I checked out two sites for this assignment: Aviary.com and Animoto.com. I plan to look into Aviary more at a later date (it appears to be sort of a free online Photoshop deal); I signed up at Animoto.
Animoto makes music videos out of the user's photos and/or video. Uploading is incredibly simple; it's actually easier than Flickr or Facebook, since I don't have to tag anything or describe anything. After uploading photos/videos, choosing music, and some extra features if you choose to use them (text, elements) Animoto puts together what is essentially a fancy slideshow for you. With almost no effort on my part, I have a nifty little video that I can share with friends.
The major downside is that free service only gets you a thirty second video. You have to buy in if you want to have full-length videos made. I made the mistake of uploading an entire album (50 pics), figuring that I would decide which ones I wanted to use once they were uploaded. Then I read that I'm only supposed to upload 8-12 for maximum effect, so I had to wait a really, really long time for the computers to stop talking to each other since I couldn't find a stop button anywhere.
I haven't seen anybody use this exact site yet, but I have seen people put their slideshows to music, and that always makes it more interesting. I think that there is a lot that I could do with this site if I were willing to pay for the full package and if I used the video feature on my camera more often before I killed it (accidentally). I will most likely not use this professionally.
I read over their privacy policy, and I don't see anywhere how I can make my video private - the policy just says that they won't be sharing my information with anyone.
I'm not overly concerned with what this would say about me - it could be a useful way to market myself, except that I have better software on my computer with which I could do similar things but maintain greater control over how it's all put together. I will most likely delete my account after this class is over. (I wish I'd chosen Aviary!)
Huh. Well, just after writing this, my friend got done watching the video and said that it looks really nice. Maybe I should try again after all. :) I need to be more careful about my music selection though - I chose one of their songs and I feel that it didn't match up well with the pictures.
4.27.2010
Photo Tools Assignment
Hello All -
I chose Flickr. I did go to the websites that Ms. Scow put up for us to look through, since I thought that maybe there was something pretty neat out there that I hadn't heard of yet, but after a couple of dead links and one site that merged into another one and blah blah, I went ahead to Flickr's site. I've been on there from doing image searches through Google, but I have never used it for my own pictures.
I had to create an account with Yahoo!mail before I could open my Flickr account. Great, yet another email to check (my friend uses an email address that checks all of his emails for him at the same time - Mozilla Thunderbird? - I should probably check that out). The site is easy to use, with a nice clean interface with big numbers next to the directions. Yay! I'm really tired of cluttered websites that assume I care enough to figure out how to use them.
I chose Flickr mostly because it's so widely used now and I felt behind the times on not knowing how to use it. I liked that there were gift/stuff-making options - I'll probably never use it since it seems kind of spendy and time-intensive, but it's fun to know that it's there. My sister went ahead and made one of those Blurb books out of her blog of traveling in New Zealand for two months - considering it's all pictures and it's a vanity press (known for being generally expensive) $45 or so isn't bad.
Most people use Flickr personally, but I don't know whether I'll really bother for the most part since I'm on Facebook and I already have a place to share my pictures with people. I don't really like the thought of my good pictures getting ripped off by people, so I don't plan to put anything seriously awesome up. I do see it as a good place to back up photos from work events, though - with the privacy setting enabled, it would make good storage that could be accessed by anyone in my department whenever there's a need.
I am not particularly concerned with what this tool says about me, but I don't plan to post very personal pictures, either. I dislike posting pictures of my children for any weirdo to look at.
One other thing that I learned is that there are many tools for conveniently getting pics off of a computer and into Flickr. I downloaded a desktop tool that allows me to put more photos in faster than their online uploading tool.
For those who may be interested, I added a few pics from my family vacation last summer. http://www.flickr.com/photos/zombieviscer8r/
I chose Flickr. I did go to the websites that Ms. Scow put up for us to look through, since I thought that maybe there was something pretty neat out there that I hadn't heard of yet, but after a couple of dead links and one site that merged into another one and blah blah, I went ahead to Flickr's site. I've been on there from doing image searches through Google, but I have never used it for my own pictures.
