It Could Be Sweet: Del.ici.ous

The above image is what I have been met with all week as I tried to use the social bookmarking site Del.ici.ous...
I will admit that I totally don't see the value in this tool at all. Everyone knows that you can simply bookmark site using your computer's web browser...it may not be a fancy or organized way to do business but it is pretty simple and doesn't require yet another username and password. The main pitfall of using your web browser to save all of your bookmarks is that you can't take it with you...meaning that if you were to use another device, you'd have to manually look for your favorite site as the bookmark is only one the one device (which kind of sucks).
In an effort to try to get something out of this I decided to sign up for Diigo which is another popular bookmarking site. It works in much of the same way that Delicious was supposed to work. Once you provide a username, email, and password (and activate your account) you can on and add the little Diigo button to your tool bar and get to work bookmarking, tagging, indexing, and sharing your favorite website. It's super simple and even I was able to get on and immediately start using the site to save my favorite recipe and couponing sites.

There's even a "Hot Bookmarks" so that everyone can see what kind of stuff everyone else is bookmarking. All in all, I think that I did learn something in giving this bookmarking a try. I see me using this a lot in the future :) 

Pose For The Camera: Flickr Flickr Flickr

Welcome to another week of my rambling on about my awesome web 2.0 experiences! This week I tried something fairly new by going on the photo sharing site Flickr...it wasn't my first time on the site... sort of...
As the story goes, a month or so ago when I wanted to try and raise the number of people who read my piddly little blog, I decided to go on a "major" social media attack and join every relevant site and post content there. I'd vaguely heard of a site called Flickr and figured that if it were anything like Instagram then I should probably join. As I was entering in my old Yahoo id (that I had to reset because, well...who still uses Yahoo?) my two in-house social media experts (my teenaged daughters) came downstairs to see what the hold up for dinner was and asked what I was doing. When I told them, they immediately laughed and informed me that "nobody" used Flickr.
Of course we all know that isn't true but their looks of disapproval were enough to convince me to abandon the site and start on dinner...soon Flickr was forgotten...until this week.
When I saw the assignment I immediately went to the site and noticed that it was visually beautiful! The images on the homepage were all professional looking and just...gorgeous. I felt a little out of place on the site since I'm not a professional photographer and wouldn't know good lighting if it smacked me in the face. All of that being said, I had an assignment to do so I was gonna do it, even if my content isn't as visually stunning as everyone else.
The negotiation of the site was a little confusing and I actually referred back to the embedded video in the classroom a time or two to kind of get the hang of where to click to start uploading content to post. I uploaded 5 pictures (I'm an overachiever...lol)
but had to go back because I messed up and only one of the images ended up in the album(?)...not really sure how I did that but...I fixed it.

Tagging the images was pretty easy and I was actually surprised at the number of images tagged with some of the result of checking how many images were tagged in the same ways as I chose...

There are 6,886 Images with the tag "Will Ferrell

Believe it or not: There are 394,143 images tagged "Donuts"!

Not surprising there are 1,118,133 images tagged "Social Media"

There are 50,807 images tagged "Pros & Cons"

"Tumblr" is the big winner with 3,732,188 tags! 

All in all, I'd say I had a pretty positive experience with Flickr however I really don't see it as a site that I'll visit all that often. I guess I just like my social media a little more "social" and since most of my friends and family are using Instagram and Snapchat (I'm still trying to figure it out) that's what I'd be more likely to use (once I get it figured out)...

Take care all!

Opens Source Review Part 3: Gimp

So unfortunately my streak of cleverly named blog posts have come to an end with my choosing of the GIMP image editing software. It is a Photoshop alternative and who doesn't need a little Photoshop in their lives without having to spend Photoshop money? I certainly can see the value in using it as I do a lot of DIY and crafting projects and I like being able to manipulate an image to get it to be exactly what I need for a project.
Before I started using it, I did watch a tutorial on YouTube first just so that I wouldn't be wasting time trying to figure out what all the buttons do (which is what turned me off from Photoshop to begin with).
The tutorials didn't really give me all that I needed in terms of assistance in using the program...I really had to do a lot of playing around with it which for me is kind of frustrating but...it's free so I guess I won't complaint too loudly about it.

