LibraryThing

The tour was easy and simple, and the site is easy to navigate. I searched for the Breadwinner, and it was easy, reviews were easy to read.
I will not be using this site, as I have been using The GoodReads for over a year, and find it equally good.

Reading/writing blog: 5 min
Tour/navigation of Library thing: 10 min
Total time: 15 min

Online productivity tools

I checked Google documents and I loved it! The customers should know about this tool. Also, it has amazing templates for resumes, accounts, etc.
I would continue to use Microsoft Office Programmes, as long as they are available to me, however, I would like to save my 'important' documents in Google documents. Often, when more than one person is working on a report, this tool is highly useful.

Reading and writing the blog: 5 min
Time spent touring Google documents/checking out templates
and creating document: 35 min
Total time spent: 40 min

Flickr and You Tube

I use both of these sites for my personal use. Both sites are very easy to use. Just like the Facebook, You tube can be a great time-waster, but I do like to use it for complicated recipes.

Flickr tour: 3 min
You Tube videos: 10 min
This blog: 1 min
Total time: 14 min

RSS

Surprisingly, it was very easy to set up the RSS feed at Bloglines. And I managed to add BBC/CBC news and a number of other sites. However, I do NOT like the Bloglines interface! It is really cluttered, and I would not be using it for my information gathering!!!!

Read and understand the assignment: 10 min.
Set up Bloglines account: 1 min
Add web sites: 3 min
Look at the websites on bloglines: 5 min
Totak time: 19 min

GOOOOOOOOOOGLE!

I like Google! It definitely helps me at the INFO desk to look up the correct spelling of an author/singer! Only if Symphony was half as intuitive as Google... we can only wish!!!!
I have used Google Earth since it started, it really is a cool programme. If you have friends and family living at far out places, you can almost see houses on the Google Earth.
For this assignment, I checked Google Chrome, and read a bit about it.
I checked out Google labs, and especially Script Converter, and Google Transliteration. Script converter is a wonderful tool which converts text and web pages written in one script to its phonetic equivalent in another script. Right now, only a few languages are available. I tried English to Hindi conversion, and it worked very well. This can be a valuable tool for the ESL purposes when all languages are included. With Google Transliteration, I could very easily type in Hindi using the English keyboard. Both of these tools need some work done (esp. the language database is limited), but I think would be highly valuable. I would highly recommend both of these tools to my friends. I am hoping Google will create a programme for libraries, and that surely would be great!!!!

Google Chrome: 5 min
Google Labs: 20 min
Writing this blog 5 min.
Total time: 30 min.

Facebooking!

This was an easy assignment for me as I do spend a LOT of time on the FB! I got on the FB to look for a long lost friend...unfortunately, I haven't yet located her.

So, the question: is FB good for me: not sure. I still use e-mail and phone to keep in touch. It is good for sharing pictures, but the addiction part is not good!!

Time spent on the CPL FB page: 5 min.
Writing this blog: 5 min. (too many interruptions today)
Total time: 10 min.

Wikipedia

It was not an easy task for me to find an article I wanted to edit: as that required proper references, and due to time restraints, it was not possible. As there was nothing about my branch in the Wikipedia, I thought about creating an article, however, once again I was prevented from doing that as I did not have proper references! So, I tried to find a cooking article where two different spellings of a food item were used, and I easily edited that. It was a fun exercise indeed, and quite useful.

To the Anonymous in the Delicious comments, from now on, I will be keeping a note of the time spent during these exercises:
Reading About Wikipedia: 10 min.
Searching for an article about my branch or prairie gardening to edit: 5 min.
Reading how to edit/create: 10 min.
Searching for another article, and editing it: 10 min.
Writing this blog: 5 min.Total time: 40 min.