$ea Change

Microsoft is discontinuing its Microsoft Money software. Credit this to Mint.com and its ilk: apparently online banking, both from banks and from free websites, has gotten to the point Microsoft decided to drop out. It's not that I have deep sentimental attachment to Money--please, we're talking financial software here--but I've been using it since 1998 and I'd gotten used to it.

I'm guessing there are ramifications here beyond just the end of one program. Just how well is Microsoft doing lately? It's a shaky economy for everyone of course, but here we are entering the era of cloud computing, and Microsoft is more known for tangible products sold in stores with updates only every few years. I hear they've discontinued Encarta as well, although that will barely affect me.

Off to explore my banking and accounting options...

Thing 47: Evaluation

Oh wow, I actually made it. I gather that More 23 Things took about a month longer to complete than the original set. In my case, anyway, I see that the original 23 Things took place over the summer, while More 23 Things was running during winter and spring. It was easier for me to work on these sorts of things during the summer; earlier, I was in class and had less time and energy.

Overall, I enjoyed the program. I think each Thing needs to be fairly simple and straightforward though. Twitter felt like it had gotten out of hand. I enjoyed Books 2.0 and Bloggers' Toolkit, but it took way too much of that precious time and energy stuff to look at a good sample of the possibilities for either Thing. By comparison, Screencasting and Online TV & Video felt so much more manageable. It might've worked better if each Thing only mentioned a few activities or sites with the rest in a sort of "appendix" to each Thing.

As with the original 23 Things, I don't see our library getting much use out of most of these Things, although we've started Twittering and I suspect we'll find a use for screencasting. Personally, though, I'll be listening to Internent radio, watching online TV, discussing my travels online, and so on. It was a great introduction to Library 2.0 and Web 2.0; thank you.

Thing 46: WebJunction Minnesota

Well, here I am at WebJunction Minnesota. I'm not sure what to say about this site. Like LinkedIn, it's something that's purely professional for me . . . and like LinkedIn, I suspect that means I'm going to forget to visit it after a while. Social networking--or in this case, professional networking--is just more attractive when you've met the people you're networking with. With WJMN, I suspect the only people I know are the coworker and former coworker that I've gone through the 23 Things programs with, and by now, we're connected on all sorts of websites.

I like the idea of a site specifically for library networking, but I think WJMN needs some time to mature. I glanced over the classes. This is a good idea for letting people know what's available, and ditto for the calendar. However, the website itself could do with a redesign. Overall, the design seemed scattered and I found it difficult to focus on any one section. The Quick Links are "below the fold" and it took me multiple visits to the page before I saw them, and through them, finally found where the groups were listed. After all that, I did join a group: on Library 2.0, of course. I see that you can read group discussions without necessarily joining the group. I like this, as I have a tendency to lurk on groups, and this way, I won't be building up a long list of groups I joined because I found one discussion months ago to be interesting.

At this point, it's probably the courses that set WJMN apart from all the other networking sites out there. Discussions, contacts--those could be found on other sites, including LinkedIn and Ning. Perhaps as more people join WJMN, they'll expand their features, much as these other social networking sites have done.

Thing 45: Cloud Computing

Huh. There's not much in this Thing about the downside to cloud computing. Try searching "cloud crash Google" (ironically, you can Google this). You'll get a slew of articles on what happened this spring when Gmail and GoogleDocs went down for a few hours. Apparently there are already a lot of people who can't function without them.

Obligatory cynical reaction now taken care of, let's move on to the benefits of cloud computing. I'm getting more cloudy by the moment, it seems. My most recent switch is to using web-based email for my primary account. I'm making the change for several reasons, but one of them is that I'm tired of not being able to access my email from any computer I'm at. Yes, I could have left my emails on the server, but my ISP's webmail is unpleasant to use. I figured I might as well switch to a service that assumes you'll be keeping your messages online, and doesn't just offer a MB as a backup while you're on vacation.

After peeking at the Web OS articles, I don't think I'm going to need to leap into this right away. Beyond surfing the web and handling email, much of what I do just involves the basic Microsoft Office programs. GoogleDocs can handle most of this--okay, it'd be nice if they'd upgrade to the point they can handle .docx files, but if I have to, I can revert to .doc. And rumor has it that Microsoft is planning to make the next version of Office cloud-compatible ("Office Web"), so maybe a little patience is all that's necessary.

