Whew! I think I bit off more than I could chew with Delicious. I went back to it last night and imported all my favorites and bookmarks from my work computer, my laptop, and my old desktop and craziness ensued. Over 800 favorites and over 100 different tags! I was up till midnight trying to reorganize and rename the "tags" and get rid of the duplicates.
Is there a way to automatically get rid of duplicates or dead links? That would be very handy. I also seem to be having a personal issue wrapping my head around the concept of organizing by tags. I'm so used to organizing my files and favorites using Windows folders (with a strict naming convention and filing system) that the tagging system seems a bit too willy-nilly and unstructured. I'm sure I'll get used to it but it was surprisingly frustrating.
Is anyone else having trouble adjusting to a more relational model of data organization?
Friday, February 6, 2009
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Thing 13
Wow, I just realized I have a pronounced negative initial reaction to anything new that I don’t immediately recognize as personally beneficial. My initial reaction to several of the Things I’ve done in this program was “what use is this?” And, if I had not been doing this for ConEd credit I probably would have passed up learning about these new technologies (I have a very short attention span).
For example, Thing 13, social bookmarking, was immediately repulsive to me. I don’t want to share my “favorites” with the world (you can deduce quite a bit about someone from what they read or listen to and there’s a lot I’m not sure I want the world to know about me). Plus, if I’ve already got my favorites stored in my computer why in the world would I need to store them again on a social bookmarking site.
If I had been looking at this on my own I would’ve simply skipped on to the next Thing and filed social bookmarking away as “irrelevant”. But, knowing that I had to do a blog post about using it, and doing some of this training from home, I stuck it out, dug a little deeper and found that this social bookmarking thing just might be worthwhile (just like RSS feeds and Rollyo).
When I was working on my Rollyo searchroll on Low Carb Recipes for Thing 12 I was adding my favorite sites to the list when I found myself having to search for websites that I had in my favorites on my computer at home but hadn’t bookmarked on my work computer. Plus, last night when my wife asked for help working on her homework on her netbook, I found myself searching for a particular website that I knew I had bookmarked on my laptop. Dang, if I only had my bookmarks in one place that I could access from any computer… wait! Social bookmarking! And, I can keep my favorites private and not share them with the world.
I’m not sure if I’ll use the social networking aspect of the bookmarking much but I can see how it could be useful for professionals (like the math teacher in the tutorial). I find myself using upward of five different computers regularly (one at work, three at home and various other public or staff computers when I’m out at branches doing classes) and having the same favorites available on all of them would be extremely useful.
I need to stop being so initially cynical about the value of something new. Doing these 23 Things is not just teaching me about technology but also about myself!
For example, Thing 13, social bookmarking, was immediately repulsive to me. I don’t want to share my “favorites” with the world (you can deduce quite a bit about someone from what they read or listen to and there’s a lot I’m not sure I want the world to know about me). Plus, if I’ve already got my favorites stored in my computer why in the world would I need to store them again on a social bookmarking site.
If I had been looking at this on my own I would’ve simply skipped on to the next Thing and filed social bookmarking away as “irrelevant”. But, knowing that I had to do a blog post about using it, and doing some of this training from home, I stuck it out, dug a little deeper and found that this social bookmarking thing just might be worthwhile (just like RSS feeds and Rollyo).
When I was working on my Rollyo searchroll on Low Carb Recipes for Thing 12 I was adding my favorite sites to the list when I found myself having to search for websites that I had in my favorites on my computer at home but hadn’t bookmarked on my work computer. Plus, last night when my wife asked for help working on her homework on her netbook, I found myself searching for a particular website that I knew I had bookmarked on my laptop. Dang, if I only had my bookmarks in one place that I could access from any computer… wait! Social bookmarking! And, I can keep my favorites private and not share them with the world.
I’m not sure if I’ll use the social networking aspect of the bookmarking much but I can see how it could be useful for professionals (like the math teacher in the tutorial). I find myself using upward of five different computers regularly (one at work, three at home and various other public or staff computers when I’m out at branches doing classes) and having the same favorites available on all of them would be extremely useful.
I need to stop being so initially cynical about the value of something new. Doing these 23 Things is not just teaching me about technology but also about myself!
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Thing 12
I’m so Google-dependent it hurts. When I first started working on Thing 12, Rollyo custom search engines, I thought to myself “why in the world would I need a ‘custom search engine’ when Google works just fine.” But, thanks to the 23 Things program my eyes are now open.
After racking my brain for an hour trying to figure out what in the world to make a Rollyo searchroll for I decided to take a break and work on my family’s meal menu for next week (yes, I make a menu and draw up a shopping list, not to mention I do most of the shopping, and I’m just nerdy enough to do it all in an Excel spreadsheet). I try to keep the menu fresh by adding new recipes every once in a while and since my wife and I are controlling our carbs I started to go for my usual low-carb recipe sites when BANG! It hit me. I could use my favorite low-carb sites for a Rollyo searchroll.
Of course, being lazy I immediately searched Rollyo to see if anyone had already made one (why reinvent the wheel when I could just steal one) but, unfortunately, nobody had. So, I created my own and made it “public” so everyone can see it. I named it Low Carb Recipes (creative no?) so if you’re interested you can check it out.
Now, back to my menu.
After racking my brain for an hour trying to figure out what in the world to make a Rollyo searchroll for I decided to take a break and work on my family’s meal menu for next week (yes, I make a menu and draw up a shopping list, not to mention I do most of the shopping, and I’m just nerdy enough to do it all in an Excel spreadsheet). I try to keep the menu fresh by adding new recipes every once in a while and since my wife and I are controlling our carbs I started to go for my usual low-carb recipe sites when BANG! It hit me. I could use my favorite low-carb sites for a Rollyo searchroll.
Of course, being lazy I immediately searched Rollyo to see if anyone had already made one (why reinvent the wheel when I could just steal one) but, unfortunately, nobody had. So, I created my own and made it “public” so everyone can see it. I named it Low Carb Recipes (creative no?) so if you’re interested you can check it out.
Now, back to my menu.
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