wiki dooo...where are youuuuuu?

and that's basically how i felt today attempting to do the discovery exercise for the learning 2.0 wiki. first off, it was supposed to open in a different window. didn't. second, i opened it using the link and nothing was there! kinda hard to follow directions to the best blogs ever page when you have a blank screen! thankfully ms barb was in the vicinity and was kind enough to help me figure out that i needed to click on the "show all pages" link. i then followed all the directions, added my blog name, put in a hyperlink, saved it, and then voila! nothing. LoL. the 2nd time, however, worked great! woot woot!

wikis & wookiees & ewoks, oh my!

i am nervous. nervous about wikis. not wookiees, because let's face it, chewy is awesome. even ewoks have their place in this world. wikis on the other hand...oh, dear. first off, i took a look at wikipedia today, and what do i find on the very first page? todays featured photo is a *wolf spider*. aaaaahhhhhhhh!!!! spiders very bad!
as meredith farkas says, "if control is really important to you, then a wiki probably isn't the right tool". and indeed it is. very very important to me. the thought of anyone being able to edit anything i wrote in a wiki would most likely keep me up at night. says citizendium, in order for you to edit, you must use your real name. yeah, right. myspace says you must use your correct age, but we all know my 10 year old nephew has a myspace page! i can say my real name is "Loathsome Sackville-Baggins" and you wouldn't even know it isn't if you don't know me. and if i'm being honest, just seeing that little edit tab next to the entries upsets me. why, just the other week i was about ready to attend a funeral for Sinbad, because wikipedia told me he had died...so sad.
as for the discovery exercise, booklovers wiki and the princeton library could come in handy when you are looking for a good book in a certain category. you have it right at your fingertips and can even read a "normal" persons review. (i don't trust those professional critics) again, probably not something i will utilize since i already have a list as long as i am tall- but useful for others. interesting nonetheless!

library thing? more like library FUN!!

wow. i am...how can i put this? my faith in this week's lesson plan has been restored. YAY! jen told me i was gonna love Library Thing, and what can i say? she was right! (as always, jenenevieve!) way easy to sign up (a lab monkey could do it! -not that i believe in lab monkeys), simple to use, and i can see who else has the same reading interest as i do. the latter is not really why it interests me, because i'm not that social as far as the internet goes- i prefer to socialize only with people i know. still, it is rather cool to see how many people like the books i read. as of today, i have added about 5 books to my library thing...uh...library lol. nowhere near how many books i own but if i added them all at work, i may never get any books checked in! no patrons waited on, etc. how cruel would that be? but yeah, i definitely liiike my new friend, library thing. woot woot! now, i think shortbeard the pernicious was telling me about some site where i can catalog my dvd's...niiice!

blechnorati- i mean, technorati...

i suppose this could be useful for some. yes, i did the discovery exercise like i was supposed to...yes, the lists changed up each time i changed the search area. more or less, the words that came through my head were- what's the point, who cares, why am i doing this? then i remembered, oh yeah, it's fun! nah...not really. so far this week i have not found anything i would use either technorati or del.icio.us for. like i said, useful for some, but not for me. however, it is nice to know that if future circumstances cause me to need these services, at least i know my way around. i think i may have been abused by a tag when i was young and my memory is repressed. this is the only reason i can think of for my hostility toward tagging. many of my co-workers have told me i will have a blast with the next item, Library Thing. to that i say, thank goodness!! LoL...

del.icio.us?

not so much! i have to say, just popping into the kcls27things del.icio.us account and looking at it, i wasn't terribly impressed. yes, it's great for those who like tagging, etc... but as for me, i already have a bloglines account, where all my websites and rss feeds are available at one table. i feel del.icio.us is a bit redundant for someone who already has all of their favorites bookmarked in bloglines. and let's face it, bloglines is set up better. who cares really, if john doe 3 states over has flickr. i don't know him, i don't know his dog, and i don't really want to, either. i think this cheeky monkey will just stick to what looks and works best. after all, isn't it always about looks? ;-) as for whether it might be a useful tool for libraries...on one hand i guess it could be very useful for reference librarians and the like- maybe a patron has some research to do and is unable to find exactly what he wants. in that area, i think it could come in handy. however, i just don't see it being that useful for the rest of us.