Friday, February 26, 2010
Why YouTube is useful ...
Still sick ...
I was rather suspicious of YouTube as a useful resource, seeing it as sub version of the "You have been framed" genre which I guess shows a certain amount of snobbery about Web 2.0 social media and networking. Yet with some circumspection and concessions to "Simon's Cat" I discovered that is much of value to be found.
The home page initially confirmed my suspicions with its broad hierarchy of searchable fields of reflecting popular culture and shared with the other social media sites already experienced such as blogs, podcasts Delicious and Flickr. They include cars and vehicles, comedy, entertainment and, pets and animals. It also offers similar functionality to Flickr, Delicious, blogs and podcasts; options to view a history, play lists and favourites and opportunities to share the arcane gem or two. I need to investigate the difference between playlists and favourites. Rather like Amazon it offers recommended viewing some of which did seem a little off the mark. There are the obligatory adverts.
I used the search term Victorian and came with Emma's Victorian Jane Austen film (sic), references to Victoria Beckham, music from the motion picture "The Young Victoria" This didn't seem a promising start.
The refining of terms brought up "Victorian Music" a bit of misnomer, and "The Victorian Farm". How legal were these episodes of the BBC series of this name? Victorian Houses revealed many examples of American real estate! Already feeling nauseous the Victorian merry-go-round and barrel organ was not a good idea!I plumped for Victorian hairstyles. Unfortunately no sound accompanied these videos. The poster of these videos obviously has a thing about hair and hairstyles just see what else Rbd4N has uploaded to YouTube. It's obviously a labour of love. "More info" identified the category in which these videos fell and these could lend to the exploration of more videos on a similar genre. The tags permit the identification of related sites and identify key concepts to identify further sites of interest, very much in the same way as those in "Delicious". It was helpful to have the full screen option and increase the definition of the videos. There were eight comments on the text of various degrees of helpfulness, one asking who girl in one of the photographs was, one remarking that the women in the photographs were now long dead which does in fact seem rather eerie and somewhat morbid. Rather more helpfully a commentator remarked that the hairstyles were more reminiscent of the Edwardian period. I think I concur with them. What this site demonstrates is the actual utility of YouTube for serious research. The site provides a collection of visual material gathered together in such a way that is impossible in the real world. It permits access to material that is ephemeral and difficult to locate through traditional classifications and catalogues. It archives a record of our visual culture past and present.
Still feeling ill, I pressed on to look at YouTubeEDU feeling that there might be useful educational material to be found there. Disappointingly, there were few UK institutions. It was helpful that the Open University and Imperial College shared the basic YouTube interface, including featured and related videos. I was impressed by the bright, clean and informative site of the Open University. Irritatingly the videos opened automatically and I difficulty working out how to close them. I was pleased to see that some of these were subtitled. The content was obviously geared to the taught courses of the Open University. There was a paucity of videos in the humanities. There was no indication as to copyright position of this material so I would hesitate to reuse this material. These material would be use resource for teaching and learning in the research community.
Distractedly, I searched the National Archive which is also to be found under the Education tab. I found this to be an excellent site. There are helpful but rather simplistic videos produced by the National Archives to aid readers and researchers in their use of the archives. These include, "Recording Research Results", "Ordering Documents", "Using the catalogues", "How records are arranged" and "The History of a document" What is more interesting are videos mixing documents and archival footage to tell a story. Fascinatingly, I found a a government information video entitled "Coughs and Sneezes" which reminded me why I stayed at home today. I have not included it in this blog but one Violet Szarbo instead. Once again I am unsure as the copyright position. Obviously the visual material to be found here is authoritative, well organised and of a high quality with the aim of meeting the demands of researchers at its heart
This exercise has been useful in identifying the range of visual material available on the Web. The various ways which it can be located and accessed. It has revealed how valuable visual media can be to the researcher. Questions of copyright remain unresolved.
Now I will retire to my much longed for sickbed.
Podcasting - Fishing from a tent?
