Play week

Finally arrived, and before the (extended) deadline. What a truely awesome experience, I feel energised, excited and even knowledgable - at least somewhat. I have leant a heap and have some goals to achieve. The first is to list all the new sites I have joined, along with their passworsd and logins, not all believe it or not consistant. I want to get on with my home LibraryThing, create a wiki for the severally owned bach, the joint family Christmas, get a better grip on RSS feeds and sorted with Technorati, do a proper travel site with Rollyo, sort my photos, join del-ic-ious (something I am in the middle of doing but which has run into a registration issue) And that is in my personal life
For work I now see a wide web 2.0 vista, and with all the skill that now exists I think NSL is going to have a powerful presence in the virtual world, it is a matter of making the opportunities available for all our talent.

Social networking

Social networking is definitely a big part of many people's lives. I was interested when I followed the links to libraries that had FaceBook pages how little some of them seemed to be used, one library had less tha 100 friends, 2 others had more than a 1000, but the posts seemed to be sporadic and not that frequent at any time. A question to be answered "is this a fad, or is it becoming an established part of life"
There is definitely an opportunity for NSL to expand into this area, but as the articles all seem to say - if you don't do it well don't bother. One needs to understand why NSL would have a FaceBook or My Space presence. Presumably to reach that under 25 or so audience who live in this space. To be successful I believe we would need someone completely at home in the social network space to deliver the service, somebody that is likely to be under 25. Is an alternative to work with schools to deliver at least part of the service, link in with North Shore's NEAL network. Another thought is - have we missed the boat, I seem to hear that the use of FaceBook is slowing, are people abandoning this form of communication, or moving on to something else. It is an area that needs research and planning.
Lots of questions. NSL should have a new interactive website by early next year, this would be the opportunity to set up a FaceBook page. It is an area I am uncertain about, but I think with so many library staff completing web 2.0 training there will be lots of answers to the many questions.

Facebook

I have had a Facebook account for about a year, and I have a number of friends. My early thoughts were why am I sending them little meassages this way when I could email them. As I have Facebooked a bit more I am beginning to see how the network can be looked at in a different way, a community one can keep in touch with easily and simply, this does not seem to be a place for long philosophical thoughts. But I could keep my photos here, and if I went to the site every day I can see that it might become addictive. I am a member of the NSL group, which seems to not be very active, and I get the LIANZA conference stuff, which is useful. I vaguely keep in touch with a kindergarten friend who lives in Hawaii, and I guess without facebook he would just be a guilty thought, whereas a poke is at least contact.
Bebo is obviuosly for the teeny bopper crowd, I was interested in ACL's site, most of the postings were months old, does it get much, any use? MySpace is beyond me at this stage, but maybe, as a result of this exercise, I will go and create myself a virtual life as a vet or a garbageman - 2 early choices of career.
I have a way to go before I get a real grip on facebook, but I have started the journey!

eBooks

I covered some of this in an earlier posting, but am still discovering more. Hunting around Googles book project made me realise how very North American centric this movement is at the moment. This is reinforced by the reply I received from Amazon about Kindle availability in NZ

Hello from Amazon.com.
Thank you for your expressed interest in purchasing a Kindle in New Zealand.
At this time, we are unable to offer the Amazon Kindle and associated digital content from the Kindle Store to our international customers due to import/export laws and other restrictions. Whispernet, which allows you to take advantage of Kindle's wireless features, is currently available only in the United States.
We value our international customers and hope to make content available in your location in the future. Please continue to check our website for additional information on supported locations. I'm sorry that I do not have more information at this time as to when it will be made available outside of the United States.

However one lives in hope. I also noticed that the wikipedia struggled with its ebook entry, pleading for some verification. It also talked about the ebook devices being able to be read in the dark because they are backlit - this to my knowledge is wrong.
I searched for Conan Doyle as my public domain literature, there are always lots of his works available where ever you look, and interesting enough to be able to read on a screen one would think. However, I have tried on both a PC screen and my PDA, and it is just too much effort to be worth it. An ebook on the other hand............