I had to create an account with Yahoo!mail before I could open my Flickr account. Great, yet another email to check (my friend uses an email address that checks all of his emails for him at the same time - Mozilla Thunderbird? - I should probably check that out). The site is easy to use, with a nice clean interface with big numbers next to the directions. Yay! I'm really tired of cluttered websites that assume I care enough to figure out how to use them.
I chose Flickr mostly because it's so widely used now and I felt behind the times on not knowing how to use it. I liked that there were gift/stuff-making options - I'll probably never use it since it seems kind of spendy and time-intensive, but it's fun to know that it's there. My sister went ahead and made one of those Blurb books out of her blog of traveling in New Zealand for two months - considering it's all pictures and it's a vanity press (known for being generally expensive) $45 or so isn't bad.
Most people use Flickr personally, but I don't know whether I'll really bother for the most part since I'm on Facebook and I already have a place to share my pictures with people. I don't really like the thought of my good pictures getting ripped off by people, so I don't plan to put anything seriously awesome up. I do see it as a good place to back up photos from work events, though - with the privacy setting enabled, it would make good storage that could be accessed by anyone in my department whenever there's a need.
I am not particularly concerned with what this tool says about me, but I don't plan to post very personal pictures, either. I dislike posting pictures of my children for any weirdo to look at.
One other thing that I learned is that there are many tools for conveniently getting pics off of a computer and into Flickr. I downloaded a desktop tool that allows me to put more photos in faster than their online uploading tool.
For those who may be interested, I added a few pics from my family vacation last summer. http://www.flickr.com/photos/zombieviscer8r/
4.23.2010
Yardwork
I feel the need to share my marvelous stupidity with the world.
I bought my first house in November. It had been foreclosed upon, which means various things (beyond affordability), such as a yard that had not been tended to for quite some time. Shortly after the purchase agreement went through, the lawn care stopped. The purchase agreement itself went into effect in, without checking my records, ah, August or early September. The grass got pretty long. There is a large cottonwood tree in the backyard, and the leaves fell down on top of the long grass. This spring has seen me outside working to rectify years of neglect.
It turns out that the owners of this property really weren't yard people. The mature apple tree, also in the back, was in sore need of trimming (part of which the electric company came along and mowed off last fall with no regard for the proper way to do it). There is a small orchard around the apple tree of suckers that were allowed to grow unchecked, many of which are so large that I'm going to need to pull them out with a chain attached to a pickup truck. I had attempted to trim the tree in the early spring when it's healthiest for the tree, but as that is the extent of my knowledge of how to properly trim, I had a hard time even determining what was dead or alive and so decided to finish at a later date.
The suburban neighborhood that I live in came with many neighbors who do normal suburban things such as mowing their lawns in a timely fashion, and I was the last person on my block to get around to it. Having determined that I could no longer have a scrubby, half dead yard and hold my head up high, I decided that tonight was going to see me breaking out the lawn mower that I recently purchased and getting at least some of my grass chopped down.
This might be a good time to mention that for over a week I have been so tired that I am drunk. Yesterday I almost went home from work sick because my body was crashing so violently. Today I was shaking from exhaustion while just standing still.
After having put my kids to bed, I started to mow. It went fairly well until I got to the hill next to my house. I have a very healthy respect for the damage that a mower can do to a human body since I have seen the toe of a man who had a lawnmower run it over when he lost his step on a hill (*wince and onomatopoeic word of fear and disgust here). The mower got stuck in some soft dirt as I was pushing it uphill, but instead of wisely figuring out how to safely deal with the situation, I pushed harder and harder until it became dislodged. It was alright in the end, but, eh...kind of stupid.
After having mowed the entire lawn and feeling quite pleased with myself for my grown-uppedness with not only owning a house but a lawnmower and having the drive to get the job done, I decided to sit in the backyard and admire my handiwork. It was at this point that I looked at the apple tree and saw how much deadwood there really was in the tree, now visible by contrast to the growth on the rest of it. I went to the garage and took out my pruning shears and pruning saw and proceeded to the tree.
