Feed me!

I've just been exploring a bit more with finding feeds. Topix.net looked very overwhelming. I tried searching "libraries" but it did not seem to come up with much. I tried "ancient Rome" and it listed seemingly almost everything published by newspapers about events taking place in various Romes in the US. I think there was about 20 towns (at least) called Rome in the US at first glance! I didn't spend any more time refining my search technique (I'm sure there was an advanced search somewhere). I moved on to look at Syndic8.com and that was easier to navigate. I looked at a librarian community blog which incidentally had a post from someone asking for library blogs to add to her RSS feed. One suggestion was Tame the Web. I visited this blog and decided to add the feed to Bloglines. However I could not find a feed reference anywhere except for right at the bottom of the page. I clicked on it and found it was blocked and deemed a "malicious" site. It looks like feedburner.com, which appears to host the RSS feed for the blog, is banned like Technorati, which is mentioned in the Finding feeds topic information. So Page 2RSS came to the rescue and I now have a feed for that page.

Topic 7: Finding feeds

I've just completed the main exercise in Topic 7, which is using Page 2RSS. I was not able to drag the link to my toolbar. Instead I added it to my Favourites list. I decided to navigate to Panorama's Resources page and create a feed for that. This way, if an update to that page is made that I have requested eg a new version of a guide to be added to the page, I will see that it has been done. So I went to the Resources page then opened my favourites list and clicked on the "Add to Page 2RSS" link. This brought me to a page where I could click on the "Bloglines" link which added the feed to my Bloglines page. I will be back to edit this post once I have done some searches for new feeds in order to comment on some of the questions for Topic 7.

Topic 6: RSS feeds

I decided to use Bloglines at my RSS aggregator. I found the instructions in the handout created by Gilles Plains really useful in helping me create an account and sign up to some websites suggested in the topic outline. These instructions look quite comprehensive and deal with subscribing to feeds other than blogs, such as Flickr and podcasts. It occurs to me that by "following" other Blogger.com blogs I have subscribed to an RSS feed of sorts. When I am at the Blogger Dashboard I can see summaries of any new posts posted by anyone with a blog in the 23 Things pilot group. Subscribing to RSS feeds saves a lot of time visiting sites individually for updates. Visiting one website (Bloglines) instead of many is a definite time saver. I think it took me about 15 minutes to sign up to Bloglines and add some feeds.

Topic 5: registering my blog

I thought I'd mention Topic 5 quickly before writing about Topic 6. Topic 5 was simply registering my blog on the Progress Log. I have not used Google Documents before and it seems like a easy way to collaborate on a document. It's certainly useful for 23 things where people from different networks can contribute to a document (impossible using individual network shared drives). I like to check it regularly to see if anyone else has created their blog so I can "follow" them.

Topic 3: Movi

I tried Movi with Louise on Monday and it was not completely successful. I was able to join Louise's conference without trouble. The webcam worked beautifully but she could not hear me and I could not hear her (We used the phone instead). My PC audio settings were adjusted for the headset and I went through the audio tuning wizard which successfully completed. So all signs pointed to it working for the conference but it did not when it came to the crunch. I have had a taste of the Movi experience at least and I will fiddle with the headphones again later - I have not had a chance to yet this week, it's been so hectic. In terms of task duration, I would say it took an hour altogether for equipment installation, movi-ing and troubleshooting.

Topic 2: See and Share

I joined my Panorama colleague Louise's See and Share conference this morning - me at my desk, and Louise in the managers' office at the other end of the building. We shared each other's desktops and tried out various functions. It looks like it is a useful tool for reviewing documents and making changes on the spot rather than emailing attachments back and forth with comments. A change to a document can be decided instantly without having to wait for a turn around time. In terms of task duration once Louise's email invitation appeared in my inbox it was very easy to open the program from my desktop and put in the password and get started, a matter of moments really. I did find a lag time between the desktop sharer's action and seeing the result on the screen. For example, I could see Louise's mouse arrow clicking on a folder but had to wait a second or two for it to show the opened folder. I'd imagine opening the folder occurred much faster than that. So things don't always happen instantaneously for the person viewing the desktop of the other user which should be kept in mind by the person controlling the desktop at the time.

Topic 4: Blogging

I've decided each post will have a title referring to which "Thing" of the 23 I'm currently working on. In this case it is the topic about starting a blog (I've yet to complete Topics 2 and 3 (See and Share, Movi) ). This task took me about 20 mins. A third of that time was trying to create my Blogger account. The verification words are hard to decipher. Even when I thought I correctly identified an 'a' and an 'i' were separate and were not in fact just an 'a', it still rejected it. I had to repeat log in details and hope to get a word that was easier to identify. I had the same trouble with Google accounts - it took me four times before I got the word correct. This process may be successful in keeping away spambots creating bogus accounts etc, but it might also be successful in keeping away legitimate users. Once past the account creation stage, it was easy to get started and post a message.

Introduction

Hello...(taps microphone, clears throat)...Welcome to my blog. This blog will cover my experience with the 23 Things course. I'm looking forward to playing with 2.0 technologies and hopefully learning something along the way.