Turn

I wouldn't say I've done an about-turn; I still prefer to do things the old fashioned way: pen and paper as opposed to a computer, tangible CD rather than an ethereal mp3 file and face-to-face instead of phone, skype, email, IM or text. I sometimes feel like Alice in Wonderland with all this new technology, stumbling through a completely bizarre world that's like ours, but not quite right. All the advances are starting to make me feel small, but the power they give just blows everything out of proportion. To further the analogy, the Queen of Hearts is undoubtedly Steve Jobs, bringing out new innovations each year and cutting his opposition down to size at every turn. The Mad Hatter is Mark Zuckerberg, mastermind behind facebook, a genius who has lost his sense of self. Bill Gates is the White Rabbit, a minor character now but still doing a lot behind the scenes, and seemingly always rushing around, never having enough time. The Jabberwocky is a synecdoche for all the nefarious characters who exploit everything in their path: the hackers, the viruses and the spammers. Tweedledum and Tweedledee can represent Twitter, voices struggling to be heard in the sheer mass of communication, saying the same thing over and over, finishing people's sentences and trying to outdo each other. And the Cheshire Cat? All of us. Sending out every aspect of our personalities into the internet ether, until all that's left is a grinning facade. Still looking out for a caterpillar smoking a hookah though...However I must admit, some of the applications we've been looking at have turned my head, if not made me do a double-take. I had one of those the other day; a driver honked his horn at me and I wasn't even wearing anything special. I'm not one of those who takes offense at that kind of thing, but I wish the guy who did it was a bit younger, more attractive and not a white van driver. Here is what I was wearing, sorry about the blatant advertising on the bottle:

My friend Chris' little brother

Being of the right generation (and having a boss who is an advocate of web 2.0 helps), I was using quite a number of the applications already, along with others we haven't covered thanks to my technical wizard of a brother. He's recently got a smartphone and is having fun downloading the free apps. I must admit the GPS one is quite cool; I'm a fan of Google Earth and Street View as well, the supposed Big Brother; privacy issues are blown out of all proportion. I'm on Street View, several times, when looking from behind; I can't believe I missed the camera going past, though it looks like me and my Dad are unpacking the car after coming back from holiday:

Google Street View

The applications I already use are Zotero, facebook personally and professionally, Google Calendar for work timetables, wikis, Delicious - my colleague is well up on it, see their blog here: - Youtube and RSS feeds though I barely have anything to do with ours as it's automatic. I've started to use Doodle, but only because others are: the book club, other communities and colleagues for example. I created a Twitter account for Cam23 and have tried to update it daily, that reminds me... I'm not sure I'll carry it on if others abandon it, but a few friends I've made within the library community tweet, so maybe I will. I'll use LibraryThing for my books at home, but when I find the time. The only ones I know I won't use are LinkedIn as I think professional networking is more insalibrious than social networking (I prefer to make friends with someone I've actually met and genuinely like first and have someone want to help me, rather than contacting an avatar and using them for my own advancement), podcasts as I am disinclined to acquiesce to watching them and Slideshare as I prefer to create my own from scratch. I'm using Flickr more as the Google images set up has changed and it's a lot less user-friendly. iGoogle has been the most successful with me as I can see the weather forecast, the latest news and what's happening each day on our Google Calendar all in the same place. Nevertheless the best bits are the daily literary quote and Calvin and Hobbes cartoons. Here's today's for old time's sake:I can't believe that we've come to the end and I'm missing the closing ceremony; it clashes with my summer holiday. I love writing a blog post every week and I may even keep it up. There's our new library induction video for a start; filming began yesterday and carried on today. It's going surprisingly well and has ben a lot of fun, but can't say much more than that as we're sworn to secrecy. Check my Twitter account for more details @judgesarah. There's also the library blog which is going to usurp our written newsletter. I think the last word should go to Wordle, I adore the eclecticness of my tags:

Here comes the sun

Thank you Icky Pic for the above photo, long may the sun continue (at least for Wimbledon). At last something really easy. I haven't had any reason to use Flickr before, except for the pictures that are integrated into Google Earth which is an awesome feature of an awesome application; it enabled me to follow where my brother had been on one of his holidays, so I knew what and where he was talking about. However I will certainly be using Flickr more in future because there is a veritable goldmine of wonderful photos on there. I immediately added RSS feeds of Sir Cam's and bookporn's photo galleries onto my iGoogle page (no screen capture as I'm on the wrong computer). I've also added Google Analytics to my blog, not much yet but it's only been one day. I particularly love bookporn's latest absolutely beautiful photo of a dilapidated building with decaying books, which I can't add to this blog either due to copyright issues. Check it out for yourself, it's titled "Last Folio." I'm always frustrated looking for photos via Google Images and with the tag option on Flickr, searches should be much more interesting and hopefully relevant, should being the operative word whenever tagging is involved... I've no need to create my own account though as I already have a shared gallery my brother set up. Me and my family use it to show each other what we have been up to, for holiday picture slideshows (often over Skype) and just to show off our prowess with a camera. Here's one of the gems:


That was taken at the Barcelona Open this year. It was the only opportunity I had of a photo with Rafael Nadal as he did vamos; he never even turned up to the tournament, but I've forgiven him. The gallery's particularly useful as my eldest brother lives in Barcelona and he's always off somewhere, so we can keep track as to what he's been up to. However as an image bank, there is nothing quite like Flickr. Here is an awesome photo I found, which is very apt at the moment:

Thank you Kol Tregaske who caught Andy Roddick out practising on one of the Wimbledon courts the day before he won in such stunning, strong and supreme fashion last night. I want him to win this year as I can't think of last year's final without tears coming to my eyes. Come on Roddick!