I cross my heart that I'll try to keep up with what's new on the internets.
I'll start with Flock. It's a browser that integrates social networking websites. You can watch your MySpace and Facebook pages, subscribe to RSS feeds, and blog from multiple blog. I can even export news feeds, once I discover what that means. It's built on Firefox code, so many Firefox extensions can be used with it.
The advertisement-intro-comic for the Google Chrome browser is interesting, if a bit thick for your average cartoon and also my brain.
I promise to follow random links to interesting applications and spend moments out of my surf hours doing Stuff. Maybe I'll even start playing Kingdom Of Loathing!
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Thing 21
I put a Ning badge on my blog and left comments for people. I thought about putting some photos in a slideshow, but I still haven't got my fall photos uploaded to SmugMug. SmugMug is a far better choice for me than Flickr, because I can have photos printed with decent color reproduction. My monitor at home is calibrated to Adobe RGB, and I need a photo printer whose printers are calibrated properly as well.
I read the Gather article, but I raise an eyebrow at their aspirations. I'm sure Gather has the potential to do for books what MySpace did for music. But . . . a survey of 17,000 people turned up 47% who read a fiction book in 2002, with numbers declining for a decade, while a survey of 5,000 adults in 2008 had 94% of them listening to the radio.
There are a lot more people listening to music out there. I'm just sayin'. And readers can be very picky about what they want. Reading a book takes time and concentration. Listening to a song takes three minutes. Readers aren't going to dig through the slush pile of offerings by unpublished authors that appears on Gather. They're most strongly influenced by recs from family members! They don't want to waste their mental energy.
Gather's idea to hold contests for genre works is a step in the right direction. And I was surprised when Paula pointed out their system of "rewards" for people posting content. I hadn't seen any other user-content website doing this. I know Amazon has a yearly dinner and award ceremony, but that's different.
The WebJunction article made some good points about how libraries can use new tech, but I suspect Pierce County might not be as busy as we are. The guy who wrote the article is their system trainer. They can has trainer? I bet he helped them with their 23 Things.
I read the Gather article, but I raise an eyebrow at their aspirations. I'm sure Gather has the potential to do for books what MySpace did for music. But . . . a survey of 17,000 people turned up 47% who read a fiction book in 2002, with numbers declining for a decade, while a survey of 5,000 adults in 2008 had 94% of them listening to the radio.
There are a lot more people listening to music out there. I'm just sayin'. And readers can be very picky about what they want. Reading a book takes time and concentration. Listening to a song takes three minutes. Readers aren't going to dig through the slush pile of offerings by unpublished authors that appears on Gather. They're most strongly influenced by recs from family members! They don't want to waste their mental energy.
Gather's idea to hold contests for genre works is a step in the right direction. And I was surprised when Paula pointed out their system of "rewards" for people posting content. I hadn't seen any other user-content website doing this. I know Amazon has a yearly dinner and award ceremony, but that's different.
The WebJunction article made some good points about how libraries can use new tech, but I suspect Pierce County might not be as busy as we are. The guy who wrote the article is their system trainer. They can has trainer? I bet he helped them with their 23 Things.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Thing 20
Dude. Facebook is FREAKING ME OUT.
I don't want all my personal information posted on the internets! I mean, it's there, one can find out just about anything about me by looking my name up on some website that I can't remember (I was horrified when I saw it), but even that didn't have a PHOTO. But now I'm supposed to put one up, along with all that other info, of my own free will? Not on your Network.
I don't want Facebook to mine my email address book to find me 'friends,' (of course, they promise not to keep that access to my email account and spam all my buddies using my name, like Grouply.com does) and I seriously don't want them managing my credit card information!
The thing about LiveJournal is that nobody I come in contact with uses their real name or posts any but the vaguest personal info in their profile. There's a reason for that. Nobody wants random strangers to know who they are! You can get to know people by reading their journals and go on from there; it happens all the time. I met some of my best friends through listserves (back in the dawn of time) and LJ.
Heaven only knows what I would have done without the woman who offered advice about helping my mom . . . the woman who turned out not only to have extensive personal experience dealing with sick parents/doctors/hospitals and is a lawyer, but also is an elder law specialist who writes books for accountants about financial planning for the elderly, and handbooks on Medicare.
Now that's effective social networking.
And I didn't have to make an avatar, post my photo, my real name, my phone number, my workplace, my life history.
