Fair Flower Show Pictures

I have added links on the side bar for the Fair Flower Shows. The picture for show # is for the Class called Cypress Gardens and was to include some Cypress Wood in the design. This arrangement won the "Best of Show" award. The picture showing on the show #2 link is for a class called Hawaii. This arrangement received the "Creativity" award for the show. If you click on the pictures, it will take you to the album where you can view all the flower show pictures if you wish.

#9-Finding Feeds

I guess I missed blogging about finding feeds. Of course I pay more attention on webpages now looking for the RSS icons (now that I know what they are for) . I found that the Bloglines search tool was easiest for me to use. Topix is mainly news feeds and looks like it is easy to link to local news feeds. The most confusing were Feedster and Syndic8.com. Neither of these offered the preview feature as on the Bloglines search tool. This is a feature that I really liked. You can click on this and it will give you a sample of what is there now in a separate window, without having to go to the site and then come back again. I did subscribe to some feeds on my bloglines account and even added one of them to my side bar. So check out the feed for 'About Gardening'. While checking out all of the other tools, I came across Feedburner. This seems to be a tool to redirect your Blogger feed and monitor your number of subscribers, and I am sure it has other features that I missed. It looks like this wood be a good tool to use if you were intersted in getting your Blog out there to be seen by a lot of people.

Thing # 23!

So here I am at thing #23. I am not sure what my favorites are. The photo generators and widgets were a lot of fun to play with. As for my lifelong goals, I think this will be a useful tool for a lot of things that may come up along the way. Prior to beginning these exercises, I had no desire to find out even what a blog was! The surprise was that it is really fun and the tools that go along with it make it so much more. The team that put this together did a fantastic job and I wouldn't change anything. I definitely would participate in another discover program were it offered.

Face-To-Face-Social Networking

I did a little exploring on Facebook and took the tour. I also did a little more exploring on MySpace. Previously I had set up a MySpace account when I discovered that my daughter, my grandson, and a several of my nieces had MySpace pages. The best thing I like about it is that it is a great way to stay in touch with friends and relatives that you rarely get a chance to see or talk to. Once they are on your list of friends, you can go to their page and see if they have posted any new pictures or anything, and also send them a quick message if you want to. I also like the bulletins, because you can send a quick bulletin to your whole group of friends if you want to instead of haveing to enter a message for each one. I am not sure I see this being used as a tool for the library, especially with all the other tools available (Like the Wiki).

Podcasts, Schmodcasts!

I went to Yahoo podcasts and checked out the tutorial and then investigated the three directories: Podcast.net, Podcastalley.net and Yahoo Podcasts. I didn't care much for Podcastalley. Their page did not seem to be as user friendly as the other two. On the other two, I did some searches for book reviews and other things that interest me, and as with the YouTube, there is more stuff out there than you have time to listen to! Of the three directories, I was impressed more with the Yahoo Podcasts. As a matter of fact, I did a search on each one for Alden and Ohio University, and Yahoo is the only one that came up with anything. This brought me to the OU Libraries News, and also the ipod tour of the library, which might prove to be a very useful tool for new students. I don't expect to do much downloading of these on my computer at home, though because I have dial up and it would take forever. Not much hope of getting anything else in the near future.

YouTube

There are videos on many many subjects in YouTube. You would have to spend lots of time to search for and look at those that were interesting to you. It might be useful for uploading and sharing teaching/learning videos for the library. In order to choose a video, I went to the DIY section and quite by accident came upon some "Bob Ross" videos. Since last fall I became interesed in painting and even took a few classes during the winter. Consequently, I took advantage of some programs on TV by Jerry Yarnell and also Bob Ross. Both of them really make the paintings look easy. Bob Ross passed away in 1995, but his "Joy of Painting" shows are still showing on TV. On YouTube there are some videos that are spoofs of his shows and quite a few that are tributes to him, and also some that are downright onery. I have chosen one called "Purple Majesty" which is actually one of three in a series of Bob Ross doing one of his paintings. I am only going to embed the first one. If you are really interested, you can go to YouTube and do a search for Bob Ross and you can easily find the remaining two. Maybe you will decide you want to paint some "Happy Little Clouds." Enjoy!

It's Fair Time!

This week is the Athens county fair,
and next week is Meigs County Fair.
I usually get excited about the fair
because we have two flower shows at the fair.
One on Monday and the other on Thursday.
Last year I managed to win the BEST OF SHOW award on Thursday.
This is a picture of that winning arrangement. If you want to view other photos from this flower show, click on this picture!
by opal96

Web 2.0 Tools

I have explored several of the Web 2.0 tools. If you are interested in connecting with other people interested in fittness and training, you can find others who will offer support for you and there is a multitude of information about diets (including recipes) and exercise. If you want to check it out, just go to Peertrainer. If you are into games you might want to check out Arcaplay. You can go here to play the games, or you can imbed them in your blog. If you are looking for widgets, check out yourminis. I have imbeded one of the wigets in the side bar. Check out the Yahoo Word of the Day! They have an unlimited supply of widgets for just about anything. So many different tools to play with and so little time!

About Web Based Applications

Google Docs & Spreadsheets is a site where you can check out and play with some web based applications. You can create documents and spreadsheets online without using a desktop application. It seems to me these can be really convenient to use if you need to create or access documents and/or spreadsheets when you are away for your home or office computer. Even though they are convenient, I do not think they are as user friendly as the desktop applications, nor do they offer as many options. I am using Google Documents to create this post, so if you are reading it, you know that my plan was successful. I also checked out the Zoho Show online presentation tools. The main thing I didn't like about either application was that when you were given the option of entering a URL for a photo, you are not able to copy and paste the URL. You must type it in. I was able to upload a presentation from my computer to Zoho without any difficulty.

Garden Pictures

I have added a couple of links to some pictures of my garden. These are from 2004-2005. I don't think I took the time to take any picutres in 2006. These pictures are loaded on WebShots . This is a site I like for storing photos and sharing them. They are similar to Flikr, but I found on Flikr that after you establish 3 groupings of pictures, they want you to pay a fee to be able to organize your pictures they way you want. If you would like to see more of my albums, you can use this link to go to them: http://community.webshots.com/user/opal96?vhost=community.