SPJ

I loathe the jiggling at the start of the Voyage

2008-09-29T18:10:00.000-07:00

I never did get the RSS feed 23 Things lesson. I tried as a duty to understand the process, but in the very disinterested manner of the school child who knows the lesson on algebra or the Battle of Salamis* is not for her. Tom helped me create a few links and I have looked at them rarely. This is mainly because I have my own methods of information retrieval that are immediate, relevant and referenced according to my requirements. I am glad Dana told me about the Annoyed Librarian which I have as an alert but irritated with myself that I did not limit it to the one feed for AL. There are an amazing number of items with “annoyed” and “librarian” in a multitude of articles. I keep it going as is, as I have come across some brilliantly written articles, often from the real Annoyed Librarian: http://annoyedlibrarian.blogspot.com/. I found out there is a blog for Librarians who swear profoundly(say F***) or something like that. I have lost the link but it was sharp and amusing and irreverent which I like when it is funny.

Google Blogs Alert for: Annoyed Librarian - 30 September 2008

--
Nursing Week Day 1- An unpleasant experience
By Esther(Esther)
I was annoyed. I dropped by the hospital library because I was looking for a book for my brother. I heard that it was there and so, I wanted to have a look at it because I thought at least, I would have an idea of it when I looked for ...
TYPE [89] - http://type89.blogspot.com/
busy busy!

By Julia Reina
I am hella excited, especially since Jay has an appointment to speak with a librarian Friday afternoon about an institution he has been interested in for quite some time (ie: if he impresses them on this visit and they're hiring next ...
"...no dead end in sight..." - http://lowyndcastleblog.typepad.com/no_dead_end_in_sight/

Angels and Demons
By Bala - Keep it cool(Bala - Keep it cool)
To Stan Planton, head librarian, Ohio University-Chillicothe, for being my numbersource of information on countless topics. To Sylvia Cavazzini, for her gracious tour through the secret Passetto. And to the best parents a kid could hope ...
The Da Vinci Code - http://balasolai.blogspot.com/

Comparison of Free Patent Databases
By Michael White(Michael White)
I get a little annoyed when I see claims such as this, especially when the database provider doesn't state the contents and dates of coverage. Having a great search engine doesn't mean much if the underlying data is incomplete. ...
- http://patentlibrarian.blogspot.com/

Well I have looked and looked at the instructions for Voyage RSS Feed and tried several times to work on the program to get experiential knowledge. I pressed the pink and I pressed the blue. The items for the hour or minute were boring to me. I had to peer through the bounces to try to identify an item I found interesting enough to take to the next step.

One quick click on one of my frequently used links, and I can find the up to minute news item on the NY Times site.

Bailout bill slapped aside; record stock plunge : http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/washington/AP-Financial-Meltdown.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Filed at 8:20 p.m. ET – that is NY Time and it was 10:20 am here.

The bonus with my “feed” is I do not have to watch bobbling items of no interest flicking like a 1960s era TV screen.

I have no use for Voyage RSS: I cannot work it out. I tried and failed to connect.

* I however loved Greek ancient history –
The Persian Wars (492 - 449 B.C.) were fought on land and sea. The Battle of Salamis was a decisive naval battle of these Persian Wars that followed the Battle of Thermopylae -- the one where the 300 Spartans and allies made a brave, but hopeless stand against the far superior forces of the Persians. After Thermopylae, the Persian forces destroyed Athens. But by the time the Persians arrived, Athens had been evacuated and the Greek military leaders were preparing to meet the Persians at Salamis. http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/salamis/g/Salamis.htm

Picture this.

2008-07-16T00:56:00.000-07:00

http://images.swinburne.edu.au/handle/1111.1/1982

This is one of the 1.5 MILLION images on Picture Australia.( Click the link for a better view) It depicts Mrs Swinburne, in garden party regalia, hostess of a garden party at Shenton, the Swinburne family home in Hawthorn, 1945. The garden party for staff was an annual event.. The faded photo is in an album of photographs donated to Swinburne by one of the family. Like most photographs this, and the others in the album, offer viewers a wealth of information – fashion, hospitality, Swinburne family commitment to staff, formality and manners,language, collection habits…

These pictures would never have been seen again, but now can be through Picture Australia.

Web 2.0 is changing, no, has changed, the stately world of library and museum collections

I went to Canberra early this week and attended a meeting of participants in Picture Australia: http://www.pictureaustralia.org/

I just cannot work out whether I am enthralled by anything to do with giving the public a chance to look at wonderful things or I am enthralled that this is done so brilliantly, eloquently and idiosyncratically through the internet and Picture Australia.

I listened to presentations from new participants to P A, developers of new search engines talking in technical language I do not really understand but know what they are talking about and talks by eminent scholars in the field of communication between communities and the use of web 2.0 technology that is revolutionising this.

When I think about the swirling items of information I gleaned in that one day in Canberra, I find that I am definitely shouting hurrah to the people in museums and libraries who are working with the web 2.0 phenomena to make their collections available to searchers, even flickr and google searchers. There is now a new world out there where even the littlest (regional) library, when a participant in Picture Australia, is getting “web hits” from anywhere and everywhere because its staff have:
*gone to the public to suggest that their stories and photographs are important and had the public respond in droves with marvellous and perfectly valid material;
*added terms to their cataloguing of items, formerly languishing in archives, and in transferring their data to Picture Australia, brought a new admiring audience – the general public and researchers;
*been able to get grants from their own management, regional government and other such bodies to further enhance the accessibility of their collections because they are getting such rich feedback from their own and external communities (and the Councillors like their photographs on line, on flickr, on the www).

Research in earnest is now taking place within the institutions and in the academic world about connecting or being connected to popular sites like flickr to beef up the numbers of visits to their sites. Serious (re)searchers can always find most of what they want, whether they use popular sites or esoteric and little known search engines. But the public at large favour ease and easy, so they use google, wikipedia, flickr and others as well as a specific library or museum catalogue on line if they know the item is most probably in that institution.

I am quite amused by my own views post 23 things, my presumption of what a conference such as Picture Australia would have said even a short time ago, say 3-4 years, about all this acceptance of new audiences via the popular. I even sensed a small amount of reluctance to “give in” and a wish to remain pure.

One of the most interesting issues I have pondered on since my day in Australia’s capital is that Delta Goodrem’s dress is a very popular site for the Powerhouse Museum* and so is the Tyrrell collection**

Extract

“The Delta Goodrem dress was collected by the Museum as an example of contemporary fashion and in particular the influence of 'celebrity' on style, and thus it is entirely appropriate that this object be discovered by users searching in Google or linked from Goodrem fan sites. It also has a relatively complete object record with three available zoomable images (including one of Delta Goodrem wearing the dress), a full statement of significance, object description, production notes and history notes (totalling 865 words) written by curator Glynis Jones. The object has never been on public display. However, this is not the whole story.” Read more*

Extract
“Powerhouse Museum joins the Commons on Flickr - the what, why and how
What Flickr offers the Powerhouse is an immediate large and broader audience for this content. And with this exposure we hope that we will have a strong driver to increase the cataloguing and digitisation of the remaining Tyrrell glass plate negatives as well as many more the previously hidden photographic collections of the Powerhouse. **
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

All is well with our world when a pop star’s dress and the Tyrrell collection are written about in learned articles about collecting, accessing, search engines, museums and the public view of them, as well as discussed at meetings of librarians and museum curators.

*Chan, S., Tagging and Searching – Serendipity and museum collection databases. In J. Trant and D. Bearman (eds). Museums and the Web 2007: Proceedings. Toronto: Archives & Museum Informatics, published March 31, 2007 at http://www.archimuse.com/mw2007/papers/chan/chan.html

**About this entry: http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/dmsblog/index.php/2008/04/08/powerhouse-museum-joins-the-commons-on-flickr-the-what-why-and-how/Author:
Seb Chan
Published:
08.04.08 / 6am

Kartoo: That was a bit scary

2008-07-07T01:34:00.000-07:00

I thought I would give kartoo a bit of a challenge. I wondered if a photo on my flickr account of two sheep dogs in Dunkeld Victoria would be picked up. I put in Slim and Dusty + sheepdogs + flickr + Victoria and got waaay more than I bargained for. Parents should beware if their children find this search engine.

Here are some of the sites that came up:

• G'day,to all Country Music singers and songwriters. I have two programs that go to air at EMFM 104.7 the only local Community Radio in Echuca

• Nanotechnology world

• safari-magazine.ru

• A blog with many items including this :Writers, though - we’ve got the weekend song tomorrow with the latest volley in the fusilade of tunes I routinely fire off to scare of the crows, and I’ll close with Mark Twain, who called music: “that magician of magicians; who lifts his wand and says his mysterious word and all things pass away and the phantoms of your mind walk before you clothed in flesh.”

• And this – one of my favourites - Rodrigo Y Gabriela on YouTube

• A Greek site about something Greek with a You Tube entry for several men speaking Greek

• The Crusade of Varna

But I also was given a site which was for **** for **** for ****absolutely unmentionable/printable words. Oh dear me.

How could Kartoo have brought this up for Slim and Dusty and sheep dogs and Victoria and Flickr? I dared not look at the site. And why throw up the others? I can see the point of the Country & W site but - nanotechnology? A Spanish guitar duo? The crusade of Varna?*

I tried again with Sara Jervis + Slim etc and voila – up it came.

But that was scary and I became afraid to open sites as they may be obscene or tracked by the CIA.

