New RSS Feed - Thing #3 Revisited

We learned in our last MILI meeting how to set up RSS feeds from EBSCO and ProQuest. I'm planning on setting up a link to the ALA Washington D.C. blog using Google Reader so I can keep updated on the progress of the SKILLS Act. However, as often happens when exploring new facets of the internet, I noticed the "Photos" link next to the "Reader" link on my Google homepage. Up to this point I'd ignored it because I use Snapfish to hold my photo albums on the web. Someone told me how much they liked using Picasa, a free web-based photo manager, and I discovered that Google Photos uses it. Naturally, Google fan that I am, I downloaded it. I'm just learning to use it, but at first blush it appears to offer many more options than Snapfish. The main advantage? It's free. Mind you, Snapfish only charges around 50 cents a year, but it's still kind of a nuisance to get the e-mail reminders saying that if I don't order something, my account will be canceled. I will have to rename all the pics I downloaded into Google Photos, but that's not the worst thing in the world. The image in this blog entry is my first attempt to use an image from Google Photos. It worked!

Free Images and Sound for Your Website & Blog - Thing #26

I was looking for an image to use on a project and since I'm not at school where I have my cache of copyright-friendly images I purchased (on CDs), I went to my guru's website to see if I could find something, and sure enough, Joyce Valenza came through yet again. She's created a great page called Copyright-Friendly and Copyleft Images and Sound (Mostly!)for Use in Media Projects and Web Pages, Blogs, Wikis, etc.
It's so good, I decided to include it on my Pathways to Websites page and thought you might like to know about it too. I don't know about you, but kids are always on Google images looking for pics (completely oblivious to copyright laws) and often can't find what they're looking for. Also, staff who are concerned about copyright issues ask me where I get the images I use in Urban Planet. I'd love to share mine but can't because the copyright on the image CDs I purchased essentially says: 1) no sharing and 2) no using them for profit. Now I can send people here: http://comosr.spps.org/pics. The shortcut is comosr.spps.org/pics.
(Note: the picture of Joyce was taken by Jim Graham)

Spreadsheets in Google Docs - Thing #11

I've been meaning to move some personal files to a web-based format for a long time so I can access them from anywhere. Now that I'm old, I find I need to strike when the iron is hot when it comes to ideas, or I'll forget them. Jotting them down on paper just doesn't cut it for me. So this morning I decided to tackle the issue. I tried moving a Works spreadsheet doc saved on my home computer to Google Docs, a great place to keep web-based docs, but the Works format wasn't accepted in Google Docs' Xcel program. After many attempts, I found a way: Converting the existing Works info to text & tabs in Notepad and then copying and pasting the info into a Google Docs blank Xcel spreadsheet worked. This will be great. Whenever I remember I need to add something, I can, no matter where I am -- well, make that no matter which computer is in front of me. Cool.