I did my homework on Technorati, and I think the reason I had such a hard time with it is because I thought there would be more to it than there is. There are SO many blogs, and SO MANY of them are blogs I would have absolutely no interest in spending time on. Think of blogs as people's diaries, but diaries we don't have the good sense to keep private, and we don't have the talent to make interesting. Maybe if I spent a lot of the minutes I have left of my life searching on Technorati, I'd find some blogs I really like, but blogs like Arianna Huffington's I can Google, I don't need to read the highlights, and to be honest, I don't need to see who else was reading it.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Saturday, September 22, 2007
My Identity Crisis
A fairly cautious individual, I tend to reveal little until I am reassured that I am safe. Also, of an age where there is already oh-so-much to remember, I know I am likely to lose a list of passwords, yet don't want to leave my identity hanging out, so to speak. So I try variations, and forget the variations. I rebel against locking up my private identifiers, so that I would have to resentfully unlock them to find out what they are. One of my financial institutions instituted such a complex logon with so many PERSONAL bits of information required that in anger I answered questions cryptically, and then forgot what my answers were. As a result, no matter how many times I reset my passwords, I am unable to access my account.
I wonder at people who so compliantly provide usernames and passwords to all kinds of websites.
And yet here I am intriqued by sites like Del.icio.us and Technorati, that I think I might want to actually use, and frustrated at the registration process. I don't know you, I want to say, why should I give you my name? If I just made a list of sites, I could have it on a piece of paper where I could find it, and you couldn't, unless I decided I wanted to share it with you. Maybe it's a holdover from academia, but how do I know what you'll do with my research?
And do we really think we can have enough passwords that we can keep people out, and at the same time have so much of ourselves so accessible by anyone?
Too philosophical, I have to do my homework now:
When I actually had a task, Del.icio.us suddenly made sense. It's fairly easy to use, and to access. I initially created an account that was anonymous, so I could walk away from it, and then when I decided I really wanted to use it, made it less so. As always, I don't have enough time to really get to know it.
As far as Technorati goes, whenever I try to explore it in a meaningful way, I get lost reading the blogs. And I forget what the assignment was anyway.
I wonder at people who so compliantly provide usernames and passwords to all kinds of websites.
And yet here I am intriqued by sites like Del.icio.us and Technorati, that I think I might want to actually use, and frustrated at the registration process. I don't know you, I want to say, why should I give you my name? If I just made a list of sites, I could have it on a piece of paper where I could find it, and you couldn't, unless I decided I wanted to share it with you. Maybe it's a holdover from academia, but how do I know what you'll do with my research?
And do we really think we can have enough passwords that we can keep people out, and at the same time have so much of ourselves so accessible by anyone?
Too philosophical, I have to do my homework now:
When I actually had a task, Del.icio.us suddenly made sense. It's fairly easy to use, and to access. I initially created an account that was anonymous, so I could walk away from it, and then when I decided I really wanted to use it, made it less so. As always, I don't have enough time to really get to know it.
As far as Technorati goes, whenever I try to explore it in a meaningful way, I get lost reading the blogs. And I forget what the assignment was anyway.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Are We Having Fun Yet???
I really really tried to have fun last week, but what ended up happening was that I learned to do some stuff. This is not a bad thing. Frustrating. Like the fact that this is the second time I've written this entry, because I was ready to post it, and in the spirit of discovery, instead of figuring out how to color in the title, I learned how to lose the whole entry. Actually, I don't know how I did it, so it could happen again.
It takes a bit of nerve to hit some of these buttons. I'm learning. I remember the first, very first, time I used the internet. It was at my library on Long Island, and I approached the keyboard with a lot of hesitation. And especially the "Enter" key. I vaguely remember being afraid I would get in trouble if I did something wrong. Not with the librarians, but with the computer.
Of course, there is also the fear that you'll break it. Which, even though "they" say, oh no don't worry you can't break it, YOU CAN. Although I think you need more knowledge than I have to break the thing. Just pounding on keys like toddlers or chimps won't do it.
Well, let me get back to "Fun Week". After spending many hours, on and off, all week, and consulting with two experts -- my 16-year-old son and my branch manager -- I figured out how to move a photo from an email to a file. Then I learned how to crop and change pixels. AND THEN I learned that I still couldn't Simpsonize the darned thing. AND THEN I learned that the reason it wouldn't work was because the photo was too small. And when I did it with the right size photo, it really wasn't that hard. So, that was worth it, wasn't it?
Which I think is the thing about learning this whole new medium. It's like a foreign language; it's not hard in and of itself; after all, little kids speak other languages all the time. What it needs is time. Lots and lots of time.
The nice thing about this Techtrekking, for all the kvetching I do, is that it is making me spend time I would never have found to spend to learn to do things I want to learn to do. I know if I spend lots more time on it I can get to the fun part, and now I have a choice.
And, by the way, I ended up finding that lost entry. I knew if I just hung around long enough it would turn up.
It takes a bit of nerve to hit some of these buttons. I'm learning. I remember the first, very first, time I used the internet. It was at my library on Long Island, and I approached the keyboard with a lot of hesitation. And especially the "Enter" key. I vaguely remember being afraid I would get in trouble if I did something wrong. Not with the librarians, but with the computer.
Of course, there is also the fear that you'll break it. Which, even though "they" say, oh no don't worry you can't break it, YOU CAN. Although I think you need more knowledge than I have to break the thing. Just pounding on keys like toddlers or chimps won't do it.
Well, let me get back to "Fun Week". After spending many hours, on and off, all week, and consulting with two experts -- my 16-year-old son and my branch manager -- I figured out how to move a photo from an email to a file. Then I learned how to crop and change pixels. AND THEN I learned that I still couldn't Simpsonize the darned thing. AND THEN I learned that the reason it wouldn't work was because the photo was too small. And when I did it with the right size photo, it really wasn't that hard. So, that was worth it, wasn't it?
Which I think is the thing about learning this whole new medium. It's like a foreign language; it's not hard in and of itself; after all, little kids speak other languages all the time. What it needs is time. Lots and lots of time.
The nice thing about this Techtrekking, for all the kvetching I do, is that it is making me spend time I would never have found to spend to learn to do things I want to learn to do. I know if I spend lots more time on it I can get to the fun part, and now I have a choice.
And, by the way, I ended up finding that lost entry. I knew if I just hung around long enough it would turn up.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Gathering Momentum
After a couple of weeks of Tech Trekking, I had just started to experience that itch to get online and do stuff, when I went north to Illinois to visit my daughter. She had learned that if you put your coffee mug and laptop in the bike rack they just might mingle, and ended up with a laptop that was no longer portable. So, since I tend to be more stationary more often than she, and I don't mind my technology plugged into the wall, I inherited her iMac, iBook, whatever. While I had it at home it took me a week to figure out how to turn it on, so I took it back to Illinois for a reunion. We four (my Mac and her new Mac) had a lovely time; I think my daughter enjoys teaching an old dog new tricks. Do you know that some computers have video??? I thought you had to have a camera to get on You Tube! So we spent some time sitting next to each other trying to do a video chat, but couldn't for some reason. She thinks when I'm farther away it will work better....
I think sometimes of my daughter and her friends in their high school days chatting online when they could have just picked up the phone and talked.
Then I think of meeting a friend on a virtual rooftop to watch a virtual sunset when a real sunset is so much prettier.
I hope I never lose sight of those thoughts.
I think sometimes of my daughter and her friends in their high school days chatting online when they could have just picked up the phone and talked.
Then I think of meeting a friend on a virtual rooftop to watch a virtual sunset when a real sunset is so much prettier.
I hope I never lose sight of those thoughts.
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