Finished!

All my tasks are done, and it has been a fun journey.

I've learnt a great deal, and have a few ideas for projects I'd like to pursue.

It's late now, so will leave it at that, and try to make another post over the weekend just to condense my experience into a few paragraphs.

Thanks to the Library team for setting up the program.

Skype = VOIP

That's Voice Over Internet Protocol for short, which means using internet data for transmitting voice, so you can make phone calls over your internet connection. The benefit is that it can be much cheaper than traditional ISDN phone calls.

I've installed Skype now, and am trying to work out whether I did have an account once from way back when it started. I don't think I ever used it for a phone call, I mean, in those days, who would you call? Now it is well known and used by people everywhere to keep in touch with friends and families spread over the globe.

I've just got back in touch with an old friend overseas who I know uses Skype, so I will have to try it out soon.

My work installed a VOIP network last year and it works very well. One big benefit is that we don't have to run separate networking for voice and data any more, we just run ethernet for data and if we need a phone it just plugs into any data port. The phones have a pass through for the computer connection so we just need the one wall outlet for a worker's phone and computer.

Second Life

I've decided not to join Second Life at the moment, for a number of reasons. The main one is that I don't have the time to spend 'playing' in an alternative world, whereas sites such as Facebook help me keep in touch with friends and past workmates that I don't see in 'real life'. Facebook and LinkedIn are also useful for networking for career and business reasons.

It seems strange to me that I'm not interested in these virtual worlds now, as one of my favourite books that really grabbed my attention when I read it was Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash. In the near future, there is an online world called the 'metaverse', where people can interact with one another using 'avatars', their online persona. Sounds rather like Second Life, doesn't it? I like the satire and black humour of the book, but I think Second Life could be just a little dull to spend much time in. I don't doubt that it is technically brilliant, and a fascinating research topic, but I don't want to escape into it.

Recently there was a documentary on SBS about an American mother of four who became involved with an English man whilst playing Second Life. For her it became an obsession, so much so that she would spend hours online chatting while the family tried to get on with normal life around her. In the end she travelled to England to meet her virtual lover who had already lost interest so she had to return home to work out whether her marriage was going to survive. Situations like this show the darker side of our rush to embrace online communities when we perhaps should be spending important time with our 'real life' circle of family and friends. (Hmmm, look at the time that I'm making these posts!)

Nearly there ... FaceBook tonight

It feels like I am travelling on a train through a new country. I keep finding new places to explore but only have a little time before I have to move on. But unlike the 'grand tour' of far away lands I can return to these new places at my leisure.

I've set up a Facebook account, and right away I'm surprised by the openness and ease by which I am connected to people I know. I entered my school and my (personal) business, and it brought up as potential friends three guys I went to school with. Now that is networking! The first person I added was my wife, who just joined recently at the request of some of her friends, but she has no idea what it is all about. Then I found a few guys I had worked with, scattered to the ends of the earth. This is the amazing thing, I would be hard pressed to track down an email or even a phone number for them, but just by entering their names I have found them. Obviously, being computer-savvy nerds like myself it was a reasonable guess that they would already have accounts. I think in my case settling down and starting a family has taken me off-line much more so I haven't investigated these newer sites. Ten or fifteen years ago I am sure I would have been seriously addicted.

I also noticed that Facebook is so much more slick and polished than MySpace, it doesn't look like it was designed by a 12-year old (albeit a 12-year old with art school grunge sensibilities). The technology behind it is 'more Web 2.0' as well, it updates the pages dynamically as you work with them.

The only reservation I have is that I am not completely sure about the privacy issues. I'm used to using usernames that don't reveal who I am, not because I have anything to hide, but because the internet makes profiling people so much more convenient than has been possible before. I'm old enough to know that one doesn't put all of their personal details online for the world to see, although I'm sure I am uninteresting enough not to worry about 'stalkers'. I can see that there is potential for these communities to be misused, consider kids choosing who gets to be their friend and who is excluded.