I would consider continuing to do this for work if . . . well, even if I limited myself to work-oriented groups, every Friend of somebody who's in X group, even if Friend is not a member of X group, can see my profile. It's all about making it easy for people to find you online.
I don't want all my personal information posted on the internets! I mean, it's there, one can find out just about anything about me by looking my name up on some website that I can't remember (I was horrified when I saw it), but even that didn't have a PHOTO. But now I'm supposed to put one up, along with all that other info, of my own free will? Not on your Network.
I don't want Facebook to mine my email address book to find me 'friends,' (of course, they promise not to keep that access to my email account and spam all my buddies using my name, like Grouply.com does) and I seriously don't want them managing my credit card information!
The thing about LiveJournal is that nobody I come in contact with uses their real name or posts any but the vaguest personal info in their profile. There's a reason for that. Nobody wants random strangers to know who they are! You can get to know people by reading their journals and go on from there; it happens all the time. I met some of my best friends through listserves (back in the dawn of time) and LJ.
Heaven only knows what I would have done without the woman who offered advice about helping my mom . . . the woman who turned out not only to have extensive personal experience dealing with sick parents/doctors/hospitals and is a lawyer, but also is an elder law specialist who writes books for accountants about financial planning for the elderly, and handbooks on Medicare.
Now that's effective social networking.
And I didn't have to make an avatar, post my photo, my real name, my phone number, my workplace, my life history.
I would consider continuing to do this for work if . . . well, even if I limited myself to work-oriented groups, every Friend of somebody who's in X group, even if Friend is not a member of X group, can see my profile. It's all about making it easy for people to find you online.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Thing 19
I attached a couple of MPR podcast RSS feeds to my Google Reader. It was easy. I just pasted in the url. On the Road With MINITEX, otoh . . . the RSS icon did nothing but bring up a page of .xml coding, and then Podcast Alley bonked my computer! Good work, guise.
The Naked Scientists podcast went on GR just fine, like MPR.
Yahoo Audio Search has nothing but a search box, and so is impossible to use unless you already know what you're looking for. Podcast.net was down or doesn't exist any more. Podcast.com at least has browsing options.
The Naked Scientists podcast went on GR just fine, like MPR.
Yahoo Audio Search has nothing but a search box, and so is impossible to use unless you already know what you're looking for. Podcast.net was down or doesn't exist any more. Podcast.com at least has browsing options.
Thing 15
Puzzle Pirates didn't sound interesting, so I was going to try Kingdom Of Loathing. A few of my friends play that, and after reading the wiki and some interviews with the game developer, I can see why! It sounds like a hoot. It's played with stick-figure avatars and the currency of the realm is meat. You can gain power by drinking booze, although drinking too much gets you a time-out. I really think my destiny in life is to become an Accordion Thief.
If I ever get Much More Time, I'm definitely going to start that.
In the end, I watched the Second Life vid, read the debunking of video game myths, scanned the Info Island blog, and listened to the YALSA podcast.
Mainly, I want to know how much it cost the library to buy the island, or if Second Life gave it to them for free.
I was amused that the kids think adults spend way too much time on Second Life and highly interested to read an article about "banking" on SL.
With people making actual cash money doing various things on SL, and "banking" concerns inside the virtual world promising to invest their money at a high rate of return, it's no wonder that some people transferred their cash into these unregulated and ultimately spurious "banks," losing their money when the "banks" simply vanished. It gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "play money."
Most SL financial transactions take place in the real world -- you have to link outside of SL to buy products and services over the internet.
The Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County puts out a lot of programming on Info Island. I imagine these programs are done concurrently with RL programming in the library buildings . . . or they have way more money than I can imagine. Setting up on SL seems like a fine idea. It's a terrific outreach project, if a library has enough staff who are already players. The learning curve for serious involvement in this game must be something like World of Warcraft's. It's not a hobby, it's a lifestyle.
I am curious to know how many people they reach who live in their own service area -- of course, there's no easy way to find out -- and how they justify the expense of staff time.
If I ever get Much More Time, I'm definitely going to start that.
In the end, I watched the Second Life vid, read the debunking of video game myths, scanned the Info Island blog, and listened to the YALSA podcast.
Mainly, I want to know how much it cost the library to buy the island, or if Second Life gave it to them for free.
I was amused that the kids think adults spend way too much time on Second Life and highly interested to read an article about "banking" on SL.