So I went to work with it, selecting an image that I wanted to edit...and I'm absolutely too frustrated with it to actually accomplish what I set out to do...pretty much the exact same way I felt about Photoshop. It had a lot of the same types of tools and was just as confusing...even with the tutorials playing in the background...with all that said, I wanted to have a screen shot of my little text run with Gimp but I was the intellectual gimp because I couldn't do what I wanted to do...I'm going to relax my mind and maybe I'll come back to it later this week because although I didn't really get the hang of it on the first try, I can see the value in having an image editing program that you didn't have to spend an arm and a leg for.
If you are a Gimp wiz or know something I don't, I totally welcome all comments below! :)

Open Source Software Review Part 2: Lovin is What I Got- Sublime (Text 2)

I don't know the age demographic to anyone who may be reading this but I can only hope that you're getting the joke of my title for this week's blog posts. It has been a pure (but happy) coincidence that the two forms of open source software that I have chosen to review both have some popular culture reference attached to them. In my last review of Mozilla's Firefox browsers as I was downloading it I could hear Katy Perry singing Firework in my head. In this review of Sublime Text 2 I could hear Santaria from the band Sublime from the mid-90's...My kids would totally be making fun of me right now by the way....
Back to business...I was kind of stumped as to what open source software I should download after my adventure with Firefox. I didn't want to take the easy way out and just find an open office or something like that...not that there's anything wring with doing that but I actually want to do myu own comparison and there is already so much written about that particular product so I had to go to the drawing board. I did a little research on CNet.com and of course I just Googled open source software.

I didn't need a text editor...I had just downloaded a new one (named simply TextEditor 1.2 ) for the web development class that I am currently taking since the one that came with my mac book is so old that I was having trouble getting it to work properly. I liked the new one, it does what it's supposed to do...nothing more and nothing less but I figured I'd at least try another one... Enter Sublime Text 2. I am very happy with this software. Once I got it all downloaded, I immediately opened it up and started entering in some code that I had been piddling around with over the weekend to get my practice on.

The Sublime Text 2 (ST2) is the black screen in this screen shot and you can tell a marked improvement in being able to see what it is you're doing on that screen versus TextEditor 1.2. I mean, in all honesty they are both simple text editors but the ST2 is a little more user friendly in that the way the bright colors clue you in to errors in your syntax a little better in my opinion and I also appreciate that it's intuitive in that when you start typing in commonly used syntax it takes a click of the tab key to finish it off and when you open a bracket it closes it so for us beginners THAT shouldn't be an issue anymore. Bottom line for me is that I like the colors...it's pretty and it makes me want to use it...simple as that.
I'd mentioned in my last post that in the past I had some definite aversion to open source. I guess I thought that it was cheap, and the quickest way to get malware placed on your computer or that hackers could come in and steal your identity by using it. Of course one should practice caution when downloading stuff from the Internet but I am big enough to admit when I've I'm wrong about something or that I've learned something and I have picked up on something pretty good with this piece of open source software gold.
So, that's the second of my three reviews. If  I missed something or there's a point you'd like to add please leave me a coment!

