It has been very interesting working through all of this, and I have learned about a lot of things available on the web which I was not aware of before.
There are many tools available, many of which I was not aware of before. Many seem like they could be very useful, or at least fun.
In particular, Wikis and Video sharing, both with user generated content seem to have had a large impact on modern society. It's fun, interesting and informative, which happens to also be what libraries strive to achieve as well.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
E-books
Ebooks sound like a very good idea, as it offers books to people who dont have access to the library, or people whose local libraries do not have books they would like.
It is also free, easily transferrable, compact, and convenient.
Project Gutenburg has a lot of famous texts free of charge, which I did not expect. Of course, most recent novels are copyrighted so are not available.
The downside of E-books is that the process of reading so many pages on a computer screen or similar device tires the eyes and makes it difficult to read large sections at a time. Printing it out would use a lot of paper and ink, as well as printing time, which makes it more worthwhile to just borrow/buy the actual book in my opinion.
E-books do have potential though, but I prefer ink on paper
It is also free, easily transferrable, compact, and convenient.
Project Gutenburg has a lot of famous texts free of charge, which I did not expect. Of course, most recent novels are copyrighted so are not available.
The downside of E-books is that the process of reading so many pages on a computer screen or similar device tires the eyes and makes it difficult to read large sections at a time. Printing it out would use a lot of paper and ink, as well as printing time, which makes it more worthwhile to just borrow/buy the actual book in my opinion.
E-books do have potential though, but I prefer ink on paper
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Podcasts
The podcast website took a while to load, but once I finally got on, I looked around at what was available.
Podcasts come in all sorts and it is interesting to listen to them. They could be very useful if you are busy and want to catch up with news or want to learn about something of interest to you. You just have to download the podcast and listen on the go on an mp3.
It is also useful as you can suscribe and get updated when more news comes up.
Podcasts come in all sorts and it is interesting to listen to them. They could be very useful if you are busy and want to catch up with news or want to learn about something of interest to you. You just have to download the podcast and listen on the go on an mp3.
It is also useful as you can suscribe and get updated when more news comes up.
#20
I actually wrote about youtube before on the last post, so this time I will just talk about a video I watched.
I watched Susan Boyle's performance on Britain's got talent. I choose this because I saw a link to it on a news website. It's been so popular, it's had nearly 50million views!
I enjoyed it very much as it is like a cinderella story, but in real life.
I watched Susan Boyle's performance on Britain's got talent. I choose this because I saw a link to it on a news website. It's been so popular, it's had nearly 50million views!
I enjoyed it very much as it is like a cinderella story, but in real life.
#19
I chose Youtube as the site out of the list of winners.
Youtube has a large number of user contributed videos on almost every topic imagineable. A lot of news agencies like BBC and TVNZ have their own youtube 'channel' too where they upload videos of their news.
It's very useful if you're looking for a specific topic to watch, but it's hard to sift the rubbish from the good stuff sometimes, and if you dont have a specific idea in mind, it's difficult to find interesting videos sometimes.
The downside of having individuals freely upload videos is that more often than not, the videos are unprofessional, poor quality, and a waste of time. On the upside though, a lot of talented people have created lots of wonderful videos for everyone to watch.
The library could utilize youtube to host videos on things like how to use the library's facilities.
Youtube has a large number of user contributed videos on almost every topic imagineable. A lot of news agencies like BBC and TVNZ have their own youtube 'channel' too where they upload videos of their news.
It's very useful if you're looking for a specific topic to watch, but it's hard to sift the rubbish from the good stuff sometimes, and if you dont have a specific idea in mind, it's difficult to find interesting videos sometimes.
The downside of having individuals freely upload videos is that more often than not, the videos are unprofessional, poor quality, and a waste of time. On the upside though, a lot of talented people have created lots of wonderful videos for everyone to watch.
The library could utilize youtube to host videos on things like how to use the library's facilities.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Zoho Writer
It's a very good clone of microsoft word, and has a lot of the features you would normally use. It feels natural and doesn't lag either, so thumbs up.
One problem with web documents is that often, it doesn't print out well. After trying the print function on zoho, I'm really impressed as it sets it out like a word document would.
One downside is that it's all online, so if you're not connected to the internet, you won't have access to it unless you've saved a .html page of it - but who does that?
It also means increased reliance on the internet, which makes me a little uneasy - isn't it just as easy to save your word documents and upload them?
Overall, it's a neat site, and it must've taken a lot of effort to make, but I'd rather stick to my copy of word.
One problem with web documents is that often, it doesn't print out well. After trying the print function on zoho, I'm really impressed as it sets it out like a word document would.
One downside is that it's all online, so if you're not connected to the internet, you won't have access to it unless you've saved a .html page of it - but who does that?
It also means increased reliance on the internet, which makes me a little uneasy - isn't it just as easy to save your word documents and upload them?
Overall, it's a neat site, and it must've taken a lot of effort to make, but I'd rather stick to my copy of word.
Monday, April 20, 2009
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