Back that Blog Up

For the last few months I have been using one of the coolest online tools that you may not know about - BlogBackup Online.

I signed up for it and, quite frankly, forgot all about it. When I remembered it a few weeks ago, I checked in to find that yes, all of my blog posts have indeed been backed up on a daily basis. And then yesterday, I had the opportunity to really put it to the test; one of my other blogs was having major issues, so I decided to see if I could "restore" all of the backed posts to a new blog (on the same platform, but a brand-new blog). And, it worked! The only snafu was that the comments were not saved in a comments file, but were rather republished on the posts themselves (and you have the option of NOT restoring comments), but in my opinion, that's a small price to pay for recovering all my blog posts.

BlogBackup Online is, at the moment, in BETA and is FREE. It has an easy, intuitive interface, a very good help file, and works with all the major blog platforms. It seems far easier to use than some other backup tools and code-schemes I have seen. Even if you use WordPress and/or publish to your own server, I think it's still worth a look - when you work hard on a blog, you can't have it saved in too many places. And if you use a blog platform's free hosting, I think this tool could be a life-saver - not only in terms of archiving the content, but then being able to restore it EASILY. Check it out.

Help! I'm Trapped...

...in Free Rice!

Free Rice is not only cool for the it's purpose - to give away rice through the United Nations World Food Program, it's also an addictive vocabulary game. Huh?

From the FAQ:

How does the FreeRice vocabulary program work?
FreeRice has a custom database containing thousands of words at varying degrees of difficulty. There are words appropriate for people just learning English and words that will challenge the most scholarly professors. In between are thousands of words for students, business people, homemakers, doctors, truck drivers, retired people… everyone!

FreeRice automatically adjusts to your level of vocabulary. It starts by giving you words at different levels of difficulty and then, based on how you do, assigns you an approximate starting level. You then determine a more exact level for yourself as you play. When you get a word wrong, you go to an easier level. When you get three words in a row right, you go to a harder level. This one-to-three ratio is best for keeping you at the “outer fringe” of your vocabulary, where learning can take place.

There are 50 levels in all, but it is rare for people to get above level 48.

If FreeRice has the rice to give, why not give it all away right now?
FreeRice is not sitting on a pile of rice―you are earning it 10 grains at a time. Here is how it works. When you play the game, advertisements appear on the bottom of your screen. The money generated by these advertisements is then used to buy the rice. So by playing, you generate the money that pays for the rice donated to hungry people.

If you are a "wordie," or simply find the free rice part to be an interesting concept, take a look. So far I have donated 600 grains of rice!

Making Contact

Even though I know how to create forms in HTML, I have always considered them a pain in the butt. I was never overly thrilled with the way my hand-coded forms worked with my email client, and it rarely seemed worth the effort when I was trying to create forms for the various and sundry blogs I write or administer. I tried a number of third party forms, but they were either riddled with advertising, clunky, or ugly - until now.

I used Wufoo for the contact form on this blog. You get up to three forms for free on Wufoo, and the forms are pretty customizable in term of look and purpose. You can add fields, change colors, add your logo, create surveys, invitations, conference and program registrations, job applications - you name it. It takes a bit of playing with at the start, but so far my forms built with Wufoo work great and look the way I want them to. Thumbs up.

Reachby is another option I am employing at the new Rhode Island Library Association blog. Reachby is about as simple as it gets. It's a plain form with no real customization options. But if you are looking for a form that protects your email address, sets up in seconds, and just simply works, Reachby does the trick. It's free, and you can have one form per email address.

If you use WordPress, you have several form widgets to choose from. If you administer a multi-page site, you probably will take the time to create a form using whatever web tool you use. But if you have a blog or simple webpage created with any of the gazillion online blogging platforms and webpage tools, both of these options offer a very easy way to get a form up and running. And, even if you run a fully interactive library site, using Wufoo for a "temporary" form, like a program registration, might save loads of time.

Need a form? Check 'em out.

