Jack in a Box

Yes, he really is called Jack!

Now the pressure's off, I'm enjoying reading people's blogs and getting ideas to improve my own and taking a more in depth look at some of the tings we've learned.

I've just put a new gadget on my blog to show recent comments.

I like the idea someone had of morphing our blogs to continue after 23 things...I'm getting a new digital camera so hope to post lots of photos...watch this space!

The End!

First of all a big thank you to the 23 thing organisers.

Absolutely brilliant.

I enjoyed every minute...except where I got stuck at delicious which put me off for a good few weeks, resulting in a mad rush from about thing 6 in the last few days!

Ironically delicious was what appealed to me most, but had the most difficulty with.

There are still many questions, which I hope I will be motivated to go and find out for myself, when 23 things finishes.

I have learnt so much in addition to the 23 things, such as discovering easier ways of getting around my screen, which have made life so much easier.

One of the highlights has been learning from other people and reading their blogs - do they stay forever? Will we continue to update and use them?

I feel rather self-conscious writing my blog, but then think to myself, no-one is actually reading this, and just write for the 23 things panel who will probably be the only people who have to read this waffle!

I would like to take time to read more of blogs, and find out who they all are!

I feel a bit lost now not having something new to learn and write about! I think we need a 23 things party!

Bring on 24-46 things! I'm sure there's loads more we can do!

Delicious Gadget on i-google

That was cool as well - I was wondering if this was possible when we set up delicious because I have to have so many different pages to keep tabs on, but this is a great solution to having everything in one place.

With a bit of work I could really get i-google to have all the things I really want on it. I don't use the things I have on it at the moment so it's a bit of a waste of space.

Will make this thing 24 for me!

Blogger Gadget Photostream

I always wondered how people did this...and now I know!

This is a really easy one that has great effect.

Need to spend a bit more time playing around with the layout of my blog so that my recent posts don't go down the pages such a long way, and move the photo stream so that people can see it, and not have to scroll all the way down to the bottom to see them.

Great gadget!

Think Free

Interesting and useful to see another service offering documents and document management.

My laptop has finally given up with all the multiple 23 things I'm asking it to do and has crashed tonight, I think it was the google form / questionnaire that I tried to create for thing 19 - and that would have been my favourite thing if it had worked!

I can see light at the end of the tunnel!

Google Docs

Another great discovery from 23 things! Great way to share documents or easy way to always have access to your documents.

I created a quick document and sent it to the 23 thing organisers, and was very excited to set up a questionnaire in the form style, but ran into problems, I think at the google end when it crashed and wouldn't save as a form, or email to anyone, and then would only save as a spreadsheet.

Sorry I couldn't achieve this thing completely!

Wikipedia

Every time I visit Wikipedia it's changed - there's been a new layout or a new category of information.

Just as you think the world is getting smaller, when you can chat with friends in Australia on facebook and find friends you haven't seen in years, Wikipedia makes you realise how big the world actually is!

I'm a bit nervous about editing something in Wikipedia, so haven't done that yet, but if I do see something that needs correcting I know I can do this now thanks to 23 things!

Wiki

Another great discovery thanks to 23 things! I didn't know about wikis apart from wikipedia which I've used as an online encyclopedia of all things!

23 things has made it easy to use because we just follow the link, which I've now saved in my favourites (should really be in delicious!)

I am pleased to report that I found my way around the oxford libraries web 2.0 wiki without too much trouble and created yet another sign-on!

Straight away I found a useful thread about setting a counter on a blog, which I hadn't managed to set up from the blog, but this is an external site http://www.sitemeter.com/ which provides lots of useful stats about your viewers.

As I thought I have a big fat 0 of viewings so far, but here is what the graph diplay looks like:



So for thing 17 I've replied to this thread, and also set up a new thread about word clouds that I discovered via 23 things earlier in delicious.

It was quite fun contributing to a wiki, although I'm not sure how many people look at them and therefore the value of putting things on it, my worry would be that all this useful information goes untapped.

I didn't manage to edit anything, although I did notice that the address is still socialouls but I guess this is more difficult to change!

Exciting Discovery

Oh I'm very excited...I've just discovered a way of finding all my previous pages, by using a drop down arrow by my back arrow on my internet explorer bar at the top left of my screen...how quick is that, just move between all my pages...yipee.

I now have 23 things overload, so will pause on a successful note!

Only a couple of days to do the remaining 7 things...will it be possible???

Twitter

Aha! All is explained...I should be using the hashtag to find fellow 23 thingers!

Honestly I have so many tabs and pages and links open I don't know what's going on, and the one page I want to find again is lost behind a load of other pages that I've journeyed through...

So, thing 16 has shown me a new tweet search page, and hash tags, although I don't think I can follow a hashtag but I've saved it anyway.

