Miscellany

I’m celebrating the (approximate) one year anniversary of my blog. Woo hoo, party party! So bear with me a sec as I reflect upon my year of being online, and think a little about the next year.

Last August, I started to blog about library technology types of things semi-regularly. One year later, I’m still blogging, I’m still having fun, I’m meeting new people, and… well… just take a peek at some of what’s gone on with my blog-ish stuff in the last year:

Blog: I started blogging with Blogger in 2003, but really truly started this blog in August of 2004. Some stats:

• First real post - August 2004 (had a few posts before that, but mainly “just testing” types of posts)
• First two comments on my posts: http://daweed.blogspot.com/2004/11/free-range-librarian-is-bugged-by.html, in November (both by people I know, both bloggers. But hey, they’re comments nonetheless!)
• Post with the most comments: http://daweed.blogspot.com/2005/05/15-things-you-can-do-with-rss.html - 8 comments and counting!
• Longest post - http://daweed.blogspot.com/2005/06/email-about-sirsi-thats-creating-lots.html - the post about the SirsiDynix merger, mostly just a copy of the email we received. Sheesh!
• Shortest post- http://daweed.blogspot.com/2004/04/just-testing.html - a skimpy 4-word test post. Why haven’t I deleted that? Double sheesh!
• How many posts? 163 to date. That’s a lot of typing!
• How many people read this blog? Honestly, I have no idea. There are 141 Bloglines subscribers to date. But total RSS subscribers or even total readers? Let’s just say “more than 141.” But even 141 is amazing! Thanks for reading my dandy little blog.

Furl: Around the same time, I started using Furl for bookmarking. I now have:

• Number of links: 334
• Number of Topics (Furl’s name for tagging / folksonomies): 78
• Most viewed links: Yahoo! Webmessenger (116), followed by Men’s Business Attire (77)

Flickr - I also use Flickr for my blog (whenever you see an image in a post of mine, it’s most likely coming from my Flickr account).

• Number of images: 118 photos
• Most viewed images: http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidking/13591400/ - It’s a slightly funny Google Maps image (166 views)
• Number of images marked as Favorites: 6 images marked as favorites…
• Number of tags: 160

Future plans for this blog: Once I get around to it, I’m going to purchase a domain name, get a web hoster, etc - so I can have my own “place.” Still finalizing domain names in my head… I’ll probably go with some version of my name - much easier than creating some wonderful “blankety blank Librarian” type of name (although “blankety blank librarian” would be kinda funny… ). Plus, there’s that whole self promotion thing… (which, of course, highly rules out the name “blankety blank librarian” … bummer

So, all you fine readers who have actually dropped my RSS feed into your aggregator - stay tuned! When/If I actually do this, I’ll send plenty of warning, along with the new domain/feed URL.

And that’s all for now - it’s been a fun year, and I’m looking forward to even greater fun this year!

Marianne (Skagirlie blog) tagged me, so here goes:

Total volume of music on my PC:
- 2-3 Gbs worth… at home

Total volume of music on my pda/flash player:
- Fountains of Wayne CD and a couple of U2 songs (PDA storage card)
- 14 songs on my flash player

Last CD I bought:
- Adoration: The Worship Album, by the Newsboys
- …honestly I don’t actually “buy” too many CDs these days…

Last song bought on itunes:
- a freebie - Belly, Feed the Tree

Song playing right now:
- playing in my head… - Mexican Wine, by Fountains of Wayne

Five songs/CDs I listen to a lot:

1. Mr. Buechner’s Dream, by Daniel Amos (the whole CD) - the most awesome band in the known world
2. Emphasiser, by Garage a Trois - Stanton Moore is one amazing drummer
3. Ten Summoner’s Tales, by Sting - one amazing CD
4. Ruby Vroom, by Soul Coughing - I dig the woody, organic sound of the drums and bass
5. Vinnie Colaiuta, by Vinnie Colaiuta - another awe-inspiring drummer

Five songs that mean a lot to me:

1. Peter Gabriel, Shaking the Tree - when the drums kick in halfway through the song… it’s just so “right”
2. The Police, King of Pain - one to be experienced. At a loud volume. (Actually, you should crank everything. Just sayin.)
3. Casey Corum/Vineyard, Dwell - brings me closer to God
4. Rush, Ceiling Unlimited - a very hopeful song
5. Freshman Senators… my band from college. What can I say?

