E books

Just the thing to keep the travel pack light. Ebook readers have always been the limiting factor for fiction readers - but for researchers needing to find text on line the content is now extensive.Enjoyed browsing through some of the resources on Friedbeef. Book covers, even for eBooks are a great addition to aid selection. Personally podcasts are more appealing but am still stuggling with downloads of podcasts to my ipod. Also on the list for follow up homework!

Second Life

How do I get more first life time to get to grips with Second Life?! (Maybe there is Youtube coverage on this!!) Learning possibilities and opportunities are obviously emormous as the various the Youtube videos demonstrate. Have marked this Web 2.0 area for further exploration. Do wonder how the energy inputs of second life learning stack up against real life learning - but then if learning is more successful in second life then outcome needs to be factored into the equation.. More research required. Open University used TV to reach students who were unable to travel to a capmpus to study - hard to believe but that was fairly radical in it's day. Second Life in many ways is just a progression of taking learning to the point of need.

YouTube

This has to be the ultimate Web 2.0 applications for travellers. Find videos of far away and exotic places that never feature on the TV travel show, check out a location before visiting and get the feel of the local community. Descriptors are a bit lacking but if time and bandwidth are unlimited there is so much to experience. Here are the jumping monkeys from Jodphur - with beautiful music! http://youtube.com/watch?v=8xK-y7KGIfE

Podcasts

Plenty of useful and interesting material here but much more time needed! Haven't quite got the RSS feed sorted yet!

Rollyo meets Del.icio.us

At first encounter I thought Rollyo was going to be another interesting but not terribly useful application. But the more I think about it, the more potential it seems to have. Created a Rollyo to harmonise with a group of my Del.icio.us bookmarks and hey presto I can search my customised list. Very neat - now it would be good if Rollyo would allow me to quickly import my Del.icio.us tags, rather than having to cut and paste them

Wikis

Great concept and there are some really attractive and easy to use options for creating wikis available. Huge time saving for libraries with little IT support. Have come across Library Success: A best practices wiki before and of course Wikipedia. Wikis are ideal as staff collaborative spaces and mnay libraries are using them for staff intranets,procedure and training portals. One of the best I have seen is https://wiki.lib.umn.edu/ which makes good use of graphics and colour. The wiki blog combination works well.

Library 2.0

A lot of the commentary on library 2.0 is now 2+ years old . Great to see the advances that some libraries have made. The toughest barriers to using Web 2.0 seem be the loosening up of control by institutions to allow user participation and the dilemma of how much time to spend checking out new applications to find something useful to add to service delivery. Few libraries seem to active strategies for investigating/trying new applications...(and it does take time!)so blogs like The Librarian in Black are great time savers.

Del.icio.us

I'm a big fan of Delicious, its easy to set up, customise and use. Would just like a bit more functionality - ordering links by most recent additions is about the most useless sort point I could imagine....The word cloud seems useful on huge sets of links but on a modest list there is nothing like a well controlled list of subject terms to aid navigation. Found several examples of library sites, which like SLT, pull in Delicious content and build it into their own webpages. Not hard to do with a little IT support. Stanford has an impressive collection with very interesting colour scheme!! https://www.stanford.edu/group/ic/cgi-bin/drupal/delicous

iGoogle

Fun to play around with, and easy to add components but ultimately found that what I really use most is the nifty little Google search box that sits in my toolbar. Really don't have time to wait around to sign in (on some pcs)and then for iGoogle to load up and that's on broadbands!!

Google Books

Getting a little Webbed out! Have been so busy investigating new products that there has been little time to blog about them. Google Books was a bit of a non event for me - could think of other resources that would give me book info faster and more comprehensively. I do like the interlinking with Worldcat though. Maybe when it gets bigger and more connected I could have more use for it.....

Google maps

Every traveller needs a map or two. Had fun checking out Google maps for Mumbai. The route planner is great for working out how to get from my hotel to places of interest and the Satellite view gives a sneak preview of places yet to be visited. Have to wonder when the images were taken - hardly a car to be seen on the streets of this amazingly busy city!! Like the opportunity to see the annotated maps put up by other visitors to the city.

Google docs itinerary

A great way to share my travelling itinerary with friends. Put the outline of travel up as a Google doc and created hyperlinks to images and websites to add colourful detail to the trip. Easily shared with friends who can log in a share my experiences and add thier own. Great potential here, and no fear of losing info saved to a memory stick as I raft down rivers and cross steamy jungles. Travelling light - that's the way to go!

Facebook and staying in touch

Created a Facebook account and now enjoying keeping tabs on all of my new found friends. Beats email for appeal but do I really want to know this much about everyone?? Will come back to investigate more of Facebook's potential when I have a day off from travelling the virtual world.

RSS - Info travelling to me while I travel

Now I have useful info finding me without having to spend valuable travel time surfing the web. Weather forecasts, new travel books from the library and breaking news from eIndia to name but a few. Pity DFAT isn't that connected - maybe I can do without travel warnings in virtual travel space...

Travel reference guide -Image generators

That smart little elephant on the sidebar was created using image chef http://www.imagechef.com/ic/poem/ - still working on bringing you a taste of India. Have been discovering that WYSI (not necessarily)WYG - different browsers add that random element to a blog... The free aspect of these applications is indeed fabulous but sometimes just a little more functionality would be valuable.

# Sharing my photos -out on the streets

Where are we, did you say? Well, on the streets of Mumbai, previously known as Bombay and home to around 12 million people. Its a pleasant 37 degrees and sunny. Here are some of the folk I ran into. Quite flamboyant some of them - maybe famous Bollywood stars?
And now its time to eat - find me in the markets.

We have arrived!

Well here we are in Cyberspace, a little late but raring to go (just don't ask me about rectangles!). This place is not so bad - may need a bit more decorating but that can wait - the world awaits so we are heading out to play