Week 5 Thing 11: Making My Own Thing

Setting up an account with Library Thing was ridiculously easy. I'm impressed with how user-friendly and intuitive they've made the site. It's also quite simple to find useful recommendations, once some books have been added.

I did have one quibble with the setup, however. Choosing only from particular editions makes it trickier for someone who merely wants to add a book by title and author, as I did. I can't remember all the specific editions, and it took much too much time to search. Of course, I'm adding books from memory. Also, it would be a truly daunting task to add all the books I own, so I'm adding only those I've most enjoyed, and only a few at a time. It's hard for me to even include examples from all the genres I like to read within the 200 book limit for free accounts.

The widget for my blog was also easy to add, taking less time than browsing suggestions! It seems fun to have a small sampling of my favorite books listed on my blog, and I think I'd like to do something similar with music and movies or television. Perhaps ebooks and audio books as well.

My Library Thing catalogue, such as it is so far, can be found here. I have great hopes that the site will make it easier to find things to read with much less margin for error than browsing covers. Who knows, it may turn out to be a social boon as well. Given enough time, I think I would really enjoy reviewing and engaging in discussion boards.

Week 5 Thing 10: Generations

romance_novel
Originally uploaded by carpelogos

I had a great time with this exercise. I tried out the suggested links, but enjoyed most the one I found by doing a couple of Google searches. Here we have the cover of a brilliant novel by an exciting new writer, and the central character reminds me strongly of someone I know!

I used the romance novel cover generator found here to produce this. A few candid photos from around the library, and there may be no end to the possible fun. Used with discretion, of course. And that glorious thing, permission.

(I tried to interview the couple photographed for this cover, but Miss Hunter's agent informed me that she is booked solid for the next two years.)

Week 4 Thing 9: RSS Search Engines

As with the previous exercise, I have already done the tasks on the list. I have enough links on my reader for the moment. I did play a bit with making my reading list public (I added my blogroll to the main page of my blog), and also with using the search engines suggested to see if there were any new sites that I really ought to be watching on my favorite topics.

So far, Feedster has been of little use to me. I disliked the way it skipped sites I already know of that do interest me in terms of my chosen topics, and selected sites that had little or nothing to do with my purposes. I decided to play with it a bit and find out if I could use it in some capacity, and make myself a widget to place on my blog as an experiment. But then I realized I'd have to make an account with Feedster, which seemed unappealing, so I scrapped that plan. It was nice that one could choose to search in various media, but then the search engine did not allow a combined search for more than one type. Overall, I'm not impressed with Feedster.

Topix is a little more interesting. It's helpful to be able to search for coverage on a topic, and in fact I did add the topic feed "Santa Cruz, CA" to my Bloglines. I regret that it doesn't cover blogs, but you can't have everything.

Now, Syndic8 appeals to me because of the user-submitted links. It is necessarily limited, however, for the same reason, and also tends to operate like many user-oriented sites do. It draws in users who find things there that appeal to them, and they add more links on the same or similar subjects, and eventually there are large, useful networks of links: on very particular topics only. The site maintainers do seem to be attempting to overcome this tendency, and I hope they are successful. The best thing about the site is that I find user-generated links seem to be of more reliable quality than random sets.

Being fond of blogs as information networks, I really like Technorati. The site design is easy to follow, the search engine allows for refinement, and their lists of currently popular search terms and subjects is good for both interest and a laugh. Blogs on a topic are great sources of related, non-commercial links. The only real drawback to this site, for me, is that many bloggers set their blogs to be "dark" to search engines, and won't be discovered here.

I was pleased to find that one of my favorite feeds, the Gizmodo feed, is on Technorati's Top Blogs list.
\0/
(The above is an emoticon; read it as a person throwing their arms up in triumph or joy. I mean it here as something like, "Go Team Gizmo!")

Week 4 Thing 8: Feed Your Head

I took an earlier class in which we learned about RSS feeders, so I’ve had a Bloglines account for a little while now. Quite often I don’t really have time to look it over, but the convenient thing is being able to tell at a glance if one of my sites has updated. That does end up saving me a lot of time and bandwidth. Also, I love being able to skip the bulk of advertising at the sites of the originating feeds.

When I set up my Bloglines account, I also set up a Google Reader account. I haven’t found that one to be as intuitive to use, with more clicks and alterations necessary to follow up on the subjects that interest me. Bloglines defaults to a setup where each article title line is a hotlink to the full article, and that makes it a lot easier to follow. Also, Bloglines makes it really easy to set up playlists of feeds, so I can group news with news, blogs with blogs, or collect all the feeds on a subject for easy one-click perusal.

