I'm not sure how many are familiar with the people search engine, Spock, I know I wasn't until recently, but I guarantee you that if you have any profile information at all on the internet, you're in here.  It probably wouldn't be a bad service if it weren't for their very aggressive way of forced participation.  Also, after a recent interaction I've had with them and their customer service, I'm very much turned off to this website. 

The search sounded interesting so of course I plugged in my name.  I was a bit surprised what came up on me though.  I guess the search engine does mine various social networks and pulls that information into search results pages, the overall concept isn't all that bad, it's just once I realized that the site was pulling information from my MySpace profile, that I had deleted last year, I thought something needed to be done to remedy that.  The site does offer the ability to "claim" a page, which does require you to sign up, but keep in mind I deleted my MySpace profile.  When I tried to claim my page it wouldn't accept my email address because my profile no longer existed for comparison.  I also noticed that this was not the only page I had, there was another Heidi Hansen, that was also me with equally outdated information.  This one I could claim, I do believe it came from Twitter information, plus some other accounts, but I right away noticed that my age isn't even right and the so called profile really doesn't offer anything else useful about me.  Sure I have outdated profile information out there, that was not really the issue for me, Spock was bringing that to light and made me realize I should probably keep better tabs on this stuff.  But on the other hand it is my information and my identity, and now that I was aware of the issues I wanted Spock to remedy them immediately.  I do believe I have that right with my identity, and I wasn't happy with how Spock was representing me on their site.

I actually had no issue with the page I claimed, I now had control over it and I was willing to let this page go, but I did want the other page that I had no control over deleted, so I emailed customer support.  I simply explained that I have information on Spock that I could not claim and I had no control over and I did not want it in their search anymore.  The response I got back though insisted that I did not delete my MySpace account:

The reason why you were unable to claim your search result is that you were referring to is that this one result (http://tinyurl.com/672yqu) is associated with your Friendster, Flicker, and Twitter accounts.  You should be able to claim it using any of those credentials.  As far as the search result associated with Myspace, it appears that the Myspace page is still up.

Now I was really confused... I made a big deal about deleting my account, I even tried to log in to MySpace after this email to see if my profile magically recreated itself (of course no account found).  This frustrated me, I felt like this guy was indirectly telling me I was an idiot so I decided I didn't want any of my information represented on this service so I emailed back:

Is it possible to just remove me from your search engine completely?  I don't want any of my accounts added, even if they are public, much of this information is old and I don't have time to mine through it all anyway...  please just remove me completely.

This seemed like a reasonable request to me.  It's my information and I realize it's public, but even Google will remove results from its search with reasonable requests.

Then I get this response back:

I'm a little confused if you are referring to this link (http://tinyurl.com/6bldot), then the Myspace page is still active.

Ok, I'm sorry, but this is NOT me! Despite the fact that my age is wrong on the first "valid" profile he pointed out, it's no where close to the age on this MySpace profile.  A quick look at profile images could've certainly verified this too.  I'm not sure first name and location are enough to declare a positive match either.

Yes, I most definitely wanted all information from this site removed, apparently standards are not top priority here.  He did include a link to a Get Satisfaction thread on deleting profile information which is a truly interesting and frustrating read.  I really recommend the entire thread if you would like reading things that make you want to scream and hit things.

So here's how you remove yourself from Spock:

If you've signed up for Spock and now want your account deleted, just flag your own search result and enter "Delete account" in the comments field. The "Flag" link is in the blue bar on the right side. Please do not flag your name or other information to request that your account be deleted.

If you want your search result removed (for users and non-users), please remove the source of your search result (LinkedIn, MySpace, etc.) - it should no longer contain public information or it will just be crawled again. Once this is done, flag your search result and enter "Source removed" in the comments field.

So in general, if you're signed up for a Spock account you can flag accounts to be deleted (which I'm trying with my other active account right now) but that really doesn't matter because it will be crawled again.  Or if you don't want to register for an account on this site you have to delete your public social networks so they will no longer be crawled.  I'm not the only person the discussion thread that thinks this makes no sense, it's worth reading, and it continues to generate a few new comments that really support how stupid this service is.