I have no ladders. I priced them a while back but was too stingy to buy one, so I lodged the shears in a crotch in the tree, put the saw firmly between my teeth, and started climbing.
I also have a healthy respect for the dangers of tree trimming, since one of my grandfathers fell while doing it and broke some pretty necessary bones and nearly died.
I had the wonderful idea that I would start from right where I was and prune my way up. I very sensibly lodged myself in ways that would most likely keep me from falling and proceeded to trim. I took off a lot of branches and was feeling pretty good about myself, when I realized that I had pruned some of my safe way back down out of the tree (much like painting oneself into a corner, only twenty to thirty feet up from the ground). I then further realized that I had left my phone inside of the house, and that the only people who knew where I was wouldn't be waking up for about eleven hours and that I might wind up having to spend the night in the tree (it now occurs to me that I could have shouted, but that was lost on me at the moment). Other realizations included that it was now mostly dark and that it was raining.
I kept trimming, largely unconcerned about all of these things. I climbed higher and higher into the tree, and as the branches left it and I had fewer places to lodge myself, my perches got sketchier and sketchier until I got to the point that I was holding myself into the tree with my left hand grasping a flimsy dead branch while my right hand vigorously sawed away.
Eventually I forced myself to throw the saw out of the tree so that I couldn't trim anymore, after which point I proceeded to just grab the branches and wrench them off (did I mention in the dark with rain falling?). I finally began to descend from the tree and noticed how much I missed those dead branches that I'd climbed up. I didn't have any footholds to make my drop to the ground safer, so I just grabbed a (dead) piece of branch that jutted out a hand's width and used that to swing my entire body's weight down and out of the tree.
By the time I was done gathering all of the dead branches into a pile elsewhere, it was too dark to even see what the tree looked like.
No, I didn't actually get hurt. No, this story is not high drama, nor is there any reason for anyone to care about it. But as I sat in my three season porch pretending that there was enough light to admire my work, I couldn't help but think that I needed to share, as I said, my marvelous stupidity.
I bought my first house in November. It had been foreclosed upon, which means various things (beyond affordability), such as a yard that had not been tended to for quite some time. Shortly after the purchase agreement went through, the lawn care stopped. The purchase agreement itself went into effect in, without checking my records, ah, August or early September. The grass got pretty long. There is a large cottonwood tree in the backyard, and the leaves fell down on top of the long grass. This spring has seen me outside working to rectify years of neglect.
It turns out that the owners of this property really weren't yard people. The mature apple tree, also in the back, was in sore need of trimming (part of which the electric company came along and mowed off last fall with no regard for the proper way to do it). There is a small orchard around the apple tree of suckers that were allowed to grow unchecked, many of which are so large that I'm going to need to pull them out with a chain attached to a pickup truck. I had attempted to trim the tree in the early spring when it's healthiest for the tree, but as that is the extent of my knowledge of how to properly trim, I had a hard time even determining what was dead or alive and so decided to finish at a later date.
The suburban neighborhood that I live in came with many neighbors who do normal suburban things such as mowing their lawns in a timely fashion, and I was the last person on my block to get around to it. Having determined that I could no longer have a scrubby, half dead yard and hold my head up high, I decided that tonight was going to see me breaking out the lawn mower that I recently purchased and getting at least some of my grass chopped down.
This might be a good time to mention that for over a week I have been so tired that I am drunk. Yesterday I almost went home from work sick because my body was crashing so violently. Today I was shaking from exhaustion while just standing still.
After having put my kids to bed, I started to mow. It went fairly well until I got to the hill next to my house. I have a very healthy respect for the damage that a mower can do to a human body since I have seen the toe of a man who had a lawnmower run it over when he lost his step on a hill (*wince and onomatopoeic word of fear and disgust here). The mower got stuck in some soft dirt as I was pushing it uphill, but instead of wisely figuring out how to safely deal with the situation, I pushed harder and harder until it became dislodged. It was alright in the end, but, eh...kind of stupid.