I write this blog entry whilst feeling really sick. Like the Romantics and the Beats, these piece is inspired whilst in a drug induced haze. I hasten to add this is not laudanum, opium or mescalin but Lemsip and paracetamol which are much more prosaic as is probably my entry on the theme of "podcasting"
Podcasts Experienced
I was familiar with the podcast as I had already experimented with the podcasts of Melvyn Bragg's "In our Time" For this reason and for ease as I cannot cope with any difficult today I went immediately to the BBC Podcast Directory. I am regular listener of Radios Four and Seven so the directory gave me opportunity to investigate the gamut of BBC broadcasting. The setting up of the feed was easy.The task of identifying something of interest is made easy by the search options of title, station and genres. This site fulfills the Reithian remit of the BBC to inform, educate and entertain and demonstrates how the BBC adoption of new technologies to support it original remit is worthy of its Trustee status and the license fee. These podcasts have high production values and are an archive of popular culture, represent a consensus of opinion and a thermometer of contemporary debate. They can be seen as authoritative. They support a corporate brand and ethos. These can be use as a resource for the researcher.
Next I looked at the "Podcasts from Oxford University"
Looking at this site I felt that, like the BBC site there was a strong brand identity and ethos reflected in their production, additionally I felt the University was attempting to make it research and resources accessible to wider audience and engage with new constituencies in recognition of what a university is in its fullest sense. I was impressed by the range of Podcasts which include both audio and visual media which highlighted the value of these media in the teaching of linguistics, foreign languages and art history. I love the irony encapsulated in the podcast entitled "Russian Ab Initio Students: Pre-course listening material" Modernity and tradition! The handy logos indicating copyright status are helpful. Unhelpfully, I tried to access and add to Google Reader a podcast from own college, a lecture by Tony Benn which I had attended which was remarkable for a humanism that was witty and passionate, honest and opinionated and stirred the soul to take up the baton and achieve things in the world and not succumb to complacency. I was unsuccessful. Feeling too sick to preserve with accessing this. As resource these podcasts are invaluable for learning and teaching.
Podcast Alley
Feeling more sick now. I had used Podcast Alley before. Podcast Alley reflects the popular end of the Podcast spectrum. Feeling weary I cursory explored the myriad of podcasts which revealed a few pionts for consideration. Typing in "Climate Change" I was alerted to the imprecision of the search mechanism getting references to "Changing career", "A Year of change" and "How to change your sex ..." Under those actually on climate change I found those by organisations, educational institutions, governments, lobbying groups, political parties, companies and enthusiastic individuals. These can of course be filtered by the domain name for example: OffsetCarbon.co.uk/Climate Change, www.Carbonbalanced.org, www.siemens.com/cities. As resource I feel the podcast of Podcast Alley shares many of the characteristics of the blog which I record in "Bloggy thoughts about Blogs" so I will leave this paragraph here and concentrate on feeling ill.
The Podcast as a Resource:
The podcast is an an invaluable information resource I feel. What struck at me at first was the power and significance of the human voice captured in its richness and intensity. The podcast captures the nuances of intonation, subtle changes of pace and emphasis of speaking voice which make it an tool of communication. All these are lost the printed versions of lectures and speeches of the past. Imagine hearing the original sermons of the Tractarians, the lectures of Ruskin, Dickens's public performances, the great political speeches of Gladstone and Disraeli as recorded in Handsard as a podcast. All of which can made available to the research of today. I recently read an the article "Sonic attack from a Florentine Flirt" by Robert Attar in his column "News from the Journals" in BBC History Magazine February 2010 pg. 17 and realised how important sound and its absence can be.
This led to me think that the podcast is a valuable medium for the preservation of the sounds that surround us. It records the auditory world that we inhabit that is instant and ephemeral. Once a word is spoken it is gone never to be recaptured in that original coalescence of thought and sound. The podcast captures this ephemerality for posterity. It seems, for the moment at least, to be an appropriate medium for the preservation of audio media which threatened by the transitory technologies of tape, CD, blue-ray, shellac and vinyl.
The podcast reveals the variety of forms and functions that auditory communication provides to the listener, the polemical and political and, the educational and entertaining. All these provide a valuable resource to researcher.
The auditory nature of the podcast can lend value and interest to the teaching of students, not only in providing information in the multi-media environment but transferable skills of listening and interpersonal communication skills.
