How time flies

I knew I was not going to get the learning2 program completed on time but I resolved to finish it anyway. So much for my resolve. It has been forever and I haven't looked at it again until now. I know what is going to happen. The page I am working from is going to dissapear and I will never know what I have missed out on so I might try to at least list them and work from the list.
explore Zoho writer, google docs and spreadsheets
Web2 awards nominees http://www.seomoz.org/web2.0 worth a good look
You tube, Podcasts, downloadable audio books, http://www.43things.com/person/hblowers
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FWE/is_2_10/ai_n16133338
OK that is a fairly basic what I still need to do list and I am hoping one day to still get there.

Del.icio.us

No pretty pictures or gadgets to go along with this one so I added one of my own. I did find this site interesting easy to use and can see it could be of some value but don't know if I will use it on a regular basis. I decided on a collection of German Spitz sites hence this pretty picture from one of the spitz sites I saved to del.icio.us. I know I could have added any and all sites as a mobile favourites but at the moment I am looking, learning and moving on. When I have completed this learning project I will then be able to reevaluate what I have learnt and make the most of it. I did discover that if you put www. in front of the address you get a completely different site.

By the way the little lovely above is Australian Champion Banjospitz Southern Bea.

Technorati

Ahhhh she cries why would the button publish to my blog entry but not to the side part of my blog. Oh well guess I was half successful. I tried to cut and paste the smaller of the buttons first and that would not work so then I tried this one. Still no luck. Have you worked out yet that I am STUBBORN so this time I pasted it in my post and it worked!!!!!!!
This just shows that I had problems with my blog but I couldn't really see that this site would be of use to me personally. Maybe when I have more time and can have a better look at it I will be able to see it full potential.

Rollyo

Well that wasn't too bad. I think I must be getting the hang of this. My little Rollyo gadget works but I have just entered a few generic sights. Still I am starting to feel a little more confident with the things I am doing. I read the instructions and they started making sense. I did this one and the last one without the need of a handy little helper. OK I know I will never turn into a technohead but hey I am starting to feel empowered. I am beginning to feel like the little red caboose "I think I can, I think I can...."

my librarything

This is great. This was so easy and just so much fun. I am not sure if I am finally getting used to all of this or if this was just an easy AND FUN site to use. The hardest part of it all was chosing which book from my favourte authors to add to the list. I can see huge potential in LibraryThing. There were a couple of obscure books that have no cover image but I did find them using Library of Congress. Adding LibraryThing to my blog was easy as I knew what I was about this time around so I guess I am retaining what I am doing. A big bonus.

This is fun?

It is getting late. My happy little helper is yawning and making noises about his brain not working properly so I think it is time to retire. I know this was supposed to be a fun element but I have been searching the generators for 2 hours now trying to find one that is me and this is the best I could do.

Now that I look closely at the Tardis it reminds me of a mobile phone, a flying mobile phone. Oh well, like my handy little helper, my brain hurts.

Technology

Technology.

I do love new gadgets – once I have been shown how to use them of course. I thought I might do a bit of a waffle about Photoshop or some other related item but couldn’t get into the mood.
Today I heard about another use for technology. Games. Now I know you are going to say computer games have been around forever but this is a different game but it makes the use of well now it is not so new technology but still technology.
It is the mobile mobile game and this is how it all began and how it works.
A group of five men who do a lot of travel and work in the Yarra Valley realized that they were often ‘bumping’ into the Valley mobile library in their travels. So they devised a game. The one with the lowest points at Christmas time buys the slab of beer.
If they can get a photo using their mobile phones of themselves in front of the Valley mobile library it is worth 1 point. If they can get a photo of themselves inside the mobile library it is worth 4 points.
Boys with Toys will never be bored.

One two miss a few

I think I said earlier that I wasn't the best with instructions and I guess this just proves it. I did do some of the Flickr mash ups etc. but just didn't bother to post a blog about them. This card was really easy to make and I had fun doing it. It was easy to save to my photos or I could have as easily saved it to Flickr.
I might browse my photos and see what else I can find to turn into a trading card. Actually this is more like a get out of trouble card. Guess my kids playing Magic The Gathering has rubbed off on me.

RSS Feeds - aghhhhhh

RSS Feeds – I have become stuck on them and I have decided to move on. I no longer care if I know how they work. I have read and read and still I do not understand. I signed up for them and waited eagerly for them to arrive. But nothing. I read about Feedstar and copied a link to my home page and zillions of feeds arrived but that was not what I really wanted. I am sure I didn’t ask for anything to arrive through Feedstar I was just experimenting.
RSS Feeds. I know what they are and I kind of know how they work BUT how do you get them to where you want them and the ones you want?
I still have some of the now generation living at home. I know they still live at home because the fridge empties and the laundry basket fills at a scary rate. I just have to time it right and find a time when one of my now generation and I are in the house at the same time and we both have 5 minutes to spare.
Tonight was my chance. I came home to the smell of food cooking and what was more not one but four of the now generation were congregating in my kitchen. I cornered the youngest thinking that I would have the best chance of help from him but when I mentioned RSS Feeds he just looked at me blankly. Time to get serious here, this time I go for the leader of the pack.
Oh not a problem. Lets have a look uh huh uh huh uh huh OK where do you want them to go and how many headlines do you want? Where do you want them to come from? Now this is all you need to do copy this we’ll delete Feedstar put the link in here and done.
OK so what has taken me 2 weeks to try to understand the leader of the pack has just done in 10 minutes. OK I can live with that, I am just glad it is done. Now I can finally move on but will I remember it tomorrow?

