Second Life, Skype, and Goodbye

The resources links were very useful for Second Life; I now understand why a university, for instance, would want to be part of this. I didn't realise also it was at such a big scale. But I still need to get my head around this better, and I am not convinced about joining.

Skype on the other hand is in - and it has saved me some money; I've been using it for video calls, and had recently a couple of people at the other end. They were commenting how they can hear me in the whole room as if I was next door.

And so much for that.

Thank you Kerri for setting this up; the resources have been interesting and useful. And thank you to everyone who's been reading this. Now that I can shut the curtains on this, I'll have another stroll through other people's blogs; it's been fun getting to know some of your other 'selves'.

Facebook

I use facebook (on and off). Its greatest benefit for me is in being another way of keeping in touch with people overseas, and being less intrusive. I have joined also some groups, causes...within limits, and it's, again, another way of keeping posted on things of interest. Stating the obvious here.

But I haven't heard of Ning, for example. Just had a quick look.

MySpace

I don’t use my account that much; in fact, I hardly look at MySpace. I found out also their copyright filter is going strong. A video I was trying to upload got blocked. And, NO, whatever you’re thinking, it’s not it. It was because of Bob Marley, the background music I chose for the video. Found YouTube a bit more flexible in this respect.

RSS-ing

Created a blogline account, and added 24 feeds. Now I just have to remember going to that place to check what I subscribed to. I find there are so many ways you can get what you want - speaking strictly about things online (yet to figure out otherwise) - that it can get confusing. What works the best for me - with my studies for instance - is to subscribe to email updates to sites I know otherwise I would have to scroll through....

Charts of all kinds

I fiddled around with bubble.us and it was fun and had way too many branches. Will use it again with a concrete plan for sure.

Newsletter

an example

Wiki bits

I can see why the Future Melbourne Wiki got an award - clean set up and great colour themes....

Google Documents and Books

I've been using Google documents for a while; must have something to do with loosing my emails and everything in MyDocuments. Twice. But, it's great: the easy access, not having to save everything on a USB....

As for the Google Books, I am new to it. On having a quick scan, I guess it's useful having all the links to reviews, other publications by the author in one spot.

Google Mapping

Searching an address on this has become second nature, so, yes, definetly very useful. I have also found out that some very clever people can put the the Google map to much sophisticated use such as this example. Using google maps to 'flag' farmer markets in Victoria, with the pink flags linking to video interviews with people from markets. Or, a more humanitarian use, the website mashup developed in Kenya after post-election violence there in 2008 - Ushahidi- that used citizen-generated reports and Google maps to create crisis information and map violent places to be avoided.