first post

this is my first ever blog post, which i am typing in class....

My Reflection part 3

I think that part of this assignment is a bit of a blur. I do remember doing most of it thankfully but if I ever do forget I do have my reflections to look at to help me remember what I have been doing over the last 7 weeks, which I think I have done quite well because I am able to go back and find the things that I had forgotten either how to do them or what they did. I think for a assignment like this it is important to write constructive reflections so that you are able to go back and re-learn something that you have only just discovered, otherwise I am going to forget and I will have to learn it again.  

I don't think that I struggled much with this assignment. As I have said with my previous post the main thing that I had understanding was Mashups. But with most other things I was able to grasp them rather quickly, it was more the exploring that took a lot of time to do. 

I think that the work load was quite a lot for this subject. Not only did we have to explore Web 2.0 ( which took up most of my time), we also had to do the readings and answer the questions, and there was stuff in class as well. I was hoping that we were able do some of the web 2.0 in class and learn it together. I think that I would have been able to learn it better that way because there would have been instant help. 

I don't think that using blogs is the best way to be able to create a discussion. I think that it would have been better if we had a discussion board so that we were able to all come together create threads and be able to discuss more efficiently.

But I am still glad that I have my blog and I will be using in the future.

candy  

My Reflection part 2

Well I honestly believe that this assignment has opened my eyes to a whole new world. I never thought that I would ever have a web page. I never thought that I would ever go on facebook and I never thought I would discover the joys of youtube. So I guess that if I never decided to do this course I would never have been apart of the web 2.0 adventure. I think that this has opened my eyes to what is out there and has want me to explore what I have yet to discover.

I actually love working on my website and being able to be creative and I think that even once this assignment is over I will still work on it discovering new gadgets to make my website even more exciting. You do actually have some control over the look and layout of your blog but I think that now I have the buzz for it I really want to create a HTML website for information management or something along those lines.

I think that it is easier to do all this on a Mac so I am glad that I have one so that I can explore what more stuff I can do with my Mac to make it even more efficient.

candy

The Final Reflection Part !

Well hasn't this been an experience.  I have enjoyed every moment of it. Although there has been some frustrations. I think that was mainly because of dial up. But (even though it is a bit late) I am now a proud owner of broadband and loving it. 

I feel like I  have fully embraced and participated in the Web 2.o Adventure and although I may have had some problems through the different exercises the help was there and there were times when I was able to look at the problem from a logical point of view I was sometimes able to figure it out for myself. That is what I loved best with the assignment was that for the first time I was really able to figure things out of myself if I couldn't do something it was so bittersweet.

I believe that the interaction with our group was actually really good. We were able to help each other if anyone had a problem with something and we were able to have discussion about the different technologies. We had a fairly large group so it did take a long time to read everyone's blog posts and comment on them. I think that it would have been easier if the groups were smaller then we would have had more time on discussing the blog posts. However, I loved our group and I was glad to have this opportunity to work with them.

I think that I have been pretty successful in executed the technical skills that were required with Web 2.0. Most of them I had never used before so I actually want to check them all out to see what they were all about. And I think that is where this assignment was good for me because I was finally able to do that. I don't think that if I was out on my own I would never have discovered most of these sites that we have looked at. In particular the social networking sites like delicious. I would have loved to known about these for my previous uni course.

Boy did I have to persist with some of the technologies in Web 2.0. I guess it wasn't really because of any problems I encountered, it was more because it was I new experience for me and I needed to explore it.I only thing that I think I had a problem with and possibly still do it with Mashups. I still cannot really explain this concept to people and I need to look at them a little more. I was able to help people learn blogger more. I loved exploring the new gadgets and once my group members saw what I was doing they wanted to know how did it. I was able to talk them through it step by step wether it be face to face or on our blogs.

I think that I have been able to reflect on each of the different technologies that I have explored. I can't see how all of this is relevant with information management  as we are able to communicate a lot more efficiently to many different people all over the world. I think that it is important for us to be familiar with web as it is the future for information.

