Yay, made it! Phew...
All in all these 23 Things have been a bit of an eye opener, I must say! Even those Things I had already been using- turns out you can use them for work, and do more with them than I'd ever thought! I've now incorporated iGoogle, Google Docs, flickr and del.icio.us into my daily life whereas I hadn't previously used them; I'm still using facebook, Wikipedia, YouTube and podcasts, but getting greater functionality from them; and even those things I didn't particularly get on with - well at least I now know what they are and how to use them, so thank you 23 Things!
Some of the Things that I haven't really continued using have been those that aren't currently useful to me specifically, but that I can see might be under different circumstances. For example, RSS feeds are obviously great if you are trawling through a lot of info on a daily basis, but for me they kind of fell by the wayside. Too. Much. Information! LinkedIn could well be a fantastic networking opportunity in the future but given my current position it is pretty redundant. I also don't see myself tweeting merrily away any time soon, although if I was a journalist Twitter would be my constant companion! ThinkFree was my only real technological disaster - couldn't get it to work efficiently or consistently at all, not sure what went wrong there, but suffice to say I won't be using it again!
Tuesday 6 April 2010
Week 11 - Widgets and Gadgets
As you can see from my newly gadgetted up blog, I've been playing! I added my Flickr Photostream, library-related news, my labels, a search box, and some perpetually hungry fish to my blog (just click the mouse in the fish tank to feed them)! I was impressed by the range of what was on offer, although most of the games I looked came with ads as an unwelcome bonus so I've avoided all those.
Meanwhile, my iGoogle page has evolved a bit. I've changed themes and removed/added gadgets, so it currently looks like this:
I found a couple of interesting Web 2.0 gadgets that may well prove useful for those in the library who want to take the 23 Things program further - The Edublogger and Mashable. Both link to useful information and hints and tips on using Web 2.0 technologies. I've also added BBC Radio, unfortunately no good for work (incompatible with staffing a reading room...) but very handy at home, and my del.icio.us which is currently a bit redundant as I usually have my del.icio.us bookmarks toolbar showing, but still, all in all a fairly Web 2.0 themed iGoogle page methinks!
Meanwhile, my iGoogle page has evolved a bit. I've changed themes and removed/added gadgets, so it currently looks like this:
I found a couple of interesting Web 2.0 gadgets that may well prove useful for those in the library who want to take the 23 Things program further - The Edublogger and Mashable. Both link to useful information and hints and tips on using Web 2.0 technologies. I've also added BBC Radio, unfortunately no good for work (incompatible with staffing a reading room...) but very handy at home, and my del.icio.us which is currently a bit redundant as I usually have my del.icio.us bookmarks toolbar showing, but still, all in all a fairly Web 2.0 themed iGoogle page methinks!
Week 10 - Head in the Clouds
As someone who is constantly using different computers with different (allegedly compatible...) versions of Microsoft Office on, this week's Things have been a bit of a revelation! Firstly, Google Docs. Nice and easy, accessible anywhere with internet, and even easier to access given that iGoogle is my homepage - it's so handy having all the Google options in one place, they're taking over my virtual world!
The word processing option looked so lovely and familiar - no need to learn a new package, this is basically a simplified version of Word. The collaborative options are very exciting; no messing about reformatting when you switch from one machine to another, everyone can work on and see exactly the same document, and involving others is very simple. I would definitely recommend Google Docs for anyone needing a simple (free!) word processing package that they can use anywhere and can collaborate with others with.
Next up, ThinkFree. From what I've manged to see of it, there does seem to be added functionality - I got a quick look at the note templates and was very impressed. However, it kept telling me that I needed to install Java Runtime Environment which I did successfully the first time, then it took ages to load, and when I finally used it was very slow. Still, I figured I'd come back to it later but to no avail! Whenever I try to create a new document it tells me I still need to install JRE, and when I do it won't install (probably because the stupid thing is already there, arghh!!). Anyway, I have now given up in a huff, but this hasn't put me off cloud computing, I'll just be sticking to the simplicity of Google Docs thank you very much!
The word processing option looked so lovely and familiar - no need to learn a new package, this is basically a simplified version of Word. The collaborative options are very exciting; no messing about reformatting when you switch from one machine to another, everyone can work on and see exactly the same document, and involving others is very simple. I would definitely recommend Google Docs for anyone needing a simple (free!) word processing package that they can use anywhere and can collaborate with others with.
Next up, ThinkFree. From what I've manged to see of it, there does seem to be added functionality - I got a quick look at the note templates and was very impressed. However, it kept telling me that I needed to install Java Runtime Environment which I did successfully the first time, then it took ages to load, and when I finally used it was very slow. Still, I figured I'd come back to it later but to no avail! Whenever I try to create a new document it tells me I still need to install JRE, and when I do it won't install (probably because the stupid thing is already there, arghh!!). Anyway, I have now given up in a huff, but this hasn't put me off cloud computing, I'll just be sticking to the simplicity of Google Docs thank you very much!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
