Papa Razzi's Rant

A very British website?

2011-01-04T12:57:00.001-08:00

Paparazzo has just been looking at the British Council's Encompass Culture website. However he couldn't find the 5 ways to search the site or the humorous tracel section in the books for adults, so he doesn't know how library patrons could use it!

Slideshare

2010-12-28T12:35:00.000-08:00

Slideshare is not easy to use without a lot of time spent learning it. Sites are downloaded to email so you need to tab between two programs - if you can open both. Customers may find it simple because they have had time to play with it - Paparazzo doesn't have that luxury. Paparazzo doesn't really know how it works so doesn't know what benefits he could promote to customers about it.

Tastespotter

2010-12-21T12:33:00.000-08:00

Paparazzo has been tastespotting. It is easy to use and good for foodies to look at and salivate to. However not so good for starvers like yours truly.

Fed my inbox

2010-12-14T12:46:00.000-08:00

Paparazzo just fed his inbox but thinks you need to use it often to find it easy. Instructions are not easy to follow. Its hard to recreate your email login without being thrown out because it already exists. This is just for copying images - Paparazzo doesn't see how it could be SO useful on learnnets or in workrooms. Why should we promote it?

Picapp

2010-11-30T12:59:00.000-08:00

Not sure how this could be used by Manukau Libraries - suppose it could be useful if you had to embed images in something. To use it easily, you have to know what you are doing, which applies both to staff and customers.

This is the pieman

2010-11-30T12:49:00.000-08:00

2010-05-27T19:04:00.000-07:00

Paparazzo has just been wasting time on facebook. He could not even find the sites following the instructions he was given. It doe not seem easy to use . If you had a lot of time on your hands you might eventually get somewhere but Paparazzo doesn't. Customers might, but whether they can see any virtue in it is their choice.

2010-05-26T15:10:00.000-07:00

Paparazzo has just tried to download an MP3 site, but it was blocked by the Manukau Field Marshal. Paparazzo does not think the customers would or should be able to use this unsupervised.

2010-05-24T16:49:00.000-07:00

Paparazzo has just had a look at the Goodreads site. This one does look useful for both library staff and customers to consult and find out about GOOD BOOKS - yes such things do exist! This is definitely a site which should be promoted to customers.

For twits

2010-05-23T20:23:00.000-07:00

Paparazzo has just been a twit and tried to tweet. It is not simple for those who are not prficient users. Creating an account would take libraryusers an inordinate amount of their time if they were starting cold. It is a good social networking site but don't know how Manukau Libraries could use it for marketing. Its no use to me.

Failed experiment

2010-05-23T17:25:00.000-07:00

Paparazzo has just received a message from the Manukau Marshal that his zamzarring failed because he was playing with dangerous files!

Where did you leave your zamzar. Its lights are on!

2010-05-23T17:12:00.001-07:00

Paparazzo had just been told about a new toy called Zamzar. However having used it he could not recommend it to others unless they have a lot of time on their hands to figure out how to use it. As he slowly walked along amongst all his other deluded and doomed colleagues, he reconsidered and realised he might have a lot of time on his hands where he was going!

2009-09-30T14:09:00.000-07:00

Here are some more of Paparazzo's friends and role models:

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/02_01/nelsonDM0602_468x329.jpg

Paparazzo's New Friend

2009-01-28T13:02:00.000-08:00

Bellringer told Paparazzo about a man he knew from his childhood days who had become a Jesuit priest. This priest had risen thru the Church hierarchy meteorically, and was now Pope Insolent XXXXIII. Paparazzo sighed "But how can I, a simple anti-aircraft gunner, become a Jesuit and a priest?" So Bellringer told him a bit about his background. Insolent started life as a librarian who had emigrated to a far-off country called New Zealand. He'd obviously been a favourite friend of Bellringer's, because Bellringer produced a song he had written from his knapsack. It was about a collection of weird people who must have worked at the library where he was employed at the time and was called 'All the Happy People'. However Bellringer swore Paparazzo to secrecy after he'd read the poem, which (he said) must not be revealed under the direst form of torture (which was a shame, because it was very funny and very subversive.) Pope Insolent had chosen his name well!

