This is a good time to investigate this Thing: I've just gotten back from one vacation and am gearing up to plan another. I suppose it would've been even better if I'd gotten to Thing 33 before that first vacation, but nothing's perfect.
For the travel blogs, I looked at Travel 2.0 Blog and Notes from the Road. I didn't get far into Travel 2.0 before getting distracted and heading off on a link to Nextstop.com. Testing it for Portland (my recent trip), I found a review for Cupcake Jones. The reviewer liked it much better than the friend I was visiting in Portland, who took me to Saint Cupcake instead, but at least it was a review of somewhere I'd heard of. As for Notes from the Road, it mostly served to remind me that I don't get out much: not only had I been to just one location on its homepage, I hadn't heard of most of the rest (Alvord Desert? Great Guana Cay?). Nice layout and design, though.
Moving on to the review sites, I decided on TripAdvisor. Obviously this is a site focused on hotels, rentals, food: the sorts of places you want to know about before you head off to an unknown city. Me, I tend to visit local friends who take me to the spots they know well. I ended up testing this on Bloomington, practically in my backyard. I found it interesting that when one person wrote a negative review of the Sofitel, the Sofitel posted a personalized response. Ah, the interactivity of Travel 2.0.
The travel journals are definitely more my style! I want to remember both VCarious and My Life of Travel for the next time I take a trip that's more about sightseeing than just hanging out with friends. I think it would have been great if sites like these had existed lo those many years ago when I did study abroad in Scotland. I see that MapVivo takes a different approach, that it would be suitable for a trip where you stopped at several different locations, like a tour of Europe or a road trip in the U.S.
Finally there were the travel mashups. I'm not going to have to travel to make use of Hotspotr, now that I finally have wireless devices. I plugged in my zip code and got to rediscover all the Starbucks in my neighborhood--all of them marked with cute little dollar signs, of course. Oddly, no one has mentioned the Caribou Coffees in my area. I was going to contribute a couple of cafes I know of, but I learned that Hotspotr wanted my name, at which point I became shy and ran away. Maybe later.
All this was fun, but I don't see our library making use of any of these sites. The only reason you'd come to a law library to ask about travel would probably be if you wanted to learn about the laws of your destination, and I'm guessing most people would ask their travel agent or just poke around online before coming to us.
Showing posts with label blogging. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blogging. Show all posts
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Monday, March 9, 2009
Thing 27: Twitter
The hypothetical dedicated readers of this blog will have noticed that I haven't posted since February 4. Now part of this was because of catching That Cold and being busy at work, but it was also because I could see that the next Thing was Twitter and I just couldn't work up any enthusiasm for it. Unfortunately, I still can't.
I signed up for Twitter about a week ago and have tried to post daily. I've found a few people to follow and one person is following me (doesn't that sound like stalking?). I get that Twitter is microblogging, but my preferences run toward macroblogging: when I blog, I want to get into a topic and explore it at some length. This is not something you do when you have only 140 characters to work with.
I agree that Twitter would be more interesting if I had more connections there. More Things advises inviting people you know to join. I don't think I can in good conscience, because there's nothing to offer them. I readily admit, I wasn't enthusiastic about Facebook when I joined, but after a while, I realized that there were things about it I liked: applications that helped me socialize (vs. setting my teeth on edge), ways to find people I'd lost contact with, a way to blog while maintaining some privacy, etc. All Twitter is is the Facebook status feed. If my friends are already on Facebook, what do any of us need another status feed for? And heck, you can write more than 140 characters on Facebook. To be fair, I like that on Twitter you're not obliged to start your tweet with your name--but it looks like in Facebook's next incarnation, you may not have to deal with that either.
I note that others seem to be having trouble warming up to Twitter. The only person I get frequent tweets from has nothing to do with the More Things program. The people I'm following who are working their way through More Things have put out a few tweets and then quit. Heck, even mnmorethings, the More Things own Twitter identity, seems to have given up after January 29!
It's different for an institution like a library. I see that if you had actual news for your followers, Twitter would be a good way of getting them the bare bones quickly. Maybe I just lead too dull a life for Twitter.