I am still interested in eNewspapers, choice of news paper, immediacy, lack of papre to get rid of, and the Kindle will provide this via wireless, but what a small screen. It would make reading newspapers a whole new experience. A picture of the yet to be named Plastic Logic reader, released last month and designed for newspaper reading has an A4 size screen, certainly a step in the right direction.
ebooks are not really about change, just print presened in a different format. Roll on the Kindle and the enewspaper.

Podcasts

I struggled with this a bit, I am finding that I need to consolidate all the things I have learned, so I spent some time revisiting RSS feeds and Bloglines. I explored the sites offered and found Podcastpickle the most interesting and easy to use. I then somehow got into a a spiral joining MediaFly, which I have done and to my surprise have added a BBC programme, From our Correspondent, and in future this is probably the way to go. But to get something I went to the BBC site and added their podcast documentary series to my Bloglines. Certainly current as I have heard some of them on 810 AM quite recently. I also searched in several sites for the podcast of my brother in law speaking to the British House of Lords about Arabic Television a year or so ago. No luck, maybe my searching is not up to scratch, or else the search engines do not mine very deeply. I am now inspired to set up my very small ipod i bought several months ago which is still sitting in its case.

YouTube

Well what a surprise, hundreds of similar sites, and I thought there was only 1. Well perhaps i just hadn't explored enough. i have spent an hour roaming, looking at endless variations on falling donimos, (can you believe how bad some of the photography is?} checking out music of the 50s and 60s, including endless vesrions of Johnny B Goode. I am going to try and embed a video clip, but before I do that - my editing issues with my blog and Zoho come into play here, let me tell you about my big YouTube moment. i was reading the biography of Leni Riefenstahl, photograher extraordinaire and one of Hitler's propaganda film makers. the book mentioned her film Triumph of the Will,possibly - according to the book - the greatest propaganda film ever made. trip to the video store I thought, no wait lets try YOUTUBE!!. Voila there it was in all its glory well over an hour. It really brought home to me the diversity and power of this type of social sharing tool.
OK here we go, adverts from the 60s, bad taste I know, but love the tune.

Web 2.0 Awards

A bit like Rollyo with quality control. I skimmed a whole lot of sites. Read about Twitter, do I really want to know what somebody is doing every minute of the day, fine when you are young and have a new love in your life, but even that fades after a while. many of the names in the lists are old favourites, and some of the compilations are rather eclectic. However i will explore the travel one more and see if I can add stuff to my own Rollyo list. The article we were refered to talks about 17 companies writing Office applications and questions if this is really what we want. I must say I find it confusing enough to have 2 email addresses without having to decide whether to use word or someting else ( alraedy there is the dilemma of knowing about Zoho) Useful site to know about, did it add much to my knowledge, not yet, maybe later............

MetroNet report August 2007

 

 

 

North Shore Libraries

 

MetroNet Report ®– August 2007.           

 

eLGAR                          

 

There has been a great deal of progress made in the last six months. Earlier in the year a hosting/system support manager, Petri Coetzee, was appointed. Petri is employed by Auckland City Council ITC and is responsible ensuring, in broad terms, that the technical side of Millennium runs smoothly. A service level agreement has been signed between the councils who make up the eLGAR consortium and ACC ITC and this has allowed the process of appointing the new system support team to begin, the positions are expected to be advertised this week.

In May eLGAR appointed its Establishment Manager, Hamish McDonald, who has a business background, mainly in the wine industry. Hamish will be supported by an office of three, with provision to bring in project management help as required. Already Hamish is having a significant impact on the running of the eLGAR operations and allowing the Board to concentrate on more strategic work.

The discussions with Franklin and Papakura libraries concluded with neither library deciding to purchase the Millennium software at this stage, however, we are still looking at ways of including them in wider eLGAR projects and functions.

The eLGAR work plan for the next twelve months is still large but not as frenetic as it was this time last year. Operationally we are looking to install some form of ecommerce so that patrons can pay fees and charges directly on-line either in the library or remotely. On a strategic level we are currently undertaking a training review, writing a customer strategy and finishing off work on both reporting strategies and cataloguing principles. We are working with our staff on creating a collaboration framework, and on moving our focus from Millennium only to a wider collaborative vision. Beginning work on a shared technical services concept is scheduled to begin in the middle of next year.

