Whirling around wikis.

I've had a look at a couple of Wikis and signed up for PBWiki. Of course the definitive Wiki is Wikipedia, which every student finds invaluable for assignments even if the content is not always correct.

I think The Cataloguers Wiki UL Scratchpad is a very good idea for updating a manual. I must admit though I was constantly distracted by illuminating adverts along the sidebar advertising everything from mobile phone games and dating sites. I whirred through Columbia University's New Media centre for Teaching and Learning conference video about how they created their own special wiki called Wikispaces which was taken up with great gusto by faculty and unleashed a torrent of innovative teaching methods.

I can see how wikis could be used in the context of the KBS by communicating with students regarding queries. Conducting information skills learning workshops by making them more interactive. The application of Wikis has great potential in a library context and its just a matter of sitting down and carrying out some serious brain storming sessions with colleagues to see what works.

Theres always a Brazilian following You!

For the Curious out there if you view the next blog after this one I guarantee you it will be Brazilian. Blogger must have cut a deal or has a some crazy strategy to place portuegese blogs along side english ones. I had a look at Friendly banter and the next blog after this contained photos of a family preparing for easter celebrations with pictures of chickens and miniature houses, which appear to be somewhere in Brazil. I couldn't understand a word of it since was all portuegese to me, but the photos told the story.

I had a look at Technorati, and had to read the instructions transcript since there were problems downloading the video explaining how to use it.Once I had read about all the great improvements to the site, I found it quite difficult to navigate around it. I can't really see it as being something I would use much or even at all.

Web 2.0 Awards List Cocktail Builder

I am still trying to catch up on last weeks assignment. I am nearly there and the last part was to choose a site from the awards list and blog about it. Since I am a dapper cocktail maker and enjoy nothing more than experimenting with the contents of the drinks cabinet by mixing and shaking them about in the cocktail shaker with plenty of crushed ice. Images of the witches in Macbeth suddenly come to mind as they stir the contents of their cauldron adding eye of newt to spice it up. I can assure you my concoctions are alway thoroughly enjoyed by delighted guests. The thrill for me is making the cocktail and seeing what will work.

I was immediately drawn to Cocktail Builder, which metaphorically speaking dangles a carrot in front of you by asking what are the contents of your bar and suggesting possible cocktails to make. AS you enter the ingredients the potential of being able to make one of their concoctions fades further into the distance since the recipe suggestions keep changing and you get the feeling I will never be able to make one of these. However I did like some of their recipes and will obtain the ingredients and try them out on guests at the next soiree.

Overall if you knew nothing about cocktails and wanted to obtain some tips, its not a bad place to start. You can even make up you own recipes and suggest them to the site but you have to calibrate each part in ozs. Some of the cocktails have some unusual names like 1960s Black Devil, Screw the Devil, and horses neck.

There is the ubiquitious Sex on the Beach which seems to be on every bar menu around the globe. Maybe a new one could be sand in your bum after all that sex on the beach. Which would have to come with a tiny umbrella, and plenty of brown sugar and quite a sour taste maybe a whiskey sour and some bitters and possibly a flavoured vodka and slice of lime. There you are I have just invented a new cocktail thanks to cocktail builder.

right hopefully you will be able to see my eclectic list of books chosen from library thing. A brief word about the choices, I have always had an interest in comedy and satire, and each of these book reminds of my travels. I picked up the Tin Drum by Gunther Grass in an old bookshop in Prague while inter railing and read the first couple of pages, and thought its too heavy to carry around with me. So I got it for christmas the following year.

I bought the Seinfeld Scripts in the NBC Shop at the Rockefeller centre in Manhattan which was a very apt since the comedy was set in NYC. I spent a summer working in a cherry factory in Germany and read Vonnegut's book in the cellar of a workers hostel which was quite appropriate. War and Peace Tolstoy's historical epic about a Russian aristocratic families fate during the Napoleonic wars. I started this in Perth Western Australia with the intention of reading it during the course of travelling around the country. I got about halfway through it and gave it up. I just remember leaving some characters in a drawing room and that was the end of that since never picked it up again. Raging bulls Easy Riders by Biskind was an illuminating journey through 1970s Hollywood, and half the people featured would not be out of place as characters in Joseph Heller's Catch 22.