I'm going to try to be quietly active on Twitter for the rest of the More Things program, to give it a fair try. Maybe I'll ask the one active tweeter in my life what she likes about it. But like with lots of the photo apps from 23 Things, this is an aspect of Web 2.0 that just doesn't fill a void in my life.
I signed up for Twitter about a week ago and have tried to post daily. I've found a few people to follow and one person is following me (doesn't that sound like stalking?). I get that Twitter is microblogging, but my preferences run toward macroblogging: when I blog, I want to get into a topic and explore it at some length. This is not something you do when you have only 140 characters to work with.
I agree that Twitter would be more interesting if I had more connections there. More Things advises inviting people you know to join. I don't think I can in good conscience, because there's nothing to offer them. I readily admit, I wasn't enthusiastic about Facebook when I joined, but after a while, I realized that there were things about it I liked: applications that helped me socialize (vs. setting my teeth on edge), ways to find people I'd lost contact with, a way to blog while maintaining some privacy, etc. All Twitter is is the Facebook status feed. If my friends are already on Facebook, what do any of us need another status feed for? And heck, you can write more than 140 characters on Facebook. To be fair, I like that on Twitter you're not obliged to start your tweet with your name--but it looks like in Facebook's next incarnation, you may not have to deal with that either.
I note that others seem to be having trouble warming up to Twitter. The only person I get frequent tweets from has nothing to do with the More Things program. The people I'm following who are working their way through More Things have put out a few tweets and then quit. Heck, even mnmorethings, the More Things own Twitter identity, seems to have given up after January 29!
It's different for an institution like a library. I see that if you had actual news for your followers, Twitter would be a good way of getting them the bare bones quickly. Maybe I just lead too dull a life for Twitter.
I'm going to try to be quietly active on Twitter for the rest of the More Things program, to give it a fair try. Maybe I'll ask the one active tweeter in my life what she likes about it. But like with lots of the photo apps from 23 Things, this is an aspect of Web 2.0 that just doesn't fill a void in my life.
Friday, January 30, 2009
in-between thing: disqus and blogger
Not being entirely satisfied with my new template, I changed it. What with DISQUS being tangled in the HTML, it changed as well. Now, regardless of whether a post has comments or not, it says "View Comments" instead of giving me the correct number (usually "0 Comments," but occasionally people do say things). Tried reinstalling DISQUS and apparently the code went in twice because it then said "0 Comments 0 Comments." This is when I learned that DISQUS's help files are practically nonexistent (the one for Blogger is "Coming Soon"). Okay, world, I'm not positively impressed by this!
[a few minutes later] Fixed this! I can't believe I figured out to fix this; I don't speak XML. Pure intuition--and it happened to work this time. But I don't think I should have had to rely on intuition in this situation. Surely many people who use DISQUS wish to redesign their blogs at some point.
[a few minutes later] Fixed this! I can't believe I figured out to fix this; I don't speak XML. Pure intuition--and it happened to work this time. But I don't think I should have had to rely on intuition in this situation. Surely many people who use DISQUS wish to redesign their blogs at some point.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
in-between thing: disqus
Ha. With an actual post, I see how DISQUS works. Yay: no one will be forced to sign up with DISQUS if they don't want to!
(No, I'm not saying how it works. If you've made it this far and you're curious, come comment on something from Thing 25 onwards. :) Yes, that's only two posts. I'm trying.)
(No, I'm not saying how it works. If you've made it this far and you're curious, come comment on something from Thing 25 onwards. :) Yes, that's only two posts. I'm trying.)
Thing 25: Bloggers' Toolkit
Okay, I got it: gadgets and widgets are blog bling. If I used enough of these, I could so successfully camoflage my writing that no one would ever find it.
The easiesttoys gadgets and widgets were the ones that required the least effort on my part (duh). Since all I had to do to take advantage of the Typealyzer and the Blog Readability Test was to plug my blog's address into a box, they were the first I played with. I'm really hoping that my blog's postgrad readability rating doesn't mean that 23 Distractions is about as pleasant to read as the worst academic writing! Also, 23 Distractions scores as an ESTP blog. I'm an INTJ, and I'm spending way too much time trying to puzzle out how an anonymous computer somewhere was so off-base.
