Challenge 4 - you complete me

So I did the first 92.7% of this challenge, reading all the about google stuff and setting up the RSS feed. Turns out, over 4 months later I never went back and finished by BLOGGING about it. Ha. Sometimes I have the attention span of a gnat. So here we go:

What I learned about in this challenge - I actually had always assumed a google search would search google books. Now I know I should look in google books specifically. Definitely will come in handy.

What I learned on a google blog post - well, apparently in the future everyone will "monetize their 15 minutes" meaning try and get rich quick with silly videos of themselves. Apparently Google has created a program for people with popular YouTube videos to profit from their videos. This will probably mean a lot more videos of a lot more people doing a lot more stunts. I will keep my opinion to myself on that one.

Challenge #1 - better late then never

I just realized that I never went back and wrote about the final step of challenge #1. Since, as I said previously, I have a Mac I ended up downloading a book for my mother to listen to while walking the boardwalk. Although I just recently saw that now Listen NJ works with Mac so I'll have to try it out at home and put some books on my Iphone. That would make my commute a breeze!

GVRL

Okay, so I've actually used the GVRL a few times and yes, they always don't believe me when I say that they are BOOKS but online. So the trick of showing them the Videohound is great!!!

I have never tried the translator before, it's pretty cool. I translated my "Alternative Energy" article into German and browsed through for words I recognized. "Smokestack" stood out. Ha.

Projecting

I didn't have any problems with this challenge except finding time to do it and someone to be my audience. I did an outreach in the beginning of the month and used a projector, but felt odd asking the person I had just met to critique me (it was my first visit). So I asked one of the librarians to be my audience.

Mike got a very quick tour of our public website, most of which I'm sure he already knew but he patiently let me show him anyway. Done!

whew...

I have had a very difficult time with this assignment. First, I have a mac at home. So that means I can't do this challenge on my couch in my pjs. Second, I was told by some people that they WERE able to download overdrive on their OCL staff computers. So I tried. Nope, not me! Third, I reserved the PC Plus several times to work on it then either got busy with something else or had a customer come in needing to use it for a valid reason.

So... here I am the night before this is due using my fiance's work laptop (which means in the end I did get to wear pjs during this assignment). I downloaded Overdrive no problem. I searched for a while for a currently available audiobook that would play on an ipod AND I would actually want to listen to. Apparently that is a tall order because all I could come up with was " An Introduction to Beethoven". Not exactly Janet Evanovich but I'll check it out.

Now the hard part. I checked the book out and downloaded it to my computer. I then realized you can't use your ipod unless it's formatted for windows. UGH. I have a mac!! Why would my ipod be formatted to windows?

I guess that means my task is only 75% complete because I cannot download the book to my ipod. I have no spare mp3 player laying around and this is due tomorrow. But I promise I will do it and blog about it soon. My parents have a PC and both have pods I bought them that are still in the packages unused.

Step 1

Not too bad, I already had a gmail so I was ahead of the game!