ok, I won't get fired

I figured it out. Here's the public URL for my Bloglines feed. Why anyone cares what I want to look at is beyond me but I think our teachers just want to see that I can do it.... so I did :)

Now I'm frustrated again

I'm frustrated because I am unable to color my previous post all white. I can get part but not the whole of it*. I'm frustrated because I am trying to put in my bloglines public url but when I follow the directions I get "You have not set up a clip blog yet. Click here to do so. " Of course, when I click here, and make changes to it so that it is public, I still get the same message, even after refreshing the page, logging out and then logging back in, or closing the window fully and starting a new window. AAAAGGHHHH.
I will try this again later. Otherwise, this computer will be thrown out the window and I will be fired.
*notice how the previous post's font is no longer white

RSS iss mosst amassing

The wonderful thing about blogs is that I can re-edit what I wrote after I had a chance to ponder. Of course, there's no posterity involved and I can deny I ever wrote such things - especially if I was in a foul mood when I posted the blog. Let's talk about RSS feeds, shall we?
RSS feeds remind me of the season pass manager on Tivo. I get that concept :)
Here are some I subscribed to:
Astronomy Picture Of The Day
BBC News
Librarians' Index To The Internet
National Geographic News
Scopes
Sky And Telescope
Unshelved
as well as my fellow coworkers blogs.
I have to admit to being thrown off of the interface of bloglines but I believe it's just because I am not used to it. I can see using this professionally and personally - but I would need to remember to check. I'm pretty bad about checking my personal email (averaging once a week or so) so I would need to add this to that to-do list. I did see that you could have these emailed to you but seeing an inbox with that many messages would probably lead to me ignoring it more :)
I am thrilled though that the Librarians' Index To The Internet has a feed - I check this out every time I think of it and I can see how it would help me keep up with websites I could use to refer patrons to at the reference desk. Feeds (and I see we have those) at the library could be used to alert patrons of new titles at the library, reader's advisory blogs (here's where a personal account of a title would be great), and your library funding news (especially if your library could use the funds). Up to date information about local issues affecting your library.

I love Wired magazine

My brother-in-law, who heads the IT dept at some Californian univeristy - got me a subscription to Wired magazine after I perused his one day. I really loved the geography bits of it - the maps are great! - but what I learned about technology was ever more fun. An earlier post showed a link to the graphic illustration of how a blog works. I preferred the paper copy to the online version but I could see how the online version would appeal more to someone who doesn't read. I didn't like how I could not see the whole thing at once like I could in the paper format.

Anyway, there's an article "Air Force Blocks Access to Many Blogs" which I found extremely interesting. Having read many anonymous blogs about the war experience in Iraq (something only those in the front lines can really talk about, those with the experience), I find it interesting that while the spokesperson for this decision states that the information from blogs are not "primary, official-use resources" and they do not want their troops misinformed, I believe it also stops those who were blogging from having access to do so. Political I know, but having lived near military bases all my life, decisions are made and reasons given that all too often have underlying purposes in them that have nothing to do with the public explanation.

Very interesting, and right back to when is information misinformation, or propaganda, or just some idiot who doesn't know what he's (or she) is talking about.

I'm falling behind...

We're supposed to be exploring Flickr and all that it offers. I already upload and manage my photos on Snapfish but there are some key differences. Flickr is more a social connection in that you can post pictures, show off pictures, blog about pictures, and a lot more. I like the fact that there are people who allow you to use their pictures and it's a lot of fun to see the different photos people take. I'm not the social sort so I don't intend on changing over to Flickr but I would definitely recommend it to someone like my sister who would really enjoy the social aspect.
(Flickr) Reminds me of Library Thing but instead of photos, its books. The tags are neat and fun to assign (the cataloging part of me really likes this). Doing some simple searches I found a lot of different tags that I would have never thought of for the photo (and probably wouldn't have used but this personal aspect is neat and I imagine for some people, fun to share with the world). I'm still trying to figure out how to search for tags that might apply to ones I use, but that I don't know to use (what other words would one use).

I also played with some of the third party applications that you could apply. I do think this part of Flickr is really neat (I'm a big Linux fan). I've "attached" one to this blog - this little collage type thing - that's cute. i also liked the one where you could search for pictures with the same colors... but I couldn't figure out how to load it or use it myself - only the sample provided by the website. Hmm, I'll have to do some more exploring.

australian gothic

australian gothic, originally uploaded by dinoboy.

I think the photographer did a good job capturing the immediate forefront including the buildings and a wonderful job capturing the background of the storm and clouds.

for those of us who are visual learners:

A very neat graphic representation of the blog cycle.
The Life Cycle of a Blog Post, from Servers to Spiders to Suits - to You

For those of you who'd rather read it in paper format, it's in the Feb 2008 issue of Wired magazine.

blogging... on company time

I'm supposed to be blogging as part of an assignment so only the title is lurid :)

I'm a little intimidated by the idea of adding video, and I'm not very social so I have no desire to share my life like that. I guess one can always post video of something else. I'm also intimidated by the RSS feed... and learning more technology (although that is part of the job so it's more like an actor who has stage fright. They're still going to get up on stage and perform).

We discussed two videos last week. The part that interests me the most is the tagging of information: how each of us has a different idea of what the information is about, what sort of tags we want to put on it, the multitude of tags and the lack of a controlled vocabulary, the absence of credibility that exists regardless of the format of information (be it paper, electronic, or internet based), and most important, what I believe to be the changing definition of information. There are websites that will suggest tags based on what tags others have used for the same subjects. I would like to know how that works - is it based on an algorithm that the computer runs? Is there a human making the decisions at the other end? Or something completely different?


Change is inevitable in our profession - those who abhor it should steer clear of the library. New technology becomes available at almost an instantaneous rate. Making the decision on how much of the technology to adopt requires careful attention.