Have you typed “OverDrive” into Android™ Market search today? Notice anything new?

Friday morning, OverDrive went live with OverDrive® Media Console™ for Android v1.0, making the audiobook app for Android available in the Android Market for the first time. Now you can wirelessly download MP3 audiobooks from our library’s eBooks to Go mobile optimized download website directly to your Android device. OverDrive’s audiobook app for Android has the same superior listening features as the desktop version OverDrive Media Console, including resume from furthest played point and custom bookmarking.

OverDrive Media Console for Windows® v3.2.0.4 is also out now. With this version, the Transfer Wizard now provides full support for transfer to Android devices. The latest version of OverDrive Media Console for Windows also displays a title’s description through the “Properties” screen and higher-quality cover images (if available).

We have noticed there are a fair number of staff who can’t answer basic questions about our downloadable books so we are offering a simple basic class to give you the help you need.

E-Media

12/17 (Thursday) 2:00-4:00pm at CCL Virtual Library Training Center.

The District offers several types of e-Media from Ovedrive and Net-Library. This workshop will cover checking out e-Media from the the District’s website, the different procedures and applications required from each vendor, downloading considerations for Adobe E-book, video and audio formats, also with basic troubleshooting. (Only 9 slots left for this class!)

Many of you are starting to receive new computers with the new Office product and find yourself totally lost.  We can help with this class offering:

Microsoft Office 2007

12/23(Wednesday) 2:00-4:00pm at CCL Virtual Library Training Center.

There are major changes with the next version of Microsoft Office. The menu and drop-down dialog box is being replaced by the ribbon interface. This workshop will cover the changes with hands-on experience for Microsoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint.

If you are interested in learning please RSVP to Jon White.  Register early as these classes are limited to 10 people.

Включва препратки към избрани статии от последните седмици. Изводите от представената чрез тях информация си правете сами, а ако имате желание, ги споделете тук или под оригиналната статия.
Свинският грип е създаден по погрешка в лаборатория, твърди учен
Франция отново е световен лидер в производството на вино
Дубай хвърли в смут финансовите пазари по света
Хотелите готвят изненади за студентите

Google скри по погрешка Pirate Bay
Знаете ли къде е вашето дете? Проверете в Google картите

Продадоха “Газпром” по погрешка
Шкембе + сухо мляко = сирене за 4 лева
Събират българска с турска филология
СУ: Постепенно ще отваряме ножицата
Матурите в немилост – ВУЗ-овете саботират тестовете на МОН, дават по 50 стотни отгоре, ако първите те препитват вместо да те приемат с оценките от ДЗИ
Бюджетът ни ясен като в Кения – сочи международно статистическо проучване
Уличен сървайвър – Апашите и биячите плашат хората повече от мафията или защо уличното насилие е по-болезненият директен обществен вредител за момента
Дупнишкият модел превзема страната – корупционните мафиотски схеми в БГ край нямат, а въобще не са новост – от 1878 до сега все ни душат чрез мошеничествата между българите (един на друг) в ежедневието и в официалните държавни и фирмени дела…
2050г.:компютрите по-умни от хората – Google и НАСА правят училище за специалисти, които да управляват новите машини. Дано ни го върнат тъпкано!
Google Earth стигна до дъното на океана
Нов домейн .tel се пръкна в нета

Коментар от Моят блог – Да си честитим ли празника?
Коментар от Моят блог – Кирил и Методий?

Изглежда истината е, че в близкото бъдеще мнозинството от хора най-после ще схване това, което малцина знаят отдавна – държавата като структура ще изчезне, човеците също ще бъдат заменени от нещо по-усъвършенствано и интелигентно.
Впрочем, в последно време гледам интересния аниме ТВ сериал Fullmetal Alchemist 2: Brotherhod, римейк на популярния преди няколко години аниме сериал със същото заглавие (F.M.A.). Новата трактовка плътно следва манга първообраза си, в сравнение с първия ТВ сериал по поредицата и предлага интригуващ микс от мелодраматичен сюжет, морални дилеми и сблъсъци на носители на различни такива, както и редовния за съвремменото аниме slapstick хумор, тук поднесен чрез частичната употреба на стила на анимиране chibi, който изразява хипердеформирани фигури и първични емоции в по-детски вид. Можете дори да гледате сериала онлайн като streaming video episodes с английски субтитри (не много легално, разбира се).