Is this another website I need to check for updates? So now I'm checking my emails, facebook, twitter, blogs for comments, I'm sure there's more;-)

Twitter

Now this is another thing that I've already signed up for, but it's been a while and I can't remember my sign-on! Excellent, I must have ticked the remember me box as it logged me in!

The best example of this working well was watching the Tour de France last year, and following the cyclists like Lance Armstrong, who would tweet about what he was eating and gossip between the teams, how he was feeling, who said what etc. (I'm sure he must have had a PA to do this for him!)

Tried to find some 23 thingers, but not much luck, found Laura W, but not really sure she wants me saying hi on her bank holiday weekend!

Work wise, Ruth Newman and I checked out the tweets from the Staff Conference which mainly consisted of a superb running commentary by Laura...but it reminds me of when I used to send notes to my friends at school behind the teachers back hehe!

LinkedIn

Dear 23 Things Panel,

As you can see I've been blitzing the 23 things, so my apologies for having to wade through a whole pile of posts at the last minute!

I've decided not to sign up to LinkedIn, but I had experience of it in my previous employment in the finance world, which I have quite happily left behind!

It's a very business like networking facility, but does have similarities to Facebook in that it can turn into a competition of how many people you know! And then the ones you do want to get in touch with aren't on it anyway!

Good for business bods, and those wanting to keep in touch with other Higher Education entities.

How libraries are using Facebook to connect with their users

Ah, this looks like it needs a little research, and seeing as I've left my 23 things to the last minute, my research is limited.

This is where I thought delicious might come in useful to find all fellow 23 thinger's, thing 13's in one place, but I don't think it goes down to that level.

Having had a quick scan of some other blogs it does seem a fair question whether students would want to mix their studies with their social life on Fb. Fine if they want to, we should make the most of whatever means we can. Personally, I think Fb will be just another fad. (Apparently as soon as anyone over 30 started using it, it immediately became uncool!)

There will always be the next big thing, and whatever it is, libraries will get onto it and make the most of it while they can! Since working at the Bodleian Libraries and OU as a whole, I have been impressed by the use of new technology. The students force us to keep up with them, many of whom work for the libraries, so we have free inside knowledge into what is the latest way to communicate.

YouTube

YouTube is great, as long as you don't live in Benson or anywhere with a slow internet!

It never ceases to amaze me at the amount of useful and entertaining stuff there is on YouTube. Most recently roller ski techniques for a new sport I'm learning!

The SSL YouTube clip with Craig and co was very useful when preparing for my interview there last year!

Podcasts

Wow - I was amazed to see all the fascinating podcasts on the Oxford Unversity link - there just isn't enough time in the day to look at all the ones that interest me - it's like a constantly updating live magazine.

I tried to look at a podcast but my internet connection at home is just too slow. I have trouble sometimes with i-player and youtube so think I will have to wait until we get faster internet for this one.

Soon I will be able to know a little about a lot.

Social Bookmarking & Tagging

OK, so I read the instructions, and jumped straight to what I thought was the easy bit about networks, but it asked for a delicious user name...how do I know this, I don't even know what my own user name is?! Oh lordy:-)

I perservered and managed to add Cathy and acarritt to my network, but do they know?! Again I find I need a gazzillion screens open to find the user name and go back to put it in my networks...there must be an easier way?!

For me, delicious is just a bit too clever for it's own good, it's doesn't seem to be very methodical, and I feel like I'm flying on a magic carpet to different screens, and before long I've no idea where I am or how to get back to where I was!!

I've seen loads of other bookmarking icons and will have to explore these to see if they're any better, or will delicious be the google of bookmarking?

Found the folksonomies info interesting, set up RSS feeds from delicious, will these show up on my i-google page - help why can't everything be done in one place?!!

I think I need my own website to keep it all together! I'm sure everyone will have their own website in the not too distant future, just like they have a mobile phone. In fact mobiles will become obsolete for making calls, because we'll have all our contacts on our website and contact each other through a skype chip in our ear.

I digress, 23 things on on...

Social Bookmarking & Tagging

Having set up my delicious account way back and found word clouds, I was really excited to get going on delicious as my favourites were and still are getting out of control!

However...upon revisiting in detail to complete thing 9, it wasn't as easy and straight forward as I thought.

First of all I spent ages trying to get my bookmarklet button to sit in my links toolbar. As I already have a few in there already, there wasn't room, but eventually found a way to create a new line of links, phew, but for some reason I've still not managed to get the lovely little tag icon, so instead I've just dragged my save to delicious page in my links and it seems to work fine. I've also got a delicious logo with save a new bookmark, although this route you have to cut and paste the url.

So, with that all set up, the first thing I saved was the 23thingsblogspot and my own blog, as well as my colleagues, Cathy and Sibel. I've also saved a few Oxford related ones, and tried to send to acarritt. Went to check and it's on the ox23 'everyone' list which is great, but then tried to share my blog on delicious in the same place but can't work out how to share, or to get on this list again. To make up for this an added bonus was that Cathy's list popped up, no idea how?! Also not exactly sure how I find out friends name on it if they are using a different name...too many questions again!!

