THING 13: DELICIOUS
I am a huge fan of this tool. I learned about it and opened an account last month for LIS 644. At first I wondered why this could be so great that it would be worth replacing Favorites and Bookmarks, but I am a complete convert. I tag a lot of sites and pages. Being able to categorize them with tags is the best thing that ever happened to my bookmarking ability, especially since I can assign multiple tags, then edit at will. The other great thing is that I can access my bookmarks from any computer, and since I use several computers, this is a boon. I haven't had the need to share bookmarks yet -- the social part of social bookmarking -- but if I do, that will only be icing on the cake.
THING 14: TECHNORATI
Things at Technorati have apparently changed quite a bit recently, or at least since the 23 Things site put in its links and such. It sounds like they have been busy making changes to deal with the overwhelming mass of blogged information and the faux stuff masquerading as information. An authority system has just been implemented that scans blogs and ranks them for trustworthiness as the real thing, not scams. The highest ranking one as of today is the Huffington Post. You can see the Top 100 blogs (I searched for Hendrik Hertzberg and KT Horning to see how that works, but the search function was temporarily out of order), scan the vast index of popular tags, and more. Well worth exploring further. I do not want to tag any of my blog posts; they are not worthy of anyone's attention other than instructors and personal relationships who read them to see what I am doing in the time that I am not with them...
Saturday, October 24, 2009
One Hit, Two Misses
THING 10: IMAGE GENERATOR
The podcast and how-to information on the 23 Things page is not very helpful with this Thing. Sounds like a fun idea but how exactly do you do it? Do you google "image generator"? I went to one of the links (Generator Blog) but gave up--you have to know what you are doing. I went to another link (BigHuge Lab) and spent waaay too long trying to generate something and post it. I made a lame op-art montage of an old portrait photo, but all I could do was post a link to this blog, not the image. I tried to save it to my computer and then post it from there, but just got the eternal spinning wheel of doom. So all I've got here is a link. Diminishing returns...must move on to the next Thing. In my copious spare time I will return to this Thing and try again. When I have a real need for it.
THING 11: LIBRARY THING
Now THIS is addictive! I'm having great fun adding books to my library catalog, finding covers, discovering others who love the book I read 25 years ago and never forgot, discovering others who have put books I produced into their libraries. I've clued my 17-year-old librarian-in-the-making niece into it, so that we can share books and ideas in yet another way. When I have more time I will post comments (that time Thing again). I love reading comments from others. I can see this could be the Thing that I lose all track of time with.
THING 12: ROLLYO
Incredibly frustrating. I get the basic concept, but I can't get the site to work, to load anything. It might be fun to create a search engine for intellectual freedom or attention deficit disorder or college funding. If I could get Rollyo to respond.
The podcast and how-to information on the 23 Things page is not very helpful with this Thing. Sounds like a fun idea but how exactly do you do it? Do you google "image generator"? I went to one of the links (Generator Blog) but gave up--you have to know what you are doing. I went to another link (BigHuge Lab) and spent waaay too long trying to generate something and post it. I made a lame op-art montage of an old portrait photo, but all I could do was post a link to this blog, not the image. I tried to save it to my computer and then post it from there, but just got the eternal spinning wheel of doom. So all I've got here is a link. Diminishing returns...must move on to the next Thing. In my copious spare time I will return to this Thing and try again. When I have a real need for it.
THING 11: LIBRARY THING
Now THIS is addictive! I'm having great fun adding books to my library catalog, finding covers, discovering others who love the book I read 25 years ago and never forgot, discovering others who have put books I produced into their libraries. I've clued my 17-year-old librarian-in-the-making niece into it, so that we can share books and ideas in yet another way. When I have more time I will post comments (that time Thing again). I love reading comments from others. I can see this could be the Thing that I lose all track of time with.
THING 12: ROLLYO
Incredibly frustrating. I get the basic concept, but I can't get the site to work, to load anything. It might be fun to create a search engine for intellectual freedom or attention deficit disorder or college funding. If I could get Rollyo to respond.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
In the News
THING 8: RSS Feeds and Blogline Registration
Aha! Those NYT, BBC, NPR, and Madison weather headlines that display on my Google homepage must be RSS feeds. (Um... is that right?) Always good to find out what's behind the magic.
Anyway, I've created the Bloglines account and added the button to my Internet Explorer Favorites. The "using bloglines" tutorial was really helpful, with all the screenshots, and the thorough step-by-step instructions. Very clear, linear thinker, the author. His note at the top of his post says that now, in 2009, Google Reader would be his reader of choice, though. Must explore...
THING 9: Subscribe to Feeds
Feeds added: I added the whole library group, then unsubscribed to a couple of individual feeds. I am left with Resource Shelf and Shifted Librarian. I also subscribed to the Comments page feed of the New Yorker, using the orange button, so that I can keep up with the scribblings of some favorite political writers. I tried to add a blog by copying the URL (no orange box or other shortcut), and got through the two layers of "Subscribe" in Bloglines, but ultimately the subscription failed. The blog is not hosted by any of the usual folks (blogspot, etc.), so I'm wondering if there are blogs that aren't feedable? How does content get transformed into XML and made available?
