The End

Phew. Now I know how Hercules felt at the end of his 12 labours. I'm really glad to have stuck with the programme, albeit in fits and starts, as a great way to play with the numerous web 2.0 tools I've been meaning to tackle for a while.
The prgramme demonstrates brilliantly that Web 2.0 is all about being able to access, create and share stuff without having to be a programmer, and not being tied to a particular computer in order to do it.
The downside is having to set up so many different accounts! even though Google and Yahoo are doing their best to consolidate different systems/take over your life.
My least favourite Things were RSS feeds (an unwelcome tidal wave), ThinkFree office (not as appealing as google docs), and Twitter (too much mindless babble - though having attended an excellent talk by a colleague this week I'm now open to conversion).
My personal favourites for leisure are Flickr and Delicious, as ways of sharing pics and links with others.
For collaborative working, until we get the common desktop that's been so elusive thus far, Google docs and wikis provide some genuinely useful tools.
As potential communication channels with library users and livening up our webpages, I'm also looking forward to experimenting with podcasts or videos, widgets, Facebook and Twitter. Not sure about blogs given the well known challenge of keeping them alive.
The very best thing has been reading entries from the blogs of other 23Thingers. I've found them hugely entertaining, reassuring, informative and motivating. Full of tips which answered the very question I needed help with. Thank you all.
I hope the 23ThingsOxford site remains in existence, as a useful reference point for us all, including those who haven't yet made it to the end or are yet to start.

Inserting a screenshot

Note to self: it doesn't seem possible to copy & paste images (or text, for that matter) into the blog.

For a screenshot do this:

CTRL+Print Screen

Open up MS Office Picture Manager

Paste

In blog, click on Add Image icon.

As I keep forgetting about the extra step with Picture Manager maybe this will help to remind me!

Here's my latest iGoogle page, with a few extra widgets such as the OED and COPAC plus Flickr and Delicious. I wanted to include links to library related websites to make the page more useful for work purposes, such as the Bodleian, the British Library or the Library of Congress, but sadly there doesn't seem to be any widgets for them - yet. So I'll just have to use Delicious instead!

Widgets

Neat! without too much difficulty managed to tackle gadgets and widgets - inserting links to my Flickr photostream into this blog, and to my Delicious bookmarks on my iGoogle homepage.
This sort of thing should come in very handy to liven up any guides we'll be producing with the new LibGuides software.
By the way the Editors' choices for widgets in iGoogle were not my cup of tea!

ThinkFree Office

A definite plus point being able to use your Google login.
Throughout 23things I've been dipping into the blogs of fellow Thingers and have learned lots along the way. In this case Gigi mentioned ThinkFree is only free on a month's trial, which means I guess that Google Docs would be the open office tool I'd turn to in the future.
Rather than creating a new doc I spent my time looking at one of the existing shared docs in the Recommended list - a really interesting one being shared on the subject of social networking and e-learning, by Rob Gibson: see link below.
http://docs.thinkfree.com/docs/view.php?dsn=858149
Also in the Recommended list rather bafflingly was the schedule for the 2009 US tennis open. Eh?

Google Docs

Cloud computing is often mentioned in the Sunday Times but I'd never got round to trying Google Docs as an example of that. Nifty! here's my in-depth easter survey if you'd like to try it
http://spreadsheets.google.com/gform?key=tYIG9xJN09HOD1TD-94bFdA&hl=en_GB#

Wikis

Another good tool for collaborative working. Not only do we have numerous official wikis in use for our reader services and collections, it's great to see new ones emerging out of 23things. The Lankester Rodeo looks like a must-join.

Wikipedia surely needs no introduction. Is there anyone who doesn't turn to it as the fount of all knowledge....

Twitter

Pleasantly surprised that you can search Twitter and view tweets without having to create an account. Had a look at some of the #ox23 tweets - masterly efforts all of you who had a go.

Having created an account in the name of Juliet Thing I duly posted a tentative tweet and replied to a couple of the #ox23 tagged items. Also signed up as a Follower to some fellow 23thingers and for good measure a library.

Good to have dipped my toe in this particular water. Still not convinced about using this for work purposes but am noting a link below for future perusal and who knows it may make me a convert: http://business.twitter.com/twitter101/