Thing 13. Online productivity tools

For a start page, iGoogle works best for me. I didn't see much difference with Pageflakes. Both sites allow you to add widgets that can be useful, but for the most part are time-wasting: poker? Bush-isms? C'mon. Not only is this stuff kinda silly, but look at what you have to do to get it on your page.


First off, it takes a while to go through the list of widgets, figuring what stuff would be coolest to have. Second, you gotta play with said widgets to see how they work. Third, you have to get 'em configured, allowing Active X controls, etc. Then you have to get all the widgets you've downloaded arranged on your page the way you like it. Productivity--I think not. So, for me, iGoogle gives me enough: a calendar (that works well, kinda ok), a to-do list, a news feed, weather info and a countdown 'til Bush is outta here--I need to have some fun, after all. Simple as that. I don't need to get a calendar or to-do prompt from other sites.


The problem I have with Google, nonetheless, is how nosy they are. I really dislike the 30-year tracking cookie; nor do I enjoy having my search results accessible for time enternal. I know you can turn off the tracking, but it bothers me that it's there in the first place. Unlike, say, Michael Stephens, I like to have some privacy when I'm online. If that's in any way possible anymore.

Thing 12. Digg, etc.

I can see the usefulness of some of these sites. It's great having news and information from multiple media sources and websites fed to you, broken down by categories. Currently, I get the Digg RSS tech feed, one of many resources I use to keep up with tech trends. StumbleUpon is particularly interesting, too, with its feature of letting a person's indicated interests direct the info flow your way. Still, while I joined up, I don't use it much.

But the comments, reviews, whatever you want to call 'em on these sites!--face it, most of these folks are pretty lame. This often depends on the topic of course: there's a lot more yahoo-types posting on entertainment topics, then say, on those concerning business. But what good does it do me-- if the intent of these sites is to make information available along with 2.0 interaction--when the interaction is so S-T-O-O-P-I-D? Of course, this is a common criticism of 2.0 from those new dissers of the topic, like Andrew Keen and his Cult of the Amateur, who talks about the "superficial observations" and "shrill opinion(s)" of 2.0'ers--I'm not alone in making this point.

Still, I guess, it's good to hear what other people think: you can learn from 'em, even if some (or a lot) of what's being said may seem, well, stupid.

Thing 11. Tagging and Del.icio.us

I've found Del.icio.us to to be a great way of logging, compiling and tracking websites. In fact, it's almost too easy to use--I "delicious" sites I find with great abandon, assign tags, save 'em--then vow to go back and check them out in more detail later. Which I hardly ever do. I'm also guilty of only bundling a few of my tags, so there's a long fornlorn trail of them dangling at the bottom of my tags list. One of these days, I'm just going to have to get organized....

One of the cool things about doing "Stick" is the extra info I'm getting on Web 2.0 apps that I otherwise wouldn't have picked up. Like the whole sharing aspect of Del.icio.us--I'd never thought of using this. But it seems quite useful for projects, easily enabling folks to assign tags to websites they've found while doing their research and letting everybody share the wealth.

Thing 10. Wikis

Ah, wikis. Like blogs, they would seem a very handy communication tool. Especially for a physically large library like mine, with many people working in many areas on many projects, without much communication going on between them. Or with those of us in the big picture. Blogs, of course, would do the trick for letting folks in on what other folks are doing. The larger system we've just merged with has done just that, with tons of people blogging on various topics. We're just not there yet. But wikis seem to be another story--there's not much going on with them in the bigger shop, that I've discovered. I don't know why--I'll have to bring up the question with some of my new colleagues when I get the chance. Perhaps they're paranoid of losing control or something, the anarchy of letting anybody not only post, but make changes as well.

I think wikis are an especially great tool for projects, allowing everybody involved to let others know of their progress, successes, problems, etc., and allowing folks to get in their own two-cents worth. Two-way communication, or three-way, or four-way, or more--what a concept.

Thing 9 (b).

Here's a link to a Google document. It's an example of the type of Word document I use a lot of time in managing serials.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pTEBbuMRMkhV2WTi8fgOyLg

Thing 9. Online Collaboration Tools

I think Google Docs and Zoho are pretty handy resources. My wife is a librarian and her shop uses Zoho for collaboration on certain projects. It's a lot easier to have access to a document that way, instead of having to email it back and forth. I wonder, though, how hard it is to track changes that are made. It would seem that any online tool like Google Docs, etc., should offer a utility that would track changes mades, allow the original document to viewed, etc. Maybe something like Wikipedia, where you can view all the edits made to an entry, who did 'em and at what time/date. I'll have to explore a bit to find out just what Google and Zoho have along that line. Of course, there's also the issues of security and storage: how secure are documents sitting on servers somewhere and what would happen if a company were to go under?

Thing 8. (b) Sharing Slides

I used Picture Trail for this topic. It was fairly easy to use, once I'd looked around enough. Once again, though, I didn't have enough content to add to make an interesting album. So once again, there's MS file images, and a really B-A-D pic of yours truly. But the point is, I figured how to use the app., and that's what counts. I noticed at times there seems to be problems with cutting and pasting the HTML, which I couldn't get to work, even knowing some coding. Oh well. At least we've got a pretty album cover of a sunset to look at.