First we look at Podcasts. My task is to familiarise myself with some Podcast search tools, then link to one.
The search tools were straightforward enough. I didn't have time to really assess any particular podcast, but I'm a horror fan, so I picked a random horror themed podcast that I found on podcast directory. And here it is!
My next task is to consider ebooks, and look at the Auckland City Libraries netlibrary, and open a free account. I did so easily enough, although I think the layout of the ACL netlibrary is a little cluttered; it took a little while for me to figure exactly what I was joining up to. But now 'Schopenhauer 2010' is an official elibrary member.
Ebooks in general are useful for quickly getting your hands on textbooks and so on. For example, this Yale course on the philosophy of death that I'm doing has Tolstoy's 'Death of Ivan Ilych' as a set text; it's nice to be able to easily read it through my net account.
However I still love the physical aspects of books. Etexts are useful but if I want to read for pleasure I'll stick to paper, thanks.
Finally, I'm tasked with reflecting on my learning process for this course.
I definitely enjoyed this 2.0 learning experience. I think 'learning by doing' is both fun and effective. I'm slightly over the course deadline by one day - hey, I blame library school - but I probably shouldn't have written so much in my posts! Oh well, I'm opinionated. Hope I still get a memory stick. Regardless, I look forward to the next learning program which is I believe is a more advanced version of the 2.0 exercises I've done here. Thanks for reading.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Week Nine - Part One
This is the final week of the Web 2.0 course, and hopefully, I'll get it all done before the March 29 deadline.
The first task is straightforward enough. Explore YouTube, find a video to link to, and blog about the site.
There's probably not a lot left to say about YouTube, that epic, copyright-busting, top dog of the Web, as it's a regular favourite of journalists already; who seem to alternate between bemoaning it as an idiotic waste of time dominated by self aggrandising attention seekers, and extolling it in those '10 top YouTube videos for this month!' articles.
I think it offers an intriguing glimpse into human nature. The things people are willing to share, and the things people are willing to watch, reveal some human desires and frailties quite clearly. I don't mean so much the content of what's shared and watched, but rather the motivations behind the sharing, and watching, in the first place.
Anyhoo, here's the philosopher Alain De Botton talking about Schopenhauer's views on romance. Like many YouTube clips, this is very likely still in copyright, so the link may not last forever.
The first task is straightforward enough. Explore YouTube, find a video to link to, and blog about the site.
There's probably not a lot left to say about YouTube, that epic, copyright-busting, top dog of the Web, as it's a regular favourite of journalists already; who seem to alternate between bemoaning it as an idiotic waste of time dominated by self aggrandising attention seekers, and extolling it in those '10 top YouTube videos for this month!' articles.
I think it offers an intriguing glimpse into human nature. The things people are willing to share, and the things people are willing to watch, reveal some human desires and frailties quite clearly. I don't mean so much the content of what's shared and watched, but rather the motivations behind the sharing, and watching, in the first place.
Anyhoo, here's the philosopher Alain De Botton talking about Schopenhauer's views on romance. Like many YouTube clips, this is very likely still in copyright, so the link may not last forever.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Week Eight Part Two
This next task was both easy and enjoyable. It was simply to select one site from the Web 2.0 Award Winners, explore it, and blog about my findings.
Although there are many interesting sites to choose from, I was instantly drawn to Biblio.com, compelled by my terrible desire to buy books over the Internet; well, not terrible in the sense of being sick or bad, but rather in the sense of being very strong and causing me to spend too much money.
Biblio seems to be a slicker version of older sites such as ABEbooks and alibris. I don't see, though, that it has a great deal more functionality than those sites - which are already well established and used by booksellers and book buyers all over the world. Nor do I think the selection is more comprehensive, as rare book dealers usually advertise their wares on every site they can; thus the same dealer will list the same book on various different sites.
However Biblio does have 'browserbility'. Using the top menus on the page it's possible to browse books in various categories, which is nice, yet dangerous, for a cash-strapped bibliophile like myself.
Although there are many interesting sites to choose from, I was instantly drawn to Biblio.com, compelled by my terrible desire to buy books over the Internet; well, not terrible in the sense of being sick or bad, but rather in the sense of being very strong and causing me to spend too much money.
Biblio seems to be a slicker version of older sites such as ABEbooks and alibris. I don't see, though, that it has a great deal more functionality than those sites - which are already well established and used by booksellers and book buyers all over the world. Nor do I think the selection is more comprehensive, as rare book dealers usually advertise their wares on every site they can; thus the same dealer will list the same book on various different sites.
