What Would You Tube?

Okay, so I've hardly kept my growing addiction to YouTube private, I have to check on whether or not there is a 12 step programto help wean me onto a heathier time suck. Well, at least this is somewhat literary in nature. Tee Hee!

No, no to Rollyo

I'm just not feelin the love, truthfully. I wanted so much to love all of these exercises, to feel expanded and "WOW!" but I don't love this. I thought, when I first started playing with Rollyo a few weeks ago (yeah, that's me, playing and not blogging-again) that the problem was with me - and it totally may still be with me, but I tried to build my own search engine, and realized that I wanted more information, not less. I think that there may well be times when I want to cull my information from a select group of sites, ignoring others, but usually, when I'm going to the web, I'm casting a wide net. I looked at a bunch of custom searchrolls, and found some new favorite websites - that's always a good thing. I'm going to keep at this, though. There are applications for this, I know, it's a matter of putting one together with one and getting two.

Additcted to Audio

Let me just say that I love audiobooks. They revolutionized my commute back in the day when my commute was but an hour in bumper to bumper traffic from NY. It's possible that audiobooks have kept me out of jail, as I credit them with keeping road rage at bay. True, I try not to listen to anything too serious, heavy or dense. Nothing that requires too much concentration, and absolutely nothing that would/could get me fired up. I definitely have favorite narrators that I love to listen to. Jim Dale could read the phone book and I'd listen. Ditto Barbara Rosenblatt. I love audiobooks, however, I haven't really used our digital audio collection. I got an iPod a few years back, and probably because I don't have an MP3 Player (yet),and I know that iPods won't work directly with NetLibrary and Overdrive, I hadn't spent a lot of time perusing and following our collections. They've grown. A lot. If I didn't have a Mac at home, I probably would have downloaded a book to my computer there, to listen to while cooking or whatever, but that's my problem, I suppose. We have a lot of titles in our collections that I would definately listen to, if that counts for anything. Setting up a Netlibrary account was easy-peasy, and I had (in the past) already downloaded (kids) video and audio from OverDrive here at my work desk to make sure I knew how it all worked, so this exercise was so simple for me that I forgot to even blog about it.

Oh, I'm Deep in the Weeds....

A Few Dollars
Originally uploaded by dom_dedom_dom_dom

It's a little frightening how behind I am with my posting and blogging. The good thing (for me, anyway) is that I've actually been working on the assignments, just not the blogging part. Perhaps not my strongest suit. I seem better at the playing bit. Wandering about the internet, uncovering mash ups and podcasts and applications heretofore unknown to my aging brain. However, I lack documentation. It all boils down to finish. Ah well, At least y'all are getting paid to read it. So. Where were we? Ah yes. Flickr.
Well, I've had a Flickr account for almost three years, turns out. Surprised me, too. I had completely forgotten about it, but when I started perusing the site, there it was. Since making this discovery several weeks ago, I've found myself wondering if I had any forgotten bank accounts. So I did a search for that, as well. I can't remember which sites I searched, but I didn't find anything. My husband, however discovered $740 in Ohio that was sitting waiting like a forgotten puppy. Happy day! Seems we're well suited, what with our utterly crap memory(s). I wonder if that money would have ever found him, and marvelled again at the wonder of the internet and how very immediate things have become. Thinking about this experience, I can offer up only "technology - gooood!"
I also played with the Flickr mashups that were recommended, and, not unlike my fellow CR cohort, Reblogga, chose to install a Spell with Flickr of my name. (see below, it's so swish!)

Please Sir, May I Have Some More.....

