I wanted to do so much more...

Well as usual I seem to have run out of time and not completed the bits I really wanted to.  I think part of the problem (in addition to trying to fit too much into life in general) is that I always want to go into too much depth and sometimes there just isn't the time.  For example, before posting this tonight I had planned to take a look at Creative Commons images and protopage.  Well I selected my image using wikimedia commons but then got bogged down in how the image should be attributed.  As it is now 10pm and I really need an earlier night  I thought I would abandon images and move onto my final post.

So my 19 things journey has involved creating my blog, creating a QR code and Wordle, viewing a few other blogs and making comments and considering browsers - not much to show for  my 19 things :(  I will not however abandon the cause completely. I will set aside some time to really explore some of the other "things" and will try to blog about them so I can keep a record of my progress.  I think it would have been good if as a local team we could have made time to meet up and work on some items together thus providing some mutual support and encouragement - I am hoping we may still be able to do this even though the "official" programme has closed.

I did enjoy doing the few things I completed but do feel frustrated at having been unable to complete more.  I can see that lots of the things have potential for work and am looking forward to creating an improved personal start page using protopage to replace a rather creaky Netvibes one that I created in haste sometime ago and never really used.

To improve the programme I would have reminded people on the helix mailing list that all the "things" are listed on the blog thus avoiding the need to find emails and I would have tried to encourage more interaction by making a separate "thing" to comment on other people's blogs.  It would have been good to have a virtual or real time meet up to discuss progress and encourage those like me to get on with it ! Thank you for the work put in to compiling and administrating the whole thing.

Thing 6 - More about browsers

Was planning to play around with these this lunchtime but forgot I only have access to IE9 at this site.  So no in-depth analysis I'm afraid.

My default position is always to use Internet Explorer - old habits die hard - (I even forget it is called Explorer and mumble on about Netscape from time to time).  However I am slowly being converted to Google Chrome.  This has come about by necessity as when HDAS wasn't working we could only get searches completed if we ran HDAS on Chrome.  Benefits of Chrome are the speed and integration with other Google products (we use Google calendar and it works well on Chrome).  The main thing I struggle with on Chrome are downloads as I always forget that it produces a minimised status window at the bottom left of the screen and you have to click on this to see your downloaded document.

At home I have Chrome installed but also have access to Firefox (a favourite with my son who likes the speed of Firefox for gaming) and Safari.  I really should spend some time looking at user guides to each and practising with favourites etc.  For example I am still unclear about the difference between Reading List and Bookmarks on Safari - I know one lets you read content off-line - reading lists? but end up saving everyhting there which is probably not very efficient.


So I am just trying some of the suggested things from 19ThingsTVW on IE9 gto see if any work:

• Clicking on a link with  the mouse wheel does open the link in a new tab - very handy
• Click, hold and drag tabs to re-order
• Click, hold and drop above the tab list to open tab in new window (but can't work out how to get it back again!)

I have also discovered a really useful tool for me when I am sharing the PC with a colleague.  I have a really annoying habit of closing all tabs down after browsing rather than just the tab I was working on.  I have discovered that if you right-click on the tab bar you get an option to view and restore recently closed tabs - magic!


 

A word about blogging... Things 3, 4 and 5

So I have created my blog and once you get used to chatting away to yourself it becomes fairly easy to post.
The thing I like most about blogs is that they provide a way to store and comment on those bits and pieces you come across online and don't know what to do with.  For example, one of the main reasons for starting our work blog was to store and share things like the Eyes on Evidence Bulletins.

Some aspects of Blogger appear to be more straightforward than Wordpress (adding images and links) but the range of templates and widgets appears to be limited  - however it could be that I just haven't explored enough.

A couple of issues I have encountered have related to uploading images from my iPad.   It is frustrating that when using blogger on the iPad you don't get an option to upload files stored locally but you can do this on the PC version.  I really need to find a better method for storing, editing and uploading images from my digital camera.  I currently use a very old version of Adobe Premiere but I'm sure there is free online software which is more efficient and I really should investigate cloud storage for my photos - suggestions gratefully received.

I have not yet commented on anyone else's blog so will try to do that this evening.

Thing 2 - QR codes

Here is a QR code for the poem November for Beginners by, Rita Dove.

I created this code using http://www.qrcodegenerator.co.nz/  as you didn't have to register to create it.

We have used QR codes on our library guide and the library door.  We are keen to start adding them to shelves to link to e-books but need to decide which url to link through to.

Shortening long urls

I have used the tinyurl site to shorten our library blog url from http://eastdorsetnhslibrary.wordpress.com, 42 characters to http://tinyurl.com/ednhslib, 27 characters  which will fit more easily on our printed publicity.  I like the tinyurl site as you can create a custom alias for your url which can mirror your full website address.

Wordle Thing1

I love Wordle.  It is so quick and easy to get a great design.  I also like to use it to check the emphasis of a passage of complex text.

Here is my Autumn Wordle created in a couple of minutes and extracted from the site using the snipping tool.

The snipping tool is a new find for me and since hearing about it I can't stop using it.  It has been great for snipping screen shots to put into Powerpoint presentations without the fiddly need for cropping.

Here is an example of a Wordle to check the meaning of a piece of writing - in this case a speech by Jeremy Hunt at the 2013 Conservative Conference:

A walk in the woods

Had a wonderful walk around the Knightwood Oak, Eagle Oak and Bolderwood today - a highlight was to see some pigs foraging for acorns.

 

Pumpkin time

We didn't grow any pumpkins this year but were proud of our three yellow banana squash.