Thursday, June 7, 2007
Friday, June 1, 2007
43 things.com was once again a new website that I was not familiar with. I'm not too sure how I feel about it. I think to a certain degree a list made with pen and paper would be better, although I think having it available on-line makes it easy for a larg number of people, who may not otherwise, make a list. I like the fact that you can view others lists, this really helps in getting the ideas ball rolling. I also think its really interesting to see how many other people want to or have the same goals as you. I also really liked the fact that you could publish it to your blog. I think that really help to get your friends involved to help motivate and accomplish goals on your list.
I thought this site was simple to use and never had any trouble doing anything. I think it was one of the better laid out sites for this reason, since on the majority of the other sites I always had trouble finding at least one button! The only real issue I had with the site was that in every window gave you links to other goals, eventually I felt very overwhelmed and bombarded with other persons goals.
The 'I've done this' button was an interesting option. I think it could be helpful but a lot of the comments I was looking over seemed to be very problematic and perhaps not always that helpful. Although I am sure that even if 2 or 40 comments were helpful it would be well worth examining others opinions.
I thought this site was simple to use and never had any trouble doing anything. I think it was one of the better laid out sites for this reason, since on the majority of the other sites I always had trouble finding at least one button! The only real issue I had with the site was that in every window gave you links to other goals, eventually I felt very overwhelmed and bombarded with other persons goals.
The 'I've done this' button was an interesting option. I think it could be helpful but a lot of the comments I was looking over seemed to be very problematic and perhaps not always that helpful. Although I am sure that even if 2 or 40 comments were helpful it would be well worth examining others opinions.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Podcast & Audio
When asked to complete this lab I thought it would be a fun experience. I have been listening to Gender Talk Radio on-line for quite some time and thought it may be interesting to expand my on-line listening to other shows/podcasts.
When searching for podcasts I download 9 different podcasts and 2 video podcasts to see the difference and attempt to obtain a variety of shows.
Of the shows I listened to and watched my favorites / useful to my majors (Cultural Studies/ Women's Studies) were:
The L Word
www.sho.com/site/downloads/rss/lword.xml
The Planet
theplanetcast.libsyn.com/rss
Big Gay News
feeds.feedburner.com/BigGayNews
The Gay Parenting Show
gaypareenting.thepodcastnetwork.com/feed
Video: She Said What
feeds.feedburner.com/videoshesaidwhat
A few of the shows I listened to were only music, giving insight to new artists, up and coming bands etc. Although I decided that I enjoyed the talk-show based podcasts much better since I felt as thought I was doing a form of research to gain insight to topics being dealt with in my majors as well as becoming enlightened in news issues which do not necessarily make the headlines but are of interest to me.
I believe that through this experience I learnt a lot while also thinking critically about news issues. I believe that I would continue to listen to podcasts in the future since I am not really interested in TV. As well, I work at the school library where I am allowed to listen to music as I work and believe this may be a better use of my time rather than always listening to music.
The audio book I chose to listen to was Kafka's 'The Metamorphosis'. I chose 'The Metamorphosis' because I had just recently read the short and wanted to compare the accuracy and difference between reading 'The Metamorphosis' and listening to it. I found this version from {http://www.simplyaudiobooks.ca/Free_Audiobooks/dp/202/} Not bad and only slightly different however I could not stand the mans voice at all and was quite thankful when it was over. Having gone on long car rides since I was young I am no stranger to the audiobook and know that their are some very good ones out there.
I also examined two different price plans from two different online audio book sites. This is how they compare.
http://www.simplyaudiobooks.ca/Learn-More-Rent/dp/45/
Selections at a Time 12 month Annual* Monthly
1
$11.95
$14.95
2
$20.95
$24.95
3
$29.95
$32.95
4
$36.95
$39.95
Our rental members get:
Unlimited Rentals! No Late Fees! No Due Dates! FREE Shipping BOTH WAYS! Over 8,000 Titles! Cancel Anytime!
http://www.jiggerbug.com/
1: Create a list of all the audiobooks you'd like to listen to.
2: Receive your audiobooks in the mail & enjoy.
3: No Due Dates! No Late Fees!
Mail the books back when you're ready for the next titles on your list. (Prepaid Return. Mailer Provided!)