However Biblio does have 'browserbility'. Using the top menus on the page it's possible to browse books in various categories, which is nice, yet dangerous, for a cash-strapped bibliophile like myself.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Week Eight Part One
This week it's all about online productivity tools. Personally I'm more of a fan of online unproductivity but that's just me.
It seems to be that the Microsoft Office package of applications is clumsy, annoying and even, yes, patronizing to the average user; for example, the animated dancing paper clip that offers generic, hopeless, instructions. And on principle I'm for anything that prises Microsoft's giant fingers away from the throat of 90% of personal computer users. Thus Google Docs - in essence a free online version of Microsoft's popular Office software - strikes me as a good thing.
Still, there's the possibility that one day, as the Microsoft moster reluctantly releases it's stranglehold on business productivity tools, the Google monster will eagerly step up and wrap its meaty hands around the same poor throat. I wish I could pretend to myself that the Google monster is less malicious; but underneath that faux air of techno-cool it's all about making money. A monster in a zany costume is still a monster.
My task this week is to join Google Docs and link to a doc from my blog. So here we are:
On to part two!
It seems to be that the Microsoft Office package of applications is clumsy, annoying and even, yes, patronizing to the average user; for example, the animated dancing paper clip that offers generic, hopeless, instructions. And on principle I'm for anything that prises Microsoft's giant fingers away from the throat of 90% of personal computer users. Thus Google Docs - in essence a free online version of Microsoft's popular Office software - strikes me as a good thing.
Still, there's the possibility that one day, as the Microsoft moster reluctantly releases it's stranglehold on business productivity tools, the Google monster will eagerly step up and wrap its meaty hands around the same poor throat. I wish I could pretend to myself that the Google monster is less malicious; but underneath that faux air of techno-cool it's all about making money. A monster in a zany costume is still a monster.
My task this week is to join Google Docs and link to a doc from my blog. So here we are:
On to part two!
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Week Seven Part Two
It was easy to add my blog to the favourites folder of the ACL wiki. A simple case of edit n'save.
Which means... I've caught up! I'm up to week eight like everybody else!
YESSSS!
"If the teaching of experience bears fruit in us, we soon give up the pursuit of pleasure and happiness, and think much more about making ourselves secure against the attacks of pain and suffering. We see that the best the world has to offer is an existence free from pain - a quiet, tolerable life; and we confine our claims to this, as to something we can more surely hope to achieve."
-Schopenhauer.
Which means... I've caught up! I'm up to week eight like everybody else!
YESSSS!
"If the teaching of experience bears fruit in us, we soon give up the pursuit of pleasure and happiness, and think much more about making ourselves secure against the attacks of pain and suffering. We see that the best the world has to offer is an existence free from pain - a quiet, tolerable life; and we confine our claims to this, as to something we can more surely hope to achieve."
-Schopenhauer.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Week Seven - Part One
I'm almost all caught up! Let's see... today's Tuesday. If I can get this posted within a couple of days I'll be up to Week Eight, along with everybody else.
This week's task is to learn about 'wikis' and how libraries are using them.
I'm no stranger to the concept of a wiki; when I'm investigating some topic I often use Wikipedia as an introduction to it. Of course, it's important to do so in a cautious way, bearing in mind that any given contributor may have some ideological axe to grind. But usually I find Wikipedia to be a quick and useful summary of the basic facts around a subject.
Looking through the wikis suggested in the discovery exercise was interesting. What struck me is that an important fundamental of successful wiki construction is to have a clear idea about what the wiki is actually about and to set clear boundaries on what will be presented. By this I mean the wiki should have an obvious focus on a topic or set of topics. The easily expandable nature of wikis can be a drawback when a particular wiki gets too sprawling, or there seems little logical connection between entries.
For an example let's use the St Joseph County Public Library's Wiki. Now, although individual entries may be well written, I struggled to see what the overall coherent purpose of this wiki is. If it's about 'local information and educational, cultural and community resources' as is stated, why are subjects such as 'pets', 'travel' and 'history-related mysteries' presented? Slowly it dawned on me that the mysteries are set in, or near, the County's geographic area; but there seems nothing particularly locally relevant about the information under 'pets' and so forth.
Despite this minor criticism there's still many things that work about the Joseph County blog, and one can see how it's useful to group a broad range of library resources together under a subject.
