Bookbandit vs the LRC iPad (and Apple products in general)

Suffice it to say that the first meeting of Bookbandit and the LRC iPad has not been without incident.

My general ineptitude with Apple devices has its roots waaaay back in the days of my Photography A-level; wrestling with a Mac for the first time was rather like trying to work with the sort of alien technology we used to see on Stargate SG-1. I've always found the menu 'systems', or indeed, lack thereof, very confusing and very difficult to get used to compared with the Windows operating system. It also seems near impossible to find useful everyday things like the print queue, the ability to take a screenshot, or basically to do anything approaching normal IT work.

I don't have anything against the idea of the iPad; having information in a more portable and readily accessible format is all for the good, but in my experience it's rarely ever actually worked correctly - and I mean this in a way more than with Windows devices. Perhaps it seems worse with Apple products in particular because they promise so much, but don't always deliver.

Does anyone else have problems with the difference between Windows/Mac operating systems? Anyone a total convert to Apple? I'd be interested to know your thoughts.

Yes, this entire rant post was prompted by the iPad auto-correcting 'LRC' to 'Orc'. That and i'm still not really over the whole 'fingerprinty ewww-ness' of touchscreen devices, my hands are usually very clean but ohdeargodthesmudges. No likey, my friends, no likey.

Twitter reloaded

Good morning all! (Well, it has been thus far, at least, despite the weather).

This week's post sees a return to the realm of Twitter as I didn't quite finish the tasks last time. I've had trouble tracking down the specific webpage for the CILIP InfoLit group and, by extension, the associated Twitter feed, but I think I have isolated it at last. (Or something that looks very much like it!)

IL training session in Manchester, 13 May. More info at bit.ly/109kKmo #infolit
— CILIP InfoLit Group (@infolitgroup) May 3, 2013

The itinerary for the conference can be found using the link above, and you can explore topics on the #infolit feed on Twitter.

One session in particular caught my eye: 'Supporting research online @ MMU [Manchester Metropolitan University]: information literacy, digital literacy and employability themes' by Nicola Beck, Senior Assistant Librarian (MMU). I like the marriage of information literacy and digital literacy because, truly, you can't have one without the other and I think, even in the digital age we currently reside in, information literacy is vastly underrated by many and is something that deserves continued promotion. Here endeth the quill-and-ink rant.

Has anyone else had a look at this yet, or had similar problems finding it? #infolit is an active Twitter feed and the topics discussed are quite interesting (plus their conferences seem to have excellent freebies, see my previous entry for details).  

Now I return to making myself seasick with Prezi. Sayōnara!

To tweet or not to tweet

Greetings readers!

I have been gradually dipping my toes into the great sea of Twitter over the last few weeks and again, despite my miserly old-school ways, have found it an interesting and useful tool for sharing ideas and information. I'm not going to lie, though, 140 characters is a real challenge for me, as someone more used to writing reams and reams at a time (you need only look at previous blog posts for this to be made apparent!)

Feeds du jour:

@waterstones, particularly interesting at the moment because of their 'the book that made me' project, which you can find and contribute to by using the hashtag #tbtmm

@GuardianBooks, news, reviews and author interviews. Recent threads include: why do some books give you a hangover?, recommendations for a great sci-fi book and a reading group.

@infolitgroup: CILIP's InfoLit group, who apparently had some very nice screen cloths to give away at their Annual Conference: https://twitter.com/infolitgroup/status/322621386717806592/photo/1

I haven't really tweeted much myself yet, I must admit that I don't think I have anything worth sharing. I could go on forever about the trials of timetabling and the "Game of [LCH] Keys" but i'm not sure there's really a world-wide market for this. Is anyone else 'tweeting' on a regular basis, if so, what do you tend to tweet about?

(On a totally unrelated-to-work note, 'Star Trek Into Darkness' is awesome, absolutely worth the £10 investment at the cinema. Though I do look back with fond rememberance on the days when you could get a ticket and actually have change from £10).

Until the next post, arrivederci!

@bpclibrary20 First tweet! Taken longer to compose than some of my 5,000 word uni essays. Also, welcome back to our LMS! #yayHeritageworks
— Once More (@BPCbookbandit) May 14, 2013

Breathing new life into old e-maps using Pearltrees

Greetings on this cold, grey and rather miserable Tuesday afternoon. Fear not, though, I bring shinies. Or, more accurately, pearlies.

Yes, today I have been exploring Pearltrees, as a way of recycling the Hairdressing and Beauty Therapy e-maps from the old VLE. I'm quite pleased with the look of the 'Pearltrees' and the interface is very user-friendly, although it does keep badgering me to upgrade to a premium account. I mean, really, do I look like i'm made of money?



I'm enjoying this method of presentation for the old 'e-maps', it's much more interesting than looking at a list of hyperlinks, although it has more potential for confusion. In an ideal, non-premium world I would like to have spaced the pearls out a bit more to reduce this, but alas, organisational freedom comes at a price. As does changing the background picture of each pearl, hence why the 'notes', or groupings, are all the same.

Thanks to Lorraine for giving me a heads up on this resource, it is indeed excellent :)

Coming soon, my half-hearted adventures into the realm of Twitter. I mean, really, 140 characters? An alien concept for someone who still uses full words and punctuation in text messages.

When Bookbandit met Prezi, or, here be widgets

A couple of you have asked me how I managed to embed my Hair and Beauty Pinterest board onto my blog, and in this Prezi I have attempted to show you how! I enjoy the fact that i've had to embed, as a widget, a Prezi that explains how to embed things as widgets, making this a meta-widget, I suppose.

This is also my very first Prezi so any feedback would be welcome. (It still makes me feel seasick.) Oh, and 'Once More' is the shortened version of my blog title and e-mail address, just so you're aware.

RSS Feeds

Who can believe we had brilliant sunshine on a bank holiday Monday? This surely heralds the coming of the apocalypse.

In other news, this week '23 Things' takes me aboard the good ship RSS (Really Simple Syndication). I've already embedded RSS feeds into my blog; I started with The British Library and have now swapped to 'Blogging Shakespeare', which can be found towards the bottom of the page largely because it isn't shiny and I don't really know what else to do with it. I must admit i'm finding Ebsco's LISTA very clunky and user-unfriendly, though it seems simple enough to create alerts and to share abstracts on your blog if desired.

EBSCOhost: Bard to the bone

I enjoyed the title of this, which is why i've shared it! Am going to have a play with the embedded RSS feed on my blog and see if I can make it a little more dynamic and interesting. If you can see it nearer the top of my page next time you check back you will know I have been successful :)