 

3M Award.

 

Last year eLGAR won the 3M Award for Innovation in Libraries. In consultation with our staff we decided the best way to spend the prize was to bring a relevant and motivational speaker to New Zealand. The choice of speaker is Rivkah Sass, Director of the Omaha Public Library and Librarian of the year 2006 in the US. Rivkah will be speaking at the Australian Public Library Conference this weekend, and has expressed real interest in coming to NZ later in the year. Rivkah’s areas of professional passion centre around having the right library for a community and the role that libraries play in a democratic society. If we are able to bring Rivkah to NZ there would seem to be a real opportunity for her to travel around the country speaking to libraries and at the same time seeing how NZ operates its systems. If anyone is interested in exploring this further please contact me before you go home so I can begin a negotiation with Rivkah.

 

North Shore Buildings  

 

The appeal by a small band of residents against rebuilding the Birkenhead Library on the Nell Fisher Reserve spent a week in the Environment Court in May, with a judgement expected in August. While it was an interesting experience, one might observe that there appears to be a mismatch between the rights or wishes of the vast majority of the local community and the powers that the RMA gives to a small number of appellants each with a different objective. I hope that in six months time I will be able to give a more positive report.

The proposed expansion of the Devonport Library, also on a reserve has been exposed to widespread public consultation and progress will be slow and measured.

Planning for our next major building, Albany Central which is scheduled to be completed 2011/2012, has already begun.

The most interesting exercise currently scheduled is the recarpeting of Takapuna Library while still keeping it open, at least one floor at any one time, later this month. The current wool carpet is almost 20 years old and has withstood the footsteps of six million visitors. The $250,000 replacement programme will see the laying of more versatile carpet tiles – but obviously not made of wool as they can be recycled.

 

Urban Fibre Network

 

Formally the MUSH network, is almost ready to be hooked up to the libraries. Initially this will simply give NSL super quick computers, but is expected in a while to play a significant role in the improvement of our digital services. Currently I am working on a business case to establish a digital team that will allow the maximum use of the network. The owners of the cable, Vector, are planning to install WIFI capability in each library and are working on a proposal that will allow Council to provide not only free Internet but also free WIFI access in all its libraries.

 

Strategic Plan.

 

The draft North Shore Libraries strategic plan has been completed by John Truesdale and Sue Sutherland. It is an excellent document and is already being used to reinforce the proposed library service. Because of local body elections the plan will not be presented to the new library committee until early in 2008. By that time the high level strategic document will be supported by a more detailed network plan, which in time will be supported by the library business plan.

 

 

 

North Shore Libraries Foundation Events.¹

 

The beginning of the year has been relatively quite, but soon in the space of a month the Foundation will be hosting events with Paulllina Simons, Kathy Reichs, Michael Palin and Ian Rankin.

 

Geoff Chamberlain

30th July 2007

 

 

 

---

¹ Last of the MetroNet reports before the group wound up to be replaced by APLM

MetroNet report August 2007

I have had several attempts at editing this, but things keep changing. Anyhow, I have got most of the photo over, played around with the text and looked at a lot of the flash stuff. the real benefit would seem to be in the sharing of a document. So once i reach number 23 I'll go back and have a shot at setting up a work group and try working that way. I must say this one has made me think through some technocal issues, but I get the concept.

North Shore Libraries

MetroNet Report ®– August 2007.

eLGAR

There has been a great deal of progress made in the last six months. Earlier in the year a hosting/system support manager, Petri Coetzee, was appointed. Petri is employed by Auckland City Council ITC and is responsible ensuring, in broad terms, that the technical side of Millennium runs smoothly. A service level agreement has been signed between the councils who make up the eLGAR consortium and ACC ITC and this has allowed the process of appointing the new system support team to begin, the positions are expected to be advertised this week.