They call him Flickr

They call him Flickr, Flickr, faster than lightning

No one you see, is smarter than he

And we know Flickr, lives in a world full of wonder

Flying there, right there, right in front of me

Now I am not the most technologically adept person and I prefer to be shown how to use something rather than have to read the instructions. (OK I’m lazy) but I was surprised how easy it was to get a grasp of Flickr. And it is a wonderful program.
I must however admit to a bit of a drama as far as copying my photos onto Flickr went and it was due to my stubbornness (my mother would have called it pig-headedness) that it was such a drama.
My friend David had taken some wonderful photos of a rainbow on our way back from a trip to the country and I was determined that these were the photos I was going to use in Flickr and then also add them to my blog.
David burnt the 60 odd photos onto a cd - so far so good - and I brought them to work in anticipation of a five minute job. Uh uh. I couldn’t manage to get just four of these photos onto Flickr and I didn’t want to load all 64 photos onto the computer. To cut a long story short nothing worked. I then decided to do it from home only to find my computer completely outdated for these files. Once again I took the cd to work and drama after drama I abandoned my attempts. Being a bit more determined the next day I returned armed with cd and decided on a different tact. Wonderful this time I was able to upload the required files into a folder on the computer. I then tried to transfer these photos into Flickr only to finally find that they were TOO BIG. Ah that must have been the original problem. They were all over 5 MB and to use files over 5 MB you need to upgrade your membership with Flickr and pay for the privilege. So it was back to David’s computer to make the files smaller which I then emailed to myself and easy peasy, job done.
Now yes I could have used other photos but I did learn a lot. I’m not sure if I really needed to learn what I did but learn I did.

cactus

The photo to the right of the beautiful cactus flower after rain is a little deceiving. The cactus looks and is harmless enough. There are no spikes or thorns and the flowers and their buds are just so appealing. After the rain they looked fresh and inviting. Full of anticipation I walked towards the beautiful cactus flower and took a deep breath. The stench of rotting meat hit my senses and had me reeling backwards choking and gasping for breath.

When I heard about the learning 2.0 program it sounded wonderful. Learn about blogging (which I had always been tempted to try to use but just never knew where to start) learning about Flickr, Podcasting, Wikis and RSS of which I knew nothing about but it all sounded just so appealing. Learn in a learning environment, there didn't seem to be any spikes or thorns there. Seemed straight forward enough a fresh and inviting atmosphere. I sat down at the computer full of anticipation of my huge learning curve. Then reality hit me and had me reeling backwards.

I'm not really comparing learning 2.0 to rotting meat but guess I am saying that they both had the same effect on me. Though unlike the cactus flower which I now know to stay well clear of I kept coming back to my computer chair and the result has been very pleasing. I am enjoying playing with my blog and I am finally getting a good grasp of Flickr even though I am amazed at some of the things that others have done with it.

sick leave

I haven’t been online with my blog for quite some time due to a virus. Now I think I may have contracted this virus from my computer as it was only a couple of days after I set up my blog that I started feeling unwell. After that is was a steady decline until I finally crashed and didn’t work for four days. When my system started coming back up again it was a very slow process and it wasn’t until I was back up and running (well walking anyway) that I realized that I had missed a golden opportunity. When my friends’ computer crashed due to a virus she had it completely revamped. She decided against getting all of the old programs put back on and instead they were replaced by super dooper new ones.
Now just thinking about how I could have improved myself makes me regret the missed opportunity. My biggest fault is that I am completely unartistic and uncreative so that would have been the first program to be installed, then as I have always wanted to be able to speak another language so a language or two would have been wonderful. To top it all off I could have turned myself into a creative chef with a recipe for any occasion. Oh the possibilities are endless with the wonderful programs now available. Of course there would have been one small drawback to becoming the new improved me and that is where on earth is my cd drive.

Rainy Days

What magic to see a glorious rainbow after a rainy day. Driving back from the country on the weekend we battled through high winds, dust storms and driving rain.
To the right the sky gradually cleared to a brilliant blue below the cloud line and then the sun began to peek though. It didn't take long before the sun became a brilliant display. Then how wonderful to be in the right place at the right time as a brilliant rainbow appeared in a cleared paddock on the opposite side of the road.
Having a good digital camera we were able to capture this incredible image. I hope you enjoy the rainbow as much as I did.