Week 7 - #16 - Wikis

This week comes at just the right time. I'm currently evaluating wiki software to decide which is the best one to use for our online information links.

First up I went to WikiMatrix. This site has a Wiki choice wizard which guides you through the evaluation.

Questions asked include:

1. Do you want a page history?
2. Do you want a WYSIWYG editor (What you see is what you get)?
3. Do you want to load software on your server or have it hosted?

Some of the issues I need to consider are if the page editing process is easy and if there is access control. You want to have several levels of access for administrators and editors. I don't want everyone around the world editing. I want to set up a system where people register to be editors.

I had a quick look at the two main players in the hosted wiki arena; Wetpaint and PBWiki. If you want to have a look at the results check them out:

http://erlonlineinformation.wetpaint.com/
http://erlonline.pbwiki.com/

I haven't given up on hosting our own wiki either. We'll see what happens.

Cheers, webgurl

Week 6 #15 - Library 2.0/Web 2.0

As a web designer I spend a lot of my time testing emerging technologies and thinking about their application in our library service. I don't decide to adopt something because it's cool or shiny and new. I like to imagine how it can improve someone's access to our services or their experience on our website.

I loved Wendy Schultz's comment that, "Libraries are not merely in communities, they are communities". Previously it was common library practice for staff to decide what their members wanted. Some books did just sit on the shelves just in case a particular question was asked. The advent of online resources has changed that immensely. Our printed reference collections are shrinking in favour of online resources. At present I'm working on setting up a wiki for our online information links. I hope to see library staff collaborating with school staff and members to maintain these pages. I want to extend it to tutorials for our online resources and study guides.

I anticipate this being warmly received by our younger members and those who are down with Web 2.0 but what about the rest? I think it's important these members are not forgotten. Perhaps offering some training sessions so interested members can find out what it's all about. That's another reason why Learning 2.0 is a great project. When library staff learn about blogs, wikis and social bookmarking etc they can talk to others about it. Perhaps mention it while showing a member some sites while doing a reference interview.

Cheers, webgurl

Week 6 #14 - Technorati

Technorati is a great search tool for find blogs and posts. There is so much to explore for those with an interest in web trends.

I did a search for Learning 2.0. There were 6,975 results - I'm sure we're in there somewhere. Upon browsing the results I found an article from Stephen Abram (Stephen's Lighthouse) about the State Library Learning 2.0 program. The authority number next to the result gives an indication of the number of blogs that link to the website. It isn't the number of links because one blog may link to your blog heaps of times. It only counts as one link. The higher the authority, the more sites linking to it, therefore the more authoritative it is.

While you're looking at the results page cast your eye over to the right to see a graph of the number of blog posts mentioning your search term per day. I like this feature.

Of course I also searched for my own blogs. Firstly Eastern Regional Libraries events blog (What's New @ Eastern Regional Libraries)

I found a few blogs that link to it. A summary is below.






I also looked up this blog, 23squared. I found 2 blogs linking to this one. Thanks Zoya and Christian.



Cheers, webgurl

Week 6 #13 - Tagging at del.icio.us

I've had a del.icio.us account for a couple of years now. Mostly I've used it to tag some of the sections of our library website and to bookmark interesting articles I've come across that I may want to get to later. It is a great way to save your bookmarks so that they are always available and not stuck on a pc at work.

How do you add sites?

Once you have created a del.icio.us account:

1. Click on the Post link at the top of the site.






2. Type or copy/paste the url (website address) of the site and click save.





3. Enter the following information - description, notes, tags and click the Save button.

Once you go back to your list of bookmarks you can see if the site has been saved by other people to their del.icio.us bookmarks. Learning 2.o has so far been saved by 14 people.

While it's good to have access to your own bookmarks, it's even better to check out other people's bookmarks. That's the true beauty of del.icio.us. It's a social bookmarking tool so sharing is encouraged. In the top right hand corner of the site are links to popular and recent bookmarks.

Some examples of popular bookmarks are:

Install Leopard on your PC in 3 easy steps!
save this

first posted by peety on 2007-10-27 ... saved by 480 people ( 122 recently )

Leopard vs. Vista: feature chart showdown - Engadget save this
first posted by lo_fi_librarian on 2007-10-27 ... saved by 66 people ( 21 recently )

I added an article called CSS Round Corners by clicking on the Save This link next to the article title.

