RSS and 2.0

This week's assignment was to learn about RSS and how the feeds work.  I heard so-workers proudly boasting that they now knew what the RSS stands for and I say good for them!  Personally I have been using RSS since I first noticed the symbol.  Until now I had simply saved the feeds in my favorites.  This has worked for me since I am not yet an owner of a blackberry or other 3G type phone so mobility is not an issue.  I use computers at work and at home and have not had occasion to need access other than these two places. 

The assignment was:
 1) Bloglines is a popular RSS reader. Check out the website at http://www.bloglines.com, and learn a little about the service.
2) Sign up for a Bloglines account. The easiest way to learn about RSS is by using it! Bloglines will suggest some popular feeds that you may want to follow – choose one or two. Try reading one of them through your Bloglines account.  Now go to a website or blog that you regularly visit.
3) In your blog, comment on the following:

• Were you able to successfully set up your RSS feed? If not, where did you run into problems? If you were successful, does this make information-gathering more convenient for you?

Having done all of the above steps, I am now ready to comment.  I was successful in setting up 3 or 4 feeds in Bloglines.  By the way it's super easy and very quick to do!  I'm not so sure that I would say that information gathering is now more convenient.  Before I simply had to open my Internet browser and in two clicks I could select the feeds I wanted to check on.  With Bloglines I have to log-in to access my feeds.  I get that if I were more mobile and had the capability for  Internet everywhere, I would likely be more enamoured with a RSS reader service, but for now I may be giving this one a pass.  I will in all fairness give it a try over the coming weeks, who knows, I may change my mind.

Google Universe @ 2.0

  This week's assignment was to check out Google products. 
The first part of the assignment is to "Choose one or two products that interest you, and click on them to find out more."  The first time I tried to look at a product that I was not already at least semi-familiar with I hit a road block in that I could not download the application.  However, my thanks to whoever is responsible, because when I tried again I was able to download the desired app.  My choice - "Picasa".

I realize that online photo albums are nothing new.  I just have never used one for myself before.  Oh sure I have looked at others when invited to do so, but it is something I just never saw the need for.  I am not big on putting personal photos and information into cyberspace.  It's a security thing, I guess. 

One of the first things I looked for with Picasa was their privacy settings.  Once I learned how easy it is to hide pictures and albums and that I had a choice of password protection, security became less of a concern. 
And if you think about it, why would I take up valuable storage space on my computer when I can store my photos online.   I can have  1GB of storage free, images can be uploaded and manipulated, and I can purchase extra storage space, admittedly up to  $500 a year to bump up the storage space to 400 times the size of the free service.  I'm not sure I would go that far, but certainly being able to manipulate and store photos will be an asset.

I would recommend that anyone interested in this option should include Google's Picasa on their list to check out.

Social Networking 2.0

So, this week's assignment was to set-up a Facebook account and become a fan of CPL.  Once accomplished we have a choice of questions.  I have chosen - For you, is Facebook useful or a time-waster?

Having been a long time user of Facebook, I must admit that I find the biggest use is keeping track of what my family is doing.  It is also a way to keep in touch with friends around the world.  I am big on privacy so it was a little unnerving at first, but I have found a way to balance my privacy with the networking of Facebook.  Unfortunately, many of my physical friends and family avoid social websites so I find that a lot of my contacts are friends of my adult children.  I am hoping that now that my co-workers are using Facebook, there will be more firends that I can relate too.

It's a Wiki Wiki World We Live In... 2.0 Continued

Well, you just never know what you will find on the web.  The excercise this week involved familiarizing oneself with Wikipedia.  Now, you must know that I have looked at a lot of different topics usuing Wikipedia over the years in the course of information seeking.  I have not used the information found there as a primary source, but rather as a fast way of getting general information.  Upon taking a closer look, I noticed the citations on some of the listings as well as the notation of "citation needed".  In my effort to find spelling or grammatical errors as a portion of the excercise, I found that they are now rare whereas say a couple of years ago the spelling and grammer was very poor indeed.  I thought, for a lark I would register and contribute an article.  I was sure I had a subject or two that hadn't yet been entered.  Perhaps if I had done that in the earlier days of Wilipedia, I would have had more success. These obscure topics that I thought I had are not just mine alone.  And I must say that the entry on nose-picking contained a great deal more information than I had planned to contribute.  Did you know that there is actually a helath benefit to "mucophagy".  But to be fair, there are a greater number of health risks.  By far, the most interesting, was the link to Wiki-quotes on nose picking. 

Okay, enough.  My co-workers have been thoughorally grossed out by my oral reading of the article so that will be my clue to end here for the week.  Never fear, though, I am still looking for an original topic or one I can contribute to,

Wiki-on!