I Want My, I Want My, I Want My MP3

First some comments related to my last post. Harry asked why I didn't like Musicstrand and Upto11. Well they just didn't compare to the results and info available through Liveplasma and LastFM. There is a site that really sparks my interest and I have to share though - FoxyTunes Planet. I discovered FoxyTunes Planet when looking through the FoxyTunes Firefox add-on I've been using for awhile. The FoxyTunes add-on provides a media player controller that's integrated with the browser (there's an add-on for IE too). No more alt+tab between the browser and iTunes or Windows Media Player to change volume or tracks. In the controller there is a link to FoxyTunes Planet, which is like an aggregator for artist information. Do a search and you can find a biography, links to their official webpage and MySpace page, a Google search result list, Flickr search, YouTube videos, LastFM, lyrics to their songs. and well just check it out to see everything. It's all together in one spot. And what's really cool is that I can be listening to INXS in a media player and the FoxyTunes controller has a button that will take me straight to their info page on FoxyTunes Planet! I was listening to the song "The One Thing" and the page came up with the lyrics to the song showing and links to YouTube videos for the song. Love it!!!!

Now it's time for the week 10 assignment, the final in this journey called OCLS Learn 2.0. The topic this time is one that I guess you could say I know a thing or two about - podcasting. I asked for a pass on actually creating a podcast since I was involved with getting all of the OCLS podcasts/vodcasts started. Maybe I'll create one another day, but not today. Probably not tomorrow or even this month or... but maybe one day :-)

I love listening to podcasts though. I subscribe to all three OCLS feeds and regularly listen to NPR's Wait Wait Don't Tell Me and Inside The Magic (Disney related). I started with Juice, which was the iPodder Lemon back then, and now use iTunes to subscribe and listen to my feeds. If you've never listened to a podcast, you have to try it.

Our other assignment was to download an audiobook. I've done this before, but it was so long ago that my NetLibrary account was deactivated. The process of downloading is very easy and last year I took a downloaded book from my computer and saved it to an mp3 player. I listened to about half of the book before I fell asleep and never went back to it. This time, once I re-registered, I downloaded a real short story by Stephen King called "The Stationary Bike". I thought that if I tried a very short story I might make it through the entire book. The Harry Potter audio books are pretty good but even they were just too long to hold my attention. Keep your fingers crossed.

Now my final assignment blog-wise - what I will do with my MP3. I will load it with music and experiment with it in anticipation of Staff Day. Did I say Staff Day? What's happening with MP3's and Staff Day? Hmmmm...what indeed.

Keith Urban and Weird Al?

Alright - I'm up to week 9 of OCLS Learn 2.0. Whew, there's a lot to go through. This week covers digital music. I couldn't help but remember while reading about music piracy all those hours spent in my childhood with a tape recorder held next to the stereo speaker and yelling at the djs to quit talking over the beginning of the song that I wanted to record. The record companies didn't care as much because the sound quality was so gosh darn bad on those recordings that I ended up buying the album/tape anyway. Nothing like the quality you get today when ripping a copy of a cd.

The DRM issue also made me think of how the recording industry and radio is struggling with their identity the same way we are. They're trying to hold on to how they've always done things, while trying to find their place in the future of music dissemination. By not embracing and working with the changes that are occurring, are they taking the chance of becoming obsolete? As more and more music artists and fans use MySpace and music applications on the Internet, will they end up circumventing record companies completely? We'll just have to wait and see how things develop.

The more exciting part of the week's activities was looking at all of the music applications. I really liked the visual map that Liveplasma provides. I will probably use this application in the future. I didn't get a lot out of Last.fm, but will keep an eye on it for what changes will come about now that CBS bought them. I'd also like to try out their radio when I'm home. I'm intrigued by the statement, "Last.fm radio learns what you like and gets better." Musicstrands didn't spark my interest and Upto11 didn't impress me either.

