Reflections

Sometimes I would go home after doing a particular session and tell my honey "We need to do this!" I would be so excited about something like Flickr', that I thought we could use for our art. Some things seem so much a part of the future and the future is where things are at. As I go out into the web world, I can recognize the skill involved in some web sites, things I didn't fully appreciate before. When one of our art sites expanded their site to include a blog, video and pod casting, social networking sites and a host of other refinements, I could really appreciate the work someone had done to make them that interactive.

Doing some of these things takes practice, using them over and over. If you don't use them, it's really easy to forget how. I am still somewhat puzzled by social networking sites and how to best use them. I need to get out the directions every time I try to go to my Facebook account. And all the passwords become a blur. Now that I have all these accounts, how long do they stay active? Will I eventually get dropped off if I don't keep using them? Do I need to go in and delete them somehow? Doing some of these activities would be greatly enhanced if I had more than dial up at home. I would try to apply them to our sculpture website, but for now it would only lead to frustration.

If I had the opportunity to do something like this again, I would wish for more time and more application. Fitting the adventures into a busy week was sometimes a challenge. It would have been nice to focus on one thing for a couple of weeks before moving on to the next. It was more difficult to do some of these things because we share machines; so on-line chatting for instance had a narrow window of opportunity. In this work application, it's use was limited. Some of these skills are a tool, just like a hammer or a crucible or a furnace is a tool. Sometimes I'm more comfortable with the hammer or the crucible and the furnace. But trying them out was good for my brain and a good challenge.

I was sorry that I didn't get the opportunity to read more of other people's blogs and make comments on them. It is still my goal to read all of them and make a comment. People worked hard on them. It was a real challenge for some people who guard what they share of themselves. I appreciate how difficult it was sometimes.

There is the issue of time. How much time am I willing to give to this part of my life? I am beginning to accept that I don't do things as quickly as I used to; it takes more time to do the dishes, the laundry and make dinner than it used to. Time goes by far too quickly. I have things that I really want to savor. I love seeing my almost 90 year old mother who is so much fun to be around. I challenge anyone to not come away with a smile after an encounter with her. You just have to appreciate life after a few minutes with her. I love getting smiles from my grandchildren, or a talk on the telephone with them. So what do I cut out to give myself the time to do these new activities? Do I stop working in the garden, even though I know it is good for my blood pressure? Do I give up my hour or two of T.V.? Reading? When I stop to think about it, I am not surprised so many people have stress related illnesses; our worlds are going so fast now and exponentially there is so much to learn. So for now I will be satisfied that I was introduced to these concepts and hope that I can apply some of them to my on-line life eventually.

Sucking You In

When my grandson was two, he could play Jimmy Neutron faster than I would have thought imaginable. He could barely use the mouse, but he could use keystrokes to do anything he wanted. He would get up in the morning and after cuddling with his mama, he would jump down and start his game. Then about half an hour later, he was ready to visit and get on with his day. He seemed to have an automatic shut off, where he just stopped. I know games and gaming will be a big part of his life, so I am glad that he still wants to go outside and watch the blueberries get ripe in the afternoon sun.

For myself, gaming is something I avoid (usually); I just don't feel the need (most of the time)and certainly don't have the time. My new goal is to get my house cleaned up before Thanksgiving, so spending an hour playing some game on the Internet is counter productive to that. I guess it goes back to the 'getting a life' aspect of this process. I think games can allow a depressed person to ignore the things in their life that are troublesome and contribute to their depression. I'm sure it is a good way to fill the void for some people.

Sometimes it seems like a value thing; cleaning up the house has become less important for most people, just like cleaning up their desk at work. Why take thirty minutes to clean up when you could use that same thirty minutes to play a killer game of something? I am sure it has an impact on the workforce; in any situation you will have a range of abilities. If it takes one person two hours to do their job when it takes everyone else five hours to do the same work at the same level of accuracy, what do they do with that other three hours? They can play on the computer! They say some of the games are really good for your brain, so I'll use that as the explanation for why one might want to. But for me, I'll just keep on trying to manage what little free time I have without Spider Solitaire calling to me every time I turn the computer on.

I still have trees!