An update on the MySpace thing though, I tried to claim the page without having it "officially claimed" on my login, I also put a note that the account was deleted and to remove it.  I think this worked, I don't see that page anymore.  Although my other page is still active and I sort of regret even signing up for an account now.  I just now marked it for deletion and I'm not sure if this will be successful either, but even after that I still have a registered account on this website I don't want.  I also don't think that any profile information they delete from their service will stay deleted.  There seems to be no way to delete the registered account, and apparently you can't delete the search result page without wiping yourself completely from the internet so there's probably no hope.  This service does me no favors, if anything it makes more work for me in identity management and I don't have time for it.

Posted by heidi at 06:47 PM
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I went out and bought Sims Life Stories today.  It's really just a simpler, more directed version of the game.  At first I wasn't all that interested in it because I'm really into the normal game, but I haven't really played that in so long because it is really involved.  Once I start playing Sims 2 I have to build a house because I usually hate the ones I already built, I can usually pull off a decent floor plan in under an hour now, even with some complicated building cheats, but then I have to decorate it.  I often spend most of my time trying to find user designed objects for the decorations, this also takes time because you have to search around for things you like, this is both fun and time consuming.  Of course I still have yet to create people to go in the house, and determine some sort of personality to go with these people.  If it's an in depth story then you also have to build more houses and generate more people and personalities.

You can see how I do not have time for this anymore.  Although I do sort of miss playing the game, so that's why I gave the Stories a shot.  The game has two self contained stories, you can play one for a little while to unlock the other.  You can play each character according to their goals, but I guess you can also play in free mode, which allows you to build houses too.  I'm not so interested in free mode, I have the original game and a good number of expansion packs (some of which may still be in shrink wrap, sadly), but it's actually a nice way to get my Sims 2 fix without actually investing a year's worth of time doing it.

What's also nice is this seems to be a version of Sims 2 that I might even be able to "beat".  I'm not used to the game having an ending.

Posted by heidi at 10:57 PM
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I believe Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista came out sometime last month.  The update came up in my notification area, but every time I tried installing it, it just wouldn't install.  SP1 is a long install, it takes close to an hour, I've read an hour and a half on some message boards.  The update would to through the entire three part installation, reboot, and then decide that it didn't want to install and then revert my computer back to its previous state, which would then take another hour.  I tried the install about three times on different days like this before I finally decided that today was the day I tried to figure out what the heck is wrong with this thing.

I found a lot of my problem and none of my answer, and as usual of lot of speculations from people who actually didn't have the problem but seemed to know the answer.  I noticed that HP has a whole list of "precautions" to take while updating to SP1, it also included a note to disable virus protection. 

It would've been nice if I had this option.  Well, my actual virus protection software made it difficult to turn off, and the service pack actually reboots a few times during the process and I suspected the software was just turning itself back on during this whole install at the end.

I finally gave up and uninstalled the virus protection.  I did a few other things prior to this, according to this article, which I suspect didn't actually do anything, but you never know.  I checked for errors on the hard drive, did a system file checker, and I ran the memory diagnostic tool for Vista, as well as uninstalled the virus protection.  Mind you, this was the fourth time today that I was going to try this update, on top of the three that I had done on other days.  I had pretty much determined that if this was not going to work then I would be done with SP1 and live with the fact that my computer will probably never function properly again.

Thank goodness it worked this time, because I was almost seriously considering buying a Mac next.  You know I have to be pretty pissed off at Windows to take such drastic measures...

After the service pack installed, I reinstalled my virus protection, and everything is actually running quite nicely.  I know this SP has a few under the hood changes, I actually don't really care what changes there are, as long is it doesn't mess up my system.  I also know that not keeping Windows up to date pretty much ensures you're going to run into software issues down the road... I did this with XP and SP2, I actually resisted installing SP2 for many years because it messed up my computer when it first came out.  The thing about XP updates though is you can basically skip them if you want.  I don't quite get this option with Vista.

