RSS

Back in July of 2007, I taught a class that dealt with a number of “Web 2.0″ topics including RSS. Why am I bringing this up again? Because if you are not taking advantage of RSS, I think you should. How can it help you? Well, for instance, I often send out emails when I post new articles on this blog. If you don’t get my email, you don’t know that I have posted something new. The beauty of RSS is that every time something new is posted, it is sent to you.

Here is an explanation of RSS from Wikipedia:

“ RSS is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content such as blogentries, news headlines or podcasts. An RSS document, which is called a “feed”, “web feed”, or “channel”, contains either a summary of content from an associated web site or the full text. RSS makes it possible for people to keep up with their favorite web sites in an automated manner that’s easier than checking them manually.

RSS content can be read using software called an “RSS reader”, “feed reader” or an “aggregator”. The user subscribes to a feed by entering the feed’s link into the reader or by clicking an RSS icon in a browser that initiates the subscription process. The reader checks the user’s subscribed feeds regularly for new content, downloading any updates that it finds.”

So, isn’t that cool? I certainly think so. I have subscribed to a number of “feeds” myself and find it very convenient. I use the Google Reader, but there are a number of other options. Click here for a list of aggregators. I actually have created an iGoogle page and include my Google Reader as well as my Gmail account (which I use for online purchases and anything I might sign up for online). (Can you tell I am a Google fan?) Yahoo has a similar setup though, if you already have a Yahoo email account.

Once you decide to set up an aggregator, how do you find “feeds” to subscribe to? As you surf the web, look around at sites you often go to. Do you check the news on CNN frequently? Maybe you just want updates on national news. You can have those fed to you as they come in to CNN. Look for links similar to these:

By clicking on the right image, you can add the feed to your aggregator.

So, it’s a new year, let’s try something new! If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to make a comment here or email me: collinsj@mycitylibrary.org.

 

Computer Classes for the New Year

Well, 2008 is here and with the New Year, we are once again offering a full schedule of computer classes. Remember, it is not necessary to sign up, all classes are first come, first serve. Here is the schedule for January.

January 8	10:00 am	Basic Computer Skills
January 10	10:00 am	Basic Computer Skills
January 17, 24, 31	10:00 am	Microsoft Word
January 22	10:00 am	Internet 1

If you have any questions about any of the classes, give me a call at 868-7701.

Janice (your Tech Librarian)

 

What search engine do you love?

I think I can state honestly that people who use the internet and search engines really love the search engine they use. It seems we either love them or we hate them… I use Google most of the time but check out others on a regular basis because I feel I need to be familiar with what’s out there.

What brought this up you might ask? Well, it was an article in the CNET News blog which discussed several of the major search engines and their never-ending race to be first! It seems that these: Google, Ask.com, Microsoft Live Search, and Yahoo have all made some major changes this year beginning with Google’s update in May. Ask.com followed in June and this week Microsoft has upgraded its Live Search. Chances are that Yahoo will be next.

So what does this mean for us? Well, for one thing, it means that any of the major search engines will quickly give us a great number of relevant results. It also means that we can now get images, videos, and other search types from any of these search engines.

I saw an ad on tv the other day for Ask.com and, of course, had to check it out. I liked it, you should check it out for yourself…but will I switch from Google? No, probably not…but I will certainly suggest it as an alternative search engine.

 

The Technobuddy

Thought I would take a few minutes to talk about one of my favorite newspaper columns. Do you ever read “The Technobuddy” columns? The Technobuddy, Bill Husted, writes for the The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and is syndicated across the country. I read his columns every Sunday in The Palm Beach Post. Whether you are new to technology or have been around a while, you will find something of interest in his columns. You can also find him at his website or his blog. 

In one of his recent columns, (back in August) he talked about what he considered high-tech needs. Now you may or may not agree, but the Technobuddy considers that a wide-screen monitor, HDTV, an external hard disk, a digital camera and GPS are essential pieces of technology. I have to admit he makes some good points and I certainly agree with him about some of these needs.  The wonderful thing is that most of these things have come down in price and are actually within reach for the average person. Certainly a wide screen used to be a luxury, but now I would use nothing else! GPS sounds wonderful, but I am not ready to pay the price, but give it time….it, too will come down!