While you're browsing the popular bookmarks you can also browse the tags on the right-hand side for items of interest.

Cheers, webgurl

Punctuation and other snarks

Well I was just closing down Blogger when I spied an interesting title in the Blogs of Note - The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks. BUQM pokes fun at the misuse of quotation marks and is worth a look, especially if you have a thing about punctuation.

This sent me checking Bethany's blogroll and so on for other rants.

Check out the following:

• Literally, a weblog
• Apostrophism
• Passiveaggressivenotes
• Lowercasel

"Enjoy". Sorry I couldn't resist :-)

Cheers, webgurl

New template and tagging

Well I was feeling a little cramped with the last template so I decided it was time for a change. What do you think?

I'll have a think if I want to add another coloumn. I haven't decided yet.

Anyhoo onto the exercises for this week - Tagging, Folksonomies and Technorati. Well most of us would have started tagging our blog posts already. The great thing about adding tags is that I can click on the tag and quickly get all of the articles that person has blogged about that tag.

Cheers, webgurl

Widgets all over the place

Well by week 5 this blog is having widget overload. I think I'll start working on a new template to fit them in. Is anyone else having the same problem?

Cheers, webgurl

Week 5 #12 - Rollyo

I must say that I wasn't too impressed with Rollyo. It might be nice to create your own search engine for your website but I found the layout of Rollyo to be confusing. I managed to create a Searchroll and widget for "Stuff to do if you're bored" but I could imagine others having great difficulty finding their way around. I think I added about 10 links or so. Try searching in the search box on the left for quizzes or puzzles etc.

cheers, webgurl

Week 5 #11 - Library Thing & All Consuming

Don't we get enough cataloguing at work, now we want to catalogue our books at home? It's quite puzzling. I joined up to Library Thing and added a few titles from my bookcase. I guess it's a little insight into my tastes - true crime, zoology and web design. You can have a look at the sidebar because I added a widget displaying some of the titles or the full library.

I also joined up to All Consuming. It's a similar concept. You list the books, movies, food, drink etc that you have or are consuming at the moment and rate it. You then share what you're consuming. Check out my consumptions at http://allconsuming.net/person/webgurl/.

Cheers, webgurl

Week 5 #10 - Image generators

I had a look at Comic strip generator and created the following cute ad for my blog? Image generators can be used for entertainment and humour but they do have a practical use. The right image with the right caption can get people's attention. The one thing I wonder about this is the rampant abuse of copyright. While the kitten image might have been uploaded with permission I'm sure the images of The Simpsons, celebrities and the "Dummies book" is not used with permission. I wouldn't use those on my site. What do you think?


Cheers, webgurl

Who doesn't love frogs?

All of the people who love frogs should check out Sea's Place. Suzanne has an online poll running with the cutest frog pictures she found on the web while doing the image generator exercise. I'm finding it difficult to choose between ET and Prison Break. Vote now!

Cheers, webgurl

Ribbet! Ribbet!

Week 4 #9 - RSS & newsreaders - searching for feeds

I tried using the search tools suggested into the instructions to search for RSS feeds but had mixed results. In the past I've used Technorati, Blogger Blog Search and Google with great results. I also use bloggers blogrolls a lot. If I find a blog of interest I check to see what they're reading. I often find cool blogs this way.

Here's some of the new tools I tried.

Feedster
I tried searching libraries and public in Feedster and found only one article in the first page that concerned public libraries. I even tried adding quotes but didn't find anything useful. Big thumbs down.

Topix
Topix gave me some better results however I had to search with quotes to get more valid results.

I find that if you get offered a link to related tags it's best to click on this for better results.

Cheers, webgurl

Week 4 #8 - Advertising your feed

If you scroll down to the bottom of your Blogger blog you'll see the following link - Subscribe to:Posts (Atom). If people were to click on the link they could add the address to their newsreader to subscribe.

