Who tube?

Youtube, has become a well-known word around almost anyone who has come into contact with a computer. It is something I was exposed to when I was overseas and I just thought of it as another trendy video site. Never did I think it would become so universally used.  Everyone seems to take advantage of easy video posting and the helpful search bar. Even in the last election, the candidates posted youtube videos on their campaign websites.

In the past I remember going to video sites that were separated by categories. One of the earliest popular sites was ebaumsworld, (spelling?). This was an entertaining site, that listed humorous videos, and other types of clips, but one could never be sure what kind of video would come up and could spend hours looking for one that was related to a subject for which they searched.

Now if I want to hear the newest music video, see a popular news broadcast, view a teacher's lecture or watch my little brother act out a skit- its all at the touch of a button. The videos download fast and come with rating. These rating and commentary can help the viewer assess whether it is worth their time. Of course one must practice filter techniques as one never knows what will come up either video-wise or commentary postings. 

For this class, I decided to join the thousands who have become members of youtube and have posted videos. To become a member wasn't difficult, but I had to learn how to format my video correctly, hence I did not pay attention to the title very well. It simply downloaded with the title medium- (signifying the size of the video I downloaded).  I later changed the title to "How far would you go?" I posted it to share a small clip of my Togo, Peace Corps experience and to broadcast to others who may be interested in the Peace Corps. I have been surprised at the number of visitors who have seen it. The last time I checked there was a total of 70 people and I can only remember showing around 5 people this video. It makes me curious to think about who has accessed this video and watched part of my life. I also have a longer video but have learned that youtube has a memory limit of how much can be downloaded onto once space.

The video itself is okay, but over the Christmas break I will probably be editing a little more. There were points where my voice was too soft, and I need to rerecord because my words were mumbled. Overall though, its not bad for my first youtube debut. Click here to see the video. 

I am impressed that someone has already given me a rating of 5 stars, let's hope it doesn't get any lower.  

I  hope to post another video by the end of the day and can now officially call myself a youtube junkie. This knowledge is helpful though, videos and multimedia tools seem to be the one tool that everyone appreciates within education. I hope in the future, if I do transition into a library that I can use youtube and other future video websites to help advertise the library and educate people on the reference tools that are available to them. This will definitely be a communication tool that I carry on with me into the future. 

I can only imagine what kind of spin offs will happen next. I've already seen a website called Godtube, and I'm sure that there are a series of developers coming up with social video sites designed to trump youtube. This video site is definitely riding the wave of the future as more and more people want to connect themselves with the world and see the world through the eyes of others. 

To publish or not to publish

I wanted to leave an additional note for the publication entry- (refer to the powerpoint entry). I tried to download the publisher free trial program onto my mac but to my disappointment it was not cross platform. It looks like I know a few good gifts to ask for over this holiday. 

I find it very frustrating that there are still so many programs out there that only serve Microsoft windows and vista.  These challenges have made me highly adaptable and increased my ability to search the internet. 

For another publication project, I hope to create a brochure for moffitt cancer center library which helps indicate book categories by colors. This system is already in place, but lacks handouts. Hopefully this project will one day come to fruition.

Audio Slave

I feel confident saying that this module probably took me the longest out of all of the projects. I constantly found myself re-recording whether it be for messing up on wording, having a short message, but most of all for not having a message topic that I liked. 

I switched from: Thanksgiving greetings, to library career message, to a message of we

lcome for my LIS site. I 

always 

stumbled on my words or would listen to the message and dislike the way the words came across. I finally settled on a greetings audio for my site, but still feel that my scripting could have been a little better. 

To edit the audio, I pushed my voice forward and chose some music to put in the background, numbing and fading out the sound. This was a fun way to learn how to record. 

I have already applied m

y knowledge into my social life. When I went home for Thanksgiving, I met up with some friends in Delaware. One of my friends was singing at a coffee shop so I decided to prop up my computer and record her music through audacity. I still have a lot

 of editing to do, but I'm hoping that it will be a nice Christmas gift. I'm really interested in learning more about sound recording and audio downloading but it may have to wait until I have more time.

The time factor is always the main issue, once a person has enough practice they can perform all these tasks in very little time but for beginners it takes time to learn the basics before claiming the rapidity of the experienced worker.

I also wanted to mention that I had the biggest problem finding the lamelib encoder and never quite figured out the missing link. However, for any mac users out there, its helpful to know that i-tunes can also convert wav files to mp3 files. By selecting this option from the preferences, the user simply right clicks and then converts to mp3 status. This is essentially how I resolved that problem.

All points lead to power

Powerpoint was what I incorporated into not only my "Becoming a librarian" slideshow but I also was able to use it for my publication. The powerpoint program is so much more extensive than I had initially perceived.  There is so much animation that I had never before been able to incorporate into my powerpoint for classes in college.  I also never knew that I could add sounds and use so many different types of tables and charts. 

The unfortunate part about powerpoint is the different versions, both between the mac and windows formatting and the editions of powerpoint themselves. The formatting proved to be a great issue whenever I would include my audio. On my computer it worked perfectly, but yet on another there was silence. I also had trouble figuring out which colors, font sizes, and spacing might be affected if another computer were to read into my data. I learned that master slides are helpful for this very purpose. However, I was hesitant to include a master slide because I wanted  a lot of variety to go into my powerpoint. This is how I initially began my powerpoint presentation, but then the slides became a lot more synchronous in design than I had initially planned. This is a lesson learned for the next time, it might just be easier to lean towards similarities than too much variation. 

