Avatar

Just where did the word avatar come from? My closest dictionary (Oxford American Desk Dictionary, Oxford University Press, 1998) says it's from Hindu mythology and means the "descent of a deity to earth...in bodily form".

So all these little cartoon characters are deities? Wow. I've never been called a goddess before. I've called myself a goddess but I don't think that counts.

I used Doppleme when my first avatar from DigiBody wouldn't save. Here I am, in all my goddess-like glory.

Like I said, I am goddess-like! Well, maybe a linebacker goddess, or a goalie goddess, but a goddess nonetheless.

Final thoughts on 23 Things

When I first heard about this program I was excited. I would finally understand some of those obscure things and words that pop up all time! I wouldn't have to cross my eyes and admit, "I haven't the faintest clue what you're talking about" ever again.

Hah! It's even worse now.

I swear, since I started the 23 Things a thousand more "things" have been discovered, developed, or just plain made up. No one can keep up with it all. Good thing I don't try or I'd be really frustrated.

I did, however, polish up my knowledge of all the 23 Things. I knew some before but it's never a bad thing to refresh your knowledge. So my goal has been fulfilled. The only problem I see is that nothing stands still and while I'm 23-thinging someone is making up another 23 things I should know.

One thing I wasn't aware of was just how much work goes into something like this. It's only 23 Things but they were offered to over 200 employees. And some of them probably didn't follow all the instructions so they were surprised at some point. Like me.

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Gotcha!

Florida Electronic Library

I didn't stop at one database or one search. I chose a couple of different things just to keep myself out of trouble.

I searched the Health Center database for melanoma. I found quite a few articles but most of it was above my head. I find that a lot. lol I did trip over an article about the success of Interferon (the treatment I had) in treating the disease. So I was "out of trouble" twice with that hit!

Then I pulled up the Fashion through the Ages. Wonderful online index but the entries were not links, instead you had to put your word into the search box. So I did. I searched cravats, spencers, pelisses, and...well, it's better that I don't say what I stumbled across. I came away with a better understanding of these clothing items which will help me in my writing. Always a good thing.

These tools are an excellent resource for the researcher, teacher, and student. Some are geared specifically for children, some for adults, and some should come with a warning to read only with a Webster's Unabridged Dictionary or a medical dictionary at your elbow. But it's all good stuff that was not available to the regular library user even a short ten years ago.

Darn. Did I say ten years was short? Oy-vay!

Personal Online Library

How do they expect me to limit myself to 200 books?! Now I'll end up spending money so I know what books I have. Geesh.

Librarything.com is so simple a caveman could do it. Biggest problem was remembering book titles. For a librarian, I sure am bad about that.

The first book I searched for almost overwhelmed me. Little did I know it was because of what book it was, and that other search results would not be quite so daunting. I searched for "king stand". Got 300 + hits. Paged through them, and through them, went back to the beginning...still couldn't find the one I wanted to add. I wanted the original, 1978 release. I finally found it and lo and behold it doesn't even have a picture. It's been released many times since then. I added a few other titles, stuck in some tags, and logged out. I logged back in (I like to see what a site looks like when you come in the regular way) and was surprised (shocked, really) to see a list of all the other people who have that book in their library. Uh, why do I need to know that?

Anyway, it's an easy, online way to keep track of your books. However, if they're not right there on your shelf, where could they be? Oh, yeah. If you're like me most of them are in the boxes under your bed.

Here's the link: My library

Technological Protection

What a bugaboo! I hate thinking about, talking about, or learning about computer protection because there are so many options. I don't even know what they're talking about half the time.

Is my IU protected? I don't know. I didn't even know I had one. In fact, I'm not sure I do.

I run the free version of AVG on my home computers. So far, so good. But I never trust when it comes up and says "No threats found" because it only knows about the threats that it knows about. Right? Right! So I'm relaxing while some unknown virus is eating the data off my hard drive! Gotta love it.

So, with that caveat, why spend money? AVG is always mentioned in the best security articles I've read. It's not perfect but nothing else is either. So, I'll stick with it for now.

As for backing up my data...yeah, I need to do that. I've been saying that for years by the way. I put some of my writing on flashdrives as back up but I can never find the same flash drive so I end up with three different versions of the same writing on three different flash drives. Not very effective.

I did not know about the backup option on Windows. I'm going to look into that. And I've looked at Moxy before but Lifehacker (love the name!) says it's better now. So I'll take another look.

As a writer, the security of my writing is very important to me. But the biggest threat I feel is to my financial information. I use Verasigned (is that correct?) sites and my bank and credit union claim to be protected. However, five major companies recently emailed me to say my personal information had been hacked into. They all use the same "security" on their sites. So how secure is that?

But, you know what, I HATE snail mail. Hate it, hate it. I empty my mailbox maybe twice a week and the piles of trash grow higher and higher in my house. So I'll keep paying online and keeping up with whatever security "the experts" say I need. If I had the money I'd hire someone to take care of my online security. Right after I hire a maid.

Regency England in Bing and Altavista

So, I performed my tried-and-true search term in two different search engines. I had used Bing previuosly but was pleasantly surprised with the results I achieved today. I don't remember what I searched for before but the results didn't make me change my home page.

Bing gave me a nice list of Regency sites, many I was aware of, and many I was not. That's a very good thing because there is a dearth of information on this particular time period, although more and more is becoming available. One thing I discovered was that Bing offers images. I was not aware of that.

Altavista pretty much gave me the same results. When the results loaded, many of the links had changed colors indicating that I had opened them before. This search engine did not provide images in my standard search. When I added the term images to my search there was no one site that combined images for me. Many of the sites listed showed the word images in the headline text.

Next I tried metacrawler. It did not produce a significant amount of new data. Since the top three hits are paid for, I had things like "Shop for Regency England at buy.com!" lol (It appears that anything can be purchased these days.) This mega site did come up with many of the same sites as the two search engines. I may have had different results using another term but I use what I'm used to. lol

Way back when, there were fewer search engines. I liked the specialized ones the best. Altavista used to be for the more scholarly results with fewer ads, and I found it very useful in providing reference service. Since Google evolved most of the general population use it for all their everyday and basic searches. That's not a bad thing, but it is limiting.

Google Stuff

I use Google maps all the time. I have the Internet and a GPS on my phone and use the maps to locate places I've never been to. I once traveled around Jacksonville, going from used bookstore to used bookstore (courtesy of Google maps) trying to unload a bunch of erotic donations! Didn't think they'd sell very well at the library since we're surrounded by churches and elementary schools. ;o}

I also use Google images. Frequently. I like to dress up things like my blog (!), my emails, flyers I have to make, and to just see what comes up sometimes. I am currently using Google images to find non-copyrighted things to use on a new personal website.

To keep with the idea of learning and trying something new, I went into Google Scholar. My search term was  (gasp!) Regency England. Some of the results were simply citations (catcalls). They aren't even links. So if you want it, you have to locate it yourself. (Or, call your local public library, of course.) I did discover some full-text items that may be of interest to my research. An Italian in Regency England is about Ugo Foscolo, an Italian poet who lived the last years of his life in, surprisingly enough, Regency England. I will read more later.

Google is an exceptional tool and, like all tools, you need to know when to use it and when to pick up a simple screwdriver.