If this makes no sense to you, then ignore it.

It's a work thing:

10b: 3-18-2008, 4
10c: Telos, no; Brit Journal, yes (Ebsco Acad Search Prem., FT with 12 mo delay); Clin. Medicine, yes (Ebsco Acad Search Prem., FT from 2004-).
11a: Duane F. Kelly; B; 4-stars
11b: Yes, from Ebsco Masterfile Premier, from August 2009. (Probably ought to be something that references C-R on the Consumer Info page.)
11c: I found 94. You'll probably want to select another specialty.
Highland Coffee will annihilate you.
12: See above

Facebook? Nobody goes there anymore . . . it's too crowded.

The more people there are in a place, the less attention anyone pays to people. This seems to be as true in virtual places as anywhere else. Facebook has been a really powerful thing for me since it has helped me renew some friendships with friends that I'd lost touch with and even some family members that I don't see very often. But over time, and especially over the last few months, it's become increasingly difficult to maintain interest and devote energy to keeping up with it. There's a reason why before Facebook we didn't stay in touch with everyone we ever knew. In fact, there are a lot of reasons. So, I'll be watching to see what happens with Facebook now.

Twitter? Well, what can be said about Twitter that hasn't already been said? I read or was told by someone once that Twitter was where you followed the people you wanted to know, and Facebook was where you followed the people you do know. I can see that being a useful way to use the two sites together to be better informed and better connected personally and professionally. But like Facebook, it reached a saturation point for me where there's maybe a 25% chance I'll see something posted to Twitter by someone I follow. Unless of course they happen to be one of a very small group of people whose posts to Twitter I have forwarded to my cell phone. So, if I don't ever look at what they've posted on Twitter, am I really "following" 200 people? I don't think so.

That said, for an organization like a library or a university or even a small local business, Twitter can be a power tool for maintaining public awareness and communicating with customers or your community. So at this point in the evolution of the two, I'd say Twitter is the more useful to me as a one-to-many way of keeping in touch with a sort of "inner circle" of people, and as a way for that smaller group of people to share things with each other that they pick up from elsewhere.

So that's it. Nothing creative or insightful here, just an assignment completed and some thoughts recorded. I'll be back in a few weeks to delete this post.

(5 - 7)

My Flickr Bicker

I've had an account on flickr.com for a really long time--so long I don't really know how long. The oldest picture I have on there is from 2006 . For backing up, sharing, and ordering prints of photos I usually use Google's Picasa web service. Recently I had occasion to revisit Flickr as part of a staff-training exercise where I work. Here's what I was reminded of.

I like the layout and features of Flickr better. And there are people I know who use it and that I have connections too. And they've really evolved some great tools that I wasn't aware of like the ability to search for photos based on geography. So, if I like it so much, why no just use it? Well, because Google is free. I've got about 175 photos up on Flickr. From time to time I'll go through and clean out the ones I'm tired of, and upload some different ones. Because unless you pay for Flickr you can only upload 200 photos. Technically, that's not correct. You can upload more than 200--you just can't actually view them. And isn't that the point after all? I'm not sure why Flickr has stuck with the archaic 200 item limitation for their free accounts. I guess the business model is successful enough that they can. But I don't care. I want to upload more than 200 photos. Even if there's still a limit, 200 just isn't enough. And I know they won't listen, but that isn't the point of a gripe session anyway. So, flickr, loosen up on the disk space and let me upload more than 200 photos for free.

(8 & 9)

Google Apps

Google continues to expand its reach in the online realm. And today's New York Times carries a story about yet another ambitious Google undertaking that has terrific potential. Google Art is a new project that offers access to collections and even interior views of Art Museums from around the world. You can read the article from the Times by clicking this link, or you can see it for yourself at www.googleartproject.com.

(1-4)

Windows Phone? Yes . . . and not so much.

I bought a Windows Phone the day they became available. Mine is a Samsung Focus, and I love the design of the phone and the look and feel of the Windows operating system. But since the day I bought it I have also had variety of power-related issues with it. Sometimes the phone just spontaneously reboots. Sometimes after such reboots, it will have lost changes to the settings, start screen, etc. But if I reboot again, everything comes back as expected. When I bought the phone, I did not install the optional SD card, on which some people are blaming the power problems with the phones. Even without the card though, I still had some issues--but not the reboot problem. Mostly, sometimes it would just seem to be powered off, and pressing the power button didn't turn it back on. At first I was having to pop the battery out and reinsert it, then power the phone back on. Then I discovered that if I held the power button in for about 10 seconds, then released it, then pressed it again as if to turn the phone on, it would power back on.

So after using the phone almost constantly for about 2 weeks I bought a Sandisk Micro SD card, 32gb. I had read the docs and backed the phone up before inserting it. I installed the card and performed the system reset. Then I synced. I was surprised to find that the sync reinstalled music, but not my apps. Each app had to be manually reinstalled from the marketplace. (I did not have to pay for apps again--the store knew I had already bought them). The sync also didn't restore start menu and settings changes, or Internet favorites. But after installing the SD card, I have now begun to see the phone reboot for no apparent reason.

So, it would be a great phone if the power issues can be fixed. But the sync system needs to be changed so that syncing a phone restores it completely, including apps, settings, favorites, etc.

I'm keeping mine just as is for now. Part of being one of the first customers to get one is the adventure of unexpected "features." But I expect to see Samsung and Microsoft working hard to address these issues promptly, and I'll be dumping my Windows phone if that doesn't happen.