Thing 14 -- Online Productivity Tools

There are so many gadgets (or is it widgets) that you can put on your blog or your website. I don't really see the need for most of them, although I must admit to forgetting an important appointment recently. Perhaps I do need a gadget! One that will stun me into consciousness and make me remember where I am supposed to be and at what time! My old fashioned hand written date book works just fine, when I remember to use it. And I can carry it around with me wherever I go. What could be better than that? Ah, well, but the assignment is to examine online productivity tools. So I will start with a definition. What are they? I found a list among the online resources provided by NEFLIN. They include things like Zoho, 30 Boxes, Google Docs, Bloglines, and Pageflakes. I've seen or tried most of these, so I think my focus for this exercise will be the online calendar. The name "30 Boxes" sounds fun, so I have set up another online account with yet another user name and password. Now I have my schedule for the month of March online. I can have "buddies" who could have access to my calendar. The calendar will be available to me when I am not in the office. And the calendar will also be on my blog!

Thing 13 -- Library Thing

OK, this one I really love! It's like MySpace or Facebook for librarians and other booklovers! I've been putting my own book reviews on MySpace (yes, I know, it's like spitting in the wind). Now I think I'll just put them into Library Thing. You can instantly connect with others who have read the same book. After you've entered enough titles, you will probably begin to see a few people whose reading tastes are similar enough to yours and you may want to join a discussion group. The Library Thing tour was short and sweet. The sign up was very easy. I now have 5 books in my "library." My books on the whole are pretty popular. I've read some other reviews. I've added a Library Thing gadget on this blog. How? From the Library Thing account, go to add a widget, copy the html code, then go back to your 23 things blog. Go to Layout, then click on Add a Gadget, then choose Add html. Here you will paste the code you copied from Library Thing. Tada, you now have a search box on your 23 things blog that allows your viewers to type in the title of a book they might be interested in reading and quickly see a review. I'm still investigating discussions and local events. To be continued....
Well, now, it seems there is a fly in the ointment. Unfortunately Library Thing has a commercial side that is not apparent at first glance. Upon clicking deeper and deeper into the information, I found this statement:
"Enter 200 books for free, as many as you like for $10 (year) or $25 (life)."
All of the book covers must also provide a link back to Amazon, it seems. So this Library Thing is not exactly free. I'm a little disappointed. Mainly because I plan to read way more than 200 books and will not be paying anyone to talk about them online. Guess I'll stick with the freebees, MySpace and Staff Intranet.