The Vault of Learning Horror

Friday, August 31, 2007

THING 8--RSS: Been There, Done that.

I use Firefox so have been adding feeds to my browser for over a year now. I find it easy to do and very handy. Now IE has that feature, too, and I've tried it out.

Also, over a year ago I created a Bloglines account but didn't use it much and now have forgotten my password. I can see the usefulness of having a web site with my feeds, though. It means I only have to set them up once and then I can access them on any computer--if I remember my password.

I think my mistake the first time was populating Bloglines with stuff that wasn't that crucial to me--so, let me give it a go again.

LATER:
I thought the Wicki article was too teckky but the Commoncraft video, RSS in Plain English was an excellent introduction to the concept. I thought the Palinet tutorial was pretty good, too. The CNet video wouldn't finish loading for me.

EVEN LATER:
Okay, Bloglines is all set up for me and some feeds added in three different ways so far. And why would I want to do all that search for the RSS icon and copy the link or cut and paste URLs when I can just drag the Sub button to my toolbar and sub with two clicks? When not at one of my very own computers, I suppose, but I'll take the easy way every time.

The advantage of Bloglines is that you can see the posts in the preview pane, whereas if you get a feed to your browser you only see the names of the posts in your drop down menu and have to click one at a time to view.

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Savage Chickens: Scrabble Rematch Cartoon

I found this while looking for Scrabble pictures.
Savage Chickens: Scrabble Rematch Cartoon

It's on a blog I found to be very funny. There was even a library related cartoon.

I noticed a header above a list at the bottom of the page that said "Links to this Cartoon". Below that was the phrase "Create a Link". Out of curiosity I clicked it.

Lo and behold! A dialog box popped up with my blog title already entered (I was logged in on another browser tab) and all I had to do was click another button to add the link in a post to my own blog. Well! Ya learn something new every day.

I think my link may not be reflected on the Savage Chickens site because I have limited the visibility of my blog.

THING 7--Technology Related

I think I've proven by this point that I love computers for their entertainment value. I just like messing around with them and have for years now. Right now I have five computers in my house--my screaming fast desktop PC with 2 gigs of RAM and two hard drives; my husband's PC which I have to maintain; my iBook, because it's fun to have an Apple computer to play with, too; my Palm Lifedrive PDA which comes in handy on trips because I can check email and take chapters of my book to work on; and my very first computer up in the attic--a Kaypro I with a 9" screen and two 5 1/4" floppy drives which I bought in the eighties and hang on to for sentimental reasons. Oh, I forgot one--I also have a dead Dell laptop which I haven't discarded yet. I hated that one because it never worked right. That makes 6. And, of course, there's my not so secret affair with my new work computer.

Although I do have a Second Life account and a sexy Second Life avatar which I've flown across the virtual 3-D Linden landscape, mostly I enjoy rather simple games. I play email Scrabble with friends and enjoy a Scrabble-like on-line game called Babble where you try to make as many words as you can by linking letters in a daily generated grid.