Desk Set

Some time ago, I copied Michael Casey and talked a bit about Desktop on Demand. Since then, I've been playing around quite a bit with a similar application - Goowy. Goowy and DoD both operate as a home-away-from-home desktop environment, but there are a few differences.

Goowy does not run its own browser (rather it just runs in yours), does not provide anonymous IP addresses, and it doesn't come with a word processor. But what it does do is work. Goowy is easy to get started with, it's quick, and it does what it says it's going to do. It provides email integration, IM integration (with Yahoo, Gtalk, and other Goowy users), calendar, contacts (importable and exportable), favorites, an Mp3 player, and my favorite part, online file saving/sharing. The file saving is powered by Box.net - but the funny part is that it's actually easier to use through Goowy, and you get a free 1Gb vs. having to pay for 5 Gb when going directly through Box.net's site.

I admit that I have my "online life" pretty well set-up from both home and work and don't have too much call to use Goowy, but since I do work from home occasionally, I use the online file saving feature to make life easier.

However, I would love to offer a class on Goowy to patrons. Many of our patrons use the computers at more than one library, and I think Goowy would be a boon to some of these people. Also, I have found that the IM feature works on our computers - and even Meebo doesn't work on our computers, since we have chat clients blocked. Gasp! Am I suggesting a work-around to our system? Yes, yes I am. While I hope that someday we will unblock at least Meebo, in the meantime Goowy would provide a chat/IM option that doesn't interfere with our network and doesn't require a download.

A patron could also check all of their email accounts from the same place (we don't offer a tabbed browser), and even play their own music without having to have their iPod (or whatever) with them, as the music files are stored - and played from - the patron's online files. There's even a "minis" feature, which uses a number of widgets and sets up very much like iGoogle or Pageflakes. All from one window.

Desktop on Demand may have been one of the first to this particular party, but I have found Goowy to be infinitely more usable - especially on a public computer.

Presenting!

In spite of the fact that we constantly hear bout the evils of PowerPoint, and slide show presentations in general, there's a whole raft of online presentation tools you can play with. Some allow you to actually create presentations in your browser, and others simply make it possible for you to store, share, and embed your presentations. Here are some that I have actually used or played with:

Slideshare is the YouTube of the presentation world. It allows you to upload ppt, pps, odp (open office) and pdf files, present them on the site, share them, allow downloads, and embed shows in webpages and blogs. I used slideshare here, and I think it's especially useful if you want to embed a presentation in your web page, AND you want random people to see your stuff. I have already had a few requests to use the shows from other people looking to put on geocaching presentations. No creation capability as yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if that is eventually incorporated. Definitely a social tool.

ZohoShow has creation and editing capabilities that Slideshare does not. However, Zoho isn't nearly as easy to navigate, and the social aspect isn't anywhere near as useful as Slideshare. If you take the time to look around and figure things out, need the editing and creation tools, and are not concerned about the social aspect, then give this a try. Quality of uploaded programs is actually a bit better than Slideshare. They also have other tools, much in the same vein as Google Docs.

Preezo is a cleaner, more straightforward version of ZohoShow. However, no upload function. But you can create, email, share, and embed. No social interface. For straight creation, I like this better than Zoho.

Thumbstacks is one of the earlier players in online slide creation, and operates on a very spare platform. In fact, it's so spare, there's barely any documentation at all. None of the frills of the aforementioned, but it does work. Share slides via a link - no embedding. Minimalists will love it.

Naturally, Google Docs has joined the fray as well. Again, very similar to Preezo; not a lot new going on here. But, I can definitely see the benefit to using this tool if you already use the other Google Docs tools, and I do like the idea of having a complete suite online. If library patrons caught on to this, there'd be less need to outfit each computer with MS Office.

Now, if you know code, have server space, and do a lot of presentations, you might like the system that Jessamyn uses. I have also gone this route, and I love the finished product. If you have zero html/css experience, and don't particularly want any, this probably isn't the way to go. But if you do, once you've done one, doing others is a snap. Also makes it easy to store your presentations on your server and present presentations in link-list format on your web page. Nifty "print" version option as well.

