Camp NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month - is the month for writers, where they set a challenge of 50,000 words for themselves and write furiously alongside thousands of other writers.

The Office of Light and Letters, the mother organization of NaNoWriMo, is putting together another challenge this year. In light of funding, they had to cut this year's Script Frenzy - but they redesigned Camp NaNoWriMo, an offshoot of their Young Writers' Program, to allow for another time period of fervent writing.

In April and in July, writers across the world are banding together to create their own word goals, for whatever they wish to write. Join Camp NaNoWriMo today to be a part of this great community. For an added bonus, let Palm Harbor Library know that you are joining Camp NaNoWriMo. By providing your username for the competition, you will be signed up for an exclusive Camp PHL newsletter every week and the opportunity for feedback, more immediate word count competitions, and prizes!

I'll be writing as Samma Lynne. I'm still deciding just what to write! ;) So many choices, only two months!

Thanks!

We would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to everyone who came out, participated, and had a great time last night! The murder was successfully solved in our annual Murder Mystery Night, which means further peace on earth and good will of the immortals to men.

Spring break is coming up! We have two great programs this week for you. Both are drop-in programs - no registration required! Just show up.

Monday at 1:30 PM we will be showing the latest DVD release of J.R.R. Tolkien's grand adventures. Chairs will be provided... but we suggest bringing comfy pillows and blankets. What's a good road trip adventure without some camping?

Thursday at 3:00 PM we will have another great Drop-By Gaming program! We'll have some board games out - as well as the Wii! Come prepared to sing and play your heart out with Rock Band and get moving with some Wii Dance!

Keep an eye on the Teen Page for more upcoming events, great books, and other fun things to do! Also like us on our new Facebook page! www.facebook.com/PHLteens!

TTW - Autocomplete

You've heard of autocorrect fails - but how about autocomplete fails? They're becoming more prevalent in funny screencap blogs.

Autocompletes change constantly - and are based on your location. While it can lead to some amusing results, autocomplete is an important feature in technology, working to reduce time not only in searches but in computer programs as well. They are also very telling of the culture they represent. Check out this interesting infograph of the top search engines (Google and Bing) and see their predictions for each letter of the alphabet: http://spectrum.ieee.org/telecom/internet/infographic-the-abcs-of-search-engine-autocomplete

Have you ever had a strange outcome to some innocent search terms?

Teen Tech Week - Code Academy

We're fast approaching Teen Tech Week, a national call to libraries to showcase technology resources for teens. The technology world is your world now, and a fast-changing one at that.

In preparation for TTW, I want to share an interesting resource that isn't directly from the library. It's called Code Academy and its purpose is to teach the building blocks of computer language to build websites and programs. It's easy to use, encourages constant learning through badges and achievements, and in our tech age, any of the featured languages (CCS, HTML5, Javascript, and more) are great languages to be proficient in.

 

 

Click on the above link to get started learning today! Starting March 10 we will be posting more information about online library resources, so keep an eye out!