The good:
Lots of interesting things to explore out there on the WWW, and this learning program gave me an overview and broader perspective than I was getting from weekly perusals of the Green Guide.
I can see a use for Wikis as an aid to communication, and many of the other online tools are useful for folks who move from one machine to another. Flickr is a handy tool for those wishing to share photos, we used to have to find a server to store them and then hand the pathway out as if it were the Key to the Kingdom, but Flickr is a more civilized option and much easier to drive.
I can see a use for the Social Networking sites, but having lost hours and hours of incredibly enjoyable time to the delights of Live Journal I, personally, am not ready to be seduced again. At this point in my life 'spare' time is at a premium and I often wonder how I found the time to blog on a daily basis and to read the blogs of others with such dedication. Ergo I wish all those networkers well because there is a lot of fun to be had connecting with folks from far, far away whose paths you would simply never cross without the world wide web.
The bad:
I am finishing this course vaguely on time because I have considerable tech savvy and fast typing skills. Many of those around me are not so fortunate and have become progressively more frustrated with the difficulties of trying something new and hitting a pothole, the slow nature of the internet here, the inability of the podcasts to load and play with any efficiency, the lack of assistance and the laughable notion that this could actually be done in 15 minutes a day.
Curiously as if often the case, those who wanted to cover the content thoroughly and really learn the ins and outs of everything are the ones who became the most frustrated. I myself, as can clearly be seen, was quite ready to say 'well, tried it, ran into one of WebMarshall's quirky little idiosyncracies and am now out of time'. Because I know I can always check it out later and at my leisure, and as I am confident in my abilities I don't feel the need to have a supportive environment while I explore.
A great frustration for all I think was that this was presented to us as 'can be done at work, only 15 minutes a day' and this is patently not the case. The minutes of the Staff Meetings at no less than 3 of our Branches have recently included the point that this program is not do-able in 15 minutes and a day and that participants need to be prepared to spend some time at home completing that tasks. Well, this raises the question of how many of us would have volunteered if this out of hours commitment had been part of the initial information. It assumes that all of the staff have internet access at home (not the case) and that that access is capable of the speed necessary to open the various programs (not my case: see previous entry). And it assumes that we have the time to spare, a notion that leaves me rotflmao.
The final word:
This was an excellent program, and a great idea. It just ran in to some administrative hiccups. Cure the hiccups and all will be well.
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Audio books
I have an American friend who can reserve books in Mp3 format, enjoy them and then have them do a mission impossible on her as they disappear - minus the smoke - without any intervention on the due date.
Wonderful idea and she's very happy with her Library for providing this service.
I suspect that Audio books are a similarly delightful service but I am not going to find out today. The slow nature of the download means that by the time The rime of the ancient mariner finishes loading from http://www.gutenberg.org I will need to be on my way to the second shift.
(Although I've changed pcs and at least it is downloading and lookit, on this machine I can insert links that do so.)
Also, a thought for those offering and promoting this service: as a rural dweller, unless I spring the many hundreds of dollars required to install a dish, broadband is unavailable to me. My internet comes down tired copper wiring harking back to when Telstra was a service provided by the Government, it doesn't matter that our Computers are lovely and newish and capable of delivering broadband, it just isn't do-able. And we are not alone in this. Those of us in the information industry tend to make a whole pile of assumptions about the availability of broadband and the modernity of the equipment attached to it by our Patrons, we also assume they have the understanding that a virus checker checked for updates at every log on is an essential part of maintaining ones online health and yet it was only recently a woman who gave every indication of being on the upper curve of the intelligence bellcurve was quite insistent to me that she did not need a subscription to Norton, McAfee or their ilk 'because I only go online to do my banking'.
::headslap::
::eyeroll::
::thunking of head on keyboard::
Wonderful idea and she's very happy with her Library for providing this service.
I suspect that Audio books are a similarly delightful service but I am not going to find out today. The slow nature of the download means that by the time The rime of the ancient mariner finishes loading from http://www.gutenberg.org I will need to be on my way to the second shift.
(Although I've changed pcs and at least it is downloading and lookit, on this machine I can insert links that do so.)