Well all up it has been a great experience, it has been a lot of work but I think that I have learnt how to manage it all.

candy

Mashups Are Messing With My Head.

Ok I think that this one part of of Web 2.o that I still don't really understand what it means. So if anyone can shed a little light on it I will be forever grateful. However, I have found a site that describes what a mashup is and gives relevant sites to show you how they work. Here is the definition that they give: 

"A web mashup is a web application that takes information from one or more sources and presents it in a new way with a unique layout

Confused: It is actually not the difficult to understand as the technical definition might make you believe. The driving power of the internet is information, and a mashup is an application that takes that information and shows it to you in a unique way".

What is a Mashup? 

By Daniel Nations.

I don't think that is the best so I went to my more trusted source wikipedia and they gave a much more better definition of mashups and this is what they say:

"In web development, a mashup is a Web application that combines data from one or more sources into a single integrated tool. The term Mashup implies easy, fast integration, frequently done by access to open APIs and data sources to produce results that were not the original reason for producing the raw source data. An example of a mashup is the use of cartographic data from Google Maps to add location information to real estate data, thereby creating a new and distinct Web service that was not originally provided by either source".

By Wikipedia

The rest of the article gives more references, external links and types of mashups. It gives you a pretty good overview on what a mashup is and does and the references are pretty good to in particular I liked Travature which gives you all the information you need on travel while your on the go. I believe that it sends it straight to your iphone. 

Well I hope that this gives you same understanding on mashups. And while I have been writing this blog post and reading more articles I am getting a much better understanding as to what a Mashup actually is.

candy.

View Larger Map

Ok I hope that this works. Anyway I found google  maps very easy to use and I can see just how beneficial it is. To be able to plan your trip like this is fantastic because you can customize your own itinerary. I had already had a look at google maps in Information Provisions so I already new a little bit about it, but making your own map just gives you a different opinion on the idea of creating your own maps.

I can see how this  will be the new thing. Who needs melways anymore when you have google maps and navman, The days of getting lost are over, it is almost (very almost) tempting me to start driving again. But that will only happen when cars can learn to completely drive themselves and all we have to do is just behind a wheel and well fall asleep. 

Anyways I think that google maps are a great idea and now i shall explore the interesting world of mashups.

candy.

This is an awesome video that I discovered from youtube which I have become a great fan of. I discovered this by chance really I love classical music and I actually got this from stumble upon. The music is truly amazing and I hope that you enjoy it also.

candy

Flickr

Well i absolutely love Flickr but the only problem is I have already forgotten what my password is. And that is the only one(of course) that I didn't get the chance to write down. Well I will find it out sooner or later I hope. Anyway the reasons why i love Flickr is because you are able to store and share all of your favourite photos in one easy site and once again use tags to be able to locate them better. It is a fantastic site as you can also create your own blog.

Also using Flickr you are able to create a slideshow of your photos and attach them to your blog (as i have on the right of screen) and view them when ever you like. (I don't think that this is going to make sense it is a saturday night and brain is in overload to I apologize if you are that this very moment thinking What The???)

I shall think that I will leave it at that and come back to it later. And hopefully with something more intelligent to say.

candy

HTML Coding

Well I know that this isn't really apart of this weeks blogs exercises, however, I would still like to discuss it anyway. I have been exploring HTML coding today and I have found that it is very easy to pick up. Of course at the moment I am just doing basic codes but still I have success and I am actually enjoying more than creating a site through software like blogger. With having a mac I actually had to get some software for it because I have iweb which is I guess like dreamweaver, but I couldn't find a way to be able to type in the codes. So I found a trial software specifically for Macs called Taco which allows me to edit HTML. 

I haven't done that much to it at the moment as I am still sourcing out what to do with it as well as doing all of this other work as well. I have two pages that have some links to it. I have learnt how to change background colour and Text colour. And create links throughout the page which allows you to go to certain sections of the document.

