Exterminatingangel

Twit twit .... twitterer

2009-09-28T21:40:00.000-07:00

Well it's the last leg of the journey.....
I like the Seomoz web Awards page best because it groups a whole range of different categories of applications & web pages together. It helps group things together and distinguish one from the other so that if i chose to, i could visit and compare similar applications & make an (informed) decision.
I don't like twittering -- the whole notion that people must document whatever they do as a means of showing that they're either up with the technology or so self absorbed in the minimalia of their lives that they must post -- must be other people who have nothing better to do who will read them.

2009-09-20T21:20:00.000-07:00

Well this is interesting-- image seems to upload if you save to desktop but only publishes as a link if you try to copy and paste the image URL -- not simple or obvious enough.
Thanks to Canadian Veggie for the image

2009-09-20T21:18:00.001-07:00

Riomaggiore

2009-09-16T21:41:00.000-07:00

Cinque Terre is a part of Italy that I would dearly love to go to one day before I get too old & decrepit.

Photos & videos

2009-09-16T17:40:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I spent a bit of time on Flicker--- gee there's so much there can't help but wonder, if there should ever be a need for any photography books to ever be published again??
Ok, so it's not too bad f0r a bit of armchair travelogue & giving one itchy feet --- but there's a whole lot of stuff that even Dilbert would wonder -- why why oh why?? The answer.... because they can..duuuhh!!!
Ok ok so i'm being one-eyed--- some would say no eyes -- just look at portrait of Anahit !!

There are lots of images I would love to upload but I just can't be bothered reading up & retaining the guff about what's copyright free what is not, what's ok with attribution what is not--it should be simple to work out.
Now let's see if I can upload an image

What about uploading Youtube clip?

RSS feeds and Podcasts

2009-08-24T17:54:00.000-07:00

Ah, most interesting morning learning abt RSS feeds.
It seems to be easy enough to subscribe to an RSS feed and podcast.
I guess they are useful if you want to subscribe anything and everything from a certain source.
For example i am interested in ABC/rn programs :Life Matters" and " the National Interest' but by subscribing/ adding an RSS feed I will be notified of all programs, whereas I may really only be interested in certain issues , say aged care, local government or a limited range of topics.
So, for me the value of a feed would be for the software & providers source to enable me to tag/limit the feed only to the topics I am interested in.
If I really want to know anything and everything I can go to the web site.
Of course this means spending endless hours whipping around in cyberspace to find those web sites then adding RSS feeds to my a/c. If only one has all that time to spare...

My wiki-d wiki-d ways

2009-08-03T21:28:00.000-07:00

Oh to feel the energy of wanting to start a wiki --- don't read too closely between the lines. Is it that all these bloggers actually have something to say, are they really genuine authors or auteurs manques who will only see themselves in print is through the web?
Who is to say...perhaps one needs the spare time to just whip around in cyberspace and perhaps something will grow out of it..
Words used to explain things are all well & good but one can become lost in the many words used to explain something and lose sight of the object . One must have a need for a tool in order to want to learn how to use it ; but just to learn the use of the tool is difficult without a purpose. ohhhhhh I just feel like fred bassett.

Vagaries of the human brain

2009-07-28T00:51:00.000-07:00

Had a few bad outcomes today-- actual remnants from previous day's rushed orders.
It has made me think about how the human brain falters and does not make the correct synaptic links.

On the Desk today had a most enjoyable exchange with a patron about brain plasticity.
I was putting forward my hypothesis that 'fast foods' and computers make people less patient and less inclined to hang in there to delve into an issue or 'read and learn' and that people want their gratification instantly. I term this the"mcdonaldisation of thinking".
Italians have a phrase for this : tutto, pronto e subito--- i want it all & i want it now!! -- flows much better in italian. :-))
It is much more pleasant when we can engage with patrons beyond just turning them over like hamburgers.

Return of the prodigal angel

2009-07-20T16:29:00.000-07:00

After an absence of 18mths....I'm back!. I can understand how addictive the internet and blogging can be. Useful if you have some necessary things to ask from a specific or special interest groups but otherwise it's just littering cyberspace. Oh well, I suppose it can keep some people off the streets but let's see if we can use this for good instead of evil -- to paraphrase Maxwell Smart!

Logins and confusions

2007-11-14T19:42:00.000-08:00

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dg62zgjc_0g84s29
I think what i've found frustrating about this entire exercise is the disjointed nature of the whole process.
I've assumed that the knowledge acquired is cumulative when in fact it appears you can pick up and drop things -- would that this were clearly articulated from the beginning
I also am unfamiliar with playing or as I would call it ....flagellating around in cyberspace.
The other major problem is trying to understand why I have to set up so many different 'accounts' and trying to keep track of them when I can't really relate to any of them.
I cannot see how they are related and this is discouraging, so I don't do. It's a little bit like leaving your bits and pieces in different places and not knowing what's where and therefore finding things becomes a "barrier to entry"- to borrow a phrase from the business world. It makes me want to sceeeeam like

Road to Damascus

2007-10-13T23:31:00.000-07:00

Lying in bed at 5 a.m., I was wondering what to say in my next post that hadn't already been said by someone in some amusing or confusing way. I started thinking about how to make wikis useful within my workplace and I experienced my '"road to Damascus" moment....
I thought hey.... why don't we add little bits of summaries about individual collections and any quirks about the holdings or retrievals to aid colleagues, particularly when on the Info Desks -- dot point format, please note 'les auteurs manques'.
To illustrate, a patron rang on Saturday asking for publication details on early australian patents and she had the patent number, could describe things vaguely but didn't know what volumes she had used though she gave a physical description of same -- yes, well, we know how useful that can be.
After some searching and verifying, I gave her the details of what I believed were the volumes in question--- that saved her having to travel in from the outersuburbs she said...glad to help, I thought .
Later in the day a patron came to the Info Desk and said she had come requesting for australian patents... and a librarian had requested the items for her but these were indexes and not what she was after. It sounded altogether too familiar, after overcoming a well-controlled panic-reaction lest I had given her the wrong information earlier on the phone ( yes, you guessed it, it was the same patron), I realised that someone on the Desk had placed a request for the 'indexes" volume and not the volumes she required. It was easy to identify the correct [title] -- square brackets are difficult for the lay person-- the correct items were retrieved and she could copy the pages she had subsequently discovered she was lacking.
This is where my road to Damscus moment comes in -- if we have an in-house wiki where people responsible for certain subject areas could give dot-point overviews about difficult or complex collections with quirky aspects to help staff unfamiliar with same .
Of course it is possible that I wasn't on the road to Damascus and I got lost in my dreams on the way to Paris... but never mind, it filled a posting

Patience , patience

2007-10-04T21:32:00.000-07:00

I have no idea if this is going to work or not. I am very apprehensive about styles of teaching which direct one to do x/y/z in a sequence without explaining the big picture . In these cases, one is inclined to just fill a blank here, click a link there and do this without understanding and /or retaining the steps without any comprehension of why the steps have to be followed in the given sequence. There are different learning styles, I hope that I can adapt my style to this preset style because it would appear that it cannot exhibit flexibility.... aaah for the human touch!!