Thing 23 - Feedback

Feedback
I will certainly keep on using some of the ’23 Things’ such as Google Docs, images, iGoogle etc.
However, these ‘things’ were not new to me as I have used them for quite some time already.

I am not sure whether I will keep on blogging. At the moment I am quite happy to keep in touch with family and friends by email. I find this more personal.

There were not many surprises. I liked the book cover program as well as the cooking blog. I will keep on using these sites.

I could not recommend much as to improvement of the ’23 Things’ format except that I did not really find it a suitable assignment for a Diploma class. Cert 2 – 4 would benefit greatly from this program.

Thing 22 - Post about Technology

Among the new web technologies I would count the steady progression, advancement and improvement of technologies such as Ajax, php, html etc.. Software such as Adobe’s Master Suite and Expression Web helps produce great sites. Microsoft Office suites are also great.

Hardware is getting better and better, software more interesting

Thing 21 - Web2.0 Award Winners

I have chosen the site I am cooked! I have signed up as there are lots of recipes to share, videos to watch and advice given and asked.

Thing 20 - Read about Web2.0

Web 2 is the new improved version of www. It is a second generation of web development and design, that facilitates communication, secure information sharing, interoperability, and collaboration on the World Wide Web. Web 2.0 concepts have led to the development and evolution of web-based communities, hosted services, and applications such as social-networking sites, video-sharing sites, wikis and blogs.

Web 2.0 websites allow users to do more than just retrieve information. It can provide "Network as platform" computing, allowing users to run software-applications entirely through a browser. Users can own the data on a Web 2.0 site and exercise control over that data. These sites may have an "Architecture of participation" that encourages users to add value to the application as they use it. This stands in contrast to traditional websites, the sort that limited visitors to viewing and whose content only the site's owner could modify. Web 2.0 sites often feature a rich, user-friendly interface based on Ajax and similar client-side interactivity frameworks, or full client-server application frameworks.

Thing 19 - Twitter

Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?
Twitter is pretty much like MySpace. However, instead of writing a comment on your friend’s page, you write the comments on your own page and your friends come and look at your page and in turn comment on this on their own page. Access, of course can be restricted.
Twitter posts or ‘tweets’ are used to let your friends know what you are doing right now or to comment on what your friends have been up to.

Thing 18 - Image Generators

I chose to make a book cover. Since I have a somewhat difficult relationship with shell scripting, I made an appropriate cover. It was fun. Click on this link to make your own cover.

Thing 17 - iGoogle

iGoogle – another great idea. I have used Google for my home page for a long time. Now I use iGooogle which I customize according to my interests. There a LOTS of gadgets offered by Google that can be incorporated into your iGoogle page. I chose
weather – Melbourne and overseas
news
world clocks Melbourne and overseas times
currency converter
css feeds
dictionary
Google reader
YouTube
Calendar
At one glance I can see the sites and information I access very often.

Thing 16 - Google Docs

Earlier this year, part of our lessons in IT Planning was delivered online and I used Google Docs to retrieve these lessons. I had ‘subscribed’ to these lessons and accessed them via the Goggle Reader.
From there I saved the lessons onto my computer.

Google Docs – great idea! With so many varieties of Office Programs available, it is great if everybody could have access to a particular version of a document without having to buy the software for it. All that is needed is the URL for a particular document.

I have created a simple spreadsheet on Google Docs. To access it: click here to access my spreadsheet

The URL is: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AtkCKdDkMcEwckxYbV9aVGp3NnlFVndLb2RxR090ekE&hl=en

Thing 15 - Google Maps

I am very thrilled with the Google maps! I use it very often for directions, the street view and other information. Friends overseas have bought a new house? No problems we get a fair idea of it from Google maps!




View Larger Map

This is one of my favourite picnic spots.