Most Populare Monthly Plan 2 books out at a time + 1 FREE rental download every 2 weeks. $24.95 per month with one year prepay.
I thought that all of the price plans were faire since this way you do not have books taking up space on your shelf and it is quite reasonable when you consider the average price of a book. The only downfall seems to be in the time you need to listen to the books. I also am of the belief that this does not exercise your brain and perhaps reading a novel on occasion would still be a positive idea.
I was very impressed with the free audiobooks and felt like this was a good idea however you must make sure that the reader is easy to listen to.
All in all I enjoyed this exercises and believe I will become a regular podcast listener.
When searching for podcasts I download 9 different podcasts and 2 video podcasts to see the difference and attempt to obtain a variety of shows.
Of the shows I listened to and watched my favorites / useful to my majors (Cultural Studies/ Women's Studies) were:
The L Word
www.sho.com/site/downloads/rss/lword.xml
The Planet
theplanetcast.libsyn.com/rss
Big Gay News
feeds.feedburner.com/BigGayNews
The Gay Parenting Show
gaypareenting.thepodcastnetwork.com/feed
Video: She Said What
feeds.feedburner.com/videoshesaidwhat
A few of the shows I listened to were only music, giving insight to new artists, up and coming bands etc. Although I decided that I enjoyed the talk-show based podcasts much better since I felt as thought I was doing a form of research to gain insight to topics being dealt with in my majors as well as becoming enlightened in news issues which do not necessarily make the headlines but are of interest to me.
I believe that through this experience I learnt a lot while also thinking critically about news issues. I believe that I would continue to listen to podcasts in the future since I am not really interested in TV. As well, I work at the school library where I am allowed to listen to music as I work and believe this may be a better use of my time rather than always listening to music.
The audio book I chose to listen to was Kafka's 'The Metamorphosis'. I chose 'The Metamorphosis' because I had just recently read the short and wanted to compare the accuracy and difference between reading 'The Metamorphosis' and listening to it. I found this version from {http://www.simplyaudiobooks.ca/Free_Audiobooks/dp/202/} Not bad and only slightly different however I could not stand the mans voice at all and was quite thankful when it was over. Having gone on long car rides since I was young I am no stranger to the audiobook and know that their are some very good ones out there.
I also examined two different price plans from two different online audio book sites. This is how they compare.
http://www.simplyaudiobooks.ca/Learn-More-Rent/dp/45/
Selections at a Time 12 month Annual* Monthly
1
$11.95
$14.95
2
$20.95
$24.95
3
$29.95
$32.95
4
$36.95
$39.95
Our rental members get:
Unlimited Rentals! No Late Fees! No Due Dates! FREE Shipping BOTH WAYS! Over 8,000 Titles! Cancel Anytime!
http://www.jiggerbug.com/
1: Create a list of all the audiobooks you'd like to listen to.
2: Receive your audiobooks in the mail & enjoy.
3: No Due Dates! No Late Fees!
Mail the books back when you're ready for the next titles on your list. (Prepaid Return. Mailer Provided!)
Most Populare Monthly Plan 2 books out at a time + 1 FREE rental download every 2 weeks. $24.95 per month with one year prepay.
I thought that all of the price plans were faire since this way you do not have books taking up space on your shelf and it is quite reasonable when you consider the average price of a book. The only downfall seems to be in the time you need to listen to the books. I also am of the belief that this does not exercise your brain and perhaps reading a novel on occasion would still be a positive idea.
I was very impressed with the free audiobooks and felt like this was a good idea however you must make sure that the reader is easy to listen to.
All in all I enjoyed this exercises and believe I will become a regular podcast listener.
Friday, May 25, 2007
online generators
I have been using online generators since before I started my first blog about 4 years ago. They have always been a fun wast of time and a great way to differentiate your blog from others. For me it was a way to personalize my blog or to add some creativity to my blog. Between quizzes, online name generators and doll generators, you were able to differentiate you blog and perhaps give a little piece of your personality without too much overlap between your and others blogs.
For this blog entry I used http://generatorblog.blogspot.com/, I had a lot of fun with these online generators and enjoyed this exercises immensely. I found the majority of them very easy to use and very quick. The only time I ever had problems using them was due to the fact that my pictures tended to be much larger than were allowed. For me I liked the ones without pictures much better, as you can see these were the ones I chose to display in my blog. I thought they were not only useful to personalize your blog but could be useful on a website to display the websites name. Online name generators are helpful when creating a 'secret identity".