Also, a thought for those offering and promoting this service: as a rural dweller, unless I spring the many hundreds of dollars required to install a dish, broadband is unavailable to me. My internet comes down tired copper wiring harking back to when Telstra was a service provided by the Government, it doesn't matter that our Computers are lovely and newish and capable of delivering broadband, it just isn't do-able. And we are not alone in this. Those of us in the information industry tend to make a whole pile of assumptions about the availability of broadband and the modernity of the equipment attached to it by our Patrons, we also assume they have the understanding that a virus checker checked for updates at every log on is an essential part of maintaining ones online health and yet it was only recently a woman who gave every indication of being on the upper curve of the intelligence bellcurve was quite insistent to me that she did not need a subscription to Norton, McAfee or their ilk 'because I only go online to do my banking'.
::headslap::
::eyeroll::
::thunking of head on keyboard::
Week 9: Podcasts aka Webmarshall strikes again
Podcast.net is blocked by Webmarshall
The home page of Podcastalley.com will open but getting beyond the first page rivals paint drying, bread rising and grass growing for speed...
Even the top podcasts option, which you'd think is a fairly uncomplicated link, is attempting to load for about 50 seconds and then sullenly telling me its Done when nothing has happened except'n ah've gotten older.
I stand corrected, something has happened, now I have an error message 'internet explorer cannot display the webpage'.
http://podcasts.yahoo.com is equally unhappy about the prospect of loading. (There 'tis, another error message, same as before).
Fortunately I can comment on podcasting as I've been an infrequent listener to a blog recommended in Vogue Knitting. Alas the name and link are at home but essentially I found that being a dial-up customer on a decidedly dodgy phone line it was impossible to stream and listen, I had to download the file to my harddrive (using my download manager and allowing an hour and a half for a 15 minute chat to reach completion) and then it's there to be listened to at my leisure.
And therein lies the trap. Once the thing is on my hd, just like a book you own and are going to read 'one day', it sits waiting in a digital holding pattern for that mythical day when I sit down at my pc and instead of thinking 'Ach, damn, 145 missives in the in-box and thats after I've deleted the spam, how long has Aunt Agatha waited for a reply? Oopser, 7 weeks, best start there' I sit down and think 'I'm so up to date, I'll just indulge in one of those podcasts I've got on file...how delightful.'
Score so far, podcasts downloaded: 8, podcasts listened to: 2.
A 25% success rate.
But I'm halfway through The God Delusion (Dawkins) and three chapters in on The six sacred stones (Reilly) because they're portable entertainment and mind expanding reading.
And I recognise that if I could dl podcasts to an mp3 player I'd have played them all by now, so maybe it's less a matter of time and more a matter of adequate technology.
The home page of Podcastalley.com will open but getting beyond the first page rivals paint drying, bread rising and grass growing for speed...
Even the top podcasts option, which you'd think is a fairly uncomplicated link, is attempting to load for about 50 seconds and then sullenly telling me its Done when nothing has happened except'n ah've gotten older.
I stand corrected, something has happened, now I have an error message 'internet explorer cannot display the webpage'.
http://podcasts.yahoo.com is equally unhappy about the prospect of loading. (There 'tis, another error message, same as before).
Fortunately I can comment on podcasting as I've been an infrequent listener to a blog recommended in Vogue Knitting. Alas the name and link are at home but essentially I found that being a dial-up customer on a decidedly dodgy phone line it was impossible to stream and listen, I had to download the file to my harddrive (using my download manager and allowing an hour and a half for a 15 minute chat to reach completion) and then it's there to be listened to at my leisure.
And therein lies the trap. Once the thing is on my hd, just like a book you own and are going to read 'one day', it sits waiting in a digital holding pattern for that mythical day when I sit down at my pc and instead of thinking 'Ach, damn, 145 missives in the in-box and thats after I've deleted the spam, how long has Aunt Agatha waited for a reply? Oopser, 7 weeks, best start there' I sit down and think 'I'm so up to date, I'll just indulge in one of those podcasts I've got on file...how delightful.'
Score so far, podcasts downloaded: 8, podcasts listened to: 2.
A 25% success rate.
But I'm halfway through The God Delusion (Dawkins) and three chapters in on The six sacred stones (Reilly) because they're portable entertainment and mind expanding reading.
And I recognise that if I could dl podcasts to an mp3 player I'd have played them all by now, so maybe it's less a matter of time and more a matter of adequate technology.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
YouTube
Yu-Gi-Oh Abridged by Little Kuribo.
Say. No. More.
Go watch it instead: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDzdmZCNIeo
Say. No. More.
Go watch it instead: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDzdmZCNIeo
Web 2.0 Awards
More creative and varied ways to live life to the full by sitting in front of a pc.
I had heard of CraigsList so had a squiz around the site.
Good feature: you can narrow the shopping down to your local area. Drawback: no one in my local area has the books I am looking to buy.
Good feature: clear advice, including examples, of the many ways one can be scammed whilst shopping. Drawback: No real payment alternatives offered apart from the 'do your buying face to face' option.
I am naturally distrustful of sites like this and ebay, I suspect that many more folks get scammed than are willing to admit it...
I had heard of CraigsList so had a squiz around the site.
Good feature: you can narrow the shopping down to your local area. Drawback: no one in my local area has the books I am looking to buy.
Good feature: clear advice, including examples, of the many ways one can be scammed whilst shopping. Drawback: No real payment alternatives offered apart from the 'do your buying face to face' option.
I am naturally distrustful of sites like this and ebay, I suspect that many more folks get scammed than are willing to admit it...
Sunday, November 4, 2007
Zoho-ho-ho aka Straw. Camel. Back.
Oooh this is a good one, I have access to Zoho writer, I do, WebMarshall will let me in baby, but click on any frelling option and it locketh me right out of the new window/page.
I'm out of time now until next week.
Not finding the fun in the doing of this. Limited time is one form of pressure, programmes that argue with you is another.
I'm out of time now until next week.
Not finding the fun in the doing of this. Limited time is one form of pressure, programmes that argue with you is another.
Zoho writer
Thirty minutes later....
I now have access, have created my account and must go back to my email to verify the thing.
15 minutes a day.
Le snorfle.
I now have access, have created my account and must go back to my email to verify the thing.
15 minutes a day.
Le snorfle.
Week 8: Zoho writer (in theory, that is...)
I have attempted the task and am commenting on my experience:
Any attempt to access Zoho writer brings me this message:
Access to http://writer.zoho.com/ has been blocked by WebMarshal™
Ah, WebMarshall. I shall now contact IT and ask for this to be unblocked.
Any attempt to access Zoho writer brings me this message:
Access to http://writer.zoho.com/ has been blocked by WebMarshal™
Ah, WebMarshall. I shall now contact IT and ask for this to be unblocked.
Tricki Wiki Woo
Does anyone else remember Tricky Woo from All creatures great and small? I can't help it the word Wiki has always made me think of Mrs Pomfrey? Pomfret? and her spoiled fluff ball of a pomeranian pooch, overfed and overindulged to the dismay of Herriot the vet.
Ach well. My blog is listed in the sandbox in all it's boring glory.
Not sure why we were supposed to use [] though. When I bracketed my URL the link broke, so I took 'em out post haste. OTOH that 5 minute editing lock out follwed by the option to 'steal' access is pretty cool. Someone had been editing and then inactive for 17 minutes and my time for this is pretty limited so I took over control and felt awfully guilty about it. Hope the poor person really had left and forgotten to hit 'SAVE' as opposed to being still sitting there trying to complete the task.
Ach well. My blog is listed in the sandbox in all it's boring glory.
Not sure why we were supposed to use [] though. When I bracketed my URL the link broke, so I took 'em out post haste. OTOH that 5 minute editing lock out follwed by the option to 'steal' access is pretty cool. Someone had been editing and then inactive for 17 minutes and my time for this is pretty limited so I took over control and felt awfully guilty about it. Hope the poor person really had left and forgotten to hit 'SAVE' as opposed to being still sitting there trying to complete the task.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Perspectives on Web2.0
I feel compelled to start by stating that I have a few troubles with New Age thinking. Those poor sods starving to death in the drought torn wastes of Africa can visualise roast dinners until the cows don't home and they will still be watching their children starve and die. And don't get me started on Darfur.
I think The secret and books of this ilk are actively damaging to a certain proportion of the population. (i.e. those who take it seriously.) All of the Staff of this Library can follow the steps and see their future as Chief Librarian but unless the Council decides to promote thirty people and permit democratic leadership all the planning and thinking in the world will still leave us with one Manager and twenty-nine disappointed dreamers.