Looking forward to using delicious more and exploring all the things it can do - and getting really organised on it. Or is it just another way to store your favs? Like photos - I've got some on a memory stick, some in my email account, some in my laptop, they're all over the place!

The best thing about this is that I've had to do it, and although I'm not an expert, I can use it, and will get better. Something I wouldn't have done without 23 things!

More Feeds

I'm getting lost, serves me right for leaving 23 things to the last minute. I couldn't find my Google Reader page, so had to go back to 23 things and thing 5 to click on the link so that I could then save it in my favourites.

It seems you need open loads of duplicate pages so that you can link through to other pages, otherwise you can't go back to find things. I wonder if this is how everyone else does it?

I then realised I needed yet more pages open so that I could go back to find a blog address to cut and paste to add another blog. This was quite a good experiment, in that when clicking follow on someone's blog it automatically sets up in google reader, but it seems if you want to follow without being a follower, then you have to start at google reader.

I'm also confused because I found a rowing website to add to my google reader, and cut and pasted the address in, but it hasn't added to my google reader list...I'm just finding it all a bit frustrating...

I think I'll move on, and come back to explore this later.

Google Reader and RSS Feeds

Well...even upon revisiting, this is all a bit of a mystery to me. I think this is where I came to a bit of block on my 23 things. I'm just not really getting it. I thought I'd tried to set up my i-google homepage / start page so that whenever I turned on my computer I would see updates or the latest RSS feeds from blogs I was following, but I've not quite managed it. So it seems quicker just to go to the 23 things page and see it all there.

At least my Google Reader is set up with 23 things and the blogs I'm following, so I guess I've achieved what I'm supposed to do. There just seems so many different pages and places to check now, although I can see the benefits of keeping track of what you want to follow, but what if this is all the bloggers on 23 things, isn't it just as quick to browse the 23 things blog itself?? More questions I know!

Thoughts about blogs

The more I'm finding my way around web2.0 the more there is to explore. I've just been tidying up my blog so far and when updating my profile with a photo, found a button to manage blogs I follow, which took me to another screen and then another screen about google friends - it's a bit like entering a maze and not wanting to go to far so you can track back to where you started!

And the more I find out the more questions I have! For instance, it seems weird editing posts that have already been published, does anyone know if a post has been updated? Although I can understand the need to amend or remove errors or mistakes, as well as being a great idea for the perfectionist like myself.

I might come back to this post to add my thoughts along the way...or should I create a new post with the same title?? Maybe I should not have such an enquiring mind!

Start Pages

Just going back over all the things to make sure I've followed the instructions properly.

Looks like there were two parts to Thing 3, so here's another quick little blog to complete it.

Had great fun designing my blog page and got inspiration from looking at other blogs. Some you can see that they have just stuck with a template and got straight on with the blogging, and others are totally customised, so much so that I'm intrigued as to how they've done it! As I am motivated by aesthetics, there is no end of time wasting to be had here!

I think the second part of thing 3 was to insert images, which we actually did for thing 1 and 2 to post an image of our i-google screen.

Lastly, what do I think on start pages?...um, I'm not actually sure what a start page is, so will have to look this up. OK, I see now - they're a great idea. In fact what would you do without one? Is it possible?! Is a start page the same as a landing page? Every brand name seems to have one now, clamouring for your custom. When I log onto facebook it asks me if I want to make this my homepage - similar concept I think. You've got to start somewhere and I now I know that there's lots of start pages to keep me from getting bored.

P.S. Not sure from the last bullet point in the Thing 3 instructions if this should be labelled Thing 1 and Thing 2? Sorry if I've got it wrong.

Set up i-google

It's now only a few days to go to the end of 23 things and I am going back over the instructions from the beginning, and tidying up my labels / tags so that they all make sense and doing the things that I didn't do when I should have!

When I started off I was worried about giving my posts a different title to the label in case I got lost with what I was doing, but now I see I can have both, which in fact makes it easier - a descriptive title and thing numbered label!

So Thing 1 was easy to set up an i-google account, although it seemed to automatically save as my desktop. I say automatically, I'm sure it was "operator error" I must have given it permission to do this mustn't I!! I didn't mind this for a while, but I've changed it back on my desktop at work, because I constantly need quick access to the OU & Bodleian homepages to look up stuff at work. This was a good exercise in itself as I had to find how to set up my homepage! In the meantime I intend to make it work better for me at home. I would really like to see it alert me to new posts from fellow bloggers!

For the purposes of Thing 1 I've also found out the different between https which is secure, and http which is not and according to Wiki is open to eavesdropping and allows attackers to gain access to website accounts and sensitive information. Oh and they use different port numbers...whatever that means!!