Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls, lads and lasses, I hereby cordially welcome you to read....the....very....LAST BLOG FOR 23 THINGS.
Yes, it's very exciting, I am feeling pleased and triumphant.
Ok. Serious time.
My favourite discoveries/tasks have to be Librarything and Delicious. I loved those task enormously, I found them great fun, and very interesting - especially Delicious. I'll definitely be using both in the future, and thanks to the Delicious task of 23 things, I'm currently fascinated and knee deep in Greek and Roman myths.
We-ell....23 thing has taught me new things. I never knew you could do some of the things you can with photos with programs like Pixlr, which is going to be enormously useful when I'm trying to pretty up future photos from trips or events. I never really understood how RSS feeders worked before the 23 things program, and now I have so many blogs to read it's almost scary.
I discovered that I can made an audio recording of a book that people can listen to, thanks to LibriVox, which I think is such a lovely and useful idea. I think it's brilliant, I am full of glowing praise for LibriVox, and I'm pleased I discovered it thanks to this program.
I never knew WiFi security was so bad and easy to break for hackers, which was an eyeopener, and something I'm much more aware of now that I know. It's concerning that it's so easy, especially as a person who has WiFi at home.
Ah, I've just realised I haven't answered the other points yet, bother, as Pooh says.
It's hard to say how this has assisted my lifelong learning goals - I don't really have any at the moment. But it has been an eye opener, and I know that I will use media and information that I learned and gained from 23 things in the future, and probably not just for fun, but for work or for study when I eventually decide to become a student again.
I think I've already sort of answered point three, if there was any takeaways or any unexpected outcomes.....there were, which I've mentioned above. But the thing that surprised me the most was just how much I enjoyed completing the tasks, and blogging about what I liked and didn't like, what I learned or discovered. I've enjoyed being a part of this much more than I thought I would.
I think 23 things is well set out, I don't think there's anything that needs to be changed.
As for doing this on my own, and at my own pace....I love doing duties and tasks at my own pace, I do my best work and am at my most comfortable when I can so so, but at times that isn't such a great thing. And one of the problems with it is that occasionally I'm forgetful, and I completely forgot about the 23 things program for about half the time I was meant to be doing the tasks.
I think there are tasks I would have appreciated more if I'd kept a better eye on the 23 things program, and didn't have to do so much in a short amount of time. But that's my fault, not the fault of the 23 things program. But I wasn't very motivated at times (clearly).
Well. It has for the most part been fun, a blast, a whirlwhind of craziness and awesomeness. I have genuinely enjoyed myself, and I certainly hope whomever's read this blog has enjoyed reading it.
Roger, Wilco and out.
- library earthling
Monday, June 18, 2012
Prezi
Long time, no see lovelys,
I was going to do Task 14, Prezi, quite some time ago, and then I never got around. Mainly because the tutorials for Prezi seemed so long and tediously indepth, that I chose to skip it for a time when I had more....time. And then I procrastinated. Until today! When I can't do my coursework because one of the drivers isn't being friendly.
Actually, I found I like Prezi more than I expected to, which is a nice surprise. I put up photos of my cats (they're sleeping on my bed) and arranged them how I wished, and I could delete anything I didn't want or change the colour of the print if I didn't like it.
Prezi was actually pretty cool. Again, it is very 'look how awesome my photos are!', but I can also see how it could be useful for presentation, it's laid out pretty nicely, and it's easy to use.
Well.....
I guess I'll go off and prepare for doing my very last blog for 23 things. Wow.
- library earthling
I was going to do Task 14, Prezi, quite some time ago, and then I never got around. Mainly because the tutorials for Prezi seemed so long and tediously indepth, that I chose to skip it for a time when I had more....time. And then I procrastinated. Until today! When I can't do my coursework because one of the drivers isn't being friendly.
Actually, I found I like Prezi more than I expected to, which is a nice surprise. I put up photos of my cats (they're sleeping on my bed) and arranged them how I wished, and I could delete anything I didn't want or change the colour of the print if I didn't like it.
Prezi was actually pretty cool. Again, it is very 'look how awesome my photos are!', but I can also see how it could be useful for presentation, it's laid out pretty nicely, and it's easy to use.
Well.....
I guess I'll go off and prepare for doing my very last blog for 23 things. Wow.
- library earthling
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Flickr or Picasa - Try two
Hey,
this is my second attempt to try to do the Task 5 activity, which involves using Flickr and Picasa.
