Friday, September 26, 2008

Cool Gadgets

As you can probably tell, I've been playing around with adding new gadgets. I never realized that there were so many gadgets that you could add. It's kind of like all the applications that you can add on Myspace and Facebook in a way. Anyway, I think some of the gadgets I've found are pretty cool!

#9 Finding Feeds


I love Kasey Kahne! I used the bloglines.com search bar and found an ESPN - Kasey Kahne Feed that I subscribed to which is awesome. I actually found this exercise pretty fun and not as confusing as the last exercise. It was kind of like a scavenger hunt! I never realized how many sites out there have RSS feeds that you can subscribe to. I started out by going to some of my favorite sites and trying to find the RSS feed icon. At cnn.com, I subscribed to the entertainment feed and the U.S. news feed because those are the two links that I frequent the most at cnn.com. Then I decided to try huskers.com because I'm a big Husker football and volleyball fan. I found both RSS feeds very easily. I thought it was nice that you could specify just one sport or more if that was what you wanted.

#8 RSS Feeds

I have to start out by saying that I'm still confused about RSS feeds even after reading about them and trying some out. I think that it is a good idea for us to learn about RSS feeds and that once we do learn more, it will help save time so that we don't have to check multiple sites. RSS feeds could help people who work at the library to keep up on new and current library information. The discovery exercises for this week were a little confusing, but I stumbled on through them. I liked how the sign-up for bloglines.com was very easy. Once I created my account, I subscribed to 2 different RSS Feeds. I subscribed to Unshelved and Library of Congress "New on the Web". I've always liked Unshelved comics becaue I find them extremely funny, and I thought that the Library of Congress feed would be interesting to be subscribed too because it will help me keep up with new things. After I subscribed to these two feeds, I couldn't find where I went after I subscribed to them. I thought that they would be on my bloglines.com account, but they ended up being in my favorites tab. After I figured this out, I subscribed to Tim's (Insert Blog Title Here) and Suzan's "Suzan Sorensen". Both Tim & Suzan work at Sorensen with me so I figured it was probably a good idea to see what they were blogging about.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

#7 Technology

Technology is everywhere! There are two sides to technology for me. Some of it is confusing to me because I've never dealt with it and it seems like I never have time to try and figure it out. And then there is other technology that I use everyday that some people probably find confusing, but I find fun because I make the time everyday to play around with it. For example, I've blogged before. Never in this particular setting, but I have blogged on Myspace before so blogging wasn't totally foreign to me. I haven't blogged on Myspace in awhile, but when I was blogging alot it was so that I could get my thoughts out there. Sometimes it seemed like I had so many thoughts in my head that I just needed to write them down somewhere so that I could sort through them easier. I liked how, on Myspace, you could make your blog public so anyone could read it, friend-only so just your friends could read it, preferred-list so just specific friends could read it or diary so that just you could read it. The last option was nice because you could vent your feelings if that was what you felt like.

#6 More Flickr Fun

I'd like to start off by saying that I never realized just how much you can do on Flickr. There is so much there! There's Mappr which sounds kinda cool especially if you went on a trip and want your family to check out the different places you visited through photos you took while on your trip. The Flickr Color Pickr might help us come up with neat ideas for displays using just one color. I liked the trading cards. The Librarian Trading Cards would be cool for a staff day event and a fun way to get to know everyone from the different branches if everyone made their own and brought it with them. We could play a game guessing whose card was whose. I'm sure that this would get alot of laughs!

#5 Flickr

I forgot in my beginning blogs to say which prize I prefer. It's been so crazy at Sorensen unpacking and getting ready to open that it completely slipped my mind. So I guess I'll start off this post by saying that I prefer an MP3 Player since I don't currently own one. Anyway, I think Flickr is a pretty neat tool to know about and utilize when you have time to play around with it. You can edit your photos in so many ways and end up creating some really great images that you couldn't have made otherwise. One photo caught my eye in particular when I was browsing images on Flickr. It's called the Tree of Life, and the photographer used LED flashlights to draw these cool people in different colors. The photographer even altered the base of the tree. These alterations to the photo really drew my attention. You should check it out by clicking on the link. http://www.flickr.com/photos/lostsoul/2466466173/ There are so many other things that you can do on Flickr besides just editing your photos. I really like the option where you can make different things like blurb photo books, prints, QOOP Photo Books and Calendars, and HP PhotoCubes and Books. This has given me some ideas for wedding things that I might try out.

Friday, September 12, 2008

The Sorensen Remodel






A Couple Pictures of the Sorensen Remodel
Ignore the date, my camera hates me! lol

Week 1 & Week 2

Week 1 was a little confusing to me. I wasn't sure how much material I was actually supposed to read. I figured it out eventually by talking to everyone else to see what they had done. Anyway, life-long learning is important to me b/c I think everyone should learn something new everyday. That is part of what I like about my job, the fact that I do get to learn something new each and every day that I come to work. Yesterday for the first time, I attended a Youth Services Retreat in Ashland. It was a totally new experience for me, and I really enjoyed getting to meet librarians from other libraries in the state. It was interesting to hear their opinions and their ideas.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

A Day in the Life of Kris

Most people know at the library that I'm getting married next year in April. I've got alot accomplished, but it seems neverending sometimes. Anyway, a couple of weeks ago my finacè & I signed up for marriage counseling. He had to make the call since I was at work at Sorensen unpacking books. He wrote down on our marker board "September 8th @ 9am". So Sunday night, we were watching a movie and I told him to set the alarm for 8am. The next morning I woke up, looked at the alarm clock, and freaked out b/c the clock said 8:51! So we jumped out of bed, threw some clothes on and, rushed out the door. Somehow we ended up in two separate cars with him thinking I was going with him and me thinking he was going to hop in my car. So we each took off in our cars, trying to make it there as soon as possible and probably breaking some speed limits along the way. In traffic, we got separated and arrived at the church at different times. I looked around for him and couldn't find him. I then tried his cell phone and it was turned off. By this time, I was seriously freaking out thinking, "OMG! We're late to marriage counseling on our first day! This is not a good way to start out!" I finally found Tony and we headed into church only to find out that mass was going on at that time. We sat outside waiting for mass to be done and hoping that we weren't supposed to attend it. Mass got over at 9:30am and we finally got to talk to Fr. Pat who was going to be counseling us. Here we were sitting there nervous b/c we were late, when Fr. Pat tells us that we weren't even supposed to start until 9:30 anyway. So we ended up not being late after all. I guess that goes to show you that not everything is as bad as it might seem at first and that you should wait awhile before you freak out!