On the other hand, I really do need to pay attention to data backup. Again, with a dial-up connection, online backup was just a fantasy. Now it's a practical option, and yes, sounds much cheaper than the therapy I'll need if I lose both the computers and the external hard drive.

At present, I don't think cloud computing is affecting my productivity one way or another. Basically, I don't take my work home and I don't travel as part of my job, so I almost never have to access work files when I'm not physically in the office. It's pretty obvious, though, how this could benefit all those people who do need to carry their work with them, at least virtually. Likewise, I'm not that worried about security right now, simply because I'm not working with confidential materials. But it's a good question: is your data safer in the cloud or on a laptop or flash drive that could be lost, stolen, or damaged?

Say, if I decide Mint.com is a safe option, that's cloud banking, isn't it?

Thing 44: The Economy

Ah, this is going to be one of those blog posts where I try to list my reaction to as many things as possible in as short a time as possible. Got it.

The educational tools were, well, educational. That was a pretty good little "how it all fell apart" video. I couldn't think of any pressing financial issue I needed to research on MyMoney.gov, but it looked like it would be solid information about the basics.

My interest level rose when I tackled Banking 2.0. Understand, I just don't find personal finance and economics all that gripping, so one of the ways to pique my interest is to involve software and websites. But the security issues around online banking make this less fun than online music or video. I wonder if sites like Mint.com have been having an influence on software: Microsoft Money has vanished from stores. You can still get it online, but in general, it's gone, and it and Quicken were the big names for personal financial software. How do you judge the safety of these sites? At first, I wondered why anyone would trust their financial data to a free website, but then, Money could be forwarding my account information to Zanzibar every time I go online and I wouldn't know. Plus financial software leaves your data on your hard drive, which is difficult to erase securely when you're done with the computer. Just try thoroughly wiping a hard drive when the computer won't boot. Maybe Mint.com is no worse a risk.

On to the potential savings in my daily life. I don't own a car, so I skipped the entire driving section. My cell phone comes in cheaper than any of the plans at MyRatePlan.com. Self-sustainability, although noble as all get-out, is clearly not targeted to people who live in apartments: a woman who can't keep oregano alive in her windowsill for lack of sunlight is not going to be able to maintain a victory garden. I don't go to garage sales and thrift stores now, so I'm not going to start the habit. The pennypinching websites were an odd lot. I was pleased to see that I'm already doing lots of the tips on FrugalDad, although if you water down juices a là #31, I don't think you can count them as servings of fruit. I clicked on an article on Wisebread and found myself reading a product review of a webcam--what's that doing on a frugal living site? Finally, the coupon sites looked like an awful lot of effort for minimal reward.

I think I'm going to research Mint.com and ClearCheckbook more thoroughly, since they interested me the most. I'm hoping to find some expert opinions on whether or not they're safe enough to use (or at least no more risky than Money or Quicken).

Thing 43: Online TV and Video

I first heard of Hulu the old-fashioned way: I saw commercials for it on television. Like Internet radio, online TV wasn't much use to me as long as I had a slow connection, but I've been testing it out a bit now that I can actually watch the episodes. Stripped of most commercials, this will be a faster way of watching TV, but I'm still a bit hesitant to really get into this for fear it's going to eat up a fair chunk of my time. I'm not going to underestimate the instant gratification factor. I'd missed a few episodes of Dollhouse, and normally I'd have to wait until they came out on DVD to see them, but hey, now I can just wander over to Fox's website and see them there.

This will also let me see programs I just wouldn't be able to see otherwise. Since I don't watch a lot of TV, I don't spring for anything except the most basic level of cable. Except for the very few programs I'll buy in DVD, cable-only television is a mystery to me. Mystery no longer, it seems. So what is The Colbert Report like, anyway? Well, now I can find out. I suppose I'm going to want to hook my TV up to my computer at some point.