It pretty much ate up my entire day, but I'm just happy it's working now.  I just beg of Windows not to release another service pack for awhile...

Posted by heidi at 10:25 PM
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I know, I know, I haven't posted in a long while.  I won't bother making up excuses though, I've just been busy.  I just wanted to write a short bit about my adventures into Windows Media Center, which I have to admit is pretty darn cool.  Recently I set up WMC with my TV Tuner.  The TV Tuner card was purchased with the computer, I just never hooked it up.  I have cable TV now running to my computer and I'm using WMC as a DVR.  I've even opted for watching TV on my computer, which is handy when I'm working on it, I can make the screen smaller and view both windows on the same screen, or my screen is nice and big enough that I don't mind watch across the room if I'm not working on the computer.  The tuner card did come with a cool remote and a USB censor so I can control WMC from across the room.

I was thinking today that it would be cool to be able to access the recorded TV files on the PS3, but after some reading online it looks like this might only be possible by finding a program to convert the files, and that's not really worth the effort.  I'm sure getting the PS3 to see the files is no problem, but to actually read them is another story.  I have this issue with my Rhapsody library, the PS3 will see the tracks in my library, but will not play them due to file type incompatibility.

The other thing I found for Windows Media Center is just a little plugin application called MceFM which adds some Last.fm functionality to WMC.  This sounds a lot cooler than it really is though, it's pretty limited.  I can create a queue based on tags or artists, that's just about it however.  I don't have access to any of the social aspects of Last.fm and it doesn't seem to scrobble the tracks.  The website does say it's in beta and has a request for features in the forum, so who knows, maybe it'll develop into something cool someday.

Overall, I like Windows Media Center's pretty interface, and the fact that I can control it via my remote is not bad either.  I know there's a lot more I can do with it, especially in regards to extending it to the PS3, which I hope to figure out someday.

Posted by heidi at 10:17 PM
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Just a quick post on this, even though I know I should be writing a lot more on this blog right now!  I'm at IA Summit in Miami, Florida this weekend (yea!) and I anticipate a great time here.  Anyway, I decided to set up my Twitter account with hashtags, thing is I noticed that there are 2 tags already set for the conference and I didn't like either one of them!  The two were #iasummit and #iasummit2008.  I liked the idea of putting the year in there, but honestly I'm too wordy on Twitter and those two extra numbers in #iasummit2008 would probably make a huge difference to me.  So I have introduced #iasummit08, just to be difficult, of course...

But, in order to monitor what's going on with all 3 tags I have also added each to a category in my Google Reader for IA Summit 2008, and what's even better is I shared this and now have a public page that is aggregating all of them set up.  I think there is even a feed for this page so if others want to track all the tags via RSS it looks pretty possible.  Unfortunately it doesn't look like I can put this feed on my Crowdvine profile for the conference, which would've been cool, I've used up my Blog/RSS feed space and the rest of the options are for services...

Anyway, mostly just playing around.  Not sure if anybody is really going to be using Twitter a lot here, but it's fun to play...

Posted by heidi at 02:27 PM
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Yikes! Just got this error as I was trying to access Google Scholar through Wayne State's authentication.  Not cool...

I was able to get in, but I've never encountered this error before using Google Scholar through WSU.

***

Update:  Ok, so I wasn't actually able to get in.  Typing in the captcha takes me to Google Scholar but it doesn't log me on to WSU's network.  I'm using a public wireless internet network, but I was using Google Scholar with authentication here the other day and it worked fine.

Update:  Ok, I'm starting to think that this is Wayne State's problem, I can't even get into their databases now, I'm getting an "IP address access denied" error or something.  How frustrating!  What's the point of off campus access if I can't access resources off campus?!  It figures something like this would happen as soon as I was having a sudden burst of creativity...

Posted by heidi at 06:02 PM
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Thursday I participated in the second Ann Arbor Library Camp (and also the second I've attended!)  The event was hosted again at the Ann Arbor District Library.  There were roughly two to three sessions per time slot, I think it was a good mix of things and every session I attended was interesting and lively.

Eli from AADL kicked the event by editing the agenda on the wiki.  The agenda was as follows: 

9:00-9:30 AM

• 4th Floor Board Room: Coffee, Bagels, and Schmoozing

9:30-10:00

• 4th Floor Board Room: Welcome and construction of Agenda

10:00-11:00

• 4th Floor Board Room: Drupal users and user wannabes
• 4th Floor Conference Room A: Killing NetFlix Dead
• 3rd Floor Freespace: Digitization Standards for Digital Libraries

11:00-12:00

• 4th Floor Board Room: ILS
• 4th Floor Conference Room A: Virtual Reference & IM

12:00-1:30

• Lunch on your own. Check out http://arborwiki.org/index.php/Category:Restaurants for some ideas!

1:30-2:00

• 4th Floor Board Room: Reconvene and adjust afternoon schedule if needed.

2:00-3:00

• 4th Floor Board Room: Developer Collaboration
• 4th Floor Conference Room A: Selling 2.0 in a 1.0 world
• 3rd Floor Training Center: Subject Resources Pages & Pathfinders

3:00-4:00

• Lower Level Multipurpose Room: Show & Tell / Super Smash Bros. Brawl Tournament.

4:00

• Lower Level Multipurpose Room: Wrapup & Farewell!

Notes and thoughts from the sessions I attended are included below:

Killing Netflix Dead:  Alternate Circulation Models

A discussion of library circulation models with the popular DVD rental service, Netflix, in mind.  Some points discussed:

• Library Delivery Services
  • Some libraries offer these services to patrons, but many only to homebound patrons.
• Can the Netflix model for queues and hold be applied to library services?
• Are libraries more like Blockbuster given that they have a physical and online presence?
• How will "watch instantly" online service change library services
  • Netflix Instant Movie Streaming
  • Hulu.com
• How can patrons control when their holds come in:
  • Improved queuing systems
  • Handle long hold waits
• Some libraries mail all their holds, would this be a premium service or an expectation.
• Wishlists vs. Holds
  • AADL is working on implementing this in their catalog.
  • Need to balance "I want this item as soon as possible with I want it someday."
  • It's easy to have "too many holds" in your queue with a wishlist implementation.
• Vendors vs. IT
  • Evergreen and Open Source ILS may have an advantage to implement changes quickly
    • Individual institution ILS vs Consortia
• Netflix Model with Friends
  • Can we implement a community model into our catalogs?
• Digital Divide
  • Still an imbalance between the people who have the connectivity and those who don't.
• Test it first then figure out how it works later
• BookMooch & Paperback Swap
  • Existing models for swapping and mailing books users.
• Hold Waits
  • How long are you willing to wait?  Some might be willing to wait long, others might not be.
• Digital Content
  • How long will be before we're not physically picking things up from a library?
  • Where do libraries fit in?
  • Libraries circulating popular materials may go away (note: I can see this happening, one comment I made during this discussion is that services like Netflix and Rhapsody are not expensive and are often more convenient than the library)
  • Digital Divide again?  Are we really just there for the patrons who can get this stuff?
  • Ebooks and readers will become more accessible over time.