The podcast offers new ways for the dissemination of information in the mobile environment letting us listen where and when we want to listen which perhaps brings to the fore new issues about our receptivity of the auditory world in which we live and how we listen and what we hear.
Must find an opportunity to read "Podcasting in Plain English"
Having written this blog I now going to lay back on the sofa and drowsily listen to the soothing tones of Melvyn Bragg's "In Our Time". Thanks to the 23 Team for giving me something to do to wile away the hours of headache, nausea, rheumy eyes and prosaically runny nose!
Podcasts Experienced
I was familiar with the podcast as I had already experimented with the podcasts of Melvyn Bragg's "In our Time" For this reason and for ease as I cannot cope with any difficult today I went immediately to the BBC Podcast Directory. I am regular listener of Radios Four and Seven so the directory gave me opportunity to investigate the gamut of BBC broadcasting. The setting up of the feed was easy.The task of identifying something of interest is made easy by the search options of title, station and genres. This site fulfills the Reithian remit of the BBC to inform, educate and entertain and demonstrates how the BBC adoption of new technologies to support it original remit is worthy of its Trustee status and the license fee. These podcasts have high production values and are an archive of popular culture, represent a consensus of opinion and a thermometer of contemporary debate. They can be seen as authoritative. They support a corporate brand and ethos. These can be use as a resource for the researcher.
Next I looked at the "Podcasts from Oxford University"
Looking at this site I felt that, like the BBC site there was a strong brand identity and ethos reflected in their production, additionally I felt the University was attempting to make it research and resources accessible to wider audience and engage with new constituencies in recognition of what a university is in its fullest sense. I was impressed by the range of Podcasts which include both audio and visual media which highlighted the value of these media in the teaching of linguistics, foreign languages and art history. I love the irony encapsulated in the podcast entitled "Russian Ab Initio Students: Pre-course listening material" Modernity and tradition! The handy logos indicating copyright status are helpful. Unhelpfully, I tried to access and add to Google Reader a podcast from own college, a lecture by Tony Benn which I had attended which was remarkable for a humanism that was witty and passionate, honest and opinionated and stirred the soul to take up the baton and achieve things in the world and not succumb to complacency. I was unsuccessful. Feeling too sick to preserve with accessing this. As resource these podcasts are invaluable for learning and teaching.
Podcast Alley
Feeling more sick now. I had used Podcast Alley before. Podcast Alley reflects the popular end of the Podcast spectrum. Feeling weary I cursory explored the myriad of podcasts which revealed a few pionts for consideration. Typing in "Climate Change" I was alerted to the imprecision of the search mechanism getting references to "Changing career", "A Year of change" and "How to change your sex ..." Under those actually on climate change I found those by organisations, educational institutions, governments, lobbying groups, political parties, companies and enthusiastic individuals. These can of course be filtered by the domain name for example: OffsetCarbon.co.uk/Climate Change, www.Carbonbalanced.org, www.siemens.com/cities. As resource I feel the podcast of Podcast Alley shares many of the characteristics of the blog which I record in "Bloggy thoughts about Blogs" so I will leave this paragraph here and concentrate on feeling ill.
The Podcast as a Resource:
The podcast is an an invaluable information resource I feel. What struck at me at first was the power and significance of the human voice captured in its richness and intensity. The podcast captures the nuances of intonation, subtle changes of pace and emphasis of speaking voice which make it an tool of communication. All these are lost the printed versions of lectures and speeches of the past. Imagine hearing the original sermons of the Tractarians, the lectures of Ruskin, Dickens's public performances, the great political speeches of Gladstone and Disraeli as recorded in Handsard as a podcast. All of which can made available to the research of today. I recently read an the article "Sonic attack from a Florentine Flirt" by Robert Attar in his column "News from the Journals" in BBC History Magazine February 2010 pg. 17 and realised how important sound and its absence can be.
This led to me think that the podcast is a valuable medium for the preservation of the sounds that surround us. It records the auditory world that we inhabit that is instant and ephemeral. Once a word is spoken it is gone never to be recaptured in that original coalescence of thought and sound. The podcast captures this ephemerality for posterity. It seems, for the moment at least, to be an appropriate medium for the preservation of audio media which threatened by the transitory technologies of tape, CD, blue-ray, shellac and vinyl.