Moving on to more serious/functional stuff, I eventually decided to sign up for DISQUS. I went back and forth on this because I couldn't figure out from what I was seeing how it improved anything. I suppose I signed up for it mostly to see how it worked. Although now I'm confused: since I had to shut Blogger's comments down to get DISQUS to work, do readers have to be signed into DISQUS to make any comments at all? Gah.
Site statistics intrigue me. I'm delaying signing up for any, however, since most of them looked like overkill. But I would certainly try to set them up on a library blog: we all know libraries live and die by their statistics! So far, this hasn't seemed like a blog that would benefit from adding audio or video gadgets. If I were writing a more personal blog, though, I'd probably want to add photos and the occasional video. As for a professional blog, I'm certain we could find a use for those widgets. With this particular blog, though, it really would be bling: flashy, eye-catching, but not much in the way of functional.
The time consumption is pretty high for this Thing. Installation and sign-up usually didn't take long, but working through lists of widgets, reading about them, sorting them out in my head, testing them, and so on took quite a while. I eventually made myself stop just so I could get this posted before February. Although if we do set up a library blog at some point in the future, at least my preliminary research is taken care of.
The easiest
Moving on to more serious/functional stuff, I eventually decided to sign up for DISQUS. I went back and forth on this because I couldn't figure out from what I was seeing how it improved anything. I suppose I signed up for it mostly to see how it worked. Although now I'm confused: since I had to shut Blogger's comments down to get DISQUS to work, do readers have to be signed into DISQUS to make any comments at all? Gah.
Site statistics intrigue me. I'm delaying signing up for any, however, since most of them looked like overkill. But I would certainly try to set them up on a library blog: we all know libraries live and die by their statistics! So far, this hasn't seemed like a blog that would benefit from adding audio or video gadgets. If I were writing a more personal blog, though, I'd probably want to add photos and the occasional video. As for a professional blog, I'm certain we could find a use for those widgets. With this particular blog, though, it really would be bling: flashy, eye-catching, but not much in the way of functional.
The time consumption is pretty high for this Thing. Installation and sign-up usually didn't take long, but working through lists of widgets, reading about them, sorting them out in my head, testing them, and so on took quite a while. I eventually made myself stop just so I could get this posted before February. Although if we do set up a library blog at some point in the future, at least my preliminary research is taken care of.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Thing 24: Refresh Your Blog
And we're back, ladies and gentlemen: blog revamped, avatar refreshed, ready to plunge into the next 23 Things.
I like Blogger just fine for blogging, but doing this Thing reminded me that I'm not happy with its layout capabilities, something I'd forgotten since the long-ago days of Thing 1. I could probably make it look like anything I wanted to if my HTML skills were good enough, but they're not, so I'm stuck with the templates. And much to my annoyance, I can't customize the templates very much. Oh, it looked like there were possibilites, but it didn't take long for me to realize that only some of the colors could be changed, that tweaking the font threw off the spacing, etc. So wait, in the months since I last posted here, Google added more gadgets but didn't plump up the template selection? Sigh. Well, I did manage to add a subscription gadget, so keeping track of my dazzling prose should be a smidgen easier.
I like Blogger just fine for blogging, but doing this Thing reminded me that I'm not happy with its layout capabilities, something I'd forgotten since the long-ago days of Thing 1. I could probably make it look like anything I wanted to if my HTML skills were good enough, but they're not, so I'm stuck with the templates. And much to my annoyance, I can't customize the templates very much. Oh, it looked like there were possibilites, but it didn't take long for me to realize that only some of the colors could be changed, that tweaking the font threw off the spacing, etc. So wait, in the months since I last posted here, Google added more gadgets but didn't plump up the template selection? Sigh. Well, I did manage to add a subscription gadget, so keeping track of my dazzling prose should be a smidgen easier.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Thing 23: Final Thoughts
Oh, where to begin? I gained several favorite new Things through 23 Things. I went from having no idea what Facebook was to using it daily to keep my long-distance social life on track. I didn't understand why people want to blog (why so many people want to blog!) and now I'm tentatively considering starting a personal blog once I sign off on 23 Distractions. And let's not even get into listing the online productivity tools--those are just plain fun (and useful--a win/win situation!). Plus there were the old Things I was already familiar with that I was happy to see during the program: seeing LibraryThing on the list made me feel like I was already being trendy and innovative on my own.
