Getting to know Dropbox

Using the statement “Before this class I never knew” is how I seem to start many of my blog posts but it is true. This class has introduced me to many new social media tools I have never heard of. I swear to you I didn’t live under a rock. However, I was born in 1964 so that puts me at the very tail end of the Baby Boomers so that may explain my lack of knowledge of many of these tools. Unlike some Boomers though, I am eager to learn as much as I can about this technology as not only does my job as a librarian depend on it but it fascinates me. Following is the latest tool I just learned about and I wanted to share it with you in case you too begin a lot of your sentences with “Before this class I never knew . . .”

In 2007, Dropbox had its humble beginnings in a Boston train station when one of its founders, MIT student Drew Houston, forgot his USB stick at home. Now Dropbox serves users in 200 countries.

Their About Page describes Dropbox as a free service that lets you bring your photos, docs, and videos anywhere and share them easily. This means that any file you save to your Dropbox will automatically save to your computers, phones and even the Dropbox website. The Dropbox online tour describes it as follows “Dropbox works hard to make sure that all your files are the same no matter where you’re working from. This means that you can start working on a computer at school or the office and finish from your home computer. Never email yourself a file again!”

Dropbox also makes sharing very easy. You can invite your friends and family to any folder in your Dropbox. You can also send people links to specific files in your Dropbox. Dropbox keeps your files safe even if your computer crashes. You can also undo mistakes even undelete files.

I’m glad I was introduced to this tool as I will definitely be using it in the future. There’s been many times when I’ve had to stop work on a project because I was away from my PC and only had my laptop and didn’t have the files I needed. I just wish I had known about it sooner!

While trying to learn more about Dropbox I found an interesting article titled “10 Things You Didn’t Know Dropbox Could Do” by Matt Petronzio, which appeared on Mashable.com on October 26 2012. I hope these tips help you get more out of Dropbox. Following is the list:
1. “Favorite” Files for Offline Reading”
a. If you “favorite” images or text documents on your mobile device using the Dropbox app, you can access those files later, even if you’re not connected to Wi-Fi or cellular service.
2. Use Dropbox as Your Default Documents Folder
a. To conserve memory and time, you can save files directly to Dropbox from your computer programs. This requires simple commands in Terminal for Mac OS or a small settings change for Windows.
3. Email Files to Dropbox as Attachments
a. When you don’t have access to Dropbox, it comes in handy to have an alternate way to update files. If you create an account at SendToDropbox.com you can send files to a custom email address as attachments. The files will automatically appear in your Attachments folder in Dropbox.
4. Get More Storage – For Free
a. If you’re a free user of Dropbox, you can immediately access 2GB of space, but you can get more storage without having to pay for an upgrade. Dropbox offers 500MB for every friend that you refer to the service, 250MB for completing a “Getting Started” checklist, 125MB for connecting social media and several other options to earn more space.
5. Maintain Firefox Settings Across Multiple Computers
a. It’s difficult to maintain specific preferences or add-ons in Firefox when you use the browser on multiple computers. However, you can download Firefox Portable and store it in Dropbox. Since Firefox Portable can be used anywhere, your settings and add-ons will be synced.
6. Upload Files to Dropbox via URL
a. URL Droplet allows you to upload links straight to your Dropbox folders. All you need to do is take a link (this especially works well if the link leads to a PDF or similar document) and paste it into the URL Droplet form.
7. Download Torrents Remotely
a. Note: This Dropbox tip is intended for legal use only. If you’re away from your personal computer and you’d like to download bit torrent files, ready by the time you get home, Dropbox is a perfect tool. Just adjust the settings in your torrent program (uTorrent, BitTorrent, etc.) to automatically load your torrent in Dropbox.
8. Maintain Two Dropbox Accounts (Advanced)
a. This one can get tricky, so it’s intended for advanced users (using Mac OS). See article for directions.
9. Back up Your Website
a. You can easily back up your website and data on Dropbox which is useful if you’ve spent a lot of time and effort building your site or you’re concerned about your servers.
10. Host Web Pages
a. Want a website, but don’t want to pay for a domain? Want an online portfolio, but don’t know HTML? Dropbox can help. By using services like DropPages or Pancake.io, you can create a small and simple website with minimal effort.

Kathy

Winnipeg University Study Says Frequent Texters More Shallow

Just thought I’d share this article I came across. I think it falls in the “duh” category but it’s still interesting.  It appeared in The Canadian Press on April 12, 2013.

WINNIPEG — A study at the University of Winnipeg says young people who do a lot of texting tend to be more shallow.

The university says more than 2,300 first-year psychology students were surveyed online for three consecutive years.

