Loved this!!!

I had a friend email this to me, so I thought it would be fun to use Jing and try to embed it into my blog. Hope this works!

Summer blues

Another week has passed. Long week at work and troubles with commuting transportation made this a longer week than usual. Still enjoying the class format, but starting to find some frustrations. I am finding it difficult to find things to talk about. I wish not to talk about too personal of things and wish to keep things simple and focused on school, but having difficultly with subjects that are relevant. I am a private person and do not want to have my life on the web for everyone to read and see. I will be happy when this assignment is over and I can figure out how to delete these posts.
The class is still beyond my technology capacity. I have been doing the reading and keeping up on the lectures. I seem to understand the items as a individual thing, but I am having a tough time putting all the pieces together. I think I could have used a more of a basic class on computers before I was immersed into this one. I am surviving, but wished to have been doing better.
Really looking forward to coming to Pittsburgh and seeing the campus and meeting my fellow students. Really glad about the discussion blogs. They are greatly helpful with questions and interacting with other students.

Commuting awareness

I have a long commute back and forth to work. I take a commuter rail line and I have noticed myself becoming more and more aware of the use of technology by my fellow commuters. I have noticed a variety of technology; laptops, i-pods, mp3 players are almost everywhere and now there seems to be a great amount of kindles and devices to read e-books. I also have noticed the increase of kindles in other situations. I have to attempt that as I sit next to someone with a kindle and I sit there holding my physically bound "real" book, I feel really old fashion and out of date. I am starting to get curious about them and would like to be able to play with one and see how it works and see how I feel it compares to reading from a "real" book. I have always been aware of the technology around me, but I am not one that needs to have the newest and greatest thing that just came out on the market. This may partly be lack of disposable funding I have. This course has helped open my eyes to what is out there and what they can do, their pros and cons, plus how they can be used in my profession and career.

Long Week

I thought this week was never going to come to an end. It has been a very emotional and tiresome week, maybe month or even longer. I have had some stressful Dr. appointments lately that have left me very concerned with my health that have constantly lead to more tests and more Dr. appointments. Friday, I went in for another test and consultation with my Dr. that I was really dreading. I do not think I slept a wink all week worrying about Friday. This test could have changed my life dramatically. I was really concerned that the doctor was going to tell me the "C" word. The news came back mixed. Not confirmed cancer, but with the way I look at things is that it is not confirmed that it is not cancer. They have decided to play the "wait and see" game and actively watch and monitor the tumor. I found some relief with this, but also some more frustration. Uncertainty is VERY frustrating, but life must go on..............I have decided to try to put this in the back of my head and follow my boyfriends suggestion, "we will worry about it and deal with it when they figure out what it is to worry about".

Now back to school..... Been trying to stay up on all the assignments. Doing the best I can with all the other aspects in my life. Work has been very busy right. Good thing, because job security is very important for me right now. Heard back about my quiz 1 today. Very disappointed with my grade. Thought I would have done better. All I can say is that I am doing my best with the time I have to study and prepare. That is all I can ask of myself.

Another assignment

I just finished my Omeka assignment. I was really confused about this one. I am not familiar with databases and I was not clear what I was suppose to do. Thanks for the help. I can really see the purpose of the assignments and having to do them. I would not learn about them if all I had to do was read about them. The only way for me to learn is to actually do something, so this format for me is great, but a bit frustrating. What I do not understand is the amount of entries we need to do. The first assignment was 50 entries. It got really boring after twenty or so and this assignment got real boring after about doing 8 entries. I am sure there is a master plan and it will all fold out in front of me by the end of the semester and I will fully understand the madness here.
Looking forward to hearing about the quiz. I want to know how I did.

Quiz 1

Just finished taking the first quiz. I am uncertain how I did. I feel my answers were too vague and by no means technical. I was also uncertain of how in-depth and lengthy to make my answers. For most of them, I answered as much as I could remember and recall that made sense. I really felt like a non-computer user answering the questions and felt really stupid second guessing every word I used like, program, software and application. Only time will tell to see how I did. Hopefully not too bad. The only good part is that now I have a better idea of the format for the next quiz.
I have a really busy week ahead and have started to look at the assignments that are due for next week. I am totally confused on the next assignment and my confusion is causing me to get VERY frustrated. I am really starting to dread these assignments. I read all the discussions on the course website and have read some information on the web, but still do not know how to get the references into Omeka to make the collection. I am sure it is very simple once I know how and that is what the most frustrating part of these projects for me. It takes me hours to figure out something that if only I knew the steps, would take minutes. I will attempt more tomorrow.

Trying to get it into the blog

Thought it about some more last night after I went to bed. Wanted to see if this worked better!!

I hope this may work!!! Well it is there at the bottom at the post. Thank you Tim for the steps..... I can not figure how to resize it. Sorry. I will keep playing. This assignment was a little trying for me. Learning and learning more.

Firefox extension demonstration

Link to presentation on how to install and configure Firefox extension for Zotero.

URL address:
http://www.screencast.com/t/ZTM1YWY3OG

Saying goodbye to Bermuda

Packing to head back home today. Back to the grind of work and studying. I did manage to get some reading in for the classes while I laid on the beach and tried to get some color to my white pasty skin.
As I laid on the beach and took the boats around Bermuda, I could not help but overhear the conversations about Kindles and i-books. It first made me chuckle that I came to Bermuda for a vacation and my mind is still on school assignments!!! I think something is wrong with me...... I noticed quite a few people using the kindle on the beach. I wanted to ask them what their thoughts were of the them, but did not have the nerve to talk to them or the want to disturb them. I also heard a conversation between two gentlemen about the newspapers and the internet. Both commented that they read the news on the web, but also purposed the local newspaper to read at home. They both commented that reading the paper on-line was not the same as the feel and texture of the paper newspaper. They also said the the paper version also holds a tradition and cultural that is not the same when reading off the computer. I have to agree with them. There is nothing better than a lazy Sunday morning, coffee in one hand and the paper in the other. I do not think the computer can replicate that for me.