Last, I looked at Music Map which brings me to the title of today's blog post. I started with a search for Harry Connick Jr. which listed Keith Urban fairly close by. I then clicked on Keith Urban and the resulting map actually had Weird Al Yankovic closer than Vince Gill. Greater possibility that Keith Urban fans will like Weird Al rather than Vince Gill? And a search for Blue October gives results that run from Kelly Clarkson and Nick Lachey to Ratt and Quiet Riot. Huh? Kinda fun though :-)

And Now For Week 8 of Learn OCLS 2.0

First the Hawaii Flickr meetup - I wanna go to Hawaii! LIBRARY FIELD TRIP!!!!!!!!!

It was interesting to see people get together who met through their Flickr photos. People are making connections that I would have never dreamed of 10 years ago. Another amazing thing - I can't believe the park in Hawaii where the meetup took place used to be a landfill! Wow.

I've been using Flickr off and on for awhile. Actually, the dog photos in this blog are linked from Flickr. It's fun to sometimes just go and look at random pictures there. It's amazing just how many photos they are storing. To add to those stored photos, I posted a few pictures that I took of the library with the 101central tag, including a little close up of an interior concrete wall. Why? Because the texture is so gosh darn different. Who would think to design concrete to look like cedar?

For my searching task I did a search for a library I used to work for in Rhode Island. I found a fantastic picture of the Westerly Public Library that actually shows the windows for my former office. If you look at the bottom of the building, just above the hood of the white van, you'll see the two windows that I could look up at to see outside. My office was in the basement. The library has a great history dating back to 1894 - it was created as a Civil War memorial; it used to host boxing, bowling, and gym classes; it has a Victorian strolling park and an art gallery; it's a private non-profit corporation; and it's right on the RI/CT line (I used to walk across the street and eat lunch in CT).

I did start a Protopage, but haven't gotten very far with it. Love the protopuppy. Fetch girl, fetch! Good girl!

As for the questions about the OCLS Learn2.0 course: I'm really enjoying the course. I'm seeing many new web sites that I wasn't aware of before and learning how other people feel about them and use them. I also like the asynchronous aspect of it. My one complaint, there's just not enough time to look at everyone else's blog! There's some really good stuff out there.

I've helped a few people here and there, either through direct contact or responding to a blog entry. I've worked on my own throughout the course so far, but got help and inspiration from looking at the blog entries of others going through the course. As for Life.exe, I really like the description that ElectricBoogaloo2 gave. I would just have to add that I have a few random access memory errors from time to time, and you have to appreciate the ability to reboot and continually upgrade and reconfigure your system.

Say Hello to Abby!

Abby
Originally uploaded by jsnole85249.

Here's our 8 month old Boston Terrier/Lab puppy. She's housebroken, knows basic commands, is very affectionate, and is past her major chewing phase. Yea!

Week 7 - Dogster = New Dog

Week 7 of OCLS's Learn 2.0 introduced me to a site called Dogster. While I was purusing this site of all things dog, thoughts of adopting a new member to our family started to take over my brain. As Tom predicted in his comment to post 4-13-07 "Ruth") , I was now ready to hear the pitter-patter of puppy paws. Dogster was very helpful in providing basic information about what to expect when adopting a new puppy - it's been 14 years since we last went through this. I wish I had known about this site before Ruth died. It would have been a great forum to work through the whole process. Now Dogster is a part of my collection of dog related web sites that I will use to seek enlightenment on the ways of the canine.

The Adventure task for week 7 was to research a hobby and find a Web 2.0 app related to it. I came across a web site called Meetup that links people together with a common interest. You can find groups for a wide range of interests here. Everything from car enthusiasts to crafts to movies to role playing games to...

Now only 3 more assignments to complete!!

What do you mean we have no Jacuzzi?!!