The most common comment I hear about LinkedIn is “I’m on it, but I don’t really understand it.” 

The 5 Minute Series is designed to demystify the Social Media tools for hospitality, & help you apply them to your business. Here are two easy to apply aspects of LinkedIn.

 Let’s start with the LinkedIn homepage. Below the green box, “Build your network” you’ll see is Network Updates. This summarises all the goings on within your network connections – starting with you! 

1. What are you working on now?

As with most Social Networks, LinkedIn prompts you to update your status with a simple question. What are you working on now? enables you to share with the LinkedIn community what your current project is. Be informative yet succinct as you only have 140 characters available.

Why is this important? Each time you update your status, your whole network is updated. This creates a presence on their homepage for up to 2 weeks helping you stay top of mind.

This is true for all your activity on LinkedIn. If you update your page, make a new connection, join a group or create an event, your activity is then shared with all your connections. Piggy-backing on each others updates helps grow your LinkedIn profile easily & effortlessly.

2. Search

Today I am just going to talk about Search Groups with one specific idea in mind. You’ll probably think of other uses for Search based on this one application, so please feel free to share your ideas in the comments section.

Search Groups is ideal for you if you have meeting & seminar rooms at your restaurant or hotel, or if you want to encourage and invite groups to frequent your premises whenever they get together for business or social functions.

From the toolbar at the top of your LinkedIn page you can easily Search Groups. To make your search more relevant, add the area that you are in to see what groups are closest to you. From these search results, you can further define your search using the box on the right-hand side that lists the different types of groups – corporate, conference, networking, non-profit etc.

Now you can start networking. You may choose to connect with the Owner of the group directly, or you might like to first look through the member’s list to see if you already have a connection within the group. Either way, you have just used LinkedIn to create an opportunity to get more people in your doors for real world results!

I’d love to hear how this has worked for you.

Cheers,

Tracy Tormai

Connect with me on LinkedIn here - Just send me a direct request and I’ll add you to my connections

Zombies, and vampires, and werewolves! Oh my!  It’s October and time to pick a read from our eMedia collection.  In the spirit of Halloween we decided to get spooky and have this month’s theme be horror.  We have chosen a mix of classic horror, modern thiller, and horror with a humorous twist.

Here are the choices for this month’s spooky read:

• World War Z by Max Brooks
• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
• Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon
• Dracula by Bram Stoker
• Haunted Kids by Allan Zullo
• Ghostly Encounters by Frances Kermeen
• A Grown-ups Halloween by Yuri Rasovsky
• My Haunted House by Angie Saga
• Grim Grotto by Lemony Snicket

It’s always a challenge to manage both a creative group and the bottom line. In a time of constant downsizing and budget cutting, it can seem impossible. Creative types (I fancy I am one) can with one eye roll let you know that if you insist on counting pennies they can’t be expected to perform good work.

What to do?
I believe–and have proven in several organizations–that good systems, practical management and accountability can actually improve creative output. Here’s how to start:
1. Define each work product (web site, conference brochure, email, virtual event) by the steps to produce it. Include budget and distribution information.
2. Estimate the time required for each step. Use the most reasonable time estimates. That is, not a screaming emergency and not slow as molasses.
3. Assign ownership for each step (Creative Director, Marketing Manager, Project Owner).
4. Build schedules for each work product, starting with the most simple deliverable from your group.
5. Start implementing the schedules with new projects.

Obviously the process is complex and the best way to make this happen in your marketing or conference group is to use project management software. I’ve found that programs designed for agency use are the best.