The other point I made was about the versions. This was especially frustrating for one of powerpoint slides laying out a listing of all the librarian positions. When I began in class, there was a circle diagram that I initially chose to incorporate. However, my mac version of the Microsoft pp 2004, did not include this feature. I decided to design a flow chart to try to illustrate my general point. Then, I found that formatting issues gave this slide a look of sloppiness. Words did not fit into the text, etc. There was not even an option for me to edit because the version of powerpoint in the lab did not include a flowchart feature. I was faced with the dilemma of completing the tasks all on a windows or choosing to use my mac at the risk of sending information that could be reformatted as unclear. Due to my lack of time to spend on campus during the open hours of the day, I chose to take my chances with my mac. Hopefully playing around with enough of the settings to correct most of these frustrations.

The other assignment was the publication assignment, which included the making of a poster. To begin this project, I began with a blank white powerpoint page and then began using text boxes as my best guide options. The text boxes were matched up to the ruler toolbars and I used the zoom option for better precision. It was enjoyable to choose images, and play around with the pie chart option. The pie chart took a lot of little modifications which seemed difficult to adjust without specifically clicking into a separate chart formating link each time.

Overall, the layout of the publication was the most difficult part, it required some preplanning as well as flexibility. The most frustrating part of this project was also the reformatting. 

Several elements appeared differently on my mac in comparison 

 a regular pc. These elements included the background color. I chose to make my text transparent. On the mac, the image was showing minimal definition of the background image, so I decided to make it continuously darker. I also used a fancy font for my title to make it stand out. When sent to the poster printers I almost didn't recognize the presentation. My poster became so dark that it was difficult to read the text, it also changed the title font. The change in font wouldn't have been as big of an issue except that it pushed my name down to the next line, behind an image where it could no longer be seen. This is a lesson learned for the next time, I also later learned that there is an auto modify text that sometimes automatically adjusts the page to how it might be seen on a pc. We'll see if it works for the next time.

Website Worries

I can still remember my first attempt at trying to make a webpage for this class. I frantically called up my friend Sean, programmer extraordinaire and had him guide me through the process so that I would be prepared for class. Sean lead me through all the intricacies of coding and the basics I would need to get me started. This proved helpful, however, I must say that I was relieved to find that we could use programs like kompozer to create our sites. This is yet another sign of the advancement of technology, and evidence that technology is not purposefully trying to make tasks more complicated but rather- simpler.  One of the main objectives of a librarian is to calm people's nerves from the panic of not being able to find the information that they would like to access. It seems that now librarians must rely on the help of technicians for the same type of help that they provide to others. They must open to hear hear about these newer advancements creating easier methods to use certain systems or create various features online. 

My greatest challenge of the website was simply to learn all the little features. I often understood the big picture but when it came to putting together all the puzzle, I would be missing the corner pieces. Without the corner pieces a puzzle may look complete, but the noticeable differences still exist. Specifically I would have problems understanding the Fugu device (like ssh) and how to transfer data through this feature. There were no clear instructions and I had to make sure everything was entered in correctly or the system could not read the data. 

I enjoyed the creative aspect of my site but almost got to the point of fearing a major format error. This seems to be a major hang-up for most websites. They never seem to change. The sites always change the same. I think the biggest challenge I must tumble over is the ability to be willing to sacrifice some of my layout work for the pursuit of a better design.  

I hope that now I will be better equipped to go out and create more sites and explore other creative software that exists in order to make the creation process run smoother. Knowing these tools will also help me for anyone asking questions about creating their own basic websites. I'm really looking forward to delving into more experimentation with the website tools and vast amounts of add-ons I can include on my own website over the winter break.

and yes, i love technology

Technology has always been something that has always seemed  present in the background rather than the forefront of my life. I have memories of computer use and of ways electronic devices have been helpful in daily routines. However, recently it seems that I've had to let technology move from the backseat to the front.  This trend is a noticeable reality within the program of library and information science. Its unavoidable, so I've tried to embrace all the new tools and use as much as possible. Through this blog I hope to document some of major stepping stones and epiphany moments. 

To understand my technological progression, its important for me to layout a brief background of my introductions and absences from technology. I am in an age group that can still remember what life was like without a computer in the classroom, but I can also remember its initial introduction. Most people from my generation remember black and green screens and games of Oregon Trail and Pacman. The transition to colored screens did not take long, but internet connection times on the other hand- did take long. 

In my undergrad years there was no mention of blackboard this was only in 2001-2005, and I had never imagined myself taking a class online. 

Then one of the most pivotal points which stunted my technology growth took place. I decided to join the Peace Corps and spend 2 years without electricity or much computer access. Surprisingly volunteers always find ways to hoard away new gadgets, but for the most part I sheltered myself away from the new gadgetry. 

Upon my arrival back to the states,  in 2007, I didn't think that I had missed much in terms of technology, but I am beginning to realize that one has to constantly be updated on new advancements of technology just to keep up. 

The instructional media class was a helpful realization/wake up call to some of the essential computer, technology basics that I should be aware of in order to maintain my grasp on the future. I hope to give a clear explanation of some of my experiences through these entries.

Enjoy

Colors

Sometimes the most time consuming part of creating a website is choosing a color scheme. Finding colors that are appealing to the eye is no easy task.

Its within my site

The first class for LIS 6303 was such a relief, it made everything so clear and I actually felt empowered now that I knew the nuts and bolts that made a website run. The night before the class I received a major dose of technology as I used my mac to connect to a friend's mac back in Delaware. Through this technology he was able to talk to me while I watched his screen and received my own personal tutorial of how to begin coding. This mini lesson helped immensely as I walked into the class having a bit of confidence in my ability to understand some of the basic html language. Now I'm inspired to create a website that others would enjoy or learn from, this may take awhile.