Thing 14 - Podcasts & Vodcasts

I have not used podcasts before. I have just registered with pod cast alley and subscribed to one of the feeds by clicking on the Subscribe button.
I believe this is a practical way to always be up-to-date. I particularly like those feeds that have something to do with web development as well a new technology.

Thing 13 - Edit a Wiki

I signed up for the Chisholm TAFE wiki which was quick and easy. I left a note on the trial editing page.

Thing 12 - Read about Wikis

Wiki is a great source of information! Just about any topic can be found. However, one has to be very careful relying too much on the information given, as it is really only the opinion of the author of the article and it is not always scientifically or historically backed up. I am particularly careful about political, historical or medical articles. Important information needs to be cross checked.

All in all though it is a wonderful tool that I use if not daily but several times a week.

Thing 11 - Discover Del.icio.us

It is a great idea to be able to access your own bookmarks from any computer. I usually have my ‘favourites’ folder on my memory stick, however, this is much easier. I am not really interested in those features that show me what others are bookmarking. I have, however, over the years, established my own very extensive ‘favourites’ file and to be able to keep this offisite is really good.
I have established an account and exported my bookmarks to Del.icio.us.

Thing 10 - Social networking

I explored the MySpace and FaceBook sites. I have signed up with FaceBook. I can see why these sites are very popular with young people. For myself? I prefer not to lose my privacy and make my personal public. I prefer to write emails to my friends and (!) even still write the occasional letter!

Thing 9 - Explore SlideShare

SlideShare is a great site for viewing, sharing, up- and downloading power point slides. I have just watched a power point presentation on Unix shell scripting basics and I actually learned something new!
I can image that this is a great tool in the class room when presentations have to be made and students work in a team. Everyone could work on the project together without ending up with several different copies.

Thing 8 - Investigate YouTube

YouTube is great; I have this installed as part of my iGoogle page. Anything I need to know I just enter into the search box and usually it comes up with something appropriate. At the moment I am watching some videos on shell scripting and they are surprisingly good. There are also browser add ins to download YouTube videos.

Thing 7 - Play with Flickr

Flicker is a website where you can not only share your photos but you can also backup them. To share your photos you can create groups. For example you have a group for family and one for friends etc. and the members of these groups can then comment on the photos.

You can put tags on the photos, which will describe details such as date taken, captions etc of the photos and this in turn will enable search functions.

Gone are the days when you had to spend a fortune in postage when you wanted to send photos to friends and family! Now we have FLICKER!

Thing 6 - Comment on a blog post

I have posted a comment on the http://learning2.wordpress.com/ website addressed to Janet.

Thing 5 - Subscribe to blogs

As mentioned in ‘Thing 4’, I have subscribed to numerous feeds, mainly for recipes, news, and web ‘things’ such as css and JavaScript.

Thing 4 - Create an RSS reader account

I already have an account with Google reader

I have subscribed to Frankston Bits It Planning and Frankston Bits Networking. The written part of the lessons of the above subjects came regularly onto my computer via these feeds.

I have also subscribed to feeds from a German company sending me regular German recipes, as well as feeds for web development such as css and JavaScript

Thing 3 - Create a blog and register it

Last year we had created blogs for our networking classes as well as WebAdmin. We wrote blogs for these classes every week. For this subject, Advanced Websites, I am merely adding another blog which I named Ursula’s 23 Things

The URL is: http://ursulas23things@blogspot.com

Thing 2 - Extend Your Browser

Add-ons are easy to install. Just enter ‘quicknotes’ into the search box of Firefox and the results come up quickly. You click on your link of choice for this add-on. The downloading and installing is easy and quick. I had a numb er of add-on installed. Among others is the Error Console for Firefox which I use very often when writing a program.

I am happy with having QuickNote installed, as I am usually write qick notes by hand if I see something interesting on the net. From now on I will use just QuickNote.

Thing 1 - Read about the tasks

I have read through the requirements of the '23 things' and I am eager to start. It appears to be a good mix of tasks about 'things' that most of us have been doing on the net for quite some time.