#8 and #9 Del.icio.us and Technorati

click click click , scroll, new window, back, forward, click, tab alt, new window, tab tab, click loooooooooad ...wait...check.....still waiting. click scroll click, check- stiiiiiiiilllll loooooading new window copy tab paste save click...click click click! MS_DOS??? what?? tab click,exit, think of appealing, easy to remember password.....hmmm ok, weird dialogue box, close, weird dialogue box, close,weird dialogue box, close, voices?-tab, watch vid -huh? click tab click tab copy paste save review.(sigh).....

Okay tags are a good idea, and delicious is a good idea too (apart from twee name and silly full stops) but I draw the line at technorati. I refuse to sink into the abyss of trawling blogs all day long until I become a mad, housebound troll with long fingernails and transparent skin, living with 37 cats.

Technorati Profile

#7 Finding feeds

Well after #6 and adding a couple of rss feeds from sites I was interested in I find I have little desire to go to sites that can find 1000s more for me. Went to feedster - under construction, went to topix - no good, lots of junky results. Google blog search seemed to work well but given I've somewhat lost interest in reading my own blog I can't see myself spending a lot of time reading anyone else's, let alone regularly harvesting the bounty that Google blog search offers. I think I am more likely to find a useful feed or blog by visiting a good website with high quality content. Everyone can write but not everyone is a writer. There are a lot of dull blogs out there. This is probably one of them.

#6 Make life "really cluttered" with RSS & a newsread...

I can see how RSS "saves time" by collecting info for you instead of you having to go around looking for it but then it takes it all back again if you actually intend to read it all. It's a bit like going to stocktaking sales where you go and buy piles of stuff you don't really need because it's discounted. I was feeling a bit uninspired at the time so I just said, Oh yeah, to a 'bundle' of feeds when I signed on to google reader and then poof! there were dozens of articles I couldn't be bothered scrolling through. Having said that I do think it is a good idea but you have to be quite selective if you are time poor and I assume that is why one uses RSS in the first place.

#5 Playing around with PBWiki or Zoho Wiki

There are worse things than having users put drivvle on your wiki. What if you had a party and nobody came? I looked up arts and entertainment on one of the wikis in the discovery exercise and apart from the basic template with some links and four thumbnails of book covers no one added anything - no discussion, no stuff, nothing to do. "Hello?..hello..hello..
Anybody there?.. there.. there.. "


dull and sad - click


So not only can anyone contribute to a wiki, they *have to* or it doesn't work. If people don't join in you are left with the husk of a website, testament to the fact most of us have too much to do and not enough time to do it. This is probably more of a #4 comment than a #5 but anyway.


Back to #5. Freeware and wikis. Freeware is a wonderful democratic thing but sometimes you get what you pay for, so when stuff doesn't work you can't exactly demand to speak to the manager and ask for your money back. I spent some time diligently trying to post my blog on the PLMCLearning 2.0 Favorites wiki*. After working thru the 14 easy steps several times I enlisted the help of my friendly Learning 2 mentor. She had a few goes (about 42 steps) and then gently explained to me that I was using freeware... I decided it was time to get on with my life. I tried the slvpractice wiki instead, a much more rewarding experience - found some stuff on the website -select, copy, paste, edit, save - Bingo! That's more like it.

#4 Wikis

#4 Wikis

Oh Dear, is that the time?! I have a bit of catching up to do.
Wikis: Who doesn't like wikis? Anyone who was here during the SLV website's last ice age, (you may remember there was a period of several years when nothing could be changed because it was being "updated"), well any such person would jump at the chance for a collaborative website where people with info could just put it out there and everyone could immediately share that knowledge. Yes there is the potential for wild hooligans to put poorly composed tracts of inaccurate garbage up there (there are plenty of professional journalists and web aficionados who can do that too) but mostly they don't. As with any information source, the reader has to take some responsibility for their own gullibility/laziness. If you know how a wiki works you may suspect that it is not 100% reliable all the time, but for quick info and news, particularly for a specific user group eg a workplace, what a great idea!

Rainy afternoons

Not everyone gets to spend rainy afternoons at the library. Some people are stuck at home indoors and have to make their own fun.

This vid takes a while to load but hey, it's Friday! Post something on your blog while you're waiting, then watch it straight through and go home early.

Greetings

Blog no.40 (or 659,000,001 if you include the rest of the world). Has it all been said before? Possibly. I feel like the last person to introduce myself to the group in a circle of chairs the size of the solar system. It would be nice to say something interesting or original but that's a lot of pressure, I don't think my muse is up to it. Perhaps just a standard greeting will do. I quite like the style of the Icelandic so I'll go with Komdu sæll og blessaður! Or you can choose one you like here .