Learn something new, verbal slap, & fudge

The old adage 'learn something new everyday' was very apparent today. I am signed up to attend a collaborative blog project workshop. The facilitators have created . . . a blog . . . to begin discussion before actually attending the workshop. One of the participators commented asked if a del.icio.us account was going to be utilized for sharing information. Never heard of it, so I clicked the provided link and found the web site @ http://del.icio.us. What is it?

It appears to be a way to create or duplicate, for want of a better description, your Internet 'favorites' file online so they may be accessed from any computer. You are able to create tags, again similar to folders in your favorites, and organize your lists. Furthermore, it seems if I use the same tag as created by others in the workshop, we will be able to compile a composite listing of web pages and information. Cool. I created an account this evening but will wait to download the tagging options until I'm using my work computer. Most of the blogging favorites I have are on that computer and include more resources (articles, etc.) than my bloglines account.

Had an interesting first this afternoon while posting to a list serv. Discussion was abound concerning podcasting and uses within academic/public libraries. Someone asked if anyone had suggestions as to how this technology could be used. I sent along some simple ideas that could be used not only as podcasts, but also as audio files within a web page. The respondent right after my post (and I mean right after, it was no more than five minutes) gave me a bit of a smack on the knuckles for my overly simplistic view of audio use and mentioned the practices I suggested had been in use by various libraries for years. They were not actually podcasts if they were lacking rss feed and immediate download to a device.

Ouch. Color me chagrined.

Way to embarrass your peers. To be fair, I'm pretty sure the gentleman in question just figured I was pretty clueless based on my response. And maybe he was correct in that assumption. But ... and that's a bit but ... there are more subtle ways to respond. Interestingly enough, several of the list comments after that were focused on how nice it was that people were using the list to share ideas. Uh-huh.

On a happier note, the rain stopped and it was time to make fudge. Can't make fudge and/or caramels if there is too much humidity. Don't usually make fudge when it isn't Christmas. It's a holiday treat. I was unable to make it home for Mother's Day, so I decided a yummy treat was in order.

Now if I can only stay out of the confection until vacation begins at the end of the week.