11. Facebook

This one is a tricky one for me.  Not that it's hard, but rather that this is a work project and Facebook is personal.  I do not feel comfortable sharing my profile, friends, groups, etc. in a work related setting.  So I'm going to try and work around this as best I can by posting screen shots of my Facebook stuff.

a. My Facebook account- what it looks like if you're not on my friends list

b. Facebook Chat- I don't have a screen shot of this one.  I have used Chat before, but for the most part, I don't spend enough time on Facebook to sustain a conversation.  I also check Facebook the most on my phone and Facebook Chat is a completely separate app instead of part of the Facebook app.

c. My Facebook Groups

d. I really can't find a long-lost friend or family member since all the ones on Facebook, I'm already friends with

My Family List

A Small Part of my Friends List

13. Pinterest

In a nutshell, Pinterest is an addiction.  My mom, aunt, and friends had been trying to get me to join- telling me how great it is.  But I resisted- mostly because whenever they talked about it, they got all twitchy like a drug addict jonesing for his next fix.  But when I saw that we were going to do it for our 23 Things projects, I finally gave in.  Now I know what they were talking about.

I used to spend my free time reading, checking social media, watching TV, etc.  No more- I am a slave to Pinterest.  I have the mobile app on my phone and although it drains the battery like crazy, I'm on it all the time.  At this point in my addiction, I don't have time to cook any of the meals or do any of the crafts that I've been pinning.  I'll just be finding more things I'll never have the time to do.

It's even worse when it comes to the wedding stuff.  There is an entire category devoted to wedding stuff.  I've been pinning suggestions I think she might like, planning her bridal shower and bachelorette, and even planning my own wedding (which is nowhere near the horizon).  It's inspiring and also a little bit overwhelming.  I think this pin pretty much sums it up best.



12. Twitter

I know that I'm skipping ahead a little bit, but this one is an easy one.  I watched the video about Twitter.  I already use Twitter so I knew what he was talking about.  For me, Twitter is my preferred social media.  I can get updates, not just from my friends, but from my favorite celebrities, hockey team, wineries, etc.  I also feel like I get a lot more junk from Facebook so I just post photos there for the most part.  I use Twitter more to keep up with my friends.

Here's the video I had to watch:

 

Like I said, an easy one.

7. Web Reference Service

a. The first thing that jumped out at me on the Internet Public Library was the scroll of featured articles.  Since Election Day and Halloween just past, there were (what I thought would be) articles on scary book selections from Stephen King, election history, Native American Heritage Month, etc..  Actually they were just links to other webpages.  The Stephen King one, for example, just takes you to his main page and not to the suggestions that IPL said would be there.  This being said, you can find some pages with helpful information.  I clicked on "Browse by Subject" and then searched for wedding.  It led me to a pathfinder which had a collection of links and print sources for planning a wedding.  I would recommend sticking to the IPL's pages because they give you a brief description of the links.  Also I'd stick to the first couple of pages of search results, since they get less relevant the further back you get.  I actually got a link to the Boat Owners Association of America and that was on page 3.  One more thing, quite a few of the internet resources listed in the pathfinder no longer exist.  The Ultimate Internet Wedding Guide, for example, takes you to a GoDaddy page telling you that the domain has expired.

Since most of the sites we've had to work with so far haven't been very wedding heavy, I decided to just look around.  I clicked on "Newspapers & Magazines" and then Virginia.  It led me to a whole big page of nothing.  I figured it was time to quit while I was behind.

b. I wasn't sure what kind of question I should ask IPL2 librarians, since I'm sure they're busy and wedding related stuff isn't really what I would consider a "reference" question.  But what the heck, I'm a mostly wedding blog so I shall ask a wedding question!  I ended up asking for some resources on wedding superstitions.  My mom and I are kind of superstitious people, so I wanted to find some superstitions I can use in my friend's wedding or that I could base a gift around, like buying her "something blue".

With IPL, it generally takes several days to get an answer to your question.  So I kept a running track of it here for you. (more after the break)

6. Lifelong Learning on the Web

a. Ted.com is pretty awesome.  Basically, it's a collection of "talks" from TED conferences, all free on the internet.  Speakers that you would never normally see- all available for your viewing pleasure.  And they're not all serious.  It actually gives you  the option to find just funny videos, or beautiful videos.  My advice, if you don't know where to start, is to view all the tags.  If you click the link for talks at the top of the page, then "view all tags" at the bottom of the search options, it'll take you there.  By viewing all the tags, you can zero in on what you really want to see or just see the wide range of topics the talks cover.  You can find videos on robotics and faith, or magic and origami.  While they don't have a tag specifically for weddings, I did find tags for love and relationships.  I watched funny videos, touching videos, and more science-oriented videos.  Having read some of her work when I was a grad student, anthropologist Helen Fisher was one of my favorite videos.  In the video she discusses the science behind romantic love.  I've embedded the video below or you can check it out on ted.com here.