Virtual Reference & IM

• Meebo still seems to be the tool of choice for IM reference and libraries
  • Bar is low to use
  • Lightweight
• QuestionPoint for Virtual Reference
• Co-Browsing
  • Rikhei doesn't think co-browsing works
  • Technology is hit or miss for this
  • In theory a good idea but harder to implement and may not be very useful for patrons
• Fewer steps and questions for patrons may enable them to become more engaged
• They like to know that there is a person there
  • Away messages if you are busy
  • Indicating that you're helping another patron and will be with them shortly is beneficial
• Two different chat models
  • Focused completely
    • This may be more of what the librarian is or expects of the patron
  • Multi-tasking
    • This may be what the patron is actually doing while you're helping them
• How to implement in library services?
  • Schedule staff for IM
  • On the floor?
    • Chat reference may not be easy or appropriate when you're also trying to work the desk.
  • Staffing Issues
    • 24/7 Reference?
• Nature of Questions
  • One person commented that there is a variety but more reference questions (public library)
  • Another person commented that questions happened in the late evening (academic)
    • Policy Questions
    • Problems using electronic resources
    • Sociology/Psychology Students seem to use virtual reference more
    • Helping students getting started on papers
• Filtering on the Front
  • Could filtering be turning people away
    • I likened this to calling Customer Support, and how frustrating this is
    • I also commented that we don't bounce patrons around to other staff immediately when we're on the desk, we help the patron first and then transfer them to a subject specialist if we're running into walls
  • Virtual Reference tends to hand people off to different people
  • Physical reference desk have no filters
• Text Reference
  • Smart Phones
  • Set up texting through AOL Instant Messenger (Rikhei has some experience with this)
  • Consider shorter IM names for texting
  • Limiting characters
  • No additional training
• Gaim (Pidgin) Software, Trillian
• Like Meebo, but download software to computer
• Twitter Reference?
• One librarian pondered it
• Also discussed recently on Uncontrolled Vocabulary
• Younger people don't check their email anymore
• They are texting
• They are using MySpace
• I commented that this may change when they go to school or enter the workforce, I personally don't see email as a communication tool leaving these institutions anytime soon.
• Libraries on Facebook
• UM Did a Survey
• 60/40, don't want libraries on their Facebook
• Say it's kind of creepy
• But found that Facebook Marketplace is a great way to recruit people for usability studies
• I commented that I find the only people who add library applications to their Facebook pages are librarians, kinda funny.
• Second Life
• Huge Overhead
• Download Software
• Huge Learning Curve
• Have to learn to walk before you can even visit the library
• Portable Devices/Roving Reference (jblyberg)
• No Reference Desks, how do you connect with patrons on the floor
• Virtual Library Initiatives
• iPhones in the Library?
• What do you use for Roving Reference?

Lunch

Raja Rani, 400 S. Division St, Ann Arbor MI

Indian buffet, yum!

Subject Resource Pages & Pathfinders

• LibGuides
• Rikhei talked a lot about LibGuides at GVSU
• Grand Valley State University
• Good stats on particular databases
• Fun to use!
• Great customer service and tech support
• Hoping to see library guides as a portal for students in their subject areas
• Other Uses
• Hennepin County Public Library
• Looks like html implementation
• Norwich University
• Wiki implementation
• St. Joseph County Public Library
• MediaWiki implementation
• WikiMatrix - Wizard for choosing wiki software
• Public Libraries
• How do you communicate your resources?
• Not sure anybody really had an answer.  I know that this is difficult given the array of questions and interests we have in public libraries compared to the needs to academic library patrons.  Our wiki resources pages are meant to be internal, I have designed our wiki resources around class projects, but printed handouts for parents and students as I pull the books they need for display.
• From personal experience I think I focus mostly on making sure that staff has access to the resources they need to help patrons. My most updated and frequently used wiki page is our Tax Resources page.  It can stay relatively the same every year, but I keep it current by adding and deleting FAQs based on changes I see from the IRS.
• Are the products we use just too hard to use?
• YES!!!!
• Do we need to convince vendors to make things more usable for our patrons?
• YES!!!!
• Google Scholar with Link Resolver
• One of my personal faves at Wayne State
• http://www.lib.wayne.edu/
• Google Scholar right on the front page, off campus access link allows me to use Google Scholar off campus with the link resolver
• Federated Searching
• Nautilus (GVSU Federated Search)
• http://www.serialssolutions.com/ss_360_link.html
• AquaBrowser
• Pulling in databases and other sources
• Tagging
• Quality over quantity in regards to links and electronic resources.
• This was one comment I made during this session.  I personally think that a patron can type in a search in Google already and come up with an overwhelming amount of resources on their own.  The library should be providing quality resources, just a few good links is better than linking to everything you can find on a subject.
• How do we integrate these subject guides into catalog?

