#38 Console Gaming

One of my all time favorite games was Burger Time. I remember playing it on Intelivison. That was THE game back in the day. Of course now, no one even knows what that is. I have heard so much about the Wi. Great system for being a part of the game. The games are a little pricey and the system is hard to find. i love the 360 though. My older son just had to have the system. So off we went to find one several months back. He now has to rent every new game there is. I can tell ya that i don't really care about the systems, since I have so much other things going on, but I do like the idea of having a system in the library for our patrons. Whatever it takes to get people in the library. They will discover others things a library has to offer once they are there. Bring on the systems!!!

#37 Get Your Game On @ The Library

We sure have come a long way since computers first came to the library. i can remember from the old branch how kids would wait their turn to get on the computer. They would spend their whole time playing a game that was free. Now we have game day at the library. From all around kids take their turns mastering the games. Guitar hero and DDR are a couple of the biggest draws for kids. In the summer they are a part of the Summer Reading Program for teens as well as younger kids. From the article I read, they have games to check out for one week. I believe that the library will become more a part of the gaming world, because it is free and safe for kids. Maybe some kids are coming in just to play games on the computers, but maybe as they walk by displays they will want to stop and look at the books. As we have learned, the library is a vast source of info, and now it is a source of gaming for all.

#36 The Wide World of Online Role Playing

I am very familiar with online role playing games. My two older sons are addicted to them. They play WOW everyday sometimes all day into the wee hours. For about $40 every couple of months you have unlimited access to the game. Thru playing with others you become a little familiar with each other. Isn't it funny that someone can spend hours at the computer playing games with others from around the world. What happened to the days when children would pull out a board game and play with their friends. I have also heard that thru playing the games online, people have gotten to know each other and some have even met in person. I did look around at the website but I have no desire to play games online. Of course for others I know that it is very popular and very competitive.

#35 Games & Gaming Games? In the Library?

I plaed the game Free Rice. What a fun game. So I do know more words than I thought I did. It was a lot of fun and to also watch the amount of rice grow and be given to a worthy cause. The downfall of the game is that if you miss a word it will come back again. If you did't pay attention the first time, you won't know the meaning the next time either. But what a way to expand your vocabulary. Would be a good tool for classes to use. I'm going back to play the other games suggested on the exercise.
Yes even in a library, you can have fun!!!!!

#34 Geocoding & Geocaching

s many of us did here, we put in the coordiantes for the library. Pretty easy exercise. My husband uses this process just about every day on his job. He uses GIS to spot wells for an oil company. I am always concerned thought when we start to put things out there on the computer like this exercise said to do. Find something that someone had hidden. Don't know if I would want to do this much since as always there are those out there that hack into computers and find out info about users. I think I'll stick to mapquest or perhaps the old reliable map you can get at a store.

#33 Maps: Relocating With Online Maps

This was a very fun exercise to do. I wwnt to HarCon and searched for a new home in the Tomball area. Many came up, so I narrowed it down to a specific mile range. It then let me chose how many rooms, etc you wanted. I have actually used HarCon before when looking for a new home. One of the best features was the virtual tour. I loved looking at all the different rooms and how much space was in every one.

#32 Current Events

This could be a really fun exercise if you could explore all 100 sites. I went to mapmsg.com to send a smoke signal. It was so cool. The smoke signal spelled out I love mapmsg.com. I would encurage others to take some time and really look at all the different links. Technology as come so far, that you don't even have to speak to a person to get hotel reservations or book a flight. I don't know about you, but I like speaking to a personn.http://globalincidentmap.com/home.php Here is the link I went to. What a cool map. It shows you what is going on all over the world. Anything from an accident to a bomb overseas is shown on the map. This would be very cool to have if you were traveling and wanted to know what to expect .

Maps#31: Have Map, Will Travel

I really loved this exercise. I had trouble getting Goggle to open, so I went to Yahoo maps instead. I put in my destination from Tomball to San Marcos. that was so easy, I decided to put in hotels in that area. It also had to the left the written directions of how to get there. My husband works with maps all day, so I am sure that he can tell me so much more to do with a map. I love the idea that I can put in a destination and poof there it is. No more getting lost or having to stop for directions.

