Film recommendation Catfish

There was a trailer for a film called Catfish on More 4 last night, they are showing it next Tuesday night as part of the True Stories series.  Having seen it in the IFI in the Autumn, and given that it's about Social Networking, I thought I'd recommend it.  I'd advise you not to read anything about it before hand, as it would ruin it.
It is the complete anthithesis of the Social Network, as glossy and stylised as that  film is, this is grainy and low-budget.  It's a documentary about a photographer's online relationship with an eight-year-old child prodigy and her attractive elder half-sister. about deceit and lonliness. Worth a watch especially when it's for free on TV.

(Anti)Social Networking

I already have Facebook and Twitter accounts.  As I have friends/family abroad, I find it an effortless way of keeping in touch.  I'm not a fan of instant messaging and have my account setup so that noone knows when I'm online. Why? Well if I'm only logging on for a minute and somebody starts IMing, how do you get out of it? Will they think you are rude if you just go? I dunno, I just find it a hassle.

Facebook is great for getting alerts to upcoming events.  Dublin writers week, Dublin Book week and the National Library are all great for sending messages.  I find that really useful.  Just 'like' their pages and they send messages and invites to upcoming events.

This is something we could utilise in the library.  I noticed UL use their page quite a bit, for instance when there was snow, they put messsages on their facebook profile.  It is a great way to contact students.  I can't help noticing when walking through the library, how many students are on facebook.

UCD have a cute thing in their photos section, basically when any member of staff goes on holidays, they take a library bag with them, so you can see the UCD library bag on holiday in London, Australia, Paris, New York, it's silly but the photos are cute!

Twitter I just follow people on, I've only tweeted a few times. I don't log into it often.  It is great for big events. The election coverage was second to none, way more accurate and uptodate than TV and radio coverage as you had people at the actual LIVE events giving minute by minute tweetws. You also get some really witty responses.  It is also great for sporting events and if something controversial is happening, it can be interesting to follow the thread.  Vincent Browne for instance and prime time can be good to monitor as it's intriguing to see how others are responding to the show?   In order for it to work in the library we need to get people to follow us first.

Additionally you can link your twitter and facebook accounts which is kind of cool, if you see something amusing and/or interesting on twitter you can re-tweet it to your facebook status update.

Happy Easter!

Tried to do Comic Life thing, but only seems to work for Macs. 
That means I'm finished until after Easter, hope you've all a lovely break. Don't eat too much chocolate.

Wicki-wicki Wild Wild West

Random irrlevant fact:  Ever since I first heard the phrase Wiki, the chorus of that horrendous Will Smith song from the equally horrendous film Wild Wild West (actually I've never seen it, but I don't think I need to!)comes into my head.  It's a dreadful association, and I hope most people don't even know what I'm referring to.  About 6 seconds in if you're curious!!

Back to this weeks task, wikis.  I never knew where the phrase originated from so that was interesting.
I'd never edited or contributed to a wiki before, though I've read them often, especially Wikepedia, despite the fact that it's a questionable source of information.

I setup my wiki account, and posted my thoughts on the 23thingswiki.  SO easy to use, though I fear I could very easily get carried away with adding extra links, it's THAT easy to use.

In a library context I think it would be a fantastic resource.  Just for staff, for instance with an upcoming staff meeting, if something occured to you during the month, you could post it as and when things pop into your head.  Or if you had an idea for an exhibition or any kind of improvement or a suggestion, maybe you could have a link on it, where you can post ideas as you wish.

The one thing that strikes me is the ease at which you can edit other people's posts.  It would be annoying if somebody else deleted something you contributed to before you felt it had been dealt with or discussed.  The fact that there is a feature showing who edited the link most recently would probably eliminate any problems in this regard!

Friday Fun - Computers for Ladies

Before Web 2.0

Comic Strip

Having major problems loading this properly, Pixton gives you lots of information on how to load it into a Wordpress blog but not into blogger.  I had to copy the images into paint, and save as a jpg I'm sure there's an easier way! I had it showing at the side, but it looked odd and had loads of free space below it so I've deleted it now!  It was good fun to do, but I couldn't think of an interesting dialogue............. Comic Strip in full

RSS Feeds

You have to be a bit wary when something is described as really simple, but in this case the description is apt.  I added a few RSS feeds to my blog, one to BBC News and one to Cinematical to get uptodate movie news.
We actually use RSS feeds on the library website as a quick link to the newest items posted on the library blog.  Also for the opening hours.  Initially I was thinking we could use them on the information screen, but   as users could not click on the links to see more information, it would be pointless.

Sin Nombre

I recorded Sin Nombre a few weeks back on BBC4, but only just got around to watching it.  It's sort of a mix between City of God & SlumDog Millionaire.  It's not a new story, street gangs, human traffic, poverty, but it's nicely acted, and paced and the cinematography is stunning in parts. Well worth a look.

Don't judge a book...........

I feel I was somewhat hasty in my dismissal of Delicious, though  I stand by my initial impression, that it is one of the most un-user friendly interfaces (visually and functionally), that I’ve experienced in a LONG time!! 

I quite like the network feature and can now see bookmarks of SPD23things and a few other SPD bloggers.  Now when I open my bookmarks, I can see who else has bookmarked them.  I can also read through the entire list of things that other bloggers have bookmarked, kinda cool actually.  

From a work perspective I think a Delicious account could be a useful resource in the library, as people stumbleupon (genius website name, love it!) useful/relevant sites, they could bookmark them, and we could all see them. 

Since starting 23Things I’ve started to feel really weirded out by my lack of Privacy. Given my internet activity, it’s  ridiculous that I should feel this way.  I Twitter(but don’t tweet),  I facebook, (as privately as is possible), and yet on Monday when I was logging into Delicious, I felt disturbed and extremely uncomfortable with the fact that suddenly my hotmail, google , yahoo, blogger and delicious accounts, were all now quite clearly electronically linked.  I felt completely exposed, like someone could follow me around, a crazed virtual stalker. 

It’s not that I’m doing anything illegal, saying anything offensive, par taking in any dodgy activity, and yet I feel conspicuously vulnerable.   So dunno why I’m suddenly having a mini meltdown, I may get over it and fast!!

Delicious............

Delicious, such an enticing name, for such a disappointing product.
I understand it's intended use is for book marking/cataloguing webpages etc, What I cannot  fathom is who in the real World would use this?

The way I see it anyone who has a Laptop/iPhone/Smartphone or iPad would have no need for it.   You would already have everything bookmarked on your own device. 

People who don't own any of the above probably already use one of a host of  free online mail accounts, be it, facebook, gmail, flickr etc  for information they may need from their PC when not at home.  I suspect I've missed the point and await an explanation, from someone alot smarter than me!

On the plus side, while looking for something to bookmark I ffffound a cool site with interesting images:

April 01

Too late for Aprils Fools gag, here's a silly youtube clip instead!