IMing

I have IMed before. I've used the Communicator at work, although I do not think it works any quicker than email. I've also used it when on Facebook.

I'm not a big fan of it on Facebook because sometimes I just want to make my little statement for the day and get off. If someone IMs me, though, I feel obligated to chat, or I ignore them and use the excuse that something was wrong with my computer and it wouldn't go through.

For work, with Communicator, if I'm here I'm here and I don't see much of a difference whether someone contacts me via phone, email, or IMing. It all depends where I am at the time on whether I can actually respond "instantly." When you're out on the desk, nothing is guaranteed instant - you have the phone and patrons to contend with.

Using IMing to aid our patrons could be useful IF (key point here) we had one or two librarians whose duty, at least for the time period allotted, it was to sit at a computer (with no interruptions allowed by phones or staff) and just answer questions recieved from IMs. That's the only way to guarantee the kind of service our patrons would expect from something with "instant" in the name.

Digg

Digg offers a variety of news links. I read over articles ranging from late night talk shows, a dog driving away sea lions in San Francisco, and a new movie starring Paul Rudd (whom I think is one of the funniest actors out there besides Vince Vaughn). While it is intersting seeing all of the articles, it's no different to me than going to msnbc.com and seeing the news highlights there. I guess the main point (the fun part?) of this site is getting click if you "digg" the article or not. I probablly will stick with msnbc.com for news.

Sharing pictures

I'm skipping this one, at least for now. It's too much for me to get into right now. I've emailed pics before and shared them through shutterfly and stuff. When we switched over to Windows 7 I lost all of my pictures (that or they're hidden somewhere and I haven't found them yet- sneaky little folders). To go home take pictures, upload them, then share them, all with a crazy 2 year old and a 3 month old, just isn't going to happen.

Twitter

Gotta say, I didn't like Twitter. It seems pointless. I thought it was difficult to get a handle on, but maybe that's my age raising it's weary head. It's too much to rifle through to actually try and find something interesting. It seems geared more towards people who have a lot of free time and no other responsibilities.

RSS Feeds

So excited to find the feed to NPR's book page. Actually, I like the whole website.

Blog Readers

Blog Readers are pretty handy. It was really easy adding blogs to follow and creating folders for them. Like I mentioned before, my sister-in-law has a blog that she adds to almost daily. I put her in my list of subscriptions and now can stay up-to-date when she adds anything new.

My First Blog

My first blog entry. Not going to be very exciting because I'm not sure what to say. My sister-in-law has a blog and she's a great writer on it. Not sure mine will measure up. We'll see!