Team Talk

Yesterday I finally delivered my team talk. I chose to talk about Flickr and set up a Flickr account for Fingertip so we can upload any of our team photos. I made it a private group. Using the laptop and datashow to demonstrate the uploading of photos, placing them in sets and adding names, tags and descriptions, I had a few problems as the photo uploading stopped loading in the middle of the process. Luckily I had already uploaded some photos so was able to demonstrate using those. But then the screen froze again so I was unable to show the archive where you can see the date the photo was actually taken and the list of tags for searching as my 10 mins was up. These technical hitches were very frustrating as it had all gone smoothly during my preparation. However the team were quite enthusiastic about it and thought it was agood idea to use Flickr to store any photos taken on either social or work occasions. Most team members had heard of Flickr but did not know how it worked and many are now keen to try it.

Public PC environment

The thing that I appreciated the most when using the public PCs was the time constraint and how quickly that one hour passed when I was working on a Word document or Publisher document. The importance of having a USB stick close at hand and continually saving my work was paramount and this is one aspect I will be emphasising to customers.

IGoogle

I had a play around adding and deleting gadgets and widgets from my IGoogle page. I also created a shopping list gadget which I can share with other members of the family and a countdown gadget to my daughter's wedding - now I have to add my screenshot!

I have been unable to upload the screenshot and just cannot seem to figure it out. Will keep trying!

Widgets & Gadgets

I started by reading the article Gadgets vs Widgets and while I didn't understand a lot of the jargon, the points I picked up were that Yahoo widgets came about when Yahoo acquired the paid software start up package called Konfabulator and renamed it Widgets. Google gadgets are a more recent addition. In comparing the two Google gadgets are more minimalist looking, while Widgets are more visually appealing. Both have to be installed but with Google you have to install each time you download a new gadget. For this reason Widgets are more accessible. Both use a lot of memory so are not so good on laptops.


The University of Auckland site had a number of symbols displayed on the front screen e.g. if you clicked on the facebook symbol then you could add the library search widget. I added it to my blog page.

In Library Thing you had to make your own widget which was fairly straightforward and just a matter of selecting options from drop down boxes. On my blog page I clicked on Add a gadget and pasted the HTML code into the HTML/Java screen. The widget appeared on my sidebar!

Pass it on

Managed to find 10 mins this afternoon to show a colleague how to set up an email account. We chose Gmail and I guided my colleague through the process. My colleague was surprised at how strightforward it was - the most difficult part was choosing a name. Having completed the sign in process we looked briefly at the main features. My colleague said she now feels more confident about helping customers to set up an email account.

Web 2.0

New Zealand Government Resources
Web 2.0 technologies allow interactive online information sharing where through the use of blogs, wikis and social networking sites users can contribute to and edit information. The New Zealand Government through its e-government is using these technologies to facilitate internal collaboration between government agencies in different parts of New Zealand and for information sharing between government agencies e.g. Principals Electronic Network - online discussion and information sharing for school principals and for engaging the public e.g. the ALAC blog for discussion and information on alcohol issues and also an opportunity for young people to respond to an online discussion topic posted by Minister of Youth Affairs Paula Bennett. The use of these wikis and blogs is hoped will result in a more cohesive approach between government agencies and will provide more opportunity for the public to contribute to policy making decisions.

The Auckland City Youth Council Bebo site seems to have been set up with good intentions but doesn't look as though it has attracted much interest with the last posting being August 2007.

The RSS feeds for Auckland and Wellington City Councils provide a quick and clear way to see the latest news from Council in both areas.

CPIT has a Library Blog

Auckland University has RSS feeds for News and Events
Vbase - couldn't see any evidence of wikis, RSS feeds or blogs

NZmuseums has a blog and podcast and is planning to add Google maps and virtual exhibitions

NZlive has a blog, RSS feed and tags

Matapihi could use Flickr to share its photos and an RSS feed for news of new additions to the site

For a community group I looked at the Salvation Army website. There are podcasts about their ministry and video clips of clients describing their involvement in particular aspects of the salvation Army's services. I couldn't see any evidence ofa blog or use of social networking sites.

Library Thing

I am having trouble accessing my blog - the lams link seems to be broken so I am recording my thoughts on Library Thing on Google docs and I will post it to my blog from here.

 

When I first joined Library thing I found the whole page a bit overwhelming so I went to customize this page and unclicked a lot of the links, choosing just those that I wanted to see. This made it more readable for me. Adding titles is fairly straightforward and you can choose to find and add titles from a huge number of Library catalogues from all over the world. Some titles had a picture of the book cover which I liked while others didn't. I guess you could find a picture and add it but I'm not sure how to do that yet. I think Library thing could be useful for customers who want to keep track of what they have read.