Update on Google books

How cool, I went to a course today and got advised to find a book - put it in Google books and there it was. Then went to Fishpond (heard about that!) and found it for a great price and in stock.

So forget going to particular websites and searching for a book, 3 minutes and it's done. Damn good work that.

There's got to be one more fish in here!

There's got to be one more fish in here!
Originally uploaded by ucumari

Two of my favourite things - a polar bear and the colour green.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

#12 Flickr

There I was thinking that I would get to bed at a reasonable time, but I thought I'd spend a minute starting this activity....

So now of course I've set up a yahoo account, and flickr, added a photo, emailed the link to myself and gotten slightly excited about how easy it will be to share photos and video with family in other bits of the world. No more huge emails (or deleted ones) and the time spent being very selective in what I send to limit the upload sizes.

I'll finish this one properly soon (i.e. look at all the supporting info) but for now, this one is rating as a winner.

#11 Library thingy

Oooo, back to something that seems academic and sophisticated - so I'm going to say this is a great site even though I haven't had a great play yet!!

One tiny issue, possibly - many of my very favourite books that I have entered have been printed many times, so they're all not "one book". I wonder if that is a search issue later (when looking for other related books that I might like), but I doubt it will be a problem. I just love how you can type in an author (such as Douglas Adams) and expect to see a few books, but there are heaps!! And one's I hadn't known existed - I take it that that is when a site like this becomes really cool. And stops you going to bed when you are knackered.

A first play here indicates that Google Books would work very nicely together with this site. Still nice to search by keyword in GB.

Nevertheless I like this one, will be sticking a widget on my blog (whatever the hell a widget is, I expect we learn that later???).

#10

Aahhhh! All that time creating a Lego character and I can't save the damn thing (or rather have given up trying). Yes, fun, waste of time, but fun.

The baby one was a bit of a worry. Uploaded a photo of my husband and I and the kiddie doesn't look like any of ours. A bit disturbed that I could encourage kids to virtually sleep with a celebrity to sus out babies!!!!

Hey, I found one I like!!! Creating jigsaws from your own photos, sounds like a cheap birthday present...... But then Jigzone has hundreds of them ready to go.

And someone else in this course (so I've nicked the idea) has used http://simpsonizeme.com/# to create a Simpsons character of yourself!! That's quick and cool. Well perhaps not that quick, but this one actually interested me!

All these sites are really for people with nothing to do!! Get me back to the practical stuff that is going to save me time!! (I know, not the point, I'm supposed to be learning about what turns kids on).

#9

Riiight.... A 5 minute look at this one indicates that it's going to be for when I have heaps of play time - which I hardly ever have!! At first glance it's not looking like a great learning-assistance tool, and I do wonder if the kids actually even know about it.

But might be a blast for the kids who are trying to avoid their maths homework so I'll get in and try and understand it better sometime soon, but right now it's in the non-essential basket (I'm still hooked on developing Google docs right now, and hoping that it won't be blocked when I try it in the computer room tomorrow....).

Oh - tried to watch the YouTube video of Intro to Second Life but it said it was private. Suits me.

And oh boy, the more I'm looking into these virtual worlds (and I'm into WoW now) I'm getting even more disinterested!! This stuff must appeal to someone, but it's not me.... do I really need to know about it!!????

Bored, bored, bored, bored, bored.....

#8 iGoogle

Okay, at first I thought "nyeh", not a big fan of this one. But after a bit of a play I've found some really useful stuff to put on this page. Such as a link to this blog, and to google docs (my greatest find throughout this course so far).

I note that I can make up my own gadget, so expect I can add my own weblinks. But that seems a bit unnecessary since I have cheated and started using del.icio.us!! There's all my favourites nicely portable, thank you.

So not too sure if I'll make great use of this one. Not a social butterfly so not into all this personalisation as yet. But possibly more useful than my usual homepage (which I am also encouraged to personalise!!).

Videos of google were nice, don't like the idea of putting on weight but most certainly appreciate the massive benefit of feeding your staff!!! There's significant time saved each day by not needing to prepare lunch, or not needing to leave the building to go get it - very clever, I assume there is no reason for anyone to leave the site. I wonder if anyone sleeps there??

Enough raving, kids to put to bed still!!!!!

I've changed the time!

Yes, I have found the place to alter the time.

So now we are in real Aussie time. Good one.

# 6

Google maps! Great idea for advertising - I've had a go at putting my husband's business on the map and am now hoping that it will load okay (I assume it's being verified by "someone").

Nice idea, I wonder how widespread they are known (just because I didn't know about them doesn't mean the rest of the world doesn't).

# 5

And there I was avoiding Google since it seems so mainstream!

I've had a quick look at the many features and am downloading Sketchup now (that's the engineer in me). I like the sound of Notebook but it wouldn't come up so I'll try that again later - I'm hearing people rave about Onenote (which I don't have either) so would really like to hear from people out there who have experience in either, or preferably both.

I've also looked blankly at the screen of Google docs (which of course is what I'm supposed to be looking at) but can't get inspired to sus that out right now. Would be nice to see a short bit of video on that one!!

Okay, after a short break I did get enthused enough to try a document. Not bad, posted my comments into the document but now I can't get the damn thing to share!! Says I need to verify my account, but of course I've done that already!! Too hard basket, at least I can see it........

I had trouble with reading the articles until I got to the straight-to-the-point one Marketing 2.0. Simply ideas, reinforcing that Web 2.0 is about 2-way communication (unlike a webpage that I might edit which is predominantly my ideas and without the provision for ease of comment).

Interesting how Web 2.0 is characterised not by software updates but rather by constant evolution.

Education 2.0 (which I skimmed through - so wordy late at night!) worries me slightly with potential students having possible issues with ensuring the validity of their educational institution. Online it can be from "anywhere". I welcome comments from those that read this article thoroughly to correct me on this point.

I'm up to 13 of my 43 things.....

There are oodles of useful links here, but they are one giant web!! I can't help feeling that I am going to go off on a tangent (maths teacher, remember?!) following a useful thread and then forget what I was doing in the first place.

So for now I have several windows open and I am adding text like this is several places. Like an online to do list. Very useful and I won't recycle it by mistake.....

Hey hey!!! Now I know where the word "blog" comes from!!

I always thought this was a very unattractive word and that has certainly discouraged me from looking into it - but now that I find it is short for "weblog" and now it sounds much more organised!!!