I think I shall stick with google

*The Crusade of Varna was a string of events in 1443–44 between the Kingdom of Hungary, the Serbian Despotate, and the Ottoman Empire. It culminated in a devastating Hungarian loss at the Battle of Varna on November 10, 1444.
Wikipedia

Triple test on catalogue: VuFind and the others

2008-07-07T00:19:00.000-07:00

National Library of Australia
I looked up George Swinburne and came upon several items that are very interesting for an insight into George Swinburne’s opinions outside of the Technical College:
• The League of Nations - the hope of the world – address delivered in Adelaide, South Australia, on April 27th, 1926
• Time limit v. monetary compensation – speech September 7, 1905;
• Small arms factory, Lithgow : report [to the Minister of Defence] / by Mr. G. Swinburne Inter-state Commissioner : re-dispute between the management and the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, 1914;
• Murray River Waters and Mallee Frontage Setlement (sic): parliamentary trip of inspection by steam boat from Echuca to Mildura and the Darling Junction, October 17th to 22nd, 1907; trip authorized by Thomas Bent, Premier of Victoria and carried out by George Swinburne

Buzziwig / by Mrs. George Swinburne also came up. It is a children’s book published in 1931 as part of RNB children's literature series

State Library of Victoria
I looked up the State Library of Victoria catalogue and found some entries but the few papers in the collection were listed in the separate manuscripts catalogue. (2 searches)

Swinburne University of Technology
I looked up Swinburne’s catalogue and found the main entries – the Sugden biography, artwork – reference to the G S bust in the Image Bank and a paper, The Boy : His Relation to Industry, a pamphlet written by G S in about 1927. I also found loads of books with Swinburne College of Technology/Institute of Technology as publisher, but nothing to do with George.
Three different types of entries – book; artwork; archival document; one search. Tick

My opinion - VuFind is excellent

Would I have found the same items in the one search in the National Library of Australia catalogue pre VuFind?

I am elated: new knowledge – Semantic web; mentor – Tom; helper – Dragan

2008-07-03T19:53:00.000-07:00

Human thinks and works collaboratively and uses technology: concept for Semantic web

I listened to Tom then paused to search the example about the Seoul Olympics and the weather in Melbourne on the opening day.

I entered into Google - Seoul + Olympics + weather + Melbourne

I found out that the Seoul Olympics were in September 1988, opening day 17 September 1988. As the table of Olympics gave only dates, I guessed 1988. So the first reference was only to the Olympics, and I am glad for a future trivia night I know the year of the Seoul Olympics and the opening date.

I then entered weather + Melbourne + 17 September 1988 and found no useful reference.

Then I thought I would go to the newspaper records in the Library and hunt up the Age for 17 September 1988 and look at the weather report.

Dragan helped me load the “Age” newspaper tape in the old technology into the new technology reader and I printed the weather page from the PC. *

As I did this, I thought how familiar Semantic Web seems in relation to what I know about Artificial Intelligence. This is more than what I gleaned from the movie A I. Our previous Vice-Chancellor was a brilliant researcher in this field and as I worked in chancellery I got to know some of the research he was working on.

I note in the Andrew Walmsley, reference , he mentions Artificial Intelligence.

I never, ever say that anything to do with the developments envisaged for the new web world is futuristic gobble. Not any more.

But I see the issues with Semantic web are to do with humans anticipating how to write data to connect. One day there will be a website devoted to the weather in the world at the time of the Olympics. There will be a website about writers who write in the spring and who focus only on children’s books. Every time a brilliant internet site is created, it will have taken a brilliant person to work out how to create connections – weather and Olympics, children’s authors and spring. The creators of these websites will know to make sure that the weather in USSR is divided up in the different states - Georgia, Kazakhstan, etc. as the person looking up the weather in Kazakhstan pre perestroika may not look up USSR and there may be no records for the season Enid Blyton wrote “The Magic Faraway Tree.

* It was Cloudy with showers developing during the day. Wind tending cooler southerly and freshening. Max:16

To be in there and because I am essentially curious, I entered Linkedin.

2008-07-03T16:48:00.000-07:00

As usual it was very simple. The tricky part is to remember your password. From experience I now print out the register details and write the password on the sheet. Trickier still is where to put the details, but I am a librarian.

The first of the new 5 is irrelevant to me. I do not want a job, consultancy, to meet people, to talk about myself, to describe my job. For others this may be just the link they have been waiting for.

My experience with the first 23 things has taught me to go into these projects to see what is there. I have and I am glad I am still curious. That knowledge is the key.

I can do it.

I did it

I do not need it

I exercised new-found expertise/confidence with the internet world

I may or may not brag to my family and friends by dropping a reference to Linkedin when people talk about networking

To quote Henry Jenkins*, guru from MIT on digital technology:

“…the design philosophy underpinning games in education was less about serious games than serious gaming: the content was less important than the way programs allowed students to explore and experiment.” **(my emphasis)

*Peter de Flores Professor of Humanities and co-director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Comparative Media Studies program

**From an article in the Australian Higher Ed section 2 July 2008

I love the Internet (2)* - because of serendipity

2008-04-28T22:09:00.000-07:00

There have been posts along the way of 23 Things that have referred to learning through browsing. As my research penchant has infiltrated my professional and personal life for … my lifetime, I have come across items which thrill me, satisfy my curiosity, lead me to ponder indefinitely and cause me to say YES, I am correct, the latter as I try simultaneously to be humble.

My google alert has given me this blog which has given me the above and in spades:

http://libraryjuicepress.com/blog/

[I am not sure why the link does not work - shall try to correct later]

. There is so much intellectual quality and variety that I am overwhelmed. I want to share some of the gems with all my fellow travellers and will eventually convert the elements to T Card (transaction card) summaries. (My long conversations with my friends usually have agenda items, listed on the metaphorical t cards.)

Here are a couple of snippets:

George Steiner recently argued that progress in the “hard” sciences and technology (technosciences, Hottois would say, since he claims they are now inseparable) opens new paths into the future, while progress in the humanities and social sciences leads to deeper understanding of the past, which is to say of ourselves. Part of that work of understanding must be understanding technology, not just past technologies, but today’s and our imaginations for tomorrow’s as well. Only when we understand can we decide whether or not some change is progress or regress] Yet our understanding of what happens today will certainly change as the consequences of today’s actions gradually unfold. Like the inventors of DDT, the inventors of information technologies have almost no grasp of what they are actually doing and what these technologies will mean to future generations. Our understanding can never be “once and for all” because the future will reveal what we could not imagine, much less know, today.

For Hottois, Virilio and Ellul the development and use of technologies of any sort must be accompanied by critical examination from as many perspectives as life provides. Without that critical activity, we shall be submitting ourselves blindly to a truly archaic servitude; technology as a “god”is far more cruel and inhuman than the divinities, priests, kings and tyrants of the past precisely because of the power and efficacy of our technologies. It is not by accident that this activity—critical inquiry in pursuit of understanding—happens to be—or at least formerly was—the raison d’être for the existence of the academic library. And I argue and urge that librarianship be firmly rooted in that activity and not simply a chase to learn how to use the latest or the most popular technologies on the market As Andrew Abbott put it, ” the future of serious library scholarship lies in a critically constructive and intense engagement with technology, not a running from it or a welcoming embrace.” Librarianship always involves an interpretation, a symbolic accompaniment of technologies, not simply their use.
“Technology waits for no one” Ms. Mercado claims, but technology is not going anywhere. WE are going somewhere, even if we do not know where, and we make technologies to aide us in doing what it is that we want to do. It is that “we” that we must not forget, for it is that same “we” that brings us both GoogleBooks and the Gulag. Among librarians, discussions of the Internet, the Semantic Web, Library2.0 and so on are all too often evidence that we are not engaged in the lucid, critical examination of our ideas and their incarnation in technologies and techniques, but rather irrationally and archaically enslaved to the magic and miracles hawked in the marketplace.

At your leisure I recommend a viewing - it takes time.

• See: http://saraj23things.blogspot.com/2007/10/i-love-internet.html

Oh dear me: But yes we have come a long way baby?

2008-04-23T23:39:00.000-07:00

I shall illustrate:

“No one can have anything but admiration for a girl or woman who works to maintain a home which is bereft of father or brother, but…surely an attractive girl of 22 or 23 should find something better to do than drive a lift. At present girls and women are employed on numerous jobs which should be reserved for men, and it is difficult to understand the outlook of a firm which employs girls to work a lift in preference to a man.
Countless homes would be much better were the daughter at home helping with household duties instead of throwing a man into unemployment and distress and then spending the money so earned on useless pleasures.
No-one questions that there are certain occupations for which female labour is more suitable than that of men, but the employment of girl labour in all kinds of positions is wrong, and calls for immediate attention on the part of the legislature. The longer action is delayed the worse it becomes. So long as girls displace men in this way, so long will the girls be unmarried and without proper homes of their own.

I feel sure The Herald would do a service to the community by calling public attention to what to my mind is one of the most serious problems of the present time.”

Extract from a letter to the editor, The Herald, 4 July 1935.

The writer is a very senior person at The Swinburne Technical College.

Do I feel a catharsis in writing this post? At first I wanted to show how, 73 years later, women are successful and “accepted” in the workforce no matter what nature the employment takes - http://www.swinburne.edu.au/corporate/marketing/centenary/events/research-lectures/
Then I recall that smart women or silly women are still expected to serve in the house. A superwoman is usually one who is a scientist or a Board chair and raises children and takes them to school while being intellectually brilliant. A superman scientist is never described for his multi – skilling or how many times he goes to his childrens' sports events.