I'm not sure how much of an impact this will have on broadcast TV--will they notice after the long-term impact of cable? Cable is another matter though. Will people be willing to pay exorbitant fees if they can get good stuff for free? And how will advertisers respond? Print media is disintegrating almost daily because people realized they could get the same stuff for free online, and advertisers haven't figured out how to capitalize on that. Television may follow suit in a year or so for the same reasons.

Incidentally, I can't see any applications for personal mashups, Internet radio, or online TV for our library. Alas, we're dull. :)

in-between thing: supporting micronesia

I hadn't been able to avoid noticing the "new" domain name .fm that had popped up in the last two Things: Lifestream.fm in Thing 41 and Last.fm in Thing 42. Both sites touch on social networking, but lots of sites involve social networking nowadays, and I couldn't figure out what else they might have in common (okay, they both start with L, but I doubted that was significant).

A trip to Wikipedia reveals that .fm is the country code top-level domain name for the Federated States of Micronesia. Micronesia isn't stingy: they're quite willing to let others register .fm domains. The proceeds go back to Micronesia, a source of income in these troubled economic times. In general, it's been FM radio stations that have chosen the .fm domain, so even though Lifestream.fm and Last.fm are the only examples of .fm that I've seen to date, they're apparently atypical.

Oh, the trivia of the Internet. :)

Thing 42: Music 2.0

I feel like I'm starting out on this Thing a little behind the population in general. I got out of the habit of listening to radio back in college. For me, listening to basic broadcast radio after this many years would practically be a Thing in its own right, much less Internet radio. I suppose this means I don't have many old habits to unlearn.

I looked at both Pandora and Last.fm. I confess I decided to start with Pandora because I liked its name, but on the other hand, Last.fm doesn't make you create an account to just try it out (after this many Things, I'm getting burned out on creating accounts and keeping track of passwords). One advantage of either of these services over broadcast radio? Well, remember the frustration of, "Wow, I really like this song, but I've never caught who sings it or what the title is"? Not a problem with Internet radio, where you can read all about the song, the album, and the artist while the song plays. I was able to bookmark a group I'd never heard of before, who happened to come up because they're similar to a group I'd told Pandora I liked--fun!

While I've had iTunes on my computer for about two years now, I'd never bothered to look at its "Radio" option. There wasn't much point, what with only having a dial-up connection. But having just gotten high-speed Internet (!), it was a good time to be reminded of that option. I looked it over a bit. Admittedly, after all the graphics of Pandora and Last.fm, iTunes looked very barebones in this regard, but they certainly had a lot of stations to choose from. But several of them were dead silent when I clicked on them. I don't know if the station was permanently dead (how often does Apple review these lists?) or just not broadcasting at that time. If the latter, it reminded me of TV stations in my childhood and how they would just go off the air every night.

Here's an album quilt widget from Last.fm. I finally have a name for the genre of music I've been listening to lately: medieval. So that's something else I learned from this Thing.

in-between thing: friendfeed and lifestream.fm

Two days in, and I can tell you neither of them is perfect. FriendFeed can't see my Facebook status. Apparently this is some sort of glitch that affects people who tried to add Facebook to FriendFeed after the "new" Facebook was released. The app developers said back in May they were aware of this problem and are working on it; obviously they haven't solved it yet.

Less critical, but still annoying: despite my telling Lifestream.fm that I was in Minnesota, my posts are time-stamped for Central European Summer Time (seven hours ahead of Central Daylight Time), which affects what day they're credited to. Sigh. Lifestream.fm is based in Germany, I believe.

Thing 41: Mashup Your Life

I get why this Thing is called "Mashup Your Life." But for how I will end up using it, "Mashup Your Friends' Lives" would probably be a more accurate description.

I joined FriendFeed this afternoon. I'd chosen it because I knew at least one friend of mine was already there (so I'd have someone to connect to) and because my coworker who's doing the More Things program had joined Lifestream.fm and loathed it. But about an hour later, another 23 Things-er invited me to join Lifestream.fm, so I've ended up comparing the two. Based on a few hours familiarity, I think I like FriendFeed slightly better (I see why the More Things on a Stick program would like people to try these services for a few weeks, but this close to the deadline it ain't happening). It mostly has to do with aesthetics, and that I don't like Lifestream.fm's search engine for trying to find out if your friends are already on the site. But I'll have to play with both sites some more to see if that preference holds. I'm glad that both services let you make your account private. I will probably make my accounts public until the end of More Things on a Stick--that's only a few days, after all--and then go private and personalize my chosen service.