What has this to do with Library 2.0 you could be forgiven for thinking? Bear with me.
Last week at our Staff Meeting we were presented with ABS xylophone graphs generated from the last Census which shows that Sunshine has the second lowest level of literacy (Dandenong owns first place), no surprises there, second lowest rate of households with connection to the internet (high five to Dandenong again) and once again no great surprise there, but we also have, and this is the surprise, the lowest rate of car ownership.
Got the picture? No car in this wide brown land. Not owning - or more accurately, not in the process of paying off, 'cos I'd be surprised if those on the mid to upper levels of socio-economic success own all of those people movers out there - a family car would be high on my list of indicators of folks doing it hard. Howard's Battlers as it were.
So my perspective on the reading I have done about Web 2.0 has been filtered through my perception and understandings of the area in which I work, because looking at this excercise from a professional and not a personal perspective I see our Library Staff who are educated, intelligent folks with a start up level of computer literacy and no restrictions (i.e. our patrons are permitted internet bookings of an hour a day) spending many, many happy hours tinkering (and frequently cussing) at the tasks and challenges of this 2.0 training program.
I cannot for the life of me see how our patrons are going to find the time - once they have done their emails and job applications - to use the 2.0 applications. The tools are excellent and if our Patrons have a home computer then all is well and you'll get no arguments from me about the value of these tools but the reality check for the residents of Sunshine is that mostly they don't.
Abrams bold statement that we will all have an avatar by the year 2012 chills me by its failure to define who 'we' consists of. It seems to me that 'we' are the middle to upper classes of employed, educated folks with the finances to furnish our home with a new computer (and upgrade it every few years) and the knowledge to get antiviral, antispam, antispyware, antiphishing programs loaded the minute we first plug in to the net and then the leisure time to spend pursuing delightful activities within the online communities.
Casual observation tells me that the bulk of our Patrons who aren't applying for work, massaging their resumes before applying for work or checking their emails in the hope that there's some positive feedback about work alongside a few emails from their families and friends so far, far away, spend their time in chat rooms.
The web 2.0 training is surprisingly short on the how tos of managing chat rooms.
Lest you think I'm being too negative here let me add that the Brains Trust (age 15) thought Abrams map of the 2.0 world one of the cleverest things he'd seen in a while, and is finding much of what I am passing on to him to be of interest and use, so possibly the best use of 2.0 for this work environment is going to consist of those at the Info Desk drawing Patrons attention to useful applications when they can see that there might be a use for them in specific cases. (I have long done this with the SLV's excellent list of search engines, complete with links, that all students go 'WOW' over becasue they had no idea such a useful page existed on the SLV website.)
I think The secret and books of this ilk are actively damaging to a certain proportion of the population. (i.e. those who take it seriously.) All of the Staff of this Library can follow the steps and see their future as Chief Librarian but unless the Council decides to promote thirty people and permit democratic leadership all the planning and thinking in the world will still leave us with one Manager and twenty-nine disappointed dreamers.
What has this to do with Library 2.0 you could be forgiven for thinking? Bear with me.
Last week at our Staff Meeting we were presented with ABS xylophone graphs generated from the last Census which shows that Sunshine has the second lowest level of literacy (Dandenong owns first place), no surprises there, second lowest rate of households with connection to the internet (high five to Dandenong again) and once again no great surprise there, but we also have, and this is the surprise, the lowest rate of car ownership.
Got the picture? No car in this wide brown land. Not owning - or more accurately, not in the process of paying off, 'cos I'd be surprised if those on the mid to upper levels of socio-economic success own all of those people movers out there - a family car would be high on my list of indicators of folks doing it hard. Howard's Battlers as it were.
So my perspective on the reading I have done about Web 2.0 has been filtered through my perception and understandings of the area in which I work, because looking at this excercise from a professional and not a personal perspective I see our Library Staff who are educated, intelligent folks with a start up level of computer literacy and no restrictions (i.e. our patrons are permitted internet bookings of an hour a day) spending many, many happy hours tinkering (and frequently cussing) at the tasks and challenges of this 2.0 training program.
