All projects complete!

Image via WikipediaI was going to have the portfolio done last night but we had a tornado in Chicago. Never thought I'd see that. I live in a garden apartment which is code for basement and my kitchen flooded about 6 inches. This is because we have a 4 step cement stairwell leading to the kitchen door that works great as a catch basin for leaves and rainwater. This was flooded about 3 feet and the water was quickly finding the cracks under the door to get into our apartment. I ran out in the storm and grabbed a bucket to start bailing water from the stairs. I felt like an old salty fisherman but much cooler cause I didn't have the big yellow boots on. So because I had to do this three times last night because of all the rain I had little time to finish my portfolio....but morning brings a new story. It is 7am in Chicago and I have completed the course work for LIS2600. I'm really glad I have a better understanding of how to build a webpage, create links and use online database software as well as bookmarking and taging. Well, thanks for everything.

GABE

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Mission to Mars

Image via WikipediaSo I saw an episode of Nova last week and it was about the Mars mission. It really got me to thinking about how amazing it is that we have this base of human innovation and knowledge that makes it possible to control an ATV from millions of miles away. It really does give you the feeling that as long as mankind survives we'll always be always searching for and discovering knowledge for knowledges' sake.

Super technology

http://www.usc.edu/uscnews/stories/14864.html

Technology is incredible. Computers can make the blind see and the deaf hear. Modern miracles.

Page 2 is done....

Image via WikipediaSo I did the page with linked style sheet. I'm pretty sure I did it correctly cause it looks good and works. Man, this technology is spinning my head. All that's left is my portfolio which I will delve into tomorrow. I know I'm a bit late on these but better late that never. I really like using Kompozer. The ease with which you can flip between the HTML and the page editor is great. I'm glad I'm getting more comfortable with HTML. It still looks like Greek to me but a type of Greek that I can kind of understand...kind of. Well once I finish the portfolio page I think I'll have the confidence I need to build a decent website.

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I BUILT AN INTERNET!!!

My first web page!!

It ain't much but it's the first webpage I've ever built. Next up is the CSS page with links and then the portfolio. Now that I have it figured out the rest should be a piece of cake.

Electric Car

The Kelly Blue Book just added a section for new electric and hybrid cars. Take a look at some of these. These are for getting two people and a shopping bag around. It looks like you're going to have to give up a lot of utility for an environmentally friendly ride. Pay particular attention to the little blue number. I'm 5'7 and my knees would be in my chest.

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zemanta

Image via Wikipedia
Holy technology!

I just tricked out my firefox with the del.icio.us extension, the zemanta extension, user-agent switcher and foxmarks. It's crazy all the free stuff you can get and how easy they make it to search and discover information all over the web. It makes me feel good that people are so interested in information sharing and retrieval that they work on and then provide free of charge their software. Here's some articles and pictures that Zemanta pulled up for me. The pics come from Flickr.
Here's the internet! It looks like outer space. Attached is an article from Zemanta about Zemanta.

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Jing Video

Koha is Done!

Whew!  What a list.  I put together a good list of helpful books for YA librarians and school librarians as well.  Koha is really easy to use.  Anyways here's the list of my 25 books about young adult literature.

What was it like? by Linda Rice

Young Adult Literature in the 21st Century by Pam Cole

Death, Gender and Sexuality in Contemporary Adolescent Literature by Kathryn James

The Ultimate Teen Book Guide 

Young Adult Literature in Action by Rosemary Chance

Best New Media, K-12 by Catherine Barr

Gentile Reads by Deanna McDaniel

Best Books for Boys by Matthew D. Zbaracki

Beyond Picture Books by Barbara Barstow

The Official YALSA Awards Guidebook 

Booktalking Authentic Multicultural Literature by Sherry York

Serving Young Teens and 'Tweens

Building Literacy Connections With Graphic Novels

The Distant Mirror by Joanne Brown

Connection with Reluctant Teen Readers by Patrick Jones

The Teen-Centered Book Club by Bonnie Kunzel

Naked Reading by Teri S. Lesesne

The Heart Has Its Reasons by Michael Cart

The Big Book of Teen Reading Lists by Nancy J. Keane

Classic Teenplots by John T. Gillespie

The Newbery/Printz Companion by John T. Gillespie

Discovering Their Voices by Marsha M. Sprague

Reading Rants by Jennifer Hubert

Serving Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning Teens by Hillias J. Martin

Women Engaged in War in Literature for Youth by Hilary S. Crew

Catching up with the Joneses

Oh man did I fall behind. Comcast, my internet provider, took a week and a half getting my internet working because of some cable problems in the area. At this same time I realized that I'm broke and was worried about paying the rent so I'm now working two jobs. I know everyone has it hard every now and then and it's nothing to whine about so I'm going to shut it and get with the technology. Since my internet's been back up I've gotten caught up with the ePrints assignment and I'm a third of the way through Koha. Here's a note about Koha....it's GREAT! This may be the dorkiest thing I've ever said but meta data RULES! The fact that it makes communication between Koha and the LOC so easy blows my mind. All you need is an ISBN and it grabs all the info for you. Cool. I also took a look at the Jing assignment and it looks pretty straight forward so I think I can finish my Koha shelves and the Jing assignment by this evening.