I do believe that HTML codes is a very useful skill to have and I hope to one day be confident in using it. With the site that I am creating I hope to make it like reference site for HTML codes so that we have all the information there to check up on.

I hope to publish it one day but I am no means to far up to that yet and haven't learnt how to do it either. As anyone else had a chance to have a look at it? If so what do you think about it?

Candy.

Social Networking Diigo

Well we didn't actually get to discuss this one on  Wednesday but it is a very interesting site to bookmark all of your references. Not only can bookmark websites, but you can also highlight sections of the article that you are after and bookmark that part and add notes to it. Which i think is an awesome way to be able to organize all of your references because you don't always need all of the web site for you bibliography just part of it. I actually haven't subscribed to this site as I have so many already and because I m using Delicious already, but I am seriously thinking of changing them over.

You don't need to pay for this site either which is good and and once again doesn't take long to subscribe you just need to give them a few details.

Well I didn't want to talk to much about this one I wanted to see if any of you have played around with this site and what do you think about it??

candy.

Social Networking: LibraryThing

So on wednesday we were discussing all of the great elements that Delicious had which we all seemed to agree that it was a very useful site to arrange your references. I now want to add to the discussion by putting forth to you all about LibraryThing. Now I think that early in the semester I have discussed this before because we needed to look at it for Information Provisions but I have some things I would like to add now that I have used it a lot more and are now able to spot the similarities and differences between the other sites that have talked about.

Ok, so what does LibraryThing do? Well it is a way of being able to catalogue all of your books that you have read or that are in your book selves that you haven't read. Now you have them all in one place and you can share them with other people all of the world. They can look at what you have and also make suggestions for further reading. Which I think is awesome. This is what I find very interesting about this site as you come across things that you may never have thought about and you also get to talk to people who like the same things as you. You can also write reviews and you can also get free books as well if you write a review for it.

The creators describe LibraryThing as follows: "Librarything is an online service to help people catalog their books easily. You can access you catalog from anywhere - even from you mobile phone. Because everyone catalogs together, LibraryThing also connects people with the same books, comes up with suggestions for what to read next, and so forth".

I don't think that it requires a particular browser as you are able to connect to LibraryThing anywhere. I thing that you just need a simple browser like Firefox or for Macs Safari. You also don't need any additional software as they have provided all of that. To collect all of their information for their books they use Endnote, Amazon and other libraries. So I guess that it is very similar to Endnote because they are collecting all of their references they just are not putting in as a bibliography.

It is very different to favourites and I think that it is more of a personal bookmarking than other sites we have discussed. With favourites it is mainly to bookmark your websites but with LibraryThing you are I guess bookmarking your books. If that makes any sense at all. 

It has a lot of social features as you are connecting to many, many, many people around the world and they can share all of your books and you can share theirs, awesome. All you need to like anything else is to subscribe to Librarything. This allows you to have up to 200 books in your catalog, if you want to had more than you need to pay either $10 for a year or $25 for a life time.

It is worth a look at so I hope that I have convinced you,

candy

Social Networking: Delicious.

Delicious is a way to be able to bookmark all of your websites and keep them grouped together. This way you don't have to continue to type in URL'S which is great time saver. The creators describe it "as social bookmarking service that allows users to tag, save, manage and share webpages from a centralized source". This is a great time saver and something that I would have used if I had of known about it earlier. Just think about all that free time and organization skills I would gained from using this site during year 12 and my uni days. It is a great way to get all of your information and references in the one place. It isn't like endnote where you can actually transfer the references into the actual document but it is a way to keep them together. So I guess that is what the differences and similarities are between them. Endnote you are able to create the bibliography and then move them into your document. But with Delicious you can only have the references in the one place and you still need to make your bibliography separately. The other thing is that it is only for websites. You can't actually put your book references in Delicious.