After having mowed the entire lawn and feeling quite pleased with myself for my grown-uppedness with not only owning a house but a lawnmower and having the drive to get the job done, I decided to sit in the backyard and admire my handiwork. It was at this point that I looked at the apple tree and saw how much deadwood there really was in the tree, now visible by contrast to the growth on the rest of it. I went to the garage and took out my pruning shears and pruning saw and proceeded to the tree.
I have no ladders. I priced them a while back but was too stingy to buy one, so I lodged the shears in a crotch in the tree, put the saw firmly between my teeth, and started climbing.
I also have a healthy respect for the dangers of tree trimming, since one of my grandfathers fell while doing it and broke some pretty necessary bones and nearly died.
I had the wonderful idea that I would start from right where I was and prune my way up. I very sensibly lodged myself in ways that would most likely keep me from falling and proceeded to trim. I took off a lot of branches and was feeling pretty good about myself, when I realized that I had pruned some of my safe way back down out of the tree (much like painting oneself into a corner, only twenty to thirty feet up from the ground). I then further realized that I had left my phone inside of the house, and that the only people who knew where I was wouldn't be waking up for about eleven hours and that I might wind up having to spend the night in the tree (it now occurs to me that I could have shouted, but that was lost on me at the moment). Other realizations included that it was now mostly dark and that it was raining.
I kept trimming, largely unconcerned about all of these things. I climbed higher and higher into the tree, and as the branches left it and I had fewer places to lodge myself, my perches got sketchier and sketchier until I got to the point that I was holding myself into the tree with my left hand grasping a flimsy dead branch while my right hand vigorously sawed away.
Eventually I forced myself to throw the saw out of the tree so that I couldn't trim anymore, after which point I proceeded to just grab the branches and wrench them off (did I mention in the dark with rain falling?). I finally began to descend from the tree and noticed how much I missed those dead branches that I'd climbed up. I didn't have any footholds to make my drop to the ground safer, so I just grabbed a (dead) piece of branch that jutted out a hand's width and used that to swing my entire body's weight down and out of the tree.
By the time I was done gathering all of the dead branches into a pile elsewhere, it was too dark to even see what the tree looked like.
No, I didn't actually get hurt. No, this story is not high drama, nor is there any reason for anyone to care about it. But as I sat in my three season porch pretending that there was enough light to admire my work, I couldn't help but think that I needed to share, as I said, my marvelous stupidity.
4.20.2010
Social Bookmarks Assignment
I signed up for two bookmarking sites: Google bookmark (which gives me the same interface that I have on my RSS reader, my email, my online calendar, etc, making it super duper easy to use) and StumbleUpon.
After registering with StumbleUpon, I tell it what topics I'm interested in and it comes up with sites that I might like. When I'm signed in, I can hit like or dislike and the software gets to know my preferences, as well as my vote going towards the overall rating from users. You can also comment on the pages on StumbleUpon's main site. Users can "Connect with Friends," and when I clicked on that area, StumbleUpon already knew some of my contacts on Facebook, which I found really creepy since I hadn't given it permission to access my account (at least not knowingly).
StumbleUpon is very easy to use and fun. I have found a bunch of cool websites that I never would have otherwise. Try this one: it's hilarious. http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html
I will not be using this professionally; if I used this at work I would not get ANY work done, EVER. :D
I'm not planning on being part of the social part of the bookmarking tools, which makes the privacy issue nonexistent. When I find bookmarks that I want to share I email them or post them as links on Facebook, and I don't have so many bookmarks that I actually need a special place for them. I can use my bookmarks function just as easily, and I know what sites are what typically because I bookmark infrequently and only if I use a site daily or I can't remember the search term easily.
I do think that I will continue to use StumbleUpon; it'll be a fun thing to do while I'm chatting online with people and they're typing slowly.
Here's some zombification for ya'll, because I feel strongly that it's been too long since I included something about zombies on here.