If you look at the sidebar of my blog you'll notice a nice little orange icon with a link Subscribe in a Reader. What I've done in this blog is to set up my feed with Feedburner. It's totally free and quite easy, especially now that Google has bought Feedburner.

Once you've registered at Feedburner:

1. Type your blog address or feed address in the box where it says Burn a feed right this instant and click on the next button.



2. 


3. Feedburner will confirm the feed. In this example I am adding the library blog's feeds. It actually displays 2 feeds Atom and RSS and asks me to choose. It doesn't matter which format you choose. Click in the circle next to one of them and click on the next button.
4. 
5. You'll now be asked to give a title for your feed and to choose your Feedburner feed address. Then click on the Activate Feed button.
6. 
   
7. 
8. You can set up stats in the next step but let's click on the link to go directly to Feed management.
9. 

Promoting your FeedBurner feed on your Blogger site (thanks to Feedburner for)

1. Click on the Publicize tab.
   


2. Click Chicklet Chooser. The form shown below contains options that link to your FeedBurner feed.
3. 


4. Click the radio button next to the button you want to display on your site. eg Subscribe in a Reader
   


5. Click the drop-down and select "Blogger" to add the chicklet as a Blogger widget and click the Go button.
6. .


7. Blogger will open in a new window. Follow the prompts there to continue to add the new widget
8. 
   
9. .

Go check out your blog and see if it all worked.

Feedburner is fantastic. I can read the stats for the number of subscribers to my blog. I can create email signatures to advertise my blog. If you've ever received an email from me you may have noticed the scrolling signature.

Anyhoo, give it a go.

Cheers, webgurl

Week 4 #8 Organising your feeds into folders

Maybe it's the librarian in me wanting to have my feeds in nice little folders but it does help if you have a lot of feeds.

To organise your Bloglines feeds into folders:

1. Click on the edit link at the top of the left pane.
2. Click on the New Folder link.
3. Type the name of the folder in the pop-up window and click on the OK button.

You can simply drag the feeds that are in the left pane into those folders you have created. How cool is that?

Cheers, webgurl

Week 4 #8 Adding a blogroll using Bloglines

After organising my feeds into folders, which I recommend to everyone, I decided to add a blogroll to my sidebar. A blogroll is a list of the blogs that you read.

To add a blogroll in Blogger:

1. Go to Bloglines and click on the share link at the bottom left.
2. Type in the name of the folder you want to display.
3. Click on the Generate HTML button.
4. Highlight and copy (Ctrl-C) the Javascript given at the top.
5. Go to the Blogger dashboard and click the Layouts link.
6. Click on Add page element.
7. Click on the Add to blog for HTML/Javascript.
8. Add a title for your blogroll e.g. mine is Tech blogroll
9. Click in the big box and paste (Ctrl-V) the javascript.
10. Click Save changes button.
11. Save your template.

Go check your blog and view your blogroll.

Cheers, webgurl

Week 4 #8 RSS & News Readers

Well I already had a Bloglines account that I only used occasionally. I actually have access to about five newsreaders; Bloglines, My Yahoo, Google Reader, Mozilla Firefox and Mozilla Thunderbird. Mostly I use Firefox as I always have this open.

After remembering the login, no mean feat I must say, I set about adding a few more feeds. I actually organised them as I went by putting them in folders. I used the search box in the top right pane to search for feeds on particular subjects of interest; library, web design and technology etc.

I followed the instructions for sharing the blogroll (or list of feeds) only to find that these instructions are out of date.

To adjust your settings to share your Blogroll:

1. Click on the Account link at the top right.
2. Click on the Blog settings link at the right.
3. Select Yes, publish my Blogroll.
4. Click the Save changes button.
5. Click on the share link at the bottom left.
6. You'll find the link to the public version of your Blogroll at the bottom right.

Webgurl's Bloglines blogroll can be found at http://www.bloglines.com/public/webgurl.

If you want to add my feed to your Bloglines blogroll the address is http://feeds.feedburner.com/23squared

Cheers, webgurl

Woo hoo!

What a fun start to the week. I just won a prize for Week 3 of Learning 2.0. How cool is that?

Now onto week 4 - RSS and newsreaders.

Cheers, webgurl