The podcast reveals the variety of forms and functions that auditory communication provides to the listener, the polemical and political and, the educational and entertaining. All these provide a valuable resource to researcher.
The auditory nature of the podcast can lend value and interest to the teaching of students, not only in providing information in the multi-media environment but transferable skills of listening and interpersonal communication skills.
The podcast offers new ways for the dissemination of information in the mobile environment letting us listen where and when we want to listen which perhaps brings to the fore new issues about our receptivity of the auditory world in which we live and how we listen and what we hear.
Must find an opportunity to read "Podcasting in Plain English"
Having written this blog I now going to lay back on the sofa and drowsily listen to the soothing tones of Melvyn Bragg's "In Our Time". Thanks to the 23 Team for giving me something to do to wile away the hours of headache, nausea, rheumy eyes and prosaically runny nose!
Thursday, February 18, 2010
More Delicious
Thing ten was easy. As I was begining to feel weary I just followed the given instructions step by step. Thankfully it worked first time. I do wonder though how instinctive the process would be without the helpful screen prompts we were given. I shall have to try it again on my own sometime. Just too tired to experiment with more things!
Above is a picture one of the institutions on my network
Delicious Delicious
Loging in was easy. I decided not try to link to my previous experiments with delicious as it would only be an added complication and probably drive me to distraction. I think I did things a bit differently from the instructions adding delicious thru' the FireFox Add-Ons. I used the import bookmarks option so my delicious account was instantly populated. Just how many redunant bookmarks can one person have! I was unsuccessful with adding the "bookmarklet" and will have to go back and try this functionality again.
I found navigation thru' my long list easy by selecting my tags. I tried the bulk edit option after I had copied and pasted my string of tags and description from a file on notepad! The editing functionality was easy.
I used the tag function to bring togther my sites on Buddhism and/or book history but it would have been nice to have them arranged in a permanent set of results.
I like the search function which allows one to search within your bookmarks, your networks' bookmarks and within delicious.
At first acquaintance delicious apppears a useful tool to organise a wide range of web resources. Delicious allows you access all your books from a remote location on any computer so you don't have them linked to a worl machine or personal laptop which seems a good thing. The tagging function permits the association of keywords with a variety of web media. It is useful to be able identify those users within delicious who share your tags and build a personal network of those who share your interests outside your immediate networks. The tagging function might I feel be used rather like a citation index; identifying key sites, and perhaps some offbeat ones too and, in locating related sites. It is a bit like throwing a pebble in the pond and watching the ripples spreading ever outward. The tags also revealed an number sites in languages other than English which might not otherwise not have been found depending of course that you can read French or German or Italian ... The top ten tags functionality is useful in identifying appropriate and helpful keywords. My only reservation is that self assigned keywords that are tags can lead to inconsistency and imprecision within your own bookmarks. It also lends a certain unpredicatability when searching within delicious for related sites of interest. It seems to be a good tool for sharing a relevent selection of key web resources with a group of readers or researchers for example my list of sites of Tibetan and Himalayan Studies. I also have a list of key sites for Chinese Studies too.
I hope Angela likes my link to Tibetan Art works.
I need rather more time to locate and read up on the uses of tagging and folksonomies.
Makeover Part Two, or Pride comes before a Fall!
A message from Jane today
Hi Fiona,
Apologies for using the decidedly web 1.0 method of communication, but I just tried and failed to put a comment on your newly made-over blog so thought I should let you know how to fix the problem. I've had this problem with templates before, in that they sometimes don't handle the comments settings well. You can fix it by altering your comments settings - go into 'settings' and then 'comments' in Blogger, and then change the option by 'comment form placement' to either 'full page' or 'pop-up window'. This should make it possible for people to comment again.
Jane
I did wonder why I'd not had a new comments recently. My poor follower might have been struggling to say how much he hated its makeover!
I was going to blog that the edit function was not working and how I might solve this. (I was going to my dashboard and working from there)
Lets hope it works!
I did wonder why I'd not had a new comments recently. My poor follower might have been struggling to say how much he hated its makeover!
I was going to blog that the edit function was not working and how I might solve this. (I was going to my dashboard and working from there)
Lets hope it works!