I knew I was on the right street when I saw the clear cut of 40 acres across the street from me and the clearing to the west; what an impact from space. I could find the neighbors big buildings, but mine looked different. In the end, I realized I still have trees, so there isn't nearly as much of my junk to see. In fact, at first I thought it wasn't right because I couldn't see the shop. Turns out it was in the trees, you just had to look harder. I must admit, I could play with this one all day. It is not totally accurate, but it sure gets close. You just have to pay attention to the details, like did it put you on the wrong side of the road as it pinpointed where you were supposed to be.

It's me 45 years ago!

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Except for the hair...but I always wanted purple hair. It took a long time to do this; seems my imagination taste runs close to my real taste and it's just like shopping. I was never very much into the "In" thing and I still am not. Fun but I was surprised how conservative I was, even when I could be anything I wanted. Nice to know how to do it though.

Using free stuff just got better

Free always comes with some sort of "price". (I guess that's the little cynical part of me popping up.) In this case, I guess the "price" for me would be deciding which of these Online Applications to use. Wow, what a "price". Trying them out was a bit of a challenge for me, though. Like trying to surf the Internet, I never can come up with somewhere to start, something I'd like to know about when I'm starting out. Once I go on to something else, all sorts of things come to mind. I expect that if you know what you are looking for, what you need, you could go out there and find it.

This will be a good tool to share. There are people out there who don't have access to all the bells and whistles some computers provide. It would be a challenge to set yourself up with some of these various accounts; Flickr, blogs, online applications etc. and then try to manage everything on a public computer. You could do a documentary on how to take advantage of all the services offered for free over the Internet. It would be perfect for someone who wants to try and have less of an impact on the earth by sharing the resources of others.

The sharing part would be the trick. You wouldn't want to be like the resident hippie we once gave a ride to. He was part of the Love family that lived on the top of Queen Anne hill. He hitched a ride with us one fall evening when it was pouring down rain. Once in the shelter that our old VW bus afforded, he promptly started lecturing my Ronnie on the sins of driving cars. You'd want to avoid this attitude if you were going to try and manage your online life with all these free opportunities, but it would make a good tale if you could do this successfully. And you might get the benefits of the computers, without the pitfalls (like getting sucked into some game) that can arise when you use your own computer.

So far we have had exposure to some very neat things in this odyssey, some that I enthusiastically embrace. I tell myself I'm going to apply this one, then I go home and it is so much easier to just keep using the same old tried and true stuff. I sometimes wonder how people make the time to use all these different programs. I've finally decided that they just live lives that are different from mine, and they make different choices than I do. Sometimes, the more you do, the more time you seem to have. Perhaps that's how they do it. If you need to manage that time, there are lots of Online Applications that can help you do it.

To Google or Not to Google, that is the question

I thought this might be more of an adventure than it ended up being. I couldn't remember the results of the first search after I started the second, so comparing them was difficult. This forced a more scientific approach to the whole process; write down my exact search terms, then try it, then print out the first page of results and compare the hard copies. What I found was that the same three sites came up in each search engine within the top five results, usually within two or three spaces of each other. Not much difference there. Do I need to do more trial to see if I think one is better than the other? I'm not sure but it doesn't fit within my time limit for the assignment.

I hoped for more exciting results, an outcome that said WOW! look at this search engine, but it didn't happen. So which one should I use? I think it's nice to have options and feel like Google doesn't control my internet life. The reality is that I am comfortable using Google and the refinements I can make on it. It's good to know about the others and the differences they might provide, but for me they don't offer much that I can't get from Google. So I will probably stick with that one for now.

Podcasting not peas in the pod

Being summer, when I hear the word pod I go first to peas and then to Orcas. But that's not what they mean is it? Each podcast I listened to seemed different, so there is lots of variety out there. It would be fun to try out more of these, but I have put myself on an extreme time constraint with the rest of these assignments. I am trying to limit myself to the hour we were told it would take. So far, I'm not doing very well. It is so much easier to do this when I can be uninterrupted, which isn't very often. And having your own machine so you didn't have to log on and off would be a great benefit too. But in the meantime, instead of exploring to my hearts content, I am trying to do the minimum to get the assignment finished. It's like being in school all over again, and it's the end of the semester.

I listened to several but for now settled on NPR and oops a library site focused on marketing whose name I have already forgotten. There is lots to be learned, I just have to pay attention. It is good to see and hear different perspectives. Once people learn how to use pod casts, I think there might be a wide variety of interests for library users. Yes, I have both listened to and created pod casts; it's lots of fun. The creating can be a real challenge since we have very few sound proof or even sound resistant rooms at our disposal. But it's still very hands on.