FourSquare

Unless I'm going to track a talking(texting) polar bear, I don't see me using this. I don't have a Balckberry or whatever, therefore I'm not mobile. I could care less if Starbucks is going to give me empty points or prizes. I am as old as I sound but not quite as jaded. If I could use it for something I was into, then I would.

Online Gaming Step 2.

I played Shaun the Sheep-Home Sheep Home. I felt bad when the sheep went off the cliff because of me but that was the game. I got better at it by solving some little puzzles of balance, weight, and gravity, getting the sheep home more often than not. It was pretty straight forward and the less I killed the sheep the more fun I had.

I also played DNA-The Double Helix. It was one of those, OMG I only have 2 seconds to match up pairs in the double helix as they fly by. It was pretty exhausting but I got better at it. At least I got all the bonus points for identifying what the DNA belonged to.

TV Ex. Step 4.

Someday providers will figure out that people want what they want 24/7 and that they want it in an all-in-one format that they can take and access anywhere. TV will definately be part of that bundle.

TV Ex. Step 3.

I recommend "House" to anyone I can. The main character is a hoot, gets the job done, and plays and listens to fun music. His friend Wilson just bought him a Hammond B3 organ and the first thing that he played was the first 3 notes of Bach's Toccata and Fuge in D minor (the spooky one) and then went into "A Whiter Shade of Pale" by Procol Harum...my kind of show for sure.

TV Ex. Step 2.

I looked at HULU and Scivee.

I really like HULU. It's very easy to use, not to mention fun. Any provider with old samurai flicks is OK with me.

Scivee is very interesting with cool info on it but the learning curve (for me) is a little steep at first and the content is really specialized.

TV EX. Step 1.

Fox - Has "watch full episodes" button and then you choose from there.
NBC - Click on pics of shows/also a library of older shows.
ABC - Click on pics of latest shows and choose from list.
CBS - Click on pics of latest shows and choose from list.
PBS - Click on pics of show titles and then shuffle through layers of episode choices.

I think FOX is the easiest to use(open and accessible) but I also like how PBS is set up and how it looks.

Funny Cats

Podcasts

I would recommend all three of the podcasts I subscribed to.

Library Loft - Author Brent Hartinger talked about his new book, "Dream Quest" which is Book 1 of the "Tales of Slumberia" series.

National Library of Medicine - I chose this because of our patrons with visual disabilities. I found a podcast on Macular Degeneration and Stroke that was very informative.

Book Talks Quick and Simple - Just as it implies, this podcast by Nancy Keane gives a quick review of new children's books. The one I listened to was less than a minute and was about Jessica Day George's book "Princess of the Midnight Ball.

Bonus Video and Ex. 4

I watched the Wolfram Alpha video. What an incredible resource.

I searched Erlanger, KY, Bangkok, Thailand, and Sri Lanka and got every statistic I would ever need to know about those places. It was amazing. I then moved on to Guitar Manufacturers and was told they hadn't done that one yet. I tried Halloween Candy Sales and came up empty on that one. I then asked about the Solar System and hit the mother lode. Every stat and comparison you can think of was immediately available to me with charts and tables.

After several minutes of playing with the solar system I put in Solar Flare and just got a definition.

Wolfram Alpha is a very useful tool and I hope it continues to grow.

My String Bass professor's name was Dr. Lyle Wolfram. I don't think he's related.

EX. 3 Explore Google Search

This was fun. I tried almost every option but was impressed with these:

Earthquakes. When I checked the world, there had been a 7.2 quake in Chile in the last 2 hours.
Time. I found out that Bangkok, Thailand is 12 hours ahead of us. 10:00am here = 10:00pm there.
Currency Conversion. 2000USD = 181372.994 YEN
Food. Northern Kentucky Indian food gave 2 results. One in Florence (Taj) and one off of Buttermilk Pike (Guru).

Definitely a great place to go for this kind of info fast.

EX. 2 Video

I never realized that Google was more general than Yahoo.
I didn't know you could email from the searchbox in Yahoo or that there was a local or facts option.
I didn't know that you could get video samples during your search on Bing.

