Creating a profile in Facebook:

Below are some step-by-step instructions on creating a Facebook profile and a Facebook page. Melissa Schenk at Expert Village has created 15 short (2 -3 minutes each) video tutorials on how to use different aspects and features of Facebook. They’re also a great resource to help you get started.

• Go to Facebook and take the Site Tour (or go straight to Sign-Up and dive in)!
• Make sure to read and (hopefully) agree to the Terms Of Use and Privacy Policy; click the check box; click on Sign Up Now!
• Once you’ve signed up, make your profile page. (Tab found at top left, right of Facebook logo).
• Play with various links/tabs or look for any KRL “friends” and see what they’ve been up to, to get ideas about what kind of mischief you can get into on your facebook page.
• When you logout and then log-in again, your page opens up to a News Feed page, which tells you what your friends have been up to; it might list a real news item or tell you if you have any “requests” you need to attend to. Oh. You’ll also find out if anyone has “poked” you lately. Yeousa!
• To change your profile you must click on the Profile edit tab. Your profile is seen by all your real “friends”; your “friends” will also be able to see ALL your other “friends” limited profiles, so, decide how selective you want to be about whom you invite or accept as a “friend”. The convention with the young folks who use Facebook is to be pretty open to “friend”-ships. (You gotta admire their youthful trust, don’t ya)?
• You can add a link to your blog or blogs that you like, join groups like “We Love Libraries” or “Gettin’ Old Ain’t for Sissies” or any number of thousands of groups that have made a place on facebook. Heck! Make your own group! It’s very easy to do. Or, just start looking at what your “friends” have added and go to town!
• A Heads Up: If you write on someone’s wall, everyone can read it. If you click on the Inbox tab above right, left of home, you can send private emails that will only be seen by the recipients.
• The best way to learn about Facebook is really to just start looking around and clicking on things. No. Really. Try it. We’ll be your friends. All of us. Look for us: Robert Christensen, Hannah Caitlin Greer, Susan Lee, Shirlee Clarke, Kim Doyle and Jeannie Ream.

Creating a page in Facebook:

• (You must have a Facebook profile to create a Facebook page)
• Under Applications in the left sidebar, click on Page Manager
• On the next screen, click on the Pages tab at the top of the page
• Click on Create Page
• Select the category of the organization (there is a specific category for libraries)
• Add the name and click on Create Page

That’s it — your page is created. At this point, it is not published, so no one will be able to see it or find it by searching Facebook. You can start adding information, photos and other elements to your page, as well as different applications. You can also also invite friends, and add friends as additional administrators of your page.

When you’re ready for the world to see it, click “Publish” — people will then be able to find it by searching on its name or category.

The Wiki possibilities are limitless…

Why Wiki Works

Community Information guides

• Stevens County Wiki Project (Stevens County WA) Powered by Mediawiki
• Rocwiki (Rochester Newyork) Powered by Wikispot
• LibSuccess Wiki (Best practices wiki for Librarians) Powered by Mediawiki
• ALA Annual Conference 2007 Powered by Mediawiki

Content Management Systems

• Mozilla Support powered by TikiWiki

Readers Advisory

• Booklust: A Community for People Who Love Books Powered by Wetpaint
• Book Lovers Wiki Powered by PBWiki

Encyclopedias & Dictionaries

• Citizendium Powered by Mediawiki
• Wiktionary Powered by Mediawiki

Entertainment

• Project Runway Powered by Wetpaint

Personal Wikis

• MCPL Recipes Powered by PBWiki
• Stevenmcohen (Law librarian & Speaker) Powered by PBWiki

Subject Guides

• BizWiki (Business Resources) Powered by Mediawiki
• Library for Life (St. Joseph County Public Library) Powered by Mediawiki

A post to capture Utterz

Web 2.0 sites (part 3 — thanks Shannon and Christina)

 Listio (Everything Web 2.0 Directory) — another great web 2.0 directory; most popular, highest rated, up-and-coming.

Netvibes — a great site that works on Internet Explorer and Firefox.  Put all the different 2.0 accounts you have (i.e. Bloglines, del.ic.ious, Facebook, Twitter etc.) plus your email accounts all on one page.  Log in once in the morning and your good to go all day. 

Book Mooch —  a book sharing site where you can give away and/or request books from others.  One could set up a network of people and organizations where excess books could be shared and swapped.

You Grow Girl — a site for a new kind of gardener

1000 Journals — “1000 journals are traveling from hand-t0-hand throughout the world.  Those who find them will add their stories and drawings and then pass the journal along in an ongoing collaborative art form.  This is an experiment and you are part of it.”  I love this site.

