NEKLS Tech Day: Lightning Rounds

Lightning Rounds have been common at tech-type conferences for several years now though I'd never actually been to one at a conference until NEKLS Tech Day. We do mini-lightning rounds at our library all staff meetings every now and then and they are a great way to get a brief overview of new technologies (or older ones) that are being used. I've always found them very intriguing!

Here are some highlights the NEKLS event:

Friend Feed - a mega aggregator of everything you have on the web that can be used as a conversational tool; pull in any rss feed, follow your friends, your delicious bookmarks, goodle reader, videos or photos from various sites like flickr, facebook, etc - people can also comment if you post; you can set up rooms or groups.

A question from the audience:  How do you time to find cool links? Through posts on other blogs, twitter, facebook, connections are created, including professional ones - you're not isolated - find what works for you!

Logmein - there is a free version; log in remotely to any computer anywhere; NEKLS staff use it to log into their remote Koha systems to help troubleshoot; the remote computer must have a software download in order to allow access.

sourceforge.net - has been around forever - great source to look for look for different software applications.

slashdot.org  -  geeky, nerdy news

webconverger - an open source web kiosk - a flavor of linux called webconverger -  whole purpose is to be a web browser  

UNetBoot - I'm not sure I got this one right but apparently it's a program you can download to your thumb drive and then use it to boot your computer for whatever 'flavor' of Linux you like to run.

23 Things for Kansas - web based tutorial for social networking tools - kicking off in November - several tech savvy folks across the state are involved in creating it - putting the tools in a framework on how to use for community, sharing and productivity.

Drop Box - download a client to any computer or just log in to download/upload stuff - creates a special box (drop box) and can be downloaded on multiple machines - provides you access to your files anywhere - updates and syncs your files from home pc to anywhere - there is also a public folder that can be shared with others via a URL to anyone with an email address - the free version does have a file size limit. A great alternative to GoogleDocs?

ResearchBuzz - recommended blog and twitter feed to keep track of hot stuff

Jing  -  great for video making - simple application - record mouse movements and voice over (need headset & mic) - capture video or screen cap - record stuff for training use  - you can create a 5 min video for free - videos can be downloaded to the desktop or to a website with a URL that can be shared; requires adobe shockwave format that you might have to download to use/view

Livehacker - great source that, as it says on their site: tips & downloads for getting things done - one of the features on the site is calls HighFive, where you can see what folks are recommending.

I see that the NEKLS blog has added these and many more of the sites mentioned during the session, so check them out!