It takes 9 months to a year for a complete project management system (with time tracking) to be fully implemented in a department. It requires discipline to work through the steps, implement the process and then achieve compliance throughout your work group.

Here are the benefits:
–On-time deliverables with fewer emergencies
–Happier employees
–Improved work product
–Accurate expense history
–Archives that are accessible and correct
–Built-in training for new employees
–360 degree visibility into work-flow

It’s easy to get started on this process, but it takes management commitment to carry it through. If you want to know more, contact me.

I had a training session on Tuesday with OverDrive on What’s New and Coming Soon to OverDrive.

They reminded us that almost all audio books are now compatible with iPods. ePub and PDF formats both work on Sony Readers. They have added new publishers in all formats including Peguin Audio and Scholastic Audio.  One neat ebook publisher is Teacher Created Materials.  These ebooks contain lesson plans and activities on a number of subjects.

Most of the items have already been added to our site but there are a few new ones coming soon.

• Social Media links – to share a title with a friend via email, Facebook or Twitter.
• Media Console Version 4  - will have new graphic interface, rotating covers, real time updates & alerts and patrons will be able opt in to receive notices for new books by their favorite author or on their favorite subjects.

Want to know more?  Attached is the Training Month_Partner Update and the audio link.

Questions  asked during the session:

Q: Can an audiobook fit in an iPod Shuffle?

A: Yes, the audiobooks are able to be transferred to the iPod Shuffle.

Q: Are the ratings an average of ratings from our library (our consortium) or from ALL overdrive users?

A: The ratings are based on each Virtual Branch’s ratings.

Q: Can you change your loan period choice after checkout?

A: The loan choice cannot be changed once the titles have been checked out.

Q: Twitter, Face Book, email links — are these a feature we need to request?

A: Your OverDrive Project Manager will be contacting your library’s coordinator shortly.

Q: Will OverDrive iPod-compatible audiobooks work with ITunes 9?

A: Yes, OverDrive’s iPod-compatible audiobooks are compatible with iTunes 9.

Q: Are the Chinese All books in mandarin or another Chinese language?

A: The audiobook titles provided by Chinese All are in the Mandarin dialect.  The eBooks are Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese.

I just became “online friends” with a friend. Whilst having a Facebook conversation with her, I asked how the promotion of her seminars was going. In exchange, I told her about the social media seminars I am hosting and asked if she had created a Facebook Public Profile for her business. Here’s her reply,

“So how do you make that Facebook link?”

This 5 minutes post is about the first step you need to take on Facebook for your business. Once this is established, we can revisit Facebook in this series to talk about other aspects of Facebook that you can utilise.

What is a Public Profile Page?

Facebook allows businesses to interact with people via Public Profile Pages that have the same functionality as your regular profile. Facebook says that it creates “a presence that looks and behaves like user profiles to connect and engage with your customers and amplify your voice to their friends.”

On your Public Profile Page, instead of friends you have fans, and in the past these were referred to as fan pages. So you may still see references on Facebook to Pages, or Fan Pages.  A Public Profile on Facebook is great becasue the “fan” doesn’t have to ask permission to follow you as they do when you are “friends”.

I find that Facebook makes it difficult to create a Public Profile, so click here to be directed to the right starting place or paste http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=logo#/pages/create.php into your browser. Just make sure you are already a member of Facebook.

Now you can create your Public Profile in 3 simple steps.

1. Choose your category

Once you are on the Create New Facebook Page you can choose your category. If you are a business, click on “Local” and from your drop down box choose the most suitable category to suit your business type.

2. Name it

Facebook says that the name you give your Page is permanent. So choose wisely. You want to match your name to your business name as closely as possible to make it easy for customers and fans to find you.

3. Complete the official stuff

Check the box, electronically sign, click the “Create Page” button – you’re done!