I've been on LinkedIn for a few years now, which is more or less a Facebook for business. It lets you link up with friends and people you have worked with before, with the aim of building networks that may prove useful for business opportunities.

I use Drupal

An alternative activity suggested on the program site was looking into Drupal, a content management system (CMS). I'm already using this for an intranet site at the school I work at. There are numerous free open-source CMS systems out there, but I had seen an article about Drupal in The Age's 'Next' technology section.

It's important to realise that this is not a social networking service for users to join, but a software application that a web developer can download and install on their own web site, customising it for their own requirements. So far it is working well for us, allowing us to easily update information without having to build new pages.

Venturing into MySpace

Yet another social networking phenomenon that I never really bothered with. Having been online for so long now the novelty has worn off, so while I use it to keep in touch it is usually just email. These newer networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook are more recent, and with a family keeping me busy I don't need to seek out new friends online.

I've become rather more aware of it since it became a novel self-promotion vehicle for bands and artists. Suddenly previously unknown artists were getting the attention of record labels based solely on their online presence. It is possible that MySpace has already peaked and people are moving on to the next big thing, perhaps Facebook is now more popular. I do find the page layouts rather untidy and poorly-designed, but I suspect that may be intentional, to give it a grungy, non-corporate feel designed to appeal to the youth market.

I created a page, still trying to think of a unique URL (the page link name) since my preferred name is already taken. It's probably not something I will spend much time on. When I joined, I immediately had two 'friends' link to my page, but they appear to be automatically added for any new users, part of the community. I knew my friend's band had a myspace page so have linked that. My main interest in MySpace at this time is looking at it for ideas for an online service I'm thinking about.

Things I didn't know about Google Maps

Well, I thought I was reasonably familiar with Google Maps, after all, it has been around for a while and it is everywhere. They are free for any business to embed in their web pages so have become very popular for "where are we" maps on sites. They are much more useful since you have a live map that can be zoomed and panned, rather than a fixed picture of a map.

I've even experimented with plotting points myself on my own hosted maps. But I am glad that I looked at the 'tour' linked from the library program's site. Here's what I found:

• You can place your own markers on the Google map for all the world to see
• You can edit other markers that may not be accurately positioned
• The "Get Directions" feature actually works quite well

I had already heard about the Street View feature, which is remarkable technically and makes it fun to look at places you know as well as places you haven't been. However, being a little older I am sympathetic to the people that are worried about privacy concerns. Our house hasn't been photographed, being off the main thoroughfare.

It's worth mentioning that Google also give you Google Earth, which is even more fun. It uses the same map data as Google Maps, but gives you a 3D globe that you can fly around.

What I'm reading right now ...

The Long Tail: How Endless Choice is Creating Unlimited Demand is an examination of the phenomenon of "The Long Tail", where low-volume products not stocked on shelves in traditional retail outlets still add up to large sales numbers when they are easily accessible online. (That link is one I pulled up via the iGoogle book search, but I think I would prefer LibraryThing as it seems more personalised).

This is the business model behind outlets such as Amazon and the iTunes store, who can potentially carry every book or song ever published.

Of course, I was able to borrow it in hard copy from the library, but it very appropriate as part of the Web 2.0 experience.

iGoogle

I knew that iGoogle was just another portal, a home page that one can customise with their own information feeds from elsewhere on the web. It isn't a new concept, but it makes sense for a lot of users who like to have their own home page with the things they are interested in all in one place. It has been a popular value-add for businesses by fostering loyalty in their members, which in turn drives traffic to the portals where the business can place advertising in front of their users which grows their own brand, or gains them revenue from other advertisers. Think of the ISPs, Yahoo, Google and other smaller niche players.

I don't really need a personalised portal, I know how to bookmark, use delicious for things I want to bookmark between work and home computers, and have my own hosting. I did find the iGoogle portal impressive, it seems to offer a great deal more than other sites, and with Google's reach they can bring even more content to your page. The customisation and themes are very slick, and one can add elements provided by third-party developers, which makes more customisation possible.

OverDrive? No, wrong gear!