I got my name in lights with notcelebrity.co.uk
Later on while searching for other generators I made a doll which I posted below.
For this blog entry I used http://generatorblog.blogspot.com/, I had a lot of fun with these online generators and enjoyed this exercises immensely. I found the majority of them very easy to use and very quick. The only time I ever had problems using them was due to the fact that my pictures tended to be much larger than were allowed. For me I liked the ones without pictures much better, as you can see these were the ones I chose to display in my blog. I thought they were not only useful to personalize your blog but could be useful on a website to display the websites name. Online name generators are helpful when creating a 'secret identity".
I got my name in lights with notcelebrity.co.uk
Later on while searching for other generators I made a doll which I posted below.
Friday, May 18, 2007
Flickr
I had heard of Flickr before but had never bothered to use it since I already have two photobucket accounts. However, now that I have played around with it I feel that I may use it in the future, if only to receive inspiration for my own photo shoots or examine different techniques used by other Flickr users. Unfortunately I do not know if I would be willing to upload any of my artwork yet since I have still not gathered up enough courage to post my artwork anywhere on the web.
I found Flickr very easy to use however, this may be slightly unjust since I was given many of the links. When examining Flickr on my own I was able to navigate easily throughout the page. The only issue I had with Flickr was having to set up a Yahoo account in order to use it but the website was amazing and as of yet I don't have any complaints.
Although I have not searched for any other mashups as of yet in my free time I plan to see what interesting ones I can find. I think it is a really cool idea. Of the 5 examples we were given This is how I feel about each one...
***Evaluation of 5 mashup websites.***
http://www.krazydad.com/colrpickr/
~fun to play with
~displays interesting photos
~cool idea but how usefull is it?
~amazing if attempting to find an image in a particular colour
http://flickrvision.com/
~very entertaining (most entertaing of all 5 mashups)
~not very useful
~interesting idea
http://labs.systemone.at/retrievr (use your mouse to draw
in the box)
~fun!
~interesting search results
~drawing rarely march images
http://randomchaos.com/games/fastr/
~interesting idea although did not find it that amusing
~had a difficult time guessing the tag (maybe that says something about me?)
~could be a good waste of time
http://www.beckysweb.co.uk/sudoku/flickrsudoku.asp
~I'm not going to lie... I don't understand sudoku
~I'm not going to lie... I'm not good at sudoku
***A few of my Fav/interesting Pic's I found on Flickr***
Note~ These are not my photo's
http://www.flickr.com/photos/afflictionmurder/500903397
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mylakent/23989896
http://www.flickr.com/photos/yomofo/791388
http://www.flickr.com/photos/annatheodora/496043936
http://www.flickr.com/photos/annatheodora/247430749
http://www.flickr.com/photos/etgalim/502188481
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ajpscs/500895057
I found Flickr very easy to use however, this may be slightly unjust since I was given many of the links. When examining Flickr on my own I was able to navigate easily throughout the page. The only issue I had with Flickr was having to set up a Yahoo account in order to use it but the website was amazing and as of yet I don't have any complaints.
Although I have not searched for any other mashups as of yet in my free time I plan to see what interesting ones I can find. I think it is a really cool idea. Of the 5 examples we were given This is how I feel about each one...
***Evaluation of 5 mashup websites.***
http://www.krazydad.com/colrpickr/
~fun to play with
~displays interesting photos
~cool idea but how usefull is it?
~amazing if attempting to find an image in a particular colour
http://flickrvision.com/
~very entertaining (most entertaing of all 5 mashups)
~not very useful
~interesting idea
http://labs.systemone.at/retrievr (use your mouse to draw
in the box)
~fun!
~interesting search results
~drawing rarely march images
http://randomchaos.com/games/fastr/
~interesting idea although did not find it that amusing
~had a difficult time guessing the tag (maybe that says something about me?)
