Twitter

Oh, twitter. How I wish I could be as excited about you as everyone else. I do enjoy the whole social network thing but I've been primarily using Facebook. I mean, it's been apart of my life since 2005.  I can't believe I've been on there for 6 years already. It's taken a long time to build that "community" atmosphere.  I think the reason I am tentative to branch out to another social network is I don't know many people who "tweet".  I'll have to start all over again to build that network. That is probably what everyone feels when they try something new.

Anyway, I did set up a twitter account:  geekylibrarian was already taken so I am ageekylibrarian.  HUGE difference isn't it??  I did start following tcpltweets.  I'm also following John Green (because he writes YA novels and he's awesome), Shannon Hale (also writes YA novels and also awesome), and Stephanie Perkins (writes amazing YA novels and is extremely awesome).  Also, because I'm a TV addict and need my scoop (and yes I admit it, spoilers) I started following Michael Ausiello. 

I did end up posting a link using John Green's awesome link shortener: http://dft.ba. For those of you who are not familiar DFTBA stands for "Don't Forget To Be Awesome", which we all need reminded of every day.   And let's face it everyone is awesome in their own way and we all forget sometimes (at least I do).  What was I talking about?  Oh yeah, my link.  Anyway because I'm completely and utterly obsessed I posted a link to . . . yep you guessed it, Pinterest! 

I also uploaded an image and to save you from going to my twitter account and clicking on the link I'm just going to share it here.  I found it on Pinterest and I think it's awesome.

So that is the story of my journey through the wilds of twitter.  Hope you enjoyed it! Or at least chuckled a little bit at my geekyness.  Is that a word?  Not really sure.  Gosh, you think a librarian would know that wouldn't you?

Picnik

For a free image editing site, Picnik was not bad.  My mom is a photographer and I have used her Adobe Photoshop to edit photos before.  For image editing, nothing really beats Photoshop.  I mean it has become a verb for pete's sake!
 

 I'm really going to embrace my "geeky-ness" here.  

The images I chose are from the Backstreet Boys concert I went to this past summer.

Before: 

 After:

I did a couple more just for fun.

 Before:

After:

Picnik would be really fun to use with the teens.  Sometimes I take pictures at our library programs and it would be fun to have them adjust their photos to create scrapbooks or to upload to a teen programming blog.  Since you can add fun words and cute "stickers" to the images I think the teens would really get a kick out of Picnik.  

I did find Pixlr much more similar to Adobe Photoshop.  I think Picnik is much more user friendly but Pixlr has more to offer in the way of image editing.

Here is the image I edited using Pixlr:

I really like the "vintage" feel of this photo. 

Flickr

I haven't had much experience with Flickr personally.  I have used it for work, contributing to the virtual tour. Usually when I end up on Flickr it is because I've clicked on a picture that took me to someone's page.  I have never really had a desire to use Flickr because I am happy just using Facebook for uploading my pictures.

For the purposes of this assignment I decided to look up pictures of Venice, Italy because I think it is just beautiful. 

I did have some trouble adding images to my blog.  I did not want to save them and then upload them, I just wanted to link to them.  Many of the photos of Venice are copyright protected so I had trouble finding the link to the image itself and not the website that held the image.  After much huffing and puffing and hair pulling I eventually figured out how to "copy image location" to get the correct .jpg link.   

I did create a flickr account as well.  I have upload some pictures of one of my recent programs which was a Steampunk Program.

I Geek Knitting

At work we've recently gotten some posters from Geek the Library. In celebration of my geeky-ness I've decided to share with you what I geek.

 

One of my favorite knitting sites is called Ravelry.  It is like facebook for knitters and crocheters.  People share what their working on and post pictures.  Many people also post patterns that they have designed or yarn that they make, dye, or spin.  I have found lots of free patterns on there.    

One more link just for fun.  Check out this facebook page on yarnbombing.