In May eLGAR appointed its Establishment Manager, Hamish McDonald, who has a business background, mainly in the wine industry. Hamish will be supported by an office of three, with provision to bring in project management help as required. Already Hamish is having a significant impact on the running of the eLGAR operations and allowing the Board to concentrate on more strategic work.

The discussions with Franklin and Papakura libraries concluded with neither library deciding to purchase the Millennium software at this stage, however, we are still looking at ways of including them in wider eLGAR projects and functions.

The eLGAR work plan for the next twelve months is still large but not as frenetic as it was this time last year. Operationally we are looking to install some form of ecommerce so that patrons can pay fees and charges directly on-line either in the library or remotely. On a strategic level we are currently undertaking a training review, writing a customer strategy and finishing off work on both reporting strategies and cataloguing principles. We are working with our staff on creating a collaboration framework, and on moving our focus from Millennium only to a wider collaborative vision. Beginning work on a shared technical services concept is scheduled to begin in the middle of next year.

3M Award.

Last year eLGAR won the 3M Award for Innovation in Libraries. In consultation with our staff we decided the best way to spend the prize was to bring a relevant and motivational speaker to New Zealand. The choice of speaker is Rivkah Sass, Director of the Omaha Public Library and Librarian of the year 2006 in the US. Rivkah will be speaking at the Australian Public Library Conference this weekend, and has expressed real interest in coming to NZ later in the year. Rivkah’s areas of professional passion centre around having the right library for a community and the role that libraries play in a democratic society. If we are able to bring Rivkah to NZ there would seem to be a real opportunity for her to travel around the country speaking to libraries and at the same time seeing how NZ operates its systems. If anyone is interested in exploring this further please contact me before you go home so I can begin a negotiation with Rivkah.

North Shore Buildings

The appeal by a small band of residents against rebuilding the Birkenhead Library on the Nell Fisher Reserve spent a week in the Environment Court in May, with a judgement expected in August. While it was an interesting experience, one might observe that there appears to be a mismatch between the rights or wishes of the vast majority of the local community and the powers that the RMA gives to a small number of appellants each with a different objective. I hope that in six months time I will be able to give a more positive report.

The proposed expansion of the Devonport Library, also on a reserve has been exposed to widespread public consultation and progress will be slow and measured.

Planning for our next major building, Albany Central which is scheduled to be completed 2011/2012, has already begun.

The most interesting exercise currently scheduled is the recarpeting of Takapuna Library while still keeping it open, at least one floor at any one time, later this month. The current wool carpet is almost 20 years old and has withstood the footsteps of six million visitors. The $250,000 replacement programme will see the laying of more versatile carpet tiles – but obviously not made of wool as they can be recycled.

Urban Fibre Network

Formally the MUSH network, is almost ready to be hooked up to the libraries. Initially this will simply give NSL super quick computers, but is expected in a while to play a significant role in the improvement of our digital services. Currently I am working on a business case to establish a digital team that will allow the maximum use of the network. The owners of the cable, Vector, are planning to install WIFI capability in each library and are working on a proposal that will allow Council to provide not only free Internet but also free WIFI access in all its libraries.

Strategic Plan.

The draft North Shore Libraries strategic plan has been completed by John Truesdale and Sue Sutherland. It is an excellent document and is already being used to reinforce the proposed library service. Because of local body elections the plan will not be presented to the new library committee until early in 2008. By that time the high level strategic document will be supported by a more detailed network plan, which in time will be supported by the library business plan.

North Shore Libraries Foundation Events.¹

The beginning of the year has been relatively quite, but soon in the space of a month the Foundation will be hosting events with Paulllina Simons, Kathy Reichs, Michael Palin and Ian Rankin.