Found – “We collect FOUND stuff: love letters, birthday cards, kids’ homework, to-do lists, ticket stubs, poetry on napkins, telephone bills, doodles – anything that gives a glimpse into someone else’s life. Anything goes…” 

Swap-bot — Just like it sounds – internet swaps.

The Mirror Project — “The Mirror Project is a growing community of like-minded individuals who have photographed themselves in all manner of reflective surfaces.”

100 Words — Write 100 words, every day for one month.  Anything you want.  Check it out.

The Complete Review — This website gathers book reviews from across the web and compiles them into one place.  Not entirely comprehensive but still useful.

Funny News (CNN) — Strange headlines and funny news from CNN. Always good for a quick laugh.

New York Public Library Digital Gallery — York Public Library digital gallery. Illustrated books, maps, historical documents, etc. An absolutely amazing collection for art lovers and bibliophiles. Fun to browse and you can also buy prints for very affordable prices.

Snopes.com — The ultimate in debunking (or confirming) urban legends. 

Some more recommendations for web 2.0 sites:

GoToWeb2.0 — a great directory of hundreds of web 2.0 sites. Just mouse over any of the images for a brief description; click on them to get a link to the site (it will show up at the bottom of the page).

CogDogRoo — this site is actually a wiki that provides a list of 50 different free web tools you can use to create presentations using slide shows, audio, video, screencasts or mashups of all of these.

Instructables — the world’s biggest show-and-tell/how-to site — from how to change a diaper to how to build a geodesic dome

Jalipo — on-demand tv, documentaries, cartoons and more

Meez — create your own avatar — dress it up and create animations. Put in your blog, Facebook or who knows where

52 Projects — a site dedicated to project ideas, project creation, and projects to participate in

Post Secret — “PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard.” Some are funny, some poignant, some profound — be warned — you may also find some crass or disturbing

Book Inscriptions — just what you’d think — images and transcripts of inscriptions that have been found in all kinds of books from all kinds of places

Here are a few recommendations we’ve come up with if you’re in the mood for some web-surfing:

Pandora – this is one of the sites John Fossett recommended in his Reader’s Advisory last week. It’s a free internet radio site that lets you select music–songs or artists that you like–then finds similar music to play for you. You can give their selections a “thumbs up” or “thumbs down”, and Pandora will continually refine its choices based on your feedback.

StumbleUpon-StumbleUpon is like Pandora, only it works on websites, blogs, videos or photos. Find a website you like and StumbleUpon will then send you to a new site that is similar. You give your feedback, they continually refine the selections they send.

Both Pandora and StumbleUpon also have social networking components so you can see what others with similar taste are listening to or reading.

bored.com (“when tormenting your younger sibling gets old”) — A compilation of time-wasting sites including things like an oxymoron list, dancing presidents, and weird names. Does have some pop-ups.

Complete Review — This website gathers bookreviews from across the web and compiles them into one place. Not entirely comprehensive but still useful

IMDB — Internet Movie Database with movie info, reviews, quotes, casting information, etc.

gofugyourself — A snarky fashion blog featuring celebrities in “What were they thinking!?!?” outfits.

Meez — Meez.com is a site that lets you create your own avatar (a virtual personality) that you can add to your blog. You can choose a number of options for clothes, accessories, animation etc.

Extra! Extra! Extra!

For those of you who are curious about the “extra” incentives, and how that whole thing will work, here’s the deal. Each week that has an “extra” assignment will have a drawing in which 3 winners are selected. Everyone who completes the extras for that week will be entered in the drawing. (You do have to complete that week’s assignment as well — can’t just cherry pick the extras…..). One of the incentives will be a selection from the CDW-G* catalog. The CDW winner can choose from any of the items below. Let us know what your choice is, and we’ll order it for you. You can see details about each one by clicking on the link.

A big thank you to both Sue Whitford and Pete Santerre for these incentives. Sue is the person who persuaded CDW to donate items from their catalogue to krl2pt0 (to this day, she won’t say how…..). Pete scoured the catalogue and came up with these choices for us.

$20.33 Logitech Headset with Mic: http://www.cdwg.com/shop/products/default.aspx?EDC=476855

$20.75 Sony “Over Ear” Headphones: http://www.cdwg.com/shop/products/default.aspx?EDC=967244

$22.54 Senheiser “In Ear” Headphones: http://www.cdwg.com/shop/products/default.aspx?EDC=756509

$22.15 PNY 2GB Flash Drive: http://www.cdwg.com/shop/products/default.aspx?EDC=795358

$22.19 Micro Innovations Webcam: http://www.cdwg.com/shop/products/default.aspx?EDC=469951

$22.60 Memorex 100 Blank CD-R: http://www.cdwg.com/shop/products/default.aspx?EDC=422624

$22.28 Memorex 50 Blank DVD-R: http://www.cdwg.com/shop/products/default.aspx?EDC=1275836

Of course, these aren’t all of the incentives — in each drawing, 2 additonal prizes will be given away — searched for on ebay, in demand at fine boutiques everywhere, collector’s items already — you guessed it — krl2pt0 t-shirts. Dress em’ up, dress em’ down — everyone on the street will think you know something they don’t. Take your pick from medium, large or X-large; colors come in black or noir.

