RSS

Last post from my class

Once you get it set up, using a feed reader can be a very efficient way to view many different web sites and a lot of information. You don't get to see the design of the sites very often, however, and you miss out on all of their advertising... which they may be counting on to stay afloat. Do you care?

Do you find RSS to be useful? Will you keep using an aggregator, like Bloglines? If so, which one?

Actually I prefer to have the information and not the ads when I am online. I have even tried to take great steps to avoid seeing the ads online with a filter. However, I do miss seeing the layout of the site being that I like to see other designers work and see if I can incorporate it into my own design. I like RSS though. I personally download alot of fansubs and it is useful to me to simply RSS them and that way I don't have to check that site all of the time. It is also kind of like reading just the headlines of a newspaper as well. I am able to judge story on the site simply by the title of that particular story. I think that I am going to try and keep the Blogline account that I have going on. I usually manually add all of my RSS feeds and to have a function that puts them at one site, especially when some of the sites that I have added are not sites that I go to all of the time will be interesting to glimpse. It would help to broaden my horizons and that is a good thing after all.

Flickr and del.icio.us

More class posts

You've now used flickr and del.icio.us-- what do you think of them? Did they behave like you expected? Will you keep using one or both of them? What are some of the useful sites and pictures you discovered?

I really like both of them. I can see myself using del.icio.us more than flickr though. I use a similar service already thats called stumbleupon that I really really like. Del.icio.us was much easier to use than I thought. I have seen it alot online and knew something of it but I never really got into it too much. I will use del.icio.us from here on out. I like Flickr and have used it in the past for some work that I have done but I always seem to fall by the wayside with it. It kind of flows in and out of my life but at the same time that is because the photobug does the same thing. I liked alot of the pictures that I have found on flickr and can see them being used in some webdesign projects in the future. I would probably use del.icio.us for exploring sites with similar interests as myself to find things that I ever would have thought.

Wiki Stuff

More class stuff, but if your interested you can still read ;)

Do you see how it can be useful? Have you seen wiki sites before without even knowing it? What else would like to know about wikis?

I can see how useful wiki's are and I use them quite alot really. Wiki sites though always seem to have that fast feeling to them that makes. There are alot of things that interest me about wiki's. I would like to actually follow Microsoft's dealing with Wikipedia in general though.

Bloggers and Journalists

Sorry about this for my normal readers but I also wanted to welcome my Communicating with the Web class to this blog and answer some thoughts about blogging. Here are our questions;

Are bloggers journalists? Why or why not? Bloggers have been responsible for breaking and carrying news stories that have resulted in senators losing their jobs and possibly changed the course of the last presidential election. Is that good or bad? Should bloggers have the same rights (to access events, interview, etc) and protections (not to have to reveal their sources) as newspaper and television reporters?

Bloggers as journalists.... hmmm.... well to tell the truth this idea has come up in some other classes and I have stopped to think about this. I would say that they are. In many cases bloggers have more freedom to post stories and in regards to this I would say yes. This is the new age, with information literally flowing from every possible direction. So for example Jim Bob might work for a company with an insight into a story that others might not. Society now has a "insider" in this regard. This is a great thing as a larger pool will allow for society to get closer to the truth rather than simply having one or two people tell us what the "truth" is. However, their real sources should be protected, however proof of some sort should be available upon demand.