Your Public Profile Page is ready for you to flesh out and invite people to visit. Some things to consider in making your Public Profile inviting include~

• logo or friendly photo of the hotel/restaurant/cafe
• adding tabs for video, photos, discussions, polls
• photos of your hotel rooms, food, staff and views
• adding the reservations application designed for restaurants
• listing upcoming events
• post updates regularly

You can check out my Facebook Public Profile here and take part in the current discussion “What’s your favourite holiday/travel movie?”

Cheers,

Tracy Tormai

PS. Leave a comment below with a link to your Public Profile so we can all become fans!

As a Marketer, you should strongly consider the benefits of webcasting to promote you your product. One of the most effective ways of creating, marketing, and delivering a webcast is to partner with a trade publisher that targets your desired market. These publishers are experts at delivering an audience and that element may be the missing element in your webcast marketing planning.

This presentation reviews the items that a vertical site publisher should provide for your company when planning for a webcast.

I never thought I’d see Josh Gordon involved in the multifamily industry, but a recent blog post outlines his research of how social media is being used in by apartment owners. He tells the fascinating story of Urban Apartments in Royal Oak Michigan. Early adopters of social media, Urban Apartments’ owner put up a MySpace page in 2004.

Over time, the owner found he could use the feedback delivered by social media to improve his organization. The company found that as they made investments in building a social media presence, they could dispense with many of the traditional tools and expenses of marketing and PR.

Eventually they dispensed with display advertising, classified advertising, search and public relations program. Social media, once just a tool used in public relations and marketing had become the core tool of customer engagement.

What will everyone do for a living once the internet has made all jobs across all industries obsolete?

Our mobile eBooks To Go site is live. Just take your mobile device and go to http://ebooks.lvccld.org and it should recognize your device as being mobile.  If you want to see it on your computer use the same URL.  Once loaded on your computer look at the URL.  In the URL replace 10/224 with 40/20.  The mobile should appear in your browser.  I have not been able to test it with a mobile device since my Dell Axim doesn’t work on the Library’s wifi system.

If you have a mobile device and are successful connecting let me know.  Also how does it look on your device?

Social media is the current rage in advertising circles. Now I like social media, use it regularly in fact. But I have a hard time seeing how regular ads are supposed to work in most social network environments.

“Perhaps underestimating their own ability to adapt — or pick up a telephone — just 29% of Facebook and LinkedIn users say they could “probably do without” the popular networks, according to a new study”

MediaPost’s take on research from Anderson Analytics regarding the perception and demographics of some of the top social networking sites boils down to mom’s around the world better get on Facebook if they ever hope to hear from their children.  My take: the U.S. needs more vacation time. Just how busy must we be if the main way of communicating with our entire network or friends and family is via two sentence snippets that are tailored to serve everyone equally?

eMedia Music Corp. ha annunciato un accordo con eMedia per distribuire la nuova serie di istruzioni per chitarra in DVD, Guitar Lab series.
I contenuti e gli strumenti di apprendimento sono forniti da TrueFire.

I sei titoli includono Learn Guitar in 21 Days di Ravi,  50 Jazz Guitar Licks You MUST Know di Frank Vignola, 50 Acoustic Guitar Licks You MUST Know di Rich Maloof, 50 Blues Guitar Licks You MUST Know Jeff McErlain,  50 Country Guitar Licks You MUST Know di Joe Dalton e 50 Rock Guitar Licks You MUST Know di Chris Buono.

Prezzo e disponibilità
Tutti i sei titoli Guitar Lab vengono venduti al prezzo di $24.95 e dispongono di  PIP (‘Picture in Picture’) video, manuali, notazione tab standard, tab, power tab files, materiale per la pratica ritmica e materiale bonus.

La serie sarà disponibile dal Settembre 2009.

The following were the most downloaded titles in June 2009 from the Virtual Library’s eMedia Catalog.