First concert I ever attended:
- Silverwind, maybe 1982? A church youth group outing

Tag three people (we’ll see if they actually respond):
- Greg at Open Stacks
- Steven at Library Stuff
- Karen at Library Web Chic

Just found this funny. I was using Google Maps to map out a meeting I’m attending tomorrow. I clicked on the Sattelite option (cause it’s cool) and started browsing around, to see if I recognized anything (I did - even found a branch library of ours). But in the process, I discovered two … ahem … different seasons, smacked up against each other! In the upper half of the image, you can see that it’s clearly spring or summer - lots of green things. But in the lower half, winter has hit - lots of browns, and the lake is frozen over (well, the lower half is).

I knew Kansas City had odd weather sometimes, but this odd? Hmm… Obviously, the sattelite images are taken at different times of the year.

Conversation with Lillabeth, my 5 year old, this morning at breakfast:

Lilly: Daddy, why do you have to go to work?
Me: Well… where does the bagel you’re eating come from?
Lilly: … the grocery store
Me: And how do we get it?
Lilly: We buy it!
Me: With what?
Lilly: Money…
Me: And where does that money come from?
Lilly: … the bank.
Me: Actually, I do work for the library, and in return, they give me money.
Lilly [eyes going wide at this point]: Ooohhh. So that’s why you and mommy have SO MUCH MONEY!

Someday I’ll need to fill her in on the whole job thing in a little more detail…

I think I’m becoming a web geek. Or just learning about a lot of new online services… your pick! But here’s a brief rundown of services I’ve signed up for and/or started using in 2004 that have an online, social networking type of vibe:

• IM: I started using IM. Message me at squagmar (AIM), davidking@kclibrary.org (MSN), or daweedrex (Yahoo). As an aside, I’m using Trillian for IM - pretty cool product.
• blogs: I started one (the one you’re reading).
• blogs: I started reading blogs with an aggregator. I use Bloglines. Here’s my public blogroll (from Bloglines).
• blogs: my library started using blogs to push information to library customers. Find them here - we call them Subject Guides.
• RSS: my library started using RSS.
• RSS: My blog has an Atom feed.
• Images: I signed up for a Flickr account (that’s where the images below are coming from).
• Images: A bit more personal - I created a photo feed in my tripod account to go along with an online “what my family was doing in 2004″ letter that we emailed to friends for Christmas.
• Bookmarks Management: I finally understood the need for this (I got tired of sitting at home thinking “I wish I could get to my bookmarks at work”). I tried out del.icio.us (VERY cool url, by the way), and settled on Furl.
• Cool games: I admit it. I was a game junky in the 80’s. So I tried out a few online games: Runescape and Utopia (technically, I tried Utopia out before 2004… just mentioning it for good measure). The Knightish-looking guy that’s waving in the image to the right is my “online double” when roaming around in Runescape. Both these games have a huge following (upwards of 50,000 people will be found playing the games at any one time), and have a social, chat function built in to the games. Jenny over at the Shifted Librarian just posted about her family’s experience with Runescape - good reading.
• Online Music: I have some songs posted at Soundclick.

I also walked around Church of Fools during their pilot project last summer. Church of Fools is an online, interactive, 3-D church. It was a pilot project of the Methodist Church of Great Britain - they invited real preachers to step into the virtual pulpit and do their thing.To the left is what a “cartoon double” from Church of Fools might look like.

And I think that’s all I did… seems like a lot! So, for 2005… are there other cool online services librarians (or web geeks) should know about? Michael at Tame the Web just told me about skype - it’s a free, online phone thingie. Any others? Let me know!

Just had a surreal techie moment. I have a cold, and am getting one of those cold medicine buzzes from the Dayquil I took an hour ago. I was just editing my blog to add some links. I hit Republish, then got an email from a friend. At the same time, Steve Cohen from Library Stuff IM’ed me, and my phone rang, too (VOIP soft phone, so my softphone popped up on my PC screen) .

How completely strange. I’m surprised someone didn’t also come over and start talking to me, while getting a page!

I certainly must be one wired dude.