Google Docs

This week we are exploring Google Docs, which is an online document processing application.

I have used Google Docs in the past but not very often. It really is a great application and in many ways mirrors Microsoft Word in it's look and features, but the difference with Google Docs is that you are able to access your documents via the web and using any computer. You don't have to be at home on your personal computer anymore, Google Docs allows you flexibility and freedom. You also can share your document with others and allow them to edit, comment, and share as well, which is super handy in situations where multiple people are working on one project together. I feel that most Google applications are extremely user friendly and Google Docs is not an exception; I found that creating and sharing a document was very easy. It is definitely an application that I would like to remember to use more.

Photo Sharing Sites

This week we are exploring photo uploading and sharing sites, like: Flikr, Photobucket, and Picasa. I chose to try Picasa because I have already used Flickr and Photobucket and wanted to try something new.

I found Picasa to be hard to use and not very "user friendly". It took some poking around to really figure it out which I don't remember Flickr or Photobucket being that way. When I opened Picasa it automatically transferred all of my photos from my computer to my account (in thumbnails) so that I could easily choose which ones to upload; I loved this feature because it eliminated to hunting around to find them. I like that you are able to add pictures to you Blogger blog with just a few steps, that will come in handy in the future. The sharing feature was easy as well, with just a couple of clicks and some copy and paste action.

Over all I am pleased with Picasa, and I'm sure with a little time dedicated to figuring it out I will love it.

Bench in Prague

Social Tagging

This week we are exploring Social Tagging with websites like StumbleUpon.com and Delicious.com.

I have been a user of StumbleUpon for about a year and have discovered so many great things because of it. At first it was a little bit of an addiction, or rather, an obsession. I loved being able to explore the world and many of it's wonders with just a click of my mouse. With SU (abbreviating is much easier than writing StumbleUpon out completely) you are able to input your interests when you set up your account so that when you "stumble" your results will be tailored to your preferences. If you like food for example your results might be food blogs, recipes, reviews, etc. Another great feature of SU is that you are able to "like" or "dislike" a page that was suggested by SU, this helps tailor your preferences and allows for saving of the pages that you "liked"; there have been many times that I've wanted to recall something that I stumbled upon and all I had to do was go to my "likes" and BAM there it was!

I signed up for a Delicious.com account this week and did a little exploring. From what I can tell it is more of a browsing service, where SU is not. You have to do the work of exploring other user's boards and searching through tags. This is a great system if you have a specific need in mind and want to just search for that one thing, for example, if I needed ideas for decorating my child's room I could just search "kid's decor" or something like that. I personally really enjoy the ease of SU and the journey that it takes you on. I get easily over whelmed with sites like Delicous.com that leave me to do the work of sifting through thousands of boards.

One site that I have come to love as of late is Pinterest.com. This site allows you to make "boards", similar to Delicious.com, but there isn't any tagging in the traditional sense. With Pinterest you explore peoples boards in an organized, categorized fashion and then you can "re pin" a pin to your board if you want to for your followers to see. It just seems a little bit more organized, and quite frankly, more aesthetically pleasing than delicious.com, but that's just my opinion.

Go check them out if you haven't!

www.stumbleupon.com
www.delicious.com
www.pinterest.com

Twitter!!! #notsurehowIfeelaboutthisthing.

So this week I was asked to blog about twitter as a social media site. I started a twitter account a few years back because it seemed like a good way to keep up with things and people I am interested in. After a few short weeks of use I decided I was very unimpressed with it. I'm not sure if I just wasn't utilizing it in the right way but I felt like it was simply an avenue for folks to update their followers with silly unimportant information, like: "I'm washing my laundry today" or "My kid just threw up". I can understand that for some people that is the draw of twitter, that you can quickly update and don't have to spend a lot of time thinking about what to say or wording it just right, but for me it was just plain boring. I also never felt like the contents of my day were great or interesting enough to share with others in such a short blip kind of way. When I update my status on facebook it's usually a very well thought out, articulated, interesting status, and I suppose that's the style that I prefer. I know a lot of people - from all around the world- enjoy twitter, I'm not one of them.

Vlog assignment

This week I was asked to make a podcast or video blog (AKA: vlog). I chose to make a vlog about the progesterone in oil injections that I give myself daily for my surrogate pregnancy. I have a MacBook Pro so I was able to use the Photobooth application on the laptop with the built in webcam and microphone. Once I made the video I had to change the file type from a Quicktime movie to a WMV file so that YouTube would upload it correctly. I kept trying to do it as the original Quicktime file and the audio was out of synch. Once I changed the file type everything was very easy to do. I signed into YouTube with my gmail account and chose "upload video", followed the steps to choose a file from my computer and added some tags that would allow viewers to find my video while searching with certain key words. This was a fun experience and will try to do it more often.