I've looked at other people's images on Flickr (sometimes being amazed - as I am with Facebook - how much private information they're willing to give out about themselves) but haven't joined or contributed until now. I can see it's definite benefits in a personal setting but (like many of these tools) I could also use a different 'thing' to achieve a similar result - in my case that would be sharing images with family & friends that are interstate.
I did like Ian's work example and can see the value in something like the Cambridge Library's display with catalogue links - but would also think that it would create a huge amount of work. I do wonder at the time/value equation - although I suppose as with many emerging technologies, someone needs to put in the time & energy initially. Long term there may be huge demand and the time/value equation may swing, but until someone has done the work to allow users to get to know it, it won't happen. A case (possibly) of 'if you build it they will come!' Or not!
Friday, November 28, 2008
Thing 13 part 2 - the feet!
At the Friday workshop we did a group photo of our feet - spectacular but it did surprise me how many of us were wearing 'sensible' shoes!
Thing 13 - Upload an image
This is a photo my husband took (but I uploaded to our PC at home :)) of McNaught's comet in January 2007. Lucky us only had to walk 25m across the street to get this view - so we were able to enjoy on a number of nights.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Thing 11: Social tagging and search
I did a very basic search on the term 'survivor'. I was interested to see what wildly varying results I got, and I wasn't disappointed.
Delicious, Google, Zuula and Kartoo focused on the TV series, a music group, and a clip of that name.
Murdoch Uni catalogue had only 4 titles - related to the surviving partner and their needs, and the UQ catalogue had 119 results with a smattering of fiction & non-fiction.
CiteUlike had a medical focus, and I couldn't get Connotea to work for me.
I found Kartoo quite disconcerting = I'm obviously not as visual a person as other people, although maybe if would grow on me given time :)
Delicious, Google, Zuula and Kartoo focused on the TV series, a music group, and a clip of that name.
Murdoch Uni catalogue had only 4 titles - related to the surviving partner and their needs, and the UQ catalogue had 119 results with a smattering of fiction & non-fiction.
CiteUlike had a medical focus, and I couldn't get Connotea to work for me.
I found Kartoo quite disconcerting = I'm obviously not as visual a person as other people, although maybe if would grow on me given time :)
Friday, November 21, 2008
Thing 12 - delicious.com
I'd heard quite a lot about delicious over the last year, but it all seemed a bit too hard when I was just working with my bookmarks on my home PC. Then when I started at Murdoch I knew it would be worth checking out - so I was pleased to find it was one of the Things.
After an initial glitch (which was my fault) I found the set-up very simple and the different methods of tagging quite easy - although I can see that I already want to modify some of the tags that were imported. And I'm guessing that to make them useful setting up more of the tag bundles would be a good idea.
After adding Kate to my network I found my husband and added him also. I need to explore the social side a little more as at this stage I'm simply seeing delicious as a way to share my bookmarks at home and work. But I do think that (given time to explore) it will be much more than this.
After an initial glitch (which was my fault) I found the set-up very simple and the different methods of tagging quite easy - although I can see that I already want to modify some of the tags that were imported. And I'm guessing that to make them useful setting up more of the tag bundles would be a good idea.
After adding Kate to my network I found my husband and added him also. I need to explore the social side a little more as at this stage I'm simply seeing delicious as a way to share my bookmarks at home and work. But I do think that (given time to explore) it will be much more than this.
Friday, November 14, 2008
My test Google doc
I decided to play a bit with formatting to see what I could do...
The trials and joys of interstate family!
Most of my family (biological and in-laws) live interstate. My husband grew up in Victoria and spent a year in Western Australia before moving to South Australia to study. This is also where he met me (a native South Aussie) and we married. But I always knew S.A. wouldn't keep him happy for long - and we moved to the Northern Territory a few years after we married. We loved the lifestyle there (and one of my sisters also lived nearby) but the weather eventually wore us down and we moved to a new opportunity (close to one of Shayne's brothers) in W.A.
Living a long way away from most of our family (Shayne has five married siblings complete with their families, and a Mum in the eastern states, and I have two married siblings complete with their families, and both parents in SA) wasn't really a problem until our cherubs came along. It was just a good excuse to have a decent holiday every few years...
But now, we realise how hard it is to keep our children in touch with their grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles, when they only see them every couple of years, and we also miss advice and babysitting close by!
However, on the plus side:
So, like most situations, there are positives and negatives about where we live. Just wonder
if my feelings about this will change when BB3 arrives!