My Open Source Tale Part 1: Baby You're a Firefox

My adventure this week beings not with the current class or assignment that I am working on but actually with another class that I am taking this term. I am currently taking 4 classes this semester and one of them happens to be a web development class which is kind of fun but is also a bit of a buttkicker...
Anyway,  in my attempt to complete an assignment and not completely bomb the class I'd downloaded Google Chrome as an alternate browser to use in addition to trusted and true Safari. The reason I even did that to begin with was because I had written this "spectacular" code but it would not render when I tried to view it in Safari. In my flawed thinking I figured that it MUST be a problem with Safari...yeah, no...it was my faulty syntax. Anyway, if two is good, three must be better so for this class I am reviewing my experience with Mozilla Firefox, which I have downloaded as well.
First, I didn't know that Firefox was even considered "open source".  In the past when I think of open source it had a kind of negative connotation to it. As if because the software is "free" it must be cheap or bad and we all know that this line of thinking is false.
After getting the software downloaded and ready to go , it pretty much functions as any other browser would. I clicked on it and it was a bit slow to start but it took me to the homepage where I was given instructions on how I could make that my homepage, get a new email account, and basic web
browsing instructions....there was nothing there that really knocked my socks off or would make me abandon my Chrome or Safari... I guess I'm just a creature of habit. 
I did find it a little strange that the folks at Firefox use Yahoo as it's search engine...I didn't think people actually still did that....not trying to act like a search engine snob but...I'm a slave for the Google machine I suppose as it is no longer a name but a verb in the English language...but what do I know...I should probably Google that.
So, that's the first of three open source software reviews. Thanks for reading and if you can offer me a little knowledge on the subject or if there's something I failed to see let me know in the comments.
P.S here is the beginnings of a test webpage I developed rendering in Firefox:  

 

Rev2: The 2nd Summary

I'm back at it again with the second part of my homework assignment, summarizing another blog that I have picked from the list of the Top 10 Web 2.0 blogs to follow. For this second installation I picked REV2 which was described as covering everyday topics from web 2.0. I'd never heard of this site before so I was pretty interested in the authors, Sid Yadav and his team of bloggers, take on a variety of topics.

Upon clicking on the link you're taken to a nice clean site that isn't as busy as other sites such as Mashable. Again, there are the usual navigation buttons at the top of the page. These buttons take you to posts whose topics range from news on social media and tech companies as well as tech trends and product reviews. I have, personally, never had the desire to read tech reviews but since I was here I decided to give it a honest try. I have to say that the content on this site, while considerably less than on Mashable, was very engaging and interesting. I read a quick article on the fast tracking success of the live streaming app Periscope, again, very engaging and well...short.
The social media sharing buttons are not quite as prominent on the page as they are on other sites. The buttons are located at the bottom of the page and you can share the individual posts and of course the site recommends more articles based off of the ones that you click to read.  I suppose if there was a negative to this site it would be that the content posted is rather dated. The post at the very top of the homepage is 8 months old where other sites are updated very frequently. I'm not sure if this blog has been abandon or if there has been some change to the site and maybe because I am not a frequent visitor I am unaware.

So there was my quick summary of the blog site REV2.  If you have any questions about the live streaming app Periscope I mentioned earlier (another addition to the Web 2.0 universe) heres a quick video explaining how it works here:

Mashable: My First Blog Summary

In my initial post for my latest blog creation, My Awesome Web 2.0, for a Web 2.0 fundamentals class assignment, I am going to attempt to summarize what I found when I read a few of the blogs purported to be the top 10 in the realm of web 2.0. The first blog that I visited was Mashable (#6 on the assigned list).

I must admit that, although I'd seen advertisements and heard people taking about this particular blog site, I'd never actually gone onto the actual site for a visit...big mistake on my part! I guess I figured that there wouldn't be any content that I would find enjoyable but *gasp* there was. What can I say, I'm a sucker for anything pop culture-ish and there is plenty of content on this site. I can see myself needing to finish some class work but stuck reading an article on this site in 3...2...1...
As blog sites go, although there is plenty of content on the homepage to scroll through there are also the standard fare of navigation buttons at the top to click on and be shuttled to mounds of information on games, tech, business, and of course my personal favorite, social media and "more" which is a catch-all for lifestyle, world, and something called "watercolor". Some of the posts on this site are dated while others aren't as you would expect from a typical blog site. It is more than likely that instead of finding a date it will say that it was posted mere hours ago however, you do get told how many like-minded people have clicked and shared it.

As you can see from the quick screenshot, the page is bright and engaging. It has all of the social media link buttons easily accessible at the top of the page (no more fumbling around trying to figure out how you're going to share that cool article with you friends).





I am decidedly a new fan of Mashable and will for sure be setting up my RSS feed so that I can make sure to keep up with all of the interesting stories that come out through this blog site....definitely a time suck but...it was on the list so it's all good! In case you were wondering how to add that RSS feed here is a quick video to show you step by step :)