With people making actual cash money doing various things on SL, and "banking" concerns inside the virtual world promising to invest their money at a high rate of return, it's no wonder that some people transferred their cash into these unregulated and ultimately spurious "banks," losing their money when the "banks" simply vanished. It gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "play money."
Most SL financial transactions take place in the real world -- you have to link outside of SL to buy products and services over the internet.
The Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County puts out a lot of programming on Info Island. I imagine these programs are done concurrently with RL programming in the library buildings . . . or they have way more money than I can imagine. Setting up on SL seems like a fine idea. It's a terrific outreach project, if a library has enough staff who are already players. The learning curve for serious involvement in this game must be something like World of Warcraft's. It's not a hobby, it's a lifestyle.
I am curious to know how many people they reach who live in their own service area -- of course, there's no easy way to find out -- and how they justify the expense of staff time.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Thing 17 ELM
The ELM productivity tools RSS feed sounds like it's more trouble than it's worth. I actually drug myself through the entire explanation of why, but the "mixed results" made me roll my eyes.
I made the html file on Academic Premier, but the photo doesn't show up in it when I open the file from the jump drive. I suspect I would see it if this .html file were actually posted on the web. It's certainly more secure to keep photos you're using in a webpage on the same server rather than assume the web-based photo will always be there. Saving the picture file onto my jump drive would have solved the problem if only I could go back into "edit web page" and edit the location. (Obviously my jump drive is not going to reach out into the internets and pick up this picture.) I can't; the editor won't let me edit anything.
I emailed an html file of documents from ProQuest to myself and Rachel, then saved it to my flash drive. Still don't know why an html.doc. Is there some reason why people without elaborate means (paid server space, Dreamweaver, etc.) to make their own webpages would be using this feature? Services that offer free web space often come with page creators. I won't even ask why somebody would want to put the results of their ProQuest searches up on a webpage.
I can't watch the video instruction for clues to these mysteries, as neither the upstairs ref pc or mine downstairs seem to have quicktime.
NetLibrary is obviously bonked right now.
I made the html file on Academic Premier, but the photo doesn't show up in it when I open the file from the jump drive. I suspect I would see it if this .html file were actually posted on the web. It's certainly more secure to keep photos you're using in a webpage on the same server rather than assume the web-based photo will always be there. Saving the picture file onto my jump drive would have solved the problem if only I could go back into "edit web page" and edit the location. (Obviously my jump drive is not going to reach out into the internets and pick up this picture.) I can't; the editor won't let me edit anything.
I emailed an html file of documents from ProQuest to myself and Rachel, then saved it to my flash drive. Still don't know why an html.doc. Is there some reason why people without elaborate means (paid server space, Dreamweaver, etc.) to make their own webpages would be using this feature? Services that offer free web space often come with page creators. I won't even ask why somebody would want to put the results of their ProQuest searches up on a webpage.
I can't watch the video instruction for clues to these mysteries, as neither the upstairs ref pc or mine downstairs seem to have quicktime.
NetLibrary is obviously bonked right now.
Thing 16
The Assignment Calculator is absolute genius! Imagine having someone hold your hand through every possible aspect of a research paper! Jeez, when I had to walk three ten miles to school through the snow uphill both ways, we had to use freakin' ESP to determine what to do with research papers. If you weren't a good writer already (or good at slinging bull), you were in for some trouble, because I don't remember an English class in my high school that went through the process in detail. All I remember is index cards.
English 102 certainly didn't. I didn't have to take 101, but I doubt it was research oriented.
Then again, it was a completely different process when dinosaurs roamed the planet, and my little rural K-12 didn't have much in the line of sources anyway.
I'm not so sure a lot of Youth 2.0 is going to use this. I've heard from teachers that the students can't even grasp the concept of citations. Why do that? Information about everything is free and free-floating! Look, there it is on the internets!
But if they did, the papers would be worth reading.
I can't see much use in my work life for it, although if I were ever to write a subject pathfinder, the Research Quickstart is awesome! I notice that the one for Alternative Medicine refers to nothing that would cover the social implications involved with or history of alternative medicine use.
English 102 certainly didn't. I didn't have to take 101, but I doubt it was research oriented.
Then again, it was a completely different process when dinosaurs roamed the planet, and my little rural K-12 didn't have much in the line of sources anyway.
I'm not so sure a lot of Youth 2.0 is going to use this. I've heard from teachers that the students can't even grasp the concept of citations. Why do that? Information about everything is free and free-floating! Look, there it is on the internets!
