Wrap Up

I've been saving this picture for a special post. I enjoyed most of Web 2.0 and will keep using some of the tools. I think I'll enjoy them more now that I won't have to blog about them.

Arthur C. Clarke said that, "Any technology sufficiently advanced, is indistinguishable from magic." That's how I feel about computers. I don't know how or why they work and so I don't have any idea what to do when they don't work. I had kind of hoped that Web 2.0 would give me a clearer idea about how things work.

It was fun to see the tools that are out there. I'm glad to know YouTube has redeeming qualities. LibraryThing is going to be a lot of fun. I think ComicCorner has potential and I have an opportunity to be 'friends' with one of my favorite webcomics on FaceBook. He is British so I should say that he's one of my favourites (I think that's right).

Audio Video Video

YouTube isn't as bad I thought! My dark vision of the future is people spending all day watching other people get hurt on YouTube and IMing the friends they've never really met. I can see now that YouTube could be enjoyable.

YouTube is the best of the video sites, both for format and search results. BlipTV's layout is unappealing. Metacafe and Viddler gave me a lot of irrelevant results. YouAreTV's message when you search a term they don't recognize is, "We can't figure out what you are trying to do." Goodness knows, if there search engine doesn't recognize your query you aren't searching. Jerks.

I don't usually admit this, but I listened to Country music at the end of middle school-beginning of high school before coming over the Alternative and Classic Rock. I would briefly get home from school before anyone else and watch Country music videos until my sister got home. No one else liked Country. I don't miss Country, but there was this one Paul Brandt video I remember really enjoying. I don't remember it well but I know I still like the song.

When I joined iTunes I wanted to buy the video for the "My Heart Has a History" but they didn't have it. It was the first really reasonable thing I'd asked for that they didn't have and marked the beginning of my disappointment with iTunes. Then came the podcasts. I owe Youtube. They not only had it, it was really easy to find!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1BJkl_-Bqg

Just think, he must be an adult by now.

LibraryThing

I think I'm going to enjoy LibraryThing. I've tried keeping track of the books I read in notebooks, but I never do very well. I like seeing the covers and tagging is kind of fun. It will take practice to get really good at tagging. They look kind of messy.

I'm not fond of reviewing. I can't imagine why the general public would care about what I thought of a given novel. I don't really care what they thought. At the same time I'm very afraid I'll sound stupid.

I'm also afraid of spoilers. A review is what you might want to know before you read a book, so you can't give anything way. Especially not the surprises and plot-twists I will want to remember about the book. I don't want to review books so much as I want to write notes to myself about them. I guess that's what the private box is for. Tags might also be spoilers. If someone hasn't read FIGHT CLUB and I multiple personality disorder as a tag, am I giving too much away? I don't know.

http://www.librarything.com/profile.php?view=razedbywolves

Podcasts

I hate podcasts like you can not even believe. I've wasted A LOT of time trying to get them into my iPod from iTunes. While I fail miserably the people around me who know even less about it keep asking the following questions:

Q. Is it working yet?
A. No.

Q. What's wrong with it?
A. I'm not yet sure but I think I've almost got it. (But I'm thinking, If I knew what was wrong with it I'd be making it work!)


I wonder if iTunes is my problem? It doesn't matter, podcasts have been tainted forever, although I did a few to my RSS feeds. I registered for Podcastalley. It is unpleasant, but seems straight-forward enough. There's all this stuff in my account I don't like that seems to be there by default. I wasn't impressed by any of their header, background, or picture choices.

Their searching is also questionable. I asked for libraries and knitting and got 109 results that only mentioned knitting in their descriptions. I had to abandon knitting to be sure I was getting libraries. Podcasts are like everything else on the Internet. There's too much and you can't rely on how it was classified so searching is partly a crap-shoot anyway. I'm afraid my opinion of podcasts really hasn't improved.

Audio/Visual

I played a little with both PROJECT GUTENBURG and MANGO. I think both are good for libraries. GUTENBURG offers access to a lot of material that libraries might not be likely to have, or might not have enough copies of. If patrons went to MANGO libraries might not need as many language sets, and might not need to spend as much time sorting out parts.

I don't think CDs are dead yet. The inevitable march of technology will kill them eventually, but they have some life left in them. I think we're still in an age where more people have the ability to play a CD then to hook up an iPod or other MP3 player, or stream music. I'm not even sure how well the different brands hook-up with each other. A CD is pretty universal, it will work in any CD player. CD players are also easier to use, you just toss it in and hit play.

I'm also interested in the art on and in a CD's cover booklet. You loose most of that if you download the album, as well as any information about the band. I think. I have to admit that I've only downloaded one or two albums. I suppose results vary.

Cool Stuff

I tried two of the things under Cool Stuff, Blog Readability Test and Word Shoot. My blog is rated at college level, undergrad. I tried to get the button but I don't think it came over. That is alright, it isn't an attractive button. Although, it would have fit in well with my collection of unattractive buttons.

Word Shoot is a lot of fun. It took me forever to figure out that it only started if you clicked the word play. If you click anywhere else you go to the complete list of games. I looked everyone on that list and couldn't find Word Shoot. I finally tried searching for it through Google. When that took me back to the original entrance page, I tried clicking play. It's always nice when things work.

I bookmarked the game and I'll have to go back and play it some more later. It's certainly more fun then the pages we typed in high school. A lot messier too. I felt very rusty at first, but I think my typing got better as I went along.

WHERE WAS THIS PROGRAM WHEN I WAS IN HIGH SCHOOL AND COLLEGE??!!!! Our computer had one kind of software and every other computer on earth had a different type. I needed to use multiple computers because we only had one and I wasn't the only one in the family who wanted/needed to use it. It was reasonably possible to go back and forth by saving things as text and giving up formating. The whole thing was a mess. No wonder I hated school so much.

It also fixes most of the technical problems of collaboration. We had e-mail back when I was in school, but I don't remember anyone offering to send me attachments. I wouldn't have known what to do with them if they had. Group members had to bring in a printed copy of their work to give to the person typing the report. That person then had to retype everyone's work while trying to form a cohesive style. Although, looking back now I think some of that nightmare could have been avoided if my collaborators and I had understood computers better.

I think Google Docs is the best program we've seen so far in Web 2.0. Some of the others have been fun, but I can't imagine ever needing Facebook or Flicker. Google Docs would have made school so much simpler. My mom never had any sympathy. She kept saying that when she was in school they had to use a type-writer, and then explaining in detail how hard it was to fix errors. Now that the next generation has it so easy I can kind of understand.