OK, go put something together, and come back and show the class.

You Lost Me at Hello

Facebook and your WebPac

Um, I have pretty much no idea what this says (I am so not a programmer), but, if I'm reading this right, it has something to do with putting your OPAC in Facebook - (right?). At any rate, perhaps someone out there reading this will understand it, and put the info to use. If you get this working on your Facebook page, do let me know!

Everybody Chat

Library Voice has an excellent post, and step-by-step directions, for setting up Pidgin to work with your Meebo Me Widget.

Like Chad at Library Voice says, this is a great combination if your library uses a Meebo Me widget on the library webpage, and also runs a separate software client (or clients) for IM reference. We're not doing IM ref yet, but I wanted to give it a try because while I love Meebo, and I especially love my Meebo Me widget, I have found that I a.) sometimes close the Meebo tab by accident and then forget to log back in, and b.) have a fussy internet connection that sometimes spazzes out and momentarily "interrupts" - which is just enough to disconnect my Meebo tab (and sometimes I have no idea this has happened).

So, I downloaded Pidgin, grabbed the plugin, followed the directions (easy), and voila! - I am now running Meebo through Pidgin, and I don't have to have the Meebo page open at all. Very cool.

The one thing I have noticed is that there is a very slight lag with the widget when you are viewing the blog; in other words, when you first visit Cool Librarian, the widget is likely to say that I am offline. But if I am online and running Pidgin, it WILL change my status to available if you give it about 10 seconds to catch up. When actually chatting with a widget user, I haven't noticed any lag at all.

This is actually the first time I have used Pidgin, and I like it. It operates with many IM platforms, is fully functional, open source, etc, - it's great. But, and this should come as no surprise, I think it's ugly (and, apparently, unskinable). There's a blog post about this, and if you are in the mood for some of the most obnoxious Linux fanboy yapping around, read the comments. I only mention this because, as I read the comments, I wondered if this is why some people think the "library 2.0 cult" members are so awful. Do we sound like this? Gawd, I hope not. In any event, I am completely unapologetic about the fact that I like my apps "pretty." But, I'll live - the Meebo and Pidgin combo gets a big "thumbs up" from me.

Random Reference Tool - Zamzar

The other night while at the ref desk, one of my regular YA patrons ran into a little snag; he was meeting with his tutor, and he needed to print out a couple of essays. Problem was, he composed the essays using MS Works (which comes free with most Windows computers), and he couldn't open it on our computers, which run Word. Now, you should be able to convert the file using Word and its conversion setting, but for reasons unknown (security? converter not loaded/accessible?), this didn't work for us (and he didn't have time for me to screw around trying to figure it out).

After a quick search I found, and decided to try, Zamzar, an online file conversion tool. And although there's an "email step" that the service could well do without, the files were converted without too much fuss. Crisis averted.

Zamzar covers a wide variety of file formats, and since it's free and operates online and doesn't interfere with your hardward/software/security config, you might want to keep it in mind for patrons using your public access machines.

Feed Me

Seems there are all kinds of gadgets and widgets you can use if you'd like to add feed content to your blog or site. I haven't added any feed to my sidebar - yet; I'm trying to decide what type of content to highlight.

A few weeks ago I wrote about Feevy, which I have been using on my library's two teen blogs and our main blog. I think is a great tool for just this sort of set-up, and I thought that perhaps it would be nice if readers of the main (read: adult) blog could see at a glance what was going on in the teen blogs (without me having to constantly cross-post). Of course, no reads any of our blogs, but I do like to keep myself busy. Feevy's a good choice if you want something with a little (pre-determined) style in your sidebar.

Jessamyn re-styled her blog, and gave us the heads up on Feed2JS (Feed to JavaScript) which she is using for her reading list and the latest Ask MeFi questions. Seems simple enough, you can host it on their server, one of several mirror sites, or your own server, and you can style it as you like. And, I just noticed that the code was created by Alan Levine, the guy who created the Multipost Bookmarklet Tool that I just blogged about. Cool.