I cannot for the life of me see how our patrons are going to find the time - once they have done their emails and job applications - to use the 2.0 applications. The tools are excellent and if our Patrons have a home computer then all is well and you'll get no arguments from me about the value of these tools but the reality check for the residents of Sunshine is that mostly they don't.
Abrams bold statement that we will all have an avatar by the year 2012 chills me by its failure to define who 'we' consists of. It seems to me that 'we' are the middle to upper classes of employed, educated folks with the finances to furnish our home with a new computer (and upgrade it every few years) and the knowledge to get antiviral, antispam, antispyware, antiphishing programs loaded the minute we first plug in to the net and then the leisure time to spend pursuing delightful activities within the online communities.
Casual observation tells me that the bulk of our Patrons who aren't applying for work, massaging their resumes before applying for work or checking their emails in the hope that there's some positive feedback about work alongside a few emails from their families and friends so far, far away, spend their time in chat rooms.
The web 2.0 training is surprisingly short on the how tos of managing chat rooms.
Lest you think I'm being too negative here let me add that the Brains Trust (age 15) thought Abrams map of the 2.0 world one of the cleverest things he'd seen in a while, and is finding much of what I am passing on to him to be of interest and use, so possibly the best use of 2.0 for this work environment is going to consist of those at the Info Desk drawing Patrons attention to useful applications when they can see that there might be a use for them in specific cases. (I have long done this with the SLV's excellent list of search engines, complete with links, that all students go 'WOW' over becasue they had no idea such a useful page existed on the SLV website.)
Sunday, October 21, 2007
technorati
Good trawling tool.
Was able to hunt for some interesting items.
Conclusion: a person could spend a LOT of time at this portal.
Was able to hunt for some interesting items.
Conclusion: a person could spend a LOT of time at this portal.
del.icio.us
Fifteen minutes a day.
One and a quarter hours per week.
Difficult for those working part-time and by definition having a substantial time commitment to desk shifts to manage but not impossible.
Three tasks in a week that suggest you create accounts, explore the sites and then play around in them...
ach, people, do we need more stress in our lives?
Notsomuch.
Round 1. del.icio.us yeah, can see the use for this. The downside as I see it - and it certainly affects my actions today - is that a person would need to add tools to their browser and this may not be a fast and easy option to those in the worlds of public access pcs and internet cafes. I'm unwilling to create and account and test this out because doing so would involve toying with this workroom pc, and am uneasy about the doing of that.
I've go to log in to view the info about making a network badge and I don't know the log in info for PLCMCL2 because while I'm sure it was sent to us my email all goes to my home account which, once it's been downloaded I can no longer access online, I wasted 10 precious minutes asking if anyone in the workroom knows the login but apparently the rest of those here today are not up to this activity. So I'll have to pass it by.
One and a quarter hours per week.
Difficult for those working part-time and by definition having a substantial time commitment to desk shifts to manage but not impossible.
Three tasks in a week that suggest you create accounts, explore the sites and then play around in them...
ach, people, do we need more stress in our lives?
Notsomuch.
Round 1. del.icio.us yeah, can see the use for this. The downside as I see it - and it certainly affects my actions today - is that a person would need to add tools to their browser and this may not be a fast and easy option to those in the worlds of public access pcs and internet cafes. I'm unwilling to create and account and test this out because doing so would involve toying with this workroom pc, and am uneasy about the doing of that.
I've go to log in to view the info about making a network badge and I don't know the log in info for PLCMCL2 because while I'm sure it was sent to us my email all goes to my home account which, once it's been downloaded I can no longer access online, I wasted 10 precious minutes asking if anyone in the workroom knows the login but apparently the rest of those here today are not up to this activity. So I'll have to pass it by.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Later on Monday
Hmf.
Still cannot make linkage work.
Ergo, Rollyo. Task completed at: http://rollyo.com/xaelle/knitblogs/
Also, LibraryThing - another link that won't - so:
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/Xaelle
Cheers!
Still cannot make linkage work.
Ergo, Rollyo. Task completed at: http://rollyo.com/xaelle/knitblogs/
Also, LibraryThing - another link that won't - so:
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/Xaelle
Cheers!
An excercise in frustration
Something, our firewall or a glitch in Blogger, is refusing to let me add in the Rollyo link.
