CPL 2.0 - oops #2 online productivity tools

Oops, I also forgot to do this assignment about online productivity tools from a few weeks back. Here it goes:

So I tried Google Docs. I'm pretty into this. I will definitely be recommending this to CPL customers, and yes I do think these free services will someday replace expensive programs like 'Microsoft Office' et al.

CPL 2.0 RSS (oops)

Oops - I forgot to do this RSS project a few weeks back. So, here it goes: I signed up for Bloglines, started an RSS on a few of my favourite sites. I'm not super into it - but I can see how it can be useful. At this point I think I still prefer to ju go to my favorite sites once or twice a day. Anyway.

CPL 2.0 Twitter

There was a time when I really disliked the notion and name of/for Twitter. It seemed self absorbed, superfluous, gimmicky, etc. yada, yada. Now I see some uses for it - promoting a band, a nightclub, an event, or showcasing your penchance for distanced ironic commentary. If you go too long (let's say 12 minutes), without being sardonic, or self-promoting, people might forget that you exist. Twitter can service this reminder.

Library-'thang'

How can so many people hate 'the Unbearable Lightness of Being' - well when reading the reviews for it on Library thing, a number of reasons were listed; for many it's just too sexy. Fair enough. If I was a mother of two 7 year old twins and I was wondering whether or not they might enjoy this book as part of their summer reading adventure, I could check out some info about it on Librarything.com. Hmmm, a refutation of the old Nietzschean 'eternal recurrance of the same', playing out through a series of infidelities in Cold War occupied Prague, without even a semblance of a wimpy kid's diary entry. I don't think the twins are going to get it.
blog, blog, blog.

Flickr and Youtube CPL 2.0

I am no stranger to either of these services. I have spent countless hours on Youtube looking at footage of my favourite bands; I've even posted footage of my own band. Flickr is great as well! I have used one or two of their creative commons pictures for library program posters once or twice. Yes, both are user friendly.

Matthew

Google

Wow Google. My oh my they do it all. Finally the future depicted in the cartoons of my childhood is coming into being.
For this assignment I looked at YouTube because I love it. Youtube is an amazing resource for accessing video materials, ranging from live performances by your favorite artist to Mccain fries commercials from the 1980's. beautiful!

CPL 2.0 Facebook Response

I find Facebook to be both useful and 'a time waster'. It can be an extremely useful tool for connecting with friends (especially those that live out of town), or tracking down old friends that you haven't heard from in a while. It's also great for promoting events. However, it seems that a lot of the communication that occurs on Facebook is fairly trite, and a waste of time.

CPL 2.0 Wikipedia assignment

That was fun. After reading on Wikipedia that my now defunct band was still together, I figured I best inform the public of our sad (and apparently unnoticed) passing. Very user friendly. I love Wikipedia!

CPL 2.0 Delicious

Assignment 2

So I just checked out delicious. I imagine that delicious is best used as a tool for cataloging, and organizing websites (I'll call this bookmarking). A benefit to delicious is that it allows you to access your website catalog remotely (regular bookmarks can only be accessed on the computer on which the bookmark was made). Another advantage to delicious is that it allows you to share your catalog with others, and in turn a user may browse catalogs created by others. Not my favorite site on the web, but not without its merits. hot dog!

Astroswan

CPL 2.0

Q: Which aspect of Web 2.0 are you the most intrigued (or scared) by?



A: Hmmm ...



The internet is an increbile tool, one that allows for the aquisition, and dissemination of enormous quantities of information [i.e. facts (for conventions sake we'll assume they exist), opinions, ideas, etc.], through a variety of mediums [text, photo, video, mp3, etc.]. It is an informational forum unlike any other in history, offering both vastness and immediacy; with the press of a button (mostly proverbial), one can find 101 (again proverbial) perspectives on ... Vancouver : simultaneous best, and worst host of the Olympic Games ... ever..., or to use a personally relevant example: the overarching brilliance 'or' disgusting pretension of my band's latest record. When the War of the Succession was occurring in the 1740's, 'the Newcastle Journal' unanimously sided with the British army's decision to ally itself with Austria, regaling the reader with promises of a swift and justified murder of Spanish army-men (this quote is fabricated, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog). The 'world' - a condition of the facts as presented by the 'Newcastle Journal', and interpreted by the good people of Newcastle via a 'language' (in the broader sense) for the most part informed by the 'Newcastle Journal' - just the Newcastle Journal feeding back into itself over, and over, and over, and over, creating the world for the good folks of Newcastle (I'm using both hyperbole, and reduction here; strategically, to make a point, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog). Imagine if we only had the Newcastle Journal telling us about the 2010 Vancouver Olympic games ... dear God, it would be the worst Olympics ever, unequivocally; uncontested - those Brits. Now I'm not saying that every event is an essence-less, nebulous blob, possessing no identity other than that imputed on it from within the interpretive operations of 'human consciousnesses' (which would also be nebulous and interpretive, unless it could do the old 'eye seeing itself trick')[I believe this, but I won't say it here, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog]. Anyway, to conclude with the obvious point: the more information available i.e.- the more news stories, tv programs, letters, facebook updates, tweets, stories from friends, conversations .... ******BLOGS *******, one can access ... the more oppurtunity there is to develop a thoughtfully constructed (and hopefully benevolent; I feel they generally go hand in hand) interpretation of ...(I'm going to use a really loaded term here, and only provisionally) ..........'REALITY!!!!' ....... In short, blogs, social networking, general internetting etc. are all piece's in the collective information pie, and that sweet info pie nourishes the soul. The more informed we are the better, it seems to increase not only one's oppurtunities, but also ones liberties. Yep CPL 2.0.