I think that Catherine said that you can only use it in Firefox, but I am on Safari for Macs and it seems that you are able to use it ok although I haven't had a look at all of the features yet.I think that Delicious is a much better way of organizing your websites than Favourites. I used to use Favourites because I didn't know of anything else and I don't feel that there is much organization at all with this program. You can add folders and keep them all together but with Delicious you can access them any where you are no matter what computer and you can't do that with Favourites. 

It seems to have a lot of features: you can send them to friends by creating a network. Which is a great way to sharing all your sites and information. You can tag your bookmarks which I am now learning a lot about and starting to benefit by using them. You can also find out what other people are bookmarking who might have the same interests as you.    

It is a free service and all you need to is subscribe like most things these days. Thankful they don't really take that long to do otherwise we will be subscribing all day.

So those are my thoughts on Delicious and I will be using them in the future.

candy.

Youtube

Well I at the moment I am obsessed with Cirque de Soleil most likely because they are here in Melbourne at the moment and this always happens to me when I want to see the. You have to watch these short Videos from Varekai because they are the most amazing thing that I have ever seen. It would be so awesome to be there to watch them perform on the Russian Swings which I also have on DVD and I have watched it that many times that my DVD is now stuffed and doesn't work. Well I guess that is where YouTube comes in. I do however feel like I am cheating the system a little since you can download them for free but I did already have the DVD and I am only watching small bits of the show. So I guess that of I really feel bad then I will end up buying it again. The really good thing about YouTube is that you can find almost anything that you can possible imagine. And it is all at the tip of your fingers, literally. Think of all the possibilities not to mention the artists out there that are trying to get published. What better way than to post it on YouTube and you never know you might get noticed.

So I guess that I am a bit of a fan of YouTube and if I had broadband at home I would probably be on it quite a bit looking for those unusual videos that you may never have thought about. But I guess that you also have to be really careful with the wording of search because you might get something that you did not intend to look for. I don't know as yet what they censorship is on YouTube but it would have to be pretty good because any kid at any age can have access to it.

Well my final thoughts YouTube is a great to look for stuff that might interest me. I hope to continue on this never ending journey of learning new search engines (other than Google) and getting in touch with what is out there.

candy

Digg and Stumble Upon

Well I am learning a lot more about these sites and figuring out how they work. They are great ways to be able to connect to the news without having to worry about getting the paper all the time. You are also about to digg or stumble what ever issue interests you the most and ignore the rest. There are lots of sites available so you can alway stay in touch with whatever is happening no matter where you are in the world. I had a go and digging and stumbling and these are some of the ones that I came across. 

For Digg I came found a very interesting site about the new advance technology for PC computers. The article is called Personal Super computer. If you read this you will discover how much we advance in technology in the future. The one that I had a look at was called Why is blockbusters suffering?. Its basically trying to find out who is the blame for the lack of good films instead of either admitting it themselves or trying to fix it.

For Stumble Upon  i found some interesting videos from u-tube but because of dial up I was unable to download them properly. So this i will definitely need to do where I can access to broadband.

I find these sites really fun and interactive and I hope that I will use them a lot more in the future.

candy

Learning new gadgets

Well this certainly has been a very interesting learning experience for as I am now starting to be able to learn things without always asking for help. And believe me when it came to wanting to load a slideshow on my blog I was very tempted to straight up to someone who knew what they were talking about and ask them what to do. But I have discovered that in doing that you are never able to remember what you have just been taught when you don't always figures things out for yourself. Now I know what to make a slideshow by using Flickr and I don't think that I will ever forget. It wasn't because it was such a long process it was because it was something new. And learning something new always terrifies me. I have now come to embrace it though and I now look forward to learning new things instead of passing it over to someone else. 

I now have another page that I have subscribed to and I am glad that all of this is for free otherwise I would have no money left by the end of this course. candice perini this is the link to my flickr site. There aren't that many photos on it at the moment mainly just the ones on my slideshow but eventually I will add more now that I know what to do.

candy

Twitter

Well I have subscribed to Twitter but found that it seemed very similar to Facebook. Are they just the same thing? I think that Amy was saying on her blog that she enjoys Twitter. What is the difference? I guess the layout and perhaps some of the applications are different. But other than that it still as that some addictive craze to it that Facebook supposedly has. 