After registering with StumbleUpon, I tell it what topics I'm interested in and it comes up with sites that I might like. When I'm signed in, I can hit like or dislike and the software gets to know my preferences, as well as my vote going towards the overall rating from users. You can also comment on the pages on StumbleUpon's main site. Users can "Connect with Friends," and when I clicked on that area, StumbleUpon already knew some of my contacts on Facebook, which I found really creepy since I hadn't given it permission to access my account (at least not knowingly).
StumbleUpon is very easy to use and fun. I have found a bunch of cool websites that I never would have otherwise. Try this one: it's hilarious. http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html
I will not be using this professionally; if I used this at work I would not get ANY work done, EVER. :D
I'm not planning on being part of the social part of the bookmarking tools, which makes the privacy issue nonexistent. When I find bookmarks that I want to share I email them or post them as links on Facebook, and I don't have so many bookmarks that I actually need a special place for them. I can use my bookmarks function just as easily, and I know what sites are what typically because I bookmark infrequently and only if I use a site daily or I can't remember the search term easily.
I do think that I will continue to use StumbleUpon; it'll be a fun thing to do while I'm chatting online with people and they're typing slowly.
Here's some zombification for ya'll, because I feel strongly that it's been too long since I included something about zombies on here.
Social Networks Assignment
Initially I chose a social networking site called “MediaSite.” It is for professionals in the marketing/advertising sphere, and I thought it would complement my other class’s work nicely and help keep me abreast of what is going on in the online marketing world. The site offers articles on various online marketing subjects. As soon as I signed up, I got inundated with update emails from different topics, but most of them were just the articles that were already available on the homepage (I quickly turned off the email option in my account). Then I read one of the blogs/articles written by a member of the site, and not only was it completely unprofessional, but it had nothing to do with marketing. The comments that were written below it included personal attacks. I have decided not to return to the site unless it is to withdraw my membership.
The next site that I signed up for was much better: BooksConnect (http://www.countrybookshop.co.uk/booksconnect/). It is made for writing professionals to connect with each other. It offers events by location as well as material by new authors. The site sells books as well. I checked out their “Horror and ghost stories” link and the offerings were slim, as they usually are for a genre that is not taken seriously (even by its own authors much of the time). The site could be a good place for me to get my name out, as that is a crucial part of the writing world (there is a place to post blogs and articles as well as an inquiries for submissions to publish link), but unfortunately, the site is based out of the UK and most users will probably be based in the wrong location for me to actually get much out of it. I did appreciate that the site did not ask for my picture when setting up my profile – it shouldn’t matter what I look like on a professional networking site. As far as what I want the site to say about me, it would be a good place to showcase some of my writing and possibly advertise my editing services. It would be for my personal professional use as opposed to my job professional use, if that makes sense.
The site is clean and easy to use. I like the search engine better than Amazon.com’s, and Amazon has so many ads and links on its pages that I get overwhelmed and annoyed pretty quickly. I probably won’t use this site much, but it gives me hope to keep looking for something similar based out of the U.S.
The next site that I signed up for was much better: BooksConnect (http://www.countrybookshop.co.uk/booksconnect/). It is made for writing professionals to connect with each other. It offers events by location as well as material by new authors. The site sells books as well. I checked out their “Horror and ghost stories” link and the offerings were slim, as they usually are for a genre that is not taken seriously (even by its own authors much of the time). The site could be a good place for me to get my name out, as that is a crucial part of the writing world (there is a place to post blogs and articles as well as an inquiries for submissions to publish link), but unfortunately, the site is based out of the UK and most users will probably be based in the wrong location for me to actually get much out of it. I did appreciate that the site did not ask for my picture when setting up my profile – it shouldn’t matter what I look like on a professional networking site. As far as what I want the site to say about me, it would be a good place to showcase some of my writing and possibly advertise my editing services. It would be for my personal professional use as opposed to my job professional use, if that makes sense.
The site is clean and easy to use. I like the search engine better than Amazon.com’s, and Amazon has so many ads and links on its pages that I get overwhelmed and annoyed pretty quickly. I probably won’t use this site much, but it gives me hope to keep looking for something similar based out of the U.S.
