Twitter

I'm not on board with Twitter - I don't feel the need to follow anyone & I'm not quite self absorbed enough to record my every thought. If I want information I'll usually go a website or one of the blogs I follow. Perhaps it's a generational thing..... Anyways, I get enough unwanted stuff just thru' my facebook account. I'm trying to streamline & simplify my life not clutter it up even more.

LibraryThing

Library Thing is quite simple to navigate. I've not used it before for reader's advisory but I wonder if it would be more user friendly for customers than novelist? - & perhaps more interesting given the social networking side of it & the opportunity to read comments from other readers.
I've not used LibraryThing myself. A couple of years ago I joined Shelfari - altho' it's been so long since I used it that I couldn't remember my password when I recently tried to sign in. Maybe I should join LibraryThing!

Online Productivity Tools

I found Google Docs to be a really useful app & easy to get the hang of. This is one thing I'm likely to use. (I have to say that I still like my daytimer on paper). I can see myself using google docs with my team of community volunteers. It will make it much simpler to edit things were working on together.
The other thing I appreciate is how easy my documents will be to access. Instead of saving to a stick or emailing to myself at another location I can access from any computer & not just my own desktop.

flickr/youtube

I spent an enjoyable half hour viewing pictures of the uk on flickr. I'm heading their tomorrow so it was great to get a preview of some of the places I'll be. Many of them were taken by someone who shares my maiden name - maybe we're related!

I was surprised to see how many people post picture of their babies & children for all the world to see. No way I'd do that.

Remember "My Cubicle" - popular a few years ago - a parody of the James Blunt song "You're Beautiful"? There are lots of versions on youtube - I sent one to my son when he got his first job in a cube. He wasn't amused.

cpl 2.0 Really Simple Syndication

What the heck is RSS? I didn't have a clue but now I do. I can see myself spending way too much time on my bloglines page instead of doing the truly useful things in life such as ironing. It was pretty easy to set up an RSS feed. I couldn't find an rss icon on my favourite blog - small dead animals - but cutting and pasting the url into bloglines seemed to work.

cpl 2.0 Google

I often go to Google More when presenting Introduction to Internet programs. I like to demonstrate the usefulness of the Reference section in Google Directory. There is a wealth of information here.

- Encyclopedias - such as Britannica Online, World Book, How Stuff Works
- Style Guides - for help with report writing, citations, bibliographies
- Ask an Expert - provides links to online help from the Library of Congress, Internet Public Library, Text a Librarian

There are dictionaries, almanacs, biographies & many other useful links, even a site called Knots which tells you everything you need to know about tieing your shoes, necktie or fishing line.

cpl 2.0 facebook

Facebook can be a timewaster if you let it be. I think it's useful for keeping up with friends and family.