nitwits

as far as i can tell, there really isn't anything that following a twitter account can give me that facebook can't do far better. it seems as though tweets are nothing more than status updates, which is only one small aspect of what a facebook page offers. as such, it holds little interest for me.

thingamajig

i found librarything to be very well laid-out and user-friendly. it seems like an excellent resource for book lovers, and i find myself wishing there was something similar for music. i can't tell yet if i will be using it much personally, but i have enjoyed reading users' reviews of books that i have read recently.

the ever-increasing irrelevance of microsoft

i absolutely see google docs taking over from microsoft office, it's just a matter of time. the only reason i can think of why anybody is still paying money for (or even going to the trouble of pirating) microsoft office, when a better, more convenient option is available for free.

speaking of which, it still boggles my mind that the only web browser that the library offers to its customers and staff is microsoft internet explorer, a notorious unstable and unsafe browser, when mozilla firefox, safari and google chrome have been available for free for years.

anyway, back to google docs, i bought a new computer in the past year, and it came with a trial version of microsoft office. i deleted it off my hard drive without even installing it, because for me it's become a completely useless waste of disk space. i originally download openoffice, a free, open-source alternative to microsoft office, and found it to be comparable in every way (quality, ease of use) to the proprietary software.

but the sheer convenience of google docs makes even openoffice obsolete. there is no need to download or install anything, and you don't need to carry around a USB stick to work on or print your documents on different computers. everything is saved and accessed online, the documents and the program itself.

i see this as the future of personal computers. the demand for hard disk storage space and physical storage media like cds and dvds is already rapidly decreasing as more and more media content becomes available online. as programs themselves become available online, computers will become little more than net portals. i only hope that copyright laws and information- and media-based industries will see this coming and adapt themselves accordingly, but i don't think it's likely.

catroulette

youtube allows me to spend literally hours doing nothing but watching an endless stream of adorable kitten videos. i give it a 10/10.

really simple

i can see how RSS would be very useful for someone who follows a lot of blogs, since it would cut down on all the browsing time, and instead deliver all of the new posts from all the different blogs to a single webpage. however, i don't really follow any blogs, so it isn't that useful to me personally. i will definitely keep it in mind for the future though, as i'm sure that sooner or later i will come across some blogs that i will want to keep close tabs on.

i'll goooooooooooogle it

google is slowly taking over the internet, and i'm pretty okay with that. they do it well, and, for the most part, seem to be adhering to their motto, "don't be evil".

the most obvious google tool, and the one i use by far the most, is the search engine (including image and video search), but i also use google maps at least once a week. i find google maps' public transit directions to be far more reliable and useful than calgary transit's. not least among these is the fact that google is not afraid of telling you to walk a few blocks, where the calgary transit website would tell you to catch a bus for 30 seconds, or, if such a bus is not available, that it is regrettably impossible for you to reach your destination.

i also use google maps' walking directions to plan bicycle routes. google are starting to introduce bicycle directions in some cities, but unfortunately, not yet for calgary.

myface & spacebook

i have been using both myspace and facebook for years, so i have quite a bit of experience with them.

i no longer using myspace for personal networking, but i find that it is still a very useful tool for my bands. myspace allows me to place my band's information, upcoming shows, and mp3s of our songs in an easy, public format that is easily viewable to anyone regardless of whether they have an account or not. i also find it to be the best way to contact bands whose members i don't know personally.

i used to have a personal myspace account, but like most users i eventually gave it up in favour of facebook, since i find it to be a much more advanced and useful tool. even though i don't have a lot of personal information listed on my profile, the very nature of facebook is so personal that i don't use my real name, but a pseudonym instead. i haven't found this to cause any problems, since anyone who knows who i am will be able to recognise me through my photos.

i find facebook to be both extremely useful, and a huge time-waster -- the one seems to inevitably lead to the other. i log in in order to check if any important information is waiting for me or to send an important message, and end up browsing my news feed and reading my friend's status updates, which are often good for a chuckle but far from important. i do this at least once a day. it keeps me informed of what my friends are up to, but it's not really so important as to justify the amount of time i spend on it.

wikinoise, pt. 2

the day after my last post, i was reading an online review of a tape that my friend kevin had released on his small independent cassette label:

http://weirdcanada.com/2010/04/review-north-of-america-12345678910/

the last sentence of the review is, "somebody update the wikipedia..."

so i did:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_of_America

i even cited the review that had spurred the wiki-update as a reference.

wikinoise

wikipedia! my favourite!

i already knew that the article for KEN mode, one of my favourite canadian noise rock bands, was a few years out of date, so i updated it a little:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KEN_mode

at first the amount of tags and codes in the edit page was overwhelming, but i figured out the format for creating references and links by looking at previous instances on the page. i have edited pages on wikipedia before, so i imagine i had it a little easier than a newcomer might.

deliciousness and deliciousity

as i mentioned in my previous post, delicious has been something of a mystery to me. as a fairly web-savvy individual (maybe not quite a "web-native" in douglas rushkoff's terms, i was 13 or so when i first started logging on to cybersurf), it's rare to find a website that strikes me as an overwhelming onslaught of information, but there is something about the structure and layout of this website that seems particularly confusing and user-unfriendly. however, after browsing the website -- spending quite a bit of time on its extensive but not terribly well-written help section -- i think i have it figured out.

i spent a little time browsing the cpl's favourite websites, and was quite happy to see that there is now a canadian job metasearch engine (http://www.indeed.ca/), as some time ago i had tried in vain to find one for a customer.

i also glanced over the 'fresh bookmarks' list, which, being a list of the most often- and recently-bookmarked sites, seems to function in a similar manner to digg.com, and found some interesting articles there too.

i feel quite confident that i will be able to comfortably incorporate this into my work at the library.

cpl 2.0, pt. 1.0

i remember discovering wikipedia a number of years ago and feeling like the web was finally beginning to live up to its potential. i still believe it to be one of the best things the internet has to offer its users. i have long felt that it has been unfarly maligned for its open format, when this is in fact its greatest strength, and was heartened to hear that recent studies have shown it to be on-par in terms of reliability with the most highly esteemed of encyclopedias such as britannica. furthermore, it has an ability to respond to current events that more traditional encyclopedias could only dream of.

del.icio.us, on the other hand, is still a mystery to me. i am looking forward to learning how to best make use of the CPL's 'best websites' del.icio.us account.