Bing

Have you tried Bing? Do you like it? Do we really need another search engine? What can Bing do that Google can't? Will Bing take the lead away from Google????
I just started playing with it and I like the way the search results are displayed. I really liked the little pop ups that go into further details about your search without having to click over to see it. This way you can filter your search and don't have to jump around and back and forth as much.
I will be playing with Bing for a while to see what kind of results it comes up with. I guess time will tell if it can compete with Google.

GPS

Who out there has a GPS like a Tom Tom or a Garmin to use in the car?
I want to buy one but I don't have a clue as to what to look for. I need some ideas, suggestions, recommendations... anyone~~

UPDATE
Well I went out and changed my phone to a BlackBerry. These things have everything.. I got my GPS right on the phone, and a whole lot of other things.. do I need them? NO, but are they fun to have? YES... Now I have no excuse for getting lost or not finding some place I am looking for. So far I haven't used it but I am glad to have it.
I feel like I have my computer with me all the time now as I have my GMail showing up on my phone! I can access Facebook and get instant weather reports. You all are probably saying, well duh...
So I am late to this technology, but I have finally arrived and I am loving it.

Skyfire

Skyfire, a mobile browser launches today with its version 1.0
It already has over 1 million users. Wow.
Chief executive Nitin Bhandari says 'Skyfire users should be able to access the full features of any website on their phone, including those with lots of video such as Hulu and YouTube, plus complex, interactive applications like Facebook and Google Docs.'
You can read more about it through my link.
Do you have all this stuff on your phone? Mine is just a flip phone that I can make calls on or text. I am not yet into all this web stuff on my phone, but I know that is what is coming next, not coming.. it is here now.
Maybe we won't even need our computers as we will just carry it all with us in our phone and use the cloud. But I will need a bigger keypad and a much bigger screen, those little screens are just to hard to see with my old eyes..

Google chief Eric Schmidt hints at partnership with Twitter

Google chief Eric Schmidt hints at partnership with Twitter
Eric Schmidt, the chief executive of Google, hinted that a partnership with Twitter could be close, although he dampened speculation that he is planning to buy the microblogging phenomenon.

By Amanda Andrews and Emma Barnett
Last Updated: 12:12PM BST 20 May 2009

Google CEO Eric Schmidt has hinted that partnership with Twitter could be on the cards
Speaking to reporters following the annual Google Zeitgeist conference, Mr Schmidt said the internet giant “can work” with Twitter without having to buy the social network, hinting that Twitter feeds could be indexed on Google.

Mr Schmidt suggested he had held conversations with the Twitter founders about a strategic partnership and said: “We do not have to buy everyone to work with them."

Despite ongoing speculation that Google could be close to buying the group, Mr Schmidt said it would be wrong to speculate that an acquisition is being planned. Mr Schmidt spoke of his admiration for Twitter and the world’s increasing appetite for real-time social networks,

Larry Page, Google’s co-founder, separately admitted Google needs to learn from Twitter and make its search engine operate at real-time speed.

Speaking at the Zeitgeist event during in a "fireside chat", hosted by Mr Schmidt, Mr Page admitted Google had so far “done a relatively poor job of creating things that work on a per second basis”.

“People really want to do stuff in real-time and they [Twitter] have done a great job about it... We will do a good job of things now we have these examples,” said Mr Page.

He promised Google would improve at implementing real-time search moving forward, especially now it had examples like microblogging phenomenon Twitter to compare itself to.

Talking on a panel alongside Sir Richard Branson, chairman and chief executive of Virgin Media Group, Mr Page quipped that he had been telling Google engineers for some time that the search engine needed to operate on a per second basis, but only now had they finally got the message.


My question is: Is it worth it? Is Twitter a passing fad or is it here for good? Would having Twitter feeds on google make it more worthwhile?