New ideas: when are they ever…..new: Could I post an item similar to this in 2020?*

2008-04-20T21:39:00.000-07:00

I am in 2020 mode

I keep seeing ideas that are modern; they are concerned with new science, come about as a result of research or following surveys.

Here are some ideas, most probably talked about at the 2020 summit.

“certain trades should start and finish earlier than others … relieving congestion [on public transport] during peak hours” (1)

Or

“…has just announced a scheme in which early risers will get free train travel to work.
In a bid to ease congestion on Melbourne's overburdened rail system, the 'earlybird' …card will allow commuters to travel free on any train scheduled to arrive at its destination by 7am. (2)
Or

“We build on the outskirts of the outer suburbs. Once more we are in the metropolitan area. So we see the solution [to transport congestion to the city] is not easy. One idea is to form separate communities. This means further extensions in suburbs are prohibited. It is then necessary to define various green belts and possible new centres.
All these ideas go readily to answering our problem of transport and if they are suitable we shall be doing our city a great service.”(3)

Or

"Melbourne’s green wedges are on the brink of destruction. While development has spread out along the transport corridors, there has been increasing pressure on municipal councils to allow development of the green wedges for urban, residential and industrial uses. At least one green wedge is about to be cut in two by residential subdivision: some are at risk of appropriation as transport corridors. Rates on green wedge farmers and conservationist landholders are becoming prohibitive as market valuations increasingly reflect their development potential and as speculators buy in and close down farms and other non-urban enterprises."(4)
Or

"For the first time in Australian planning history, the Victorian Government has announced it will legislate to define the boundary to the urban area and prohibit urban uses in Melbourne’s green belt.
This will make Victoria a world leader in city green-belt preservation. Rural and agricultural uses will be protected.
Australian cities have spread across more than one million hectares of rural land since 1945. On current trends, another 25,000 hectares of rural land will be lost to urban development by 2021." (5)

* Absolutely

(1) Open Door, Swinburne College Magazine, November 1937
(2) The Age , September 2007
(3) Open Door, Swinburne College Magazine, November 1937
(4) The Age, October 2002 – from article by M Buxton
(5) Ibid

Harsh - Hyperbole - True

2008-04-17T22:41:00.000-07:00

Barry Jones was asked (by Crikey) for his 200 words about the 2020 summit. He is a member of one of the groups. He was also asked the following:

Issue you have changed your mind over in last 10 years. What is it? What changed your mind?

I was wrong to assume that the Information Revolution would be an instrument of personal liberation and an explosion of creativity, raising the quality of public debate, encouraging evidence-based decision-making, enhancing rationality, and weakening fundamentalism and fanaticism. Instead, it has entrenched tribalism, dogmatism and retreat into the realm of the personal. The Information Age has increased the power of information providers, has been characterised by domination of public policy by managerialism, replacement of ‘the public good’ by ‘private benefit’, the relentless ‘dumbing down’ of mass media, linked with the cult of celebrity, and substance abuse.

Crikey.com
18 April 2008

Television: “ tremendous advances during the first part of this century…”

2008-04-16T19:51:00.000-07:00

I love reading about tremendous advances.

“The story of television, though equally as interesting, is not nearly as well known as that of wireless, possibly because in this age of scientific achievement people are inclined to take every new wonder as a matter of course.”

“Television, as a form of public entertainment, is yet many years away, not just “around the corner” as the popular press has been saying for some time.”

“Many great strides have been made in the last five or six decades but the obstacles to be overcome are still many and formidable, and until at least some of these difficulties are conquered television will remain in the hands of the research engineers.”

“The early demonstrations were followed by a transmission from London to New York, and from London to the liner Berengaria (http://www.bairdtelevision.com/ ) in mid ocean, on which occasion the wireless operator had the distinction of being the first man to see his fiancée by wireless.”

************

I wonder how many would see these sentences and think they could be from an article in the Swinburne College magazine – “Open Door”, November 1935?

The writer, Alec H Clyne, in his article entitled “Television: its development and present state” proposes that he will “deal with the more outstanding developments in television made up to the present time, and to outline some of the systems now in the hands of the research engineers, with their attendant difficulties”. He concludes with “…”I have endeavoured to deal with the optical side of television, chiefly for the non technical reader.”

___________________________________________________

Now for the present:

Future CD's to be a digital Aladdin's cave
Story by David Adams
Imagine being able to put your entire DVD collection on a single disc. And not just your collection, but also that of your family, friends and neighbours … the contents, in fact, of as many as 200,000 DVDs.

It sounds a stretch of imagination, but this is the aim of Professor Min Gu and his team at Swinburne University of Technology’s Centre for Micro-Photonics.

They are three years into a fiveyear project that is looking at how nanotechnology – particularly the use of nanoscopic particles – can be used to exponentially increase the amount of information contained on a single disc.

Their ultimate aim is to be able to include as much as a petabyte (PB) – 1015 or one quadrillion bytes – of data on a single disc, an amount 20,000 times greater than the amount of data currently able to be stored on a Blu-ray Disc, which is a high-density optical disc format. “The idea is to incorporate nanostructured material and to increase the data capacity without necessarily increasing the size of the CD or DVD disc,” says Professor Gu, who is director of the Centre for Micro-Photonics and leading the $1 million project.

From “Swinburne Magazine” March 2008

****************************************************

Here are two perfect illustrations of the ever present theme at Swinburne – technology, research and explanation

-73 years apart?

So You Want to Be a Blogging Star?

2008-03-25T23:11:00.000-07:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/20/technology/personaltech/20basics.html?em&ex=1206676800&en=9d3733b8625e0d92&ei=5087%0A

Here is something of a primer for the bloggers among us.

Some of the paragraph headings:

Don’t expect to get rich.

Write about what you want to write about, in your own voice.

Fit blogging into the holes in your schedule.

Just post it already!

Keep a regular rhythm.

Join the community, such as it is.
******************************************

There are some good links to famous and successful (?) bloggers: http://www.blogmaverick.com/http://www.blogmaverick.com/

Why Old Technologies Are Still Kicking

2008-03-25T23:02:00.000-07:00

Why Old Technologies Are Still Kicking: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/23/technology/23digi.html?ex=1221883200&en=6282d3c9731ebd9c&ei=5087&WT.mc_id=TE-D-I-NYT-MOD-MOD-M038-OP-0308-L1&WT.mc_ev=click&mkt=TE-D-I-NYT-MOD-MOD-M038-OP-0308-L1

I came across this item in the New York Times. The fact that it speaks of the premise that I espouse incessantly, of course made it alluring for me. I itch to pass it on to all those out there who are doomsayers or want to reinvent (and you spend), reinvent (you spend) like a snake oil merchant.

Here are snippets:

"The weight of legacy is underestimated, according to John Staudenmaier, editor of the journal Technology and Culture, because innovation is so often portrayed as a bold break with the past. A few stories of technological achievement fit that mold, like the Manhattan Project, but they are rare indeed."

"…But the old technology or business often finds a sustainable, profitable life. Television, for example, was supposed to kill radio, and movies, for that matter. Cars, trucks and planes spelled the death of railways. A current death-knell forecast is that the Web will kill print media."

***********************************

I think the points made are worth bearing in mind as we consider our strategies for our library future. It is the business of conducting our library operations that is paramount, not the latest technology and who is using or not using what.

Youth have too much time on their hands and too much money

2008-03-05T20:33:00.000-08:00

“…there is one fault in the present system of bringing up [children] ..is the fact that there is too much ease, pleasure and sport and youth has too much money…and too many opportunities to gratify their desire for pleasure….they would be more skilled …and succeed in business, if life was not so easy for them and they did not have so many opportunities for wasting time in material pleasures.
To those who want to get on in life and want to be successful, concentrate your ambitions and ability on the better things in life, which are infinitely more important than the frivolous things that appeal so readily to youth in this country.”*

* Sydney Myer
Governing Director of the Myer Emporium

Extract from an address to Swinburne students in the 1931 June edition of Open Door, the College Magazine

Who would have thought to call the anthropologist in to find out what students in libraries (really) want?

2008-03-05T18:54:00.000-08:00

I came across this survey through a Google alert. I glanced at it to see if my colleagues who are deeply into this kind of information may be interested.

After a quick look, even I was interested in some of the points made about students, especially about those millennial ones, who are supposed to be a cohort, as opposed to being individuals.

The premise of the (yet another) survey of library users is that an anthropologist was called in to undertake some of the research. The chapter headings include: “Library design and ethnography”, “Then and now: how today’s students differ”, “The Mommy model of service”.

A particularly interesting chapter focuses on “student-centred “ – Google lists 13,000 results for Student- Centred- Universities. "…consequently to be truly student-centred, we must be cognizant of the high-level student trends, BUT truly fluent in the local campus situation." ( P83)

Here is a link to the survey document: http://www.alastore.ala.org/SiteSolution.taf?_sn=catalog2&_pn=product_detail&_op=2434

I have an electronic copy of the paper on file.