I thought the library success blog was well done; I could easily imagine using it to research best practice.
This week's task is to learn about 'wikis' and how libraries are using them.
I'm no stranger to the concept of a wiki; when I'm investigating some topic I often use Wikipedia as an introduction to it. Of course, it's important to do so in a cautious way, bearing in mind that any given contributor may have some ideological axe to grind. But usually I find Wikipedia to be a quick and useful summary of the basic facts around a subject.
Looking through the wikis suggested in the discovery exercise was interesting. What struck me is that an important fundamental of successful wiki construction is to have a clear idea about what the wiki is actually about and to set clear boundaries on what will be presented. By this I mean the wiki should have an obvious focus on a topic or set of topics. The easily expandable nature of wikis can be a drawback when a particular wiki gets too sprawling, or there seems little logical connection between entries.
For an example let's use the St Joseph County Public Library's Wiki. Now, although individual entries may be well written, I struggled to see what the overall coherent purpose of this wiki is. If it's about 'local information and educational, cultural and community resources' as is stated, why are subjects such as 'pets', 'travel' and 'history-related mysteries' presented? Slowly it dawned on me that the mysteries are set in, or near, the County's geographic area; but there seems nothing particularly locally relevant about the information under 'pets' and so forth.
Despite this minor criticism there's still many things that work about the Joseph County blog, and one can see how it's useful to group a broad range of library resources together under a subject.
I thought the library success blog was well done; I could easily imagine using it to research best practice.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Week Six
Right! Cracking on here because I'm behind - if I can just get this posted within a day or two I'll be up to Week Seven, which I think is what everyone else is up to.
So let's look at 'Del.icio.us' and how it could be useful.
First I want to mention that I disliked this video which was recommended viewing for this week's tasks. It's an introduction to the very basics of social networking. Now, it is informative, but did anyone else find something very self-serving in the idea that the chief benefit of web social networks is to find a job, or a romantic relationship? The author of the video seemed to imply that networks of people are merely a tool to get what you want.
Perhaps it's always been that way. The French author La Rochefoucauld - another of my favourite writers - argued in his book Maxims that everything we do is based on our own self-interest, especially the friendships we enjoy. In fact, let's give Schopenhauer a break this week and instead here's a typical, cynical, and mostly true aphorism from Rochefoucauld, taken from his wonderful Maxims. Here is one of the many he writes about love:
'The charm of novelty is, to romance, what the bloom is on fruit; it gives a lustre that easily fades, and which never returns."
Anyway, on with Del.icio.us.
My first task is to join up: upon doing so, I was surprised to be taken to a 'Yahoo!' sign-in page. I guess they own Del.icio.us. Many, many, moons ago I had a Yahoo email account. It was my first ever Web mail account - my first ever email account actually - and I thought it a spectre of the past. I haven't used it for years. But to my amazement I remembered the log in and password, and it worked! There was even a little avatar of myself I'd constructed and then forgotten about.
Things never die on the Internet.
At heart Del.icio.us is a way to access one's Web bookmarks on any Internet computer. That's probably useful for some, although I only browse my bookmarks at home; employers frown upon leisurely web surfing at work, alas. Although I have to say, Auckland City Libraries are more forward thinking than most in that sense - I feel lucky to work in an organisation in which Internet use is a fundamental part of my role.
More appealing to me is the ability to see what others have bookmarked. I have a strong interest in the classics, so I searched tags for 'Greek Mythology' and straight away found a number of interesting links, several of which I added. Next (of course!) I searched for 'Schopenhauer' and noticed that this, my very own blog, had been recently added under that tag. Such is the self-referential nature of the times. I'm expecting fame and riches to follow shortly.
While saving bookmarks I also came across this amazing site. Some of America's leading academics, at a top university, offering entire free courses on fascinating topics, such as the philosophy of death, and Dante in translation. Sometimes the Internet excels itself.
Anyhoo, here's a link to my Del.icio.us account.
My next task is to become a member of 'Technorati' and 'claim' my blog. I joined Technorati easily enough.
Now, I'm no idiot. I'm not technologically challenged. I'm good with Web things. But I just cannot figure out how to claim my blog. I can't even find the claim code to put in my post. I even Googled it, but the advice given didn't work. Could it be possible that Technorati has temporarily stopped claims on blogs until they catch up? If anyone can tell me how to claim my blog go ahead - but before you do, please check the current Technorati site to make sure your method still works.