I finally managed to get Yahoo to recognise my username and account, and got into Flickr and added a couple of photos to my brand new Flickr account.
To be honest, I don't really know what libraries are using Flickr for, except that it seems to me that Flickr is just a very large library made up of photos with patrons who contribute to the collection from their private collections.
Flickr certainly reminds me of a library - and it does have acces to both private and public (Library of Congress, NASA etc) collections. People upload their photos, and allow other people to view their photos, unless they've put settings on the photos for them to only be viewed by certain people.
I do like viewing other people's photos, and some of them are just amazing photos. Also people have different ways of looking at the same place. I've been to Darling Harbour in Sydney, but while I was browsing through photos I came across a photo taken off Darling Harbour and it is amazing what they saw and captured compared to what I did.
But that's me philosophising.
Anyway.
Flickr has tags - which is a keyword that you give the photo, which can find you other photos that are about the same subject or similar. Flickr also has something called 'groups' which I actually think is pretty cool. Groups seem sort of like forums, but they're cool because they can share around photos within the group and have conversations as well. Which I quite like.
Picasa.
I had a little bit of trouble with Picasa as well. I thought I had to download it, and I was wrong. So if I had realised that earlier, I probably would have attempted to do this task last week, but ah well.
To be honest, maybe because I've spend so much time looking at things like Flickr, I feel as if a lot of the information is just the same information and things you can do, just in a different format. Although I do like the fact that you can make sort of different collages of photos really easily, that's cool.
But you can store all sorts of information on or about your photos - Title, who's in it, place tags, place it in certain galleries...but you can do that for both Picasa and Flickr.
I think I prefer Flickr to Picasa - it certainly did in the end cause me less trouble. : )
- library earthling
this is my second attempt to try to do the Task 5 activity, which involves using Flickr and Picasa.
I finally managed to get Yahoo to recognise my username and account, and got into Flickr and added a couple of photos to my brand new Flickr account.
To be honest, I don't really know what libraries are using Flickr for, except that it seems to me that Flickr is just a very large library made up of photos with patrons who contribute to the collection from their private collections.
Flickr certainly reminds me of a library - and it does have acces to both private and public (Library of Congress, NASA etc) collections. People upload their photos, and allow other people to view their photos, unless they've put settings on the photos for them to only be viewed by certain people.
I do like viewing other people's photos, and some of them are just amazing photos. Also people have different ways of looking at the same place. I've been to Darling Harbour in Sydney, but while I was browsing through photos I came across a photo taken off Darling Harbour and it is amazing what they saw and captured compared to what I did.
But that's me philosophising.
Anyway.
Flickr has tags - which is a keyword that you give the photo, which can find you other photos that are about the same subject or similar. Flickr also has something called 'groups' which I actually think is pretty cool. Groups seem sort of like forums, but they're cool because they can share around photos within the group and have conversations as well. Which I quite like.
Picasa.
I had a little bit of trouble with Picasa as well. I thought I had to download it, and I was wrong. So if I had realised that earlier, I probably would have attempted to do this task last week, but ah well.
To be honest, maybe because I've spend so much time looking at things like Flickr, I feel as if a lot of the information is just the same information and things you can do, just in a different format. Although I do like the fact that you can make sort of different collages of photos really easily, that's cool.
But you can store all sorts of information on or about your photos - Title, who's in it, place tags, place it in certain galleries...but you can do that for both Picasa and Flickr.
I think I prefer Flickr to Picasa - it certainly did in the end cause me less trouble. : )
- library earthling
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Social Networking
Oddly enough, despite my distaste and disliking for Twitter, I actually really like Facebook. Well, really like might be a bit of a stretch, even a long stretch, but I do quite like Facebook.
I created a Facebook account about 5 years ago, and I've been using it ever since. I tend to be one of those annoying people who signs in and then wanders off to do something else for a few hours. So I'm often listed as being there, but have really gotten distracted by something and actually forgotten all about Facebook.
I'm a bit protective of my privacy, so I've set my privacy settings pretty damn high. People can find me if they want to (at the moment my profile is me dressed like a bear), I haven't hidden myself away on Facebook. But I have made my settings so anybody who isn't a friend of mine can't see basically anything, and then I have different settings for Friends of friends, and then the people I am friends with on Facebook.
Facebook does suggest 'Do you know this person?' or whatever it is, which is just annoying. If I spoke to that person regularly and was friends with them in the real world, then 9 times out of 10 I'll have already made friends with them on Facebook. So I tend to ignore the suggestion by Facebook that I should make friends with somebody because 12 of my friends are friends with them as well.
