Yet more feeds

My two faves were Technorati and Topix. I liked the layout and more importantly when I typed in a topic, the search actually yielded pertinent info. The polls and comments people posted on Topix made me laugh. Feedster did not seem to return results with any resemblance to what I was looking for.

I found the Bloglines search tool simple and easy to use. Syndic8 was probably trying to go for the minimalist look but I thought it was just ugly. C'mon websites should be functional and inviting. But then I guess I'm pretty much burnt out on feeds at this point.

RSS lives up to its name

Setting up my bloglines account was easy, getting it to pick feeds I was actually interested in was a whole 'nother story. Bookworm was one of the quick picks I selected and yet 90% of the subscriptions it picked for me were book related. I just don't have the time to read about what other people like to read. So I ended up deleting a bunch of feeds and just adding websites I visit. While doing this I realized my web browser has a RSS button to detect feeds on a page, how handy.

The main thing I like about newsreaders is the consolidation factor. When I have too many open tabs or browser windows I get frustrated trying to go back and forth between them. Stop the madness I say and with RSS I can. I doubt anyone will be enthralled with my feed picks, they are pretty generic, but here is my url nonetheless. http://www.bloglines.com/public/j-panther

Technology makes our lives easier except when it really doesn't.....

While trying to do the exercise on mashups I ran into several road blocks. The Mappr site didn't come up at all. Then Montagr would only load one photo at a time and I couldn't seem to create a mashup. I also wasn't able to create a trading card because none of my photos would load. But the games on flickr made up for my frustrations somewhat. I played one called fastr with my co-workers that was fun.

Mashups....say what???

Okay I played around with flickr color pickr because it was the easiest API I found. After reading wikipedia's entry on mashups I was more confused about them than when I started. I'm just not good with all that technical jargon. The one example that made sense to me was google maps on craigslist. That is something I've used before and appreciated. Here are two pictures I found using color pickr, that I thought were cool mostly cause my favorite color is green.

John Muir Woods

I flew to San Francisco last weekend and one of the places I visited was the Muir Woods National Monument. There are several trails you can hike, the one I chose passed right by where this picture was taken. I was lucky enough to find a picture on flickr that I recognized from my hike.

Testing, testing......

Okay this is my first post to test out my new blog. It was much easier than I thought to set up a blog. I've had trouble with MySpace and anticipated more difficulties. I actually enjoyed playing around with setting this up.

As for the 7 1/2 lifelong learning habits, the easiest one for me is using technology to my advantage. The hardest habit for me is accepting responsibility for my own learning. I have no problem learning about something that interests me; but when it comes to a subject that bores me I usually avoid it.