OLA Super Conference ~ imagine, inspire, make a difference.

I’m officially registered for the 2010 Ontario Library Association Super Conference.

The theme of the conference is: Imagine. Inspire. Make a Difference.

‘Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.’ ~ Howard Thurman

What inspires me? … mobile libraries, digital strategies, collaboration tools, web design, and embracing web 2.0.

If you plan on attending, be sure to take advantage of the online conference planning tool. Here’s my preliminary conference schedule.

Want to follow the conference on Twitter? Tweet: watch for or use tag #sc10

Register soon … fees go up December 23rd. Step up your passion!

my must-have iPhone and iPod Touch apps

I’m an App-addict. There. I said it.

If you’re a new iPod Touch or iPhone owner, you probably spend a fair amount of time in the iTunes Apps Store. I do. I also read alot of reviews and blog posts. Web Worker Daily has a nice round-up of must-have iPhone and iPod Touch Apps for Newbies.

Here’s my must-have list of apps. All are free, and some are for Canadian users too. (Note, links open the app or web developer’s homepage, not the iTunes Apps Store.)

Echofon If you can tolerate the ad-banner at the top, I highly recommend the free version of this app for Twitter. Great for managing multiple Twitter accounts. Offers the ability to upload photos from your Photo Library and post your Profile location.

flickr An amazing app for flickr-addicts! You can search photos, view your photostream, sets, tags, favourites, and photos from your contacts. You can upload photos directly from your iPhone/iPod Touch photo library too.

Facebook Stay connected with all your Facebook friends.

iGO Union Stations Departure Board A must have for GO Transit commuters. The app could use with some enhancements — route schedules for given date/time and a system map. Overall, it does the job of keeping you up-to-date on track information and delays.

Linkedin This app offers most of the same functionality as the web version: see all network updates, Inbox, search, view connections, update your status, and send invites. Contact information for your connections can be added directly to your iPhone/iPod Touch address book.

NetNewsWire I’m hooked on this free RSS-app for Google Reader. You can download your feeds and read them offline.

Remote Nifty app from Apple that turns your iPhone/iPod Touch into a remote for controlling your iTunes music from your Mac or Apple TV.

SIRIUS I’m seriously loving this Internet-radio app. You’ll need a SIRIUS account, or you can sign-up for a free 14 day trial. I love the ‘favourites’ option that lets me bookmark my channels. It also offers the ability to buy songs via iTunes.

Shortcovers an online e-book reader from Chapters Indigo. Great Canadian content, but you need to be wifi-connected and online to read the content.

Stanza The original e-book reader that lets you access 50,000 free classics and books from Project Gutenburg. Download and read books offline. I’m currently reading “Howards End”.

Twitteriffic The original Twitter application that Mac users have come to love. It includes nearby location search and trending topics.

Tumblr If you’re a Tumblr user, you’ll want to give their app a try. Simple and easy to use, this app gives you the ability to access the dashboard, reblog and like posts, and post directly to your Tumblr. It includes a search feature tht lets you search the entire Tumblrverse, your dashboard and all your posts. Kudos to the Tumblr folks for a super-easy and fast app.

WeatherEye from the Weather Network. This app gives more details than the Weather app that comes standard on the iPhone/iPod Touch. Highly recommended for Canadian users who like to know their P.O.P. and wind readings.

Honourable mentions …

Alarm Clock If you forget yours the way I do, this alarm clock app will do the trick. Just be sure to keep it on and charged while using it.

Corus Radio Listen to radio stations that are part of the Corus Entertainment channel line-up. Stations can be sorted by name, city and nearest location.

TweetDeck If you like TweetDeck for the desktop, you’ll want to give this one a try. The limit on 4 tweets per column and no scroll feature puts this one at the bottom of my list.

Units An app for converting all kinds of measurements. Especially handy for Canadian who got stuck learning both Imperial and Metric, and forever get the two mixed up. (How many inches to a kilometre, you might ask? why 39370.0787402!)

Lastly, there’s the WordPress app. This is on my must-try list. Watch for a blog post using this one soon.

What’s your must-have iPhone/iPod Touch app?

Switching blame

Oh, hello there! It’s been a long time since my last blog post.    A quick look in my draft view shows a long list of abandoned posts.  It seems that each time I’ve wanted to blog something, someone has already retweeted or Tumbled it.   Social media is about rewind, it seems.  I’ve made the decision to only blog, reblog, tweet, retweet and Tumblr what is really interesting to ME. If you want to stop reading now, I’m cool with that.

My lack of blog posts is also the result of switching to a Mac.   After years of frustration with my current computer, I decided to get an iMac.   I was tired of using my PC for simply surfin’. I was tired of the problems I’ve had with Windows viruses.  I’m not a Windows-basher, as I live in a Windows world by day. My “PC-friends” are looking forward to Windows 7 and one day, just one day, I may even try Bootcamp.

At the end of the day, it’s nice to come home to my Mac.    You see, I now spend more time exploring my music and photos. iLife and PhotoBooth rocks in our house. Things just seem to work more harmoniously on a Mac.

I believe that technology is both a tool and an experience.  If the tool isn’t giving you a happy experience, like an old boyfriend, fix it OR ditch it.

Move over PC-boyfriend, my Mac now gives me that happy experience.

(Now you can’t blame a gal for spending less time blogging, can you?)

Design Commandments

Dieter Rams, an industrial designer for Braun, is well known in the design world for his ten commandments of good design:

• Innovative
• Useful
• Aesthetic
• Self-explanatory
• Unobtrusive
• Honest
• Durable
• Thorough
• Environmentally-friendly
• As little design as possible

Tor Løvskogen Bollingmo takes it one step further with his Design Commandments.

Built on Ram’s 10 Commandments, the site provides some useful links to help you apply the principles to website and application design.

loving TweetDeck

I’ve been silent on this blog for a few weeks now. A look through my abandoned draft posts says it all, I live in the Internet NOW and Twitter is at the heart of it. I just discovered TweetDeck, and it’s nursing my Twitter addiction.

TweetDeck is this really nifty and free Adobe Air application that makes tweeting so much easier and faster.

TweetDeck has managed to do something other Twitter apps have not — integrate all the features of Twitter in one dashboard. TweetDeck’s simple design makes it easy to see tweets, replies, favourites and DMs in columns. You can also create groups and easily select followers to add to those groups. All my followers from libraryland are joined together in my “Librarian Group”. Same thing for my Tumblr followers.

TwitterSearch and Twitscoop are one-click away. You can also login to Facebook for status updates and use Twitpic to share photos. TweetDeck supports URL-shortening services such as TinyURL, tri.im, and Twurl.

TweetDeck is in beta, but overall it’s an awesome tool that works on Macs, Windows and Linux. Read more at the TweetDeck blog or get it now.

That’s all for now. Heading back to TweetDeck for my Twitter-fix ……