Evernote - endless possibilties

Comparing Evernote with Delicious is really comparing apples and oranges.

I am so glad I have discovered Evernote and have installed it on every device I own.  I can clip recipes, notes, pictures, websites...everything of interest can pop into Evernote for posterity and I can access it from anywhere with any device, synced and up to date.  Not only is there a web interface, there are apps and downloads for every device.

This is not a social bookmarking site, like Delicious, this is more like a personal electronic organizer that you can tag and search.  I spend so much time taking screen shots of recipes or interesting pages on my ipad and now I can just save to Evernote and have a completely indexed wiki for my own use, that I can share with others for collaboration purposes.

Just how "delicious" is Delicious, really?

I first found out about Delicious, the social bookmarking site, back in my Certificate III blogging course and I saved a few bookmarks as part of an exercise, and I've never been back.  It's not something I found the time or inclination to explore or learn how to use properly.

I've been back today and I have been searching some gesture based computing bookmarks and I've found a few that might be really useful for my research, but it says a lot that I automatically saved the links in my own "favourites" folder rather than remembering to add the links  to my Delicious account.

Wylio Flickr App and Creative Commons searches - a mashup made in heaven!

Wylio makes Creative Commons image searches easy

While frolicking in the Flickr App Garden, I came across a very unassuming little app that does a pretty amazing job.

How about an app that searches free photo hosting sites such as Flickr and provides you with only Creative Commons attributed images that are free to use?  I'm thinking, yippee and hooray and words to that effect.

Well, Wylio does just that. There is a subscription to pay of about $US3 a month for a download of 125 images or a pro subscription for $10 for over 1000 images.  You can play for free, but that limits you to 5 images per month and there is advertising with the free subscription.  All very reasonable I'm feeling. 

Flickr no longer loves Wordpress & Blogger

This is really a note for my fellow classmates, but I'm disappointed to note that this week, Flickr wound back it's support for both Wordpress and Blogger, removing the blog share tools that have been so handy.

From now on, we will have to embed the Flickr images, rather than using a simple tool.  I'm thinking its going to be really hard for people who are just learning how to blog to work out the embed functions.  Apparently, Wordpress and Blogger make up such a tiny amount of Flickr traffic these days, they no longer consider it to be a viable partnership.  See this link for more info.  I think this may be a signal that blogging is on the way out in the traditional form and should we be looking at what is now more popular - Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram etc.?

Anyway, I'm feeling disappointed about the change.  It was always so easy before.  I shall probably explore Photobucket or Instagram a lot more closely now, to see how their sharing capabilities compare.

Lubuto Library Project

Children at First Lubuto Library, a photo by Lubuto Library Project on Flickr.

Flickr is a great tool for browsing photos to accompany a project or blog post, but I also find it incredibly fun to just browse and I learn a great deal about worthwhile projects or issues, such as this one, the Lubuto Library Project.

The Lubuto Library Project is a charitable organisation which aims to bring education and opportunities to African children who would otherwise have no access to schools or education, or are homeless.  They operate as reading rooms and provide educational programs and support for children who would otherwise fall through the cracks in society.  This is a perfect example of the library as a community service and hub for connecting people with support and services and most importantly, each other, which I believe is the library of the future.  We talk about technology and libraries being the way forward, but I sincerely believe that our future lies in community capacity building and the connection of community through partnerships and offering a place for people to come together, in a society which is becoming further disconnected.

Visit the Lubuto Libraries Project Website

Having fun on Flickr with my library display movie poster

 

Eye catching library displays are something I take very seriously and we are currently preparing a wall display to promote books that are being made into movies. I designed this poster as a centerpiece and it will be surrounded by movie posters and book cover posters.

This type of display is a lot of fun to do.

Via Flickr:

This is a jpg of a movie poster I designed as part of a display for Glenorchy LINC. The display is to promote books and authors whose titles have been made into movies recently.

An RSS feed worth following

As part of a class exercise, we were asked to find a blog with an RSS feed to subscribe to.

I have used a newsreader for some years now and I have to be honest, I don't particularly like them.  I find Feedly on my IPad a little more user friendly than the old fashioned version of the newsreader, but do I visit it often to read the posts?  Probably once every few months.  Having said that, a feed on my own blog promoting the blogs I'm subscribed to, has me distracted and clicking on posts madly.  I think that's why I tend to subscribe to Facebook or Twitter feeds, which I find way more convenient as they are part of what I'm already doing, not something separate.  Maybe I need to find a desktop app that runs a feed that's right there in my face whenever I visit my desktop.  Any recommendations are welcome :)

I'm distracted, however, as I'm supposed to be critically evaluating a blog of interest.

I love David Lee King's social web | emerging technologies | libraries blog.  This guy speaks my language, and by that I mean, he writes in easy to understand language, not bogged down in techno speak, but I feel like he knows and understands the importance of technology in the world of libraries.

The Library of the Future - A Podcast

ABC Radio National Big Ideas recently debated how the library of the future will function.  This podcast is an interesting and thoughtful discussion on the changes to the library and how a digital library is going to look.

Libraries are just as popular today and are as much about community as about resources.  Libraries promote connections and bring people together in a society where neighbours no longer know or support each other.  Libraries are also becoming adept at changing to address the challenges of our digital age.

Creationistas - Australian Copyright Is Broken

Copyright is something that we all need to be aware of and keeping an eye on while we are creating our blogs, but here is something I didn't know.  Australian copyright law makes most online creativity impossible.  This fabulous video by The Creationistas certainly opened my eyes to the difficulties we face in this country.

Talking Library Technology

There are a wealth of blogs out there discussing all things library, The Annoyed Librarian http://lj.libraryjournal.com/blogs/annoyedlibrarian/ (an American blog that I find both amusing and informative) and Information Today Inc http://www.infotoday.com/default.asp being just two I checked out for my assignment today and are well worth investigating.

However, the blog I've chosen to look at a bit more closely, is Library Tech Talk.

Library Tech Talk http://libtechtalk.wordpress.com/ is a blog created by Librarians at the Albert S. Cook Library at Towson University, Maryland, USA.  The blog was created in 2008 and is a comprehensive discussion on everything from social media, design, software, hardware and technological developments, all relating to libraries in some way.