If you’re curious about how the winners are selected, here’s how that part works:

1. Everyone who completed the assignment for the week, and the extras is listed on an Excel spreadsheet

2. Excel selects a random number for each person

3. The 3 highest numbers are the winners — the highest number wins the CDW incentive, the next two highest numbers get the t-shirts

4. All drawings will be held in an undisclosed location and supervised by any unsuspecting soul we can drag in the room.

*CDW-G (the “G” is for guvmt) is KRL’s vendor for everything computer, except the computers (which come from Dell, who is also donating the laptop at the end of the dance, which Sue also procured, but that’s another story…….).

Here’s a post on adding del.ic.ious bookmarklets to you browser toolbar here on KRL computers.  This is a work-around to adding buttons.  Jeannie posted a link to a short tutorial on this yesterday, this is just a more detailed step-by-step account — told mainly in screenshots.  So, grab a cuppa whatever and pull up your recliner……

 Once you’ve registered for your Del.icio.us account, this is the first screen you will see.  Due to KRL security settings you will not be able to install buttons on your KRL computers from here.   Advance to the next screen shot to begin installing your Bookmarklets instead of buttons.  Bookmarklets work the same as buttons.

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To install your Bookmarklets, click on the Deli.cio.us Help menu in the upper right corner.  Next , click on the link to “bookmarklet buttons for any browser.” 

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On the next screen, click on the link “To install the buttons click here. (Recommended)”

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Once you have clicked this link, two windows security windows will appear – go ahead and click Run on both of these.   ==================================================================================    ==================================================================================

Another Windows Security Warning will appear: ================================================================================== 

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If your buttons do not appear in your toolbar, follow the next steps.

• 1. Go to Tools on the browser (far right corner) and click to open.
• 2. Highlight “Toolbars”
• 3. Then click on “Links” to place a checkmark
• 4. Highlight “Lock the Toolbars” to remove the checkmark if its there

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Once you have done this, your Del.icio.us Bookmarklets should appear.

Well done!

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Podcasts

Basically, podcasts are audio or video files that you can download, play on your computer, and/or transfer to a MP3 player. An MP3 player can be an iPod or other portable device, but nearly all computers have media players that will play these files using programs such as iTunes or Quicktime or Windows Media Player (all of which are available as free downloads). There are also a number of websites that will allow you to search for and play podcasts right from the website.

There are several ways to subscribe to a podcast:

• The easiest and most commonly used is iTunes. iTunes is a free download developed by Apple, and can be used on either Windows and Macintosh operating systems.
• A second option is to use a internet browser such as Firefox (Macintosh or Windows), Internet Explorer (v. 7) or Safari (Macintosh). All of these browsers can subscribe to podcasts through RSS feeds.
• A third option is to go to the site and download the audio files onto your computer and listen to the audio. But this is not really podcasting, and misses out on the automated download that the other two options offer.

The advantage of using iTunes is that each time you open the program, it will automatically download any new podcasts that you have subscribed to. You can simply let this happen in the background while you do other things, then listen to, or view them whenever you’re ready.

Because iTunes has to be downloaded to your computer, you won’t be able to use it at KRL, but it’s a great option for anyone who has a computer or laptop at home.

Subscribing to a podcast is just like subscribing to a text-based RSS feed:

• locate the podcast you want to subscribe to
• copy the URL of the podcast and then paste it into the Advanced > Subscribe menu of iTunes
• whenever you open iTunes, it will automatically download any new podcasts that are available as long as you are connected to the internet

The podcasts that you download are stored in a folder on your hard drive. Some of them can be a bit large (5 -25 Mb). You may want to delete the files once you have listened to them or burn them onto a CD if you want to save them.

There are a wide range of topics that are available as podcasts. You can find news programs; commentary on history; tutorials on photography; music and concert performances; programs on the arts; poetry or literary readings; short films; animation and much more. Here are three sources of podcasts you might want to check out:

• The Educational Podcast Network
  
• Indiepodder.org
  
• Podcast.net

You can find additional selections through search engines specifically for podcasts such as Podscope or Podcast Alley. You can also find both free and commercial podcasts at the iTunes Music store.

Here are some internet sites where you can search for and play podcasts directly on the site:

• mefeedia
• odeo
• SplashCast

A warning is in order — you might find some of them quite addictive.