Nearly forgot about the other part of this activity, I went to take a look at the Overdrive Downloadable Media page, browsed through the catalogue and found a few language learning resources that I would have liked to 'borrow'. When I started to investigate what needed to be done, I found that the content uses copy protection only available on Windows computers. The explanatory note states: 

Our media titles, provided by OverDrive, Inc., use DRM (Digital Rights Management) protection technology from Microsoft Corporation. Unfortunately the iPod (and Mac) currently support neither DRM-protected Windows Media Audio (.wma) files nor Window Media Video (.wmv) files.

What it really should say is that OverDrive Inc have chosen a technology that is only supported by Microsoft on their own platform. If they had used iTunes for delivery then it would be available for both Windows and Mac users. This illustrates the problem with archiving content in a proprietary format that may not exist in the future.

OK, I'll get down off my soapbox now ;-)

eBooks, AudioBooks and more

Exploring this topic seems to have uncovered even more free content out there on the web that I was happily ignorant of before. Now I need to find even more hours in the day just to enjoy all of these excellent resources!

Project Gutenberg has been around for many years now, and is an archive I already knew about. It still has a rich and extensive catalogue, but I don't find the presentation compelling, it seems too hard to find content. I understand their choice of plain text formats for ensuring the greatest portability and future compatibility but it is not an appealing format to read. While being completely familiar and comfortable with the technology, I do prefer to sit (when I get that much free time) and read from a book that I can take anywhere, without all of the other distractions of being online. Where I think the collection of texts has great potential is as a source for various electronic book formats, whether they are on PDAs, smart phones, a laptop, or devices such as Amazon's Kindle e-book reader.

I took a look at the World eBook Fair site but it seems to be rather confused, trying to link in a multitude of other sites, which are better accessed directly as far as I can tell.

The LibriVox site is a different matter, it is well organised and harnesses the technology much better. When I look at Project Gutenberg, I think 'why would I want to read a lot of old books', but browsing the catalogue at LibriVox I recognise many classics that I have always thought I might read. Being able to listen to them in audiobook format is a better option for my busy lifestyle, using the time spent commuting productively.

One thing that might not be obvious immediately is that many of these sites archive other types of media in addition to books - treasures include sheet and recorded music, photos and film (the Apollo 11 lunar landing for example).

Another site worthy of mention is the Internet Archive, another excellent collection.

Something to provide a break from all of this reading, here's a slice of Australian cinema history. Found this at the Internet Archive, a 1920 version of 'Robbery Under Arms'.

The archive article can be found here.

A World of Podcasts

I've been following a few podcasts for a while, the one I listen to regularly is MacTalk Australia, which obviously covers the latest happenings in the Apple Macintosh world, with a good dose of iPhone news as well. Unfortunately my current job is on the other side of town which means far too much driving, so podcasts are a way of adding some variety to my listening whilst stuck in traffic. The only problem now seems to be deciding what to listen to next.

Being a Mac user with an iPod, I have iTunes installed anyway and find it the easiest way to access podcasts (more on this later).

For the purposes of this exercise, I went looking for a few more podcasts of a less technical nature (and thus probably of wider appeal).

Stephen Fry, the English actor, comedian, and author has a podcast on his web site, also accessible from the iTunes Store. Being someone who is a performer and public figure, he has a very relaxed, easy delivery which is a delight to listen to.

I also found a series of Philosophy lectures, which I have not had a chance to listen to yet, but having been introduced to some of the classical philosophers many years ago by way of an engaging work of fiction, Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder, this looks like a convenient way of learning some more about their ideas. Once again available through the iTunes Store, but also here as well.

Back to iTunes, it is an incredibly powerful and sophisticated tool to access not just podcasts, but other forms of multimedia as well. Although the primary justification for the existence of the iTunes Store is commercial, it collects and manages a wealth of free content, including music, video, university courses and of course the podcasts. It is an excellent example of a Web 2.0 application, adding value to the collected content with user reviews, recommendations and artist biographies.

Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us

Here's an interesting video I found, it shows some of the ideas behind the concept of 'Web 2.0'.

