Let's try this again.

All that work and then I let my blog just sit gathering dust for almost two years. It does seem a waste so I am going to give it another try. A few weeks ago I upgraded my prized mp3 player (the tangible incentive for creating this blog) for a Samsung T10 player from Best Buy. I like this style with the touch screen display and it is easy to navigate. It came with a free one month trial membership to the Best Buy Digital Music Store & media manager. I downloaded several albums and have enjoyed listening to them. The trial membership is now up so I am reviewing my options. If anyone reading this has suggestions for other tried and successful avenues of downloading please post them. I have not yet attempted to copy my own CDs.

My only problem so far with this new player is that it does not seem to be compatible with Net Library. While my husband and I were at Best Buy we pulled up PLCMC's website to review the list of compatible players. While the Samsung T10 was not listed we knew that the list was old and the person assisting us said that the T10 was a newer replacement model for another player that was on the list. We felt that if this player was indeed an upgrade it would have at least the same features as the old one so I went ahead and made the purchase. After two unsuccessful attempts to down load audio books from Net Library I'm stumped. I feel like it should work so maybe I am missing a step. The book is listed in my queue on my computer and on my player but it won't play it. I've decided not to exchange the player because I have already grown attached to it and I didn't see anything in the store that I liked as well.

I have to say that despite my journey through Web 2.0 I am still bringing up the rear in the new technology race or in this case the "old" technology race since mp3 downloading has been around a while! I guess my main problem is just finding the time to explore and learn about what I am missing out on. Then again, I guess if I thought I was really missing out I would make the time. I don't know. There's something to ponder. . .

My first download

This morning I successfully downloaded three titles from NetLibrary to my new MP3 player. I followed the step by step NetLibrary Downloadable Audiobook Instructions on the PLCMC website: http://plcmc.org/audiobooks/help.htm The process went faster than I expected, maybe due to the fact that I have high speed access and the latest version of Media Player. It appeared to have skipped over the licensing agreement window with the first title but it did prompt me to backup my license. I did get the license agreement window with the second title.

While I was downloading the files to my player I noted that there were a couple of music files on my computer that my daughter must have downloaded. When I downloaded my third and final book the computer downloaded the music files before I knew what was happening! I then read my player manual to find out how to delete those from my player. So far I have not been successful. The manual is poorly written and difficult to follow. I'm hoping one of my co-workers will be able to help me with this later. In the meantime I will enjoy listening to the books while on my treadmill. It will be so much easier than trying to keep my portable CD player in my pocket!

My family wiki

A couple of nights ago I built a wiki that my family can use to make their holiday shopping less stressful. Some of us have already posted a few of our favorites - restaurants, stores, etc. - which will take the guess work out of our gift buying and hopefully add some fun to what can sometimes be a chore. You're welcome to take a peek at our Fun Family Shopper and tell me what you think. Keep in mind that it has only been up a few days and like all wikis it is constantly under construction! PB Wiki is so intuitive that it really is as easy as 1 2 3.

THE PRIZE

Now that I am the proud owner of an MP3 player I am looking forward to learning how to use it. I've managed to preset some radio stations although I found the instructions a little difficult to follow. I have registered for the downloadable audio books workshop this week and I'm excited about learning how to make the most of my prize!

Play it again Helene :-)

ANOTHER PROGRAM? How are you going to top this? I can see those wheels already spinning. . . Yes, you can count me in. It's a little disconcerting though. Today I found myself at the grocery story actually considering picking up a PC World !!!!

Finish Line (Audio Version)

Finish Line

Yipppeeee! I can't believe I made it to the Learning 2.0 Finish Line! I have to admit I had a lot of fun with this project despite my early reservations. The best part has been learning with other PLCMC staff outside of the traditional workshop environment. The exercises were challenging but not overly difficult when taken in small weekly bytes. If I hit a snag there was always someone nearby to offer suggestions and Helene was really on the ball with a helpful comment. Receiving and adding comments really adds to the fun and my Bloglines feeds are giving me up to the minute updates on my favorite blogs.

I might not personally use all the discovery tools we have explored in the past few weeks but here is my list of "Keepers."

1. Flickr
2. Bloglines
3. LibraryThing
4. YouTube
5. PBWiki

Although I may not feel the need for the social tagging sites, image generators or the web-based applications I am glad to know what's out there for our patrons who will probably ask about them. Yesterday a fellow staffer asked me if I intend to keep my blog now that I've finished the assignment. I think I will for a while at least. Afterall, it was a lot of work! I might decide to modify it a bit but it's really a diary of all I have learned so it's worth hanging on to in that respect.

I am considering building a wiki. My family is spread out in three states and we plan to be together for Christmas this year - something that is rare for us. We've been discussing how to go about the gift giving and I'm thinking about a family wiki where we can each list our favorite things. (hmm, where do you suppose I got that idea?) Favorite restaurant, favorite store, favorite perfume, favorite pipe tobacco, etc. We can put together a small gift basket for each person or give a gift card or certificate. We don't have a huge family - only 9 of us - so this is definitely doable and it would be fun for all of us to post our favorites on a wiki. My sister is an editor so I think she will be in heaven crossing out & changing text at her will :-) So PBWiki here I come! I think HB has created at least one monster. Only time will tell how many more of us are out there. . .

Podcasting

I searched Yahoo Podcasts using the terms "book reviews," "reading" and "books" and subscribed to three.

• NY Times Book Reviews
• Slate Explainer Podcasts (this is a good one)
• The Kissy Bits - Romance Writing Without Cooties

I was able to add these to my Bloglines account but am having a problem with Kissy Bits. Somehow the podcast was feeding in 45 speed instead of 33 1/3! I deleted it from my list and tried again but now am not able to even get Bloglines to recognize it. It's linking to the blog address instead of the podcast. Oh well, I guess I really didn't want to know Kiki's tips on how to add emotion to a romance novel. For those of you experiencing the same problem read HB's comment on this post. Since there is no fixing it without downloading I won't worry about it. I've discovered that I can listen to the Kissy Bits podcast through the blog so I will add that to my feeds and get around it that way.