Week 6: Assignment Three

Ahhh Web and Library 2.0 we meet again. I'm one of the users that feel that web 2.0 is the same web we've always used only with new absorbency™. Web users and developers have always been working on ways to make the internet not only more userfriendly but interactive as well. I remember when I first started building websites all of the pages had a contactme@mydomain.com type address. Then as things evolved (read spammers hit teh net) I started using a contact form to hide my address. Back in those days databases were not something that drove websites - now sites like FCPL.org are in the minority by relying for the most part on static html pages (this obviously doesn't count the catalog).

Is it bad that FCPL.org doesn't use rendered CSS pages pulling content from a database like the Intranet? In my opinion no because for the most part, HTML is working for us. Since FCPL.org is the "flagship" site for FCPL there is a natural validation process for addition to the site so interactivity will naturally be lower than other sites. Well another tweak to the design and a full redesign are in the future. We'll see what it looks like then.

Week 6: Assignment Two

So I took a look at Technorati as requested (I already knew how tagging works for blogs as my journal (Livejournal) and Blogger use Tags. As far as Technorati goes I'm far from enthused with it. This is probably because I'm not as enamored of blogging in general as everyone else is. I think in my own mind I've always equated blogging with the random nutcases that speak on the matters near and dear to their heart on the steps of the local government.

Now I realize that the vast majority of blogs aren't like this but when I look at my own Journal and those that I read regularly on LJ I've discovered that the ones I find the most interesting are the journals that are used as personal diaries. Exceptions to this are a journal by a hollywood special effects artist who gives behind the scenes looks and 'this is how I created this really scary prop' type posts. Even my favorite writers that I read tend to use their journals as a daily updates of news and happenings in their life.

So all in all I have to say I was underwhelmed and uninterested in using Technorati. Sorry if this disappointing to anyone. :/

Week 6 - Assignment One

Del.icio.us is a pretty cool web tool for bookmarking. But so far its biggest strengths over other bookmarking sites is its tag cloud and social networking aspect. More on the latter in a minute.

I can't say that I find tagging that much more useful over what I've always done which is to organize bookmarks into folders in my browser. I'm enough of an "old skool yo" web user that if I don't have the URL memorized then I can find it through google or my search engine of choice should I need it while away from my computer. I've also been known to set up my links page to reflect urls I use often or to place it on my journal's links heading for ease of retrieval. That being said I can certainly see why Del.icio.us is popular and should probably look at re-wiring my brain to take advantage of its features.

Except when it comes to the social aspect of the site that is. I'm sorry but I'm a curmudgeon when it comes to these things. I frankly don't care what others are bookmarking especially when I find that some folks are using its recently bookmarked feature for advertising purposes. No thanks. =)

Week 5: Assignment 3

Rollyo - Overall I'm not terribly impressed with Rollyo. I like the concept of being able to search multiple sites at the same time but found that to narrow searches to relevant information required quite a bit of tweaking on my end. The adds throughout the search were a deal ender for me.

I think I'll stick with ye ole google toolbar search buttons even though it means doing multiple searches in succession. The results were better overall.

My rolled Rollyo.

Week Five: Assignment Two

Library Thing is teh best thing evah. I've been meaning to maintain a database of all the books Krys and I own for years now, have farked around with Access (hate it), book database software (buggy as hell), and even tried making my own mySQL database (learning curve like whoa). Library Thing is the easiest by far and its Amazon link makes it work the best. I now know what I'll be doing in the coming weeks at home.

Here is my Liberry.

Week Five: Assignment One

This one was an easy one for me as I've played quite a bit with online image generators. *cough* Totally on my own time of course...

Without further ado here are my "creations" hosted on my webspace:



Okay this WYSIWYG sux - why in the world does it add the images to the top of the post and now where the cursor is? Stupid.

Rolling again....Week 4 Assignment!

I'll confess I've not been very enamored of RSS feeds prior to this week tending to follow my routine of checking favorite pages every day for new information. After playing with RSS this week I've somewhat come around to understanding the need and probably using them more.

Makes me ponder more turning on the RSS feed for our intranet.

Anywhoo here is my blogline: http://www.bloglines.com/public/DerekB