Technology

As I mentioned in my post on Life Long Learning, I really love the Internet. Having all that information available is when ever I need it is great. I also like that there are so many sites you can use to store and organize your own personal information; many times for free. I use sites like Backpack (http://backpackit.com) & Ta-da List (http://www.tadalist.com) to store information and make to do lists. Another great site is 30 Boxes (http://30boxes.com) where I have set up calendars & receive email reminders of birthdays. My most favorite thing about these sites is that since they are on the Internet, I can access them from any place. 

Flickr & Mashups

Sometimes the possibilities of technology really amaze me.  I tended to think more in terms of research and data entry when considering how technology could be used. Exploring the Fikr site & the mashups people have developed from it has shown me how technology and art have come together.

Welcome to 2009 (almost)

It’s hard to believe that my last post was the end of October. Perhaps my absence has been noted, perhaps not. I’ve been so busy with the holidays & end of the year financial duties for work that I’ve sadly neglected 23 Things. I’m almost finished with 2008 items- finally! I still have to close out a bunch of purchase orders from the last quarter & finish up my reports for our audit next month. I’m hoping our auditors are not going to require to much more from me. They had a long list of invoices and cancelled checks that they needed for their preliminary work in December. Thankfully, Moria joon (joon is Farsi for dear- ask Simin) helped me with that. When they are done with us we will be finished with 2008 &  I can really celebrate the New Year! So, now I plan to explore the rest of the 23 things. I’m glad that it’s going to be up for a while since I’m sure it will take me some time.

Tim at goal

Tim at goal, originally uploaded by Faeriequeen324.

This is a picture of my son, Tim, playing soccer for the Holy Family / St Basil’s CYO Soccer Team.  It was taken by another parent in the Fall of 2007.  He was in goal, which is his favorite position, since it involves less running- LOL.  This is Tim’s clearing kick!  He’s moved up to the varsity team this year.  He has great coaches & has learned a lot.  He’s also having fun with his friends & really likes playing soccer.

I created an account with Flickr & uploaded this picture to it.  Then, I used the blogging tool on Flickr to create this post on my WordPress Blog.  It took a while to set this all up but it was actually fairly easy.  23 Things #5 done, pretty cool!

busy, busy

Computer update- still naughty, but hopefully it will be a good ‘puter soon.  It keeps glitching, so Tony keeps trying different fixes.  He’s bound to get it in line eventually.  On the plus side of the frustrations caused by my computer is the fact that I finally took some time to clean part of my desk.  Tony needed to switch out a cable, so I had to clear out piles of paper & dust on my desk behind the computer.  Yay!

It’s month end so, we’re all really busy.  I have my normal invoices to process, plus all the items that I pay at the end of each month.  It’s amazing how some days or weeks seem to drag & then I turn around & it’s the last week of the month again.  I need to get caught up with my workload so that I can play with Flickr for Thing #5.

My computer is naughty

My comuter is being bad today.  Well, not just today- it’s been randomly acting up for a few months now.  It usually happens when I’m doing something in our financial software MIP.  Of course I’m using that application all of the time though ’cause that’s what I do.  Anyway, I’ll be entering an invoice & get an error message stating that the system can’t find the vendor that I’ll trying to select, even though I can see it right there.  Or, when I print checks, I get a different error & the system has no record of the checks.  Then I have to do the check run over on plain paper so in order to have them listed in the system.  Bah!  It’s very frustrating.  Tony in Computer Services has been helping me.  We trouble shooted, changed things on my PC & called support at MIP but my computer is still hating me.  It’s been a naughty, naughty thing lately.

Tired

Waiting for the caffeine from the cup of tea I just drank to kick in.  I am so tired today & I really don’t know why.  I was up a little later last night than I have been lately, but not so much that I should feel this drained.  I need to wake up!

Blog Registration

Well I’ve sent an email to register my new blog for the CCLS 23 Things Project.  Having a work related blog is a new concept for me.  I usually go on & on in my blog about whatever is going on in my life & how I’m feeling.  It will be interesting & different to post on the concepts we are learning about, technology, etc.  I’d like to post often.  I do love to write, so it’s hard for me to stop once I get started.  I only hope that I don’t blab on too much about other stuff.

Lifelong Learning

I do consider myself a Lifelong Learner. Learning new things excites me & makes me happy. I really love looking things up on the Internet. I’ll be talking with someone & a question will come up. I usually have to find out the answer right away. Using the Internet is fun & a form of play to me. There is so much information available out there. As we discussed at our Staff Development / Discovery 2.0 Day this can sometimes be overwhelming. Also, I’m no whiz, but I’m fairly comfortable with computers in general. So, the Lifelong Learning Habits #5 (Using Technology) & #7.5 (Play) are easy for me. Harder for me are Habits #3 (Beginning with the end in mind) & #3 (Viewing problems as challenges). I sometimes have trouble with making goals & sticking with a plan. I can lose my enthusiasm easily when a challenge comes along.  Sometimes challenges motivate me, but more often I just fizzle out when I get stuck. I’m hoping to get better at these things. I don’t ever want to stop learning because I really believe that this keeps us young.

Fairy avatar

Today I found some websites that collect pictures for people to use as avatars.  An avatar is a picture that represents you so that when you post a comment on a blog or whatever, the picture appears alongside your screen name.  You can use a real picture of yourself or another image that you upload to your blog.  The sites I found only include pictures used with the artist’s permission.  This made me really happy as this is very important to me.  Many artists don’t mind people using their pictures for personal, noncommercial use, but it is better to be sure.  So I found a pretty, autumn fairy picture & made it my avatar.