[Wait! Thanks to the credulous skeptic's Week Six post, I found XXXholic's post, who actually explains how to do this. Thanks!]
So I've now claimed and received this message:
So let's look at 'Del.icio.us' and how it could be useful.
First I want to mention that I disliked this video which was recommended viewing for this week's tasks. It's an introduction to the very basics of social networking. Now, it is informative, but did anyone else find something very self-serving in the idea that the chief benefit of web social networks is to find a job, or a romantic relationship? The author of the video seemed to imply that networks of people are merely a tool to get what you want.
Perhaps it's always been that way. The French author La Rochefoucauld - another of my favourite writers - argued in his book Maxims that everything we do is based on our own self-interest, especially the friendships we enjoy. In fact, let's give Schopenhauer a break this week and instead here's a typical, cynical, and mostly true aphorism from Rochefoucauld, taken from his wonderful Maxims. Here is one of the many he writes about love:
'The charm of novelty is, to romance, what the bloom is on fruit; it gives a lustre that easily fades, and which never returns."
Anyway, on with Del.icio.us.
My first task is to join up: upon doing so, I was surprised to be taken to a 'Yahoo!' sign-in page. I guess they own Del.icio.us. Many, many, moons ago I had a Yahoo email account. It was my first ever Web mail account - my first ever email account actually - and I thought it a spectre of the past. I haven't used it for years. But to my amazement I remembered the log in and password, and it worked! There was even a little avatar of myself I'd constructed and then forgotten about.
Things never die on the Internet.
At heart Del.icio.us is a way to access one's Web bookmarks on any Internet computer. That's probably useful for some, although I only browse my bookmarks at home; employers frown upon leisurely web surfing at work, alas. Although I have to say, Auckland City Libraries are more forward thinking than most in that sense - I feel lucky to work in an organisation in which Internet use is a fundamental part of my role.
More appealing to me is the ability to see what others have bookmarked. I have a strong interest in the classics, so I searched tags for 'Greek Mythology' and straight away found a number of interesting links, several of which I added. Next (of course!) I searched for 'Schopenhauer' and noticed that this, my very own blog, had been recently added under that tag. Such is the self-referential nature of the times. I'm expecting fame and riches to follow shortly.
While saving bookmarks I also came across this amazing site. Some of America's leading academics, at a top university, offering entire free courses on fascinating topics, such as the philosophy of death, and Dante in translation. Sometimes the Internet excels itself.
Anyhoo, here's a link to my Del.icio.us account.
My next task is to become a member of 'Technorati' and 'claim' my blog. I joined Technorati easily enough.
Now, I'm no idiot. I'm not technologically challenged. I'm good with Web things. But I just cannot figure out how to claim my blog. I can't even find the claim code to put in my post. I even Googled it, but the advice given didn't work. Could it be possible that Technorati has temporarily stopped claims on blogs until they catch up? If anyone can tell me how to claim my blog go ahead - but before you do, please check the current Technorati site to make sure your method still works.
[Wait! Thanks to the credulous skeptic's Week Six post, I found XXXholic's post, who actually explains how to do this. Thanks!]
So I've now claimed and received this message:
I know the picture is a bit too small to read, but it basically says 'Don't call us, we'll call you.'
The last task this week is to consider the role of 2.0 technologies in a library context.
I've just begun my Master of Information Studies through Victoria University and there is a heavy emphasis on Internet resources, along with a lot of reading and theory about how this will impact upon library work. One could write about this stuff for hours, but as this post is already lengthy I'll keep it short. In a nutshell, Web 2.0 offers both a challenge and a boon to libraries and our users. The challenge for librarians is to ensure we stay relevant by positioning ourselves as expert guides to the vast sea of information resources now available. The average information seeker faces an intimidating array of possibilities. Librarians can be of assistance by both assessing these resources, advising on quality, and demonstrating how to use them. Further, we can sound a warning note: Wikipedia and Google do not offer the last word on topics. Caution and critical thinking is required when using Internet resources for research, and there's still no substitute for the quality of research and information a skilled librarian can provide.
Friday, March 5, 2010
Week Five
This week I look at 'LibraryThing' and 'Rollyo'.
Library Thing is a fun resource for bibliophiles. It's interesting to see others who have similar reading selections although my highest match with someone else was still only 4 books out of the 11 I 'catalogued'. It prompted me to briefly wonder if there's potential there for some sort of dating site based on books: people list their favourite titles, write short reviews, and so on, then they're matched with others having similar tastes. But then I realised that some people would indiscriminately list hundreds of books simply to increase their chances of a match - so I don't think that idea would work.