The results indicate that students who text frequently place less importance on moral, esthetic and spiritual goals and greater importance on wealth and image.

The study says those who texted more than 100 times a day were 30 per cent less likely to feel strongly that leading an ethical, principled life was important, in comparison to those who texted 50 times or less a day.

The study says higher texting frequency was also consistently associated with higher levels of ethnic prejudice.

The university says researchers Dr. Paul Trapnell and Dr. Lisa Sinclair also took texting into the lab.

In the study, some students texted, some spoke on cell phones, and some did neither. Then, all students rated how they felt about different social groups.

Those who had been texting rated minority groups more negatively than the others did.

The university says the experiment was meant to test the so-called “shallowing hypothesis” described in “The Shallows,” a best-selling book by Nicholas Carr.

The theory suggests “ultra-brief social media like texting and Twitter encourages rapid, relatively shallow thought and consequently very frequent daily use of such media should be associated with cognitive and moral shallowness.”

Kathy

Getting Serious About Tumblr

Until this class, I had a vague idea of what Tumblr was. So I went and explored its site. I thought it was really interesting and loved its concise nature, engaging visuals, and the wide variety of the posts. To learn even more about Tumblr, I did some searches on recent articles written about Tumblr and found some really fascinating ideas and opinions about Tumblr.

I found this article by Hayes Davis, titled “Why 2013 Is the Year You Need To Get Serious About Tumblr” and it peaked my interest. In his article, he makes the case that Tumblr can be important to branding and marketing efforts just as much as Facebook, Twitter, etc. He thinks Tumblr is the social network to watch in 2013.

“Consumers in the critical 18-34 year old demographic are hooked on Tumblr, with the average visitor spending 1.5 hours per month on the site. Today, Tumblr hosts 90 million blogs that generate more than 89 million new posts every day. This astronomical growth helped the site soar into lists of the top 10 most popular websites in the U.S. at the end of last year and is attracting significant interest from brands ranging from fashion to finance.”

He believes marketers can no longer ignore Tumblr and those not engaging or at least listening to what their customers have to say on Tumblr have a huge blind spot in their marketing program.

What makes Tumblr unique?

• Brands as Publishers
  • Tumblr is a unique combination of publishing platform and dynamic social network. Tumblr is a highly visual experience so brands can appeal to us on a visceral level through images or animated GIFs. I definitely agree. Tumblr’s strength lies in its extremely visual nature. It’s one of the things that appealed to me the most.
• Content Equity
  • Brands use to be obsessed with blogging because it gave them long-lived content to attract visitors over months and years
  • As brands have focused on content creation on Twitter and Facebook, much of that long-term value has been lost. Tweets and Facebook posts typically aren’t indexed in search engines and quickly become old news as they get pushed to the bottom of feeds.
  • Posts on Tumblr don’t perish shortly after posting like Twitter. “Social amplification and tag-based discovery are core to the Tumblr platform, giving content staying power, with many posts receiving reblogs and ‘likes’ days, weeks, and even months after the original post.” [However, I have heard that Tumblr has a weak search functionality.]
  • “Since Tumblr sites are actually public websites and Tumblr posts are true blog posts, they’re indexed on search engines. This means a brand’s content can reach well beyond its Tumblr followers to any interested person searching the web.”
• Tapping Into Micro Communities
  • “Tumblr harnesses the enthusiasm around a particular topic and coalesces into a community. For brands, this simplifies the process of audience segmentation, because Tumblr provides a built-in audience that has already opted into following specific tags and topics. In turn, brands can post highly targeted content with interest-related tags, and easily reach communities of fans.”

With these unique features, its hold on the important 18-34 year old demographic, and its visually appealing nature, Tumblr is poised for a very bright future.

 

 

Kathy

Not LinkedIn — Yet

I had heard about LinkedIn before but didn’t know much about it. I vaguely understood it was some type of networking tool. And because I’ve been out of the workforce for many years, raising my 3 kids, I felt it really didn’t apply to me. Fortunately, for this class, I learned what a great social tool LinkedIn can be: It’s the largest professional network with 200 million members in over 200 countries and territories around the globe.  LinkedIn’s mission is simple: connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful. When you join LinkedIn, you get access to people, jobs, news, updates, and insights that help you be great at what you do. Now that I’m ready to re-enter the library field, I can see how much LinkedIn can help me out. But I have some reservations of when I should jump in.

LinkedIn is very easy to use and search. I had fun searching for my brother and sister and reading their profiles! I did think it was really helpful when our professors showed us how you can use your LinkedIn contacts to help you put your resume in the hands of the employer you desire. One connection leads to another and another and soon you reach the person who does the hiring for the job you want. They also emphasized that you need to give recommendations if you expect people to do the same for you. It’s definitely an “I’ll-help-you if-you-help-me kind of environment.”

