Monday, January 29, 2007

Week 3, Thing 7 - Post about anything technology related)

This topic makes me want to break out into a Kip Dynamite-like song. I love technology.
I think the best way I can approach this is to share some of my favorite technology related things of the moment:

Text to voice software. I'm currently using the trial version of this one, it works very well. I'll probably end up purchasing it. So far I've mainly been using it to listen to blog posts of friends, it's great to give my friends a 'voice.'

Amazing circles. An LJ friend introduced me to these a while back, they're basically a photo distortion where you can turn a digital photo into a sphere. It's really fun to make them, if you have Photoshop there is a tutorial here that shows how to make them. Here's one what one of my circles turned out to look like:

The original photo was of a beaded styrofoam ball ornament that a friend gave me. That image always reminds me of a glass paperweight. There are lots of great amazing circles pictures on Flickr.

I'm currently using Nero Ultra Edition to make something similar to amazing circles. Nero has a 'kaleidoscope' effect which is really easy to use in the PhotoSnap software. Here's a kaleidoscope I made of the Humpty Dumpty picture:

Week 3, Thing 6 - Flickr Mashups


I've found a few Flickr mashups that are fun to play with, one of them is Spell with Flickr. This one is a tool that lets you spell out words with pictures of each letter (from Flickr). You can go to the Flickr image by clicking on the letter in the lower rendition.


And here's an example, using the word 'blog':

DSCN5516 Ll O G

Pretty neat!

Also, Flickr Suduko is pretty fun too. It's a Suduko puzzle that uses images from Flickr instead of numbers. You can change the images and use keywords for search for images, you can even search for pictures of 'libraries' in the puzzle!

One more ... (I found these links on webmonkey's list of the top 10 Flickr mashups, by the way) Captioner, which allows you add captions to images. Click here to see a hungry little mp3 player. :)


Sunday, January 28, 2007

Week 3, Thing 5 - Explore Flickr part 2


hdumpty
Originally uploaded by Leftover whimsy.

Here is a recent picture of something from my branch, a giant: stuffed Humpty Dumpty hanging from the ceiling in the children's area. My library branch has several children's literature characters hanging from the ceiling over the picture books. They're very colorful.

Saturday, January 27, 2007

Week 3, Thing 5 - Explore Flickr




I have a tiny Flickr album of crafts that I've made a while back. Here's a mp3 player cozy that I made out of fleece. It's helped keep my Creative Nomad from getting scratched!



Friday, January 12, 2007

Week 2, Things 1-4 - Lifelong learning and setting up blogger blog

I consider lifelong learning as essential as lifelong eating, or sleeping. Learning new skills, information, and perspective keeps life interesting. I welcome the opportunity to learn more about web 2.0 through "The 23 Things"!

Of the 7 1/2 habits of successful lifelong learners, the habit that easiest for me is #1 - beginning with the end in mind. Goal setting is the easy part, it's all of the work towards the goal that's sometimes difficult! In the past, I've found that viewing problems as challenges (#3) is often hard. I know that growth comes from obstacles and challenges, but too many problems at once can bring achievement of a goal to a standstill. In the case of my goal of learning the 23 things of 2.0, I'm confident I will overcome any obstacles or problems.