Unfaithful - not loyal - shifting

2008-02-26T20:49:00.000-08:00

I really, really want to denote progressive thinking, as in, continuing to progress with Web 2.0. But I cannot stop returning to “plus ca change…”. Web 2.0 has taught me new tricks and methodologies with the internet and now I am the guru in my life outside Swinburne with nearly everyone in my ken, even my two sisters who are both IT experts. One was in computers in 1965 when they were the size of a large room.
I am a genius almost, or at least really clever, because I am au fait with the “communication-with-the-world and outer space aspect of the web – blogs, flickr, you tube and you name it. To them I have defied their view of me as a sound interpreter of most things modern as new/repackaged versions of the old ways – but with bells on. However, I am becoming a bit of a pariah among my family and friends in dealing with blogs and facebook (the latter I just did the 23 things exercise as I had to).

Where is my well- and often- espoused scepticism?

As Kath would say …I have 3 things to say, or she says something like that:

1 I have forgotten or am now ignoring a lot of what I learnt about the 23 things I had no interest in – google docs, Facebook, LibraryThing, RSS feeds. I admire my colleagues’ testing of the tools we have learnt about - Library 2.0, or why I’m not running off to join the cult just yet; Wikis: Not all that wiki

2 I am feeling like I am about to jilt 23 things. Like many quick relationships, I got a tremendous, and I repeat, tremendous boost out of my new-found knowledge through 23 t and I loved participating with my colleagues in the first flushes of action. I also loved the aura I had, around my family, etc. when I dropped words like blog (for heavens sake) and flickr. Admittedly I sounded like a bit of a spruiker, just as friends and family hyperbolize like sales people/ keep pestering me to get Foxtel to open up a whole new world. I say I do not want or need Foxtel's World Movies or Ovation and to watch more Television. They say I would love it. They seem to ignore that I can watch TV on our old 25 year old model (2nd TV for a program not liked by one of us) and can watch old movies late at night or on the DVD player if desired and I like going to the cinema to watch new movies. We have never recorded TV programs, because we did not bother to find out how, but mainly because we would not find time to watch the recorded TV program which was considered a bit like yesterday's newspaper. While Foxtel is not new, I feel the same lack of interest in new phenomena such as 20/20 cricket or new AFL teams in Western Sydney, coffee chains or popular romantic movies – The Enchanted.
I did love Once and I am so proud to see the song from that movie won the Academy award. I felt like a winner with the actual winners.

3 I see that there are millions, if not billions of people who do not need Web 2.0 and millions of these come to Libraries and get what they want, as librarians have been assisting people do this forever, pre and post Web 2.0.

Kluster: People who do online networking get it.

2008-02-24T17:17:00.000-08:00

http://kluster.com/

Can Swinburne streak ahead with a similar forum and radicalise the "suggestion box"?

We know that rewards concentrate the minds of our students and staff. Kaufman's program of rewards is based on using a tokens-voting system to determine the best idea worth "prototyping".
There is a plethora of items on the internet about Kluster. We would be wise to keep a very close watching brief on Kluster and Kaufman.

***********************************************************
Some excerpts from the launch of Kluster:

"We are going to allow all the people out there that have new ideas, or thoughts on how to improve something, or expertise on developing concepts to finally realize their potential."

"Every new idea will meet its skeptics. Radical concepts, however, often take a greater amount of time to justify and coax critics onto its side - and Kluster was no exception….. A normal response is, “But, that’s not how this kind of thing is usually done.” Of course this isn’t how it’s usually done! That’s why it’s effective, exciting, and worth while. If this were normal, we wouldn’t be here."

"Ultimately, Kluster is about connecting people and busting open the vacuum so often used in the idea development and evolution process. "We are going to allow all the people out there that have new ideas, or thoughts on how to improve something, or expertise on developing concepts to finally realize their potential. We are breaking down the usual barriers to consumer influence and entrepreneurship"

Ben Kaufman at the launch of Kluster.

**********************************************************************

From the "Without Thought" website: http://withoutthought.wordpress.com/

"Watt next?

2008 looks set to be the year of the ‘WE’. Today, Tech Crunch announced the launch of a new online product called Kluster. Kluster is designed to help companies take advantage of a sea of on-line talent and may have a solution to one of the chief concerns bugging democratization; ‘What’s in it for me?’. Kluster appears to have an answer to that quandary with a currency system referred to as ‘Watts’. Tech Crunch quotes CEO Ben Kaufman

“Our Watt system is like a currency. You get a certain amount of Watts. As you do more things you get more Watts. Instead of voting on ideas, you invest your Watts in concepts you like.”

"You have the better brand, the brand built by the people," Kaufman said. "The power of community is the best protection of an idea."

Beautiful physics and the magnificent internet

2007-12-18T21:34:00.000-08:00

For those who are interested in on line university forums; physics; MIT’s (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) approach to their iconic lecturers/professors, this is a piece from the New York Times, 19 December 2007.

I have a link to the paper and have put this on my blog as it is fascinating on a number of levels to all those who love the internet.

Education
University Lectures Are Going Global

By SARA RIMER
Published: December 19, 2007
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Walter H. G. Lewin, 71, a physics professor, has long had a cult following at M.I.T. And he has now emerged as an international Internet guru, thanks to the global classroom the institute created to spread knowledge through cyberspace.
His videotaped physics lectures, free online on the OpenCourseWare of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have won him devotees across the country and beyond who stuff his e-mail inbox with praise.
“Through your inspiring video lectures i have managed to see just how BEAUTIFUL Physics is, both astounding and simple,” a 17-year-old from India e-mailed recently.
“I walk with a new spring in my step and I look at life through physics-colored eyes,” wrote Steve Boigon, 62, a old florist from San Diego.
Professor Lewin delivers his lectures with the exuberant panache of Julia Child bringing French cooking to amateurs and the zany theatricality of You-Tube’s greatest hits. He is part of a new generation of academic stars who hold forth in cyberspace on their college Web sites and even, without charge, on iTunes U, which went up in May on Apple’s iTunes Store.
In his lectures at ocw.mit.edu, Professor Lewin beats a student with cat fur to demonstrate electrostatics. Wearing shorts, sandals with socks and a pith helmet, nerd safari garb, he shoots a stuffed monkey wearing bulletproof vest with a cannon loaded with a golf ball, to demonstrate the trajectories of objects in free fall.
He rides a fire extinguisher-propelled tricycle across his classroom to show how a rocket lifts off.
He was No. 1 on the most downloaded list at iTunes U for a while, but that line-up constantly evolves. The stars this week included Hubert Dreyfus, a philosophy professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and Leonard Susskind, a professor of quantum mechanics at Stanford. Last week, Yale put some of its most popular undergraduate courses and professors online free. The list includes Controversies in Astrophysics with Charles Bailyn, Modern Poetry with Langdon Hammer and Introduction to the Old Testament with Christine Hayes.
M.I.T. recently expanded on the success of its on-line classes by opening a site aimed specifically at high school students and teachers.
Judging from his fan e-mail, Professor Lewin, who is among those featured on the new site, appeals to students of all ages. Some of his correspondents compare him to the late Richard Feynman, the free-spirited bongo-playing Nobel laureate who popularized physics through his books, lectures and television appearances.
With his halo of wiry grayish-brown hair, his tortoiseshell glasses and his intensity, Professor Lewin is the iconic brilliant scientist. But like Julia Child, he is at once larger than life and totally accessible.
“We have here the mother of all pendulums!” he declares, hoisting his 6-foot-2 170-pound self on a 30-pound steel ball attached to a pendulum hanging from the ceiling. He swings across the stage, holding himself nearly horizontal as his hair blows in the breeze he has created.
The point: that a period of a pendulum is independent of the mass — the steel ball, plus one professor — hanging from it.
“Physics works!” Professor Lewin shouts, as the classroom explodes in cheers.
“Hi, Prof. Lewin!!” a fan who identified himself as a 17-year-old from China wrote. “I love your inspiring lectures and I love MIT!!!”
A fan who said he was a physics teacher from Iraq gushed: “You are now my Scientific Father. In spite of the bad occupation and war against my lovely IRAQ, you made me love USA because you are there and MIT is there.”
Professor Lewin revels in his fan mail and in the idea that he is spreading the love of physics. “Teaching is my life,” he said.
The professor, who is from the Netherlands, said teaching required introductory physics to M.I.T. students made him realize “that what really counts is to make them love physics, to make them love science.”
He said he spent 25 hours preparing each new lecture, choreographing every detail and stripping out every extra sentence.
“Clarity is the word,” he said.
Fun also matters. In another lecture on pendulums, he stands back against the wall, holding the steel ball at the end of the pendulum just beneath his chin. He has just demonstrated how potential energy turns into kinetic energy by sending the ball flying across the stage, shattering a pane of glass he had bolted to the wall.
Now he will demonstrate the conservation of energy.
“I am such a strong believer in the conservation of energy that I am willing to risk my life for it,” he says. “If I am wrong, then this will be my last lecture.”
He closes his eyes, and releases the ball. It flies back and forth, stopping just short of his chin.
“Physics works!” Professor Lewin shouts. “And I’m still alive!”
Chasing rainbows hooked Mr. Boigon, the San Diego florist. He was vacationing in Hawaii when he noticed the rainbow outside his hotel every afternoon. Why were the colors always in the same order?
When he returned home, Mr. Boigon said in a telephone interview, he Googled rainbows. Within moments, he was whisked to M.I.T. Lecture Hall No. 26-10. Professor Lewin was in front of a couple hundred students.
“All of you have looked at rainbows,” he begins. “But very few of you have ever seen one. Seeing is different than looking. Today we are going to see a rainbow.”
For 50 minutes, he bounds across the stage, writing equations on the blackboard and rhapsodizing about the “amazing” and “beautiful” physics of rainbows. He explains how the colors always appear in the same order because of how light refracts and reflects in the water droplets.
For the finale, he creates a rainbow by shining a bright light into a glass sphere containing a single drop of water.
“There it is!” Professor Lewin cries.
“Your life will never be the same,” he tells his students. “Because of your knowledge, you will be able to see way more than just the beauty of the bows that everyone else can see.”
“Professor Lewin was correct,” Mr. Boigon wrote in an e-mail message to a reporter. “He made me SEE.. and it has changed my life for the better!!”
“I had never taken a course in physics, or calculus, or differential equations,” he wrote to Professor Lewin. “ Now I have done all that in order to be able to follow your lectures. I knew the name Isaac Newton, but nothing about Newtonian Mechanics. I had heard of the likes of Einstein, Galileo, Keppler, Bohr but didn’t have a clue on earth as to what they were all about.
“I walk down the street analyzing the force of a boy on skateboard or the recoil of a carpenter using a nail gun. Thank you with all my heart.”

