Thing 12: Keep rollin'

Rollyo is a handy little website, indeed. It's quite easy with most blogs to add a search box that lets readers flick through your archives and find all your posts about 'lunch', Rollyo takes things one step further.

After signing up, I quickly whipped up a search tool of a few websites I read most days, and some reference sites I use quite frequently. And bing, bang, boom, there it is. You can search this site right now, if you want. I didn't include the search of my favourite websites, cause it's not particularly useful or relevant to this blog.

I imagine this function of Rollyo could be quite handy. I can think of numerous occasions when I've wanted to show someone a particular post on a website, but didn't have the link to hand. Sometimes I can't even remember what site it was on. Rather than scroll through pages of pages, this search tool could get me straight to the point. Another handy tool in my belt, and better than Google for when I can't remember exactly what site something was on.

Thing 11: the Library Thing

The Library Thing

I have to admit this is a pretty addictive website. I could've spent hours following suggestions, adding books, comparing my tastes to other people's. I wasn't at all sure whether it was appropriate to include only books I own, or if I could list all the books I've read. It would make sense to list what I've read, because then the suggestion tool wouldn't keep telling me to read things I've already read.

I think I need to stay well away from this website until I have a lot of free time. This could really suck a hole in my day. I tend to avoid online forums for varying reasons, but I found the forums at Library Thing really interesting. Dangerous stuff.

Check out my catalogue, or search it using the Library Thing search tool I added to this blog.

Thing #10: get generating

I decided that I should honour the mathematical nature of this blog's title for this Thing. I found an image generator called Back to School Chalkboard Message! and plugged in my rigorously proven formula on the Math background.

There wasn't room for me to provide the full proof, but it is of a standard form, and I will leave it as an exercise for the reader. Maths and logic reprazentz!

Thing #9: what was I looking for?

This Thing has highlighted one of my shortcomings, and one of the biggest problems I have on the internet. When I'm not looking for anything in particular I can spend hours not finding it on the internet.

I jumped on the search sites for RSS feeds and searched various terms, coming up with pages of things that didn't really interest me. And then I realised what the problem was - I wasn't looking for anything. I was searching for terms because that's what I was supposed to be doing this week.

So I didn't subscribe to anything I found. I did find a lot of library jobs available at libraries around the world when searching on one site (sorry, I forgot which, but we already have jobs, remember).

I think I still find out about things that interest me through word of mouth, be it online or in person. As to how I get information about things, things get a little blurry. There's a list of databases and so on in my mind, but I don't know how I update this list. Probably not from blogs.

Thing #8: Feed me some RSS

RSS is pretty damn handy, for all the reasons mentioned on the ACL Learning blog. I use Google Reader to handle my subscriptions. There are currently about 18 different feeds on there, but there used to be closer to 40. This was an accurate list, at the time, of what I was regularly going from site to site to read, every day.

I'm not addicted, honest. That's why I cut down to 18, to make my online reading more managaeable. One thing that still bugs me is RSS feeds that have click-throughs - why provide an RSS feed if I'm gonna have to go to your website to read the article anyway? Please, full text everyone.

Signing up for Bloglines was a very simple and familiar process. It behaves very similarly to Google Reader, so did not find it difficult adding subscriptions. It also had a handy feature which showed popular feeds when I signed up, which happened to have a few of the feeds I wanted, making things even easier.

If you want to see what I subscribed to: http://www.bloglines.com/public/nmanson

Thing #7: the calculator watch

CASIO DBC-62
Originally uploaded by rust.bucket

Perhaps the pinnacle of all technology, the calculator watch is the working persons solution to many a problem. Need to make some quick calculations in the bottle store to make sure you're getting adequate bang for your meager student buck? Casio is here to help.

The model of calculator watch I own lets me do arithmetic, quick currency conversions, and enter numbers that spell words when upside down. It also has room for twenty-five phone numbers, a stop-watch, four alarms and "dual time", which lets me know the time in the time zone I've chosen.

And damn if it doesn't look good.

Thing #6: the ubiquitous remix

The first thing to realise when you delve into the world of Flickr mashups is this: you're going to need some pictures. You can't mash nothing with anything; the nothing noths.

