Facebook and MySpace

I created my MySpace page at the request of my kids and some of their friends about three years ago. My MySpace page is primarily a way for me to check in on how my “children”, now busy adults in their twenty’s and thirties, are doing. Three of my five kids blog regularly, and another five of my “adopted kids” regularly blog and send me bulletins. Over the past year I have been pretty-ing my page up. I have added a photo background, links, and font changes. I am continually learning about CSS and how to use CSS scripts to make a better page.
Once I went back to school, one of my assignments was to set up a Facebook account. My instructor preferred to send assignments and class notices to his students using Facebook.
I have only two contacts on my Facebook currently but I am gearing up to use it more as I am getting invites from students I went to school with and long distance friends.
These “social” sites are great for family updates and keeping connected as family gets spread out across the country and sometimes around the world.
I have yet to be consistent in taking care of my own blogging and updates, but the “kids” are pretty great at it.

Flickr-ing Images

Michelle
Originally uploaded by michellelafern

Flickr is easy to set up, simple to use. I mostly use photobucket for my photos because I learned about it first. I have tried a geotag on a picture of Darrington that I took last fall to see if it is successful. I am curious to hear how useful/easy others have found Flickr.

#6 Opening Pandora's Box

I had never done streaming music before. At my previous job, (and when I went back to school) streaming music was discouraged by the tech dept as being bandwidth greedy. After experimenting with Finetune and Mog, I decided on Pandora, partly because I was tempted by the greek mythologic reference but mostly because I found it friendlier than the previous two.
I was never a fan of radio, (I have a very hard time with distraction from commercials, the cacaphony overwhelms me). Thus, the idea of a personal radio station had never lured me. Once again I have found something I really like and would not have tried out except for the fact that I was required to.
Streaming radio that allows me to make my own "stations" is wonderful.
As a fan of Nickle Creek I was pleased to be introduced to artists in the same "flavor", adding them to my playlist. The need for a higher speed connection is the only downside to this service. Thank you! to the Web 2.0 team.

To RSS or not to RSS that is the question

Ok Wow... I had not used RSS feeds before. I sort of knew what they were but having dial up at home I had not tried them out. Bloglines was easy to set up and add feeds to and I discovered with just a little effort on my part that some of my favorite sites had RSS available. I also have discovered that it takes no more time than the average page load on dial up to get them at home. I will definitely keep using this tool, at least for my personal use. The convenience of knowing right away when a favorite blogger or site has posted something new is worthwhile to me.
I haven't worked for Sno-Isle long enough to have really grasped the ways that it could be used for reference, etc.