Show & Tell/Gaming

We did show and tell first, from 3:00 to 4:00 and unfortunately had to scoot out at 4:00 to get to Detroit for class.  It's too bad because I really wanted to play Guitar Hero too!!!  Here's a list of the great things some people shared with the show and tell though:

• Eli presented on awesome 10 minute video on gaming at the Ann Arbor District Library.  I have to say that I think it made me more proud to be an AADL patron than it did to be a librarian.  I've been to a AADL gaming event once before and the teens there impressed me.  They were engaged and it was fun!
• University of Michigan Libraries MTagger
• Detroit Public Library Teen Blog - The renovations they are planning for the main branch teen area look very interesting too.  I would love to pop in and see it when it's done someday when I'm out at school.
• Allen County Public Library Blog - I liked how Melissa commented about how they are very proud of their blog at the library.  Library staff have posted reviews and information and they see it as a very open and relaxed forum to share with their colleagues and patrons.  I think that's how blogging should be!
• Columbus Metropolitan Library Toolbar - The used Conduit to create the toolbar.  I'm not a big toolbar person but I thought this looked pretty sharp.  I definitely saw potential for something like this in creating standard browser setup for patrons and staff in a library.

Posted by heidi at 04:53 PM
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I've been using Sandy for some time now to organize my email inbox, to dos, and various other appointments, and it's been mostly a successful experience.  I say mostly successful because I still tend to let my email get out of control, but one nice thing about Sandy is it's not too much hassle to get back on track again.  Sandy is described as a personal email assistant, although I really think it can be much more than that.  It is something I rely heavily on to manage my email, but certain features allow me to integrate it into my Google Calendar, get reminders via Twitter, and even add new items away from my computer (with my phone) via Jott.

I imagine people could use Sandy in different ways depending on how they like to manage their information.  It happens to work for me because it seems to address a few downfalls I have with email.  One is that I star multiple emails but do nothing with them.  I end up with pages and pages of starred email and I attach no action to any of those items.  I have a hard time merging offline actions with online ones.  If I come across a date or remember something I need to do when I'm away from the computer, I'm likely to just forget about it altogether (that's why I'm excited about Jott integration).  Keeping multiple calendars never seems to work for me, especially trying to remind myself of things when I'm offline, I'm addicted to paper calendars but they're not something I faithfully use either.  Also the things that I need to get done need to be in front of my face most of the time, or I'll just forget about them completely.

Despite my downfalls in personal information management, I have a pretty good memory for most things.  I am a faithful Google Calendar user, it just works for me, but it's also not something that is in my face most times either.  I can remember a lot of what I put on the calendar, I may look at it once a day, but since my calendar stays pretty constant, I'm ok not looking at it obsessively too (which makes it a poor tool for remembering tasks for me).  Running through the list of things that I do look at constantly, I realize this is a pretty short list, email is undoubtedly at the top though.  I think next after that is Twitter, but I most definitely live by my email.  I never sit at my computer without a tab to GMail open in my browser.

Sandy works simply by allowing me to forward an item with an action to my specified Sandy email address.  I just type one line at the top of the forwarded email, which Sandy parses into something useful, the line is something I want to remember like "Remind me to finish that TPS report by Monday morning" (examples pulled from Sandy website, but I do happen to have some fun TPS reports at work I could really fill in tomorrow if I wanted).  Sandy will translate that into a reminder that can be sent to me via email, SMS, or Twitter.  I can set appointments, "Remind me I have a Staff meeting on 3/21 at 10-12 am" (that one is real actually) or use tags to control how often I get reminded of appointments, "Remember to turn over the mattress tomorrow morning @monthly"  There are some special tags (@todo if you want it to be a to do item) but I can also tag items with my own things to better manage my information.  The one thing I did have a hard time getting used to was using the words "remind me" or "remember" all the time, but you can also begin each line with the letter 'r' as shorthand, this is what I usually do.  I can also create multiple items in a single email by just starting a new line (with "remind me" or just the 'r' shorthand).  Otherwise, the natural language aspects of Sandy tend to work really well.  The cheatsheet on Sandy is a good example of how some of these things work. 