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Wireless internet access

Remember back when we would check into a hotel room and be excited they had cable TV? Now I think every hotel and motel along the highways have free wifi. I am amazed. They don't advertise they have HBO anymore, does anyone care about that?
We stopped at a rest stop somewhere along the road in the lovely state of Kentucky. They had wifi. Am I so far behind the times that this just floors me, did this just kind of happen all of a sudden? I know the coffee shops and the libraries have it, I didn't expect a rest stop though. But now I am educated. I guess I should have known. And here I thought I was Miss Smarty Pants knowing all this 2.0 stuff... ha!

The road to Nashville

The drive down to Nashville was very boring. Going through Illinois was the worst. There is nothing in Illinois, no towns, didn't see any people, it was a horrible drive. Indiana is where things started to look really green. Now I know why, it has been raining in this area for days. It was so nice to see the green trees and the flowering trees. We spent the first night in Columbus Indiana. That is just south of Indianapolis. Talk about a green overload.. it was beautiful. They have so many architecturally interesting buildings in that town, a wonderful mixture of old and new. And it was such a clean city. We stayed at the Hotel Indigo, what an eclectic hotel that was, lime green and red walls, and a shower I wanted to bring home with me. We spent some time wandering around the city taking pictures, and had breakfast in an old time diner.. but it was hot and HUMID there as the hazy sun was out a bit in the morning. We left that town about 10 and headed south towards Nashville.
More to follow. Oh and lets not forget ROAD CONSTRUCTION EVERWHERE...

The Last Thing - Review number 47

I enjoyed these 'more things' more than the first 23. Maybe I am more computer savvy now and could relax and really get into what I was doing without feeling like I had to learn this in order to finish this thing...
I had fun with all the music and videos, online scrapbooking and youtube.
Cloud computing really got me thinking about what the future may be like. I am sure there are many many more changes ahead as our needs expand and our computers get smarter and do more for us.
Could I live without my computer? Maybe, but it would be hard as I rely on it more and more. Kind of like when you first got a microwave oven. (Really showing my age here..) It was a novelty, something to try, but now.. I can't live without it.
Same with the computer, and if they continue to get smaller and all our information is kept out in the cloud, I can see great changes in what we have hooked up at home. We will probably just have it all on something a bit bigger than our phones and light enough to toss in a bag.
The web is constantly growing and changing. So will our lives as we learn to use the tools that are out there. I hope it never stops.
Thank you to all who made the more things possible. I know everyone worked hard putting it all together for us, testing and behind the scenes work. I have enjoyed the ride and hopefully there will be more things to do in the future.

Last week

Here it is, the last week before our new hours start. I am still wondering how this will effect my life. It will be quite a change. I am wondering if any other public libraries in MELSA are also going to cut back their hours? I know some patrons don't like it at all. The Sunday closing seems to be the most vocal of all the times. Although Monday mornings are another one people aren't liking. The rest seems to be alright with most folks. I am hoping this change won't last too long, before we get into the mindset that these are the normal hours and to be open more would be to big a change... it is all about the change.

Number 44 The Economy - eeep!