4.12.2010
My Second Tool Choice
Hi all.
My second choice was "Content." Initially I looked into Smak.ly, a site to increase traffic to one's blog, but after repeated attempts to watch the instructional video not working, and a page of the workers suspiciously (maybe it was meant to be humorously) showing 8 pictures of the same man with the the same title, I decided not to give personal information.
So I actually wound up working with Yudu.com. It's a site that allows free downloads and uploads of printed materials. It seems as though it winds up being a file-sharing site, as I'm not certain that everything that people are uploading are their own original material (although I could be wrong and it could be in the public domain). I chose this site because it has a direct correlation to my E Commerce idea (my other class - I know some of you are in there, too). The site is fairly easy to use with crisp graphics and a nice-looking instructional video. It was pretty self-explanatory. The e-books were displayed in Adobe Flash, which was nice for me since I already know how to interface with that software, but the site would be unusable for someone with a low bandwidth (too much downloading).
I could see possibly using it professionally, as I like to keep track of chances for students to find materials free (eg. there was some Dickens and Shakespeare available on there), but I don't think I will continue to use it on my own. I have very strong views on Intellectual Property rights, and it really seems as though there is abuse happening on the site (which Yudu probably regularly goes in and cleans up, but still).
The site is free, but it promotes its (very reasonably priced) upgrade subscriptions all over the place. I understand that businesses are there to make money, and I don't know that I wouldn't do the same thing in their place, but I really dislike feeling like I'm being upsold. That is the other reason that I likely will not return to the site.
My second choice was "Content." Initially I looked into Smak.ly, a site to increase traffic to one's blog, but after repeated attempts to watch the instructional video not working, and a page of the workers suspiciously (maybe it was meant to be humorously) showing 8 pictures of the same man with the the same title, I decided not to give personal information.
So I actually wound up working with Yudu.com. It's a site that allows free downloads and uploads of printed materials. It seems as though it winds up being a file-sharing site, as I'm not certain that everything that people are uploading are their own original material (although I could be wrong and it could be in the public domain). I chose this site because it has a direct correlation to my E Commerce idea (my other class - I know some of you are in there, too). The site is fairly easy to use with crisp graphics and a nice-looking instructional video. It was pretty self-explanatory. The e-books were displayed in Adobe Flash, which was nice for me since I already know how to interface with that software, but the site would be unusable for someone with a low bandwidth (too much downloading).
I could see possibly using it professionally, as I like to keep track of chances for students to find materials free (eg. there was some Dickens and Shakespeare available on there), but I don't think I will continue to use it on my own. I have very strong views on Intellectual Property rights, and it really seems as though there is abuse happening on the site (which Yudu probably regularly goes in and cleans up, but still).
The site is free, but it promotes its (very reasonably priced) upgrade subscriptions all over the place. I understand that businesses are there to make money, and I don't know that I wouldn't do the same thing in their place, but I really dislike feeling like I'm being upsold. That is the other reason that I likely will not return to the site.
4.11.2010
Web Tool Choice One
I dug around on the database site provided for our easy research and found one under Organization that I liked called Nirvana - an online one-stop personal organizing site. I took the tour and decided that it would be something that I could see myself using, and when I went to make an account, it turned out that it's not taking new accounts right now. I could put myself on their waiting list and in one to two weeks they'd probably get back to me about an account. I was pretty sure that would make my assignment late, so I kept looking... and found Stixy.com.
It's pretty easy to use. You make an account and you get a virtual corkboard. You can drag sticky notes, pics, to-do notes (like the sticky notes but with time and date, and the site offers reminders on those items), or even documents onto the board. Instead of telling you how to arrange your data like most organization tools, the user gets to place things however s/he wants. The sticky's can be made different sizes or colors depending on the user's organizing whims. There are a couple of things I haven't been able to figure out yet, such as how to make a title for my board (Stixy allows multiple boards) and I can't find a tour or how-to link on the site, but I can work around that.
