Slideshow - slide.com

Slide.com offers a free service for creating slideshows from a variety of sources.

Example 1: Slide Effect, with Title and Captions
Example photos are from my Flickr site in my Kitties album are selected and used in the following slideshow. FYI: My kitties are Queenie, Kiera and Kerwin.

Example 2: Revolver Effect, no Title, no Captions
Example photos are from my Flickr site in a Mercy Center album are selected and used in the following slideshow.

Google Calendar Display - 400x300

This is the month view with custom settings.
400x300
No print button, navigation, or time zone.
WITH tabs
Comment: good for showing a small view with a bit of detail about title of event.

Google Calendar Display - 250x200

This is the month view with custom settings.
250x200
No tabs, print button, navigation, or time zone.
Comment: good for small calendar for inclusion in the side of a page.
NOT very good for detail. Clicking on an item to expand displays a cropped view.

Google Calendar Display - 800x800

Looking for calendar options for embeded code. Testing the calendar with Denise and on our regular accounts.

This is the month view with default options but with a background color selected (green) and a border around to frame the calendar.

800x800 -
Comment: way too big for this space

Wiki Assignment

For this assignment: Visit at least three different wikis (other than wikipedia). Post the url of each wiki you visited to your blog along with a brief description of the wiki.

Wikipedia.com
A few weeks ago, I setup an account on Wikipedia and tried out editing. I noticed that on the Evernote page, that it mentioned a comparison with Google Notebook that seemed to be outdated. Google Notebook allow for clipping in a fairly new feature enhancement.

I added a comment to the 'Discussion ' page, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Evernote

My entry said:
"The comparison of Evernote with Google Notebook needs to be updated. Google Notebook has an extension that allows for browser clips. 24.6.32.109 (talk) 20:27, 30 November 2008 (UTC)"

I just recently revised the Evernote page, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evernote
and see that noting was done with my suggestion. Perhaps I should just edit the paragraph to state that Google now has this feature. However, I feel a bit awkward about editing a page for a product that I am not really involved with working on.

To further explore this topic, I will plan to edit the page and see if there is any response to it.

However, there can be quick responses to page edits. A couple of month ago, my teenage son added a new entry to Wikipedia that included his own biography. This is clearly against the posting regulation and his page was removed within a day. He receive notification of this by email in a straightforward message. So, for this kind of edit, the site seems to be well monitored.

Ubuntu
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/
On one of my laptops, I use the operating system, Ubuntu. Ubuntu is an open source and is based on Linux.

This wiki is very well managed and has a lot of important information regarding Ubuntu, the latest releases and the work in progress. Since Ubuntu is a community project, a collaborative environment is very important and a wiki provides an area for individuals to contribute. This wiki is an excellent resource and is essential for team development.


SecondLife
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Main_Page
The webiste, SecondLife.com is a virtual community. Their wiki site is used as an online user's guide. This wiki is used as a portal to reach the various topics on SecondLife. SecondLife has an open source community that can develop and enhance the code. For this section on the wiki, there is community interaction and participation involving feature enhancements. I found this site to be a great place to start in learning just what Second Life is all about.

Travelwiki
http://wikitravel.org/en/Main_Page
Travelwiki is very similar in look and feel to Wikipedia. The intent of Travelwiki is to contain community information regarding travel destinations all over the world. The more information that is entered, the better use it has for travelers who are looking to learn and plan for a trip. This site is not used for advertising, but to focuses on information. I might use this site when planning for a trip.

RSS Feed Assignment

This week, our assignment involved exploring RSS feeds.
The questions are as follows:

1. Do you understand what RSS is and what it is for?

RSS readers are new tools that operate to let you customize your view of your feeds. RSS feeds are used to all you to see that changes that are made to a blog or website without having to visit the site and scan all of the pages. Instead, the new items will show up in your RSS reader if you have subscribed to the blog or website.