Geoff Chamberlain

30th July 2007

---

¹ Last of the MetroNet reports before the group wound up to be replaced by APLM

Technorati Tags MetroNet,APLM

Rollyo

Librarywise I think this site could have great application and could ally itself nicely next to The Fitch. So far I have regarded the Web as a vast and getting vaster of uncorralled information. I am now beginning to see that this need not be so, and that it is possible to organise things in quite a succinct way. To create editable lists and groupings of information that can be shared or used for oneself. Here is my Rollyo collection of sites om last minute travel, a cheat because I simply gathered a few together from a Google search, but I can see myself working this into a useful list, a good place to keep well researched and useful sites. Much better than a paper list: http://www.rollyo.com/rainyday.day6/
The Rollyo site was interesting, I found the 4 lists mentioned in the instructions full of repititions and adverts for computer skills, very odd. However, deeper in there are some great lists EG Mr Fixit. I was startled to see some less mundane, shall we say, topics listed in the recent additions. Still it taks all sorts and it does demonstrate the breadth of people's interests.

LibraryThing

I actually did this some months ago when I first heard of LibraryThing and was talking to Hamish about the possibility of eLGAR joining. So if you look under geoffali (possibly - we may have not gone public yet. This exercise will make me much more receptive to the sharing idea) you will find about 8 of our books listed. A good start, but nothing since. We see it as a way of weeding out about another 300 volumes from our overstuffed bookshelves. I can say it looks to a really addictive pasttime, and there is heaps of ways of looking at the info once it is in. We chose a selection of books to begin with that nobody seemed to have.
As far as eLGAR goes we are almost there, it is a matter of negotiating an acceptable library price. Membership will give us, except for Auckland who have Aquabrowser which has greater functionality, the ability, or at least give the public the ability to add tags to book titles, it will also allow ratings and add jacket pictures. We have some of this already via Syndetics, an expensive service we are not using fully. LibraryThing may allow us to drop this. LibraryThing is probably a temporary subscription that we will abandon when all libraries settle on and install a federated search engine.

Image Generators

When I was on the Flickr exercise I came across a photo of a jar full of Smarties, ideal for the world's most difficult jigsaw. Can I find it again. No!! So I have learned how to grab a photo and here it is. Not sure if it is really anything to do with #13, but for me it is progress - using the image button I guess, and it would make a good jigsaw. OK got it, have added a world map of where I have been, see smudgy thing to the left of the jar. Kind of correct in a gross way, visited 2 cities in the US and half the map is coloured in, visit to Pitcairn Island doesn't seem to register. Anyway, I have got the save to hard drive and hit the image key on the blog and hey bingo. I have also put my name into the "what would I be called if I was Sarah Palin's child" name generator _Pistol Tanker - should I be telling the world this.

Into the Sandbox Wiki

Added my blog address to the list, but it remains in black and has not yet become a click on link, why is this I wonder. Added a new thread to favorite TV shows about old programmes, I can see why there is a growth in general ranting, all this lovely safe anonymity. Also added a comment to someone's piece about what TV they are watching, no differentiation between what was written and my piece, just a few more words on a line. That of course raises all sorts of interesting questions about purity and veracity of original comment, but I guess that is not where social web is coming from, or at least not as strongly as those who grew up in the days of the imovable, inflexible printed word. It is a big thing to understand and a big thing to translate into library terms.

Wikis

I learned far more from this exercise than I expected, a case of the more you read the less you know, damn. The video was great, I had always thought of a wiki and the wikipedia as one and the same - wrong. First the Wikipedia, I have been reading with interest the raging debate about it's use and its condemnation by many academics. It seems lately the democratic opportunities for contribution as offered by the Wikipedia will win through, even the Britannica is opening up its site for selected addition by a wider range of contributers. The Wikipedia does have issues, not the least of which is article vandalism, but perhaps this is just teething problems. I am beginning to understand how a wiki could be used in a different way, say for documenting library policy and practice, more immediate than the G drive and able to be added to by all, with moderation of course. I guess in many ways the Fitch is a modified wiki. I am still interested in how recent things are, much of what I could find in my online browsing was either undated, or had been started in a burst of enthusiasm a few years ago and now lies abandoned. It is obviously, to me at any rate, important to date enteries clearly so the reader knows where they are in time. Also it is so easy to wander down side path after side path, so it is really important to ensure that the reader can always identify whrere they are in space too. A very worthwhile topic.