~could be a good waste of time
http://www.beckysweb.co.uk/sudoku/flickrsudoku.asp
~I'm not going to lie... I don't understand sudoku
~I'm not going to lie... I'm not good at sudoku
***A few of my Fav/interesting Pic's I found on Flickr***
Note~ These are not my photo's
http://www.flickr.com/photos/afflictionmurder/500903397
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mylakent/23989896
http://www.flickr.com/photos/yomofo/791388
http://www.flickr.com/photos/annatheodora/496043936
http://www.flickr.com/photos/annatheodora/247430749
http://www.flickr.com/photos/etgalim/502188481
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ajpscs/500895057
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Del.icio.us
Del.icio.us
Once again Computer Studies 280 has introduced me to a new website. After hearing about Del.icio.us in class I was looking forward to signing up for a Del.icio.us account of my own. I found the website much more straight forward than some of the other websites we have examined in COST 280. I found signing up for an account very easy as the instructions were well laid out. Adding my book marks to my Del.icio.us account was more than easy and fun, especially to make up tags for the links. I also found it more than interesting to see which pages others had bookmarked. The only issue I had with Del.icio.us was when it came to the ‘links for you’ portion of the exercise, since I had already uploaded all of my bookmarks and had to ‘go back’ and ‘edit’ to change my links to ‘links for you’. Adding friends to my network was also a very easy exercise as well as browsing the sight for other person’s bookmarks. Where Del.icio.us impressed me the most however was in its ‘linkrolls’. I love being able to display my bookmarks on my blog! All in all I would have to say Del.icio.us is currently one of my favourite sites we have examined within the class and I plan to add a ‘linkroll’ to my other blogs later on this week.
Once again Computer Studies 280 has introduced me to a new website. After hearing about Del.icio.us in class I was looking forward to signing up for a Del.icio.us account of my own. I found the website much more straight forward than some of the other websites we have examined in COST 280. I found signing up for an account very easy as the instructions were well laid out. Adding my book marks to my Del.icio.us account was more than easy and fun, especially to make up tags for the links. I also found it more than interesting to see which pages others had bookmarked. The only issue I had with Del.icio.us was when it came to the ‘links for you’ portion of the exercise, since I had already uploaded all of my bookmarks and had to ‘go back’ and ‘edit’ to change my links to ‘links for you’. Adding friends to my network was also a very easy exercise as well as browsing the sight for other person’s bookmarks. Where Del.icio.us impressed me the most however was in its ‘linkrolls’. I love being able to display my bookmarks on my blog! All in all I would have to say Del.icio.us is currently one of my favourite sites we have examined within the class and I plan to add a ‘linkroll’ to my other blogs later on this week.
Friday, May 11, 2007
technorati
Technorati.com, what to say? Until computer studies 280 I had never heard of technorati.com. After subscribing today and clamming my blog, I am still quite unsure of how I feel about this site. I believe that it is a useful tool to quickly check your blogs. However, I believe I am biased due to my long love and preference with Livejournal. Since in LiveJournal I am also able to subscribe to blogs I like as well as to syndicated blogs. Where Technorati.com prevails is in its ability to access blogs from many different sites, such as LiveJournal, Blogger, and MySpace.
I find however, that in comparison to LiveJournal, Technorati fails only in its ability to seach. I find it quite difficult to search for particular bogs. I also found it difficult at first to distinguish between subscribing and adding to my favourites. Although I found this difficult it may be unfair to say LiveJournal is necessarily easier since I am biased to the ease of LiveJournal.
I must say however that like Blogger, Technorati was very easy to set up and sign into a new account. I found the instructions very well laid out and easy to follow. I also appreciate being able to read a large portions of my blogs from one site. Perhaps with more exploration of Technorati I may find it a very useful tool, however I am still confused exactly to its use. I am also unsure as to if I will use Technorati over the long term since I primarily only read LiveJournal blogs, or syndicated blogs through LiveJournal.
I find however, that in comparison to LiveJournal, Technorati fails only in its ability to seach. I find it quite difficult to search for particular bogs. I also found it difficult at first to distinguish between subscribing and adding to my favourites. Although I found this difficult it may be unfair to say LiveJournal is necessarily easier since I am biased to the ease of LiveJournal.
I must say however that like Blogger, Technorati was very easy to set up and sign into a new account. I found the instructions very well laid out and easy to follow. I also appreciate being able to read a large portions of my blogs from one site. Perhaps with more exploration of Technorati I may find it a very useful tool, however I am still confused exactly to its use. I am also unsure as to if I will use Technorati over the long term since I primarily only read LiveJournal blogs, or syndicated blogs through LiveJournal.
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