Thursday, August 28, 2008

#7.1 RSS Feeds

Initially thought this question was going to be beyond me until I had a play and the tutorial was right, it is very easy. In fact I got carried away and have had to delete various feeds as my lifestyle wasn't going to cope with the amount of information. Thought I'd catch up on BBC news about Wales where my bro lives. The news feeding every minute was overwhelming but its sensationalism was not unlike our own. At least they're not in the grips of election year.
I subscribed to several of the cookery feeds and got a great recipe for Spinach and feta quiche from Simply Recipes. I wonder if anyone cooks with a laptop in their kitchen?
The Library feeds seem much more manageable and a great way of keeping abreast of overseas professionals. There are only so many hours in a day but with RSS feeds you have so much at your fingertips.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

#6 Digital technology

Have wanted my own digital camera for ages so took the plunge and went out and bought one with the excuse that my son can take it on his trip to France next month. Would be great if he took the attachments and downloaded pictures in the school's Facebook page so that I could keep a virtual eye on him! Isn't digital technology amazing. It moves so fast. The smallest memory stick for the camera was 1GB!
Last month I got a text from a friend in London and another friend sent e-mails from all over the world as she travelled so that I got the enthusiasm she was feeling at the time. I could join in the funny stories about the GPS system driving them into a one lane dead end street in Spain when they wanted the supermarche, or the tornado they experienced in the States.
My generation complain about the constant texting our children do but when you think about it logically, they are far more communicative than we ever were and it's nothing new that the communication is with their peers and not with their parents!

#5 Mashups

Didn't realise how appropriate my pseudonym 'trailingbehind' would be. I haven't posted anything for over a week! Have had trouble with the response time on my daughter's laptop when loading Montagr (lack of space on the hard drive if I'm interpreting the messages correctly). I'm convinced that it's all to do with my son sucking all the broad band power upstairs for his online gaming! Seriously, I do need to upgrade so that all these Web 2.0 applications are available to me in real time. Tried Montagr at work using the tag 'birds' and got some beautiful photos.
Found the Mashup awards. Aren't people clever.
Now that I have been introduced to the likes of Twitter and del.icio.us my virtual world has expanded ten fold. I think I'm even getting ahead of my kids! or perhaps their stunned silence at my enthusiasm is teenage speak for 'we knew that!'

Monday, August 4, 2008

Anawhata

Anawhata
Anawhata,
originally uploaded by grinnner.
Had already worked out how to put a photo into my post using the icon on the compose screen so now I'm having a go at blogging my chosen photo direct from Flickr.

# 4 (Week 2): Explore Flickr and learn about this popular image hosting site



Some of the photos I found on Flickr for my favourite bush walks and birds are awesome. I'm already falling behind in my blogging but have decided that I deserve some play so I am spending this evening looking through other people's photostreams using key words that interest e.g. Muriwai, Piha, cats and birds. This is a great way to compile your digital photos so that family and friends can see them and they don't take up space on the already crowded bookcase of albums.

I've created a Flickr account, now all I have to do is prise the digital camera off my daughter and get some of my own photos up on the net.
Above is a link to one of the photos I found when I searched for Anawhata. I'm getting good at editing my posts 'cos they don't always start out looking the way I want them to. Also I've learnt if you right click on the x on the photo then you can open the link.