So anyway, just to blog a bit more since my blogs have been seriously lacking, I just took a job as an auto mechanic. I've never worked on a car in my life but my boss is really excited about training me. I've been there two weeks and already I know how to change brakes and rotors, O2 sensors, struts and wheel control arms. Not too shabby for an up and coming librarian. I think now that I'm settled in and not terrified that I might go homeless I should be able to keep up with the blogs and assignments. Time to get a daily planner.
'

Ooops.

I've been neglecting my blog.  Well here's my update.  I finished the Scopus assignment and I'm now going to get started on the Koha project.  Here's a few words about the Scopus assignment.  Finding resources wasn't that hard and importing from Scopus and Google Scholar into RefWorks is really easy.  This has opened up a whole new world of research possibilities for me.  No more scraps of paper with my refs on them floating around and getting lost and no more huge stacks of printouts wasting space and paper.  I did have some trouble with the Web of Science citation alerts but when I got to the Thursday chat I realized that most of the class had problems too so I didn't feel too stupid.  Well, I'm going to try to keep up with this blog.  It's a habit I need to get into.

gabe

First Assn. Done!

I finished the first bookmarking assignment last night.  I had a huge wrestling match with getting the refs out of del.icio.us and into RefWorks.  I used the RefGrabit but I think I lost my tags along the way.  It also took me a bit to figure out how to use RefGrabit.  Well it's all done now....time to move on to Scopus.  I'll get started on that tonight.  This is a busy class.  I haven't even got to the OS videos yet.  Well, one step at a time.

GABE

Almost Done

So I've almost completed the zotero, connotea, del.icio.us assignment.  I found zotero to be the best, connotea second and del.icio.us last.  I see the difference in how each can be used for different applications.  Zotero and connotea are good for research and del.icio.us would be good for sharing social bookmarks for non-research related applications.  I hope I'm doing all this correctly.  I guess I'll find out after I submit the RefShare list.  I'm glad I'm getting exposure to these online programs.  Zotero would have been a huge help in 2000 and in many of my undergrad classes.  Well, I'll be back in a few days with a report on the next assignment.

gabe

Trucking away

So I finished the zotero collection and imported it to RefWorks with no real problems. I've moved on to connotea and have found sucess with that and Amazon.com. I tried using the PittCat and it kept crashing on me. Oh technology. Well it looks like I'll have this project finished tonight with or without the sslvpn. Anyways, I'm sold on zotero for sure...not quite so hot on connotea and delicious. Zotero seems to aggrigate the citation information much better than either connotea or delicious. Anyways, time for work.

gabe

On the Mend

Jeeeeze, Adult Chickenpox SUCKS!  Well I can finally think clearly and get on this technology deal.  I read the chapters of Discovering Computing 2009 and got started on the bookmarking assignment.  It took me a minute to figure out how to use connotea and Zotero but I figured it out eventually.  Zotero is really easy to use along with the LOC catalog.  It read the MARC tags and filled in the Zotero tags with the subject headings.  Connotea wasn't quite as easy and I'm not quite sure how it's going to work with the PittCat through the sslvpn.  I'll keep on truckin and report my progress tomorrow.  

Chicken Pocks Sucks

So here I am, 30 years old and I just caught the chicken  pocks.  I've been feeling sick for the past few days and then when I read Discovering Computers 2009 I got really sick.  :)  Har har, but for real I did.  I woke up this morning with little bumps all over my scalp and forehead and a fever of 101.   Yuck.  I called my doctor and she told me to take some Motrin and Benidryl and call her on Friday.  I guess there's not a whole lot you can do for the chicken pocks.  

I'm going to rest tonight and since I'll be off of work tomorrow I'll have plenty of time to dive into the bookmarking assignment.  

gabe

Gettin' Started

Well, I've never done a blog before or kept a diary so this should be fun.  This is kind of a test run blog to see if I can do it correctly.  If you're reading this then I was successful.  That makes me feel good.  Well I just got the books for class today so I'll be spending my evening nose deep in the exciting world of "Discovering Computers 2009".  I can't wait to see a year into the future of computing!  

love,

Gabriel Ransenberg