Conversation every morning since June 4th.
Hubby: I just want to hang out by the Jacuzzi and pool today. (towel draped over shoulder)
Crusher of Dreams: Umm sweetie, we don’t have a Jacuzzi or a pool. They wouldn’t let us bring it home from the ship. Remember?
Hubby: Hmm, maybe I can just go next door.
Crusher of Dreams: I don’t think the neighbors will appreciate finding you in their backyard.
Hubby: Yeah and I don’t want to appear on COPS. What about a nice hotel?
Crusher of Dreams: Don’t you have somewhere else that you need to go?
Hubby: FINE! (throws towel on floor) – I guess I’ll just have to go to work then! (stomps out of room with grumpy face)

Cruise life – bad for your psyche when you have to return to reality. Truth be told, I played the dreamer just as often as the hubby since getting back from our cruise. We had a fantastic time! Quick facts: Royal Caribbean, Mariner of the Seas, out of Port Canaveral, and I’m nominating the person who invented the motion sickness patch for sainthood. Ports visited: San Juan, St. Thomas, St, Martin. More later, but for now…

OK. I’ve fallen behind on this whole OCLS 2.0 class and I need to catch up. Let’s look at week #6. I want to start by saying THANK YOU TOM! Not only did you find the service that I’ve been wracking my brain to find for over two months, but you gave me a tool to keep track of it in the future.

I actually joined Guru Library a few months ago and then completely forgot about it. Then I started reading again about different personal cataloging sites and tried to remember GuruLib. I thought I had bookmarked it someplace, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. All I had was a fuzzy memory about entering a few books I’ve read, some CDs and DVDs that I own, and the service provided cover art for me as a visual reminder. Yep – I found something cool and now I can’t find it anywhere. Of course it doesn’t help when you can’t even remember what it was called.

Don’t even get me started with trying to remember the name of it. If I have trouble remembering and I say I think a word started with something, you can almost guarantee that the letter doesn’t even exist in the word. My memory inevitably ends up being like this…
Me: I think the word began with “con”…

Hubby: You mean provisioning?

Me: Yeah that’s it!

Hubby: Con is nowhere in that word.

Me: Uh huh – The con is silent. It’s right there hidden behind pro.

Hubby: Nice try.

(Yes, this is based on an actual conversation and I realize that it’s only going to get worse as I continue to age)

When I started going through week 6 and looked at the eXplore activity – EUREKA! I got my username and password emailed to me for GuruLib and now I can add more stuff. Maybe create a full list of the DVD's at home that are actually ours - sorry sis, I promise I'll watch the movies and get them back to you this decade :-)

I wasn’t very excited about the Adventure activity. I’ve heard about Del.icio.us for a loonngg time now, but never felt a connection to using it until now. After the whole GuruLib hunt and looking to bookmark it – it finally hit me – use del.icio.us to bookmark it and then you’ll have it no matter what computer you’re on. No longer would I have to remember if I bookmarked something while at work or at home. No more - Was it the laptop, was it the desktop, was it the other desktop, was it Explorer, maybe it was Firefox? I can even get to them when I’m not on one of my computers. And the process of importing my existing bookmarks was so easy. WooHoo! Just for fun, I’ve bookmarked PopUrls in my del.icio.us account for whenever I want to see random articles that may spark my interest. Good stuff - or as my nephew would say, "Good times, good times."

Hello Cleveland!

Today's adventure involved creating a Meez avatar. There were so many things to choose from!! Inspired by my Guitar Hero experience, I decided to try this out as my first image. In my childhood I dreamed of being a rock star. Now I can virtually.

Seeing my avatar rocking out I immediately think of Spinal Tap. There were so many great scenes in that movie. I really wanted to get Stonehenge as the background for this, but alas it's not a free one. So I've settled for what looks like a bad 80's hair band music video look instead.

ROCK ON OCLS 2.0'ers!!!!

Much web 2.0 to share

It's week 4 for the OCLS Learn 2.0 course and there was a lot of interesting sites to look at. So here's a little bit about some of the stuff I looked at:

• Ask a Ninja was fun to watch, I had never heard of it before. I've now subscribed to the podcast through iTunes so I can catch future episodes.
• I knew about OCLS having videos on YouTube, but what was really interesting was seeing that a member of the public posted a clip of the library float from one of the Citrus Bowl parades. A true example of web 2.0!
• Adventure task - I went to ToEat and have submitted Z-Coffee, we'll see if it shows up. Good concept, but do we really need that many entries for Arby's? I also noticed places listed that are no longer open. Overall it's a good example of a mashup and a site I'll probably use when going on trips to other cities.

