Tech Tip: Pinterest Search

For this tech tip, I tried searching Pinterest for Scherenschnitte, or German/German-American papercuts. I've been interested in this craft for several years due to participating in 18th-century living history programs in North Carolina (my home region was heavily settled by Germans coming in from Pennsylvania) and have been trying to find early examples of it. Pinterest has actually been one of my best sources for finding and keeping track of Scherenschnitte -- Google searches don't work very well.

Just searching for Scherenschnitte pulls up a lot of pins for modern works, so I added "18th century" as well and found some cool new things:

watercolor, ink, and cut paper lovebird token

Wm. Johnson, probably PA, early 19th cent.

(orig. source: Sotheby's)

valentine, "Ever of thee, I'm fondly dreaming"

Salina Brown, VA, early 1870s

(orig. source: An Acquired Taste)

Tech Tip: Google Timer

The timer is so cool! Mostly, I'm impressed that it's like a Google short-cut to search for "set timer" and have it pop up! I don't think this will be particularly useful to me when managing my time online -- I usually give myself "five minutes" to take a quick break and get back to work, and it never works out even though I'll consistently check my time -- but probably for cooking and such it's easier. Maybe it will help me be better at actually doing homework while things cook, instead of me getting up to check every five minutes...

Tech Tip: Embedded YouTube

I added a video to my introduction post. I realized I'd never mentioned my main hobby, contra dancing, so what better way to introduce it than with a video? It's pretty hard to explain adequately otherwise.

Tech Tip: Weather Widget

I followed Laura's directions to add the Weather Sticker gadget to my blog's sidebar. It was pretty simple to do, once I figured out how to get the town name to show up on the gadget and not send me to another page on the website. I used my current hometown of New London, NC, to do something different than Norman.

Tech Tip: Google Site Video

I added a Rama Navami song to the page for my first Storybook story. I searched YouTube for Rama Navami videos and found lots of stuff, but most of it I selected against including. There's several videos of past festivals that are interesting, but I figured readers wouldn't really want to watch them in the middle of reading. There's also some long devotional songs. The video I chose, however, is a cheerful song about Rama that uses an ancient text but is set to music for a movie, so it's relatively short, sounds pleasant to Western ears, and is fun to listen to -- and also to watch the dancing.

Tech Tip: Cheezburger

Naturally, I used a picture of my own darling kitten for this one. I'm pretty sure she was thinking something like "pet me, you silly thing, stop trying to take pictures!" Or maybe something less nice. Sometimes she gets these kind of demon eyes and I wish I had named her Lilith instead of Genevieve.

meme maker: Cheezburger

Tech Tips: Pinterest Board & Embedded Pinterest

I already had a Pinterest account, so it was easy to add another board here. I've started out with just two images, one that may be useful in a Storybook and one that I liked because it was a ballet version of The Ramayana, but I'll add more as the class progresses -- Pinterest is a great way to keep up with things I happen across while looking at other things but want to come back to eventually. I also embedded the board below.

I'm not super into Pinterest, but I do find it useful for keeping up with some things. I mostly use it to bookmark recipes, clothing I actually like, and historic examples of Scherenschnitte papercutting (I do this at living history events sometimes, but it's difficult to find original 18th/19th century pieces!). I also have secret boards for tracking TV shows and films I want to watch and a couple other random things.

Tech Tip: Blogger Profile

I updated my profile for this blog with a picture and brief "About Me" section. Having read a lot of personal blogs over the past several years, I always find it interesting to see what people actually look like, where they're from, and other personal details. Since this is for class, I put only the basics (primary major, career goal, location), but in general I don't mind sharing things online. Because I referenced in my Introduction post that my Blogger display name is SusieBookworm, I opted to keep it that instead of signing with my real name, though I put my first name in my profile. (Edit: changed it to my actual first name on 2/5/16, since most people in the class have their actual names displayed.)

I've been on the standard social media sites since high school and at one point ran a book blog, and from the beginning I've generally limited what I post to things that I wouldn't be too embarrassed for anyone -- anyone -- that I know to run across. I'm fine with posting personal details, but typically just ones that are fairly common knowledge for my friends and family. Now that I'm in college and looking at graduate schools and careers, I'm even more careful about what exactly I post, aware that they can find it. I recently deleted my scarcely-used Twitter account, since it was mostly old book blog stuff and complaints about writing papers. But for things like these class assignments, I'm fine with anyone I know running across what I've posted and anything personal I've revealed.