Monday, February 15, 2010
My Blog has had a makeover
Today my blog has had a makeover. I was rather envious of those delightful designs of some of the 23 Things participants; growing in confidence and ambition I wanted more. The helpful 23 Things people were once again my angels. Referred to btemplates.com. I spent a happy hour browsing the fantastical, the extravagant, the sentimental and the professional template styles, before deciding on what I hope is suitably elegant. I can certainly recommend btemplates for anyone wanting to change the appearance of their blog.
Having selected a new template I paused apprehensively would my existing blog disappear into the ether. There are helpful instructions so with much anxiety I pushed the download button hoping and fearing that this was not my nemesis. I downloaded the file and unzipped it and all I had then to do was copy and paste the file location in the space provided. The file didn't save to the desktop so a bit of hunting around was required and initially it insisted that no such file existed! Back to boring old blog I believed. After some puzzlement I managed to add the file. The process identified the widgets I had added previously and asked if wanted I to retain them. I did. A new madeover blog ! I had to spend a few moments tweaking the colours, including some html editing, and the removal of the Google seach gadget. Overall I am feeling rather proud of smart new blog! I do hope my follower likes it too.
Having selected a new template I paused apprehensively would my existing blog disappear into the ether. There are helpful instructions so with much anxiety I pushed the download button hoping and fearing that this was not my nemesis. I downloaded the file and unzipped it and all I had then to do was copy and paste the file location in the space provided. The file didn't save to the desktop so a bit of hunting around was required and initially it insisted that no such file existed! Back to boring old blog I believed. After some puzzlement I managed to add the file. The process identified the widgets I had added previously and asked if wanted I to retain them. I did. A new madeover blog ! I had to spend a few moments tweaking the colours, including some html editing, and the removal of the Google seach gadget. Overall I am feeling rather proud of smart new blog! I do hope my follower likes it too.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Pretending to be creative with picknic
This was a really enjoyable task. It was so easy to logon and start editing. I enjoyed experimenting with various effects and adding comments and tags. I am really rather pleased with my results. It was very easy to reload the edited photograph to flickr. Looking at my "cat" set on flickr in retrospect I am going try out the "red-eye" function of picknic.
My only reservation with picknic is it is a blunt instrument for photo editing. It's more for creating special effects. I think there are probably more specialised tools for the experienced enthusiasts. Unfortunately, I don't have the time to explore the other tools. A task for the future...
My only reservation with picknic is it is a blunt instrument for photo editing. It's more for creating special effects. I think there are probably more specialised tools for the experienced enthusiasts. Unfortunately, I don't have the time to explore the other tools. A task for the future...
Flickring into Life
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comments
Labels: Creative Commons, flickr, images, L-Space, Thing Eight, Thing Seven, Week Four, yet to Flickr brightly
Labels: Creative Commons, flickr, images, L-Space, Thing Eight, Thing Seven, Week Four, yet to Flickr brightly
Registering with Flickr and uploading to Flickr should have been easy. However, there seemd to be some issues with the display and changing my password. I used yahoo to register for "delicious" in the past. This just left me irritated and annoyed, particularly as I was looking foward to a really fun exercise. I had spent all day Friday trying to find a moment to take some photographes of the Library. I finally manged it about four-thirty! Yes, I know it looks later in the photographes. I don't want to deceive my fellow bloggers that I was in the Library as some unearthly hour! It proved a good opportunity to promote my Web 2.0 projects and new found knowledge to my college colleagues who wondered what I was up to. Some were being just plain nosy; others were genuinely interested.
I was a disappointed to discover that I had to add photos one by one rather than a file at a time. Discovering that some of photographs were sideways I found the editing tool to rotate them although this too seemed to be unpredicable. I also found the delete function when I discovered I had two photographes of the John Piper tapestry. I had downloaded the photographes in sets and added comments, tags and descriptions as I went along. It was fun trying to think of some entertaining captions and descriptions. I had to experiment with the different views to work out how to edit photographes individuality. I love the slideshow functionality.
The map option was easy, quick and fun. Like one of the other "23 Things" bloggers I discovered that the place tag seemed a bit off the map - Dorchester was tagged as Burcot, Oxfordshire. However, Linton Road was described correctly as Summertown, Oxford. I had difficulty exciting from the map and returning to Flickr. Any ideas?