Anyway, although I like LibraryThing, I'm not sure I would spend the time to become deeply involved in the site. However, I thought it might be a way for smaller specialist library collections - for example, the Private Press Collection held in the Special Collections Department here at the Central Library - to gain easy Internet exposure.
At this point I'm tasked with adding a LibraryThing search box to my blog; however, I'm unable to cut and paste the html code on my work computer. Perhaps I'll try from home, but for now this task is prevented by my work computer's settings.
Next up is Rollyo.
It's a good idea. The creation of specialised search-engines has obvious library applications: for example, an 'encyclopedia' roll could be created as a first port of call for students tackling a homework assignment; then linked to from the library homepage. Specialist areas, such as family history research, would also benefit from Rollyo.
I buy a lot of books over the Internet, so I decided to create a search roll that will put together several of my most used sites. I was going to include ABE books, Alibris, Amazon, BetterWorldBooks, and perhaps a couple of others. But guess what? The Rollyo site has been down for maintenance for the past few days, so I can't: and I'm in a rush to catch up with the Web 2.0 program, so I'm going to post this now!
Time chases us all. Schopenhauer wrote that sometimes we long to be in some distant spot, when in truth we are only longing to have the time back again that we spent there - days when we were younger and fresher than we are now. In these moments Time 'mocks us by wearing the mask of space'; and if we travel to the spot, we can see how much we've been deceived.
Library Thing is a fun resource for bibliophiles. It's interesting to see others who have similar reading selections although my highest match with someone else was still only 4 books out of the 11 I 'catalogued'. It prompted me to briefly wonder if there's potential there for some sort of dating site based on books: people list their favourite titles, write short reviews, and so on, then they're matched with others having similar tastes. But then I realised that some people would indiscriminately list hundreds of books simply to increase their chances of a match - so I don't think that idea would work.
Anyway, although I like LibraryThing, I'm not sure I would spend the time to become deeply involved in the site. However, I thought it might be a way for smaller specialist library collections - for example, the Private Press Collection held in the Special Collections Department here at the Central Library - to gain easy Internet exposure.
At this point I'm tasked with adding a LibraryThing search box to my blog; however, I'm unable to cut and paste the html code on my work computer. Perhaps I'll try from home, but for now this task is prevented by my work computer's settings.
Next up is Rollyo.
It's a good idea. The creation of specialised search-engines has obvious library applications: for example, an 'encyclopedia' roll could be created as a first port of call for students tackling a homework assignment; then linked to from the library homepage. Specialist areas, such as family history research, would also benefit from Rollyo.
I buy a lot of books over the Internet, so I decided to create a search roll that will put together several of my most used sites. I was going to include ABE books, Alibris, Amazon, BetterWorldBooks, and perhaps a couple of others. But guess what? The Rollyo site has been down for maintenance for the past few days, so I can't: and I'm in a rush to catch up with the Web 2.0 program, so I'm going to post this now!
Time chases us all. Schopenhauer wrote that sometimes we long to be in some distant spot, when in truth we are only longing to have the time back again that we spent there - days when we were younger and fresher than we are now. In these moments Time 'mocks us by wearing the mask of space'; and if we travel to the spot, we can see how much we've been deceived.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Week Four - with Twitter!
Whoops! I completely missed the 'Twitter' section of Week 4, so here's the addendum to my previous post.
Twitter. That's a word I've heard a lot of lately. It was described to me by a Twitter-literate friend as - 'A way to tell people what you're doing at the moment.'
Then I said - 'Why?'
See, I just don't get it. I mean, I know how it works: I just don't understand why anyone would be interested in what I'm doing at the moment.
"@EverettBishop: Just seen 'Bright Star', it was awful, couldn't wait for Keats to die".
"@EverettBishop: Now lying on couch post-Burger Fuel".
I mean, why would I torture my friends with this stuff? Admittedly the first 'Tweet' might possibly save them forking out for 'Bright Star' but aside from that... look. I'm sorry, but my life is just not interesting enough for Twitter.
Nevertheless, to fulfill the requirements of Week 4, here's my Twitter.
However, I can certainly see how Twitter would be an excellent marketing and promotion tool for a library, especially event promotions. Great for reminding people about author talks and so on.
Twitter. That's a word I've heard a lot of lately. It was described to me by a Twitter-literate friend as - 'A way to tell people what you're doing at the moment.'