If you are looking to place some news on your site, but don't feel like cobbling together the sources for yourself, then you might want to take a look at Moreover. I first saw Moreover at this site; it was also the first time I saw a live feed in action on a site. Moreover is a company that offers news solutions for websites, blogs, and publishers (like the NYT), but it also offers some free (ad supported) services for non-profit blogs. With Moreover you can choose the type of news content you want and generate a simple feed. Or, if you want to easily display it on your blog, Moreover works with FeedDirect's Webfeed Wizard. If you are a newsie, you might like this arrangement.

And, for the ADD among us, there's SplashCast. SplashCast positions itself as adding an "online TV channel" to your blog, and it focuses on "media" content (rather than just plain text, I guess). You can use rss feeds from places like Flickr and YouTube, you can create and add your own video/pics/audio - seems like there is plenty you can do with this. I think this service would be well-suited to teen library blogs, and regular library blogs that had lots of audio-visual content to broadcast. Right now, I'm finding the service slow (which could be because it's gaining in popularity), and the site a tad overwhelming; you might have to cruise around quite a bit before you really get a handle on what you can do, and how you can do it. But if you can figure it out, I'll bet you could do some very cool stuff with it.

And, naturally, there are the widgets that come with the major blogging platforms. If you are looking for seamless styling, using one of the widgets designed specifically for your blog tool may be the fastest and easiest way to go.

Oral History, Anyone?

You have got to check out Voice Thread! Talk about a great way to create an oral history, a travel log, a family-oriented audioblog -- you name it. I'm just sitting here thinking about how teachers and librarians could use this with teens as a way to connect them with their family history, and talk about a nifty tool for some intergenerational programming. I also think this could be a good tool for those who would like to try an alternative to traditional screen casting.

Be sure to check out What is Voice Thread, anyway?, and the basic tutorial, here.

Here are some threads you might find interesting:

Classroom 2.0
My Facebook Experimentation
wikipedia
Vassar Island in Second Life
Online Teaching and Learning

OK, I MUST stop now (why do I think I'm going to blow a good chunk of the day playing with this?). Have fun!

Bookmarking Part II

Wow, according to comments and email, there are many more "folders" fans than I would have guessed! So, I spent a little time going through the lists I created, and looking at some new sites, to see if there was anything out there that wasn't simply a re-hash of something else already out there (which is how it goes in 2.0 land).

So, for you folders folks, I highly recommend Netvouz. Netvouz lets you create folders, people! It also tags, has a decent social set-up, and clean interface that is similar but a touch nicer to look at than delicious (if you care). You can import your bookmarks from any service that lets you export them to a file, which is nice. One word of caution: if you are exporting from a service that does NOT have folders, you will either have to create and move links into folders after you import them (a pain if you have a lot of links), OR you can create the folders first, them import your links in groups (easier in my opinion). In any event, you'll have to noodle around with the service a bit to get the hang of creating folders and such, but if its folders you want, folders it's got. Runner-up: Backflip. Yep, Backflip is still around. Kinda old school in the looks department, makes you jump through a few hoops at sign-up, does NOT support tagging (really), and the social aspect is clunky at best - but if you just want to store your "favorites" in folders, on the web, you might want to check it out.

I checked out a couple of other bookmarking apps, but didn't see anything too new or exciting - though I will add Raw Sugar to the list on the Social Software page, because I forgot to include it the first time around, and it is a pretty popular tool. Yahoo has jumped on the bandwagon with its MyWeb - nothing new here (yet - it's still in BETA), but a good addition for those who use Yahoo as their online base of operations.

I also checked out Tumblr after reading Kaijsa's comment. Tumblr is actually closer to Linkwalla than it is to the other social links sites, as it creates a links "blog" rather than just a list. Tumblr's floral icon is reminiscent of Magnolia (hmmmm), and it's easy to use. Probably not for everyone, but like Linkwalla, I think the concept is interesting.

