Thing 8

Instant messaging seems to be the basic gist of this Thing. IMing (okay, so I didn't get that right away either and "instantly" presumed a Chinese dynasty) is bascially a chat room for two, the capabilities ever-expanding, as are the virtual and real universes. (Or are we imploding into a Black Hole, or is that just me?) This is another feature ACLD recognizes as another way "to accomodate preferred means of communication" in its customer-driven revamping. Other "Communication Web 2.0 Style include email, text messaging and Web conferencing. IMers can also send Web links, videos and other images, sounds, files, streaming content, and even talk and have mobile capabilities (cell phones). I'm not sure I successfully registered for Google Talk, although I plowed through their terms and they said I did. No time to talk now, however, just finish this blog before I have to vacate the premises. I read about Voice Over Internet Protocol, and I enjoyed a brief history of Nintendo. I have no experience with gaming (just a grandson who evidently must have Windows Live Messenger for communication between xbox 360 gamers). That family also has the Rock Star game, which evidently is a Nintendo innovation providing for heightened interaction. Business users can use IMing for virtual conferences, collaborating, conversing, and sharing data in real time. Now that's relevant!

THING 7

Online Image Generators are indeed fun, fun to mess around with images and words. It would be captivating to be able to generate trading cards of visual and performing artists for FLYP's
"Be Creative/Express Yourself" Summer Reading Program.
I visited the Gould Library connection and selected Kristin Partlo's "trading card", mainly because I have a daughter named Kristin. I thereby inadvertently chose the social science librarian, and, when I investigated the research subject guides, I found one for "CAMS: New Media & Digital Culture". (No one I asked knew what CAMS stands for, but I'll substitute "Computers: Awesome Mega Systems".) At any rate, I copied the following quotes that I found imminently relevant. "Constantly evolving areas of inqury that do not really lend themselves to traditional reference resources...(including) topics of the World Wide Web, videogames, DVD, digital video and audio (including p0dcasting and webcasting) and virtual reality."
"Digital culture is defined here as the results of the social networking fostered by new media and includes the topics of the social web (or Web 2.0), blogs, wikis, peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing, instant messaging, viral videos, massively multi-player online gaming, Internet memes, and so forth."
In the context of these quotes are, yet again, new terminology: P2P, viral videos, memes. Note that the second quote ends "and so forth". "Mega", like I said. What I thought was interesting in the virtual world is that the location of the Laurence McKinley Gould Library was not readily apparent. After a little searching, I finally found that the school is Carleton College in Minnesota. (And, guess what, Charles Schulz was from St. Paul.) In essence, persons, places and things do not have the same bearings in virtual worlds as in the actual world, and the nature of identity is
altered accordingly.

THING 6

Good grief (I'm reading an exhaustive bio of Chas Schulz)! I finally got here again. How is it that I am so easily confused and readily frustrated. Just keeping track of email addresses and passwords stymies me. Just for signing in to getting going has been a major snag today. Thanks mucho to compassionate co-workers for this bi-polar bozo. So, anyway, Thing 6. I was going to peruse other blogs to see what they said, but my first attempt was thwarted because I was somehow confused by a small component for which there is no negotiating in cyberspace. Explanations introduce other concepts that further challenge my ability to absorb. Mashups are not to be confused with embedded data. Mashups must access 3rd party data using an API and reuse the content in an unintended way. A hybrid. There is pure XML content and HTML presentation-oriented content. I understand that definition better with the Google maps and real estate ventures than I do with the Flickr mashups example. And within that sidetrack are Acamin, Digg, RadioClouds. Then there's Alyve, JackBe, Microsoft Popfly, Mozilla Ubiquity, Netvibes, Pageflakes, etcetera, etcetera, as the King of Siam would say. Anyway, I altered some photos I had in my Flickr account. Not great photos, not great results, but fait accompli nonetheless. I see using Flickr Mashups for altering photos for fun jigsaw puzzles, for name badges, for turning summer reading participants into "artistes" to reflect the "Express Yourself/Be Creative" themes.