This is what I think

2007-12-10T21:27:00.000-08:00

Help me in my work?

No

How can the Library use the technologies to improve services?

How much money can we spend? I think that services available through web 2.0 can be offered and our public will be impressed, but how many staff can be allocated, how many computers and how much space in an incredibly tight timetable of events?

How can 23 things program be improved for future use?

I am tossing up whether to recommend that the program be repackaged to leave out some of the esoteric technologies which have a limited audience, within many library staff and probably will not help with our public profile one iota. While we all “had” to look at items of no or limited interest, such as igoogle pages, del.ic.ious, social bookmarking, myspace/ facebook, at least we have been made aware that this is information we can live without. On the other hand, we still had to invest our time into looking at them. The “one stop shop” or one size fits all has limitations, even if only these are assessed as leading to cynicism and a “ticking the box” mentality.

Continued blogging?

I shall keep blogging as I use the program for thinking out aloud and putting thoughts on paper.

The absolute best thing about 23 things is that I have learnt not to prejudge and to give “new” technology a go.

I am so impressed with my new skills and new reputation for being a geek. I can talk (to the innocent) authoritatively about using flickr to sort photos – the limitations and the benefits. I do so like that look of admiration at my knowledge.

Second Life where you do not go to "get a life"

2007-12-10T16:30:00.000-08:00

I confess I have been cynical before I undertook a few of the 23 things tasks. I have since posted some items about how I have been surprised at the excellence of many of the programs. My willingness to overcome suspicion has led me to be more open, but not to atavars…
I read the wiki entries and scoffed at several items:

"• Residents can explore, meet other Residents, socialize, participate in individual and group activities, create and trade items (virtual property) and services from one another.
• The stated goal of Linden Lab is to create a world like the Metaverse described by Stephenson, a user-defined world in which people can interact, play, do business, and otherwise communicate.[6] Second Life's virtual currency is the Linden Dollar (Linden, or L$) and is exchangeable for real world currencies in a marketplace consisting of residents, Linden Lab and real life companies.
• Second Life also offers the opportunity for artists to go beyond verisimilitude, to create spaces and explore ideas that don't exist or are actually unknowable and unverifiable in the real life, such the depiction of Purgatory as a train station in which souls await reincarnation in Thursday's Fictions in Second Life
• The modeling tools from Second Life allow the artists also to create new forms of art, that in many ways are not possible in real life due to physical constraints or high associated costs.. [29]"
*********************************************
This is make believe and it is NOT REAL and it has to be done over the internet, sitting at a computer. What about real exercise or interaction with people, the ones who you see everyday? I watched the Murdoch University SL introduction. It reminded me of an introduction to activities at kindergarten for new parents and the children get to wear wings.
I understand the possibilities for learning as distinct from mere escaping. I accept that for all time, people have removed themselves to other places to escape dealing with humans, as in hermits. To escape for my generation, we went to the movies then came home and read. The rest of the time we played hopscotch, travelled the lanes looking for fruit trees overhanging, to pick/pinch apricots or almonds. We even went to imaginary land via Monopoly. Some of the above descriptions in Wiki reminded me of playing Monopoly - buying real estate with fake money, which we fought over and even stole from our successful competitor’s pile, sister usually.
The real difference for me is the interaction on SL is without a human face, though the human mind is very obvious.

Then I watched the introduction to Ohio University’s SL: .video

I am impressed with Ohio University’s use of SL as another platform for learning. I tried to look at the gallery of artworks, but could not locate the exhibits. I think they are real ones. Some of Ohio’ s games are designed by MIT and are used to encourage group learning and the study of difficult science concepts:

"• The VITAL Lab at Ohio University is working on enabling tools and technologies to help instructors and students be more effective in 3-D online learning environments. Our initial successes include the now publicly accessible Ohio University Second Life campus and a number of learning aids for college, high school, and middle school students. We look forward to expanding our portfolio of learning tools to cover more classes for more students.
• Ohio University educators are holding classes in the virtual world. Katherine Milton, director of the College of Fine Arts' Aesthetic Technologies Lab, teaches an experimental media class that meets once a week in the real world and once a week in Second Life. Mostly new to this virtual world, the seniors and graduate students are examining it as a both a venue for performance and art, and as a platform for creative expression.
• Milton says the goal is not to recreate our "offline" environment, but to find ways to create dynamic content and experiences that reach beyond it. "Second Life has elements of the physical world as reference points, but the real opportunity is in creating viscerally evocative and emotionally immersive works, experiences and environments specific to this platform," Milton said.
• OUWB created its island to give users of its online graduate degree programs and certificate programs another way to access learning content. The group is also researching how virtual worlds can be more effectively used to create engaging learning experiences.
As part of a $1.7 million National Science Foundation grant, Russ College graduate students are working with area middle school science teachers to design interactive video games that will help children grasp hard-to-learn science concepts. "

************************************************************
So Ohio University has showed me the glories of SL and I did not see a wing, though I did see people flying

I tried cheezburger, following Tom's prompt

2007-12-09T22:03:00.000-08:00

walk?

I practised links - learnt from Shaun.

I shall try again without the peripheral bit to post the cheezburgered photo

Shaun showed me how

2007-12-06T21:13:00.000-08:00

reading

I thought only the real cognoscente/dab hand/master knew how to put in live links. But Sean showed me how and now I can do it.

Yes

To my family and friends I am a tech geek but I am a fraud

2007-12-03T13:44:00.000-08:00

From a google alert - blog By M Farkas | November 9, 2007
“Pennvibes"---Abstact from a DLF conference

"Pennvibes is a framework for content delivery and organization inspired by Netvibes, iGoogle, and Pageflakes. It is being developed at the Penn Libraries using AJAX, XML and Java technologies with the goal of creating a web presence that is drastically more responsive and flexible to the needs of our patrons. We also hope that Pennvibes provides an extensible delivery platform for arbitrary digital library content. When we go live (end of 2007), Pennvibes will enable our Librarians to build new reference pages in a few minutes, complete with custom-tailored (and proxied) lists of resources built from PennTags, integrated search tools (e.g., a Pubmed widget), RSS feeds, editable Webnotes, rotating image widgets, and a “My Library Account” widget that integrates items checked out, fines, and document delivery requests for the patron."

Part of the responses to the blog:
"1. Michael Winkler Says:
November 13th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
Thanks for the interest and kind words. PennVibes really is an exercise in how to deliver tools and content as widgets, individually addressable and configurable. The framework we demonstrated exists as a platform for delivery to the Penn community.”
**********************************************************

I looked at the blog above today, provided by my RSS google alerts. I cannot make head nor tail about what this PennVibes is about. The question I asked myself is do I care?
Then I thought about the fact that all this is swirling about me in reference desks here and everywhere. Or is it? I ask myself. What if I wanted a stint at being a Reference librarian and the interviewer asked me details about friendster, rotating image widgets, Pubmed widget? Would I have had to learn about them? Do all the reference librarians out there know these tools intimately? Has the librarian moved into “tech geek” territory that much?
A short few years ago (4) I worked in the chancellery and called on the reference librarians for help in research. Their response and packages of documents were entirely recognizable to me as a former research librarian. Would I now get a “new reference page in a few minutes, complete with custom-tailored (and proxied) lists of resources built from PennTags, integrated search tools”?

Is web 2.0 revolutionary and therefore every librarian in the world is revolutionized through widgets?

Those warnings again: you will go deaf

2007-12-02T20:11:00.000-08:00

I put ABC Radio national podcasts into my reader. The exercise led to me philosophising about the past, google searches and the truth...out there somewhere.

My first "fed" podcast was about Ipods and warnings about hearing loss and a solution.

"Researchers at the University of Florida who did audio testing on middle and high-school students found that about 17 percent had some degree of hearing loss. Most of the loss was in higher pitches, which are usually the first ranges of sound to go from loud music-player settings.
With these facts in mind, a company Mad Cat Interactive recently began selling AirDrives earphones, which are designed to protect against hearing loss with a unique design that exceeds the federal OSHA standards for all-day listening.
The earphones rest on the outside of the ears, letting other sounds in and protecting the eardrum against high-pressure, high-decibel sound produced by typical earbuds that sit in the ear canal. AirDrives ($99.99) and AirDrives for Kids ($69.99) keep the sound to 80 decibels, even with an iPod or other music player volume set at 100 percent, the maker says. " Nov 30 2007: ABC News: podcast

**********************************

When I was little I was told I would go deaf listening to the wireless so much; blind for reading by torch light and get sick if I let the cat in bed with me.
I survived intact.
In my time as Parent of teenagers, I warned the children about walkmans - and the danger of hearing loss. This kind of information flooded opinion pieces on the radio and in newspapers and was mulled over at dinner parties and mothers' chats:

"In the 1980s, audiologists began cautioning lovers of loud music about hearing loss that could potentially result from use of their Walkman or portable compact disc (CD) players when those devices were on the cutting edge of music listening. “We’re seeing the kind of hearing loss in younger people typically found in aging adults. Unfortunately, the earbuds preferred by music listeners are even more likely to cause hearing loss than the muff-type earphones that were associated with the older devices,” (from a google search)

*****************************

What is scientific, what is old hat, and how long before warnings are borne out and who is there to connect them, if ever? Will my son warn his daughter (now one) about going deaf if she listens to her music through whatever device is created in 2017-20?