If you read The Palm Beach Post, you can find “The Technobuddy” in the Business section on Sundays and he has a Q and A column on Mondays also in the Business section. Check him out, not only will you learn something, but his columns are fun to read!

 

Did you know?????

Have you been to the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles website lately? There is all sorts of stuff you can do online.

• Renew your license or your vehicle registration.
• check to see if your license is valid…or suspended.
• Find driving courses of all kinds.
• Make an appointment for a driver license office.
• Read the Florida driver handbook in English and Spanish online or order a copy.

Now you can also provide emergency contact information that can only be accessed by a law enforcement officer in the event of an emergency. What an amazing idea this is! Think about it, if you get in an accident and can’t tell anyone who to call, who will they call?

 

Hurricane Dean

Well, it’s 11:00 pm on a Saturday and I and many others are focused on hurricane Dean. Even though Dean seems to be heading far away from those of us here in Florida, still we watch. Having experienced the power and devastation of more than one hurricane, I think I can say that I speak for many of us in South Florida when I say we feel both relief and fear; relief that this time it is not us and fear for those in his path.

So, since I am awake and checking out Dean, I thought I would share with you where I get my hurricane updates. As most Floridians, I have become a little obsessed during hurricane season and I do have my favorite places to check on things.

Naturally I watch the Weather Channel and check out it’s website. The Weather Channel website is one of my favorite websites…I did say I was obsessed!… Of course there is also The National Hurricane Center website from The National Weather Service. Nothing like getting your info straight from the horse’s mouth!

During the hurricane seasons of 2004-2005, I started reading Dr. Jeff Masters’ WunderBlog. Dr. Masters is Director of Meteorology and on the Board of Directors for Weather Underground, Inc. It seemed to me that he is quite often right on when talking about hurricanes, so I now subscribe to his posts in my Google Reader account. That way I get them as soon as he posts them.

Are these the only resources out there? No, of course not, but these are the ones I check! I bet you have your favorite ones too. I would love to hear where you go for your weather information, so go ahead, leave a comment.

Janice

 

Interesting class!

Well, I had 10 people show up for the Blogs, Wikis, RSS Oh my! class this evening! Not bad considering the time given in the paper this morning was 10:00 am not 6:00 pm! We ended up talking about all sorts of Web 2.0 applications.

One student asked how Web 2.0 could be defined and though I described it as best I could, I thought I would give a little more info here. Web 2.0, a phrase coined by O’Reilly in 2003 and popularized by the first Web 2.0 conference in 2004, refers to a perceived second generation of web-based communities and hosted services — such as social-networking sites and folksonomies — which facilitate collaboration and sharing between users. O’Reilly Media titled a series of conferences around the phrase, and it has since become widely adopted. (From Wikipedia)

Tonight we not only talked about blogs, wikis, RSS, feeds, etc. but looked at some of the “social networking” sites. We looked at myspace.com, YouTube, Digg, Twitter, and Flickr. For most of the students, these were new terms and certainly new experiences. We went to YouTube and looked up the Beatles. Did we find anything? Of course, lots and lots of Beatle videos. Go ahead and check it out for yourself!

All in all, a fun class for all!

 

Blogs, Wikis, RSS, Oh My!

Posted for new class July 23 at the library!

What is a Blog?

Well, the quick and simple answer is that the word “blog” is an abbreviation for web log. Unfortunately, the simple answer is not necessarily the complete answer.

“I can define them for you very easily,” Jason Calcanis (Weblogics Inc. co-founder and chief executive officer) says. “There are three main features of a blog: the first is reverse chronological order, the second is unfiltered content — the second somebody filters or edits the author it’s no longer a blog — and the third is comments.” Calcanis’s insistence on a precise definition puts him clearly in a minority of blogging experts who mostly admit they can’t or won’t define exactly what constitutes a blog. Calcanis might add a fourth condition: hypertext links to the world outside the blog

This quote is taken from a great article called “Just what is a blog, anyway?” by Michael Conniff which you can read here.