P.S. If any of my fellow 23 Things participants are having trouble embedding their video, you have to click embed, copy the html code, and then paste it into your post in html mode.  If you can't find how to change it into html mode, the button is in the top row of formatting tools, next to Compose.  Once you embed the video, you can change it back to compose and the video and player should be there.

5. Discover the Deep Web

a. The UC Berkeley article was moderately confusing.  From what I gathered, the invisible web is the one you can't get by searching with a normal search engine.  It includes results from databases that you need to use their search engines specifically to get to or the pages that are created when you search with a particular query.  For example, the pages that are created when you search for an author or title on our Library's site would count as part of the invisible web.

The Wikipedia article it links to was a little bit more helpful, but had more information.  I'm still not sure why I would need the deep web.  I can use databases on their own, if I find one that'll be helpful.  Also, if Google can find me millions of hits, do I really need to find billions in the deep web?  It seems like not being able to access the deep web is a problem that's not really a problem for most people.

b. As of today (10/31/12), the Infomine site is unavailable.  I'll keep checking.

3. Create Your Own Blog & 4. Follow Someone's Blog

3. Item 3 is pretty self-explanatory.  I created this blog that you're currently reading.  For some reason, it seems very meta to me.

Also, I've also included a page of all 23 Things. Click the "The List" tab at the top to find it. I'm going to change each item into a link to their blog posts as I finish so that if I end up doing them out of order or you just want to find them quickly, they'll be there for your reading enjoyment!

4. If you haven't already noticed, there's a little section to the right titled "Fellow 23 Things Projects".  These are my colleagues' blogs for the 23 Things Project we're doing at the Library.  I'll add more to this list as I find them.  I may also start listing my favorite wedding sites and blogs.  Be on the lookout!

Since, hopefully, someone will eventually read this blog, I'm going to ask a question.  Do you think that I should include an "about me" section on the blog?  I'm writing the blog through the account that I also write the Book Club blog, so if you look for my profile, it'll be the Library and not me personally.  Let me know if you think it would be helpful, harmful, mostly blah to have a section about me in the comments section below.  Thanks!

2. Technorati

a. Technorati is one of those online things that I had heard about, but never paid that much attention to.  So it was nice to finally figure out what it was by reading the Wikipedia article.  The summary was helpful; the rest of the article- not so much.  Basically, Technorati is a search engine for blogs that rates the blog's "authority".  A blog's "authority" is measured by the number of different blogs that link it.

b. After clicking around, I think that Technorati has its uses.  I like that if I was looking for blogs on politics or lifestyle, there's a quick and easy way to find the best of those categories.  I also like that once you find a blog you're interested in, it gives you a summary of the blog, the tags it uses most often, all of its rankings on Technorati, etc.

I don't like, however, that if you're looking for something outside their categories- weddings, for instance- there's no quick way to find them.  You can search for posts or blogs and it'll find them for you, but they're not sorted by authority, the way that the other blogs are.  It also doesn't just find you wedding blogs.  It will find you any blog having even the tiniest to do with weddings.  Photographers, personal wedding blogs- you name it, it found 5,317 of them.

I think, in general, I would use Technorati if I was looking for something specific, like a really great cooking blog or what political story was blowing up the internet.  That being said, I don't think I would use it all that often.

1. Become Familiar with Blogs

I would say that I'm already pretty familiar with blogs.  I write the blog for the Library's Virtual Book Club and many of my friends have their own personal blogs that I read.  However, I'm hoping that this blog will allow me to do more than just write about books- hence, the combination 23 Things/Wedding blog!

a. When you google "blogs", about 3,530,000,000 results appear.  This is an astounding number and a little bit overwhelming.  Instead of just randomly clicking through blogs, I decided to hit up Google's Blogs of Note.  This site is really helpful if you want to find great blogs, but don't really care what kind, since the layout doesn't make it very easy to find a specific kind of blog.  I loved Nouveau Cheap, a super cute site devoted to cheap/drugstore makeup (my guilty pleasure), and Grilled Cheese Social, where the lovely author talks about her life in conjunction to fancy grilled cheese sandwiches!  I will definitely be making the Bushwick Painkiller soon!

But since this blog is going to be more "wedding" than "delicious, bad for me things", I decided to google "wedding blogs".  It brought me 368,000,000 results.  The first results was a guide to the 100 best wedding blogs, so I figured this would be a good place to start.  Like most things wedding related, you can get sucked into the blogs for hours at a time.  My favorite so far, The Perfect Palette.

b. Blog.com was an ok site.  They seemed intent on getting you to sign up for their hosting service, the templates were impossible to look at past page 1, and there weren't enough places to find some of the blogs.  About the only place I could find them was all the way at the bottom of the homepage under "Blog.com Awards 2011".  I take the ok back; it was a mediocre site at best.