Lastly, Linkwalla's creator, Ben Brophy, turned me on to a nifty little tool that allows you to post to several services with a single click - nice. I'm not sure that the service is actively supported at this point, but if your bookmark sites are on the list, it's a great tool to have in the box.

Bookmarking

Even though the whole world uses delicious, and even though I posted a list of some of the popular bookmarking sites out there some time ago (on the Social Software page), I have remained faithful to my beloved Spurl. And now, sadly, Spurl has been "abandoned," and I must find some sort of replacement(s). Sniff.

I know that many of you have probably never heard of Spurl, so great is the hold of delicious on most long-time techies. I discovered both at the same time, and chose Spurl because of one important thing - it did EVERYTHING I wanted it to. It organized my stuff into a FOLDER TREE dammit, and I don't care how lame that makes me, I LIKE my folders. Spurl ALSO tagged, searched, shared, had a cool "Spurl bar," and it allowed me to post directly and simultaneously to delicious - it was my favorite tool.

Spurl has been abandoned for a while now, and it's only a matter of time before it's just not there anymore. So, I have been trying to find a replacement - and let me tell you, it hasn't been easy. Most of the social bookmark sites do not have a folder tree, or any other way to arrange things in a more visual or hierarchical manner. Most simple bookmarking sites do not have a good social aspect to them. I have, naturally, tried to rely solely on delicious, but, sorry folks, I just simply do not like it. It's ugly. I can never find anything I want fast enough. It's ugly. The social part rocks, but....

Now, Magnolia - there's a visually-pleasing site. Perhaps it's because I am female, perhaps it is because I was raised by artists, but this is important to me. Naturally, it doesn't have the folders I'd like, nor does it have delicious' social reach, but it does have a nice "group" feature, and I do think it's poised to be one of the top social bookmark sites behind delicious. But right now, delicious is still the best, in social terms. What to do?

Enter Linkwalla, a nify little AJAX app created by a librarian, of all people! Using this will allow me to easily, and seamlessly, save my links to Linkwalla (for easy blog-listing, if I so desired), delicious, AND Magnolia. All at once. Yay. Linkwalla's "mini-blog for links" positioning is interesting in itself - check it out.

Well, that worked nicely.

Because I have been happy with Firefox, I have not checked out (extensively) many of the other browsers that are out there. The other day, however, I finally removed IE 6 from my computer - completely forgetting that this is the browser my mom uses when she comes over to play on the computer. Firefox, with the zillion tabs that I have set to open automatically, proved to be a little "much" for her (and she kept closing out all my tabs by accident), so I looked around for an alternative (since I simply refuse to load IE 7 on my machine).

I decided to try FlashPeak's Slim Browser, and it's proven to be a perfect browser for Mom, and my computer. It's light, has tabs (if you want them), skins, pop-up killer, search, etc., etc. Did I mention that it's light? It's not a resource hog, and I think it would make a great alternative browser on library machines that are getting old or are simply a little light on RAM. I love Firefox, but it's a killer on old or slow machines. You may also be able to get Slim Browser on Gates library computers - and, according to my IT person, it's a bitch, if not impossible, to get Firefox to run on a Gates machine (go figure) (and, funny, but IE7 is also not fully functional on our Gates computers).

It's a Windows app, so I'll be bummed to lose it when I finally jump to Linux on the desktop. But for now, it's doing a great job for Mom.

I really could have used this!

Still in school? Research librarian? Writer? Teaching bibliographic instruction? Then you may want to check out Zotero, a nifty download that works with Firefox (and Netscape Navigator 9 and some versions of Flock) to keep track of your research sources. Zotero captures citation information, allows tagging, saves searches, exports formatted citations, saves and searches, allows note taking, and more. It's free and open-source, so expect changes, additions, and updates along the way.

I remember giving myself a crash-course in EndNote for a huge bio-bibliography I did on Kate Chopin - I think this project would have been easier with a tool like Zotero. Very cool.

