Twitter

I think Twitter is lame. I think it has always been lame and I think people are only doing it because it's a fad.
I am a facebook girl. If you want to see brief status updates, photos that you don't have to open up a new window to see (and you actually get a preview of what they are) then go to Facebook! It's called your homepage and it does all that. And you don't have to use abbreviations or hashtags.

On Twitter you can only see the most recent 20 statuses so you have to be on it 24/7 or spend hours going through boring lines of texts only broken up by links to either other lines of texts or maybe a photo. But you can't tell because there are no avatars or previews. ARGH.

I can see the library using it's application for the 'last minute' crowd. They just want to check twitter and see "Hey, something's happening right now... cool."
I, on the other hand, am a planner. I'd much rather get the facebook invite a month ahead of time.

LibraryThing. You make my heart sing.

You make everything... bookey?

I know a lot of people who use Librarything, especially since this 2.0 workshop. I actually tried to list all the books I own in an excel spreadsheet about 6 years ago. I don't have the speradsheet anymore but it was long. Since then I've tried to prune my collection quite a bit so half those books are no longer there, they've been replaced by double as many new books.

I do think that Library thing is a good idea and could be very practical for keeping a home library organized. However it would take forever to actually list all my books and then I'd have to remember to add them all as soon as I get new books. Which reminds me,
I have at least 10 books I'm dying to buy from Amazon. Must make an order now *drool*.

In Summary library thing is actually pretty cool. I like that other recommended books are listed under each books description. I also think that one day when I'm no longer feeling lazy I will use library thing.

Online Productivity Tools- Video killed the radio star

I am still pissed off that my brand new, and not completely cheap, computer that I bought in December did not come with microsoft office.
Doesn't anyone else remember when computers used to come with microsoft word?
Why the heck would a Microsoft product NOT come with MS Word? *headshake*

In protest I have downloaded Open Office because there is no way I'm paying in excess of $200 for something that I should have gotten for free.

I actually have used Google docs (I used it for the first time a few weeks ago) but it's not as effective as Word. There are less tools and formatting options especailly in google docs' 'Excel', where I must say Microsoft is much better. But that doesn't mean that I'm willing to pay for it! 'Cause I'm not.

I think free software will take over eventually just like video killed the radio star and youtube killed cd's.

Flickr / Youtube

Flickr was the first photo sharing media I used back in the day. But, I 've learned better.
I find it kind of annoying now actually. People tag their photos wrong and when I search for tags that I am actually looking for I have to surf through hundreds of useless photos before I find the ones I'm actually looking for. It is fairly user friendly though. When I was a 'noob' I figured out how to use it. I use Facebook for all photo sharing now and I use photobucket too. Mostly to post photos onto my regular blog.

Youtube is one of the most useful tools on the internet. What would life be like without it? I pretty much go on youtube every day. Userfriendly? Yes, it's super easy to search as it suggests searches for you as soon as you start typing! You can find anything that hasn't been taken down for copyright infringement and

Seriously though, youtube is not just full of junk. I never watch what 'most' people watch such as Rhianna and Justin Beiber music videos. I watch book trailers, 50's rock and roll and Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) videos.



I hate driving and I can not wait for the day when machines will drive me everywhere! Mwahaha.
Because of you, Youtube, I can visualize it quite well.

RSS Feeds

I adore RSS feeds.

I check my RSS feeds almost more than I check my Facebook. I save everything to my RSS feed and I have about 150 feeds a day. In fact it's gotten to the point that I really need to cut back. I think I'm a bit of a feed addict. It's become a 'Well-I'd-like-to-go-back-to-this-website-at-some-point-before-I-die-so-I-should-add-it-to-my-RSS-feed' situation.

I use Google Reader as my RSS feed and I must say it couldn't be easier. Hence the state of my addiction. Accessibility= Continual Use=Addiction.
Plus Google Chrome has an RSS feed button that automatically lights up when an RSS feed is available on a page. It facilitates my laziness because I don't even have to search for the orange RSS symbol. It's awesome.

The only thing that annoys me about RSS feeds is that some feeds never work. It drives me nuts but for some reason the photos won't appear and the post ends up just being text or being blank. What you have to understand is I don't read posts. No, the only reason I go on the internet is to look at pictures so when my RSS feeds don't work I am not a happy bunny.

I've gotta go now. My RSS feed is calling.

Google Universe! *Dun, Dun, DUN!*

I am quite enamored with Google Universe, in fact the GU and I are having an affair. Many others have love affairs with Apple products --which are overpriced, in my opinion-- but I have the absolutely free Google Universe for my lonely nights. What can I say, I'm a bit cheap.

Google Chrome is my one and only web browser. I've grown tired of my past love Firefox. The best part is that google chrome has a feature where any highlighted text anywhere becomes a title search in google with a single right click. *I love it*


Gmail/hotmail. The debate still rages for me. I use both. Gmail has more attachment space for photos but hotmail is my old and steady flame. Like Brad Pitt in so many ways.



And then there was Google Wave.



I was somehow pre selected to use Google Wave and was automatically registered. I decided this meant I should try it and it was interesting. I think Google Wave is the future and that emails will be no more. Real time, multi-person editing is just so much better and it will save so much inbox space.



