#18 Web- based applications

Used Zoho writer to create this muffin recipe to my blog. I used a recipe template. A bit of trial and error getting the template to become a document that I could send to my blog - but I did it! This is a really nice and easy recipe if you have left over bananas. Now the price of bananas is down it is very economical. Swap yogurt for buttermilk if you prefer. These muffins are best eaten warm, but can be reheated in the microwave. They can also be frozen.

Muffin recipe

Muffin Recipe

Name of the Dish: Apple and Banana Mini Muffins

Type: Baking

Serves: 18 mini muffins

Ingredients

2 cups self raising flour 1 Egg 2/3 cup buttermilk 1/3 cup brown sugar 1 peeled and grated apple 2 large mashed bananas 2 tbs butter

Directions

Melt butter Mix together egg, mashed banana, buttermilk, and butter Sift in SR flour and mix Place into lightly greased mini muffin tins Bake at 200°C for 20 minutes

Technorati Tags recipes,apple,cooking,Muffins,Banana

#17 Playing around with PBWiki

Well I added my blog URL to the PBWiki but despite following the instructions, it only seemed to link when I just added it in under the Moonee Valley heading without the [square brackets]. Reading Pearl Bay's blog about this I did a bit more trial and error, got back into the 'source' page, scrolled down to the script under Moonee Valley and edited my Blog name and URL in a similar vein and guess what! It worked!
I also added in my favorite book of the moment, The kite runner by Khaled Hosseini , and my favorite movie, Baz Lurhman's Romeo + Juliet. I was a bit confused about the protocol for adding in my favorites. Should I add at the top of the page or the bottom? I went for the top, justifying that it was the most recent entry. Should you add directly under a similar entry? Also, how are the entries attributed? Most entries seemed to be anonymous.

#16 So what's in a Wiki

I found this exercise quite interesting. I thought the wiki's that were targeted for a particular purpose would be the most useful in the library context. I liked the wiki's for book club discussions ; enhancing the catalogue with book reviews ; subject guides ; and collaborative work projects. I could imagine a wiki on local history would be useful - with people contributing who went to a local school, or lived in a particular street. Perhaps the anniversary of a significant event in the local area, eg. a fire, flood, school or road opening would bring in contributions.

#14 Technorati

Technorati is a searching and tagging tool for blogs. Doing this exercise I discovered around the same number of posts (667) and blogs (710) when I searched the term 'Learning 2.0', but when I searched by the term 'Library 2.0' I got 4,921 post and 471 blogs. When exploring 'top searches' I noticed that exam results, breaking news and silly things were in the top searches, along with searches in other languages. In 'top blogs' the most popular blogs were for breaking news, gadgets and other silly things. I joined up and added the widget listing my favourite blogs - I happened to hit on Helen Blowers too! I also added the 'add me' button.
I would envision this technology being used in the library to enable the searching of blogs on very topical subjects - topics that may not have many published books. Environmental, political or controversial issues always have people wanting to share their opinions. It is probably also a good source for debating topics with pro and con opinions.

#15 On Library 2.0 & Web 2.0

I think libraries must embrace these new technologies to reach out to people who use libraries. As Stephen Abram has been advocating in his blog, Steve's Lighthouse, libraries need to be savvy with this technology to enable them to stay relevant to an increasing population of Web 2.0 users. The ability to make the catalogues and web pages interactive with user comments or ratings is a positive step. My fellow work blogger, Pearl Bay has really started to run with this technology. This week she sent an email to all staff incorporating image generator techniques. The visual impact grabs the attention, especially for those new to these technologies, and often creates a greater impression than a text based message. She has also made professional contact with fellow bloggers through her exploration of Web 2.0 technologies like Library Thing, Technorati and RSS feeds. Through these contacts she is developing ways our own library service can incorporate these technologies for the benefit of staff and library users. Being able to experiment with these technologies in this cooperative blogging environment helps to alleviate the fear of the unknown. While perhaps only taking small steps in incorporating Web 2.0 into Library 2.0, it is a start.

Mending the error of my ways

Thanks to fellow work blogger Pearl Bay I have realised that I have been numbering the blogs incorrectly! Hopefully I am on the right track now!