I needed to investigate the the various copyright options more fully. I just used the option suggested. I often use the Creative Commons site for images so this was new but I do need to read up on this.
I tried to add my L-Space stream to my blog. It worked - hurrah. Then I discovered additional photographes of an attractively posed lady in a swimsuit. A quick websearch revealed L-Space swimsuits. I decided to change the name of my L-Space stream to L-Spaces and try again. It didn't work. This really bothering me so if anyone can help just send me a comment
Album - sorry photostream needs some tiding up but task eight was still to be done...
PS I can't seem to add a tag for "flickr" having one already called "yet to flickr more brightly"
I was a disappointed to discover that I had to add photos one by one rather than a file at a time. Discovering that some of photographs were sideways I found the editing tool to rotate them although this too seemed to be unpredicable. I also found the delete function when I discovered I had two photographes of the John Piper tapestry. I had downloaded the photographes in sets and added comments, tags and descriptions as I went along. It was fun trying to think of some entertaining captions and descriptions. I had to experiment with the different views to work out how to edit photographes individuality. I love the slideshow functionality.
The map option was easy, quick and fun. Like one of the other "23 Things" bloggers I discovered that the place tag seemed a bit off the map - Dorchester was tagged as Burcot, Oxfordshire. However, Linton Road was described correctly as Summertown, Oxford. I had difficulty exciting from the map and returning to Flickr. Any ideas?
I needed to investigate the the various copyright options more fully. I just used the option suggested. I often use the Creative Commons site for images so this was new but I do need to read up on this.
I tried to add my L-Space stream to my blog. It worked - hurrah. Then I discovered additional photographes of an attractively posed lady in a swimsuit. A quick websearch revealed L-Space swimsuits. I decided to change the name of my L-Space stream to L-Spaces and try again. It didn't work. This really bothering me so if anyone can help just send me a comment
Album - sorry photostream needs some tiding up but task eight was still to be done...
PS I can't seem to add a tag for "flickr" having one already called "yet to flickr more brightly"
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Blog-exciting and not a Flicker of Flickr Yet
I really very excited today. Someone has chosen to follow my blog! Wow! What a wonderful feeling!!!!!!
Didn't realise that blogging could be better than ....
Now I feel a deep responsibility to keep it up-to-date, interesting and perhaps entertaining too!
I need to fan the flames a bit to get from a flicker of idea to a Flickr page.
Didn't realise that blogging could be better than ....
Now I feel a deep responsibility to keep it up-to-date, interesting and perhaps entertaining too!
I need to fan the flames a bit to get from a flicker of idea to a Flickr page.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Blogs, Blogs, Blogs - Not So Simple but Bingo at Last
Time to add some more blogs. I had already added "The Long Nineteenth Century" and Radley College's "Diary of R.C. Singleton" last week when I was getting enthusiastic about blogs!
Zetoc
I had previously subscribed to 15 email alerts from Zetoc so thought I would try and transfer them to RSS feeds. I want to see what the differences are. Mistakenly thought that pressing the RSS button would simply add the feed to my Google Reader but no ... I was offered the option to create a live book mark. Can someone tell me what this and how differs from an RSS feed? Thank goodness for the helpful "how to do" from the 23 Things Team. Their instructions made a potentiality problematic and frustrating situation less so. It was time consuming copying and pasting everything though. I feel academic resources need to embrace the ease of latest technologies that have been quickly embraced by popular culture. Don't know how soon I'll get a feed from these journals probably after this programme has ended!
BBC - History of the World
Decided to add the BBC History of World as the 15 minute slots on Radio 4 which focus on a single physical item from history and concisely describe the object and its significance, provides a thought provoking insight into our material cultural from the earliest times to present. I'd share this with anyone and everyone. Surprisingly, once again there was no handy "add to" functionally. I was disappointed as I expected better of the BBC.
The Oxford English Dictionary
Bingo!!! "The Oxford English Dictionary - Word of Day" has the greatly to be desired "add to" functionallity. The Press has got it just right - providing me with an easy distraction and, the opportunity to astonish and astound the hoi-ploi with my erudite and recondite vocabularly!
