Challenge #6 - OCR

Well, better late than never. Even though this was done long past the due date, I did enjoy writing the letter to Ralphie Parker's parent concerning his post Christmas behavior in the library.

January 12, 2009

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Parker,

This is to inform you that Ralphie’s behavior in the Library has been unacceptable and he has been asked to leave the premises three times in the past two weeks.

We understand Ralphie’s excitement over the holidays just past, but we must ask that Ralphie not bring any more presents into the library for show and tell. As you already know we had quite an incident with the Farkus’ family when Scut accidently swallowed Ralphie’s Orphan Annie decoder pin. Subsequently Ralphie has brought in a leg lamp, which he says is his father’s major award, which caused quite a stir in the teen area, and of course the recent Red Ryder BB gun incident from which we are still finding BBs embedded in the Children’s Desk. Luckily no one shot their eye out.

Everyone who uses the Library has the right to do so without being disturbed. Any person whose conduct disturbs others violates Library policy. I am enclosing a copy of the Ocean County's Rules of Conduct. Please review it with your child. If these incidents don’t stop we will have to set up a conference with you to discuss Ralphie’s behavior. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Susan Gardiner
Branch Manager

Challenge #7 - Learning more about Outlook -

I took the tutorial, Great Outlook features to organize your Inbox, which covered some features I had already recently begun using such as flagging items for followup. The amount of email, coupled with various deadlines is making organization of my mailbox more critical these days. As with most tutorials I always pick up extra tips I hadn't been taking advantage of. One was sorting by "converstion" which I did not have as a field on my email display. Being able to sort this way will make it more efficient when I'm looking for a specific thread of email conversation. I may also try color coding by sender, but I'm not sure at this point I see a need for that. But its nice to know its possible. I may also trying creating folders for spefic topics or senders but I think I would use that sparingly at first.

Duke Farms Eaglets

If you haven't looked in on the Duke Farms eaglet cam, don't miss seeing these three little guys before they fly the nest. www.dukefarms.org

Challenge #5 - Newspapers Online - part one

I thought is was time to get back to the challange and pickup where I left off. Since I first started the newspaper challange I had a personal reason to use the newspaper and obituary search. I found out recently that a member of a nonprofit group, in which I'm active, passed away in August 2008. I searched to see if I could find a published obituary or death notice to share with the group. While I won't go into particulars, I wasn't successful in finding an obit, which would explain why we didn't know of his passing. But at least with knowledge learned from the challenge, I felt my search strategies were correct and if there was a death notice to be found - I would have found it.

The second part of the assignment was a plus too, as I'd never used Ebsco A-Z. Very nice. I easily found the Regan Inauguration info for 1981 and emailed to oclmanages...

Google SketchUp

Interesting article about 3D modeling with Google SketchUp and children with Autism spectrum disorders. Some children who find it hard to draw in 2D are able to express their world easily using 3D modeling software. Often with spectacular results. Check it out: http://sketchup.google.com/

Happy 5th Birthday Gmail!

It was five years ago that Gmail launched by giving out a gig. Back then, a typical webmail account could only store about five megabytes of mail -- kind of like our Outlook accounts???????? Hee, hee!

Just wanted to share a bit of spring with you! This is the beautiful Amaryllis which is presently blooming in my office. Enjoy...