Challenge 21

Well, I am very impressed. There were a whole lot of keyboard shortcuts that I didn't know and I just read through page 3 of David Pogue's list and viewer comments. That one went to the bookmarks. Some of the shortcuts don't seem a lot shorter than the coventional ways of doing things but others are "wow" moments of "I didn't know you could do that!" I am especially interested in shortcuts for this Mac. There is so much I don't know about this thing. But then again, LIVE AND LEARN. That is the name of the game. I really appreciate you taking the time to do this Emily. Otherwise we would have learned a lot less over the past month. Thanks. Carol 11/29/08 8:03PM

Challenge 20

I looked a just about every link on that challenge and found out that there is a whole lot I don't know anything about. I have been using Neooffice for this Mac laptop because it had no word processor loaded on it and that (according to Emily) is the MAC version of Open Office. The example they gave us to look at was a lot more impressive than anything I have seen in Neo office but that is probably because I really don't have a clue on how to use this stuff to it's best advantage. I did download Gimp on the computer at work and hope to learn how to use it. I will download it on my PC in the basement so I can play with it there also. I think it is wonderful that this exists and that these people who create this software are so generous as to just let everyone use it for free. There is hope for this world! I read most of what Courtney Love had to say about the record industry and I give the girl credit...She is one smart cookie. Who woulda thunk it. Anyway, it is Saturday, November 29th at 5:57 no matter what the bloglines tells you about what time this was posted. Carol

Challenge 19

I went with my email homepage (Yahoo) and just tweaked it a bit. I wanted netvibes but they wanted pop mail and I don't want to pay for that. If you recall a couple of posts ago about information overload...I don't need any more on my plate. I don't know how the individual who wrote that article ever survives what she goes through daily as far as the tweets and im(s) and emails and whatever. I can't go there. Yahoo and bloglines are enough for me.

Challenge 18, Web 2.0 awards

I looked at this. Nice. I signed up for My Heritage since I have most of the information to create my family tree from my relatives. I can see where it is designed to link up to other family trees. Guess we are all related if we go back and around far enough. I also liked fixya.com since I am still trying to fix my ipod that will not sync with my computer. I have several ideas to fix it that I didn't before I started looking at the site. Of course I have to translate one idea from vista to xp. Computers are a lovely puzzle for modern man aren't they?

Challenge 17, overdrive

I finally got a book downloaded on my mp3 player that I bought just for this purpose. I think I encountered every problem possible and can probably answer simple questions. I was on chapter 5 of the book when July and I got home from our walk. I think we are going to like this.

Challenge 16 Photoshop

I went to the trial and didn't really see anything there that would make me want to pay the price for Photoshop. It didn't seem to have much more than the free software that came with my Kodak camera. But then, I went to the internet meme timeline and watched a video called "You suck at Photoshop" Now that guy is not only funny but a much better advertisement for Photoshop than they are. I really enjoyed some of the free stuff at the end of that challenge. Thanks.

Challenge 15, browsers

I looked at all the material and didn't see any compelling reason to switch from Firefox to Chrome. I like Firefox. I used to like Internet Explorer until Emily showed me Firefox and now I only use IE when it is the only option. Chrome looks pretty though but not pretty enough for me to switch.

Challenge 14, our library site

Remember when Fonzie said "Haaaaaaaay" when he thought something was cool. That's what the library site rates. I did see a whole lot of stuff that I hadn't looked at before...starting with the kids, there's the Merriam Webster's Word Central where they can learn a new vocabulary word every day and how to use it and there's a dictionary that they can contribute to. I would think that homeschool parents would love that. There is oodles of resources on the site for them. How to build a worm farm and how to grow a garden! They have a "Those were the days" link where everything that ever happened on today's date is listed. There is another one of those on the adult side but there is a lot of more adult stuff on that page to go along with it. There are fast links to your representatives and congress phone numbers and emails. I can also invite the vice president and/or his wife and the president and/or his wife to an event using an email address found on a link from our home page. After January I will invite Barack and Michelle over for some smoked bar-b-que. The Kentucky links are useful and I especially liked the census information. Lots of cool stuff right at our fingertips.

Challenge 13, contiued.

I looked at the other how-to site (soyouwanna.com)and it was pretty straightforward with a lot of text and a lot of ads. The last part of the challenge was lifehacker.com and it was ok. The best of the 3 was the Instructables. Good site. Carol

Challenge 13, partial.