It's as though I've eaten too much. I'll be honest, I've always had a bit of an appetite - I love to cook, love great food and especially love to combine great food with great company . Hosting a big dinner party is my idea of fun, my perfect Saturday night. Give me an open kitchen with a bunch of friends or family and we will invariably talk and eat, eat and talk .... throw in some good wine or a signature cocktail and the chatter will continue late, late into the night. Most of my friends have different types of careers, different interests or hobbies, different takes on life, and because of this, everybody brings something new to the conversation. RSS feeds are a little bit like this for me. All this information diversity. It's handy, just going to my bloglines account and finding all of the RSS feeds I subscribed to. I seem to have a wide variety of interests...sometimes I'm reading up on entertainment news (of the trashy gossip variety) sometimes it's travel news, or an author's blog, or my friends' blog...these are things I've sought out on my own, at my leisure, whenever the mood struck me. Now, I'm subscribed. I get all of the posts. ALL of them. And if I'm not in the mood to hear of Britney's (et al) latest debacle, or the latest applications for Facebook, the posts just pile up. I had something like 43 posts from one of my sites, because I hadn't the time nor inclination to keep up. Granted, I had been v.v. busy, but 43!?!? All the other feeds that lay unconsumed in my bloglines account were overflowing as well. I feel guilty if I don't read them all - I mean, I signed up, I asked for it, I took my portion, and as it all lays there on my "plate", I realize that my fun dinner party has taken a turn towards gluttony. It's just more stuff to get through, albeit stuff I wanted to read. As time goes on, I'm sure I'll discover more feeds I feel I absolutely, positively have to subscribe to, and I imagine I'll have to consider them as I do second helpings, with a cautious eye on the bottom line, which, in the case of RSS feeds, is TIME.

oops, i did it again....

So I've spent some time over the past week blog-hunting and I think that this whole business of searching out blogs and interesting newsfeeds is, to me, like eating popcorn at the movies : really satisfying and somewhat addictive in an automatic, unthinking way. I find one good blog, and then feel compelled to check out that blog's blog roll, and before you know it, I've eaten half the bag, and am sitting in stunned silence staring at a screen, watching the credits roll by. The good blogs always hook you up with other, like-minded bloggers, which in truth, saves a bucket load of time. A while ago, I set up a facebook page, and realize that with only a handful of "friends", I appear pathetic. I wish I could feel the need to search out more "friends", if only to improve my numbers, but I can convince myself that not having a lot of friends on facebook doesn't necessarily mean I'm a loser, I could just be highly selective. :) Well, while searching for old friends on facebook, I managed to find some friends from high school and college, and have even subscribed to one of their blogs. This one guy from my formative years (who has made a decent living manipulating technology) has a website with a complete arsenal of tech gadgets employed: podcasts, YouTube posts, Myspace page link, iTunes, webstore, the whole shebang. He's got some cool technology blogs on his blogroll. Now I have (some of) them on mine. No muss, no fuss.

I mentioned that I read Meg Cabot's blog on a regular basis, and have done since she was here at Ferguson for the annual Jeanne Rinehart lecture. She amuses me immensely. Anyway, when I went to subscribe to her blog, I couldn't find the RSS button. I managed to cut and paste the blog into my bloglines account, but contacted the webmistress anyway to ask her if she could make the RSS button available. She emailed me back and let me know that she had put the feed button on the page. So that was cool. And quick. Last night, at home, I found myself on iTunes searching for some music and then I clicked on the podcasts button. What I found surprised even me..... more on that later

time, time, ticking, ticking...

I must admit, expanding my understanding of these technologies is fun and I'm thinking about all of the ways they have changed and will continue to change the way I use the internet and collect information. My addiction to the blogs of (teen authors) megcabot.com and sarahdessen.com is fed from the same wellspring, as it were - but I miss the pretty colors. AND I've found some new and fun blogs from the blogrolls of others... so that's worked out well. I have noticed, though, that I need to go back on a regular basis, so that I don't "lose ground" . Problem is: not a whole lot of "free time" to revisit this. Too many other items taking priority. Ah well, at least now I have my bloglines account, culling together my regular pit stops...they are all waiting for me, whenever I have the time to pay them a visit. That's a comfort. Onward...