Technorati - Thang No. 14

Yes, I'm back and with paws fairly intact. I've been looking around Technorati this morning under the tag 451 because of The Big Read. It's ironic because the last time I played around with Technorati is was for Big Read 2008, getting the To Kill a Mockingbird blog officially listed on Technorati. That blog was replaced by the Big Read 2009 Ning - won't you join us for 2009? The Big Read 2009 Ning

So, looking at Technorati is like revisiting an old friend who you haven't seen in ages...I found this 451 video highly rated under the 451 tag on Technorati. Liked the overview of the Bradbury book banning incident in Conroe, TX (originally aired on ABC news but "recaptured" on YouTube by The Constitution Man). I couldn't disagree more with the heavy handed politics at the end, but it's mostly good stuff before then. And that's what democracy is all about, eh?

Continuing to Play - post deadline

Well, I'm going to keep playing. Health concerns have kept typing to a minimum, and I've needed my paws for work. But the 23ers inform me that the blog lessons will live on past 1/31, so I'll just have to play them a little more slowly.

Del.icio.us and Wordle - Thang No. 13

Just created a Wordle graphic design using my tags from del.icio.us. It's super fun - and you can see other galleries of word art from those using del.icio.us and beyond. The words are bigger depending on how often you attach that tag to bookmarks. Art is huge because of obvious reasons (I'm your friendly art librarian) and I was tagging Spain a lot last year because of my travels. You can create word art around any set of tags or any series of words. I warn you, it's addictive.

Click on the thumbnail for the larger tag graphic.

The Big Machine

Today we had a series of big machines around our house - they probably have proper names, but I'm going to refer to them as big drill, paving thing, and thing that belches out asphalt like poop from a goose.

I was trying to catch up with an old friend of mine (visiting from Germany) but the jackhammers drove us away to greener and quieter pastures. Here's a pic of one of the big machines. I'd attach a soundtrack, but you'd have to crank your speakers all the way.

Rollyo - Thang No. 12

Rollyo has been on my list of 2.0 tools, but this is my first time playing with it. I started out in the Public Domain e-books Rollyo and looked for some vague search terms (mystery book) and specific ones (creative commons - which pulled up licensing agreements for shared works - IPL had the best results there).

Then I searched for Ron Howard (I'm quite a fan of Arrested Development) on sapllearns media Rollyo. Because Howard is just a prolific and gifted actor/director/you name it, the search results were massive - but again I liked the ability to rope in results by picking one site and grouping my results. I can definitely see how Rollyo could be useful for Reference - but like all Web 2.0 tools, something that needs to be refined and edited with frequency.

So I decided to add do my own Rollyo for art history. I set up my own Rollyo account under bibliosopher and grabbed some expansive art history sites (like Smithsonian's SIRIS, Artcyclopedia and more). It created my own search rollyo in less than 10 minutes. The search results so far are pretty good - if you like art history or want to learn more, come and play:

Select...art historySearch The Web

Goodreadin' - Thang No. 11

Goodreads is one of my favorite library 2.0 tools. I first chronicled all my children's books before my slipshod memory lost them. Then I added reader's advisory Goodreads shelves for YA lit, comedy & satire, art and more. My Goodreads holds almost 700 books (this includes a list of 100 to-reads, which is growing by the week). Soon my virtual bookshelves will be larger than the ones in my house.

My Goodreads "to-reads" are gathered mostly from suggestions, but occasionally from ALA and TLA reading lists. I can see what Neil Gaiman is reading, and add books from my favorite surreal novelist. How cool is that - to live in a time where I can see what authors I enjoy are reading.

My reading plan currently includes mystery and suspense books. I'd love to hear your bookish suggestions, so feel free to click through my Goodreads widget on the right and send me a message or friend request.

Being John Malkovich - Monroe - Thang No. 10

I decided to try an image generator using one of my drawings rather than a personal photo. First, here's how the original drawing looks. I took a photo of the drawing.



Photofunia has 2 kinds of image generators - one that uses "Face Technology" to match your image to the face (3-D), and one that takes your face and presses it flat. The Face technology one is truly creepy. It gives a new meaning to the phrase - I'm all ears...



A less sinister version is the Photofunia graffiti image generator, that rendered my drawing quite nicely.