Comments on YouTube

I only play with YouTube from time to time, but whenever I do pay it a visit I am astounded by what I can find there. Being a great music fan it is always fun to track down obscure music videos from bands I like, as well as some live concert footage which is easily missed on TV. It was a unique experience last year getting home from the Pixies gig at the Palace to find clips from that very show already online. It is also a way of reliving some memorable 'pop culture' happenings, for example see the post below about Roy and H.G. Nelson's sports coverage.

I work at a secondary school and one of the issues we have is whether to allow free use of YouTube. The two problems are (a) some content is unsuitable for minors, and (b) the significant bandwidth that video consumes. Teachers would like to be able to use some useful relevant content on the web for teaching, but if we have a whole class trying to hit the same video the network will grind to a halt. Heavy use of bandwidth-intensive resources like this will also add to our internet service bill. Our compromise at the moment is to allow teachers to download the clips out of teaching hours to show during class times. Of course, the other thorny question is one of copyright, which we OR YouTube do not own.

Bomb Diving at the Sydney Olympics

Sitting here watching the women's diving with Melissa Wu making her bid for another medal here tonight, was reminded of the hilarious take on the diving with the AOC mascots that Roy and H.G. got up to. Of course, Fatso the wombat completely blitzed the competition.

Sure enough, it is on YouTube, how timely. Go you Good Thing!

Library Thing - working fine now

Got back on to LibraryThing today, and it is much more responsive now.

Here's my , about 30 books so far, mostly non-fiction as I haven't moved on to the lounge where the fiction books are.

There's a very cool app for the Mac called Delicious Library which is a personal library and cataloging tool. It has a very slick interface and lets you publish catalogues to your iPod or to web pages, but obviously doesn't give quite the sense of community that an online service like LibraryThing does. Other features include being able to scan barcodes with the computer's built-in webcam to save data entry, and it will catalogue other forms of media such as CDs, DVDs and video games.

I've added a screenshot at right to show just how polished the interface looks.

Library Thing - not quite there yet?

I thought I would try to set up my LibraryThing account tonight, but it seems that the site is really slow tonight. I notice that it has a 'beta' label slapped on it, so either they are doing some maintenance right now, or they aren't throwing enough resources at it just yet.

Anyway, will see how it goes over the next few days, hopefully performance picks up then.

Guitar Hero!

Here's a generated image. The photo is of a mate of mine who plays in a band called The Dishevelled Gentlemen, some great bluesy rock sounds. I took this at a gig with my D-SLR, a Pentax K-100D (1/45s, f5.6, 105mm equiv, ISO 3200!).

It's amazing how well this camera can work in low light like this, really like the warm glow, flash would totally kill a shot like this.

The photo generator site is FotoTrix, the template is already designed, just a matter of scaling and framing the image.

Nimis

Nimis
Originally uploaded by Stéphane Chivet

This is a really interesting place in southern Sweden where my girlfriend and I visited on our Europe trip. She has some distant relatives there who we were visiting, and we went to explore on our last day before heading off to Berlin.

Be sure to click on the photo above to see the full-size version, along with the description the photographer has added to it.

It was getting late in the afternoon but still plenty of light in the long Scandinavian summer days, and I was just taking a few more photos (this isn't one of mine of course, this is from flickr) and while rockhopping managed to slip and sprain my ankle. Managed to hobble back to the top of the hill where we got a lift from some German tourists. Next day we had to head into the big city, Helsingborg to the hospital. We didn't get to Berlin. We did however hire a car and end up exploring the famous Swedish glassworks which we would have missed otherwise. One day we will go to Berlin since I owe her that!

After a few more weeks of getting around on crutches, with my other half towing my backpack on a trolley, I was recovered. I think the fact that she put up with me for that trip might have had something to do with me deciding we should get married a few years later.

Blog Started!

This blog has been created to participate in the Yarra Plenty Regional Library A Taste of Web 2.0 program. I am an IT professional and use the web every day, but haven't really played with many of the social networking sites before, so thought I might as well check this out.