So, that’s his definition and I have to agree with him! If you start a blog, it is absolutely imperative that you write on a regular basis. Once a week should be the minimum. Think about it: if you don’t write frequently, there’s absolutely no reason for anyone to keep coming back! With the Library Currents blog, we try to have something new up every couple of days. Of course, for us it’s easier as there are five of us! We try to add lots of links and photos also.

The cool thing about a blog is that anyone can create and maintain one. A blog gives you your own voice on the web. In a blog, you can collect and share things that you find interesting— whether it’s your political commentary, a personal diary, or links to web sites you want to remember.

Many people use a blog just to organize their own thoughts, while others command influential, worldwide audiences of thousands. Professional and amateur journalists use blogs to publish breaking news, while many blogs are very personal and reveal the blogger’s inner thoughts.

There are many places that one can obtain a free blog. Included in these are:

www.wordpress.com

www.blogger.com

www.sampa.com

www.clearblogs.com

Each of these blog sites provide free and easy access to templates, some custom features, access controls, statistics, and the ability to upload photos. If you don’t know html, it’s ok…all provide a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) composer.

Here at the library, we have three blogs currently accessible through our website. These are Library Currents, which is maintained by 5 librarians including myself, Lisa’s Blog which is maintained by Lisa Webb from our Children’s department, and The Book Goddess Blog which is maintained by Tina Maura-Albee, our very own Book Goddess.

Blogs are a great outlet to express yourself and share your thoughts and feelings about the things in life that you feel strongly about. Not only can you share your thoughts, but your readers can share their feelings about what you have blogged! Comments are a very important aspect of blogs. When you go to a blog, make sure you comment! We bloggers love comments, it means someone is out there…

Since, I use WordPress and am most familiar with it; let’s look at how easy it is to post a blog.

So, what the heck is a Wiki? How is it different from a blog?

Probably the most well-known wiki is Wikipedia. Wikipedia defines wiki as a collaborative website which can be directly edited by anyone with access to it. Think about that for a minute. A wiki can be edited by anyone. That means that if you want to go in a change something in Wikipedia you can! Kinda scary, huh!

Why would you want a wiki and what is the advantage over a blog? Well, as I said a wiki can be added to by anyone and basically they don’t need your permission. With a blog, outsiders can comment but you can check the comments before the world sees them! Wikis are good for fan clubs, family trips, classrooms, sports teams, community groups, book clubs, fan clubs, party organizers, wedding planners, etc. Think about your life… are you part of a group that would like to share information? Then, maybe a wiki is good for you. There are a number of sites that provide free wikis. They include:

http://pbwiki.com/

http://www.wikispaces.com/

http://www.wetpaint.com/

RSS

Finally let’s talk about RSS. RSS is short for RDF Site Summary or Rich Site Summary or even Real Simple Syndication (depending on whom you ask), The important thing to know is that RSS is an XML file (the RSS “feed”) that reformats Web content for distribution. This enables a subscriber to have updates “fed” into an aggregator as new information is published. For instance, if you subscribe to one of CNN.com’s RSS feeds, every time a new headline is published on their website, it is also sent directly to your agrregator. Ok, lot’s of new words!

Feed: The feed is the actual content that is distributed.

Aggregator: also known as a feed reader, is client software or a Web service which gathers syndicated web content such as news headlines, blogs, etc. in a single location for easy viewing. Aggregators reduce the time and effort needed to regularly check websites for updates, creating a unique information space or “personal newspaper.” Once subscribed to a feed, an aggregator is able to check for new content at user-determined intervals and retrieve the update.

Every blog and wiki should have ways that your readers can subscribe to your feeds.

There are a number of aggregators around. Aggregator features are frequently built into portal sites (such as My Yahoo! and iGoogle), modern web browsers and email programs. I use iGoogle. I have included a list of others at the end of the page.

More Information

Blogs, Wikis, and Other Animals

Blog Tutorial

Feed Aggregators

More Feed aggregators