Feevy Fever

Sarah over at The Sheck Spot, while asking me about joining Library Links, alerted me to this neat app called Feevy. Basically, it creates a nice dynamic collection of blogs - or any web content that has an RSS feed (flickr, delicious, etc). So, rather than blogroll of static links, you can have a nifty display with the blogs' latest posts.

Since this is relatively new, and not overly customizable (yet), I thought that for a blogger with a large links list, the display might become unwieldy. However, in terms of library use, I figured this might be a cool app for my library blogs. This way, readers of one blog can get a quick taste of what's going on on the other two blogs (and this would work with any feeds you might happen to have on your library's homepage - and some of you cool libraries have a few!). I used the unobtrusive "liquid" style on our main blog, and the funkier "classic dark" style on the Teen Spot blog. I like this. Now I won't have to do as much cross-posting as I currently do, and the adults can see what's up over at the Teen blog without subscribing to it or leaving the main blog to take a look (and vice-versa). Cool.

libraryland - Become a Fonera!

After reading Erica's wireless post and the resulting comment drama, I was reminded of something I've been meaning to mention here.

As you might imagine, I am a big fan of collaboration. I'm also a big fan of easy-to-locate wireless access - not so much because I travel around with my laptop frequently (I don't, my laptop stinks and I spend most of my time either at home or at work, where I have all the internet I can stand), but because I would like to have such access available to me, when and if I need it. I'm like that.

Enter FON, which I think is a fantabulous concept/service/device.

FON is a wireless router that you can buy and configure to allow other FON owners access to your signal (but not your computer stuff) - for free. So, If I own a FON, and I travel to an area with my laptop (or WiFi phone!) where someone else is a FON user, I can hop on their wireless network (and vice-versa). To me, this is sharing at its best. And, if you would like to offer your signal to those who don't own a FON, or care to open up their signal, you can - and a make a few bucks in the process!

At $40, the FON is priced comparably to other wireless routers (and, as the FON has grown in popularity, the price has increased, just FYI).

Naturally, FON is most popular in places like NYC and parts of California, and it's been a bit slow to catch on here, which I think is due, in part, to that fact that FON, like Skype, is not an American company. But, I am planning on buying a FON as soon as I can so that I can join the 13 other people (really) in RI using it (and I had to laugh - one of them is on Prudence Island - a place with no public restrooms, restaurants, stores, and a one-room school house).

If each of us not only talks this up, but hooks one up, imagine the network we could build!

You in?

libraryland - Desktop on Demand

One of my favorite bloggers, Michael Casey, posted on a new web goodie, Desktop on Demand. It sounded intriguing, so I figured I'd try it out.

I like it. A lot.

In a nutshell, the service provides users with a Linux-based online desktop that features online file storage, email client, browser, multi-platform IM client, GIMP (photo editing), file encryption, and more - and you can access your desktop, securely, from any internet computer. It's really cool. I have not played with all of the options yet, but the free gig of online storage space alone is worth taking a look at.

I think introducing this type of service to our patrons would make life so much easier for some of them. Our computers have a locked CD drive, meaning that they have to save their stuff to either floppies or USB drives. Most of the patrons use floppies, but soon computers - and that includes ours - won't have floppies at all. And while some of us have been using USB drives for years, most of my internet patrons have no idea what a USB drive is, or are unable/unwilling to buy one (I am trying to get small drives donated to us). Also, patrons leave floppies and USB drives behind all the time - floppies get turned in to lost and found - USB drives do not (imagine that). DoD's online storage would make library computing much more manageable.

The potential for patron and staff applications with this program.... I get excited just thinking about it.

DoD is still in BETA at this point, and snooping around in the forum sheds some light on kinks that need to be worked out, but once the program makes its public debut, I am hoping to develop a class on it for our patrons (and staff).

I had to wait a couple of days to get a log-in, but if you are interested in trying it out, I have 25 invites I can hand out - drop me a line.