Staking My Claim on Technorati

Well, I've joined Technorati and am claiming my blog.

Technorati Profile

Hope it works.

Week 6: #13 Tagging makes the web 2.0 world go round

I admit that I'm still sort of lost when it comes to the social networking aspect of the Internet. I can see the fun of using the tags for finding others with the same interest; but it's all I can do to keep up with myself, let alone look for more acquaintances with similar interests.

That said, I definitely can see the use of Del.icio.us as a bookmarking aid when away from a home computer. Having everything in one place is a plus. And if I was ever doing a paper on the interest of a certain topic, I know it would be useful.

Week 5: #12 The "Library" Elf will remind you!

This is great! The sign up was very easy. And I hope that the Library Elf will get me to return my DVDs on time.

Week 5: #11 A Thing about Library Thing

This was really fun. Although I haven't finished my comments about each book on my shelf, I plan to later on. Of course, cataloging is right up my alley. Many of the books I chose are the first in a series by the author: Thursday Next, Nursery Crimes, The Grub and Stakers, Madoc Rhys, Meg Lanslow, and Turing Hopper. And I added two favorites that I re-read every year or so: Jane Eyre and Laura. And, of course, the latest Harry Potter, my favorite book of the series. I plan to add more. I've put the Library Thing bookshelf and widget in the right margin.

Week 5: #10 Play around with Image Generators

I confess that I thought that avatars were kind of silly things. But I've had so much fun creating mine! I tried to make my avatars as much like me as possible and some folks have said that the avatar in the right margin does look like me. I created her on Yahoo. Once you log in on your Yahoo account, go to http://avatars.yahoo.com/ -- and have fun.

I tried out the Meez site -- http://www.meez.com/home.dm -- and found it very easy to use. Instead of posting straight to my blog, I saved my Meez avatar to my picture file and have posted her above.

Week 4: #9 Finding Feeds

I did have fun with searching for blogs. I found Technorati most helpful for the entertainment blogs. In fact, I found TV Shows on DVD newsfeed and subscribed to that. For me, Syndic8 was the clunkiest to search.

If I was a consistent blogger and had a My Space or Facebook page and wanted to keep in touch with others with blogs, I'd probably find Bloglines and such more useful. As it is, I have sites bookmarked and open up my favorites list to check on them. I guess I'm still a creature of habit. I won't give up entirely on Bloglines, but it'll take me a while to get accustomed to using it.

Week 4: #8 Make life "really simple" with RSS and a newsreader

Well, I've set up my Bloglines account and subscribed to various feeds. I can see why it would be useful to know about this, I don't think I'll be using very often. Right now the most convenient subscription is weather reports for friends and family in other cities, although I enjoy the entertainment newsfeeds.

While looking for feeds to subscribe to, I discovered that I could save RSS feeds on my computer and access them from the Favorites list on Explorer. I chose Ken Hoffman's article on Houston Chronicle and Northwest Headlines on the Portland Oregonian site. I don't buy the Chronicle everyday, so having a feed to Hoffman's column is fun.