THING 5

It occurred to me that flickr tags are how images are accessed by Google & why sometimes those images seem incongruent with a search word. Maybe not. Once again, confronted not only with new Internet terminology and the tweaking of familiar terms for the WWW, but also the specificity of vocabulary within this cyberwonderworld. A tag is not a title is not a category; they have very specific functions for organization and accessibility. Well, probably always did. Anyway, I realized that chez moi is accessed as two words that probably won't readily resonate, certainly not if separated.
I liked the mouse over a book in the virtual library opening up the world within that title. I didn't have luck with the geotagging, if I have that right. Evidently no one was uploading photos from Belize. Patience may also be a factor. I did upload photos from a disc I happened to have and put a "web" photo in my profile.
Once again again, I am overwhelmed by concepts such as megadata and photostream, the constant stream of consciousness inherent in entering into cyberspace. Of course, just like considering the specificity of words, life is stream of consciousness after all. And meditation is letting go of that stream. Hmmmm.

THING 4

Really Simple Syndication & Newsreaders..."file format to deliver regularly undated info over the web". My basic reaction to All This Stuff is that it is overwhelming. Just dipping a toe in creates an effect that continues to ripple out into the Cyberspace. And the language is so interestingly contrived and reconfigured. RSS helps organize selectively the streaming buzz. The intro uses the word "consume" with regards to retrieving this inundation. Admittedly I react negatively to that term as it smacks of rampant devoring and the consumer-oriented world we are encouraged to ascribe to (okay, "to which we are encouraged to ascribe"), which is one reason we are all in this fine kettle of fish financially today. I my opinion. However, I can also understand the terminology as it relates to the unwieldly amount of "bites" that lure us interminably on the web. The other term that startled me was "content creators" listed along with news and media as sources for RSS. Things that make ya go "hmmmmm". But, apart from my sensitivity to some troubling verbage, I am enthralled by this tool to streamline and customize desired updates. In addition to feeds provided as examples, I also subscribed to Latin American travel feeds. That was fun! But, once again, I can see how an electronic life can totally overtake life on a grittier plane i.e. The Real World. On the other hand, I can avoid all the agonies of real life travel and just sail around in the virtual cosmos.

THING 3

I used Technorati and Ice Rocket as blog search tools. I used "living in Mexico" as my query, replaced by "Lake Chapala" when I found a reference to that large ex-pat community. (I had actually visited Ajijic and Lake Chapala many years ago, but it did not seem to be rife with 10,000 permanent ex-pats at that time.) What I discovered is that the blog community is not about the subject matter so much as about opinions about the subject matter. Self-evident, of course, but I am a novice. While investigating aspects of Technorati, I came across Taxgirl.com, a tax attorney whose online success makes her an authority on successful blogging tips. The blogosphere is not static (Technorati incorporates one million posts daily), is driven by the individual, and is community oriented. In order to have what is considered a successful blog i.e. much read and responded to, Taxgirl advises that one be passionate about one's subject, target one's audience using appropriate tags, be consistent, persistent, inviting, network, and be authentic. She was happy to begin using an online editor Mars Edit which "takes the guesswork out of formatting (HTML is not my strong suit)", so there is obviously much more to delve into. Taxgirl mentioned one of her favorites, so I began reading Crazy Aunt Purl's delightful account of raccoons in her Encino-adjacent backyard. Now I understand how compelling the virtual world is, and I had to click my attention away from further episodes in the engaging accounts of Aunt Purl. Ice Rocket has Twitter, Myspace, Trends, Icespy in additon to Blogs listed across the top of their site. Technorati has Channels, broad blog subject areas, including Business, Politics, Entertainment, Lifestyle, Sports and Technology. Basically blog browsing introduces the musings and mutterings of the cyberspace community. Although I didn't glean any truly useful information about retiring to Lake Chapala, I did learn something about how the community of ex-pats function there from the horse's mouth. The inclusion of personal photographs brings much of the experience to life. An interesting observation is the dearth of English language books, which reminded me of a trip I had taken to Guatemala where I devored a books I would never have bothered with otherwise because there was nothing else available, not even in Spanish.

THING 2

I was fortunate today in that I was given time to continue working on THE THINGS, and Angela Harris arrived to provide training on MySpace to the librarians . While honing in on that serendipity, I made comments as to the vocabulary evolving along with their electronic implications. "Skin?" said I. "Embed? Tag? Widget? Is tube derived from boob tube?" Angela agreed that perhaps a glossary is necessary. These terminologies seem familiar, but they've acquired a whole new reference. Following this episode, I then proceeded to Thing 2 and am intrigued most by the similarity between what L2 (another new term) represents and the ramifications of the recent political shift. Interactiveness, community needs, transparency, trust,
the many contributions of everyman, connectedness, these are some directives inherent in L2 that reflect some of the policies engendered by the new administration, and both the technologies and the politics are hailed as historical change.