Del.icio.us

Del.icio.us is a bookmarking site that makes it easy to organize and track your bookmarks. While being able to search by tags and organize by groups it useful, it also has the added advantage of allowing you to search other peoples bookmarks. This means that if you find someone who has simiar interests, or who has a lot of knowledge on a topic you are less familiar with, you can easily check out what they like. The delicious button makes organizing easy. While I had never used this site before, the video provided in class made the advantages of the service clear and provided great step-by-step instruction for how to use the search and adding features.

Amazon.com

Amazon on Droid X
Originally uploaded by akasha140

This photograph is of Amazon.com, accessed through a mobile device. The versatility and accessability of this service are some of its greatest strengths.

As you can see, each of the following posts has shown a different Web 2.0 application, with each application accessed through a different medium. The tags used here are Web 2.0, Amazon.com , Droid X, mobile and shopping. As before, I have the number of related tags posted below:

Web 2.0 14,260
Amazon.com 3,465
Droid X 1,300
Mobile 1,252,500
Shopping 561,766

Facebook

Facebook
Originally uploaded by akasha140

This photograph is of a Facebook profile being accessed through an X-Box 360. Gamers often use the combined functionality of X-Box profiles with their Facebook profiles to communicate with friends and share game statistics. The tags I entered for this picture are Web 2.0, Facebook, Facebook.com, X-Box, Social Networking, and profile.

Web 2.0 14,260
Facebook 373,010
Facebook.com 237
X-Box 92,842
Social Networking 10,066
Profile 126,391

This picture was a lot easier to do. From Flickr I can now select the picture and post to the Blog directly. It doesn’t allow me to edit things like font though, so I still wound up adjusting the final post through Blogger.

YouTube Guitar Lessons

YouTube Guitar Lessons
Originally uploaded by akasha140

This picture shows a common theme around our house: using the web to learn just about anything. Here my eldest is watching a You Tube video to learn the figure positions for a new song on the guitar. She has the video hard-lined from the computer to the T.V. via HDMI cable for optimum quality. For this photo I entered the tags Web2.0, guitar, guitar lessons, You Tube, and youtube.com. I then did a tag search to see how many other tags with the same categories were listed. The results were as follows:

Web 2.0 14,260
Guitar 1,199,735
Guitar Lessons 797
You Tube 983
YouTube.com 1,531

I did have a few challenges getting this posted. Getting the images onto Flickr was the easy part, mostly because I have used Flickr for similar projects in the past. Unfortunately, it seems that posting an image onto a blog isn’t as easy as cutting-and-pasting the ready-made URL link from Flickr into the Blog. It took a little digging to find out that I needed to grant permissions for Blogger and Flickr to accept each other. Once I figured out how to make that work the process was much simpler.

GIMP

I have been using Photoshop for a few years now. While I love what I can do with it, it can be extremely complex and I get tired of the extravagant prices when it comes time to upgrade. With that in mind I decided to check out the leading Open Source competitor GIMP, or GNU Image Manipulation Program.

For the most part, GIMP felt like a scaled down version of Photoshop. After spending sometime on it I decided that it would work well enough for someone who really only needed this kind of program to touch up their personal photos. However, if you are more into creating digital art this program just isn’t as robust as CS5. I would use it for anything short of high end work for the price, but in the end I think Photoshop is going to have the market on this one for a while. An article I found on Buzzle.com (Jathar, 2010) brought up another important point; technical support. There is something about being able to call Adobe if something goes wrong on a major project that is just comforting. In addition there are so many books and web tutorials available for Photoshop that it is generally easy to find answers to just about any questions you could have, providing that you have the time to research them.

References

Jathar, R. (2010). GIMP vs Photoshop. Retrieved from http://www.blogger.com/

Open Office

Unfortunately, my experience with Open Office didn't go as well as my Google Chrome adventure. I really like the idea, but for me it was just not as workable as Microsoft Office, especially the Writer feature.  The user interface felt a little clumsy, but I could probably get past that for the price. The biggest issue I had was compatibility. If everyone accepted .odt format I would use it, but many of the places I have to send documents to are still stuck on .doc files only. I would also require that the conversions from .docx into Writer always worked right, but when I opened some of my files the formatting did not transfer correctly. To be honest, I find myself rooting for Open Office and I really think that eventually they might catch up. Sadly, Microsoft Word still has my vote – for now.

Google Chrome

I chose to check out the Google Chrome browser for a couple of reasons. First, unlike Firefox, I have never tried Chrome and I have been thinking about switching browsers for a while, so I figured this was a good time to check into something new. Second, when creating your own websites, it is important to test them on multiple browsers. Installing Chrome gives me one more option to test sites on.
The first thing I noticed is that interface is really clean. I was so used to all the different toolbars and buttons on Internet Explorer, that their absence was almost shocking. The second thing noticed was the offered themes. I like pretty things and some of the themes available for the browser are very pretty. IE might have them as well, but if they do I have never seen them presented.
After a little investigating I discovered that there are a number of add-ons and plug-ins available for Chrome, plus a security feature called sandboxing that helps prevent your computer from crashing if you accidently open a dangerous website. I found a lot of other people like the these features as well; after doing tests on the five major web browsers, PCWorld stated that, “… if we had to pick only one browser, Chrome would be our top recommendation. We like Chrome for its clean and friendly interface, good performance, and strong security.” (Mediati, 2010, p. 4).

Reference

Mediati, N. (2010). Browser blowout 2010 IE vs. Firefox vs. Chrome vs. Safari vs. Opera: Our lab tests reveal which browser is the fastest, the safest, and the most powerful tool for the Web. Retrieved from http://www.pcworld.com/article/200963/browser_blowout_2010.html

Solution Watch Review

Photo by xcucax

In contrast with my last post on Read Write Web, the Solution Watch blog  is nearly its perfect opposite. While this blog seems to have once had valid articles on the latest Web 2.0 technology, it’s now wildly out of date. The last post was updated in October of 2007, which is kind of sad, because I really liked its clean interface and the lack of overwhelming advertising found on so many others.

The information provided on the old articles is detailed, visual, and easy to read – which seems to be why the editor decided to keep the site up despite choosing to no longer update it. Unfortunately, with the rapid growth of technological trends the information found there is already too far out of date to be of use, unless of course you’re still struggling along with outdated technology yourself.  If that’s the case, you might just want to check out some of the archived articles through the link above – while their still available.

Read Write Web Review.

Read Write Web - Now this is one blog that won’t waste your time!  This technology blog developed in 2003 by Richard MacManus is one of the best finds I’ve discovered for keeping up on the latest technology news as it relates the average user. The blog articles give detailed reviews of each new product, letting the consumer in on the good and not-so-good elements of each one. The articles focus on giving the information you need in and easy to read format, while not being excessively long or detailed. The blog also has quick links for  viewing the articles as they relate to specific interest groups, like mobile applications or social networking. It also has buttons to send a tweet, ‘like’ an article, or to post your own comments neatly organized around each article blurb.

The one minor downside is the promotional advertising. While I don’t mind the ads quietly flashing to the left of the main articles, I found one or two breaking up the full articles as well; not overly loud or distracting, but it was an annoying interruption, much like a spoiled child trying to grab mommy's attention while she’s on the phone.

Despite this minor flaw, the information itself seemed accurate, well researched, and well written - definitely making this site worth the time to check out. For those of us on a tight schedule, it's the perfect way to keep up on the latest apps and products all in one place.

If you'd learn a little more about Read Write Web, check out this video:

Video Provided by Simon Proud