I take it back.
I didn't like del.icio.us before. I didn't really care so much about other people's bookmarks. Plus, it didn't work so hot on the work computers, where security controls interfere with the installation of the browser buttons.
But then I had an epiphany.
I'm working on a project that requires me to go to a particular web site, and while I have no trouble remembering the name of the site, I can never remember how to get to the part of it I am working with. Plus, I get interrupted a lot, plus I work on multiple computers at work, so I was accessing this site by an embarrassingly convoluted process that I will not describe here.
So I was wasting valuable time yesterday trying to find the damn thing, when I realized that if I had bookmarks that could travel with me, I only had to find this once and then never again. If only such a thing existed!
I'm a little slow on the uptake.
When I went home, where security controls do not prohibit me from installing browser buttons, I started setting up my bookmarks in del.icio.us and tagging my heart out. This will be a little clunky to get going, since I don't have the buttons at work, but maybe there's a work-around I haven't figured out yet.
Oh, the possibilities. All those emails I have saved with interesting links in them, intending to return and investigate them some day? (Yeah, right) Their days are numbered. Now I can look at the links, decide if they are something that will be useful to access again, ORGANIZE them so I can RETRIEVE them when needed (imagine that), and then hit the blessed DELETE button!
I'm gonna be a lean, mean, del.icio.us machine.
Showing posts with label del.icio.us. Show all posts
Showing posts with label del.icio.us. Show all posts
Friday, December 14, 2007
Monday, December 10, 2007
Wrap it up (and put a tag on it?)
Here I go, under the wire.
There were times during Project Play when I really thought that my head was going to explode. Even so, this was completely and totally the right way for me to dangle my feet in the water of these applications and ideas.
I'm not entirely ready to embrace every part of Web 2.0. I'm a Productivity Enhancer, and not sure I'll ever be an Omnivore, but I'm OK with that. I've learned a lot, and I'm looking forward to learning more.
Over the past few days, I've been thinking a lot about the whole information overload thing. I can't recall any of the specific numbers, but I remember about 20 years ago it was a truism that we had to absorb more information in [some short period of time] than [some previous generation] had to process in a lifetime. Think of how that increased with the advent of the Internet. Web 2.0 must represent another order of magnitude beyond even that.
No wonder I sometimes feel like my head will explode.
I like blogging more than I thought I would, although that casual, punchy writing style that characterizes my favorite bloggers tends to elude me. I am also severely impaired in the visual design department, so I fear I will never have the cool graphics I envy so much on other blogs.
I was skeptical about Bloglines, but I'm a convert. It's a real timesaver.
Flickr made me slightly insane, but I feel motivated now to get my personal digital pics uploaded and tagged--just not for the whole world to see.
My 2.0 goals before Semester 2 starts up: read more Project Play-er's blogs to get other perspectives on these issues; get some photos uploaded and tagged for my personal use; work on setting up del.icio.us to do my bidding rather than just annoying me; explore the idea of a staff wiki for my branch to capture all that "How do we do this?" and "Where do we keep that?" information.
That's a little ambitious, and no iPod dangling out there in front of me to spur me on to action.
We'll see how it goes.
There were times during Project Play when I really thought that my head was going to explode. Even so, this was completely and totally the right way for me to dangle my feet in the water of these applications and ideas.
I'm not entirely ready to embrace every part of Web 2.0. I'm a Productivity Enhancer, and not sure I'll ever be an Omnivore, but I'm OK with that. I've learned a lot, and I'm looking forward to learning more.
Over the past few days, I've been thinking a lot about the whole information overload thing. I can't recall any of the specific numbers, but I remember about 20 years ago it was a truism that we had to absorb more information in [some short period of time] than [some previous generation] had to process in a lifetime. Think of how that increased with the advent of the Internet. Web 2.0 must represent another order of magnitude beyond even that.
No wonder I sometimes feel like my head will explode.
I like blogging more than I thought I would, although that casual, punchy writing style that characterizes my favorite bloggers tends to elude me. I am also severely impaired in the visual design department, so I fear I will never have the cool graphics I envy so much on other blogs.
I was skeptical about Bloglines, but I'm a convert. It's a real timesaver.
Flickr made me slightly insane, but I feel motivated now to get my personal digital pics uploaded and tagged--just not for the whole world to see.
My 2.0 goals before Semester 2 starts up: read more Project Play-er's blogs to get other perspectives on these issues; get some photos uploaded and tagged for my personal use; work on setting up del.icio.us to do my bidding rather than just annoying me; explore the idea of a staff wiki for my branch to capture all that "How do we do this?" and "Where do we keep that?" information.
That's a little ambitious, and no iPod dangling out there in front of me to spur me on to action.
We'll see how it goes.
Sunday, December 9, 2007
Blecch
That's my reaction to Del.icio.us.
That's a little unfair. I guess my feelings about this are similar to my feelings about Flickr. As a way to access my own bookmarks, cool. Very cool, even. As a way to organize recommended websites for patrons, cool. Very cool, even.
As a way to find useful, relevant and meaningful information? Again I say, Blecch!
Searching on cats yields a slew of cat photos and cat humor. If you want to know something useful about cats, never mind. Well, maybe it's there, farther down in the results but I admit to not having the patience to slog through the whole list. Weirdly, it doesn't even display the sites most frequently tagged with cats at the top of the results. There must be an organizing principle here, but I'm not getting it.
A search on divorce produced one result called "Best divorce letter ever" which was supposed to be humorous but was really just vile and offensive. Even if one did not find it offensive, it would have been of absolutely no use to someone who wanted actual information about divorce.
It all goes back to those tags, doesn't it?
That's a little unfair. I guess my feelings about this are similar to my feelings about Flickr. As a way to access my own bookmarks, cool. Very cool, even. As a way to organize recommended websites for patrons, cool. Very cool, even.
As a way to find useful, relevant and meaningful information? Again I say, Blecch!
Searching on cats yields a slew of cat photos and cat humor. If you want to know something useful about cats, never mind. Well, maybe it's there, farther down in the results but I admit to not having the patience to slog through the whole list. Weirdly, it doesn't even display the sites most frequently tagged with cats at the top of the results. There must be an organizing principle here, but I'm not getting it.
A search on divorce produced one result called "Best divorce letter ever" which was supposed to be humorous but was really just vile and offensive. Even if one did not find it offensive, it would have been of absolutely no use to someone who wanted actual information about divorce.
It all goes back to those tags, doesn't it?
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