I see the two sites differ in their focus. FriendFeed puts your friends' avatars first, and the source of each post is almost an afterthought, in small gray print at the end. Lifestream.fm leaves your friends' avatars out altogether and leads with the icon of the post source (Twitter's little t, the RSS feed's orange square, etc.).

Unlike Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking sites, these social networking site aggregators don't seem to be nearly as popular. I think these kinds of services could be really useful. I'm tired of tramping around from Facebook to LibraryThing to Google Reader to Twitter and so on, just trying to keep track of what all my friends are doing. Now the question is, are these sites just about to catch on, or are they doomed to never be quite noticed by the world at large?

By the way, if I invite my friends to join either of these services, am I being pushy? Maybe the last thing anyone wants is still yet another account on another service. Or am I just doing social networking the way it's supposed to go, trying to forge more connections? Does anyone know if Miss Manners has addressed this issue?

I managed to get both the FriendFeed and Lifestream.fm widgets into this blog, which is overkill, but I'll be taking one out sooner or later. Both are mostly made up of posts from this blog--it's oddly circular.

Thing 40: Mashup the Web

Being someone who does a lot of walking in her neighborhood, I started with Walk Score. My neighborhood scored an 82 ("Very Walkable")--not bad at all. By contrast, the neighborhood I grew up in only managed a 35 ("Car-Dependent"). But looking at both maps, I see the mashup isn't taking terrain into consideration. You don't walk to the West 7th library from my apartment: I-35E lies between me and it. Back in my home town, there's a creek and a virtually unscalable river bluff between my childhood home and the amenities, so even that 35 is an overstatement. Nor is personal safety considered: while a previous neighborhood of mine was deemed 91 ("Walkers' Paradise"), let's just say walking there was an act of daring. Perhaps Walk Score should be mashed-up with CrimeReports?

Wheel of Lunch looked more gimmicky--and dizzying--than useful, but Lunchbox seemed quite practical. It might need a data update, though: a nearby Vietnamese restaurant didn't show up in a search for Vietnamese restaurants.

Searching for a mashup on my own, I discovered Reading Radar, a mashup of the New York Times bestseller lists and Amazon.com. What you get are the Amazon.com ratings for bestselling books. People do seem to enjoy the bestsellers: most of them scored around 4 stars. But I rarely read bestsellers, so I can't see myself using this all that often.

I played with Phreetings. It's a nice idea, but the site seemed to be allergic to Internet Explorer, which wasn't a good sign, and finding the instructions wasn't intuitive. But in the end, I managed a postcard.

Thing 39: Digital Storytelling

I've always enjoyed the idea of scrapbooking, much as I've enjoyed the idea of journaling. The difference is that I got into the habit of journaling: all it required was a pen and paper. Scrapbooking took too much energy. It made messes. You had to plan out ahead of time what you were going to do because basically it was an ongoing art project. I never got any further than stuffing mementoes in between the pages of a scrapbook and telling myself that really, someday, I'd do something with them.

And now we're in the 21st century and there's this thing called "digital scrapbooking" to go along with all the digital photos we take nowadays. I delayed on this entry for a while, mostly because it was supposed to be about a library event, and we just don't do a lot of events at our library. But yes, finally, we had an open house to honor our retiring State Law Librarian, and I got photos.

I took a peek at Scrapbook Generator (doesn't that sound straightforward?) and was immediately repelled by all the tacky ads on the site. I then looked at Scrapblog. Much nicer. I got the hang of it fairly quickly. So much of it is just click, drag, and drop. You don't need to register to get started, but I see you have to register even to save a work in progress. Not a big deal--I'm getting really used to quickie registrations by Thing 39--but it seemed a bit misleading.

Anyway, here's the fruits of, well, far too much time for the final product. But I bet I'd speed up (or do fancier layouts) with practice: