Friday, June 25, 2010

Books to movies

There have been some very successful movie adaptations of children's and young adults' books recently - Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief and How To Train Your Dragon are just two that spring to mind.

There have also been some disappointing flops - Inkheart and The Tale of Despereaux - are both wonderfully crafted, rich stories, and both just failed to fire on the big screen.

Others books due to make the transition to film include Tomorrow When The War Began (check out the trailer here), Beezus & Ramona, Legends of the Guardians (based on the first three books of Kathyn Lasky's Guardians of Ga'Hoole series) and of course Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1.

 The Graveyard Book, Judy Moody, Breaking Dawn, Mr Popper's Penguins, and the one I am most looking forward to, Michael Morpurgo's The War Horse are all slated for production inside the next 12-18 months.

 Some books just seem 
perfect for the big screen. Charlie Fletcher's Stoneheart series is a stand out example for me; probably due in part to the fact that Fletcher is an accomplished screen writer already.

Others would be James Patterson's Maximum Ride series. And Robert Muchamore's Cherub series.

What are some titles that you have read that you would love to see at the movies?

Thursday, June 24, 2010

My new toy

Have just been playing around with Zoho Notebook - and I like it!
It is a similar sort of application to Evernote, but on the face of it, it appears to be a bit more user friendly and intuitive than Evernote.  Here is a video showing some of the things you can do.
Any negatives?  Well, the extension for Chrome doesn't work in Google pages, so you can't clip a Google page directly into your notebook from a web page.   You can still put the web page in by adding the URL, it just takes a little bit  longer, and means you are switching from the web page you are viewing, to your notebook.  The extension does work for other websites however, and works well, giving you the options of saving the URL, highlighted text, or a screenshot.
A small drawback is that you don't seem to be able to tweet directly to it, the way you can with Evernote. But that may be just a matter of time.
That is all I have found so far, but I feel the need to explore further.  Uh oh - new toys!

Wandering as lonely as a cloud....


While I do use quite a few applications in the cloud - such as Delicious, LibraryThing, Evernote, Twitter, Picasa Web, Google Reader - I have remained tied to my desktop computer's hard drive when it comes to letters, spreadsheets and reports.  Why?  Not sure - probably haven't felt the need to access such things away from either my home computer or my work one.  Maybe it was a good excuse - "oh, (insert appropriate profanity here) I can't keep working on that assignment now, I don't have access to the file.  Never mind, I'll spend that time checking out what has come in on Google Reader - much more interesting!'  
I also usually have a pen drive with me - so anything I have been working on that I know I need to work on at another computer, has been saved to that.  Having said that, there have been a few times when I have unexpectantly needed to access documents I have been working on elsewhere - only to have to resort to writing myself a note, so I don't forget!  I then promptly forgot where I put the note.  Somewhere safe no doubt.
Time for a change - I have signed up to Zoho. I chose Zoho over Google Docs, mainly due to the excellent reviews I had read.  It was interesting to note that along with the many comments about how good it was, many were wondering how long it will be before Google buys Zoho out!
I have to say, that from what I have seen so far - it's good!  I seem to be able to do all the things I would be able to do using Word and Excel (the programs I use most often).  Zoho Writer (the only one I have used so far) is clearly laid out, and I like the tabbed format (very similar to Word 2007).  I can share documents with others.  And I really do like that I can tag documents.
And, I can post straight to my blog (hopefully - assuming this has post has worked!).  No excuses now!  Yep, I think I am a convert - I have seen the light!

Thursday, June 17, 2010

It's not a widget, but it is much more interesting....

In my current module of CCL Learn I am meant to do a blog post about widgets.  Hmmm, that sounds like a fun read - not!

While I am waiting for inspiration to strike, have a look at this....Anne Frank - The Secret Annex

This is a virtual tour of the secret annex Anne Frank and her family lived in for two years.  Not only does it provide a virtual tour of the tiny spaces they shared, the site has some excellent resources for further study.



Oh, by the way, I put in a couple of widgets - one to follow me on Twitter, and one to bookmark this blog on Delicious - now wasn't the Anne Frank site much more interesting than that?!

Friday, June 4, 2010

Virtual tour of the Sistene Chapel


This is just amazing - a 360 degree virtual tour of the Sistene Chapel.  Take a look, you won't regret it.

There are no words or links, just rotate your view using your mouse.









Thanks to the Bright Ideas blog for this link. 

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Twitter and libraries

Check out this article from the SCIS website on the use of Twitter by libraries Twitter for libraries (and librarians) .

Wellington City Libraries makes good use of Twitter to connect with its customers, while the National Library of New Zealand regularly tweets photos from the library's digital collection.

What are your thoughts on libraries that tweet?  How have they put it to good use for their customers?

Twitter

Twitter - mention this word and people either roll their eyes in a reaction normally only reserved for a new Justin Bieber song; or they wax lyrical about how great Twitter is and how they didn't know how they made it through each day before Twitter was hatched.  I fall into the second group (despite my daughter's very best efforts to convert me to a Bieber fan - THAT I will easily resist til the day I die).

I have two Twitter accounts - one as thebookwitch and one as, well, something else ( I like to keep my work interests and my fantasy world quite separate!).  As thebookwitch I follow all sorts of interesting people and organisations.  But I'm just a novice - check out some of the people I follow for some good suggestions.  So far today there have been tweets on what libraries will look like in 2015, today in NZ history, Wellington City Libraries' top 10 mystery books, and a test for identifying phishing scams.

Using a client such as TweetDeck or Seesmic is invaluable - it's effectively the same as getting your RSS feeds to your homepage, rather than having to go to each website.  From TweetDeck I can see both of my twitter accounts; any lists I use; I can search; I can tweet from one account, or from the other, or from both; and I can post to Facebook too if I so choose.  And I am just scratching the surface.

To date, I am guilty of being a Twitter lurker, and have done very little tweeting of my own - must rectify that, soon.  In the meantime, who do you follow on Twitter?