While we're on the subject of google products I will point out the obvious that this is a biased post from the start because BLOGGER is itself a google product. I don't think blogger is perfect, but since I'm on blogger bashing google would be kind of silly. I think it could have more customization but, as they say, ces't la blogger.



Also Google Books could use some help. They seem to have everything I want to read, but when I click on the wonderful books I want, either I can't read them because of the copyright issues or it's not actually there at all, it's just a citation. And, ironically enough, the cataloguing system and search engine for Google Books sucks because of it's lacking subject-based search. I just want to find every book ever on a few topics but no, you can't do that for me can you Google Books.

Facebook

Ah Facecrack, Faceface, Facehack; whatever you want to call it, it's here and it's sticking around for quite a while.



I think that Facebook can be very useful. I indeed have a facebook and use it extensively. I really don't care what anyone scorred on Farmville, but that's what blocking applications is for! Seriously, I think facebook would be much better without applications. Almost all of them are faddy (They're a fad that's useless and fat-building).



But finding out that someone whom you haven't talked to in a while is pregnant/ going through a horrible break up/ dying of terminal cancer, is a great way to find out something new in the morning!



Has anyone heard of Schadenfreude? I think the beauty of Schadenfreude is best illustrated with social networking sites like Facebook. We just all have an inate desire to know what's going on in the world and Facebook is my daily dose of gossip, first thing in the morning! I don't check it obsessively on my phone, mostly because my phone is still living in the dark ages without internet, but I do check it several times a day to keep updated. Plus I get everything all in one with Facebook. All my friends photos, all their news and links. Take that twitter and your anoying mandatory tiny urls.

Wikipedia

I am a big user of Wikipedia. True story.
I use it all the time, and I link to it all the time.


The fact of the matter is that I find I often use the internet like a big encyclopedia. Mostly because I need to look up the myth of Iphis (which is really cool by the way) and who Tavi Gevinson is. Unfortunately the Encyclopedia Britannica does not have Tavi Gevinson in it, nor does it have the incredibly large amount of other pop culture references and internet memes that I want to find information about.

It's very easy to find articles that needed editing on wikipedia. Often I don't think there is enough information, particularly because the things I look up are so obscure. Also I've found racist remarks on wikipedia entries before that obviously needed to be edited out but I've never actually editied articles before! I thought you had to have a login in order to edit and that was just an extra step I prefer not to have to do, but really it was quite easy.

I edited an article on an obscure Roman topic that I happened to have an additional reference to add and I'm glad I did it! It definitely is going to make me want to edit articles whenever they're only a stub and I can add additional info!

Frivolous yet fun random quip

Scene: Downtown Calgary

Christine and Sadie are walking down the street.

Sadie has just applied copious amounts of Hand lotion.

Christine:"Eww your hand is slimy"

Sadie: "How do you think my purse feels."

Delicious

1) I explored Delicious. I actually have no sarcastic comments for the display options themselves, they were useful. Though, my immediate thoughts were to how colourful and interesting these pages are! That was sarcasm, in case you're wondering.

2) I am really liking the names and styles of some of the other library staff's blogs. I can identify with MondayMoods sentiments about Delicious not having any visual aspect. I mean, come on! Have they ever even heard of Icons? At the very least some icons that correspong with the tags would be nice! All in all though it's super hard to find info on it based on it's style. The text is just everywhere and there is way too much info for my liking. Clean and simple is best in some cases.

3)What are the advantages of storing, sharing, and tagging web content this way? What are the disadvantages?
Advantages:

• It makes lists of hyperlinks! If only there weren't a billion other programs that did that... *Sigh*
• You can search by tags.. that's something you can't do on word!

Disadvantages:

• It sucks for people who are visual learners.
• It's got huge amounts of white space on some pages and WAY too much text on others.

If Delicious was blog style with photos or screen shots of websites it would be far more interesting.

Weblog 1

I've always wanted to create a blog full of sarcastic witicisms and funny-but-unfortnuately-true stories. Now here is my chance!

First Point: I had no idea where the name 'blog' came from until today. Yet I have been blogging on other bloggie-type blog things for well over a year.... interesting...

Well when I mean 'well over a year' it's more like less than a year. Nevertheless, 7 months is a considerable amount of time to be dedicated to something.

First Question: Which Aspects of Web 2.0 are you most intreagued/ scared by?

Is Chatroulette considered Web 2.0? According to the definition of Web 2.0 in our illustrious Wikipedia, then yes it is. So I am definitely going to have to say that chatroulette is the most bizarre/ scarry thing in the world of Web 2.0. More specifically, it's the random happenstance of web 2.0 whereas normal people, like moi, happen upon perverts/completely crazy people like most of those whom I assume inhabit freaky chatrooms and chatroulette. It's the fact that identitiy thieves can easily search your house on google street view after hacking into your bank account. The Web is far too personal sometimes, for in our quest to become internet celebrities we somehow decided, collectively, that there is no longer anything called 'privacy'.

Alright, technically those were sort-of two points. To sum it up: Web 2.0 is scary because a)you have the unfiltered opportunity to meet people who are anonymous and are likely crazy; yet b) there is way too much personal information available on the internet which facilitates you being located by these scary people.