Library 2.0

I was interested that most of the literature exercise 10 points to is dated 2005/06. This either reflects when this programme was originally devised, or shows that most of the academic discussion has already taken place. The Wikipedia articles are of this era too, so I suspect it is the latter. The 5 articles listed contain ideas that I suspect would have been really interesting in their day, now they read to me like a template of where NSL is going/may end up. Talk of collaborative cataloguing and sharing - that is re-evaluating the "just in case" model of stock purchase - are part of the eLGAR ethos, and are topics under investigation. The ability to communicate interactively with users is well to the fore as we plan a new website. I would say that the benefits of articulating Library 2.0 is the gathering together thoughts and ideas about the future direction of library service, and conveniently bringing to our attention trends that, while obvious in hindsight, may have been missed by the profession for a long time.

Technorati

I had a deeper explore than in exercise 7 and i can see why I could not find my RSS blog in a search. Another thing to do tomorrow is add the capture the blog with the HTML thing. Anyways I searched for "Learning 2.0" in the 3 ways. In the general bit under searches there are 433 entries, in the blog 348 (well as of now) but with the same selection of You Tube clips appearing in the same place - high up on the 1st screen. In the tag cloud there are/were 176 entries, but strangely enough in all the clouds I could see - 2 different versions there was no mention of Learning 2.0. I can see that familiarity would increase use, on first opening up the site there is just so much stuff, and all seemingly frivilous, so why did I spend 1 minute 54 seconds watching a cat stalking the camera? Who has the time to watch all, any of this. However a search on Apron Strings, a film I want to see, brought up a short trailer. I guess I could have got the same result off Google, so Technorati's place is not a casual saercing tool but something I must learn to manage so that it will feed me what I want to know. As an aside, apart from all the frivilous stuff there is also a lot of dead and abandoned stuff, my tidy librarians mind screams for a good weed, but I suppose this in years to come will become a snapshot of this decade. God help us - or is that too cynical?

del.icio.us

I have explored, faltered and overcome, I think. Kind of like doing a Rubics cube, all that 3D thinking. I need to go back and look again just to consolidate. I got caught up reading the blog of a library manager I know who told me she was going to blog on a regular basis to her staff or was it the wide world/ As far as I can tell she stalled last year. I guess this is a specialist collection of material but I sure read about a lot of people from 2006 onwards getting to the end of 23 things. I am at home doing this on a laptop, when I get back to work I will add the del.icio.us button to my desktop. I can see getting a lot of use from this tool.

More RSS Feeding

An interesting exercise that may call me back at a later date - possibly. Bloglines search tool appeared to be a wonderfully, vaguely organised mish mash of info. Try searching uder antique silver or book reviews and the whole world opens at your feet, obviously one needs to be more specific, but there sure is a lot of rubbish out here. Do I feel tagging is going to be helpful here. SYNDIC8 says it is a community driven service. searching it leaves one dispearing of the community. It is like being lost in a wateland. 2002 - 2005 enteries are mainly syndicated, although some are awaiting repair. After that a rapid deterioration sets in, from 2006 onwards most sites are awaiting syndication or are polling. Presumably waiting for the community to get is collective vote sorted. The Internet is about Now! Syndicate proudly displays its 5 latest successes, one is about donkeys. depressing. Topix.net I found confusing and busy, and left it alone. Technorati looked promising and I played around with my RSS Feeds entry adding in "big daddy" to see if I could bring it up in a search, I found 35 entries, but mine, presumably no. 36 was not there. All in all informative, but for a while at least I will be feeding from single seleted sources I think.