As of writing this, I have not seen any other students' blogs saying that they've used this site. The example the website uses is of planning a bike trip. I see myself as using this personally - I chose it because I organize well with lists and sticky notes, and since this is on the web, I can sign in from wherever and add something to my board (which is great since I can't remember to bring a calendar anywhere nor update it with my plans when I get back to it). The board that I created so far is a general task list - I have the homework assignments written on it as well as reminders to change the laundry, complete my census form, etc. I look forward to creating a board to organize the personal shower I'm throwing for my sister next month - I can track recipes, costs, invitations, RSVP's, or whatever on there. It also has a collaboration element to it in that I can invite other people to sign in to the account (customizable by each board, so someone on my shower board isn't necessarily given access to my son's birthday party board, for example). My sister could jump on there and add something if she wanted, which is pretty neat, since we don't have very many chances to talk in person and most of our communication is digital.
I don't see myself using this professionally since we've got Outlook at work with similar functions, and I tend to use real sticky notes posted along the sides of my computer to remember random things throughout the day.
One other thing I learned: it's hard to try out online collaboration tools when I am not collaborating with anyone on something; thus, the organization tool was chosen after wasting a lot of time looking at the collaboration tools.
It's pretty easy to use. You make an account and you get a virtual corkboard. You can drag sticky notes, pics, to-do notes (like the sticky notes but with time and date, and the site offers reminders on those items), or even documents onto the board. Instead of telling you how to arrange your data like most organization tools, the user gets to place things however s/he wants. The sticky's can be made different sizes or colors depending on the user's organizing whims. There are a couple of things I haven't been able to figure out yet, such as how to make a title for my board (Stixy allows multiple boards) and I can't find a tour or how-to link on the site, but I can work around that.
As of writing this, I have not seen any other students' blogs saying that they've used this site. The example the website uses is of planning a bike trip. I see myself as using this personally - I chose it because I organize well with lists and sticky notes, and since this is on the web, I can sign in from wherever and add something to my board (which is great since I can't remember to bring a calendar anywhere nor update it with my plans when I get back to it). The board that I created so far is a general task list - I have the homework assignments written on it as well as reminders to change the laundry, complete my census form, etc. I look forward to creating a board to organize the personal shower I'm throwing for my sister next month - I can track recipes, costs, invitations, RSVP's, or whatever on there. It also has a collaboration element to it in that I can invite other people to sign in to the account (customizable by each board, so someone on my shower board isn't necessarily given access to my son's birthday party board, for example). My sister could jump on there and add something if she wanted, which is pretty neat, since we don't have very many chances to talk in person and most of our communication is digital.
I don't see myself using this professionally since we've got Outlook at work with similar functions, and I tend to use real sticky notes posted along the sides of my computer to remember random things throughout the day.
One other thing I learned: it's hard to try out online collaboration tools when I am not collaborating with anyone on something; thus, the organization tool was chosen after wasting a lot of time looking at the collaboration tools.
4.10.2010
E Portfolios
Ah, the E Portfolio. To be honest, I hate them. I find that they lack a real customization to be able to really get across who you are. They also make me very nervous, as the only ones I've used to date have been job search related. I had to create one to apply for my job at NHCC (I imagine this was through the efolio link that was available since that was through MnSCU).
Today I signed up for a portfolio through Visual CV. It was ok in terms of usability. I liked that I could import my LinkedIn profile, which made it pretty painless to populate my history. I don't expect that I will ever return to the site unless for an assignment in this class.
I was interested in some of the other portfolio sites for artists, but since what I saw seemed to be for visual artists, I didn't know that they would be any more appropriate for me as an author than the other, more job oriented sites. I really feel that keeping a current blog and pointing people to a professional website about me is more appropriate for me as an author. I'm also not looking for a new job right now. Because of this, I made my portfolio private (available only to those with whom I share it).
I found it very curious that my name (3 different versions of it) had already been taken as a username. I have an uncommon name, and it's usually very easy for me to use it as a handle/username. I wound up having to use BFrykman.
I intend to look into this more and see what sort of electronic portfolios exist for authors/editors. I'm sure that they're out there.