Much research has shown that online advertising suffers from many of the same issues as traditional media–mostly due to the erroneous belief that every ad should lead to enough immediate direct sales to pay for itself. This direct response mentality leads to an overemphasis on the last ad seen. By measuring only the last ad in a long conversion history, the true length of the relationship an advertiser has with each consumer is concealed. As I’ve mentioned before, it is the familiarity a customer has with a company that leads to purchase preference and this familiarity takes time to build.

A good paper on the subject can be found at atlas solutions:  www.atlassolutions.com/institute_marketinginsights.aspx

Social media has been spreading like a disease, except it’s not a disease. It’s the overnight sensation that’s taken about 7 years to appear overnight. Everyone, but everyone’s had a look at Social Media and formed an opinion – waste of time, waste of money, don’t understand it, can’t see the point. Maybe they’ve become social media ‘experts’ with a view on what will and will not generate revenue and offer value and produce returns. Everyone’s full of crap of course because there are no experts, no one knows what’s going to work and the whole space is a complete land-grab.

I have tried Twitter recently and it’s like the Wild West out there. I started some conversations and they’re carrying on. I have used Linkedin and I was able to create a network of almost two-hundred sixty connections. I’ve got absolutely no idea what I’m going to do with my twitter streams or my Linkedin network – yet. But I do know that, so far, almost everyone – has missed the point of these technologies. The point is the conversation.

The conversation is, for the first time, being shaped and determined by the customer not the provider. That was always the intention of the Social Media model – it’s very ‘Web2’. There’s a good argument that says ‘conversation doesn’t pay the rent’, but inevitably, new things take a while to figure out and I have the impression that the moment’s arrived. Or it’s at least arriving. There’s plenty of tech geekery around the subject and there are a load of experts professing to know all the answers, but there’s also a growing conversation. A movement. It has nothing to do with the people who think they know the answer to ‘Social Media Revenue Generation Models’. It’s just about the people – having the conversations and working it out for themselves and with each other. And from those conversations comes the revenue. Just as it always has?

Targeting Facebook users offers an opportunity to build brand loyalty while targeting your message in a very effective manner. Facebook Pages are free and offer the best way for your company to establish a presence on Facebook.

The main elements of a Facebook Page are

• Basic information such as location and hours of business, if relevant;
• A mini-feed of activity on the page
• The wall where people can post messages
• A discussion board where you can start and join conversations.
• Notes where you can post additional content to be linked from the Page.
• A list of fans featuring each person’s avatar
• Photos, and you can set controls so only you or you and your company’s fans can upload photos
• Videos, and you can also set controls for who can upload videos

When someone becomes a fan of your Page, a message shows up in their personal news feed so all of their Facebook friends see the action listed in their mini news feeds and have the option of clicking over to your Page to learn more or to become a fan as well.

As the administrator of the page, you have the ability to edit any portion of the page and turn features on and off. You can also assign admin privileges to other Facebook members who are fans of the Page. Administrators can also send a message to all fans which is a handy broadcast feature but one that should not be overused. I’ve personally removed myself as a fan from several company pages because they sent messages to my Facebook inbox too frequently.

Creating a Social Ad on Facebook

Having a Facebook Page should only be one part of an overall social media strategy. Facebook offers a potentially wide audience but you can also target a more niche audience. To drive traffic to your Facebook Page, you can opt to pay for a Facebook social ad. I love this feature because you can really hone in on your target audience. Just click on the “Promote Your Page with an Ad” link and begin narrowing down your search of Facebook members who you would like to see your ad. These ads appear on the home pages and profile pages of each member as they are viewing their Facebook account.

Facebook had fantastic targeting capabilities and offers a tool that will calculate the number of people you will reach based on your campaign criteria. You do have to pay for a Facebook ad but can set a limit on the amount you want to pay — based on clickthrough — and the duration of your ad.

While you can create a Facebook ad to drive traffic to your Facebook Page, you can also have the ad go to any website. Personally, I think that if you are advertising on Facebook to people using Facebook, you should first capture them as fans on your Facebook Page and then drive them over to your website or blog. Having fans on your Facebook Page is a powerful marketing asset.