As I mentioned, I am hesitant to officially join LinkedIn because my work experience is quite ancient as I’ve been out of the workforce for so long. Unfortunately, raising 3 children, volunteering at their schools, and being a girl scout leader isn’t the type of job experience that translates well to a LinkedIn profile. 🙂

So here is my question to all of you  — I would love to make contacts on LinkedIn but is it for someone like me?  All my library experience is over 20 years old (pre-kids), except for the volunteer work I’ve done in my children’s elementary school library. I have my MLS that I earned in 1995. I’m currently earning the post-master’s certificate program so I can update my MLS skills. Do people like me use LinkedIn??

My cautious belief is that I need to gain more recent library experience before I can join LinkedIn. Otherwise, I will not be able to reap many of its rewards and may in fact hurt my reputation. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

Kathy Anderson

Pinterest Pulls Me In

Unlike most of the world, I haven’t jumped on the social media bandwagon. I’ve tiptoed in and slowly checked out a few social media tools here and there. Some might call me old-fashioned, but I like to think of myself as traditional. However, to prosper and even survive in this world, I can’t keep my head in the sand any longer. To help me out, my friends have cojaled me into joining Facebook even though I hardly ever post. My classmates last semester chose to have our class meetings on GoogleChat so I quickly had to learn that medium. Before it sounds like I had to be forced to try any new social media, I actually sought out a few on my own. I love photography so I’ve looked at Instagram where I could check out photography by people just like me. And, my passion for organization and this big world full of inspiration, pushed me to check out Pinterest, which is what I chose as my Blog topic today.

In spite of my slow start, I’m actually looking forward to learning more about all the different social media. I have this class to thank for peaking my interest about the social media that is out there.

As I mentioned there is one social media tool that I am familiar with and that is Pinterest. According to Pinterest’s About Page:

Pinterest is a virtual pinboard. Pinterest allows you to organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. You can browse boards created by other people to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests.

I like to think of Pinterest as a group of bulletin boards in which you “pin” things that inspire you. You can organize your pins by having several different boards for whatever categories you like.

It becomes a social tool because people can “repin” your pins onto their own boards if they like what you have on your board. People can also follow your board(s) and will therefore be updated with every pin that you have chosen. I like that Pinterest encourages people to “be authentic” rather than concern yourself with the number of people that follow you.

Pinterest is an expression of who you are. We think being  authentic to who you are is more important than getting lots of followers. Being authentic will make Pinterest a better place long-term.  

It’s also very social in that people can “like” your pins and leave comments. When you pin something, you are encouraged to comment “why” you are repining it, for example, why you like it. All of these things together serve to create a community feel.

Pinterest is very easy to use – even for me. I think the most challenging thing is getting started because you have to get an invitation to get an account. You can’t just request one from Pinterest. You need to ask someone who already has a Pinterest account for an invitation. To me that seems silly.

I personally haven’t used a social media tool that is better than Pinterest. However, I just read a Blog post from a fellow student that describes a tool called Pearltree which sounds like it has some similarities. I will have to check it out.

I have already seen Pinterest fitting into library and information environments. Libraries are slowly adding Pinterest accounts to their websites.  Pinterest is another way to communicate with patrons. I saw one library use Pinterest boards as a way for librarians to share their library’s collection and offer Readers Advisory (Staff Book Picks & Staff Music Picks Boards). One library shared their library programs by posting boards called Teen Scene Board and Arts & Crafts Boards.

And one board on a public library site that I thought was very socially engaging was called “The Big Read 2013: The Great Gatsby.”  Essentially, the library was inviting their patrons to join them in reading this novel in February 2013. This board says “Not only will we encourage the entire community to read and discuss the novel, but all month long there will be special themed programs and events . . . Check out the Big Read website for more information, http://tscpl.org/bigread/.” Through Pinterest the library staff is able to reach out to the community and rally them to read the same book together. Therefore, Pinterest can definitely be an important social media tool in helping bring their library community together and encourage reading. 

I’ve enjoyed using Pinterest and it has been a great social media experience for me. I love the inspiration you can draw from looking at other people’s boards. The OCD person in me enjoys organizing my boards which can be of any subject you desire. Pinterest provides a place to organize all your great ideas and inspiration with no worry about lack of space which is very freeing. If you want to check out my Pinterest Boards, here they are: http://pinterest.com/kathykanderson/

Oh, and now I can add Blogging to my social media tool box.  🙂

Kathy