All good things must come to an end!

* Please note that this post and all the ones previously posted before this date were part of the Brevard County 23 Things project that I participated in. I have decided to merge the two blogs together because of their overlapping themes. Enjoy!

That's it! What to do now?

I have enjoyed participating in the 23 Things Project because it gave me a chance to practice my blogging skills (which had really great timing!). I have been debating where to go from here. I have thought about keeping this blog as a place to talk about library techie stuff, but to be honest managing posts on 3 different blogs is tiring (it was almost 4, but they never got back to me about it).  I have also thought about merging this blog with Not Quite Superhuman, but that would take some tweaking and I am just too tired to do it.

I like the stuff that I posted here, so it is not going away (basically, I just really like the blog name). I don't think I will make any additional posting to it though.

Some great things I have learned during this project are RSS feeds (I am addicted to Goggle Reader now), incorporating Flickr into blog posts, gmail (still haven't received spam, so loving it!), rediscovering SlideShare, and bloggy gadgets (like LibraryThing). I am also more active on my other blog which I attribute to a renewed interest sparked by these Things.

Good luck to everyone still hanging in there!

Falling for FEL

Of course it goes without saying that some day I would like to visit ComicCon in San Diego, CA. But that is not the only big conference I would like to participate in. I am looking forward to 2016 when ALA is finally back in Florida. However, what has really tweaked my interest is SXSW and TED. Both of these conferences have a decidedly techie friendly vibe and I have really enjoyed the posts Mashable has been kind enough to share about the events.

For this final Thing, I decided to check out what results the Florida Electronic Library (FEL) could come up with. I love how the results are divided up into tabs like Academic Journals, Magazines, and News; this would be really helpful if I was writing an article or paper on the topic and had to have specific sources (deja vu Grad School). Lexile numbers are given as well as citations which makes this a very valuable resource for students and teachers. The best thing is that it is free.

Click on the About Books tab and select Books & Authors for all kinds of information about fiction and non-fiction of all kinds. There is even a wizard to help suggest additional reads, though it couldn't seem to find a match for any of the books I read. I did find some suggestions for The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan (so no vamps, faeries, elves, warlocks, witches, but at least we have zombies). I do however wonder how The Prince of Fenway Park by Juilanna Baggott can come up as a suggestion based on Fantasy and Monsters as the criteria, so guess it is not a great wizard and should maybe stay behind the curtain. (okay, so maybe it has curses and half-elves, but still not on the same level as a zombie apocalypse book.)

Despite the Books and Authors let down, I still like FEL because of my favorite four little word: free!

LibraryThing is the Thing

I have an account for many of the different book sites like Goodreads and LibraryThing. LibraryThing is one of my favorites; I am Notquitesuperhman. I have it embedded on my other blog and add star reviews to my selections. On Not Quite Superhuman I blog about books a lot. When I blog a new book, I add it to my shelf. I don't have as many titles listed as Marlena at SBPL, only about 40 or so right now (I really need to edit it), but you can definitely get a feel for my eclectic reading tastes.

I just recently signed up to receive review copies of books from LibraryThing, so I can't really say how that is going. A lot of my ARCs come from NetGalley or I have requested directly from the publisher or author. Monitoring the ALA list-serves is also helpful because they will have ARCs up for grabs a lot for the first responders. My all time favorite site for book recommendations is TeenReads. They have contests, recommendations, reading lists, and more on their site.

BTW I am currently reading Supernaturally by Kiersten White. Yeah, it's not out yet. :)

Books from my LibraryThing

Powered by LibraryThing

Another You

I try whenever possible to avoid using my real face on the net. I don't like cameras in general, but I especially don't like the idea of having my face out there. As of this moment, I use an avatar that was created through the yahoo avatar generator. Because I have used this image for many professional aspects, I have tried to make it look as much like me as possible, it even has a library in the background. That is why I love avatars. They can be another you or even another side of you.

That is where avatars can get pretty addicting. My husband plays WoW, those of you unfamiliar to the world of online gaming might not be aware that this stand for World of Warcraft. We joke that he has character ADD because of the option the game allows for him to create characters who not only have many different abilities, but also looks very different. When I was playing City of Heroes (one of the few MMORPGs {Massively Multi-player Online Role Playing Game} that I have played), my characters often looked like something out of one of Stan Lee's comic books...yes, even right down to the red hair. Those of you who know me in real life know that I am far and beyond looking anything close to a statuesque red-haired vixen and my husband is definitely not a pointy eared Elf or Orc or whatever the character of the day.

Here are some more avatar sites you might enjoy:
Otaku Avatar Generator
LEGO Avatar Generator
Hero Machine
Create Your Own Marvel Superhero

*Please note a word of caution, as with anything free on the web, you run the risk of being vulnerable to malicious code. To my knowledge none of these sites are associated with any type of virus, but you never know.