Wicked wikis

2009-01-28T12:51:00.000-08:00

A wiki is a collaborative website and authoring tool that allows users to easily add, remove and edit content.Wikipedia, the online open-community encyclopedia, is the largest and perhaps the most well known of these knowledge sharing tools. With the benefits that wikis provide, the use and popularity of these tools is exploding.Some of the benefits that make wikis so attractive are:
Anyone (registered or unregistered, if unrestricted) can add, edit or delete content.
Tracking tools within wikis allow you to easily keep up on what been changed and by whom.
Earlier versions of a page can be viewed and reinstated when needed.
And users do not need to know HTML in order to apply styles to text or add and edit content. In most cases simple syntax structure is used.
As the use of wikis has grown over the last few years, libraries have begun to use them to collaborate and share knowledge. Among their applications are pathfinder or subject guide wikis, book review wikis, conference wikis and even library best practices wikis.

2008-08-07T19:36:00.000-07:00

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0e/Napoleon4.jpg

2008-07-21T15:15:00.001-07:00

As Bellringer fell into step alongside Paparazzo, he greeted him and asked what he was planning to do now the war had ended. He told Paparazzo he intended to disappear into the abbey of Melk, where he would call himself Brother Adso. ‘Alas, Paparazzo, what willst become of thou?,’ Bellringer asked. ‘Look to yourself before the Amerikanski ferrets catch up with you.’
As they trudged along, Bellringer probed into Paparazzo’s past life (he had once been a member of the Gestapo so was good at this). Paparazzo told him he had been educated at a convent and then a Jesuit seminary in Munich. ‘Ach, das ist gut,’ Bellringer said. ‘und dost thou not know our beloved Fuhrer called our Reichsfuhrer his own Ignatius Loyola? Why dost not thou, too, make thyself a new career within Holy Mother Church?’
‘But which church?,’ Paparazzo naively asked. ‘The Church of Rome, naturlich,’ Bellringer replied. ‘Surely the equivocation of a Jesuit and the fanaticism of a Hitler Youth make you admirably suited for holy orders?’ Their conversation rambled on about famous Jesuits, and how they experienced many different callings and many different backgrounds.
Paparazzo asked Bellringer how he, with his life as a soldier, could become a priest. Bellringer replied by quoting the exemplum of the Jesuit Teilhard de Chardin, who argued that a Jesuit should experience every temptation and sin known to man. In this way de Chardin reasoned that he could become a machine-gunner, and hence commit mass murder. ‘But he was still a Jesuit priest’, Bellringer concluded, ‘und so everything is possible, vielleicht?’

2008-07-17T16:53:00.000-07:00

Lend your eyes to the blog of a young fellow struggler, whom Paparazzo stumbled across in his route-march. Paparazzo asked the young fellow who he was. "I am called Dilbert von Ringmeister, but that is not my real name." Dilbert's Rottenfuhrer was marching beside him. He said this fellow also had an alias, and he went by the name of Catbert. On their travels they were trying to find their Wachtmeister, a man called Dogbert. Somewhere further down the slowly moving column was their officer, a pointy-headed man called Obergruppenfuhrer Bellringer. The adventures of Dilbert and co. are recorded in http://www.bloglines.com/public/christopherpaxton. Bellringer was afraid he would be exposed as a leading member of the SS, so he was also busy inventing a new identity for himself.

2008-07-10T21:24:00.000-07:00

As Paparazzo trudged along among his fellow assorted poor strugglers, he happened to fall in step with a flim-flam man who was peddling a curious collection of things. In his knapsack he had a circular-shaped contraption that flew. He explained to Paparazzo that this was a new American invention called a frisbee. He also had a drinking flask and a star-shaped ashtray. Paparazzo asked him what he was going to do with these items. The flim-flam man said he was going to sell the benefits of his assortment to all the other lost souls accompanying them. The man reckoned he could make millions by duping and fleecing all these other poor fools. He encouraged Paparazzo to join him in his devious scheme ......

2008-07-03T15:25:00.000-07:00

Paparazzo was born in 1929. He was a member of the Hitler Youth until the decadent Amerikaners convinced him of the errors of his ways and he joined millions of other lost souls as he trudged through the remains of the thousnd-year Reich. Meditating on his surroundings and pondering his future, he wondered where the next step in his picaresque journey - his Rake's Progress, would take this scoundrel: "I could not dig/I dared not rob/What lies shall serve to please the mob".

2008-07-02T14:58:00.000-07:00

This is my latest postchristian meditation on Sin and Redemption.
MFP
PD....R