2. Describe how to locate an RSS feed.

From Website
To follow the activity on a website, you just need to the site and look for the 'feed' button if the site has been setup to publish their bog or website. The feed button can show up in the box at the end of the URL and on the page itself. Once you select the 'feed' button, you will have a choice of which application to set it up with. Google Reader is a very popular choice, but you could be using other feed readers.

From Feed Reader
Alternatively, you can sign up for feeds in the reader itself. Just open the reader and either search or browse for your choices. You can search for topics, exact matches or just look around

3. Which Google feed bundle did you subscribe to?

I have subscribed to several Google Bundles and added "Thinkers" Bundle that includes RSS feeds for the following blogs:

Feeds in this bundle:

• Malcolm Gladwell's Blog
• kottke.org remaindered links
• Language Log
• LanguageHat
• Marginal Revolution
• NPR: This I Believe
• Salon
• TED Blog

4. Talk about a feature you liked or disliked on Google Reader and/or your thoughts on the user interface in general.

Like other Google products, some of the appeal of the Google Reader is that it is simple and easy to use. In the Reader, navigating and reading can be done very quickly. It also works well on a SmartPhone.

Also, it is easy to remove a feed from the list. This is done in just three steps: by selecting the feed on the list, and then on the "Feed Settings" tab, select 'Unsubscribe."

Simplicity in a feed reader is an excellent feature in utility.

5. Which feed did you select from the Mercury News list?

The San Jose Mercury has a whole page devoted to feeds for various topics. I subscribed to the traffic feed.

6. Talk about your experiences locating the feeds on the other sites mentioned and whether you have subscribed to any. Were you able to locate them all? Which ones did you have trouble with, if any?

Other sites, such as "NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day" makes it more challenging to locate the RSS feed links. This site has a text "RSS" link at the very bottom of the page.

BBC America -- has a blue button after the URL, an orange button and a text link on top of page and another one at the bottom of the page.

Google News - Health -- has a blue button after the URL and text in sidebar

National Weather Service -- has a feed box in the sidebar

Infodoodads -- has a blue button after the URL and an orange button and a text link on top right of page.

Discovery Channel News --has an orange button in the top center of the page and another one and a text link at the bottom of the page.

Infotangle -- has has a blue button after the URL.

Interesting Thing of the Day -- has a blue button after the URL and an orange button and a text link in the sidebar.

Comedy Central -- has a text link in the sidebar.

I do not subscribe to any of these.

Flickr Assignment

Assignment for Blog post:

... [while in Flickr], click "You" at the top of the page. Copy the URL from the address bar (this is the address of your photos page) and post it to your blog. Also write a short paragraph about what you think of Flickr.

My Photostream in Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lklemme/

I found Fickr to be much more than a photo album. The features extend to capturing images on cellphones, sharing them with photostreams, posting them on blogs or many other platforms. Flickr has a programmable interface which allows for scanning, searching and selecting images from a database of millions of images.

I think that Flickr is a powerful utility and enjoy using it.

For more info on my comments on some of the utilities, see: BeyondClicks.

Blog Post Assignment

Assignment for Blog post:

1. What was your experience with the Blogger user interface? Easy? Confusing? Other?

Setting up new accounts or maintaining old ones is easy in Blogger. Google's design practices keeps the interface intuitive and straightforward.

2. What, if any, changes did you make to your blog's layout, fonts, or colors?

I made quite a few changes to the blog's layout by adding gadgets. I also changed the font type to Arial and in bold red for the questions. Making changes in Blogger is quick and easy for the options that are available. Further customization is possible, but takes more work to edit the CSS and HTML code manually.

3. What do you think of blogging? Do you think you might actually use your own blog outside of this class?

I like blogging as a way of capturing things that I have found on websites or specific commentary on technology or ideas. I will continue to use blogging outside of this class.

4. What did you think about any of the example blogs you looked? Were any of them interesting enough that you might want to keep reading them?

The example blogs in this lesson were interesting to visit. I like ProBlogger for all of the information about blogging with tips and tools. Newsvine is another one that I will continue to visit and subscribe to their RSS feed.