My Final Thing

This is my final entry for the library class which I have enjoyed. Many of the items discussed in this class were to bring the participants up to speed on some of the many wonderful, FREE features on the internet. I have learned so much and have even managed to impress my teenager son and 20 something daughter with some of my new skills.

I downloaded the audio book "The First Ninety Days" which I hope will help me better plan the first 90 days with my new employer. I inherited my son's older IPOD when he moved on to something better, so now I plan to put the book on there and enjoy the beautiful sun tomorrow while listening to the book.

Thanks Penny and thank you Pennsylvania for helping to fund such terrific opportunities enabling library patrons to stay current in today's rapidly changing society.

Disney Video

I just love Disney. Attached is a video of Donald Duck going on vacation. It's just a simple classic. No R rating necessary to make this enjoyable. One of the wonderful things about videos and podcasts is that they can remind us of a simpler time when movies were for fun and enjoyment, not stimulation. Perhaps YouTube will help preserve some of these classic, or at least snipets of the classics for the younger generations to watch and enjoy.
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Harry Potter podcast

I'm struggling to get this mugglecast link into my blog. I got it into my Bloglines account, but it just doesn't seem to work when I move it to my blog. This podcast is dedicated to everything Harry Potter and what's going on with the movie and the new Harry Potter addition to Universal Studios.

link

Surprised Kitten

My kids use YouTube all the time and sometimes they will be laughing so hard that I come over to see what they are viewing. "Surprise Kitten" is one of those times. It's so cute and simple that it made me laugh too. I haven't put anything on YouTube yet, but the key word here is "yet".

possibilities with zoho

The day before I received the assignment to check out Zoho, someone else mentioned the robust nature of Zoho and suggested I look into it.  So needless to say when I received our assignment this week, I was excited to see what this product could do.

 

I'm not sure yet, if this will replace the need for Word and Powerpoint, but I definitely see some possibilities.

 

Our other assignment to look into the library's online offering was something I was already familiar with.  I reserve DVD's for my family to watch from the library's online checkout system and I sign up for classes offered at the library from the website.  I don't believe enough people are aware of the amazing offerings at the public library.  This isn't the library I grew up with, but certainly is providing the population with internet connectivity, books, DVD's, classes all at the very low cost of FREE.  It doesn't get any better than that.

 

Research Pro was put to immediate use for my grad class where I had to research a Case Study between Coca-Cola and an environmental watch group in India.  Usually I go to google.com, but now I can go to one website and get the info from multiple search engines.  It's kind of like the Indeed.com of search engines.  I like it!

 

 

This week I learned what a wiki is. Checked out the familypedia site for genealogy. Neither my surname nor my husbands were listed. My father traced our Frey family back to the early 1500's. Sometime I might have to add it to this wiki.

I think a more immediate use for me is the family camping trip my sister puts together. Several cousins and their families go to Pinchot State Park for a few days of R&R in late June. This would be the perfect place for everyone to add who is coming and what they plan to bring. My sister spends a lot of time coordinating the activity and this might be a wonderful tool. I can hardly wait to tell her about it.

Girl Scout cookies

This week's lesson had me checking out Delicious and Technorati. Delicious is like having favorites on a roaming profile. Pretty cool.

Technorati was fun. My daughter is home for spring break and at first we searched on spring break, but there were things best not repeated on my blog most having to do with casual sex. Then we decided since my friend Dawn dropped off Girl Scout cookies for me this week, that I pretty much inhaled, (Shame on you Dawn for giving me 4 boxes of cookies in one shot without rationing them.) that we should search on Girl Scout cookies. We both laughed out loud when we saw the headline "Put down the Girl Scout cookies and Step Away from the Box." It started with a funny cartoon about the lemon cookie problem with this year's cookies. Fortunately, I had not ordered any lemon cookies, so I was safe. Then we viewed another blog that said "Sex Sells" and showed a revealing picture of Eva Longoria featuring her bust. Apparently her daughter was selling girl scout cookies and a photo was snapped at that time.

No matter it was a fun time with my daughter, Casey. Maybe now she'll forgive me for eating all the GS cookies.

Glogster

Since I can now upload pictures from the camera, I decided to upload two of the pictures from the snow storm the other week. Not sure how to add music without paying for it, so I put the captions in the dialogue boxes. You get the idea.

Dude the dog

Our Dude is pretty awesome. At first we thought he was a beagle with legs, but then we found out he was a harrier. Beagles are descendants of harriers and the aircraft the harrier is named after these dogs. Dude has a freckled tongue and whines incessantly if he doesn't get his daily walk. He is the best dog to walk because he has never left his business in anyone else's yard. I don't have to carry a doggy bag, if you know what I mean. Anyway, my oldest son found him at an animal shelter and eventually he ended up living with us. He's quite the character. I framed this picture using Image Chef at http://www.imagechef.com/.

RSS Feeds

This week learning about RSS feeds was more challenging than the others. Spent lots of time seeing what's out there.

I'm still not sure where the Share button is on bloglines. Don't know if this will work, but here is my bloglines account URL (I think).

http://www.bloglines.com/public/bquickel

I really like the RSS feed concept and hope it will save time spent on the computer. For now, lots to play with.

Hopefully by next week I will have a way to access photos from the family's digital camera. Thought it was worked out for this week, bought a card reader, but my old computer cannot read the driver to install the software required. Go figure. With a computer, there's always something to figure out.

IMG_2054

IMG_2054, originally uploaded by madsundevil.

My family and I were at Walt Disney World the first week of January, 2010, when Florida was experiencing some record breaking LOW temperatures. On the first night there, New Years Day, we saw the Magic Kingdom castle light up in icicles like the picture here. This is all done with lights. That same evening we were there for the Holiday Wishes Fireworks and WOW is all I can say. I never before saw such as display. There were even fireworks that were smiley faces and lots of red and green fireworks. Disney sure does know how to put on a show.

I doubt we will return again in the month of January, but we experienced the amazing holiday parades and lighting spectacles including the Osbourne Lights (5 million lights) at Hollywood Studios. No matter what season, I truly love Walt Disney World.

life-long learning

I'm a believer in life-long learning. Back in the 70''s and early 80's I thoroughly enjoyed my college experience. Then kids happened and my learning involved learning how to deal with a kranky child, then two then three. My life-long learning became "child" focused. I continued growth at work through new experiences, new technology, but somehow I never quite found the time to return to the classroom.

All that changed in July when I lost my job and 22 year career. Last month I started a part-time job in a new industry and am having fun, meeting new people. AND I started grad classes in what I hope ends up to be an MBA degree. I was initially worried about returning to the classroom after a 28 year absence. I am loving it. I feel completely alive and have renewed my commitment to life-long learning.