If the walkman warnings are being borne out, there would be an epidemic of 30+ adults throughout the world with hearing problems and the ipod would have been created by these same 30 year olds with special hearing devices to protect the ear.

I was not taken notice of by the children. After all, I predicted that rap would not last and that Whitney Houston would outlast Madonna.

Itunes - Test 1 - F

2007-11-29T16:26:00.000-08:00

http://ia310102.us.archive.org/0/items/BHTM1999-06-26/BHTM1999-06

I am trying to insert a Nina Simone tune.

Fail

I followed the bouncing ball, got lost and then Carol came to the rescue

2007-11-28T15:51:00.000-08:00

I was nearly there. I installed firefox, macro media, changed pixels. The instuctions were clearcut.

Then came time to post Morticia in Wiki pets.

I tried and tried. I was here late last night and got Morticia's file ready for loading. In fact I loaded two files, but not in the pets section. I have no idea where they are.

This morning, I relooked at instructions and tried again - edit button - press; look at other entries; copy code, but I did not know how to do a straight line
rather than / . I do not know how important this is but when I "loaded" and looked at the pets page, just the words I wrote were there. I felt a fool, but knowing Carol and Jo's pets are on the page, I asked Carol for help. A few clicks, experiment, paste the straight line and remove / , change the area for the post and HEY, HEY presto, there is Morticia on the Pets page.

Thank you Carol, the solution finder.

Igoogle tasks were .....pondered but did not inspire

2007-11-28T15:08:00.000-08:00

Task 14 was looked at and considered; I did mooch about about a bit, but left spreadsheets and Google docs to those who could benefit from their undoubted merits.

I have learnt how to post videos

2007-11-22T17:10:00.000-08:00

I posted about this ukelele player in October but did not know how to include the clip. Here it is.

The player is Jake Shimabukuro and the clip was taken at NY's Central Park where Jake is a busker of renown. This clip has had over 40,000 hits on You Tube.

Zorba the Greek Yolgnu style: gorgeous

2007-11-21T22:35:00.000-08:00

I saw this video on the ABC 7:30 report and wanted to share it. It has taken me over an hour to work out how to embed the video as I clicked until my fingers were tired. I understand there are over 40,000 hits on this clip through You Tube.

Henny Pennyism or new snake oil merchants

2007-11-13T14:51:00.000-08:00

I have been ruminating of late about the theme of the web 2.0 ers who believe the programs - Google docs, flickr, podcasts and wiki sharing, etc.and etc. - are the saviour of mankind and everyone, but everyone, should know about the riches therein. They must know, they can be taught how, it is the future.

I have a sense of deja vu. I recall in the dim past, the mid 1990s, that everyone would have to have a computer or be left waay behind; $millions must be spent on the latest information superhighway or the institution will be shunned; all customers will HAVE to use the internet or be unable to bank, and the most perfect illustrations of hyperbole and/or spin, there will be no more libraries with books and there will be paperless offices.

While it is acknowledged that institutions like ours have invested heavily in IT infrastructure, it is in the latter years, post 2000 that the investments have been worth it. In the earlier years, the money spent may as well have been made into wedding confetti as that infrastucture then, that would save the institution from irrelevance, has been mothballed. If you think I am kidding, look at the mission statements and planning and budget documents of institutions, private or public, major or minor, in 1995-2000 ish.

Everywhere there were conversations about the end of the world in 2000 and PEOPLE STOCKED UP ON FOOD (non perishable).

The plethora of courses, exhortations and fundamentalist type hype for the essentiality of the new internet society, is making me suspicious. I love new things, I just think they are a wonderful addition to the old things.

I love web 2.0 and I shall be eternally grateful that I was encouraged/ required to do the 23 Things program. I have learnt to do magic and I am happy to practise my new tricks forever and unlike most magicians, pass my tricks on to anyone who stands still long enough to listen to me. But most of all,I have found in a few short weeks, that the future is the safe hands of our young colleagues. Blogging has reinforced, if I ever needed it, that the young are witty, wise, funny, passionate, ironic and just as all wise people before them, do not fall for spin.

Why do they think it is new?

2007-11-12T21:44:00.001-08:00

I started to read an item on the Library and web 2.0. I have come across a plethora of items about this, some scathing, some over excited, and a few, very funny (a la AL). I say yes and no and that is ok or that is rubbish. Indeed I have been quite stimulated by the dialogue, especially as I am in the middle of THE program!

Going back to the learned article, I have copied a few things here, from the recommended article, which I shall comment on:

This makes the work of forward-thinking instruction librarians challenging, but not impossible. These librarians can, among other things:
Make students aware of the emergence of social scholarship. Teach students about Authority 3.0 - or whatever you want to call it. Alert them to the expanding world of scholarly communication.
In conjuction with this, abandon of the notion that there is a clear distinction between traditional peer-reviewed authority and authority derived from social scholarship. To put this another way, introduce the notion that there are emerging metrics of authority that can be derived from social scholarship.
Use social tools (blogs, wikis, forums, social bookmarking, etc.) as part of the research process in their courses.
Assign readings from authoritative blogs in the research areas students are asked to explore.
Practice social scholarship, and show these activities as examples of what's on the horizon.
Incorporate this new material in tutorials on their library's Web site.

Why would librarians do this?
I quote from the Swinburne Education Specification 1971 - "A student is seeking knowledge, confidence, independence and power from his (sic) education. He wants to interpret every phase of his education as playing a part in achieving this. He wants to know now, not in five or ten years time, the relevance of this or that to his purpose; not the purpose of the teacher, but HIS purpose.
Against this background, the College will experiment with various learning situations, including the traditional lectures, tutorials, seminars, practical classes, etc. together with the newer methods, including programmed learning, closed circuit TV, films and film loops and many others."

Since students sat at the feet of Socrates (or was it Plato?) learners learn to use the tools which will please the teachers and even prep students know that. An essay citing wiki as the source or the Ohio mother of two, would probably be marked with a low score.

Here I go again

2007-11-12T21:10:00.000-08:00

del.icio.us / searchdel.icio.us / searchdel.icio.us / searchdel.icio.us / search

I was getting very frustrated as I entered del.icio.us. I mentioned in the previous post that I am now a bit over it. One more entry, one more password, one more account and what is the point? I am dutiful however and joined D ... I followed the excellent instructions from the team and typed in a topic AND NOT ONE SOUL HAD USED IT. It was about fitness as a predictor of health, so I was surprised.

I then followed my tried and true penchant and entered a couple of favourite authors and there were plenty of fellow travellers out there, writing reviews and, in some cases, blathering on. I did note a long article by Louis De Bernieres himself, about Greece, and why he wrote Captain Corelli's Mandolin. That is worth a revisit and no, I did not bookmark it or mark it a favourite or join a fan club. I just noted it and will find my way back, my way.

I have pondered a little about whether the 23 Things program is too long or too concentrated or too repetitive. I wonder if the initial half dozen or so principal tasks are enough for the new learner to get a grip on the quite amazing possibilities in web 2.0, and the next dozen are for the really, really keen. I am guessing that the program's drivers believe that the whole 23 Things is to be completed as a batch, a bit like the full dose of antibiotics, for the program to work and be understood. But I sense that there could be two stages- and the designers could conceivably create the portions to fit the needs.

This may be better than one size fits all.

Hit the wall

2007-11-06T22:53:00.000-08:00

I may have reached that point - IGoogle does not interest me.

As a new learner, I have discovered marvellous and wondrous new knowledge through the 23 things program. Nothing sticks for me if it does not resonate as a need, fundamentally.
Now I am at the stage where I do not want to IGoogle anything, I can do what I need to do without another whizz bang program.

I was at a shop today with a colleague buying a farewell gift for another colleague, and my shopping friend looked longingly at a new gadget to poach eggs and another to core apples. I diverted him saying that the gadgets will sit in a cupboard forever - stick to the tried and true methods/gadgets you use already. That is how I feel about IGoogle. My cupboard is full.

For some reason I have not peeked ahead at the new (23) tricks to learn. I wonder if I shall feel a similar ennui about them. Maybe, out there, there will be a new gadget/google product which is going to get me in.

Meanwhile, I love librarything, Google alert and especially blogging and I admire my colleague bloggers. It is a long time since I have been so stimulated to think beyond my usual boundaries, which were at the absolute edge of knowledge retrieval, or so I thought.

