Post #30 - Spring Cleaning - Take Load of our Drives

I looked at the S: drive. I only put the Adult newsletter there in the "Publicity to be printed" file and delete it the next month. I have been doing this to avoid having the wrong newsletter printed, but it also keeps the clutter down.

I deleted several things from the P: drive. I deleted YA newsletters from 2003 and 2004, as well as adult newsletters from 2006 and half of 2007.

I went on to clean up my personal folder on the Z: drive. I moved several documents and a couple pictures to my flash drive, including a slide show from TS Allison. I then deleted them from the Z: drive. The TS Allison file was the oldest file I deleted, from 2001.

Post #29 - Spring Cleaning - e-mail

I have 2 personal e-mail accounts - one with Yahoo and one with Gmail. So I don't use HCPL account for personal e-mail. Although I do recieve personal e-mail in my HCPL account on occasion. I have gotten used to deleting sent mail, trash mail, and mail in various folders on a regular basis. I have had my e-mail sorted in folders since we started with this new e-mail. I do tend to leave things in the inbox too long and will remember to take appropriate action more quickly in the future.

My address book is cleaned out as necessary. I have addresses in it for members of my book club who I write to once a month about the book for that month. Even those who no longer attend want to receive the e-mails. I ask them periodically if they want to be removed and usually get no response.

Since I like to keep my Inbox pretty clear, I will continue to use folders and the delete key for that purpose.

Post #28 Spring Cleaning - Expensive Cyberspace

GTD - getting things done was interesting, but is way more complex than I need to get myself organized. Basically using t0-do lists and the delete key are all that I need. I keep my e-mail fairly up-to-date by deleting old messages and using folders for those I decide to hold on to for a short time.

I have used the Google calendar in the past, but I found I don't look at it. I am better just using notes to me on scratch paper and the monthly schedule that Annette copies for us, along with my monthly calendar on the counter at home.

I did sign up for Ta-da list and have set up two "books to read" lists. These lists will keep getting longer all the time and will never be complete!

Post #26 Making Music Together

MySpace grew from a site to connect bands to listeners and fans with other fans to a huge social networking site. The social aspects are now its biggest draw. There are newer sites now that emphasize the music. Mog is a site created specifically to link people together based on the music they like. I listened to "The Felice Brothers" which was a new band for me and I read the review by Kronski.

Imeen is an online community where millions of fans and artists discover new music, videos, and photos, and share their taste with friends. I listened to some of the samples listed under new music.

Project Playlist is used to share music with your friends.
Phling! is the mobile music community service that connects you to all the music, podcasts, and pictures stored on your PC, to your friends, and to everyone in the phling! community. All from your mobile phone.
You can use your mobile phone to listen to your music anywhere, anytime without having to first synchronize with your PC. With phling! you can also let up to six phling! friends listen to your music, and they can let you listen to their music. You can read and submit song reviews, find out who is listening to what, browse user profiles, and stay in touch by posting messages to your friends' bulletin boards and your own.

Qloud allows you to add a "my music" component to your Facebook or Friendster accounts.

There are many music sights that allow musicians to play together. Here is an excerpt from an article about this phenomenon: "With broadband, social networking apps and web-based audio tools increasingly available and affordable to most people with computers, the world of music is on the verge of big change. That perfect-storm combination of these tools will do for music creation what technology has already done for music consumption: remove barriers of time, space and scarcity." WIRED - Eliot Van Buskirk.

JamStudio helps you create songs by choosing from different set up options which can then be e-mailed to someone for editing. I played with this for awhile and discovered how complex it is to put a song together when you are not musically inclined!! I think my son the musician would love it. I'm sure he knows about it already.

This has been a real education for me about music sharing capabilities online - original music and music created by friends and unknown bands.

Sound #25 Music Piracy - Burning a CD

Once I found a blank CD burning songs to it was fairly easy. I brought in a CD-R from home but it had a file on it and would not let me burn anything to it. I looked in the box of "left-behind" CDs in the Adult Services workroom and found one from last July that was blank. I was able to burn songs from a CD titled "Concert by the Sea" by Erroll Garner to the blank CD. I ripped them and then burned them, in the language of craft. The thing I don't like is that you cannot burn additional files to a CD after burning is complete, so you'd better know what you want before you start. If you are using a CD-RW, you can erase the entire CD before using the player to burn files to the CD again.