Then I said - 'Why?'
See, I just don't get it. I mean, I know how it works: I just don't understand why anyone would be interested in what I'm doing at the moment.
"@EverettBishop: Just seen 'Bright Star', it was awful, couldn't wait for Keats to die".
"@EverettBishop: Now lying on couch post-Burger Fuel".
I mean, why would I torture my friends with this stuff? Admittedly the first 'Tweet' might possibly save them forking out for 'Bright Star' but aside from that... look. I'm sorry, but my life is just not interesting enough for Twitter.
Nevertheless, to fulfill the requirements of Week 4, here's my Twitter.
However, I can certainly see how Twitter would be an excellent marketing and promotion tool for a library, especially event promotions. Great for reminding people about author talks and so on.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Week Four
I'm pushing hard to try and catch up with the course, so hard on the heels of 'Week Three' comes 'Week Four', which is about RSS and newsreader applications.
I'm keeping it lean and simple this week. First up, I was tasked with setting up a free online newsreader, setting up some feeds, and linking to it from this blog. I chose google-reader in order to be consistent with my google-blogger account, and I cheated a little by choosing the bundle of feeds suggested by google staff for new users. Then I picked a few of the more interesting stories to share - I hope. So here it is.
Newsreaders are an interesting idea but much depends on finding a good stream to subscribe to in the first place. Although I'm a fan of LOLcats, pictures of anthromorphised animals in general make me yawn. Although I like news sites such as the English Guardian and Observer, I like to trawl through them when the mood takes me and click on interesting links; as opposed to having everything dumped into my newsreader. I'm not particularly interested in new gadgets because I can't afford them. And blogs? Well, I do a lot of reading. But it's mostly the classics, in book form, in delightfully musty second-hand condition, on a comfortable sofa, at home. A blog has to be pretty damn interesting to compete with that. Something by Alain De Botton would qualify - but guess what? He doesn't have a blog.
That's the thing, see. In this time when so many seem so eager to throw their opinions and the details of their lives into the 'blogosphere', perhaps one should be asking if it's a good idea to do so. Schopenhauer advised that we should keep our private affairs private. Over time we may come to regret that others know personal things. And, as a general rule, it's more advisable to show our intelligence by saying nothing than by speaking; for silence is modest and doesn't offend, while speech 'has something in it of vanity'. The opportunities for choosing one or the other are equally common, but it seems that many pick the fleeting satisfaction of speech over the permanent advantage of silence.
I'm keeping it lean and simple this week. First up, I was tasked with setting up a free online newsreader, setting up some feeds, and linking to it from this blog. I chose google-reader in order to be consistent with my google-blogger account, and I cheated a little by choosing the bundle of feeds suggested by google staff for new users. Then I picked a few of the more interesting stories to share - I hope. So here it is.
Newsreaders are an interesting idea but much depends on finding a good stream to subscribe to in the first place. Although I'm a fan of LOLcats, pictures of anthromorphised animals in general make me yawn. Although I like news sites such as the English Guardian and Observer, I like to trawl through them when the mood takes me and click on interesting links; as opposed to having everything dumped into my newsreader. I'm not particularly interested in new gadgets because I can't afford them. And blogs? Well, I do a lot of reading. But it's mostly the classics, in book form, in delightfully musty second-hand condition, on a comfortable sofa, at home. A blog has to be pretty damn interesting to compete with that. Something by Alain De Botton would qualify - but guess what? He doesn't have a blog.
That's the thing, see. In this time when so many seem so eager to throw their opinions and the details of their lives into the 'blogosphere', perhaps one should be asking if it's a good idea to do so. Schopenhauer advised that we should keep our private affairs private. Over time we may come to regret that others know personal things. And, as a general rule, it's more advisable to show our intelligence by saying nothing than by speaking; for silence is modest and doesn't offend, while speech 'has something in it of vanity'. The opportunities for choosing one or the other are equally common, but it seems that many pick the fleeting satisfaction of speech over the permanent advantage of silence.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Week Three (Part 2)
My next task is to use 'Picnik' to play around with an image, then post the altered image to my blog.
Picknik is a nice little web application. This site will be useful to customers using the library computers; no need for photoshop or even its free cousins such as GIMP. Of course Picnik doesn't have the sheer image processing power of a dedicated software application, but one can crop, resize, and alter easily enough. This will be handy for the crowds of backpackers, memory sticks bulging with digital photographs, who flock like Nordic birds to our internet terminals.
