Things 7 & 8 - Flickr & Picnik

I've been starting to get pretty behind on my things, so here's an attempt to catch up a bit!!

This week I've been experimenting with photos on Flickr & Picnik. Both seem fairly straightforward to use. Flickr is good for those budding photographers who want to get their images out in the public domain but personally I'm not too keen, it's not really the service for me. Photos I take are more about events and holidays as opposed to photography just for the sake of it. When I want to share my photos, I'm more likely to do it over facebook as the people I'd want to show them to are all on there, none of them are Flickr users. The other thing that I don't like is that I had to create a yahoo ID, yet another username and password!!

Picnik is very user friendly and offers some good free features for photo editing! I had a play around with the images that I'd uploaded to Flickr. As you can see, this is my family dog, Alfie, looking very regal in a crown!

I'd definitely use Picnik again, it's a effective way to edit your photos to give them that professional look. As for Flickr, I'll probably use it browse other people's images but I'm unlikely to upload more of my own.

Things 5 & 6 - Google Reader

One of this week's things was to set up a Google Reader account. I have been using Google Reader for a while now, as it's a good way to keep up to date with new blog plots and online content without having to visit each site individually.
I often find that if I don't keep on top on my reading, there is a mountain of posts to wade through! For this reason, I've weeded out some of the feeds which were making my account unmanageable such as the Guardian Life & Style feed.
My main set of subscriptions are to library blogs, these are really useful for library school and being aware of what's going on in the librarian blogosphere. As Thing 6 suggests, I've added a couple of new feeds, such as India Knight's blog where she shares links and images of cool things she likes! I'm definitely going to try and keep on top of my subscriptions,especially now I've had a good clear up!

Things 3 & 4 - My 23 things blog

Blogging is very much new territory for me. Although I read numerous library related blogs to keep on top of current issues, I have had no inclination to write my own. I've never really been a diary keeper either so I suppose it all links back to that.
Despite this, I've managed to set up my 23 things blog and start posting! And guess what...it wasn't as horrific as I thought it would be! Blogger seems quite easy to use and with a user-friendly interface, especially for novices like myself. It's good that it's linked to my Google ID as that one less username and password to remember.

Blogs are an excellent medium of communication and networking. They provide an instantaneous way of discovering people's opinions and experiences of current and relevant issues as well as being able to easily share your own thoughts. I also find them extremely useful for resources discovery, the number of times I've stumbled across an article or website on someone's blog is countless.

As suggested, I've been having a look at the blogs of other 23 things participants. There is such a variety of skill levels and different library environments. It's going to be interesting following the experience of others and picking up tips!

Things 1 & 2 - iGoogle

I already have a Google ID as I'm a dedicated Gmail user and I've had an iGoogle page for a while now. However rather than skip this section completely, I decided that it was time for a tidy up and revamp of my old iGoogle page. There were some features I couldn't bear to part with such as the weather forecasts, my Google Reader feed and Guardian & BBC news headlines. I also added some new gadgets such as sticky notes to remind me of those all important tasks and a national rail enquiries app seeing as I spend so much time on trains these days commuting to uni.

Here is how my iGoogle page looks:

23 Things - the challenge begins

I've decided to take part in the Oxford 23 things challenge as it seems the ideal way to develop my skills and knowledge of those Web 2.0 tools that I've avoided or not used to their full potential up until now.

Working in the Sainsbury Library which has become increasingly Web 2.0 orientated over the past few months, and being a LIS student where it is high on the lecture agenda have both highlighted the opportunities to apply Web 2.0 in a library context.

I consider myself a fairly web-savvy person and use a number of these tools in my personal life, however I now feel that it's time to introduce them into my professional life and learn about other techologies and tools in this field.