MOLDI eBooks

MOLDI has a nice selection of books, especially new books. It's easy to browse, easy to download, at least the PDF's are easy. I didn't have Mobipocket installed on my work computer but may put it on my laptop at home. Not that I like the idea of reading a book on a laptop in bed...I have watched movies on it in bed but that's another story for another day. I digress.

Anyhow, being all juiced up in the aftermath of the election, I found this title that appealed to my political geekness. http://clc.lib.overdrive.com/4D4079D0-5843-4CD7-9492-4777BAE8024B/10/234/en/ContentDetails.htm?ID=B95062B4-9315-4E35-B788-98D390619E26 Reading something like this for a little bit is one thing, but I wonder what will happen when I go deeper into the book....will I get tired of looking at the computer screen? Stay tuned.....

Podcasts

I hadn't given too much consideration to Podcasts before Thing #20 came along. As usual, lots of things out there to check out, some better than others, some free, some free but want you to subscribe and others require subscriptions that cost $. No thanks to paying for that.

As for useful search tools, why wouldn't you just use a basic search engine? It takes you to thousands of podcasts quickly. Maybe I don't understand the question. I'm for whatever gets me there quick and finds what I'm looking for just as fast.

Some are audio, likehttp://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=97078523&m=97078482 and some are video (vodcasts) http://www.cnn.com/services/podcasting/popups/cnn.daily.html

Some podcasts are more important than others http://sports.espn.go.com/stations/player?context=podcast&id=3698767. I was amazed at the number of adult podcases out there http://wordpress.com/tag/adult-podcast/ (SORRY this is just the list of blogs about those kinds of podcasts -- we don't need any more pornification of this blog than what's already on there)

YouTube..better you than me

I had preconceived notions about YouTube before I starting exploring the site. Guess what? All of those perception were proved. Call it self full filling prophecy if you want, but its content is mostly junk and its a waste of time. Violence, sex, people trying to be funny and failing miserably. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdCd4abfW1M

I can get the content I really want (news, sports) elsewhere without having to deal with the bs.

YouTube: further proof of the dumbing down of our culture and society.

Power Tools...Wait, We're Not Talking Saws?

I always scrunch up my eyebrows and forehead when someone talks about power tools and computers. I guess I need to look up how the term "power tools" came to be applied to a collection of on-line sites that are mostly fun and efficient to use. I suppose its because they give the user the power to do whatever they want and they are on-line tools. OK, whatever works.

As for the "power tools" listed on our webpage, I played with some of the ones that looked like fun. BoingBoing was a lot of fun with some really interesting stuff:
http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/kitchenLego
or how about this: http://www.pointclickhome.com/image/tid/4109 People will pay too much money for anything.

I dig Digg. Lots of wacky factoids on here; http://health.howstuffworks.com/lobotomy.htm, more college football lists that should have remained in some one's head http://bleacherreport.com/articles/80179-epic-failures-top-10-busts-of-the-bcs-era/page/3
and then there's this, kind way out there: http://www.maclife.com/article/reviews/ohmibod_naughtibod

The not so cool stuff includes Technorati -- guess you have to be a real techie to like it; its just too much information. Why does MOLDI have music? Seems like too much of a sideline. Too many others do it better. They do have some esoteric movies, however like these: http://clc.lib.overdrive.com/4D4079D0-5843-4CD7-9492-4777BAE8024B/10/234/en/SearchResults.htm?SearchID=19236748

Last comment, glad they give the user of the option of adding Firefox. We all know just great IE can be sometimes.

And the winner is....

Lots and lots of posts about SEOmoz's Web 2.0 awards. I have this visual what the award ceremony looks like and its not pretty as I invoke every stereotype about computer people that could be out there.

I'd expect to see You Tube, Twitter, Flickr, etc at bringing home the gold but some of these winners I've never heard of. Of course I don't do Content Aggregation or Genealogy or Philanthropy so I have no reason to know about them.

Not really too impressed as I'm not big on awards. They're just nice things that come out of good work (usually) then its time to move on to the next thing and not dwell on the past.

On-line productivity

When I consider the words "online productivity", I tend to think its an oxymoron, like "military intelligence" or "constructive feedback". I mean, when you get on-line and start surfing, playing and looking around BAM! that's two or three hours of your life you'll never get back. Maybe you learned something, maybe not.

So I took my typical cynical attitude to start looking around to fulfil the requirement for Thing #17, online productivity. I was blown away at home stuff is out, most of it free, to help you and me organize and share our documents, work lives and other things we want to communicate.

For starters, I had no idea there were so many online office suites, calendars, documents, RSS Readers, start pages, invoice managers, time tracking apparatus, project management tools, to-do lists, personal organizers and on and on and on. Id' heard of Google Docs and Zoho but learned that most of the big players have a foot in the door. My favorite name: Adobe's Virtual Ubiquity. (ubiquity and ubiquitous are among my favorite words--don't ask me why).

Secondly, so much of this stuff is free! How long can that last? I will admit, I did not probe deeply into just what you get for "free". I suspect that if you want to put a lot of stuff online, there is a charge since advertising can only give so many a free lunch. BTW there are no such things as free lunches, right?

Anyhow, I'll probably create a Google Docs account in the very near future so I can share my paperwork for my model railroad. People will look at the pics on Flickr then find a link to take them to a map or timetable or other railroad-related doc. Pretty cool stuff.

Playing in the wiki sandbox....no throwing sand!

Openness, trust, organic, fluid and observable.

These are five words that kept coming up over and over again every time I read something about wikis, what they are, why they exist. In some circumstance, they are probably a better communication vehicle than a blog.

The CML wiki sandbox looks like fun. Think I'll come back and play another day!

http://learnandplaycml.pbwiki.com/Favorite-Album