As a side note, thanks for the positive feedback on my last (well, first) post. Myra, I look forward to answering your question in my next post. Because my original thought behind this blog was a chance to write about zombies, I'd like to have at least a little something about them, so here's another pic. I had the chance to be a zombie extra in a movie made independently last fall in St. Paul (I believe they are still trying to get the funds to finish shooting and unfortunately I have yet to see any footage). Here is me zombified by a professional. I know that it looks kind of cheesy, but I think with the lighting used it will end up looking right on film. It was never explained to me whether the black stippling was some sort of mold associated with the virus I was infected with or whether it was soot from the building on fire next door. Your guess is as good as mine. Further bummer: the huge gash on my forehead made with thick blood fell off before we filmed. The makeup artist said she'd reattach it but never did.
Today I signed up for a portfolio through Visual CV. It was ok in terms of usability. I liked that I could import my LinkedIn profile, which made it pretty painless to populate my history. I don't expect that I will ever return to the site unless for an assignment in this class.
I was interested in some of the other portfolio sites for artists, but since what I saw seemed to be for visual artists, I didn't know that they would be any more appropriate for me as an author than the other, more job oriented sites. I really feel that keeping a current blog and pointing people to a professional website about me is more appropriate for me as an author. I'm also not looking for a new job right now. Because of this, I made my portfolio private (available only to those with whom I share it).
I found it very curious that my name (3 different versions of it) had already been taken as a username. I have an uncommon name, and it's usually very easy for me to use it as a handle/username. I wound up having to use BFrykman.
I intend to look into this more and see what sort of electronic portfolios exist for authors/editors. I'm sure that they're out there.
As a side note, thanks for the positive feedback on my last (well, first) post. Myra, I look forward to answering your question in my next post. Because my original thought behind this blog was a chance to write about zombies, I'd like to have at least a little something about them, so here's another pic. I had the chance to be a zombie extra in a movie made independently last fall in St. Paul (I believe they are still trying to get the funds to finish shooting and unfortunately I have yet to see any footage). Here is me zombified by a professional. I know that it looks kind of cheesy, but I think with the lighting used it will end up looking right on film. It was never explained to me whether the black stippling was some sort of mold associated with the virus I was infected with or whether it was soot from the building on fire next door. Your guess is as good as mine. Further bummer: the huge gash on my forehead made with thick blood fell off before we filmed. The makeup artist said she'd reattach it but never did.
4.01.2010
Guess What My Interest Is
My interests in life are many. My obsessions (thankfully) are few. The zombie is easily my longest-standing, nightmare-inducing, cold sweat-making obsession. And I don't mean just any old zombie; I mean the concept of the walking dead as told by cheap-horror-movie great George Romero. Sure, zombies can be found in history - the word is credited by many as having roots in an African language (nzambi being the most commonly found variant in my experience), brought here by the victims of the slave trade and eventually made a part of the voudoun religion (a hybrid of many religions such as African tribal religions and, surprisingly to many who know nothing of what "voodoo" is, Catholicism). The Haitian voudoun zombie predates Hollywood by quite a bit, and there are documented records of persons who were dead and then brought back to "life" by a voudoun priest/ess. Mainly this was used to create a slave for the fields - a mindless laborer. There is also documentation which shows that voudoun priest/esses can utilize a powder somehow derived from a blowfish to make a drug which puts a person in a catatonic state with pulse and breathing so slowed that the victim is buried alive, later to be unearthed by the holy person or those who may have paid for the service.
But that's not my point.
My point is that I am obsessed with zombies in a more modern sense of the word; the mindless flesh-cravers wandering the earth in search of a good bite to eat. I don't care whether they were caused by a mutation, by toxic waste, by space dust, by a mysterious virus, or by some other half-explained means. I don't care whether they're fast or slow, and I don't care whether they retain partial memory of their former life. (Well I do, but I'm making a point and I'm trying not to get side-tracked with particulars.)
I'm just obsessed with zombies.
More soon.
Image from Romero's 1968 Night of the Living Dead.
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