I really like whatbills.com. It has a tab for upcoming bills, adding a new bill and payment history. I like this in it's simplicity. I think sending reminders via email when a bill is coming due is helpful as I have a habit of forgetting certain bills that don't get paid each month, like the water bill.
ClearCheckbook.com would be a great place to keep and view your financial status at any time, but what I don't have time for is the record keeping. I want something that will interface with my banks and when I use my check card, if some place like ClearCheckbook.com would get that information and insert it into the proper fields, like where I spent my money, how much I spent there..I would be more interested in using it. I don't know if I would be able to import my information from my bank. I guess I should sign up for this and see what it lets me do. I am not real afraid of security issues, but having all my banking information at this site kind of scares me. Should it? Plus I think this site is just more than I really need.
I have a loan at a bank where I also have checking and saving. I can not pay this loan payment online, I have to write a check every month. I can do the automatic withdrawal, but I usually pay more than the amount due, so that wouldn't help me any. This is not a small bank either, why are they not 2.0?
I do pay a lot of my bills online with MyCheckFree which is a great service and they are free. You sign up with your account numbers of your bills and they have the electronic bill sent to them. It will show you when a bill comes in and you can view the bill, pay the bill, set up payments.. but they only service some places, not everywhere. They do not send out reminders either. I pay quite a few of my bills through this service. And they have good records of what you have paid and when.
I looked around at Wise Bread and didn't see much there to make me want to RSS it. To me a lot of this stuff is just common sense, Victory Gardens, Ride Sharing.. don't we all know how to save money in these times? Maybe not, I guess with my mom a product of the depression I grew up hearing about things like this. Maybe she was just trying to prepare me for these times as she always said they could happen again.
Craigslist is a good place to sell things you don't need anymore. I have some bikes I am going to put on the list in a few weeks. And if you have something you just want to give away free, that is the place to post it. My daughter did that with some things she didn't need anymore and put them in her driveway. A few hours later it was all gone. People must really watch that list for things that are give aways. I was amazed at how fast it went.
I don't think my neighbors would like me raising chickens, but if I lived out of the city I would probably give it a try. And I would love to have a garden again but my yard is mostly shade in the summer and I don't want to cut down any of my trees that we have planted. I do think having a garden is a great way to save money on vegetables and they always taste so much better. I will plant a few things in the sunny areas of my yard along with my flowers.
There are many options for us to save money. It is time for us to get out of the throw away mentality and start thinking about reuse, repair and recycle. I heard on the news a while ago that these new LCD and Plasma TV's, when they break it is cheaper to go get a new one than to fix the old one. Now, what is that telling you about our society and how, and where things are made?

Sad Day

April 21, 2009
The end of Anokaberry. I will miss it very much as I used it to find many good books. Without it I never would have found Facttracker, Diamond Willow, Ways to Live Forever, and many others including one of my all time favorites, A Difficult Boy.
Thanks Nan for all the fun we had looking for that Newbery last year. You aren't going to axe 4U are you?

RSS feeds back to Number 30 again

While waiting for the final 'thing' to be posted I decided to do more experimenting with FeedRinse and FilterMyRSS as I have more and many feeds and not any time to go through every post. I will be adding to this post as I find out more about how they work and if they work for me and what I want it to do.
I went to FilterMyRss and you don't have to sign in, all they need is the url and the words you want to filter. I set up my MakeUseOf to filter out all the titles that contain the word "MAC" as I don't have a Mac. It works! This will help cut down on the feeds I get from MakeUsOf, and the ones I get will be ones I want to read.

Zahi Hawass on Archaeology

Zahi Hawass Reveals a Glimpse of the Latest Discoveries in Egypt

Twitter Update

So I thought Twitter was not going to be something I liked. I am playing with it and have found that it isn't just a 'what are you doing' place. I have connected with some local libraries, a few friends, a yarn shop, Zahi Hawass (he is the best!) and even words from the Dalai Lama. I am still wondering if this will be a useful tool, but it is nice to get a short burst of information from the people I follow.
I have also found that some people I follow, the MN Twins for example, send way way way to many tweets and it fills up my screen. I had to block them from my list as they were way to active.
This would be a great way to get out information to your friends and family if you were all following each other, one little tweet to reach them all. I am happy to see my library is using Twitter and sending out blurbs (I am sure there is a Twitter way of saying that, but I am not versed in Twitter talk yet) of information about what is happening, our new summer hours.. keep it up Anoka County, you are being heard.
I have also discovered TweetDeck and have signed up. I love the way it looks. You can see Tweets, replies and direct messages all on one screen. I am having trouble seeing the icons of the people I am following, when I click on friends nothing happens. I believe they are still testing and working out the bugs, but I do like using it. It is a download though, so using it on another computer that doesn't have it downloaded will not work.
Just like in the real world, sometimes you run across something you don't think you will like or use, and once you give it a chance, you find that it has uses you didn't think of. Some things can really fool ya.

New look for spring

The blog has turned green for spring. It's about time, my eyes miss the green of spring and summer. Green leaves gently blowing in the breeze, flowers popping up in my flower garden... welcome green!