Well done! -Margaret Solosy 11/14/08 12:25 PM
The trials and joys of interstate family!
Most of my family (biological and in-laws) live interstate. My husband grew up in Victoria and spent a year in Western Australia before moving to South Australia to study. This is also where he met me (a native South Aussie) and we married. But I always knew S.A. wouldn't keep him happy for long - and we moved to the Northern Territory a few years after we married. We loved the lifestyle there (and one of my sisters also lived nearby) but the weather eventually wore us down and we moved to a new opportunity (close to one of Shayne's brothers) in W.A.
Living a long way away from most of our family (Shayne has five married siblings complete with their families, and a Mum in the eastern states, and I have two married siblings complete with their families, and both parents in SA) wasn't really a problem until our cherubs came along. It was just a good excuse to have a decent holiday every few years...
But now, we realise how hard it is to keep our children in touch with their grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles, when they only see them every couple of years, and we also miss advice and babysitting close by!
However, on the plus side:
- any visit to family is an adventure, and we almost never outstay our welcome!
- when the grandparents have come to stay, the children get some pretty full on attention.
- we don't have much friction within the family over unsolicited advice, and we get on fantastically with our in-laws.
- we've learnt lots of new technological tools to help keep in touch - Shayne's Mum is one of the most technologically connected 75 year-olds I know! We have a family website where we blog and post photos www.beachmob.org/family (password protected) and there is a fair bit of skyping and some video conferencing that happens. And watching Shayne and his siblings sit around together at a table, with half a dozen laptops between them, chatting almost as much online as in person, is something to be seen :)
So, like most situations, there are positives and negatives about where we live. Just wonder
New baby is due end of April 2009 -Judith Beach 11/14/08 12:19 PM
Well done! -Margaret Solosy 11/14/08 12:25 PM
Google Docs - what a good idea
I had a bit of fun with this - and will post my document in later...
I decided to play around a little with the formatting to see what it could do, and was pretty impressed with the range of functionality - it's certainly not as rich in formatting options as Word (for example) but for producing a useful, workable, collaborative document, it seems great.
And I think that it's key use could be in collaborative efforts - particularly when people working together use different platforms or software. It's close enough to Word with it's shortcuts that most people who are comfortable with that software could just pick it up & run with it.
I don't think I would use it for work documents as there are those lingering issues of management of organisational records, security and access (if the unthinkable happens & Google went into receivership for example).
But in general, I like it...
I decided to play around a little with the formatting to see what it could do, and was pretty impressed with the range of functionality - it's certainly not as rich in formatting options as Word (for example) but for producing a useful, workable, collaborative document, it seems great.
And I think that it's key use could be in collaborative efforts - particularly when people working together use different platforms or software. It's close enough to Word with it's shortcuts that most people who are comfortable with that software could just pick it up & run with it.
I don't think I would use it for work documents as there are those lingering issues of management of organisational records, security and access (if the unthinkable happens & Google went into receivership for example).
But in general, I like it...
Friday, November 7, 2008
Firefox and Extensions
This week's things (7 & 8) are not completely new to me, in that we have a couple of extensions on our home version of Firefox. BUT I didn't add them - just used them, without really realising what they were and how many options are out there. I've spent quite a lot of time looking at this week's things, mainly at home ( :)) - I've installed a Harley Davidson theme (didn't work very well for me - too bulky), a black one (found sections hard to read), Walnut for Firefox (I can cope with it but it is a bit distracting) and finally settled on a boring but usable one!
Details of my things below:
Add a theme - I finally chose Microfox for Firefox
Add an extension - I added a couple - ChromaTabs Plus 2.1 (I like the idea of seeing at a glance the originator of different websites - didnt work very well with the walnut theme but is fine with my current one) and Mouse Gestures Redox (we use something like this at home and I'd gotten used to it :)) I'm also thinking of installing Foxsaver to have a nice screensaver of photos of my kids :) Just need to find out if it uses too many PC resources...
Add the 23 things toolbar - done
Download Zotero and LibX - done
Add some resources to your Zotero Library. Try to include something from the Library Catalogue, a database and a website such as Google Scholar. - done
Choose one of the extensions covered in Things 7 and 8 and write a blog entry on whether you would use it and why.
I've been using the 23 things toolbar to keep in touch with other participants blogs and the RSS feed of the 23 Things blog. I also like the ease of which I can get to the 'things' It's great but I figure longer term I'll be using the LibX toolbar more consistently.
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