Now, I don't have any pictures that I want to put on Flickr right now, and I wasn't about to go down the path of infringing on someone else's intellectual property, so I have nothing to show for this Thing. I'll tell you what I did do.

I chose an image (borrowed from someone else) so I could get cranking on the Movie Poster app at Big Huge Labs. Actually, it was a picture of me, a real rock and roll live moment. Lots of black, some light flares in the background, and me looking thoughtfully into the dark, guitar in hand.

Composition-wise this photo was all on the left-hand side, and all in landscape. BHL's Movie Poster didn't cope with this very well, and I gave up trying to centre the picture right.

I think apps like this are quite cool, though I think the more practical mashups like Mappr would be of more interest to me. If I wanted to make a movie poster I wouldn't think to do it with a web app. For those who aren't at all familiar with using graphics and publishing software, then these apps are really cool. For those of us who have made these kind of images as a job, well, we need time off, you know.

Thing #5: The face-melting Sean Norling

Sean
Originally uploaded by lucindajayne

Here's a picture of my buddy Sean, the Mandroid, at the first ever ROFLCOPTER show. ROFLCOPTER were (and are) a true Dunedin supergroup. I'm talking unstoppable.

Sean only stands up when he has to, and the rest of the time he's kneeling down tweaking his pedals. I'm sure this has nothing to do with the fact that Sean never attended practices. The guy knew what he was doing. Face were melted. 'Nuff said.

The photo was taken by the official ROFLCOPTER photographer, lucindajayne.

Thing #4: Putting the WORK in Social Networking

At my last job I had to be quite covert about logging into social networking sites, so of course I was quite happy to come in today and find out I was expected to do so for work. Thanks, ACL!

Bebo's First

This is the one that I've not had much to do with. Friends of mine had invited me onto Bebo, but my account didn't last long - neither did my first MySpace account. Maybe I was in a dark place at the time, or maybe I wanted people to think I was.

So today I signed up quick-snap to Bebo and asked to be friends with the ACL profile (I have my fingers crossed that the answer is yes). I used Bebo's search function to look through my contacts for people who were already on Bebo and requested friendship. At the time of writing I have one friend! A cause for celebration!

I also uploaded a profile picture (not of me, but rather of a Russian jet). I couldn't work out how to "link to your blog or....you may want to link to something else.", so I didn't. I can't see any function on Bebo for explicitly making external links. Scratch that, I've changed my mind - I'll make a "Links" section on my profile and put it there. Ingenuity!

I spoke too soon - Bebo's profile fields don't do anything good with HTML tags, so we'll stay linkless. I also won't be linking back to my profile from here, as my profile is private and has not direct URL. Sorry, potential stalker-friends!

Next up: MySpace

I had a personal profile on here back before the News Corp takeover. Then things got out of hand, right. Like, well mental. I deleted my account, but later came back to it because I felt like me musical side-project needed exposure. The kind of exposure having 40 friends on a site where most people have thousands.

Actually, just recently someone from Germany found my profile and songs, and made a friend request. I accepted, and she posted a comment calling my song an ohrwurm (lit: ear-worm). One of those catchy tunes you can't get out of your head. My work here is done.

"Try adding some images to your blog": I wasn't quite sure whether this meant adding images to a MySpace account, or linking to photos on MySpace here, or some other permutation. I've settled for sticking the following image here, which is also hosted on my MySpace profile:

Lovely.

MySpace is a chaotic place, although I do post bulletins and gig info there. And read those of others. Sometimes.

And then there was Facebook

This is where the cool kids be at, or at least that's what everyone on Facebook is telling themselves. I see there's a group on there now for people not born in the 1980s (as this group claims 90% of the users of Facebook are).

I think the coolest thing about Facebook is Scrabulous. Another important thing to remember: set you default network as the one in which you have the most friends. Sure, you just moved to a new school and want to acknowledge the fact. But only having a teacher and one other person as the friends on your profile page is a little sad. If in doubt, default to your country.

Facebook seemed a little broken today, so I couldn't search for any of my fellow ACL workers. I'll rectify that soon.

And now I depart! Thank you for joining me on my social networking journey.