Delighted and Amazed (again)

2007-10-31T23:27:00.000-07:00

Today, in an exceptionally desultory manner I looked at the Google book site. I did the task as a required exercise but, hey presto, I found a book that is an icon of our family life as well as a talisman. It represents the essence of our childhood. Growing up in a family of 5 children we received books as gifts every birthday and Christmas. The selection of each book for each child was left to our Aunt Monnie who was an expert and a professional in literature and education. That did not mean we were not allowed to read "Schoolfriend" or "Phantom" comics and we read Enid B with pleasure.
Back to Google books: I am so excited to discover information about this talisman book, which I had never thought to track down in the usual Google search way. I also retrieved information on "Ernest and Celestine", a series of children's books I adored and read to my children in the 70s. This series is now out of print. While other classics of the time - "Dogger", "Corduroy", "John Brown Rose and the Midnight Cat" are still available in bookshops, "Ernest and Celestine" has disappeared. Through Google books I have found where I can buy copies of the Ernest and Celestine books through Amazon, etc.
By the by, Aunty Monnie selected those books for my children and if she was still alive, I, along with my brother and sisters, would ask her to select books for our grand children.(She was 92 when she died and still able to play scrabble in Latin.)

I called my previous dog Celestine as I loved the character so much.
I have created a very esoteric group through an earlier 23 Things task called "people who call cats after places/owners, and dogs after literature". My dog names have been Siegfried Sassoon, Maddie after "Martha Quest" by Doris Lessing, Celestine as noted above, and Morticia (who was named by the breeders who used TV series for the litter). I chose two of my dog's pups names- Malvolio and Viola. My cats - 2 in 30 years - were Rankine from the owner and Chandler from the owner.I could be calling my new cat Burwood if I get one from the RSPCA.

I say Hey ho and hurrah to 23 Things

Amazing and very, very spooky

2007-10-29T16:10:00.000-07:00

How easy is this to explore google maps? The program shows how WE ARE WATCHED, sooo comprehensively.

I started very simply with my address, my friend's address, then the way to my friend, then the satellite image of home. After that I was away, getting satellite images of a friend's home in West Palm Beach in Florida. I looked up the address of the library where my namesake in Halifax is doing the 23 things program.

I am simply overwhelmed and amazed at Google. As I reflected, I thought about the John Le Carre et al, books I read in the late 60s, early 70s and the spy/thriller films I have watched over the last 20 years. I took for granted the spying tools but now I see even I could do some spying a la Bourne Identity.

4 seconds max, and I am somewhere obscure in the world, another 2-3 seconds and I am looking at the actual residence: no need for myriad yellow stickers on pages of the street directories to mark the way to a place in an unknown suburb. Just a click, print and I have the journey mapped for me, here or in Siberia or West Palm Beach Florida.

I want to think about about how google can do this. It gives me a headache. I have read the story of the creation of google a few times. I can almost discern the logic the two "lads" used to work out how to create the search engine. Less than ten years later the search engine has all the places in the world tagged, and can show the way to a milk bar in Izmir (formerly Smyrna) in Turkey.

I often consult an atlas when I read, to show me the location of the book's setting. This was essential for my latest book - Louis de Berniere's "Birds without wings". With my new-found experience of google maps, I can hone in on all the places where the characters lived, or fought famine or their big and small wars and look at the spaces and travel routes used by them when travelling for business or more often, on forced marches to oblivion.

I have already lauded the google maps program to friends who have children and grandchildren in the US and UK. 23 things has expanded my knowledge, again.

Because

2007-10-23T22:39:00.000-07:00

Because I learnt how to use RSS I have found a treasure trove of interesting and stimulating information through the sites and Blogs I have feeds for (or is it to?).
I have read items on finding treasure/information randomly. There are bloggers who believe that "randomness" could be under threat because of the ever increasing sophistication of research engines finding answers and information too efficiently. I read about this in an erudite article on the technological library. My new RSS-initiated, randomly-gained knowledge, is valuable enough for me to now follow some pertinent threads as well as prompting me to think differently about my own research methods.
I have been alerted to some oddball items as I set up an alert to annoyed librarian, but not to the site. So when Google finds news about annoyed and librarian I am sent a message. I have discovered a site that is for librarians who say f... and yes there are over a thousand members.
I have to navigate very intricate paths to refind some of the links, over hill and down dale, but if I am persisitent I can retrace my steps. Otherwise, if I think I may lose some article or an extraordinarily odd blog, I copy it and store somewhere safe. I do not know how to feed it to myself and I do not need to know.
I have found a namesake in Nova Scotia undertaking the 23 Things program and shall follow her blog with interest. Her links are very informative.
I ask myself what I would do without my new sources of information and I shrug my shoulders and say I could live without it. This is not to say I am not loving the new treasures unfolded
because of 23 Things.

Austral Pride - ode to our 85 year old stove

2007-10-18T21:35:00.000-07:00

THE AUSTRAL PRIDE

I love my stove more than I love my pearls, TV, furniture, in fact nearly every object I own. Most of our things are replaceable, but my stove is not.

Here is a stove that has been cooking family roasts, cakes, casseroles- for over 80 years of Christmas, Easter, summer holidays, winter chill, spring bounce and autumn glow. There are knobs to turn on and off: finite tweaks can get the temperature to highest heat for fast boiling to a tiny flame to cook soup all day. The fingers do the controls: there is no automatic switch. The back of the hand gauges the oven temperature (ask your grandma).

I love the fact that in 1927 a mother cooked a roast for her family and, 80 years later and thousands of roasts later, in 2007 my husband cooks a roast for his family. When the Swinburne cookery classes were being conducted in 1922, the stoves used would have looked much like this, but not as decorative.

This lovely piece of history works and connects us to our forbears, in a "throw away" time. A good spirit is felt by all who come to visit, especially tradespeople who sigh to see such wonderful craftsmanship and manufacture.

My stove is going to be in my will along with my pearls.

Progress when I did something else?

2007-10-18T19:07:00.000-07:00

For task 7, I did not want to simpsonise myself though I looked at the program. I created a ribbon of achievement, I am blues singer "Sleepy Baby Hawkins" (generated based on my name) , and I have used the generator site to create several logos which I blogged about.

See: http://gallery.webfetti.com/webfetti/favorites.jhtml

I love the internet

2007-10-18T16:39:00.000-07:00

I listen to ABC FM when I drive. Today on my way to work, I heard a recommendation for a busker in NY's Central Park, who it appears is taking the world by storm through YouTube. The busker is a ukulele player, not my favourite instrument. The player is Jake Shimabukuro. While driving I memorised the spelling to find the video on YouTube as I was intrigued by the recommendation from this classical station.

I got the spelling wrong but nevertheless, Google corrected this and up came over 50,000 entries for Jake. Here is one of them:
http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:5pp31q_6LDgJ:galleyslaves.blogspot.com/2006/07/paganini-of-ukelele.html+%22Jake+Shimabukuro%22+%2B+youtube&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4

If I knew how to insert the video clip I would do this but this expertise is not mine...yet.

In previous times when I heard recommendations like this I would have gone to a record shop and tracked the player down and bought the record/CD/DVD. That sequence tells its own story - I still talk about records, but have only recently stopped talking about the wireless (radio) and radiogram (CD player).
Today I typed three words and pressed a button.

I am in: but not to play

2007-10-18T01:31:00.000-07:00

I am in under an assumed name with a birthdate that will put me into Facebook's elderly membership list. The steps in are just brilliantly easy and lead to success which is instant and pure magic.
I have put two photographs in an album and the images are so good they look three dimensional.
Apart from that, I am too busy with my favourite blogs, so I shall not look for friends or join groups in Facebook.

Trepidation: entering Facebook

2007-10-15T22:15:00.000-07:00

I have tried three times to join Facebook and each time I lose momentum as I think of myself in the Groucho Marks way -
I DON'T WANT TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB THAT WILL ACCEPT ME AS A MEMBER.
When I think I shall disguise my name and hide my email address, as Tom says I can, I feel concern that the name I choose may belong to a wanted person and I shall be stopped at airports. I know, how foolish and oh scaredy cat me.
I am not ready to join Facebook .... yet.

Others' blogs: Task 4

2007-10-15T21:33:00.000-07:00

I go a few steps out there and then come back to assess if I am following the correct path and sign posts -(for) the 23 Things program. Very typically for me, I often throw the rule book out as I loathe convention and adherence to formality.

However, to complete task four, I can report I have many favourite blogs, some of which I have included in my feed reader.

I enjoy reading the blogs of political writers in the newspapers. I agree wholeheartedly with Dana's comment that we should educate ourselves by reading other people's views. This is very much the case for me, especially when I am in total disagreement. How can we believe in what we do, without knowing how deeply we believe? I really love seeing views parallel to mine in news blogs, principally because they are usually much better argued than the opposite point of view (to mine).

My reading constantly reinforces this. I am reading a book* set in the beginning of last century at the time of the decline of the Ottoman Empire and the WW1, from the "other side's" view point. Gallipoli is covered from the Ottoman point of view- featuring Attaturk, the founder of modern Turkey. I would recommend everyone should read about battles from the "enemy's" side. The same goes for any deep disagreement: learn about the other side and hone your own arguments better. Or better still, you may even change your mind!

Back to reading other blogs and commenting, I do this regularly and have picked up marvellous insights.

"Birds without Wings" by Louis De Bernieres: http://www.librarything.com/work/2375/book/21930564

I think I am getting it

2007-10-11T17:20:00.000-07:00

I am thrilled, to use an odd word for me, to have (a) created a blog which I blog on; (b) thought about my photographs coming alive for me and others- through flickr; (c) LibraryThing has got me thinking that I might share my thoughts on reading, which is a solitary past time, with "complete strangers"; (d) my mind has expanded, and not because, for an internet sceptic, I have achieved a list of technical feats.

