About Creating an Online Photo Book

Last spring I took part in Solo Photo Book Month, an online project that encourages people worldwide to create books from their own photos. All photos must have been taken within a 30 day period, (what they call a "fuzzy month")  A book due by the end of June could be started anytime in May or June so long as only 30 consecutive days are used in its creation. This deadline and structure is designed to encourage focus and create opportunity for people who take lots of pictures but never really make anything of them. Using the PDF format required for submission, participants can also fancy them up using a variety of hosting sites, like blurb.com. To submit your work, upload it to the "sofobomo" site where it can be viewed by other participants as well as friends and family you may browbeat into looking at your work.
Part of the fun of this project is deciding what your book will be "about." Text is optional, but frankly that's one of the best parts - having your say about something, explaining your photos, or whatever. Here is a link to my 2009 book. The photographs in it were all taken with a Nikon CoolPix L5 digital camera in Phoenix and Scottsdale Arizona, as well as San Francisco and Santa Rosa, California - between May 18 and June 18, 2009.
Next time a fuzzy month comes along, join me.

No Thrill, No B.B King

Now I need a small music player for my blog. THAT turned out to be an adventure! First I got a free account on Playlist.com, found my favorite BB King song, (the 1969 version of "The Thrill is Gone") and put the player on the sidebar. Way too big and clunky. So out that went. Then I found Muzicons.com, which makes a very small widget. The choice of songs by King does not include my favorite, so I opted instead for a nice bluesy version by a female singer. On the down side also, it is only free for 45 days, and after a 2 week grace period, is deleted.
Oh, well. The search goes on for the perfect music widget.
Nothing's perfect I guess, especially when you want it for free. Sorry B.B.

Picasa Won't Play with Flickr

DSCN0136
Originally uploaded by margalearningzone

I created a couple of albums on my computer with Picasa and uploaded them to Facebook. I then sent some to Flickr. From there I can blog them, but I guess the only way I can blog them directly from Picasa is by using THEIR own "Web Album" feature. Drat. That means I need to create a web album account in Picasa.
The thing that stalls me with the wonders of technology is having things act noncompatible and refuse to do what I want them to. I'm sure this is getting better, but there are still plenty of functions that remain proprietary to the application that created them.

Motivation and Engagement @ Work

TED is one of my favorite places. You could spend days there. http://www.ted.com/
This video was posted on TEDTalk Tuesdays July20th. "The surprising truth about what motivates us." Not the usual polished TED experience but well worth watching anyway. I embedded this video by going to the Edit HTML tab in my New Post window. I made sure to leave some room above the code, so when I switched to Compose, there was room at the top for me to type this.

I was recently asked about embedding gadgets like the "Feed the Koi" so here is an overview:
First, click on the blue link amid the swimming fish to reach abowman at http://abowman.com/google-modules/fish/  and copy the string of code from where it says "embed."

Then  go to the Design tab at the top of your blog. Open it:

 

Click on the top link - "Add a Gadget" and the following box will appear:

Then choose one of the options (or better yet, investigate them all) I added the Koi at the "HTML/JavaScript" option.
 
 
  This is what you will be pasting in:

Finally, paste it into the large white area, and added a caption up at the top:  Save. Then "view blog" and see if it worked. If not, just try again. Getting there is more than half the fun! The first time this worked, I was plagued by delusions of grandeur.

 
 

Calculating the Value of Library $ervice$

While reading the March 2010 issue of Library Journal I saw this device from the Swiss Army Librarian. Here is Brian Herzog's Library Value Calculator mentioned in that article. I thought it was an interesting gadget and tried adding it to the sidebar, but it's too large. Therefore, you must view it here, and through the links below this post. Click on the words "Value of Service" to see how he arrived at these values.

Picasa Picasso

Picasa? I started by joining Flickr years ago, and just stayed there. Did all my editing in Photoshop Elements before uploading. Time to branch out, since the Library now offers Picasa classes. I was surprised by the ease of use right from the start. When I download Picasa, (to my own computer, not the Library’s) like a little mole it zeroed in on all my photos and busily gathered them up. I chose Picasa as the default to open. Almost immediately I saw how nicely it lets you browse through your stuff. Great big thumbnails – 50% larger than my ancient version of Photoshop Elements. First I zipped through creating a collage of my daughter’s wedding photos. Then I used the “star” tool to select a few dozen photos at random. (Little yellow stars show on the thumbnails, above.) Selections can then be grouped in sets - uploaded to web albums, emailed or blogged, or exported as a HTML document. I would still use Elements if I were editing alot, but maybe Picasa will tempt me with easier methods. I enlarged the toolbar below so you can take a look.

Check out two Picasa sets on my Facebook. (Click badge @ left)

Next: an investigation of the Web Albums feature, and the sharing aspects of Picasa…