Podcasting (Activity 20)

So if I did this right you can click the link and then the play button and listen to the title theme of, what else my current favorite show, NCIS. By the way, the writer's strike is over (YEAH!) and the next new episodes for NCIS start April 8th if my info is correct. Thanks to the NCIS fans wiki for keeping me up to date on these important things.

http://audio.search.yahoo.com/search/audio/view?back=http%3A%2F%2Faudio.search.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Faudio%3Fei%3DUTF-8%26sngid%3D7a571a15617c477c%26p%3DTheme&p=Theme&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fireflyfans.net%2Fthread.asp%3Fb%3D13%26t%3D3751&name=navyncis.mp3&dur=0:36&rate=160kbps&no=1&tt=1&size=712.9kB&artist=Navy+NCIS&weburl=http%3A%2F%2Fslidersweb.net%2Fblinker%2Fnsr%2Fnavyncis.mp3


And for those interested here's the link to listen to Air1 online. Air1 is commercial free Christian radio.

http://www.air1.com/broadcast/playnow.aspx?media=listen&bt=3&

Pandora/Archive.org/Mango (Activity 19)

Pandora is online music streaming. I pick what I like and it creates a station based on that choice. Yahoo's is more restrictive in that you must have a different e-mail for each station. A small fee opens many opportunities. I've been on Yahoo long enough that it mostly picks stuff I like based on artist, album, genre and song title. Yahoo allows for a wide variety on a single station. Pandora selects music based on an artist or genre entered, then plays similar stuff on that station. Pandora allows the user to create multiple stations, one for every mood. Skipping songs is limited by licensing, with Yahoo that's all the skipping for the month (at least it used to be, may have changed). On Pandora skipping is limited per hour. I tested a couple of my favorite radio stations as well. Many now have online streaming to allow people to listen to the radio at their jobs without needing the radio at their desk. Useful as sometimes being in the basement or away from windows limits the radio stations available through the antenna.

Archive I can see as very useful for people researching who need primary documents that are out of print or perhaps too fragile for transfer or even handle. Being more into current items I didn't find anything terribly exciting to me, but when the books I like go out of print I'll be able to access them there. It will also be useful to me when my kids need primary resources for school projects.

Mango looks like a blast! I didn't get very far because I've not created an account, but what a positive way to teach people other languages. We're so caught up in this English thing. I'm taking a trip to Europe this fall so I hope to use Mango to learn some French and Italian and brush up on my Spanish before I go.

Google Docs (Activity 18)

Another cool tool for allowing the world access to your stuff! And people want privacy... I follow the Gibbs rule about secrets/private stuff: keep it to yourself, second best tell one other person (being Catholic, that'd be my priest since he's got a short memory and isn't allowed to say anyways), there is no third best. Sorry, I can't remember which number the rule is, but any of you NCIS gurus out there who keep track of this stuff leave a comment. Thanks much! So, now I must do my next favorite thing... relate this to Star Wars/Star Trek... hmm. Ah! Yoda's students telling Obi-Wan Kenobi that the files had been altered so that a planet 'disappeared'. That could happen here. As for Trek, well I don't have a good one at this time, perhaps all the holodeck errors that occur when Professor Moriarty of the famed Sherlock Holmes stories by Doyle was allowed to mess with computer systems several centuries past his time.

Library Thing (Activity 15)

Hey cool! A staff picks table and no cards to fill out. I'm the staff and these are some of my favorites. In case you've not guessed I read about the saints and Star Wars. Funky combination, but that's me. The 'random list' of my Library Thing picks is below Meebo. If you can't see my You Tube video or the Meebo widget they're blocked... sorry. I didn't do it!
Note: I looked into it... apparently some of the library computers are randomly running through the enhanced filter which prevents these sites. The powers that be know and are looking into it. Yeah computer gurus!