Flickr fun

buddyWarhol
Originally uploaded by Barbara Ives

Here's Buddy in several different lights. He's a very versatile bird!

Working out how to get the Flickr posting into the blog caused a bit of head-scratching but eventually it all came right.

There's a lovely Flickr photo which put me in mind of Eleanor, but I couldn't figure out how to get it onto this blog. If you would like to see it, however, look for 'Pretty pink blossom' on IcingDream's photostream.

RSS feeds

I'd dipped my toe in the Google Reader stream for rss feeds some time ago, and am not convinced that Bloglines is any improvement on it.

For my taste, Bloglines is graphically confusing, with each blog's own icon and font displayed; entries in Google Reader look more consistent, which makes it easier to scan new subscriptions. Google's 'Recommendations' feature also is working better at the moment, but I may revisit that in a day or two, when Bloglines has had a chance to compile some recommendations for me. One from Google Reader that's currently relevant for me is Library Web Chic.

I did like the discovery tools, especially Technorati with its ability to filter for videos or other categories.

Topix was a bit overwhelming with its quantity of news, but I did see that one of the most-talked-about threads was from Okfuskee, Oklahoma which of course I had to investigate: a shameful story about an Oklahoma Highway Patrolman's assault on an ambulance driver.

Syndica8 didn't do much for me; it appeared to have fewer relevant links for my searches. Maybe it's just a measure of how this exercise develops my expectations of instant gratification; if I can't understand a tool or get results on it without having to consult the Help screen, I tend to discard it in favour of the easier ones.

I could not get the Share feature of Bloglines to work, not even with Tony's and Adriana's useful instructions, so alas I am unable to share with all of you my vast range of interests. I do now seem to have renamed my account BlogsFromBarbara so if you're really keen you can probably look it up.

Techno thought for the day

One of the biggest hurdles for me so far is reading through the licensing conditions for each web service. What a temptation, just to click 'I Agree' and move on to the fun part.

Like some others in this group whose posts I've read for some inspiration, I've lived through a huge shift in library technology, which has grown faster and faster in the last few years.

As long as a technology remains simple to use, it's accessible enough to me, especially if I learn it over a period of time. After all, I don't have to know all the complicated mechanics behind tone production in a pipe organ to be able to play it (though it does add something to the satisfaction, for some reason.) Creative mash-ups like those shown in The Mashup Library are interesting even if I have no idea how to implement similar things in our own environment.

BUT: having to read through and try to understand legal jargon before I can even get started in explorations does take away a lot of incentive to try out new things. I'm sure that all the library software I learned to use over the years had IP conditions and restrictions, but the site-wide license took care of all that for us; it was somebody else's responsibility to read and agree to the license. Now it's mine, and it takes a lot of time to digest it and think about the ramifications.

Hardest / Easiest habits

No contest: 'accepting responsibility for my own learning' is the hardest task for me, at least to the extent of developing a regular routine for getting through these weekly sessions.

I had expected 'Play' to be the easiest habit to acquire, but as the weeks tick by and my blog stays at one non-informative posting, I'm finding the 'play' aspect is disappearing. Maybe it's just that Flickr lost me completely.

Onwards and upwards, however; this week I'll try skipping over Flickr to one of the next projects, and see if it rekindles the fun. Which brings me to my new candidate for Easiest: viewing problems as challenges...