I'm not going to subscribe to 10 feeds tonight, as the Library 2.0 site dictates. I'd rather add feeds that I really want, as they occur to me or as I find them. Otherwise, I will be inundated with stuff that I don't really care to know...
Monday, September 28, 2009
Obligatory Cat Photo
September 28, 2009:
Heat-seeking cats in Wisconsin presage the coming of winter.
Twitter Rant
Thing 7: Bloggin' 'Bout Technology
Up to this point I have recognized benefits in most of the 2.0 technologies I've explored. Wikis: great for getting information about things from experts, from enthusiasts, from locals. Facebook: great for finding long-lost friends, but I stay away from the Wall. Who has time for that? Delicious: my favorite, the beacon for those seeking to turn chaos into order, to make things sortable and findable. Google docs: what to use when you don't have a flash drive, or when you're worried about losing your opus to a computer snafu, or when you need to run a group project around the group. Flickr is fun, inspiring creativity, saving shipping space in email, making it so easy to pass around pictures to far-flung friends and family. Blogs...well, here I am, a lifelong diarist with a new venue.
But Twitter? This seems a tool fraught with peril. It's a great way to get relevant breaking news. "Your child's school is closing in 30 minutes due to weather." "Obama wins." But the potential for misuse is big. And tempting. The tutorial I saw today gushed about the ability to broadcast messages about the most mundane thoughts and chores. "Mmm coffee..." that sort of thing. This is a good Thing? This is progress? Honestly, I am a busy person; I don't want to be interrupted by tweets announcing that you are enjoying your coffee. These will annoy me and cause me to view you as self-absorbed and lazy (don't you have anything better to do than to think I have nothing better to do than follow your coffee break?) Worse, though, is the use described in Time magazine today (Oct. 5, 2009, page 64): Companies are paying regular folks to plug products to their Twitter followers via a site called Sponsored Tweets. ($29 per tweet. Nice money.) Parents and lovers and teen BFFs might be willing to get those "what are you doing?" glimpses about morning coffee and walking the dog, but when advertisements start to roll in, disguised as greetings, is there anyone who won't draw the line and silence the bird?
But gosh, $29 a Tweet is probably more than I can make as a librarian...
Up to this point I have recognized benefits in most of the 2.0 technologies I've explored. Wikis: great for getting information about things from experts, from enthusiasts, from locals. Facebook: great for finding long-lost friends, but I stay away from the Wall. Who has time for that? Delicious: my favorite, the beacon for those seeking to turn chaos into order, to make things sortable and findable. Google docs: what to use when you don't have a flash drive, or when you're worried about losing your opus to a computer snafu, or when you need to run a group project around the group. Flickr is fun, inspiring creativity, saving shipping space in email, making it so easy to pass around pictures to far-flung friends and family. Blogs...well, here I am, a lifelong diarist with a new venue.
But Twitter? This seems a tool fraught with peril. It's a great way to get relevant breaking news. "Your child's school is closing in 30 minutes due to weather." "Obama wins." But the potential for misuse is big. And tempting. The tutorial I saw today gushed about the ability to broadcast messages about the most mundane thoughts and chores. "Mmm coffee..." that sort of thing. This is a good Thing? This is progress? Honestly, I am a busy person; I don't want to be interrupted by tweets announcing that you are enjoying your coffee. These will annoy me and cause me to view you as self-absorbed and lazy (don't you have anything better to do than to think I have nothing better to do than follow your coffee break?) Worse, though, is the use described in Time magazine today (Oct. 5, 2009, page 64): Companies are paying regular folks to plug products to their Twitter followers via a site called Sponsored Tweets. ($29 per tweet. Nice money.) Parents and lovers and teen BFFs might be willing to get those "what are you doing?" glimpses about morning coffee and walking the dog, but when advertisements start to roll in, disguised as greetings, is there anyone who won't draw the line and silence the bird?
But gosh, $29 a Tweet is probably more than I can make as a librarian...
Visual Things
Thing 5: Getting to Know Flickr
My new Flickr account is named Darcie's Pix. In the spirit of librarianship, I uploaded photos of our cats, past and present. At this point the pix are for friends and family. (Must go back to the site and admit some friends and family... ) Don't like Yahoo asking for gender, birthdate, postal code, etc. I couldn't create an account without giving the information. Why?
Thing 6: Flickr Plus: Mashups and More
The photo-plus-map combo looks really interesting. Plus lots of fun toys for those with a digital artistic bent. The Learning 2.0 head was constructed with someone's mashup application, a Thing I can imagine dabbling with when I have the time (ha!) to create photo albums and any other nice visuals to share.
My new Flickr account is named Darcie's Pix. In the spirit of librarianship, I uploaded photos of our cats, past and present. At this point the pix are for friends and family. (Must go back to the site and admit some friends and family... ) Don't like Yahoo asking for gender, birthdate, postal code, etc. I couldn't create an account without giving the information. Why?
Thing 6: Flickr Plus: Mashups and More
The photo-plus-map combo looks really interesting. Plus lots of fun toys for those with a digital artistic bent. The Learning 2.0 head was constructed with someone's mashup application, a Thing I can imagine dabbling with when I have the time (ha!) to create photo albums and any other nice visuals to share.
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