I like Instructables. Did you see the one about the free haircut? The young man sat on the sidewalk with a comb and a pair of scissors on a lanyard around his neck offering passersby a chance to contribute to his haircut. This could be a fun activity for the YA's in the summer. I'm thinking one of the brothers, Buchel...or his brother. This could be fun. A fundraiser for YA programs...Get a new game for the xbox...Definitely video tape the whole process.

challenge 12

Ok, I agree with most of the folks, I'd like to keep my goals private. I can see where noomi can be helpful. Sort of. You have to have the partner already for the most part and if you have the partner, why do it online? There are so many other sources of communication that are private. But I guess they think of things that the mere mortals of society usually don't in the way of goal achievement (or whatever counseling that goes along with that). They said they would supply a partner if you did the facebook thing. Yeah, that is going to happen. Not for my generation. I did like the financial resources except the Mint one. That seems a little too iffy as far as security. The best part of this challenge was the Bussuu site where you could practice a new language. That one definitely needs to be bookmarked at the front desk. A lot of folks trying to learn a new language would be grateful to hear of this site. I wish I had the time. Maybe when (or if) I ever retire. Yuk.Yuk. (41^01. Tee hee.

challenge 11

tfti Em. Tat's ttly cl but uctaodnt. tat b/c i crs. But I did bookmark those sites too in case I need them for future reference. b4n, (4l^01

challenge 10

I find myself getting stuck on some of these web sites...I have been to the movie site and the music site about 3 times each and there is so much to do on them that I run out of time and have to get off the computer before I can post a blog about them. I love the sites and I really think we need to bookmark them on the computers at the front desk if they aren't already. These sites are a wealth of information. Thanks for letting us in on them Emily.

challenge 9, Vault

It has taken me a while to go through Vault because there is just so much interesting stuff on there. First I downloaded the resume, cover letter and interviewing guide. It came in an email as an adobe document and I gotta say that it is a good thing we got hard copies of these guides. If you depended on the library's computers to get this info you would time out before you could really get started reading it. The guide was full of useful advice and I think it would be a great help to anyone who is doing a resume for the first time or who hasn't done it in a while. I looked at some of the surveys of people working in different jobs and that was an eyeopener. I am glad I'm not in corporate banking (booooring). There were a lot of ways to find out what jobs were like but I thought they were a little light on practical advice on where to get more information about the training or schools required. I looked at some of the airline careers and they did have useful information in the business list about where to go (online) for information about hiring and jobs. I was looking at the i.t. certification courses and it said they were nice to have and sometimes absolutely necessary but unless I knew where to go for the certification, the Vault was not a help to get me started in finding how to get these certifications. Make sense? I also downloaded the guide on starting your own business. I didn't read it all but it seemed like worthy information and I will recommend it to our customers. We get a lot of requests for books on small business start-ups.

Who's scary now?

This is the jack-o-lantern I did for halloween 08. And this is the maintenance and clean up crew.

Challenge 8

I have come across many websites that required registration. I have a little rolodex on my desk at home with scores of websites that have a signin name and password attached. I would probably use bugmenot now that I know about it. I could have used the retailmenot site last week and got 10% off that hair straightening tool that Eileen convinced me I had to have. Wish I had done this challenge before I bought it. I did some looking around and can use some of the coupons for Christmas shopping. Thanks! Carol

Challenge 7, Dear Reader

Sorry this one took so long. I signed up for Dear Reader and received 5 issues of the book "The Divorce Club". After about the 4th day the book didn't seem too bad but I don't think I want to read it. I kept it going for now, maybe they can get me hooked on something I will want to finish. I get the emails for all of the categories of new books and I really like reading them just to see what is new and it never fails that there are at least one in each category that I want to read right away. There were some glitches this past month about when you click on a book at the "read more" tab, you would get the photo of the book but a different title and absolutely nothing more to read. I spoke to Angie about this and apparently this is out of our hands. But I sure like the convenience of being informed of the new books. Carol

