module 12

Slowed down a bit the past few weeks surrounding my jaunt to Penasco.

I just resumed work on 2.0 Facebook and MySpace.
MySpace is great for kids who want a free web presence with the ability to network. But for my purposes, it's crowded in several ways: the interface, the "friends", the time demands of maintaining your page, etc. I've seen several MySpace pages, but I haven't seen a personal page that was well designed yet.

Facebook's layout is less crowded; but it's not intuitive at all. Everytime I left my homepage I struggled to navigate back to it. I can see how it would appeal to the college set, however I don't see how I would personally benefit from using it. Again, it's basically a free webspace server. Webspace is relatively cheap these days anyway, so it's probably not something I'll ever embrace. I was truly glad to learn about it tho; for one b/c I have an old friend who had invited me to see her profile; this enabled me to finally see it and exchance some niceties. But is sending "hugs" and "beer" virtually really something for adults? I'm not convinced.

These Web networks are fun to learn about, but who can possibly maintain accounts on so many of these?! I just don't have the time.

image generator

image generator
Originally uploaded by robwilson08

This is what I was able to come up with via one of the image generators. It was a fun exercise; wish you didn't have to download stuff for some of them. Now let's see if this uploads to my blog...

Looks like it will work; this is a preview of a trip I plan to make this summer!!

#9 Finding Feeds

I tried 3 methods of finding feeds:
First I followed the instructions from the 2.o page;
2nd I tried the Blogspot search feature;
Finally I went to favorite websites to search for the RSS icons we learned about. I guess the easiest was the last method, b/c I had a pretty good idea of what it was I was signing up for. The search engine was the most confusing: for one, I wasn't sure I was doing it right; also, when I did get results, I wasn't sure what I was signing up for (if anything!), or how the information would be presented.

I'd heard a lot about RSS and I was excited to learn about it; didn't know exactly what to expect; indeed, it wasn't what I thought it would be. I need to spend more time mastering the whole concept, etc. and figuring out if this is sth that I can make work for me. i.e., you gotta really decide what information you need. In an environment where we're bombarded w/information overload, you really gotta pick and choose!

RSS

I created the blogspot RSS account last week and signed up for, among other things, notifications of Wilco and Stones tickets and shows!