LibraryThing is my thing

I've been using LibraryThing for quite a while, mostly just to keep track of books that I have read. It's cool that you can add books to your library, review (or just summarize) them, rate them, and sort them in a variety of ways. I usually sort by date - most recent to oldest.

I use it to just REMEMBER books I've read, though - not to discuss books, or trade books, or look at the LibraryThing blog, or any of the other things you can do with LibraryThing. I LOVE to read but generally don't really enjoy discussing books(hence I will probably never run a book club!), so all those other functions really aren't for me. It's a record-keeping system. Guess I will have to upgrade to the paid account when I reach 200 titles - only about 75 more to go!

Here's the link to my LibraryThing catalog:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/camtb

Playing around with image generators

Well, this lesson just seems like more of the same. Didn't we already do this last week? Sigh...

Anyway, I didn't really find any image generators that really thrilled me but I did do a Wordle, which was kind of fun:

Using search tools to locate RSS feeds

Well, this was mostly a bust for me. Bloglines search tools were pretty easy and intuitive to use but I really didn't think much of all the other ones. Feedster was not up when I tried to access it. Technorati seems like much ado about nothing to me. You still have to follow the link to each news item to get the feed (unless I missed something) and they don't even cite the source unless you go into the detailed screen. I kind of liked Topix.net 'cause the news items were local but, as above, I still had to follow each link for each news item in order to get the feeds.

I think what I would do would be to go to Web sites that I use frequently to get news and get the feeds directly from there. These aggregators are not my cup of tea.

Bloglines & RSS

I found the RSS feeds assignment very enlightening. In the past I have not really understood how to set up RSS feeds, but with Bloglines it's pretty simple. The thing I had the most trouble with was coming up with 10 RSS feed to add to my Bloglines account. I think this is something I will be tweaking over the coming weeks.

Here's the public URL to my Bloglines account:
http://www.bloglines.com/public/CBailey

Technology at JPL

Okay, I'm up on my soapbox now. Much of the technology at JPL is so incredibly, woefully behind the curve that it's embarrassing. Thank you, City of Jacksonville. Our computers are way out of date and don't have anywhere near enough memory, processing power, updated plugins, anything. I know it's extremely expensive to keep public PCs up to date but when the computers freeze up CONSTANTLY (which happens at Pablo Creek all the time and I understand at other JPL libraries as well) then something obviously needs to be done.

Wouldn't it be nice if we had our own independent source of technology funding and didn't have to rely on the City for any of it? I know that's unrealistic but I'm just dreaming...

Don't mind me, just venting.

Warholized!

I found a bunch of fun Flickr tools on bighugelabs.com and decided to be Warholized! Here is the result:

Flickr pic

I love this pic by Jay Wilkie:





Jay is an extremely talented local photographer whose pictures never fail to impress, astound, amuse or entertain. This photo just blew me away the first time I saw it - the tenderness in the man's face and the utter trust and relaxation on the child's face are so moving to me. What a lovely representation of love.