Here, I altered Schopenhauer's 'temperature' to a cool blue tone, cropped the image, and added a dashing black moustache.
My final task is to experiment with some image generators - a fun thing to do.
I was intially impressed by 'Obamicon me' which I found on the Generator blog. It enables you to upload an image and change it into the style of the iconic Obama poster used in the last U.S. election. However I became irritated when attempting to save the image - it looked as though I needed to register and that bugs me. A shame, because I had a nice image of Schopenhauer in Obama style with the caption 'Pessimism'.
But then I discovered a magazine cover generator courtesy of the BigHugeLabs site. The result was the following hypothetical magazine.
And here ends week three!
Friday, February 12, 2010
Week Three (Part 1)
A lot to do this week so let's get started!My first task was to explore 'Flickr' and link to an image - so here's our hero courtesy of Flickr. Unfortunately photographs of old Schopenhauer are far more common than young Schopenhauer (who can be seen in the profile picture of this blog), probably because he found fame only in the winter of his life.
Frustratingly, at first, neither Flickr's 'blogging tool' nor Blogger's 'photo upload tool' would work on my library staff computer. In theory our library is embracing web technology for service delivery; in practice this fine ideal is hindered by the technical aspects of I.T. in a large organisation - firewalls, bandwidth, security, and the like. However I did succeed on a later attempt.
Clearly Flickr is an amazing resource. One could spend happy hours perusing the photographs of strangers. An uneasy thought struck me: what if someone posted a image of me without my permission? I am not photogenic. I loathe the pale and squinty creature who peers out of photographs purporting to be me. A quick search of my name showed nothing.
Both 'Picasa Web Albums' and 'Smugmug' are clones of Flickr but without as much content. On its homepage Smugmug touts quotes from various media such as 'Elegant!' and 'Best looking!'. Yet for all that I couldn't see how it was significantly different from the others. Picasa seemed much the same.
My next task is to explore some Flickr mashups.
The simple and effective 'Flickr Color Pickr' caught my eye: a nice application that satisfies both the merely curious and the design minded; the latter perhaps looking for a public domain image suitable for some project.
'Captioner', from http://www.bighugelabs.com/, lets the user add comicbook-style speech and thought bubbles to photographs. Here's one I made in which Schopenhauer speaks this week's piece of wisdom. Schopenhauer considered deep sleep to be like death; a sort of foretaste of non-existence, because when we sleep we lose all knowledge of our own consciousness. He wrote that every morning was like a little birth, every evening an old age, every sleep a little death; and thus sleep itself may be thought of as...
Well that's the first half of week 3; there's still more to do in the second half, next post!
Monday, February 1, 2010
Week Two.
The theme for this week's task is 'social networking sites'. Bebo, Myspace, LinkedIn and Facebook are targeted for apprasial.
But we should be aware of, and inwardly celebrate, each fleeting day that passes without pain or sorrow; because at some point in the future, when we are ill or otherwise suffering (and this is inevitable), we will long for these quiet, boring, pain free days, and give anything for them to return.
Myspace is familiar to me. A few years ago I used it actively despite initial misgivings that it was a juvenile and pointless use of time. It turned out to be more fun and interesting than I realised. Although Myspace as a whole is clunky, poorly layed-out, prone to spam, and slow to load, it has two charms: if your coding skills are good enough you can customise the appearance of your profile extensively; and it's a bit 'alternative'. By that I mean it's not as straightforward, preppie, and boring as Facebook. You can send silly little sparkly animations to your Myspace friends. Link to songs and videos on your profile. It's useful for bands, artists and generally-creative types to advertise their wares.
If Myspace is a quirky teenager then Facebook is a Dockers-wearing balding middle-aged dad. It's a staid version of Myspace with much less emphasis on self-expression: we're all locked into that boring, boxy profile template. But it's become a monster of the Internet, a money-spinning hulk embraced even by those people not previously interested in networking sites.
Why? A vaguely articulated promise of networking (with associated, although hard to quantify, benefits); and a simple, conformist model of profile presentation. Late adaptors find Facebook's predictable template and business networking associations appealing; the younger demographic like it because it's achieved critical mass in terms of the numbers of users - everyone's on it.
I now neglect my Myspace profile; in fact it exists solely these days to direct people to my Facebook. I'm not sure why I've migrated. In fact I'm not sure why I use social networking at all. Often I think about deleting my Facebook, although recently it proved its worth when I was hunting for a flatmate. A Facebook status update from me enquiring if anyone needed a flat netted me several leads within hours. So it has an upside.