With all of this social networking everyone can stay in touch no matter what the circumstances are. I believe that you can also access Twitter via mobile phone which has been another application where you can to almost anything that you need in the palm of your hand.

This idea seems to become more important as technology improves and allows anyone no matter what their ability is in the technology is are able to use it quickly and easily.

What will happen next I wonder

Candy.

My Ideas on Facebook.

Well I think that I have spoken to a few of you already about Facebook but I should also write a message on my own blog. As I have already said before I really do not understand the idea about Facebook and my friends at work our completely involved with it. It has come to a point with party invitations they now put up on Facebook instead of talking to you face to face. Which I find a problem since I am not on it that often (only for the purpose of this assignment) so I tend to miss out on all of these parties and outings. No one uses normal invitations anymore which I believe is a little sad. And they certainly don't seem to to call you in anymore. It is all on Facebook. 

I have also touched on the idea if it being a popularity contest which I find a bit silly, people just wanting to add anyone just to have a bigger list. Although it is good that you can ignore these people and only add the people that you want. 

I am finding all of this very interesting and I wonder what the web culture would be like in the future and if we are all going to be glued to the web instead of enjoying the outdoors. I am worried that sites like Facebook will entice people to become so much involved in it that they wont explore anything else.

Maybe I am just being pessimistic.

candy 

Podcast Alley

Well i decided to subscribe to podcast alley and I have found a couple of podcast that I have found that have been very interesting. The main was an interview with an animator (I cannot remember his name) but he did movies like Pocahontas. He was talking about how he started and how he was able to create this amazing animations. I am incredible interested in this as I try to animate things as a hobby. It is not easy to do so it is interesting to listen to a professional talk about the same struggles that I go through and how was able to get through them.

By the way, thanks Loretta for you input on creating URL links that was very helpful. Now all I need to learn is RSS feeds and I shall be a pro at all of this.

candy.

Editing Wiki

Well I actually found this task rather daunting, mainly because there are so many articles out there. But I found one that was interesting for me to edit. I had to list a cast for 20,000 leagues under the sea. I couldn't figure out why they didn't have one already as it was easy to find. The only problem was, I didn't know how to do it. I let them know where I got the reference from and then I just put the cast list in. So it would be interesting to find out if that was OK, but there are so many articles that need fixing out there.

candy.

The New Look

Well I  have been working on my blog and discovered that you do not have to stick with the same layout if you don't wont to and you can change it anytime. Which is what I have done. I didn't particularly like what I had originally chose just because I thought it was a bit drab, so I have found a new layout that I like. All you need to do is go to customize which is usually in the top right corner, click on layout, then click template and then you can chose whatever you want. Then you just need to save it and then view blog. It is as simple as that.

candy.

100 words on library technician blog.

Well the one that I found the most interesting was Library In Black the url is http://.libraryinblack.typepad.com. It is a great site full of I thought really useful and interesting information. They layout is easy to use and does not take that long to load which is really important to me since I am still on dial up. My favourite part of it was one of the links which was WhoDitty which allows you to type in the lyrics of a song and search for what it is called and who wrote it. I find this a fantastic idea as I am constantly remembering small sentences of songs and can never remember when I  heard it. I will definitely be trying out this site in the future. It is also in a language that I can understand and it is really easy to follow. I recommend this site for you to take a look at and see how it operates.

Candy.

1st Blog

Hi all,

Well this is my very first blog. Its not very exciting or inventive at the moment but I am hoping that you might be able to help me out. This is the first time that I have done this so it all new to me and I was quite surprised with our easy it actually was to create one. Now I just some ideas in how to make the blog more exciting to read.

Please let me know what you think!

Candy.