Flickering and other things

I find I've got ahead of myself and did the image upload thing a couple of posts ago. So here's one with a bit more manipulating (courtesy Photoscape and Picasa) - a souvenir of part of the California trip:




I've joined Flickr - I wouldn't use it on a regular basis because I've got my photo folder structure well organised but I can see it's usefulness for sharing some pictures with family and friends e.g weddings etc.

As for the image generators: I've got a bit tired of looking through them and most of the offerings seem to me to be not very exciting and another occasion for time-wasting. I'd rather play with my own pictures. I found one I liked, but it hasn't been working for the last two days. So here's a warning instead:



Easystreet

Delicious and other searches (11 & 12)

I hadn't looked at my Delicious account for a while - it disappeared when I switched to Firefox 3 and I hadn't got around to loading the new add-on. Which tells you that it wasn't vital. I can see its usefulness, but I have a nicely organised set of bookmarks at home, and another at work, and there isn't much relation between them. My most frequently accessed sites stay in Firefox tabs, or the dropdown - the history is retained long enough to keep the usual stuff.
I'm not a big fan of the tag - been a librarian too long - if it's not keywords which I can refine as I go, then I'll have a controlled list, thank you. Apart from the more obvious, some people tag things very strangely.

Social Bookmarks

Search results below:
(Gave up trying to make Connotea work, which is why it's not there - threw in Google Scholar for interest)
Searched the two terms shown - popular v. more precise and results as expected given the different sources. Used the basic search offered as default for each. The Delicious result underlines the need to think carefully if relying on tags.
Kartoo is interesting and might repay a bit more exploration (these are just the basic figures, but images, headings etc add value)

Search engine	avian influenza	bird flu
Delicious	923	4465
CitULike	501	501
Murdoch catalogue	30	11
UQ catalogue	39	12
Google	2,710,000	5,280,000
Google Scholar	42,200	25,000
Zuula	2,500,000+ (for main search engines)	5,000,000+ (weird result for Yahoo)
Kartoo	307,000	1,410,000

Wiki wacking

A pbwiki wiki (of sorts) exists - like the Catapult, I don't think it's the easiest bit of software to use. Things weren't helped by the demo screencasts not working, but with reference to the help screens and a few accidents, it got there. well, here, if you're interested.
I can see why it's very useful in certain situations - I don't particularly need one right now. I think I'll try some of the other wiki software as well if I want to make another one.

Google - all things to all people ...

Google Docs:
Below is a conversation copied from a GD, which says what I wanted to say.

Using Google Docs

Would I use it? Probably not, as I have other ways to create and send documents and I would prefer most of them to be filed on my own computer.

Can I see a use for it? Yes, for people involved in groups that do not have a permanent home or office - e.g a club committee that might want several members to contribute to a newsletter. Situations where not everyone has the same computing facilities, software etc. might also be more easily served by this system. It certainly seems to have the basic word processing functions.

Presentations
It imports PPTs without much difficulty, although editing is more limited and it can't handle the animations. I guess you might use it if you didn't have access to the real thing.

Spreadsheets
I'm no expert here, but, again, it imports a basic Excel file easily enough.


I (Judith) haven't played with this much, but I think it does sound useful for collaboration. And my husband uses it a bit for personal documents that he wants to work on with different PC's (he has a laptop at work, a laptop at home, and a PC at home - well the last one is more mine :))

I thought it might automatically show who had worked on it - a bit like a word document when you are in review mode... Though after having a look under the Tools menu, I see that there is a comprehensive Revision history which would be essential when multiple people are working on the same document, and that you can fairly easily go back to an earlier revision.

My daughter pointed out that it could be useful when travelling the world as she has just done. She used various friends' computers on the way, as well as her own little ASUS, which doesn't have a large capacity or Microsoft programmes.
Thanks for the tip about the revision history; I hadn't discovered that.


iGoogle:

I've had an iGoogle page for a while now - filled with assorted gadgets. Gadgets for the time, the weather, the phases of the moon, the quote of the day etc. The most useful things are a mini Gmail and a mini Google reader. These show at a glance what's come in to the feeds I subscribe to and let me read them without going to the main pages.

There are other tabs, too, books (with Murdoch catalogue gadget), music, food etc. I like the books page with its feeds from the NY and London Reviews of Books (amongst others) and an Amazon search gadget.

There has been some fuss about the recent updating of the iGoogle page which puts the navigation in a sidebar rather than in tabs across the top. It restricts the width of the page and messes with the buttons of the reader gadget, so I think I prefer the tabs. (The old, tabbed version shows if it's looked at in IE.)

Firefox bits and pieces

You can waste a lot of time fiddling with the Firefox addons .....
So I have my 23 things toolbar and my Libx toolbar - any more toolbars and I won't be able to see the #$%@! webpage.
I've loaded Feedly, but I think I'll stay with the Google reader and its folders, and Zotero (more below) and finally, in a fit of nostalgia for the good old (simple) days, I've turned the browser into Foxscape.
Zotero is interesting - with further development could be something really good - I'm using it on my home computer to keep track of the books I read, having reached that stage of life where I have a hard time remembering the title of the last book I read, let alone what I read six months ago. I like the way I can add notes and reviews etc. It did stop working this week - resetting the translators (Preferences - Advanced) seemed to be the solution.
As it's machine specific, I'm using my work installation to figure out which resources, databases etc work with it.