Nov 16, 2007

I seem to be sidelined a little. The effects of trying to be healthy! My foot and my knee are painful today, and I think the origins are over doing the exercise. So, I'll stay home from the gym today and try to go easy on my knee which I think has a small sprain from too much weight on the leg extension machine. So this is a good time to sit and make a new posting!

I just discovered that Lisa Cooke has written a comment to my post of Nov 10th. Thanks Lisa. I made my first link in a blog to her website www.GenealogyGems.tv . I want to mention how much I've enjoyed each and every podcast she's made, especially with her tips on conquering some of the technology that the modern genealogist needs to understand and use in order to get the most out of the abundance of resources out there. The other side to her gems get you thinking about genealogy in a new way, such as how to make labels on chocolate bars that celebrate one's personal family history and might get some family members to help you out in your research, etc. Lisa used an iPod to listen to podcasts or music, and explains how to use the iPod for digital recording. I knew and used the benefits of the iPod for recording before Lisa posted it, but it makes me very happy to know that there is at least one other person that gets excited about this wonderful resource. I Used my iPod to record conversations at a family gathering this summer in Des Moines. It worked perfectly, and was so easy to carry around and use in a moment. I have the information now in a digital format and can not only review the information, but save the conversations or interviews in family files on the computer, or transcribe them for writing some of the family history. I used the iPod with the recorder attachment last January to experiment recording our Genealogy meeting, and found it would work if the iPod was near the speaker. Lisa Cooke mentioned the great website for the US Library of Congress. They have a section called American Memories that is chuck full of many collections of the American Experience you can browse through and search. That website is http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html Lisa finds so much interesting stuff that it is just best to subscribe to her podcast, blog, and monthly newsletter.

There is another good website at the Library of Congress - this one is about Digital Preservation . The section on "Preserving Your Digital Memories" and "Preparing, Protecting, Preserving Family Treasures" are especially good for the genealogist. They have video interviews with key people at the site also. The website to Digital Preservation is http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/

I did some shopping - finally - and besides food for the cupboards, I decided to buy a DVD player. I selected a Panasonic LS80 small portable DVD/CD player. It is very important to know what type of DVD discs you want to view if you create your own DVDs, which I do. My computer's DVD burner uses DVD +R or +RW discs. ( I don't bother with +RW which are re-writable discs. Discs are so cheap it's easiest not to bother with them. ) I also wanted the DVD Player to be able to view the photo jpeg images I put on CD-R. I read the outside of the DVD Player boxes, and even had the sales people open the boxes and look at the instruction book to be sure of just what kind of discs the little machine would play. One brand even has a USB port for a flash drive - something I'd like to have, but that brand wouldn't play DVD +R discs, or wouldn't allow viewing of jpeg images on CD. Soooo, I chose Panasonic LS80 to at least be able to see my own produced DVDs, and my images.