This whole process works for me because when I get in an email I can automatically assign an action to that email by forwarding it to Sandy.  The best thing about this for me is I'm forcing myself up front to consider what I want to do with that email.  Do I need to follow up with it?  Do I need to contact somebody?  Is there information here I want to keep?  Once I have a reminder or appointment set up in Sandy, I archive the email (the email remains referenced in Sandy if I need to search for it later).  I get it out of my inbox because I know that Sandy will let me know what it is I need to do on the day that I specified to do it.  Then I have a clean email box that I have now turned into a functional to do list.  Sandy sends a daily digest every morning, which is a helpful way to remind me of what my past self told my future self I would do that day.  I usually scan through this for anything I may have forgot about previously in the week.  Then I get emails for each to do item I had requested to be reminded of.  This is generally the only thing I leave in my inbox, since I no longer have the clutter of starred email there, it actually works as a to do list.

Sandy can generate a lot of email, but it doesn't have to.  You can change settings so you don't get email notification, or if you don't prefer email reminders you can set up SMS or Twitter too.  Although since I work in GMail the extra email doesn't bother me that much, it's all grouped together and I have tons of space too.  Email is my command central for just about everything so it's just something that I'm used to in order to maintain some level of productivity.

Lately I've been pretty excited about how Sandy works with some tools I already use though.  With Google Calendar I noticed that I can subscribe to my Sandy calendar, which is a nice way to integrate my to dos and appointments in one place, and just in case I did forget to put something in GCal, it still shows up through Sandy.  It's just another way to keep these things automatically in front of me too.  Twitter integration is pretty cool since it's another thing I usually have open on my computer at all times, I can send Sandy Direct Messages with reminders and appointments, or get reminders via Twitter from Sandy.  I haven't used the Jott integration much, but I can send things to Sandy using my phone and my voice.  Actually I hope to start using Jott more and blog about that soon, it looks like a potentially useful way for me to keep track of things when I'm offline (see information management downfalls above).  Jott also integrates with Twitter, GCal, and a variety of other cool sites so I'm pretty excited about exploring that tool too.

Posted by heidi at 07:04 PM
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No time to really comment on this since I have to get back to work now, but I just took the Internet Typology Test at the Pew Site.  Results are no surprise:

Based on your answers to the questionnaire, you most closely resemble survey respondents within the Omnivores typology group. This does not mean that you necessarily fit every group characteristic.

Omnivores make up 8% of the American public.

Basic Description
Members of this group use their extensive suite of technology tools to do an enormous range of things online, on the go, and with their cell phones. Omnivores are highly engaged with video online and digital content. Between blogging, maintaining their Web pages, remixing digital content, or posting their creations to their websites, they are creative participants in cyberspace.

Defining Characteristics
You might see them watching video on an iPod. They might talk about their video games or their participation in virtual worlds the way their parents talked about their favorite TV episode a generation ago. Much of this chatter will take place via instant messages, texting on a cell phone, or on personal blogs. Omnivores are particularly active in dealing with video content. Most have video or digital cameras, and most have tried watching TV on a non-television device, such as a laptop or a cell phone.

Omnivores embrace all this connectivity, feeling confident in how they manage information and their many devices. This puts information technology at the center of how they express themselves, do their jobs, and connect to their friends.

Who They Are
They are young, ethnically diverse, and mostly male (70%). The median age is 28; just more than half of them are under age 30, versus one in five in the general population. Over half are white (64%) and 11% are black (compared to 12% in the general population). English-speaking Hispanics make up 18% of this group. Perhaps unsurprisingly, many (42% versus the 13% average) of Omnivores are students.

It was a fun way to kill a few minutes on a lunch break though.

Posted by heidi at 01:06 PM
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This blog has been quiet for a little bit, it's probably because I spent all last week participating in a production of Music Man in Ohio.  I don't do musicals much since I moved from Ohio, but I think they're still my favorite to perform, which is why I agreed, even though I really don't have the time.  I especially enjoy the high school productions.  This is the fourth show I've played with this group, it's always fun and they're always excellent, and I would do it again if they asked me too.

And aren't these the cutest kids you've ever seen?  The trumpet player on the left stole the show as Winthrop.

Posted by heidi at 09:49 PM
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