Meez, etc.

The avatar that I created at Meez.com is displayed above. Meez. com is a lot more sophisticated than Yahoo. Yahoo only allows you to display your creation on its products; whereas, Meez permits you to export your avatar to numerous places. Also, with Meez, you can let your imagination run wild in terms of hair, face, dress, backgrounds, etc. I had fun and could have spent a lot more time playing.

I also googled the term "online image generator." There are a lot of free generators available and you can create a variety of things (avatars, buttons, barcodes, logos, etc.) Below is a logo that I created for my blog.

RSS Pt. 2

I explored several other RSS feed search tools (Topix.net, Feedster, Syndic8.com, and Technorati) today. I found Topix.net to be the least useful to me. The site covers local news and, since the place where I live is small, there isn't much news to report. Feedster returned more hits on my search for Westies and West Highland White (terriers) than Syndic8.com, however, most of them were not relevant. All of the hits on Syndic8.com were on my topic. Finally, Technorati provided the most returns of all although it also had the highest amount of irrelevant links. A couple of potential advantages of Technorati is that it allows you to do an advanced search and to limit your results by language and "authority." In the case of my search, limiting to the highest authority didn't help.

Bloglines

I found this exercise to be relatively painless. I added 19 or 20 feeds and organized them into various folders. It is easy to become engrossed in finding sites/blogs/etc. to add.

The task that I found the most difficult is sharing your Blogline. I know that part is optional, but, I wanted to give it a try. I succeeded even though I am still not sure what they mean by a "link target." Look to the bottom left of the screen and you should see my libraries folder from Bloglines.

I like that I can now go to one place to retrieve all the latest updates to some of my favorites sites.

Internet Musings

Technology can't live with it and can't live without it. As much as we sometimes want to throw this or that technical device out a window, it seems we can't live without them.

Recently, I had my mother staying with me for a while. During her visit, she checked her email a couple of times a day. Considering that we had to drag her into the land of email, I found it somewhat surprising to see how attached she had become to her email account. Also, since I don't have cable, a day didn't go by without her checking the various news site to keep up to date with International news.

As for myself, I go through withdrawal if I can't access the Internet. I don't necessarily surf the Web every day; however, I feel lost if the possibility of being able to do so is removed. Back in the eighties, when I first accessed the Internet, I never imagined how pervasive it would become in my life and that of others....communication, information, and entertainment tool.

Mashups

I tried a few of the different mashup applications today. I used the picture above to create a wallpaper calendar, which is now the desktop background on my computer. Also, after playing for a while with a site that creates animated gifs, it seemed to me that I would need to use a series of sequential pictures in order to be successful (ie when you design a cartoon). I had been trying to do it with only one. Finally, I created a billboard using the picture above. Both the wallpaper calendar and the billboard were VERY easy to make.

Brodie in the garden

I can't leave my other cutie out.

Angus in garden

Isn't he cute?

After considerable play time, I have finally managed to import a picture from my Flickr account. I am not sure why it took me so long to accomplish the task. It seems so easy now that I have done it. In the future, it should only take a minute or two to post a picture here as all the set up work has been done.

I had to tweak the picture's placement in the post once I transferred it from Flickr. It was simple to move the picture; but, I couldn't get the credit or attribute where I wanted it.

Week 1 Thing #2 - 7 1/2 Habits

For me, the second habit of a highly successful learner is the easiest. As a naturally curious person, I have always accepted responsibility for my own learning. There have been times, when working with a library patron, that I have wanted to continue to locate information on a requested subject long after the inquirer has indicated they have had enough. Also, I ask a lot of questions.....some may think too many....is there any such thing?

The hardest of the habits for me is the third one - View Problems as Challenges. Sometimes I am able to view problems as challenges but, at other times, emotions or other things get in the way. Overcoming these barriers then becomes the challenge for me.

Week 1 - The Beginning

Testing, testing.....Looks like I was successful in creating my blog if you can see this post. :)

More later.