The html tag is visible and correct in the draft but the link will not go through and show.
Also, the Librarything website is experiencing problems so that will have to wait til next week on account of my need to eat.
The html tag is visible and correct in the draft but the link will not go through and show.
Also, the Librarything website is experiencing problems so that will have to wait til next week on account of my need to eat.
Rollyo
Sunday, October 7, 2007
Monday, Monday: Generators
Generated with ease @ http://www.glassgiant.com/back_to_school/ , accessed via http://generatorblog.blogspot.com/ a great place to spend a few hours monkeying around with different images and avatars for those lucky souls with too much time on their hands.
Over @ http://www.letterjames.com/start.php?mod=image-personalization I tried to add text to the georgeously named 'Chicago Wacker Drive' pic but LetterJames rejected my attempt to tout for those tasteless, talented, hilarious, renegades over at Chanel 2, 9 pm, on Wednesday nights and suggested that LetterJames may not like my choice of words or their server was overloaded.
Fair enough.
After some thought I tried taking the apostrophe out of The Chaser's War on Everything but LetterJames was still not happy. So, upon reflecting about the state of these trying times I considered that the program might not like the word war in any way shape or form and tried again with The Chaser.
Alas no go.
To test the censorship theory I then tried to label the lovely building in Wacker Drive with the words Hugs and Puppies.
Further rejection.
Therefore I'm going to opt for the failure to generate being down to an overloaded server.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Week 4, RSS and Newsreaders: Warning, some slight whingeing ensues
Right, Monday morning and here I am again, a part-timer with rather limited options for the fitting-in of these activities, doing my, ah, well it can hardly be called homework when one is doing it at work, so, unh, let's call it the weekly task.
(A kind and caring colleague suggested that I could always blog from home, ah yes, well, I could, but then if I had the time to blog from home I'd still be using the one at LJ Land and while we're on the subject see entry 1, regarding DIAL-UP. I've just lost another hour to the reading and fiddling here when I should have been shelving and here at work we're on microwave technology. I'm thinking if I tried to follow these tasks at home it would take many, many hours and far too much coffee for the health of my probably already caffeine-pickled kidneys.)
I have an account established at Bloglines, I had a little difficulty finding my URL there so as an alternative I did try and insert a Bloglines button in to Blogger but it turns out that this is not permitted in any of the various places I attempted to place it.
I did then realise that the instructions are completely wrong and would have you all looking for a tab at the top of the page when in fact the link is in the list at the side.
At the bottom.
::sigh::
Ergo, here 'tis: http://www.bloglines.com/public/xaelle
To end on a positive note, I have achieved the linkage of two of my favourite blogs as an RSS feed using two different techniques of linkage, but am out of time to chase up the Newsreader tasks.
(A kind and caring colleague suggested that I could always blog from home, ah yes, well, I could, but then if I had the time to blog from home I'd still be using the one at LJ Land and while we're on the subject see entry 1, regarding DIAL-UP. I've just lost another hour to the reading and fiddling here when I should have been shelving and here at work we're on microwave technology. I'm thinking if I tried to follow these tasks at home it would take many, many hours and far too much coffee for the health of my probably already caffeine-pickled kidneys.)
I have an account established at Bloglines, I had a little difficulty finding my URL there so as an alternative I did try and insert a Bloglines button in to Blogger but it turns out that this is not permitted in any of the various places I attempted to place it.
I did then realise that the instructions are completely wrong and would have you all looking for a tab at the top of the page when in fact the link is in the list at the side.
At the bottom.
::sigh::
Ergo, here 'tis: http://www.bloglines.com/public/xaelle
To end on a positive note, I have achieved the linkage of two of my favourite blogs as an RSS feed using two different techniques of linkage, but am out of time to chase up the Newsreader tasks.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Week 3 Flickr'in around...
Okay, this is going to be light on content as it's taken me an hour to read this weeks tasks (following all the links, at which point I am going to say that I cannot believe there are blogs and communities set up to explain to people that tagging is netspeak for 'labelling you pictures with key words so that you may find them again with ease at a later date'. Fool that I am I would have thought a paragraph or two in the FAQs section could have probably covered this to most people's satisfaction. I followed a little of the discussion about the decision to label pictures of oneself as 'me' and left because it was making my eyeballs bleed) listen to the podcast, open an account at Flickr, upload my images and insert it into this blog entry.
