August 31, 2006 By Leave a Comment

Happy Blog Day

I was taking a look at Technorati to see what’s new and saw that BlogDay2006 was the most popular tag. Remember years ago when one had to be a programmer and learn HTML to create Web pages. Web 2.0 has certainly changed things! Now anyone can create a blog and say just about anything.

Since the BlogDay site is down (for the moment), I was able to find the details for today’s festivities from A Mama’s Rant.

  1. Find five new blogs that you find interesting.
  2. Notify the five bloggers that you’re recommending them on BlogDay 2006.
  3. Write a BlogDay post today with a short description of each blog, and a link back to each one.
  4. Add a “BlogDay 2006″ Technorati tag and/or link back to Technorati BlogDay 2006 page.
  5. Link to BlogDay website (which at the time of this posting, isn’t working)

So here are my 5 blogs for BlogDay 2006:

  1. LifeHacker – Computers make us more productive. Yeah, right. Lifehacker recommends the software downloads and web sites that actually save time. Don’t live to geek; geek to live.
  2. NetFamilyNews – Kid-tech news for parents. Welcome to the official blog of the SafeKids/NetFamilyNewsletter.
  3. Cool Cat Teacher Blog – Teaching content with new tools, enthusiasm, and belief that teaching is a high calling.
  4. 43 Folders – Personal productivity, life hacks, and simple ways to make your life a little better.
  5. Cats Me if You Can – A must for any cat lover or hater for that matter!

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Filed under: Learning 2.0
August 28, 2006 By Leave a Comment

Week 4 Things 8 & 9: RSS Feeds

I remember when I first attended a demo for staff of RSS feeds. It took me a while to get it, and at that point I was not reading nearly as many feeds as I am now. I discovered, quickly, that a News Reader is a must to keep up with information.

Years ago I used My Yahoo. Last year I tried Bloglines but did not like the linear form of it. Then I tried NetVibes and appreciated its visual appeal. I quickly learned that NetVibes was only manageable with a limited number of feeds. Then NetVibes added tabs, and I was in love… until my account got erased and all my feeds and links were lost. After that I switched back to Bloglines and have never turned back.

One of the best features about Bloglines is that it is not just for RSS feeds. You know all those e-mail subscriptions that you sign up for that clutter your Inbox? You can have those sent directly to Bloglines and keep them archived there!

Here’s how to subscribe to an e-mail newsletter with Bloglines:

Step 1: After logging in to Bloglines, click Add in the upper left column

Step 2: Click Email Groups in the right window pane

Step 3: Add the name of a Yahoo or Google Group or click Create an Email Subscription

Step: 4 Fill out the New Email Subscription Form and click the Create Email Subscription button

Step 5: In the Email Subscriptions window you will see a list of your email subscriptions followed by a Bloglines e-mail address. Select and copy this e-mail address.

Step 6: Go to the Web site that has the subscription form. Paste in the Bloglines e-mail address. This is your new e-mail address for this subscription only.

Step 7: After you have subscribed to the newsletter, go back to Bloglines and you should see a feed listed for your e-mail subscription. You will notice an envelope icon next to it. Click on the feed to view the newsletter.

The best part about this is you can easily “unsubscribe” by deleting the feed. You can add an unlimited amount of e-mail subscriptions or feeds. If you start getting spam in your feed you will have a good idea of where it originated from (since each feed can have its own bloglines e-mail address).

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Filed under: Learning 2.0
August 26, 2006 By Leave a Comment

Beta Blogger

Beta Blogger has some really cool features. It is much easier now to configure your template and change the colors. However not being able to edit the HTML template is frustrating.

Since Beta Blogger is separate from Blogger you have separate accounts (for now). I understand that later we will be able to merge the accounts. The biggest drawback to this is that to post comments to a Blogger Blog, you have to sign in with a Blogger account, a Beta Blogger account will not work–unless the blog is setup to allow anonymous comments. However even if the blog is set up to allow anonymous comments you can still choose other and type in the URL of your blog.

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Filed under: Learning 2.0
August 24, 2006 By Leave a Comment

Week 3 Thing 7: Blog Spam

Wow within a minute of my last post, I got hit by blog spam in the comments. How annoying. To prevent this I have turned on word verification for comments.

Read more about blog spam and what Blogger is trying to do about it.

Just like junk mail and telemarketing, spam is here to stay!

*Note: This post was written when this blog was on Blogger.

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Filed under: Learning 2.0
August 24, 2006 By Leave a Comment

Week 3 Things 5 & 6: Flickr

I’ve had a Flickr account for a while now and it’s been great for sharing photos with family and friends. I agree with jwdettel, the uploading limits are frustrating, but I still like Flickr because I can send links to family and friends and they don’t need to create an account to view the photos.

Flickr is also great for eBay. Instead of paying eBay to host photos of your items for auction, you can insert a link to a Flickr photo instead.

You can make Flickr uploading easier by downloading and installing the Flickr Uploading Tool. This lets you drag and drop photos into Flickr and automatically resizes them for you so that you don’t max out on your monthly quota.

Speaking of Flickr, I just found my son on the cover of a magazine!

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Filed under: Learning 2.0
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