#30 Here, There and Everywhere

I have posted something to the S:drive and those things disappeared in the great "Suprise" drive clean-up" that had never happened before and so we never expected it to ever happen and then it did. Totally our fault, but ... we are still bitter. So I never use the S: drive without extreme suspicion and get things off it lickety-split before something evil can happen.

As for the P:drive, I just reorganized it a couple of weeks ago and totally flummoxed my staff, since I renamed their folders so they conformed to a system. Ahem, next time I may mention that I'm doing that in advance. We are just now getting our photos on the P: drive for editing before being sent to Flickr. Personal photos better not be on it or heads will roll. (Not to worry, work photos are hard enough to get on the computer, so personal photos are most unlikely.) And I don't even know how to get my photos off my camera phone, much less onto the P: drive.

Now for the Z:drive. And now for my folders on the Z:drive. Yes, those folders. To paraphrase the late great Charlton Heston, "You'll get those folders when you pry them from my cold dead hands." Uh, just kidding. But I am slowly examining them and deleting them when I really sure I don't need them anymore. Just call me a turtle on this one.

#29 Rolling the Stone up the Sisyphean Email Hill

Okay, so I've stuffed stuff into folders the way you clean up the living room by stuffing things in closets before your mother arrives. I'm deathly afraid if I open a folder everything will cascade out all over me. Deletion of old email is something I actually do on a regular basis, since I love the the sensation I get when hitting delete for all the stuff in trash. I'd moved most personal emails to a private email address a while back when the whole county email flap was ongoing, even though I am not having an affair with anyone at the moment. The rest are being trashed whenever I find them lurking in my closets, ah "folders."

Actually, the most insidious email is work-related email lists, which I always mean to read but usually are at the end of my to-do priority list with all that professional enhancement stuff. I guess I need to either read it or just get off any list I don't feel compelled to keep up on, but I'm still vacillating over that. Maybe I'll just delete the previous month of posts at the beginning of each month so it never gets to the totally daunting level. I always want to keep up professionally, but it always takes a back seat to what's pressing today. But that's another topic.

# 28 Git' R Done!

I'm afraid I spent as much time flipping back and forth between all the information stuff on the web about David Allen's system as I have attempting to implement using any particular system. I did manage to attach "Remember the Milk" to my Google calendar and talk someone at Network Services into uploading a sync program so my Outlook calendar can sync with my Google calendar. (This makes me ridiculously happy since maintaining two separate calendars has just meant that I maintained neither completely. And now I can even look at it on my phone! What this means to the fate of my ability to organize remains to be seen.) So I have added a to do list to something I look at every day.

The thought of maintaining 43 folders of anything still seems daunting, but I can see posting the workflow flowchart as a memory aide to use the two minute rule to do, defer or trash things. I think. Maybe. First I'll probably investigate every variation on the system to find "just the right one." Ahem.

Not Part of Work - Moving On

I don't know if I'll keep this blog up, I've got a livejournal account for personal stuff (and yes, it's way more intuitive and easier to just follow another blog by friending it) but, still, I hate to give up stuff - so I just might still comment here. We'll see.

Week 10 #23 The very, very, very end. Amen!

Using my beginning picture as a metaphor for the whole thing -- A Universe to Explore and this is only a tiny piece of it. But it's very pretty.

What were my favorites? I adore Library Thing, and will probably upgrade to get the max from my addiction. You Tube was a guilty pleasure, since once you start it's like eating popcorn, and you go from one to another until, oops, it's time for bed and you didn't get anything done! I can see Bloglines being useful, if I can find a way to integrate it into my opening up the computer each day, especially now that I configured it to only show the headlines, and I can check those that interest me quickly and then mark the rest as read - and feel all good about my informedness.

To really take advantage of the downloadable media, I might have to break down and get an Ipod or another mp3 player. Music hasn't lured me to the darkside, but storytelling podcasts might.

How my long term learning goals were affected? Well, it made me do some stuff that is only the things to do before I die list in a much more timely manner. I'm now in a position to kinda know what the customer is talking about when they call to complain they can't download something from Overdrive, and I'm better prepared to take work home by loading it into ZOHO Writer, since my flash drive is always at the bottom of my purse.

Unexpected outcomes? It was fun to be participating on the same level, or lower, than my co-workers - it was something new to talk about, and reading the blogs made me realize that there is much more to some of the people on staff than I knew. I especially loved the lyrical titles of some of their blogs!

I have no ideas for how to use these technologies, except in that moment of recognition with a customer that lets me tell them that, hey - they can do Zoho, or get that tech book from Safari Tech, or solve some other access problem that blocks their use of information. The whole collaborative thing - well, I've never felt comfortable doing that, even when I had to. I guess I'm too lone wolf to want to move in step with others. I do think that a library wiki for our customers would be cool, but I don't want to maintain it!

I don't know at the moment what I want to learn about - my mind is stuffed and I need to let what I've learned assimilate. Given time to feel comfortable using some of what I've tried, I'll be more ready to move on. But maybe in smaller chunks ... like one app at a time. I do know that it was way more than ten hours!

Week 9 #22 Downloading Media - or DVRing the Web

Of course, I'm weeks behind on my DVR watching (that's the Comcast version of inferior TIVO,) so now all I need is to add more stuff to watch and listen to. Of course, if I check it out from Overdrive, at least it will return itself on time! I've watched Henry the VIII and His 6 Wives, only to discover it's the abridged version (sniff) which came down as quite watchable on my computer screen - maybe because I'm nose to nose with the screen (of course I brought my laptop to work so I could take advantage of the faster downloading speed!.)

Free ebook sites are just full of stuff I've always been meaning to read, but never did, and probably wouldn't now listen to them unless I was trapped in an airport. All the good stuff is for pay, or on library sites ... if I want to listen to a book it won't be the Illiad, it will be vampires or werewolves or dragons or ... maybe a bit of poetry read by a really good voice actor. What I've listened to on LibriVox is very uneven as far as the voices are concerned - I've shut down things within paragraphs because the voice was just reading Robert Frost like a cereal box. LibriVox is easy to use, and since it's free - just moving on isn't painful. I especially like not having to create an account to listen to something, since I've got acres of passwords out of the istar project to remember already. Wowio is more interesting visually, however.

However, on our library site, I've discovered to my dismay that things I do want to download are often on waiting lists - hey, just like the new dvds!

Week 9 #21 Sodding Podding ...

Well at least the word of the year in 2005 wasn't "woot."

I have I-tunes installed at home - which would make this so much easier, but since I'm at work (looks pointedly at Network Services) it must be done otherwise.

Digging around, I've listened to Syd Lieberman tell stories, subscribed to LibVibe a library news service, and an ALA bootcamp on Web 2.0 (may only dip a toe into that one,) and added feeds for many storytelling podcasts until I made myself stop.

SO, I've added the RSS Bloglines feed, uh feeds, well - many feeds. But I don't know when I'll have time to listen. Of course, as noisy as the library gets, headphones might make it easier to listen, learn and type reports.