Final Thoughts

Yeah, this is the final exercise! I'm nearly finished. This has been an interesting journey. I enjoyed some exercises and others I just as soon never heard about. I most enjoyed flickr, podcasts and blogging. These are things I can see using in my personal life. It was ok learning about the others, but I have no use for them at this time - even professionally.

Did this help me on lifelong learning goals? I don't know. I know a bit more about podcasts and blogging now. If I can find the time, I would like to use flickr to share photos with friends and family as it would be easier than trying to email them. I didn't have any specific goals for this journey other than completing it and earning a mp3 player (I hope) - :).

The only suggestion for improvement would be to look at the potential work load of the exercises. A couple of weeks were harder to complete due to the number and complexity of the exercises combines with my usual workload. Would I participate in another discovery program? That would depend on my interest on the program.

I would like to thank the people organizing this journey. I'm sure it was a job getting everything set up and answering all our questions. Thank you for all your help.

Podcast

I had been thinking about subscribing to podcasts for a while, but hadn't acted on it. After reviewing each of the directories, I registered on Podcast Alley. I thought it was the easiest to use. It was interesting to see how many podcasts are available on the three topics I chose - Harry Potter, Disney and Battlestar Galactica. HP had more than Disney. That surprised me.

For my first subscription, I chose Pottercast by the people at The Leaky Cauldron. I haven't had a chance to actually listen to anything yet, but it is on my bloglines account now. I hope to add WDWToday as well. I'll have to download the application to listen to podcasts at home so maybe this weekend.

Overdrive

I think this is a great service - particularly for those who listen to a lot of audio books. I like that you can search by title, author and genre. I only found one title that I might be willing to download, but only if I had some time off as it can't be burned to a cd. Some authors had a large list of available titles, others only had the newest release. I had hoped to find Harry Potter books or titles by some of my favorite romance authors but I found only the one title. Oh well. Guess I have to keep checking out the ones I can find at the library.

YouTube

YouTube is an interesting place. If you have insomnia and want to stare at a computer for a while, this is the place to go. You can see just about anything you want and certainly things you don't want to see. I do like the comments and related videos sections. Before my trip to Australia, my group leader sent a few links to YouTube videos about Australia. After viewing one, I saw a humorous knock off in the related videos section.

If you are a Harry Potter fan, there are a couple of videos using puppets. One is about a mysterious ticking sound. All the characters pop up chanting their own names. It is really rather strange.

My favorite video is one my group leader sent. It is "come to Australia, you might accidently get killed" and is about the deadly animals down under. I hope you take a look at it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy_TB6onHVE&feature=related

Biblio.com

I chose a book site called biblio.com. It lists out of print books that are available at a participating used bookstore. I tried looking up a couple of books I know are hard to find. I was able to find two specific titles and two other authors. I may have to use the site to get one of the titles.

It was easy to use. I'd like a couple of extra search features though. Being on the award list makes me feel you can trust the site and possibly the sellers more than if I had just come across the site on my own. I can see offering the site to a customer when we no longer own a title.

Zoho

I can see using Zoho if you are away from your computer for an extended time and want to create something you can get to later. For day to day stuff, I'll stick with Word. I did like the spell check feature that highlights all errors at one time. That is something I'd like to see in Word. I did post my document to my blog "TAS, PMS and Inventory".

TMS, PMS and Inventory

TAS and PMS and inventory - Oh my!

 

TAS is driving me crazy. On the whole, it was easier to have someone do the payroll - particularly for part time. Now I have to make sure they get it done each week. Now we have to enter their leave hours in a truly bizarre fashion. What is with entering leave hours and the hours they would have worked? It looks as if they are getting double paid. TAS is also annoying when you are the person who approves timesheets and its your short week. UGH.

 

Its PMS time again. Have you kept up with your log? Are you ready to prove you shine - or not? Hope everyone gets what they deserve.

 

Inventory sounds like a great idea but there's one problem. I have several items I've been trying to find for weeks. Inventory this past Saturday shows they are in the building - BUT WHERE!!!!!! I still can't find them.