It's a pod invasion!

Though I had been familiar with the term "podcast", I'd never really taken the time to find out what they were all about. I am so glad I finally did! There seem to be podcasts available on just about every subject you could think of, including the homebirth movement, practicing Wiccans, financial matters, and children's literature reviews. After searching through an Itunes directory of available podcasts, I found a series that seems right up my alley--NPR's All Songs Considered. Live concerts, rare video footage, and new album promotions are all components of this podcast, and several of my favorite bands have one (or several) available. Looks like I know what I'll be doing tonight!

The joys of YouTube...

So, YouTube was one of the few "things to learn" that I had already been a bit familiar with. I love searching for rare concert footage and performances by my favorite musicians, and more often than not I am enjoying my morning cup of coffee while absentmindedly browsing through the YouTube site. I chose to post the following video on my blog since it was shot at the Primavera Music Festival held in Barcelona this past May, and I was lucky enough to be in attendance. The band peforming is Beach House, and their set was played just feet from the shore of the Mediterranean Sea--an absolutely amazing memory for me.



YouTube could be an incredibly effective marketing tool for libraries, especially if used to spread the word about a library's special collection, events, and/or workshops to be held. It would make sense to get potential patrons' attention any and every way possible.

Mash-ups...

So, when I first saw the term "mash-up" in this discovery exercise, I thought of the artist Girl Talk, with his mash-ups of classic rock, top 40 pop, and hip-hop songs that always seem to somehow go perfectly well together.  Flickr mash-ups are an entirely different breed, though just as fun.  Flickr users have created their own creative applications, including those as creepy as Girls of Flickr (an application designed to help users find all of the "hot" women on the site), to apps as simply entertaining as the Flickr Color Pickr (an app with which you can choose any color in the rainbow and come up with a collection of pictures in the same hue) and Montagr (a mosaic application that creates a given picture in mosaic form with other Flickr users photographs).  Almost an hour snuck away from me as I experimented with these "mash-ups"...I can only imagine how much time will disappear when I am more familiar with web design and the html process...

A breath of fresh air.

This was taken on my most recent jaunt in the woods...accompanied by a few of my best friends...with the summer air still floating in the breeze...
Ahh...perhaps as far away from the Internet as you could get on a day trip ;)

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

You are now entering the fabulous world of technology...

So, it's finally happened.  I am honest-to-goodness entering the REAL WORLD--of technology that is.  For this introductory course in information technology, we are required to create our own blog that will document our trials and successes in this learning process.  Creating a blog of my very own is entirely overdue (as I have been a religious follower of several other blogs for some time), and I'm hoping that I'll start to love it so much, that it will become a real one after this class is long behind me.  I have to admit, I am incredibly intimidating by any and all computer technology that goes beyond a Facebook comment or purchasing a fabulous etsy creation...but only time will tell...so here goes!