Yelp....I need Yelp!!!!!

Yelp....What is Yelp exactly? Well, I picked this feature in the Web 2.0 award winners. I found Yelp to be a helpful tool especially at work. To answer the question that I ask on what exactly is Yelp? Well, Yelp is a search tool that allows you to check reviews on different restaurants, hotels,food, entertainment in a specific state or around your area. I tried checking one of the restaurant that my sister and I frequent too when my family and I visits her in Tampa, FL. The name of the restaurant is TC Choy's. It is a dim sum place that is located in Brandon in Tampa, FL. I was not surprised that a lot of people gave it a raving review. So far, it is one of the good dim sum place that we found in Tampa. As for its' usefulness at work, it can help the patrons especially the new ones in the area. We can use Yelp in helping them find reviews on a specific restaurant or area they are looking for. We can give them tips or general idea about the place.

Zoho...what do you think?

What do I think of Zoho writer? Welll, it is pretty interesting on what it can do. You can write documents or spreadsheets away from home and actually save it through Zoho. I only knew about Google Docs at first when we tried doing it for a project at our branch but decided to not go through with it.

I actually do find Zoho a useful site especially when you are at school and you need to save a document or a spreadsheet for a project. As for work purposes, if you are giving a presentation, you can use Zoho to save your documents or other materials that you will be needing for your presentation. Below is just a test where I can attach a photo of a book and write a little bit about the book.

The title of the book is The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of 
           Chinese Food. This book is a non-fiction book that talks about the myth of chinese food in Western countries. Did you know that Fortune Cookies were not invented by Chinese but by Americans. This book is a very funny, intuitive book about how the western countries percieve Chinese culture and food. At one point in the book, she actually talks about on how some people won a powerball lottery with the same exact numbers. She tracked down the winners and found out that they got the combination numbers from a fortune cookie that they got from a chinese restaurant. The author of the book is Jennifer 8 Lee, from California but she grew up in a Chinese environment with her parents being from Shanghai. 

Wild and Wacky World of Wiki

I have heard of wiki or wikipedia for a while now. I thought that there is only one wiki that I could search on and that was wikipedia. I did not know at first that in wikis, the information are added by people who has knowledge on a specific subject. I assumed that all the information on a wiki are correct but I was mistaken. I did not know that there are a lot of other types of wikis aside from Wikipedia.

It just happened that I am working on a wiki project at our branch for a committe that I am in. So, this project helped me a bit of understanding what can we do with wikis. I actually added a wiki on the PBCLS wiki under the Favorite Shows. The show that I added is MBC We Got Married which is a Korean Reality Show. I also added one in the Favorite Books section which is Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck.

Wikis.....

I checked the SJCPL Wiki and BullRunLibrary Wiki and found that their wikis can help libraries by posting information about current events or reference resources. Wikis can also encourage staff to add information that could help the patrons in the long run.

For example, we could use wikis to give advice on what kind of books or movies we offer. We could write a synopsis about a DVD title that we offer at the library.

Web 2.0

I looked at two articles. The first article (Away from Icebergs) hit an accord with me since we are in the age where technology is much more dominant as oppose to printed materials. Everything in this time and age rely mostly on technology to do their projects and so fort. Others use downloadable books to read as opposed to borrowing printed books from the library.

The second article ( To a temporary place and time), I think that the writer has a point that library is not just about books and information. She wrote and I quote "Libraries are not merely in communities, they are communities: they preserve and promote community memories; they provide mentors not only for the exploration of stored memory, but also for the creation of new artifacts of memory." She also mentioned that we cannot stray and rely solely on technology and we can still offer things that are not technology based alone.

With these two articles, if we combine them both, we can utilize web 2.0 technologically and non-technological purpose. We can offer them with knowledge that is gathered online or any resources that comes from different sources as opposed to computers.

Technorati....another social engine

I just looked at the Technorati social engine site today. I did try doing a search by typing in our web address and what I mostly found in there is some programs that we offer and Mouse tutorials. Aside from that, nothing really much that is related to PBCLS. As for tagging Web 2.0, not much of a hit either. It would be useful to me if I am using it to look up information on specific article or shows around the world that I keep an eye on online especially youtube or Veoh.

Del.icio.us.....Yummy

Del.icio.us, I have heard of this site for quite some time from a friend that used it for his research project to tag his work and bookmark the pages that he needs. He told me how good it was that he can actually open the bookmarked page from other computers aside from his own. I dismissed the fact and told him that I really won't need it at all. Since starting with this project in 23 things, I finally understand how useful it is if you are doing projects aside from your own computer at home especially if you have important bookmarks.

I opened an account with Del.icio.us however, I have not added any bookmarks of the sites that I have at home yet at this time but will be adding it soon. At first, I found the site a bit hard but as I played around with it more, it is not bad at all. I can actually use this site to my advantage since I often visit my sister up in Tampa and sometimes leave my laptop at home and can't access the bookmarked sites that I bookmarked on my laptop. This could save me time by just putting the bookmarks in the site and have it handy anywhere i go by loogging into my account.

Web Feat

Web Feat is a site where we can search a lot of things that varies from health, genealogy, history, and other things that could benefit someone who is looking for information. The best thing about it is that it lists all the hits that it gets from the search that you input on the search button in the same page with the links. You can also eliminate or pick the hits by doing all or just pinpointing the specific target that you need for the specific topic.

I did a search of my hometown in the Philippines and actually did get a lot of hits ranging from the history of the country, the current events and how it is now compare to the past from different web pages. Not only that, I also narrowed my search to jut the town the I was born and raised and actually was surprised to get a hit from the genealogy department of the chinese communities and about my last name.

Image Generator

Bead photo
Originally uploaded by DrStrange1981

Well, I played around with the image generator and actually did a lot of trial and error on what photo to use and all. I also tried doing a movie poster but in the end, I decided to use the bead maker. It was actually fun to play around with the photos and seeing how it reacts to the tools that was used.
http://flickr.com/photos/26613545@N02/2563139220/

Library Things

With Library Thing, I can actually find and add favorite books and other genres of books that I am interested in. It can also help me find subjects in History and Science that I am particulary interested. Library thing is a neat tool to search books and easy to use. All you have to do is write the author's name or the title of the book.

The link to my library thing catalog is :
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/chuaj