But there's a downside, too, which is this: the more people who add one as a 'friend' on Facebook, the less one is actually able to use it as anything resembling a genuine experession of personality, thoughts, or feelings. Several work people have added me to their friends list. This means anything I post now has to be carefully considered. It's the same with family members who add me, or friends-of-friends whom I don't know very well. In fact, when I ask myself why I actually use Facebook, I can only find two reasons: the craven reason is that everyone else uses it, and the practical reason is that it's useful for staying in touch with friends overseas.
Bebo has always struck me as 'Myspace for Kids'. It doesn't seem to have a definite rationale of it's own, choosing instead to compete directly with Myspace, but with and emphasis on a more school-age demographic. Personally I feel a little creepy looking at Bebo profiles - it makes me feel old.
LinkedIn is an attempt to wrest the business conotations off Facebook and it may just succeed. It's a good business idea because it's using a Facebook like model but with a much better defined goal: to network with others in a given industry. I'll be interested to see how it progresses in terms of the number of members. Having said that, the idea of it bores me to tears. I doubt very much whether I'd use it.
Let's wrap this up with some more wisdom from Schopenhauer.
We let our golden days slip by unnoticed. A day without pain races by and we pay little attention to it. Sometimes on such days we sigh, feel bored, wonder when life will start; perhaps we even feel opressed by our predictable routine.
But we should be aware of, and inwardly celebrate, each fleeting day that passes without pain or sorrow; because at some point in the future, when we are ill or otherwise suffering (and this is inevitable), we will long for these quiet, boring, pain free days, and give anything for them to return.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Week One
Set up for Auckland City Libraries's web 2.0 training package, this blog will chronicle my experiences week by week as I complete various assigned tasks.
Thus unless you are another library employee, or an administrator of the Web 2.0 course, you will find my posts almost infinitely boring. However, I will attempt to liven things up each post by including an insight from the greatest intellectual the world has seen - the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer.
Here's the first one.
It is not possible that the universe has existed for an infinite time. If it had we would not be here; by definition 'infinite' has no end and therefore at no point could the earth have come into existence.
Back to training matters. My first task is to reflect on my experiences in creating a gmail account, and a blogger account, in this first week of the program.
I am already familiar with gmail and I far prefer it to my other webmail account at hotmail. Hotmail is clunky, confusingly displayed, slow and prone to spam: gmail is sleek, clear, fast, and not nearly so vulnerable (it appears) to the predations of bulk-mailers.
I have not use Blogger before, although I have a pre-existing blog at another server. As is typical of google products Blogger is both easy to use and attractive. I like it. However permit me to gnash my teeth at one small point. As I write this, my eyes fall upon the tabs displayed at the top of the page; and in particular the one labeled (I can barely bring myself to write it!) 'monetize'.
Of all the grim inventions of American English, I think 'monetize' the most abberant. 'Incentivize' was bad enough - but 'monetize' is like incentivize's twisted and evil master.
Please, oh purveyors of American English, leave our adjectives alone!
Thus unless you are another library employee, or an administrator of the Web 2.0 course, you will find my posts almost infinitely boring. However, I will attempt to liven things up each post by including an insight from the greatest intellectual the world has seen - the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer.
Here's the first one.
It is not possible that the universe has existed for an infinite time. If it had we would not be here; by definition 'infinite' has no end and therefore at no point could the earth have come into existence.
Back to training matters. My first task is to reflect on my experiences in creating a gmail account, and a blogger account, in this first week of the program.
I am already familiar with gmail and I far prefer it to my other webmail account at hotmail. Hotmail is clunky, confusingly displayed, slow and prone to spam: gmail is sleek, clear, fast, and not nearly so vulnerable (it appears) to the predations of bulk-mailers.
I have not use Blogger before, although I have a pre-existing blog at another server. As is typical of google products Blogger is both easy to use and attractive. I like it. However permit me to gnash my teeth at one small point. As I write this, my eyes fall upon the tabs displayed at the top of the page; and in particular the one labeled (I can barely bring myself to write it!) 'monetize'.
Of all the grim inventions of American English, I think 'monetize' the most abberant. 'Incentivize' was bad enough - but 'monetize' is like incentivize's twisted and evil master.
Please, oh purveyors of American English, leave our adjectives alone!
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