Actually it seemed fairly painless to me and if anything it took me longer to get a handle on uploading to Flickr because I was expecting it to be far more complicated and read far more of the site instructions than was necessary for a result.
This koala, in all her carrying-the-baby cuteness, lumbered slowly through our backyard last summer and as koalas are not noted for their keen eyesight we were able to get close enough to immortalise the moment.
Country living! It's moments like these that make living with a septic tank bearable.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
#4 Register your blog
Hmmn, two things: firstly why is this #4 when we're only in week 2? And secondly, following on in the theme of comparing LJ with Blogger, it's easier to access your account in LiveJournal.
Week 2 of Learning 2.0 aka: The joys of blogging
I kept a blog for quite a few years and thoroughly enjoyed it, the writing, the contacts with folks from far away, the insights into other people's lives, their photos, their thoughts.
My blog still exists but cannot be accessed from work because Brimbank Libraries are protected by MailMarshall and MailMarshall does not approve of LiveJournal. Possibly something to do with all that fanfic which wanders off into the land of soft porn at times methinks. Also I suspect the title of the LJ blog Vintage Sex is, on its lonesome, enough to render LJ Land forever inappropriate viewing for a public library and certainly a den of iniquity from the perspective of employees expanding their understanding of new technologies on the company clock.
So I thought it might be interesting to start the process again over here @ blogspot. By comparison this is a much more user friendly interface. LJ involves downloading a client (semagic) and installing it. I did this years ago and can remember that the downloading was tedious because it is done via mirror sites and once a geographically challenged person - such as myself - managed to locate the right site and language then start the download (we're on dial up, us country folks from the back blocks of rural Victoria: think no street lights, no footpaths and yes, the dreaded septic tank and you'll have the picture) wander off have a cup of coffee, wander back and watch the bar slowly march across the 'time remaining' box, collect the mail (five minute walk to the mailbox and five back), have another coffee and oh, 'tis done. Download finished! What next? Install the programme, easy enough if you can find it. In my computer innocence it hadn't occured to me to make a note of the name of the client so another trawl through the instructions at LJ was mandated. At which point I gave up and made a plunger full of coffee to last the distance.
Getting started at LJ took me two days, this has taken forty five minutes including the typing and the reading of instructions and the swapping through three machines in the hope of finding one where the headphones work.
Even allowing for the exponenetial growth rate in computer literacy that being part of an online community will bring to you, Blogger is winning on points.
So far.
(Heh.)
My blog still exists but cannot be accessed from work because Brimbank Libraries are protected by MailMarshall and MailMarshall does not approve of LiveJournal. Possibly something to do with all that fanfic which wanders off into the land of soft porn at times methinks. Also I suspect the title of the LJ blog Vintage Sex is, on its lonesome, enough to render LJ Land forever inappropriate viewing for a public library and certainly a den of iniquity from the perspective of employees expanding their understanding of new technologies on the company clock.
So I thought it might be interesting to start the process again over here @ blogspot. By comparison this is a much more user friendly interface. LJ involves downloading a client (semagic) and installing it. I did this years ago and can remember that the downloading was tedious because it is done via mirror sites and once a geographically challenged person - such as myself - managed to locate the right site and language then start the download (we're on dial up, us country folks from the back blocks of rural Victoria: think no street lights, no footpaths and yes, the dreaded septic tank and you'll have the picture) wander off have a cup of coffee, wander back and watch the bar slowly march across the 'time remaining' box, collect the mail (five minute walk to the mailbox and five back), have another coffee and oh, 'tis done. Download finished! What next? Install the programme, easy enough if you can find it. In my computer innocence it hadn't occured to me to make a note of the name of the client so another trawl through the instructions at LJ was mandated. At which point I gave up and made a plunger full of coffee to last the distance.
Getting started at LJ took me two days, this has taken forty five minutes including the typing and the reading of instructions and the swapping through three machines in the hope of finding one where the headphones work.
Even allowing for the exponenetial growth rate in computer literacy that being part of an online community will bring to you, Blogger is winning on points.
So far.
(Heh.)
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