Thing 68 Filtering Flickr

Fun lesson about 2 web sites that locate images posted on Flickr.

flickrCC: I like how once you pick a picture, it has links for editing inhouse or using Picnik.

Tag Galaxy: I like this one just for how neat it looks as you go from a 'galaxy' of pictures to a 'globe' to an individual picture.

Thing 67 Stress Savers

Very, very, very useful lesson.

I can recommend these websites to many people, along with using them for both myself and to help patrons.


Dial A Human: The best stress saver ever--tells you exactly what you need to do to reach a human being instead of being stuck in all those automated telephone menus for many companies.


Custom Guide: free quick reference guides to many computer programs. These may be useful to try with some of our library patrons that need a great deal of computer help.

Where is Your Username Registered?: I like how you can not only see if you can use that username, but remind yourself where you may have already registered accounts for yourself (or see who else really liked to use that name).

Thing 66 Directory 2.0

Lesson about two great directories of websites organized by topics.


AllMyFavs.com is very eye-catching, with all the website icons. It has lots and lots of categories of websites. Really seems to have anything you want right on the home page. As it's logo says, "Why Search?"


43marks.com is much more low-key. Text only and not as many categories as AllMyFavs.com. But does have nice searching, where you can toggle between Google & Yahoo search results.

Thing 65 Current Economic Crisis of 2008

Not a happy lesson, but it's true that it's on all our minds.

Lots of links to articles about the financial crisis.
Kiplinger.com: 15 Things You Need to Know About the Panic of 2008
BusinessPundit.com: Subprime Primer
Time.com: Credit Crunch: Where is it happening?
MSNBC.com: Economy in Turmoil: How the global financial crisis has unfolded interactive timeline
The New York Review of Books, www.nybooks.com: The Financial Crisis: An Interview with George Soros
HowStuffWorks.com: How can mortgage-backed securities bring down the U.S. economy?
Slate.com: Many articles found when you search: Mortgage Crisis
Wikipedia.com: Subprime mortgage crisis & Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008
NPR.com's Planet Money: Understanding the Crisis
Another radio show--This American Life (www.thislife.org): 365: Another Frightening Show About the Economy
Metafilter.com: Questions, answers and postings--link doesn't work unless you're a member of Metalife (which is not free), can search bailout or economic crisis and find articles to read.

Anyways, I guess it's better to be an informed depressed person about the economy instead of an ignorant depressed person about the economy. That would be why I had such a great drive back and forth to the Summer Reading Workshop last week in Wooster, OH, when the people riding with me insisted we listen to NPR on the radio. Such joy to hear all the bad economic news both here and around the world.

Thing 64 One Hit Wonders

Fun lesson of many sites to try:

CopyPasteCharacter.com
--I would definitely use this site sometimes when typing up foriegn language rhymes/songs for storytimes
Kuku Klok
--humorous, not useful for me
Stormpulse
--interesting to see storm track, sent it to my father (a weather addict)
Pixadus
--not really useful for me
Fake Name Generator
--the site to go to when a patron needs help coming up with a unique username
PicApp
--good picture searching site, I used it for the picture below:

I used Regator to locate a blog posting on Cool Websites and Tools. It nicely summarizes quite a few useful websites and tools out there.