Flickr fun and mashups

I guess I still don't quite get the mashup thing - it seems like it's mostly for those who know alot about programming. I played around a bit with some of the features, like trading cards and posters, but as nearly as I can tell, unless you pay for them, you aren't able to do too much. I will continue to explore.

Democracy on the web

Web 2.0 is all about democracy - everyone's ideas seems to be equal, and all can participate. I recently read an article in U.S. News and World Report concerning democracy on the web, and the difficulty of attracting older people to these new technologies. The article stated that people between 30 and 49 are significantly less likely to read blogs or consult Wikipedia. This is a generation which does spend alot of time online, and a new generation of sites is trying to court them.

Like alot of librarians, and people my age in general, I find the general idea that EVERYONE can blog on and on about their ideas kind of boring, and I have significant reservations about sites like Wikipedia where self-described "experts" present information of questionable validity. I don't want to read anyone else's diary (possible exceptions: world adventurers, etc.) and don't feel like my random musings have a great deal of significance to the outside world. In the article, sites like Helium, where posters must be invited, and show expertise, are shown as the response to the skepticism of people like me.

Since the web is constantly evolving, it will be interesting to see what comes next.

Bloglines

Got it!!! Apparently I had subscribed to the "recommended" sites on bloglines, and alot of the news ones were old. I went to MSNBC and subscribed myself (and I was proud to remember that in certain circumstances, you have to copy the URL and then past it into the RSS feeds - and it worked. Success...

RSS FEED at Bloglines

I just created my new bloglines account, and frankly, I must be missing something, because every link I clicked on was OLD - from at least 2004. I will have to explore further and see if I am doing something wrong.

Flickr and other miscellanea (sp?)

I still am learning how to manage this blog. I can find the page with all my posts, and there doesn't seem to be a link to the "dashboard" with the option to create a new post. I will have to continue to explore.

I am very proud of myself conerning Flickr. I was excited to learn about it's potential - it came at a time when I had a very specific need to share some graduation photos with family - and gave me a great opportunity to do so. I sat down at the computer last weekend, and it took me several hours, but in the end, I had a Flickr account (and a new Yahoo email account) and had uploaded the pictures to the site, and communicated the address to my family. I am very excited about the potential for this to enable me to keep in touch with family and friends, and it really is quite easy to use.

The Arch

The Arch
Originally uploaded by peke_cheeks

I can't wait to see if this works - I really love this picture, and it fits in with my "theme".

7 1/2 Habits

Of the 7 1/2 habits of highly successful Lifelong Learners, I would say the hardest for me is Habit 4: having confidence in myself as a competent, effective learner. I would say of some things, the IDEA of learning them is more attractive than the practice, i.e., certain puzzles like Sudoku, which because "they" say its good for the brain, I feel like l should learn it. I have, but it's not become a habit. I have learned in my life that if I sit down, take a deep breath, and calmly TRY to learn something, I generally can get it. It's the sitting down and making myself pay attention that's the hard part.

I would say the easiest Habit is the last, Play, except that would be true for everyone, I suspect. If I don't use that one, the easiest is probably #1, Beginning with the End in Mind. I generally have a clear idea of what I hope to accomplish with a learning task - even if things don't always work out the way I planned.

I am generally very excited about the whole libraries 2.0 concept, and most especially, learning all the technology. The planning and steps make learning about these things much easier than just vaguely saying "I should learn about (fill in the blank), because without some guidance and practice, somehow not much is learned. I guess that's another truth about my own learning style - I definitely work better with some structure.

Learned my one thing for the day

Well, today Paulette and I learned that you don't have to be given specific permission to comment on Posts on someone else's blog. Paulette had given me authorship permission over her blog, which we now realize means I can make an original post - however, to just comment on her blog, I don't need that. She successfully commented on one of my posts.

MAKING (SOME) PROGRESS

Well, I am hopeful that my blog is now registered with the 23 Things website. I'm still finding the terminology confusing, and have not yet mastered the concepts of who can read my blog, and what it means to invite someone to view it. I will keep trying.

Getting Started

Well, I can't say that I'm confident this will work, but I am enjoying the process. This whole tech thing is truly a group effort here in the Adult Dept. I wouldn't have known how to do this without the help of Paulette and Kendra. Can't wait to see my ideas in print!