I have been musing about an almost explosion of thoughts lately on the profession of being in a library, in my case, working with the past and history. I have already been totally enthralled with how technology has brought archives to a new sphere of influence and to a whole brand new audience. But today, I read a bit about Web 2.0 -

I got this because I learnt RSS and put the Libodyssey blog as a feed. This extract is from an early Libodyssey post. As I did not wish to explore technical matters other than do my tasks, I ignored this item until today.
....................... "Stephen Fry (actor, author and broadcaster) describes Web 2.0 as "an idea in people’s heads rather than a reality. It’s actually an idea that the reciprocity between the user and the provider is what’s emphasized. In other words, genuine interactivity if you like, simply because people can upload as well as download"[6]. The phrase "Web 2.0" can also refer to the transition of websites from isolated information silos to interlinked computing platforms that act like software to the user. Web 2.0 also includes a social element where users generate and distribute content, often with freedom to share and re-use...............

The little description above explains why I am so enjoying the new mode of internet competency. The internet for me was an inert, useful tool, necessary for and in my world. Since I can hardly understand how Marconi got his telegraph working in Vancouver a century ago, let alone the fax, radio, television, I have taken for granted the mysteries of the internet, as I did the phone and the wireless, etc. and just worked with the tools. With Web 2.0 I am interacting rather than using. This has unlocked for me the reason for my joie de vie about the 23 Things program. It is not simply because I have learnt mysterious techniques. It is because I am using them to communicate (intellectual) thoughts and ideas I would only have discussed in social circumstances, that is person to person. With new skills I can do new things with old (but valuable) information and think new thoughts about it all.

Feeds and weeds

2007-10-09T16:47:00.000-07:00

I feel like a gardener who has just thrown a few seeds over a patch. I am vaguely aware of the nature of the seeds I have just sown - RSS - but I do not know what to expect.

With intelligent encouragement from my colleagues, I have asked to be fed.
I pressed the buttons for feed reader and asked for items once a day - Annoyed L and news once a week from Infodoodads. Both are cribs off Dana.

I shall await my feeds and may be I shall get as enthusiastic about the RSS achievement as I am about all the other tasks. I have mentioned before how I am concerned (just a tiny bit) at my lack of knowledge about the technical side of my button pressing. The instructions to try new wizardry are brilliantly simple, well so far, and except for RSS which I had to try several times. But, if I am bombarded somewhere with results/weeds from my feeds that I do not want, I shall just pull them up at the press of a button: simple gardening and no fear of overgrown patches.

I have begun to do a bit more with my LibraryThing. I have started to take a peek at some of the reviews of the books in my library. I have got over my annoyance at the way the user has to re enter data constantly to include 20 or more books by an author, in my case John Le Carre, and the fact that the cataloguing of my authors puts John Le Carre under C and De Bernieres under B. I think I shall be very interested in reviews of books that I have read which are not particularly well known, such as "When she was good" by Philip Roth. This lets me see, in a way, a mirror of myself. I think this may be an internet (psychological) phenomenon which is well known to internet virtuosos.

History and well-behaved women

2007-10-07T16:09:00.000-07:00

I read a review on the weekend about a book on well-behaved women .*

The background about the author and the theme of the book were read with interest - I have always loved book reviews as well as reading books. The most intriguing and revealing line in the review for me is "Still, as Ulrich notes again and again, history is'nt simply what happened in the past; it is what later generations choose to remember." **
I have spent many months this year researching our archives for relevant documents/primary sources for the Swinburne Historian, Dr Peter Love. An almost astonishing element to our history, of a Technical School, was the emphasis, from the very beginning, on training and education, for vocational/career purposes for girls and women. Peter has referred to this legagy of George and Ethel Swinburne several times in our first centenary history publication, due for release very soon - early November.

* Well behaved women seldom make history, by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Knopf

** See review by M Dirda in Australian Financial Review, Friday 5 October 2007.)

Harmony

2007-10-04T21:41:00.000-07:00

There is a gentleness in this scene. It is another photo taken by my son for his business.

New esoteric group

2007-10-04T19:13:00.000-07:00

Here is my new group in my new account:
http://groups.google.com/group/siegfriedchandler?hl=en

I love creating logos and I have explored a bit further in my task for week 5, even though I expressed my scepticism in the post before.

Week 5 task ???

2007-10-04T17:26:00.000-07:00

I tried for a bit to see how the week 5 task can reveal itself as useful. Each online feeder service did not appeal to me. I realise I am completing a task within the 23 Things program and shall press any number of buttons to achieve this goal, but I think I am experiencing a familiar feeling of knowing nothing (of this technical world) and not wanting to find out. I have created a new account, though I am not sure I shall use it.
Metaphorically speaking, I am in a new car, idly pressing buttons and one of them may open the sunroof, the boot, set off the car alarm which I have no idea how to fix. But one of them could propel me out of my seat or destroy the engine because I pressed self destruct. Now this is of course fanciful. But I have had some anxious moments pressing all the buttons for these new programs even though I know that Swinburne keeps me on trainer wheels and I cannot crash the server.
On the other hand the previous tasks have led me to new knowledge and skill and I have begun to enjoy the possibilities.
I can create (free) logos. Invitations and greetings can now have a special ELECTRONIC flair which will dazzle my circle of family and friends.
I am already planning a whole new focus for my photographs, including the ones in fusty albums from the turn of the century. I shall scan them with a Hewlett Packard scanner, recommended by a professional blogger on my flickr site. I shall include a selection in PictureAustralia Ourtown

I am happy with this blog, which has given me an opportunity to think aloud. I have to do this thinking, sensibly, as I use my name. This concentrates the mind and allows me to distill my thoughts rather than shooting off, which I have a propensity for.
I have found one of Dana's favourite blogs - Annoyed L extremely amusing. It makes me laugh and think: a perfect combination and well worth this blogging business.

Two Tasks in one

2007-10-01T22:04:00.000-07:00

Thank you to Chris who encouraged me to enter LibaryThing.

Since I read so much I did not want to enter a new world of books.

I have created my Library: http://www.librarything.com/profile/sara11 It will be interesting for me to see if my curiosity gets me to peep at some of the fans of the books I have selected initially.

Hang of creating a logo

2007-10-01T18:59:00.000-07:00

A blogger wondered where my previous attempts at logo making (playing) were going. I went back to the site and created this on the free logo section.

Playing

2007-09-30T21:21:00.000-07:00

I fiddled with my logo image. I used a Russian font and a bark background: Russian because I am reading about the Russian Revolution and bark because I love trees. I did not realise that the text for bevel would be in Russian script? It is, however, familiar to me as I struggle through the myriad Russian names and places in my Russian reading.

Not a cartoon

2007-09-30T21:10:00.000-07:00

I played for a bit then settled on creating a logo. This is the style I settled on.

Solo

2007-09-30T20:46:00.001-07:00

Tom guided me in adding my first image to the blog. I did this on my own.
Tom is an excellent teacher.

Could be anywhere: it is in Mornington

2007-09-30T20:41:00.000-07:00

Photograph taken by my son for his business website. I love the universality of the image yet it has an intimacy.

Morticia

2007-09-27T21:34:00.000-07:00

Morticia was watching me while I gardened or was she keeping watch?

Flickr group

2007-09-23T21:25:00.000-07:00

I joined a flickr group today. I joined a new group - mine. I kept it private but if anyone wants to look - http://www.flickr.com/groups/526028@N23/discuss/72157602128696908/.
The 23 Things instructions were good, but I decided to really branch out and create my own online group, rather than join an existing one - too many choices. I do not like huge "shopping centres" for any acquisitions.

Flickr: success

2007-09-23T15:56:00.000-07:00

I created the flickr account on Friday and tried to write about the task in my blog. My entry (ies) did not appear, despite pressing buttons to publish, save, etc. Getting the rhythm of blogging versus our regular communication programs at Swinburne, with all the built in protections Swinburne provides for us, will be a goal for me.
I liken reaching these achievements to climbing a steep mountain and not being out of breath at the top.

I also recognise that I am a rank amateur in this new world of the 23 things - using these almost Dr Who/out of this world (for me) programs to enter spaces I have never been. I also have a certain joie-de-vie knowing that my 1%, miniscule knowledge is about 99% more knowledge than my family and friends have. I shall endeavour not to become a geeky bore and raise the topics of blogging and using flickr at every opportunity - to show off.

Learning curve: flickr

2007-09-20T21:05:00.000-07:00

Changes, but nothing new...

2007-09-17T18:59:00.000-07:00

When I let my former colleagues at the State Library of South Australia know I had created a blog they were incredulous at the 21st century me. But then, I did use microfiche for researching queries in the mid 1960s, so I am really just adapting and using new tools of communication.

I cook on a gas stove that is 75 years old. I still use a 35 year old washing machine. My friends have appliances that ring them up when the dinner is ready ( well sort of) and these very modern appliances with 25+ electronic features seem to break down regularly to be replaced every few years.

I can see that blogging is another form of communication. There are people who throw all the old ways out and blog brilliantly but fail to continue with the "older"ways, keeping only to the brand new: they are the ones in the dark ages.

Changes....

2007-09-17T17:11:00.000-07:00

Favourite saying

2007-09-12T00:07:00.000-07:00

The shadow of an orchid cast by the moon is even more beautiful than the orchid itself

SPJ

2007-09-10T21:50:00.000-07:00

I almost shall clap for myself at this blog. I am very enthusiastic about this new learning
which 23 Things allows me.