Last but not least
Added 23 Things Blog, and marked as a favourite of course! Also subscribed to "College Library Jottings" to show solidarity with my college colleagues.
The Elusive Blog Search
I am not overly impressed with search engines abilities to locate blogs. I think someone has already commented on the inadequacy of the Google blog search. It was nice to know that I had not been entirely stupid when I had not found anything satisfactory.
I decided to explore "Technorati". The search engine was good but was obviously geared to the location of blogs concerned with popular culture. It had a pleasant and attractive interface. I like the way it divides the blogosphere into a hierarchy of mangeable subjects hence: "Entertainment" includes subsections on films, books and celebs whilst, "Living" includes subsections on health and pets. I liked the "Top 100 and "Top10 movers" features. I was surprised not to find any cycling blogs. I am reliably informed by husband there are lots of them - he rattled them off 'till I gave up listening. And as to football - no thanks! As information resource I think"Technorati" could be used to identify trends in popular culture at a given moment - dare I say its fascinating. Technorati I feel provides an effective search tool for blogs concerned with popular culture. The ability to locate blogs in the academic environment seems sadly neglected.
Bingo at Last!
Really pleased to have had the chance to explore RSS aggregators, such Google Reader. No more checking individaul feeds and no more cluttered inbox. The option to manage feeds aids effective and efficient retrieval of my feeds. An ultimate BINGO, I feel
Zetoc
I had previously subscribed to 15 email alerts from Zetoc so thought I would try and transfer them to RSS feeds. I want to see what the differences are. Mistakenly thought that pressing the RSS button would simply add the feed to my Google Reader but no ... I was offered the option to create a live book mark. Can someone tell me what this and how differs from an RSS feed? Thank goodness for the helpful "how to do" from the 23 Things Team. Their instructions made a potentiality problematic and frustrating situation less so. It was time consuming copying and pasting everything though. I feel academic resources need to embrace the ease of latest technologies that have been quickly embraced by popular culture. Don't know how soon I'll get a feed from these journals probably after this programme has ended!
BBC - History of the World
Decided to add the BBC History of World as the 15 minute slots on Radio 4 which focus on a single physical item from history and concisely describe the object and its significance, provides a thought provoking insight into our material cultural from the earliest times to present. I'd share this with anyone and everyone. Surprisingly, once again there was no handy "add to" functionally. I was disappointed as I expected better of the BBC.
The Oxford English Dictionary
Bingo!!! "The Oxford English Dictionary - Word of Day" has the greatly to be desired "add to" functionallity. The Press has got it just right - providing me with an easy distraction and, the opportunity to astonish and astound the hoi-ploi with my erudite and recondite vocabularly!
Last but not least
Added 23 Things Blog, and marked as a favourite of course! Also subscribed to "College Library Jottings" to show solidarity with my college colleagues.
The Elusive Blog Search
I am not overly impressed with search engines abilities to locate blogs. I think someone has already commented on the inadequacy of the Google blog search. It was nice to know that I had not been entirely stupid when I had not found anything satisfactory.
I decided to explore "Technorati". The search engine was good but was obviously geared to the location of blogs concerned with popular culture. It had a pleasant and attractive interface. I like the way it divides the blogosphere into a hierarchy of mangeable subjects hence: "Entertainment" includes subsections on films, books and celebs whilst, "Living" includes subsections on health and pets. I liked the "Top 100 and "Top10 movers" features. I was surprised not to find any cycling blogs. I am reliably informed by husband there are lots of them - he rattled them off 'till I gave up listening. And as to football - no thanks! As information resource I think"Technorati" could be used to identify trends in popular culture at a given moment - dare I say its fascinating. Technorati I feel provides an effective search tool for blogs concerned with popular culture. The ability to locate blogs in the academic environment seems sadly neglected.
Bingo at Last!
Really pleased to have had the chance to explore RSS aggregators, such Google Reader. No more checking individaul feeds and no more cluttered inbox. The option to manage feeds aids effective and efficient retrieval of my feeds. An ultimate BINGO, I feel
Really Simple Syndication - Really Simple
Creating a Goggle reader account was really easy - next task adding feeds to blogs not so simple read on
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