Blindsearch

I did three searches for this exercise.

1. Guitar Parts, 2. Electric Mandolin Pickups, 3. PBass Expert

Google won each time with Yahoo a close second. Bing kept giving me things on the first page that weren't even in the ballpark. For # 3 I only got hits for Bass Fishing on Bing.

It's Fotoflexer by a Nudge

I compared Picnik and Fotoflexer for my assignment. Both were very easy to use but I found that Fotoflexer was more user friendly for me. I was able to upload my photo, crop, resize, and play around quickly because the menu tabs were big and gave you a pictorial idea of what it would do. I was able to send my photos to my desktop and Flikr. I could have also sent them to FaceBook or Twitter and several othe social sites.

Flickr Link

Here's a link to my new JBovier Electric Mandolins slideshow.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/clifmayhugh/show/

Pandora

I checked out YouTube and watched a couple of recorded live Jeff Beck videos. It was fun and he is alway a hoot to watch.
I picked Pandora and set up a Jeff Beck Radio Station and then added Robben Ford and the Hellecasters using the add variety button. So far, the people and tunes that have come up have been great. This is a keeper. Other than some GUC and NKU every once in awhile, I get really, really tired of regular radio.

My daughter gave me her old MP3 player and hipped me to BonkEnc and I've been downloading all my CDs to it. It's great but I really hate things that run on batteries. It's a trade-off. I'm still waiting for the solar panel hats with storage to run my must-haves.

e and Audio books

I was able to download the WMA Audio Book "April Fool Dead" by Carolyn Hart, on the first try, but downloading the Adobe PDF eBook "1984" by Orwell, took a few tries.

Feeding the RSS

An Interesting way to go about collecting information. This is new to me but very usable.

I subscribed to:

Blog of the Digital Library at the NLS
Daily Nature and Science News and Headlines/National Geographic
Stewmac.com-is everything for repairing guitar parts and stringed instruments
KCPL Newly Acquired/Ordered Materials

Participant's Blogs and Pages

I didn't have an easy time with this. Some of the steps seemed to be missing but after a few guesses and trys, I got it.

WIKI 1B

I got sucked into a timeless void as I went deeper and deeper into both the comic book series wiki and the wikibooks sites. I had way too much fun and didn't want to crawl back out.

OK. I'm hooked.

WIKI 1

I found the library wikis for specific organizations to be very bland and jargon filled. I can see where it would work for that particular library and some links were interesting. Our wiki certainly works well for our organization. Maybe I just didn't link to something that was meant for the rest of the world as opposed to being so homegrown.

I both like and fear others being able to edit the work in progress, but it's the nature these beasts that can take on a life of their own after you let them out into the world.

I can see our department using wikis to track patron requests that aren't in the system yet, as well as waiting lists for digital machines. But that would be all in-house. I wouldn't want patrons editing their place in the que. I, personally, would use it to gather input from others on researching certain instruments and their history...Gibson Harp Guitars, for instance.

I do worry about the accuracy of the information as opposed to legend and opinion.

Google Search

I was surprised at how much was out there. I had about 7 pages of real hits. Most of it was related to the work I had done on Adrian Belew's 1st two works and the later compilation on Island Records. I seem to be big in Russia on some bass blog. Who knew?

There were also several hits for Talking Books that mentioned me and a few for my Grandfather about driving his family on the new road in Walton on Sundays in the 20's, and the John Clifton Mayhugh House in Walton that is on the National Historic Registry.

I didn't really find anything scary but I found another bass blog where people had been asking what had happened to me, with answers from some of my friends, that I recognized,that were close but not quit correct. Very interesting and kind of sad, really.

Privacy

Some days I wish someone would steal my identity. It would serve them right. I do recall that a friend of mine went through all that and it was not a happy thing. I'll settle for the vague and inocuous instead. What else is communication for but dancing in circles.

Waiting for newer technology

I'm still waiting for the all-in-one chip implant technology to catch up. I think that's when I'll get really excited about all this.

Drifting Surfer

According to the test, I am a Drifting Surfer. I guess that shows that I'm a great candidate for this "24 Things" process.