I was already familiar with a number of the winners for the SEOmoz's Web 2.0 Awards. Here are a few of the new discoveries I made:

• One Sentence - This site asks people to share in one sentence a life story. It allows you to tag and rate each sentence. Interesting to see how creative people can be with just one sentence. Some are very personal and powerful.
• Guess the Google - This game gives you a montage of images and you try to guess the common keyword. While many may only see this as a fun time waster, it can get you to think about what images are attached to keywords and why. One frustrating feature is that it doesn't give you the correct keyword if you miss it - you just get the first letter!
• Swivel - Looking for graphs? They have lots of graphs and charts at this site. People are able to post graphs on anything (warning: and I mean anything). You can get some ideas on how to visually represent your data by looking at what others have done. Take a look at the Feature Graphs for some interesting submissions.
• ColorBlender - Not sure what color to use with your favorite lavender? Go to this site and get an entire pallette with just a few clicks! You can download your created blend of colors for Photoshop and Illustrator, it gives you the HTML code, and the RGB numbers. Awesome!

My final share element is StumbleUpon. I've used this a couple of times and could spend hours just wandering around the web seeing what others have "stumbled upon". For you search engine fans, give it a try and see what interesting sites you find.

Now if I can just stumble upon a great and simple idea that Google will pay me millions for...

Search engines and future gifts

I just looked at some of the latest items from the Innovation Lab centered in Denmark and thought I'd highlight just a few things. One of the older articles is called, "The Quest for Smarter Search Engines." This ties in well with our week 3 activity in the OCLS Learn 2.0 course when we took a look at Grokker. Two search engines that they highlight are Mooter and Blinkx.

First Mooter - A search engine from an Australian company that offers initial results as a series of clusters. I did a search for dolphins and it offered me three different cluster options, all offering spokes going to the mammal and the football team. Their quest is to create a search engine that can create more individualized results based on an algorithm that actually learn over time what a particular user is really after.

Blinkx is a video search engine. Unlike the conventional search engines that look at only file names and metadata, Blinkx actually watches the video clips to bring more precise results. I did a search for just the word "library" - see the resulting list here. Another feature of blinkx is the "Wall it!" option. It will create a wall of video preview boxes for you. What really caught my eye was that two different CBS affiliates showed the exact same video about today's libraries but with different titles - "Pubic libraries need to change with the times" and "Libraries forced to get modern day makeover." Interesting.

My final entry is just for fun. Innovations Lab has a list of the top ten Christmas gifts for 2016. I'm definitely putting a few on my list!

Will Guitar Hero take over my life?!

So, I received a PS2 and Guitar Hero for my birthday. It didn't take long for me to accept that I won't be leaving the library to join a rock band anytime soon.

I just started practicing at the very beginner levels this weekend. One of the songs I'm tackling is Cheap Trick's hit Surrender. The good news is that I have been improving slightly each time that I play it. Now I find myself this morning, listening to the radio during my long commute, hearing that today's pick me up song in the morning is what? You guessed it - Surrender. That's when the first signs show themselves. Without realizing it, I am concentrating on Rick Nielsen's lead rather than my usual focus on singing badly with Robin Zander. I'm visualizing the strumming on the guitar controller. What's happening to me?!

I won't even get into my experience with beginning DDR. Let's just leave it at, "Um, I don't think my feet can move that fast!"

If you have any pointers for a true beginner with either of these games, please share. Let's be honest - I need all the help that I can get!

April 19th History & Tombstone Memories

So I was looking for “this day in history” information about April 19th beyond my getting yet another year older and tragedies like the Oklahoma City bombing. Here are just a few of the interesting facts I ended up finding:

• 1987 - In Phoenix, AZ, skydiver Gregory Robertson went into a 200-mph free-fall to save an unconscious colleague 3,500 feet from the ground.
• 1986 - Prince became only the 5th songwriter to have two top ten hits at the same time. The songs were "Kiss" (Prince and the Revolution) and "Manic Monday" (Bangles).
• 1960 - Baseball uniforms began displaying player's names on their backs.
• 1876 - Wyatt Earp dropped from Wichita police force after he beats up a candidate for county sheriff. After losing his job in Wichita, Earp moved to Dodge City and then eventually on to Tombstone.