Author Websites

I at first selected Orson Scott Card as the author I wanted to do but once I got to his site and started looking around, I decided I don’t like him at all. So then I looked at Christopher Moore’s site which was ok. I didn’t see a lot of intriguing information there but I did like Lamb (a lot). I looked for Khaled Hosseini but he wasn’t on the yellow pages but I found him through a google search. His site is http://www.khaledhosseini.com/ there are videos of himself talking about writing and Afghanistan. They are very touching. I clicked on the Barbara Kingsolver site and was hooked. I learned that The Bean Trees came out in May of 87 and I thought it was earlier than that but when I think of it... that was 21 years ago, a month after Katy was born. I remember reading the book and liking it, they say it is a required book for a lot of high schools. Cool, I should probably reread it. Anyway, there are things about her and her books and the excerpts I read, even of her books I have already read, make me want to read them again. The most I can say for her is that she got an index to her latest book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, on her website (it’s not in the book) and I have got to read that. Sally took it out in audio a while back and I don’t know if I will get that or the book version. Either way, I highly recommend Barbara Kingsolver’s books and website.

Playaway challenge

I actually brought home a playaway before I read this challenge. I checked out Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri last week and was able to listen to the first short story when I took July for a walk Thursday morning. I had a little trouble with the buttons because I was guessing about what did what and being half blind doesn't help with the little buttons. I found the playaway site that described what the buttons do just now and that helped. (Emily, the links are just going to spots that tell you that blog is not available) There is also a pretty good size illustration of the buttons inside the front cover of the case that would have been helpful had I not just popped the thing out of the case and just started punching buttons. I really enjoyed listening to the story on our walk but noticed that I would miss little things that if I were reading I would go back and reread the line or the paragraph. I really like listening to music when I walk the dog because the beat gets you fired up but this is another way to increase the amount I read so that can't be a bad thing. I really like doing the car thing but I find that I don't drive very far by myself anymore. Which is a good thing. Another thing, I had to bring the thing in for Angie to help me get the battery cover off to put a new one in. It wouldn't open for me. Perhaps I was afraid of breaking it.

Challenge 4 Pandora

Hi. I'm listening to Pandora now. I created my stations before I got the ipod. I have two stations, one for women singers and one for men. My women started with KD Lang and my men started with Aaron Neville. They will throw a man in with the women sometimes but I just block them out. I don't know if they will throw the blocked song into the other station or not. They put an Otis Reddding song on KD's station and I blocked it because I want it all women. Now I wonder if they will play Otis on Aaron's station. I like it but where my computer is in the house isn't really conducive to using it as a radio unless I put on the earphones to drown out the TV that is usually on when Ron and I are in this room. Another reason I get up early to surf the web, he's still in bed and doesn't care what I listen to on the computer. Also when I started using itunes for collecting music for my ipod, I stopped using Pandora. It is nice though. Even though there is something wrong with my ipod that prevents it from syncing with my computer, I am still tempted to add music to my library at 99 cents a pop. And the new thing they have that is a lot like pandora that suggests new music to you is dangerous.

Challenge 3 continued

I figured I would research something I needed to figure out anyway and that is why July (my dog) itches when he gets the expensive diet, the special shampoo and all the latest flea and tick technology. Here's some sites I went to:
The Bad
http://www.allergicpet.com/skin-eze_testimonials.html?source=GoogleSkinezeAdWordTest&gclid=CPm6voPJnJYCFRhhnAodSn_36Q

Better
http://www.petpeoplesplace.com/resources/advice/dogs/66.htm
or
http://priory.com/vet/vetatop1.htm
or
http://www.vetinfo4dogs.com/ditch.html

Best
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2082006

All I really know after that is that there are a lot of things that could be causing it and I will just start with the least expensive to try and fix it. Carol

Challenge 3 in progress

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Your name: Carol Elliott Bye-bye!
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Course: Electric Boogaloo
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Burkot, Emily
Comments/Questions: A tech challenge at our public library.

Challenge 2 Truthiness

I really had a good time exploring the sites Emily gave us. I could spend hours on Snopes.com and probably did. It doesn't have the "authority" that the others did as far as what was truthiness in relation to the candidates for president but I found out some dirt on some candidates that just verified what I thought of them. The other sites were good...every voting person in this country should be given the mandatory assignment of reading them before they are allowed to vote. That is all I've got to say about that. Thanks for pointing them out to us Emily.

tech challenge 2 posting

Hidee folks,
Here we go with a new ball game. I'm doing this for the fun of it but I hope to get some new things to use on a regular basis. Like I said on Emily's blog, I use bloglines a lot and librarything but there are a bunch of things we went through that I never use. I'm looking forward to all of your comments while participating. Carol