do, I have some of my wedding photos available for viewing!

Just click here