RSS Feeds

I'm doing 2 posts for exercise 7. This is the RSS feeds themselves. I understood what they were so the philosophy of the exercise was not a mystery, but I did once again struggle with the practice. I have learnt 2 things. The first is not to rush, just because the computer goes at the speed of light doesn't mean I have to. Secondly - READ THE SCREEN - how often have I heard that. I have managed to set up 10 feeds, but I will go back later and delete most of them. Who has the time. Also having to remember to go to another place to read them is a bit daunting memorywise. i know why people want all their elife in 1 place. It's all about big daddy

Exercise 6 ebooks and similar

I remember talking about ebooks in the mid 1990s. They seemed to hold such promise, sure there were problems, battery life was short, the screen flickered, there were few titles available, but this could all be overcome surely. Well ebooks flared briefly and then appeared to disappear for a decade. Now they are back, last year's Sony ebook reader, this year's Kindle. Old problems have been sorted, new ones introduced - mainly around the ergonomics of use, the ability to riffle throgh the text, to jump backwards and forwards, however, these are minor matters. The single main advantage as I see it is the ability to be able to increase the size of the font. In one swoop opening up the entire world of literature to those condemned to use large print.Those who say "I will never read off a computer screen" miss the point and confuse the medium with the message, reading is reading. Look at the rows of books marching endlessly into the distance in the library. What will the view be like in 5 years time, probably not much different, but who would be brave enough to forecast that look in 10 years time. Tomorrow, Monday 15th Sept the firm Plastic Logic will release its E-Newspaper, a light weight plastic screen. We are living through the beginning of yet another revolution, one that will utterly change the way we provide our service, but will enhance the way we work with our customers.

See I can do this a second time!!

Another mission, I must go back and see if I can repeat this. Easy to do with Sarah sitting beside me, but quite difficult to work through I found. My problem was getting a photo from Fickr to somewhere I could then lad on to the mashup site for jigsaws

I thought I had if cracked, I followed the adive to flag this photo, which I did to a number I thought would make excellently challenging jigsaws. After flagging 6 or so photos I then went to look for this grouping I had created - nothing anywhere. After several deep breaths I read the help screen associated with flagging. turns out this function alerts the operators of Flickr of objectionable photos. Ah well at least I leaned something!!

Maya in new dress August 2008

Final effort, a photo taken from an email, loaded onto me H drive and then uploaded to Flickr, seems to me to be the ultimate step, good to have been able to achieve 3 different photo posts from 3 different sources.

Of course there is the question about posting photos of family and friends in a oublic domain. I am not sure about this and may end up deleting this one. I'll see. I guess the best practice is to make family photos restricted to family and friends - gives a whole nes meaning to holiday snaps.`

Maya in new dress August 2008
Originally uploaded by rainyday.day6

temp library, temp Area Office and demolition of old bu (17)

temp library, temp Area Office and demolition of old bu (17)
Originally uploaded by rainyday.day6

OK so this is the next step, taking a photo from somewhere on one of the library drives - I 'm not quite sure how I found it, but no doubt I can explore that thought later.

This seemed to be pretty straight forward, although I will need to keep practicing so that I can remember all the steps.

Volubilis

IMG_2527 volubilis
Originally uploaded by willemmas

A great city near Fez in Morocco

Well here I am at exercise 3, thank goodness for catch up week. I have had 1 shot at setting up a Flickr account a couple of years ago, then forgot both the login and password - both written down this time. Being able to manage photos electronically like Flickr allows is something I have long wanted to do, so I have real incentive to get on with it. This photo of columns from the Roman City of Volubilis was taken from the Flickr collection, easy to find by searching the word Volubilis. The 1st photo I tried to blog would not allow me to, so there was 1 learning straight away. I also tried searching under ruins, the 1st photo up was a very perky green frog - do some people not understand what the word tag means? Sarah Roberts was a great help, as in invaluable getting me to this spot. My first blog post said 50 words a day would be a doddle - I retract that unresevedly.

First words

Sunday and already almost behind, I can see this is going to be a challenge. The fact that it is still raining is good, so the lawns remain long, highlights of the Tour de France are finished and there are only 50 pages still to read in my book (which the courtesy notice says is due tomorrow) all point me towards the study, an unfamiliar computer and the realisation that one can get stuck in an Outlook rut. I can see the temptation of using a blog as a place to rant and/or ramble, maybe a bit of both. 50 words a day will be a doddle, but will anyone ever read this, will even I find it too boring to go back and edit. Perhaps that is what blogging is about - forever looking forward and the death of hindsight. This is beginning to sound like the worst of the strange spam I receive.