This week at ACL

Our new library hours are to be officially announced this week. I am wondering how the public is going to take this change. I am sure we will have the people who will be very upset and very vocal about the change in hours. Hopefully everyone will understand that with the budget cuts from the state there wasn't much we could do, and that this change may not be the last of the changes for the library. I am hoping that our system can start doing more with our catalog to encourage people to read and keep using their libraries. Make it more exciting for them as we won't be open as much, but they can keep up with what is happening online, find new books online, request them online for pickup.. maybe an Anoka County Blog? Anoka County is on Twitter but it is not being used to it's full potential in my opinion. Come on Anoka County, lets use the tools we have available and not make the hours we are open be a bad thing, lets turn it into a great time to experiment with all library 2.0 'things' that are at our fingertips.

Number 45 Cloud Computing

The Internet has already become “one machine” and our devices are windows into it.
Kevin Kelly

Cloud computing, the logical next step in computing. It would be great to have access to my information that is now stored on my home computer, from any computer, any where, any time... I am not worried about security, we have the ability to make these sites secure. And I do believe they will be safe and secure, that will be their drawing point to get us to use them.
I have heard about Mozy backup from their ads on television, I didn't realize there were so many out there. I liked the idea of SOS Online Backup security "SOS Online Backup, for example, encrypts your data locally, using SSL2 to encrypt during transfer, and then encrypts it again on the server—it can even scatter your data among several servers."
Imagine how great it would be to offer a keyboard and monitor at every desk at the library. With no data being stored on the computer itself, other than the operating system, this will be very inexpensive and a great tool for everyone coming into the library to do research or just to work on a project, check email, whatever they want to do. Everything would be stored in the cloud.
This would also make computers very affordable for everyone. It would still require a connection but there are lots of free wi-fi services all around town.
I use Flickr to store my photos as it frees up my computer, I can access them from anywhere and I know they won't get lost or erased by accident. Even if my computer crashes, they will always be on Flickr when I want to look at them. That is the cloud..
I use Google Docs and I think I will use it even more now, for example, for recipes that I want to keep. Now I am using Microsoft Word and storing the recipes in a folder on my computer.. goodbye folder. Although I can access this folder without having to connect to the internet,it is so fast and easy to get online to iGoogle (my homepage) which takes me to Google Docs. That is the cloud.
Ok, where did all these Web OS come from and why didn't I know about them. I feel like I am back in the '90's again. How do you choose one, does anyone out there have a favorite? Why is it your favorite.. do you think that this is the rush and that after a year or two the OS will be weeded out where only the 'best' will survive? I see that some on the list have already fallen. I think I may choose one and try it out for a while. But which one.. I guess I will look for one that has many options?
I tried Glide as it was for Mozilla Firefox, but it crashed on me, so that one is out. I signed up for StartForce but I am still looking for some kind of help on that one. eyeOS had you sign up before you could see what it was about, didn't like that.
I guess I will play with startforce and give it a while to get used to me. I did upload some of my files and I will check it from another location to see if it works. As I am using Firefox at home and Explorer at work, will it work? Does your OS system matter as long as you can connect? Many things to learn on this one.

Fun website

I have this site on my RSS feed and I have found so many fun things to play with here. I would recommend it to anyone who loves to work with photos or learn something new.

www.makeuseof.com

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Louann Smith Day

Louann Smith day was a big success. She loved her quilt and a good time was had by all!!

Changes at the Library

As I am waiting for the next 2 things to be posted I have had time to think about all the new changes that are going on at my library. We are going to change our hours so that we are open just 8 hours a day. I am wondering how that is going to change my life as I have planned my off time around my hours that I work and now that is all different. I am also wondering how the public is going to like not being able to drop into the library at the times they are used to. We will be closed some mornings and I know that will interfere with some mom's bringing in the little ones, and we will be closed some evenings, which will really interfere with the working people who don't get home from work until 5 or 6. I know this is better than having to close a branch, but this is really going to effect a lot of people, public and staff alike. We will also not be open on Sundays in the summer. I hope this budget crisis doesn't get any worse or we will be talking about closing branches or maybe even having to lay off staff, which isn't unusual in these times, but when times are hard people seem to really need the library. Difficult times, hard to think about what will happen. I guess we just have to hope for the best.