I picked the Tombstone entry because I’ve actually been there. While living in Phoenix, my family came to visit and decided that they wanted to see Tombstone. It seems that the trip was a little too long for the parents because when we got there they were in a bad mood and dad was ready to just turn around and head home after we used the restrooms. Well this didn’t go over well with my sister and I. We suddenly channeled our parents from many a family vacation and said, “We are going to walk around Tombstone, we are going to do touristy stuff, and we are all going to have a good time dagnabit!!”

A woman with 2 pre-teen children was close by as my sister and I had this tirade and we’ve never seen a woman laugh so hard. Ah – memories. Yes, the tables were turned that day and the best part is that we all had a great time. You had to keep reminding yourself that the artifacts were not just movie props. I mean actually walking through the OK Corral and Boot Hill realizing that the Wild West was real. The Birdcage Theater Museum was especially interesting. It's full of history and many say it's haunted. You know come to think of it, it was kinda creepy...

The Power of a Blog

If you ever questioned the power of a blog, one just needs to read this article to realize the potential it can possess. "Midnight blogger exposes a scandal", from the Canadian National Post, tells the story of a history professor who blogged about the Duke lacrosse team case. His blog is credited with helping the defense build their case and ultimately breaking the prosecution's case.

Ruth

Ruth at 14
Originally uploaded by jsnole85249.

Ruth, beloved pet and faithful companion for 15 years, has passed on. This picture is from December 2005 when she turned 14. It was so hard to say goodbye after so many years.

We got Ruth from the Humane Society in Charleston, SC when she was just a teeny tiny puppy. She still had the blue eyes of a newborn. Harry, fiance at the time, was busy playing with a young energetic puppy when I spotted Ruth in a cage with two larger puppies playing wishpuppy with her - one had the front left leg and the other the back right leg and they were pulling. I immediately had to take her out of the cage. As soon as I had her in my hand and she looked up at me I knew that there was no way that she was going back in that cage. Thus began our 15 year journey.

I Conquered Yahoo Pipes!

Well it was a bit of a battle but I finally understand a bare minimum of Yahoo Pipes :-)
First big help - finding where to get to the Yahoo Pipes interface! They provide some documentation there and links to other tutorials.

I actually ended up using a tutorial provided by ZDNet at http://blogs.zdnet.com/SAAS/?p=280. This tutorial had great screen shots that took you step by step through creating a basic feed for compiling many rss feeds into one.

I created two pipes:
J's Library (all library related news) Take a look
J's Entertainment (all entertainment related news) Take a look

Grokker Searching

Hey there again! I just tried out a search on Grokker and it was pretty cool. My search term was "text messaging". Going through the links I saw that the majority dealt with cell phone companies selling or giving user information for text messaging. What I was really looking for was information on how people are using it. I finally found a few links near the bottom of the list.

What was great about Grokker was trying out the "Map View". It clustered the items into groups and there was one specifically for "News" that had the links that I really wanted. Much faster than going through an entire list. Yea! So now I'm going to read about what the UK is doing. Do wanna read about it too? Well come on - Text.it

I'm going to try out Yahoo Pipes eventually too. Just read through a tutorial and had a full blown HUH? moment. Reading doesn't seem to be the best learning style for me with this one. I'll have to try something else. Luckily, in previous learning style assessments I've come out fairly balanced although lean more toward watching and doing. Guess I have some experimenting ahead of me...

Welcome!

Welcome to Sampsynposium - A place for me to post things that make me go hmmm, huh, and "You've got to be kidding?!" Today's topic is the weather. Yeah, that's a nice safe topic to start with ;-)

Central Florida is experiencing a cold front that is making the temperatures FANTASTIC! I just love the cool air with the beautiful sunshine. Don't you? It's going to be a great weekend fellow Floridians. Enjoy it!