thoughts and rants

got my akoha cards tonight care of the always rockin’ Patrick who got to go to PodCampMontreal while i was working (yay work but BOO schedules).

srsly, check out Akoha

get ready to play it forward, peeps.

i love games
i love meeting new people
i love doing things for people i believe in
and
i love montreal.

akoha fits the bill for all of these.

check it out and sign up for the beta release. or if you bump into me (and i’ve received my cards - hint hint akoha peeps!) i’ll invite you to play!

i kid, i kid.

but i just want to publicly thank a bunch of people without whom my degree would NEVER have been possible.

first, naturellement, to my hubby™ who loved me when i had no idea what i wanted to do with my life (and was doing very little), and who continues to support me now that i think the world is my frickin’ oyster and i am invincible. (i even have a superhero - you should too!)

second, to my bestest ever friend, who will remain an online-enigma, save to say that if Alexander McQueen ever went straight, she would be first in line to marry him. and he’d be one lucky dude to have someone so intelligent and creative at his side. velouria FTW!

third, to my rugby posse. who tonight surprised me not only with sushi and molson export (YAY!), but earrings from the Frank Gehry collection at Tiffany (love me some Frank) to celebrate my graduation. the card read:

with so much love & pride.
congratulations on everything amy.
love cathy, shelly, gij, susy and jess

given the accomplishments (leaving their rugby achievements aside) of these women (anyone need an accountant, social worker, teacher, graphic design firm owner, or philosophy professor?  just holler) i can’t believe they have the time to look out for me - but i know they always have my back.

and to my online network of librarians and ed tech folks. [i was thinking of linking each of your blogs to a word in the following paragraph - but i don't have enough words to thank everyone...] you played a significant role in my success in library school. i couldn’t find all the components of the professional network that i wanted to create from the peeps i knew in Montreal/at McGill, and all of you have managed to answer questions, lend support, tell me when i’m doing something stoopid, and share your lives. you are all part of one of my fundamental beliefs, that knowledge requires collaboration.

finally, there are many folks from grad school who made academia WAY more fun - you know who you are, JJaCL. the day-to-day would have been excruciating without you. i am forever in your debt.

since a whole whack o’folks are Wordle-ing their del.icio.us tags or blogs or CVs or books (see Meredith, John, Walt, Sarah, and Amanda), i thought i would too.

i really don’t use that many del.icio.us tags for my sites. hmmm. think this stems from my poor grades in cataloguing class?

so i’ve been working on a project for class which requires me to make a mini machinima (machine + cinema - think SL movie). since i tend to spend most of my life on a Mac (i have an Intel iMac though, and for work i occasionally need to run programs using the “evil side” of the computer - aka Windows XP) i was looking for some screen capture apps that were:

1. wicked easy to use
2. able to record audio from a mic
3. capable of simply taking snapshots if i ever forget the cmd-ctrl-4 key combo

Jing to the rescue! you can choose to export directly to file, ftp or screencast.com which will host the vid for you for free. it’s got a sunshine-y interface (i’m not kidding) and is very easy to use. oh, and you can use it on Windows too. (sorry all my Linux peeps - no go yet.)

BUT

you can only export the files to .swf which is why i’m up at 1:21am on a monday night. i need to turn this bad boy into something that iMovie can import so that i can make a little YouTube-y video for class. i’ve downloaded a gajillion demos to try and convert it, and if they work (if!) they throw a watermark on it. erg. i know, i know, i should just gave and by SnapzProX and all of my problems will be solved, but since i don’t see myself as a total machinimaniac (unlike my friend HVX - check out her blog if you want more machinima info) i’m trying to do this on the cheapola.

so if anyone knows of a free app that will convert my .swf into .avi, .mpeg, .wmv… please let me know!

*over the past few months i’ve discovered oh-so-many blogs and podcasts that i consider required reading/listening. i’m going to try and blog weekly about one of them and why i think LIS students - hell, even regular library-folk - ought to check them out.*

Uncontrolled Vocabulary is “A weekly live interactive roundtable discussion of all things library”. the podcast is recorded Wednesday nights at 10pmEST and here’s the kicker, ANYONE can join in (thanks to TalkShoe). if you can’t join in during the recording, you can always check out the podcast which is posted to the blog shortly after the recording. (and downloadable from TalkShoe.)

the issues to be discussed are posted before the show is recorded, and they are always timely. and the invited guests are, frankly, some. really. interesting. folk.

i can’t recommend it enough. i’m busy catching up on all 33 previous episodes.

oh, and i found out about it through the Twittersphere - which continues to amaze me as a LIS resource.