Naturally in a list of multiple options, some will be less attractive than others. The idea of doing much with my photos online just leaves me feeling exhausted, not creative. I keep forgetting I have a Delicious account, much less that I can use it. Second Life may have to wait until I put grad school behind me and get a faster Internet connection. But at least now I know that these Things are out there and I've tried them, rather than just hearing about them and idly meaning to look into them someday.
I liked that I knew people, usually coworkers or fellow students, who were also going through the 23 Things. It was always interesting to read their takes on stuff; often they picked up on aspects of something that I didn't consider important or vice versa. And yes, if you do a "23 More Things" or "Another 23 Things," I'm likely to sign up.
Naturally in a list of multiple options, some will be less attractive than others. The idea of doing much with my photos online just leaves me feeling exhausted, not creative. I keep forgetting I have a Delicious account, much less that I can use it. Second Life may have to wait until I put grad school behind me and get a faster Internet connection. But at least now I know that these Things are out there and I've tried them, rather than just hearing about them and idly meaning to look into them someday.
I liked that I knew people, usually coworkers or fellow students, who were also going through the 23 Things. It was always interesting to read their takes on stuff; often they picked up on aspects of something that I didn't consider important or vice versa. And yes, if you do a "23 More Things" or "Another 23 Things," I'm likely to sign up.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
in-between thing: blog lists
Blogger has been highlighting their new Blog List feature for some time; I've only just now gotten around to checking it out. I'm playing with it partially for the experience, partially to make it really easy to find the blogs I've chosen to list, and partially just because I can. Find my blog, find my co-workers'.
If the State Law Library had a blog, I suspect we could list other blogs we thought patrons might find useful. What those would be, I have no idea, but I bet there are some good ones out there somewhere.
If the State Law Library had a blog, I suspect we could list other blogs we thought patrons might find useful. What those would be, I have no idea, but I bet there are some good ones out there somewhere.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Thing 1: Beginning Blogging
Or Beginning Blogging and Avatars to be more accurate. I think most of my energy went into trying to create the avatar. Who would have thought a casual outfit of jeans and a plain sweatshirt, or shorts and a t-shirt (the kind of clothes I envisioned my avatar wearing) would be so hard to pull together? I can feel the cataloging instinct kicking in: I was dismayed to realize that I was going to have to click through 60-odd pages to see all the possible outfits for my avatar--doesn't this just cry out for a better system of organization? Any organization at all would be an improvement. Tagging, maybe.
Blogging? Well, I'll get back to y'all about whether I like it or not. At the moment, it feels like writing a letter to a vast mass of strangers, and that feels unnatural as all get-out. Heck, if I'm going to write letters, I have friends who'd love to hear from me.
23 Things on a Stick? Sounds like a good idea. I've already tried some of the things on the list (LibraryThing = yay! Del.icio.us = uh, whatever), but I could've drifted for years more without trying blogging and who knows if I'd've ever gotten around to sampling Facebook or MySpace. (Did I just commit myself to making it that far through this program? Uh-oh).
Blogging? Well, I'll get back to y'all about whether I like it or not. At the moment, it feels like writing a letter to a vast mass of strangers, and that feels unnatural as all get-out. Heck, if I'm going to write letters, I have friends who'd love to hear from me.
23 Things on a Stick? Sounds like a good idea. I've already tried some of the things on the list (LibraryThing = yay! Del.icio.us = uh, whatever), but I could've drifted for years more without trying blogging and who knows if I'd've ever gotten around to sampling Facebook or MySpace. (Did I just commit myself to making it that far through this program? Uh-oh).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)