I think that I prefer very streamlined sites with the minimum of extras unless I choose them myself, and Bloglines fits that model much closer than the perhaps overly-helpful Google Reader does.

Here is a jpeg image of my bloglines reader:

ETA (Edit to Add): Cathy's, Patty's, and Rene's blogs are now all on my reader, and should be a lot easier to keep track of now.

Week 3 Thing 7: Waiting for the Price to Drop

The real difficulty with the instruction to blog about “anything technology-related that interests you” is how to narrow it down to just one thing. Recently, I read that the US is using robots in warfare, and that the first kills by remote-controlled flying devices had been made. That seemed pretty earth-shaking, although “interest” seems a little mild to describe my feelings about it. Then, yesterday, I spent part of the afternoon pricing Roombas, these fantastic little robots that vacuum your carpet while terrifying your cats. Last week I discovered that the Japanese were building furniture that would change color based on who used it or sat on it. Whoa. Pretty neat.

But if I had to say what piece of technology interests me the most right this moment, if would definitely be the iPhone which I haven’t yet purchased. There seems to be some kind of quiet revolution taking place, with hackers developing ways around the software limitations and restrictions, and Apple and other companies involved in the product using their own wiles to try to assert control. Who knows how many brilliant young minds will be recruited to Apple through their hacking exploits? And will I benefit from their genius, or will the version of the iPhone I eventually buy have tons of useless software just to control my use?

I still want an iPhone, draconian hack-busting or not. Here you have a device that can allow you to communicate almost instantaneously with anyone almost anywhere in the world, while listening to music and working on work or hobby projects at the same time. You can capture your environment visually, alter it, and upload your creation to a blog that reaches potentially millions, and reporting will never be the same again. It’s also very shiny. With the advent of ebooks, you can read on it. If you prefer sound, you can play audiobooks, listen to podcasts, cycle through your favorite songs, or even listen to real-time live performances. If none of this suits you, instead of being a couch potato, you can watch TV while you exercise or ride the bus.

It’s really kind of cool, and seriously? I want one. Scary, too, but mostly cool.

See? Isn't it shiny?

(Image uploaded on June 29, 2007 by Dan H.)

Week 3 Thing 6: Felis Snugglicus

huntercard
Originally uploaded by carpelogos

I used FD Toys’ Trading Card Maker to create a trading card for Hunter. I worry that she might not want the world to know of her particular vulnerabilities, but I have no doubt she will be pleased that her beauty is being appropriately recorded for posterity.
It was amazing how easy this was to create; just fill in the fields and click. It could be a lot of fun to make these up for our volunteers at Headquarters, and print them up. It ought to make them laugh, and maybe show them how much we appreciate their work.
The cards would also be a nice addition at a family reunion, I think. And planning weddings will be a lot cheaper if everything can be self-made and still look great. Flickr will definitely further blur the line between professional and amateur art.

Week 3 Thing 5 part 2: The Lie of the Land

The Lie of the Land
Originally uploaded by Mark_Twells

I'm pretty sure I covered the thing 5 exercise properly in my last post, but I couldn't resist posting a photo using Flickr's "blog this" button when I spotted this beautiful image. Someone named Mark Twells uploaded this yesterday; I think I'm going to have to look up his other public photos as well. In this picture, look at the way he's used light and color to add dimension to the scene. It really makes me want to enter the image and go exploring.

Week 3 Thing 5: Advent of the Avatar

I've been playing a bit with a digital camera in a desultory way over the last year. Not much, just taking some photos of my folks, a few nature images, the cat, my husband; primarily creating memory markers or wallpaper images. Flickr is going to change the way I think about taking pictures, though, and I expect I'll be taking quite a few more this year than I ever have in the past. My adventures there have already shown me how much can be done with a little light, a little Picasa, and some imagination.

Here is an image from a set my husband took of our cat, Hunter. She was almost feral when we adopted her a few years ago, but as you can see, she's settled in to near-domesticity. I like the color contrasts he achieved in the image, and the way she seems so unimpressed by the camera.

Following online photo etiquette, I really ought to ask her before posting her pictures, but when I attempt to broach the subject she just flicks her tail and refuses to answer. I have settled on getting the photographer's permission.