Spring Cleaning #30 Take a Load off our Drives

I did go in and look at the P drive and saw one item from 2006 for periodicals that can be deleted. We all seem to put things on computers and then forget about them. I can see how our space can get full if we load things and then leave them forever. Once again I will say how important it is for all of us to do our part and clear some space. Even on my personal computer at home i start to run out of space cause there is so much saved that I forget about. I realize later that I did not really even mean to save it. Just a reminder for all of us to do yearly. When you spring clean, make your computer files one of your cleaning projects.

Spring Cleaning # 29 Email

Everyday, all around us emails are being sent out. Some are very important, others funny and lots are just a big waste of time. What we forget to do is get rid of the old, move whats important and delete the rest. I started several months ago on my personal email to delete unnecessary emails. One day I opened up my email and got this big warning. Yur email box is at capacity and cannot accept anymore at this time. I could not beleive it. What I failed to realize that I needed to start deleting old mail. But, wait there is one more step. After deleting those, I then had to go back and delete from the trash. I have now started deleting as soon as I see one that I don't need. It is so time consuming to have to continue to look at all these emails that will never be needed again. I love this exercise, because it is so important to leave space for those items that are important to come through and get rid of the spam ones that seem to be passed from person to person. It is kinda like a chain letter. I try to never forward sonething that someone else has sent me if I know that it is really kinda silly and not needed to take up space. I encourage all to adopt the habit of cleaning up your emails and not to give out your email to someone that will only abuse it to send spam!!!!

Spring Cleaning # 28 Don't Clog up Expensive Cyberspace

I beleive that this will be a much needed exercise for all of us. I am all about keeping things organizrd and clutter free. GTD had some really good points. One the the important topics was to take action on things and not jsut let them sit there. When I read my emails I make a point to delete the ones I will never need again. Of course I also immediately go into the deleted file and delete that as well. Maybe some of you forget to actually delete the deleted ones. Very important step to cleaning up cyberspace. I went to Google and set up a mock calendar. Very easy to do especially for someone like me who is finally becoming a little more computer savy. The setup is very nice and has lots of extras. How nice to have something pop up to remind you of an important date coming up. I already have a calendar thur my work email and will probably use it more. Thanks for having this exercise for all. It is a must needed and importnt task that we must all do!!

Sound#26 Making (or listening to)Music Together

Oh yes, the wonders of music for all. It is a new year after all, so more challenges await us all. I started will MOG to see how hard this task would be. After signing in I was off to see what the world was listening to. Of course I was not surprised to note that very few, (ok none at all) artists were anyone that I even remotely heard of. After a few attempts I finally came across some artists that I love to listen to.I really enjoyed reading what others think of certain artists. i know that I have said it before, but it is so cool to go onto the internet, find a song, listen to it, download it to your phone and it is yours with just a click. I like how easy it became on MOG to discover other artists and people that had similar interests. If you want to connect with others with common music interest, MOG and other sites like it are the place to go. I decided not to go the route of making my own music. I will save that for another time when I want to really challenge myself.

#25 Am I a Music Pirate?

First things first. i have actually burned a song to a cd before, so this exercise was pretty easy. Yes I really do know how to burn a cd. I would be surprised to hear someone say they have not. Now on to more pressing issues. There are always two sides to every story, so lets begin. Artists work very hard to get their music out there for all to hear and hopefully enjoy. Remember this is how they make their living. I beleive that sometimes as music is illegally distributed the artist will begin to lose money. On the news in recent years you here the story of young people being arrested for stealing music and sharing it with others. They were stuck with heafty fines and humiliated in the public arena. Is this fair??? Some say there must be an example made so others will not do it. With the laws in writing now, I hope we are all aware of how borrowing songs without permission will cost more than just a few dollars. Hopefully those who download songs all the time, will remember that someone is trying to make a living by writing and performing songs.

#24 Sound:The Sound of Music

After much laughing from my husband and older boys I decided to venture out on my own with this project. My family has been using Itunes and other sites for so long that it is like going to Walmart to shop. I like Itunes because for 99 cents you can have a song downloaded to your phone or Ipod or computer. Depending on how often you will use the service will depend on who you will use. One service for a small fee of around $20 will let you have as many downloads as you want. But remember if you ever stop the service the songs are no longer yours. As i have said in the past, technology has come a long way from the days of the old 45 record. I love the idea of being able to find a song that i need right away. At Christmas time I was in desperate need of a song for a class I was teaching at church. Low and behold on Itunes it was!!!! i am so looking forward to seeing where our journey takes us with this program in 2008