But Facebook does make it easier to keep in touch with people which I love because I'm pretty bad at that. Plus I can keep updated on how friends are doing which is lovely as well.
On the whole I like Facebook, but that's mostly because it's a way for me to be able to interact with my friends.
- library earthling
I created a Facebook account about 5 years ago, and I've been using it ever since. I tend to be one of those annoying people who signs in and then wanders off to do something else for a few hours. So I'm often listed as being there, but have really gotten distracted by something and actually forgotten all about Facebook.
I'm a bit protective of my privacy, so I've set my privacy settings pretty damn high. People can find me if they want to (at the moment my profile is me dressed like a bear), I haven't hidden myself away on Facebook. But I have made my settings so anybody who isn't a friend of mine can't see basically anything, and then I have different settings for Friends of friends, and then the people I am friends with on Facebook.
Facebook does suggest 'Do you know this person?' or whatever it is, which is just annoying. If I spoke to that person regularly and was friends with them in the real world, then 9 times out of 10 I'll have already made friends with them on Facebook. So I tend to ignore the suggestion by Facebook that I should make friends with somebody because 12 of my friends are friends with them as well.
But Facebook does make it easier to keep in touch with people which I love because I'm pretty bad at that. Plus I can keep updated on how friends are doing which is lovely as well.
On the whole I like Facebook, but that's mostly because it's a way for me to be able to interact with my friends.
- library earthling
Twitter.
I'm opposed to Twitter, I really don't like it, and have managed to avoid or flat out refuse, to use Twitter until this task in 23 things.
I think it's an annoying soapbox for people, and while I understand it's a great way to get information out to the public fast, it still bugs me.
Plus you can only make posts of a 140 characters, and as you will have been able to tell, I ramble a lot. 140 characters is wee bit limiting for me.
But, for 23 things only, and once as I do this task I'm deleting the blasted account, I joined Twitter. If there isn't any easy way to delete an account from Twitter I am going to be so far from being impressed it will be ridiculous.
Ok. So. Twitter. The basics are : you can make posts of up to 140 characters long. You can include photos or links to music or pretty mucah anything. You can make a specific post aimed at somebody by doing an '@' sign followed by their name or username.
You can put in tags that will lead to other similar subjects - or comes under the same subject on Twitter.
I still think Twitter is weird, although following Ellen on Twitter is sort of cool because I adore Ellen. Despite this - I am still deleting the account.
It's a great medium to keep in touch with people and keeping people informed, but I don't think it's my sort of thing.
Gotta run.
- library earthling
I'm opposed to Twitter, I really don't like it, and have managed to avoid or flat out refuse, to use Twitter until this task in 23 things.
I think it's an annoying soapbox for people, and while I understand it's a great way to get information out to the public fast, it still bugs me.
Plus you can only make posts of a 140 characters, and as you will have been able to tell, I ramble a lot. 140 characters is wee bit limiting for me.
But, for 23 things only, and once as I do this task I'm deleting the blasted account, I joined Twitter. If there isn't any easy way to delete an account from Twitter I am going to be so far from being impressed it will be ridiculous.
Ok. So. Twitter. The basics are : you can make posts of up to 140 characters long. You can include photos or links to music or pretty mucah anything. You can make a specific post aimed at somebody by doing an '@' sign followed by their name or username.
You can put in tags that will lead to other similar subjects - or comes under the same subject on Twitter.
I still think Twitter is weird, although following Ellen on Twitter is sort of cool because I adore Ellen. Despite this - I am still deleting the account.
It's a great medium to keep in touch with people and keeping people informed, but I don't think it's my sort of thing.
Gotta run.
- library earthling
Mobile Apps
I have an iPad and I have an iPhone (I suddenly became an apple girl somehow, clearly Apple's advertising really does work), so I do already have Apps.
Apart from using Apps for things like the weather (although to be fair I hear tell some aren't very reliable, but that's hardly surprising - weather reports on the news can still get it wrong), money conversions and reading books, I mostly use Apps for fun.
A friend a while back got me onto Angry Birds in Space, it's incredibly fun and addictive. I'm still stuck on this level on an icy planet, and can't get past it. But one of these days I will. But that App isn't free, I had to pay money for it.
One of the best Apps I've ever downloaded (also not free, but definitely worth the cost) is an App called The Solar System. If you have any interest at all in the Solar System, please get this app. It is fantastic. It tells you all about the planets, and their moons, and you can even look at them for different angles because you can move the planets around with your fingers. It is a fantastic App, I am thrilled to bits over it.
