It complemented what I already found myself doing at work, and that remains somewhere between the techie who gets things to work, and the silver surfer  tutor who shows people how to surf (say) or email.

I still find interfaces interesting – the human-computer interface in particular, and the design aspects of both websites and e-learning courses seemed relevant to that area of study.

That doesn’t mean I adopt everything straight away. I still don’t have a lot of love for touch screens, for instance, still happy with the mouse and keyboard options.  the keyboard goes all the way back to typewriters (even the QWERTY layout) but the mouse remains one of the great innovations.

Having said that, I did some study with blind and partially-sighted people, and for the blind (at least) a mouse proved worse that useless, so I got a crash-course in keyboard shortcuts, and audio clues.

Nowadays I meander through the various options, depending on the context.  The touch typing I learned on typewriters (though never really up to speed) comes in handy, but I still find myself slowing down at times, to a funny kind of hunt and peck (when handling passwords, for instance, when I become slow and meticulous, pedantic, even.

Sometimes I’ll right-click to copy and paste, sometimes use Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, etc.

I quite like having a range of options, like speaking more than one language.

Anyway, and ahem – I was reading .Net magazine, and came across Liz Danzico, and her blog Bobulate.com, so in she goes as a resource to explore.

This blog remains my own little set of Favourites, and notes.  I hope you may find some of the links interesting.

I found myself a niche role as a go-between. This also allowed me to work very flexibly, both in terms of working hours, and prioritising my own work, with relatively little line management.

Now that I have turned 65, and council services are looking to save money, it only seems a matter of time before I will be retired on a meagre pension, so I suspect I will have to revive my self-employed approach (I was self-employed until the age of 51) and perhaps supplement that income with some teaching or other outreach work.

I set up this blog to store notes when taking the Net Trainers course, but it became fairly dormant since then. So, as part of the reactivation of that project, here’s a link to an interesting Wiki site:

I don’t mean to create dead-ends and such, it can feel so frustrating.  The link originally was meant to go to a writing blog, but it also had family references – like to Yolande Philpott’s new Weebly site about her aromatherapy practice.

The writing stuff appears over at Bogus Magus’s Den, and at Write…Well…

Better than Facebook!

NoFit State blue tent in the 90s

And I have been using Wikispaces to do some of my own online work, which I would like people to at least look at (as work-in-progress) and contribute to (although most people remain passive lurkers in Wiki environments, it seems). Here’s the History of NoFit State Circus workbook, archive, etc.

When you work as a self-employed person (doing something you enjoy, most of the time), the line between life and work and fun can get blurred…

Julie Shackson finally used Weebly to get her artwork online, and the website certainly has a nice look to it.

She has also got an ongoing  blog incorporated into that site -Juju’s Fybercafe.

Now my daughter – Yolande Philpott - has used Weebly to create a website for her aromatherapy practice in Cornwall.

Yolande Philpott - aromatherapist - website

And I continue to find friends online who, for one reason or another, do not think they need a website…but I am working on them!

I have to say that, from my experience here, I still find WordPress a trifle confusing, although I gather it becomes very usefully flexible if you dig a bit deeper. I got so lazy with the ease of use I found in things like Blogger, that I find this tricky. But then again, I don’t like the Facebook interface, even though millions of people use it…

Let’s see Upload image then insert – Okaaay…it still seems to insert at the beginning of the post…

I still like my little collection of links – although I ought to check them all again, soon.

For library work I have more regularly posted as Anon of Ibid, amongst other places online that I hang out.

What prompted this visit was a longish article in the current issue of .Net – about Word Press…

We need to convert PPT to MPEG files, if we don’t want a bare bones slide show. Freeware doesn’t seem to have a good reputation for grabbing all the transitions, etc; if we have to buy something then ICT would have to agree; the company want paying to do it for us.

Bah.

However, in the process of digging around I found the free add-on to Powerpoint, called Producer. Although it doesn’t create PPT files (in fact, it closely resembles Windows Movie Maker) it can import them (and many other formats) to create internal streaming media – so I feel I have to look at it in terms of generating staff training modules.

You can follow that link for more detail, if it sounds interesting…

A beta gets released to guinea-pigs later this month (a lottery) but later in the year it should emerge.

Check out the preview

My employers have set up an e-learning zone (but it hasn’t been much promoted) and I have gained access as Admin to the Moodle-based system, to experiment, and offer examples to fellow workers, etc.

Now it appears we really are looking at the implications of Web 2.0 in relation to libraries.

As this blog really only appeared as a test, and a resource collection, I refer you to Anon the Librarian’s blog for current stories directly related to our work.

Relevant to ‘resources’ the one we have been asked to consider seems really excellent – Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies – click on Social Media and Learning.

Now to fill in the gaps! I still don’t really use RSS, for instance…