But if they did, the papers would be worth reading.
I can't see much use in my work life for it, although if I were ever to write a subject pathfinder, the Research Quickstart is awesome! I notice that the one for Alternative Medicine refers to nothing that would cover the social implications involved with or history of alternative medicine use.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Thing 14
I would never put my own book list up on LibraryThing, since I'm the only librarian in history who doesn't collect books, but it's interesting for the reviews and for the Authors Who LibraryThing. This is fun as I know some of them from fandom and from their own blogs, and I'm just generally nosy that way. (I'll admit I didn't realize I'd met Naomi Novik -- I didn't know her real name -- until I saw her picture on the back of Temeraire.)
It's obvious that fantasy/scifi readers weigh heavily in the user list. This could come in handy if I ever run out of Vampire/Witch/Werewolf recs.
IN LOVE WITH TAGMASHER. THAT IS ALL.
It's obvious that fantasy/scifi readers weigh heavily in the user list. This could come in handy if I ever run out of Vampire/Witch/Werewolf recs.
IN LOVE WITH TAGMASHER. THAT IS ALL.
Thing 13
I messed around with My Yahoo, changing this and that, then was glad that I don't have to use that page and can still use the basic Yahoo home page instead. I still like that better, although the forest scenery was pretty. I don't want to have to scroll down the page for information, and I don't want to read the local news on my email entity.
The calendars and lists would be much more useful if I had a Blackberry or laptop, or even an iPhone. As it is, paper and ink are a lot more portable than my monitor and CPU.
I'll admit I've wondered where people got those countdown widgets from.
The calendars and lists would be much more useful if I had a Blackberry or laptop, or even an iPhone. As it is, paper and ink are a lot more portable than my monitor and CPU.
I'll admit I've wondered where people got those countdown widgets from.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Randomly
I'm glad to see that Blogger has finally gotten a Reading List. Of course, you can only watch, from the comfort of your own Dashboard, the blogs that have RSS feeds. It's nice that they've joined the modern age, though.
Thing 12
I love user generated content as much as the next person. A lot more, probably, given the metric boatload of fan fiction I've read in the last decade. However, I wouldn't necessarily hold user generated content up as the be-all and end-all.
Thing 12 has a very telling comment right in the description:
"See a theme here? No editors to decide what information is important, user-generated content, reader recommendations/sharing, and you and others get to vote on what makes the top lists—the very definition of Web 2.0."
We all know WHY user-generated content is such a popular thing, right? Yes, people like it. But it's a primo way, marketers hope, to make money -- LOTS of money -- without any work on their own part. They hope that when they build websites, people will come, and the advertising dollars will pour in. And the people do come, sometimes. Everybody's got something to say. Whether it has anything useful for me, I can't know until I wade through the thousands of voices. Which -- I don't have time.
I don't even have time for the top recommendations. I already have a couple of hobbies.
There's nothing wrong with or even new about "everybody gets to talk." The real revolution is that there might actually be people out there to hear you, if you're interesting enough. Hey, I have a friend who got a nod from Time Magazine last year as one of the top 10 blogs for her Velveteen Rabbi. That made me feel pretty connected, I can tell you. And needless to say, she does have an RSS feed.
Still, I'm not as impressed by The Revolution as I think I'm supposed to be.
Thing 12 has a very telling comment right in the description:
"See a theme here? No editors to decide what information is important, user-generated content, reader recommendations/sharing, and you and others get to vote on what makes the top lists—the very definition of Web 2.0."
We all know WHY user-generated content is such a popular thing, right? Yes, people like it. But it's a primo way, marketers hope, to make money -- LOTS of money -- without any work on their own part. They hope that when they build websites, people will come, and the advertising dollars will pour in. And the people do come, sometimes. Everybody's got something to say. Whether it has anything useful for me, I can't know until I wade through the thousands of voices. Which -- I don't have time.
I don't even have time for the top recommendations. I already have a couple of hobbies.
There's nothing wrong with or even new about "everybody gets to talk." The real revolution is that there might actually be people out there to hear you, if you're interesting enough. Hey, I have a friend who got a nod from Time Magazine last year as one of the top 10 blogs for her Velveteen Rabbi. That made me feel pretty connected, I can tell you. And needless to say, she does have an RSS feed.
Still, I'm not as impressed by The Revolution as I think I'm supposed to be.
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