I think they're really good, provided they're updated to fix any bugs with them. Sometimes it takes awhile for bugs to be fixed, and sometimes you don't notice an update has been done. Take the time to download the updates, otherwise you could be at risk from nasty stuff on your smart phone or iPad.
But I have to admit, while there are thousands of educational Apps out there, I tend to only use the ones I can play with, mainly because I only really use my iPad in my downtime when I'm relaxing at home.
- library earthling
Apart from using Apps for things like the weather (although to be fair I hear tell some aren't very reliable, but that's hardly surprising - weather reports on the news can still get it wrong), money conversions and reading books, I mostly use Apps for fun.
A friend a while back got me onto Angry Birds in Space, it's incredibly fun and addictive. I'm still stuck on this level on an icy planet, and can't get past it. But one of these days I will. But that App isn't free, I had to pay money for it.
One of the best Apps I've ever downloaded (also not free, but definitely worth the cost) is an App called The Solar System. If you have any interest at all in the Solar System, please get this app. It is fantastic. It tells you all about the planets, and their moons, and you can even look at them for different angles because you can move the planets around with your fingers. It is a fantastic App, I am thrilled to bits over it.
I think they're really good, provided they're updated to fix any bugs with them. Sometimes it takes awhile for bugs to be fixed, and sometimes you don't notice an update has been done. Take the time to download the updates, otherwise you could be at risk from nasty stuff on your smart phone or iPad.
But I have to admit, while there are thousands of educational Apps out there, I tend to only use the ones I can play with, mainly because I only really use my iPad in my downtime when I'm relaxing at home.
- library earthling
Wifi and security
Well. That was sobering reading.
I swear to God that 23 things just increased my paranoia levels. Grumbles.
Ok. Basically the gist is that WiFi basically sucks involving stopping people from hacking their little hackery selves onto your sad, not well defended wifi system, and using your wifi for nothing because WiFi sucks at keeping people from doing this. Basically.
Because WiFi, despite updates to their security system still has flaws. And there's programs out there that hackers can use to crack your encryption.
So first rule boys and girls : USE REALLY GOOD ENCRYPTION IF INSTALLING WIFI IN YOUR HOMES. Just saying, it's important.
If you have WiFi and am concerned, you can turn off Wi-Fi Protected Setup, which apparently is a feature installed in the 2007 update that has a major flaw that lets security to be bypassed and broken by hackers. That was installed five years ago, so I really hope WiFi have rectified that feature by now.
Firesheep is just plain scary Jake. SCARINESS. I am not pleased I know these things, and am now looking at WiFi's and how people use their computers in a whole new way. My god. I suddenly feel like becoming a technological hermit and never touching a computer again.
Essentially what everybody needs is good encryption that covers EVERYTHING you do on your wifi, otherwise you will be hacked, and there will be tears and some very sad people. On the wb, encryption that covers your wifi use is called HTTP and SSL. You need stuff like that.
I'm off to do the next task and hopefully it will be more cheerful.
- library earthling
I swear to God that 23 things just increased my paranoia levels. Grumbles.
Ok. Basically the gist is that WiFi basically sucks involving stopping people from hacking their little hackery selves onto your sad, not well defended wifi system, and using your wifi for nothing because WiFi sucks at keeping people from doing this. Basically.
Because WiFi, despite updates to their security system still has flaws. And there's programs out there that hackers can use to crack your encryption.
So first rule boys and girls : USE REALLY GOOD ENCRYPTION IF INSTALLING WIFI IN YOUR HOMES. Just saying, it's important.
If you have WiFi and am concerned, you can turn off Wi-Fi Protected Setup, which apparently is a feature installed in the 2007 update that has a major flaw that lets security to be bypassed and broken by hackers. That was installed five years ago, so I really hope WiFi have rectified that feature by now.
Firesheep is just plain scary Jake. SCARINESS. I am not pleased I know these things, and am now looking at WiFi's and how people use their computers in a whole new way. My god. I suddenly feel like becoming a technological hermit and never touching a computer again.
Essentially what everybody needs is good encryption that covers EVERYTHING you do on your wifi, otherwise you will be hacked, and there will be tears and some very sad people. On the wb, encryption that covers your wifi use is called HTTP and SSL. You need stuff like that.
I'm off to do the next task and hopefully it will be more cheerful.
- library earthling
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