4 posts tagged “web2.0”
It's LO's bday, but I got my own nice little present today. I won an iPod Nano (8 GB) along with an iTunes and Borders gift certificates for participating in a Learning 2.0 program at work. As it turns out, I had a 50/50 chance at winning since only 2 people completed the program out of the 20 or so who originally signed up. A major component of the program was to blog about our thoughts on various 2.0 applications in academic environments. You can find my blog here.
As for the real celebration of the day, I'm heading home now to be with the fam. No shortage of gifts to unwrap. The biggie of the bunch is that LO's getting a bunny rabbit. So, in the space of a month we've gone from no pets to having both a cat and a rabbit. I'm a little ambivalent about the latter as I have concerns about it being able to stay cool, get enough time outside the hutch and stay safe from raccoons and opossums. But, as is often the case, my word is only just one opinion, and an easily trumped one at that. Anyway, looking forward to what will hopefully be a nice evening.
Saturday morning. Little One's at German school. BH is at her new job. I'm hanging out at a coffee shop getting geared up to edit the paper I took on for a German think tank a little over a week ago. Driving over to the German school we got a crystal clear view of the mountains, with more snow on them then I can ever recall seeing. Wow - really wish I could head up there! Alas, there's tons of stuff to get done (the semi-psycho woman trying to engage me in a conversation is not helping).
The landlord actually did do the work he promised to on Thurs. Hopefully that'll be the end of our mouse problems. Of course, there are other problems: woke up Friday to no hot water (wind often blows out the pilot light and we don't have access to the water heater in the garages below the house) and water that had leaked in through the roof of the bay window. A move is looking better all the time.
Starting to have some second thoughts about the whole Facebook thing. We were talking about it at work (one of my coworker is one of my "friends" and my boss is feeling pressured to get an account), and yesterday my boss sent us this interesting critique of the site. [This is a revised link to the original article in the Guardian and includes excerpts from FB's (lack of) privacy policy] I guess I shouldn't be surprised. It certainly gives one reason to pause and reconsider whether this is something I want to participate in. On the positive side of the ledger, I have been able to reconnect with a few people through the site. On the other hand, I have received "friend requests" from people with whom I'm not really friends with, just acquaintenances, putting one in the awkward position of how to respond. Say "yes" and they are suddenly a "friend" (but what the hell does that mean?). Say "no" and you may alienate a person you don't want to alienate. And I have been guilty too of sending friend requests to people I know and would be interested in hearing from, but with whom I have no real intention of staying in regular touch with. It's all a bit weird, to say the least.
Oh, and while we're on the topic of critiquing Web 2.0, this Slate article about Amazon reviews should come as no surprise to anyone.
Now that we've taken a peek at the dark side of technology, here's a new cool tool I've been playing with. It's called Jott. Let's you send an email or text msg using your voice over the phone. But even better than that for me is being able to use it to post reminders to my Google Calendar. Very nice when you remember something on the go and aren't near a computer or just don't want to turn on the PC. Works reasonably well -- the other day I called in all my assignment due dates for my classes and had them sent to my calendar. When I checked on the computer the next day, they were all there.
So I just set up a Facebook account using a new alias. What I didn't realize is that when the account searched my contacts list to see who I knew already had accounts, I would then be sending them an email to "friend" me (I still can't get used to using friend as a verb). So, if you get a request from the Knowledge Nomad, no worries, that'd be me. Don't know if I'll actually use the thing, but figured I'd at least check out what all the kids in the library are doing (since they sure aren't studying much).
Todays new cool tool to try is...Meebo Me. If you look at the right-hand column and scroll down, you should see a little box entitled "Back Chat". There you will also see whether "onelesscar" is online. If I am, we can chat right there and then. No other software to download, no additional IM account to create. Let's see how well it works.
