Although I've heard about online safety and privacy, I've pretty much always felt "safety" and "privacy" are oxymorons when paired with "online." The medium is a constant reminder to me when using it.
"Instant messaging" seems awfully similar to me to people who are "just talking off the top of my head," or "shooting their mouth off" about a situation without thinking first. [For myself, I almost always, always benefit when I think first before talking]. I don't know that people can communicate that clearly when writing quickly.
Other constant reminders:
-bouncy advertisments on nearly every public site that seem a little too desperate to catch my attention and sell me things. The way they so actively pursue on-line customers and their personal contact info always reminds me to be careful and makes me feel like I'm running from a flock of panhandlers.
-receiving a bunch of e-mails while I'm in the process of writing one. I'm in the middle of expressing a series of thoughts while a series of those from other people drops in out of the sky.
The "reply-to-a-reply-to-a- reply" e-mail phenomenon often seems to me like a crowd of people all talking out loud on their cell phones at the same time.
But then I also figure it goes with getting used to all the new technology, tools and related social interactions. [new tools are fun! new tools are exciting!]
Friday, September 28, 2007
Thursday, September 27, 2007
IzItCoolOrWhat?
I thoroughly enjoyed the 2-hour "Gadgets and Gizmos plus Websites" program held at Freeman Branch. In fact, it was one of the most interesting programs I've attended during the 14 years I've worked here. I even wish it had been twice as long.
In particular, the explanations of various gadgets that I'd heard of, but never really seen good definitions in my wanderings.
When it comes to collecting music I'm fairly "old-school," in that I have record albums, audiocassettes AND compact discs. I like burning my own music CD and movie DVDs, but I have separate stand-alone CD and DVD recording machines at home for that. I've been saving digital photos to CDs at home on the computer, but haven't been downloading music or videos. It's always seemed simpler to record from original sources rather than from on-line.
Maybe I'm just remembering years ago when music and videos played on computers generally suffered stop-and-starts, gaps, jumps and shutdowns during playback. [wait a minute, my work computer still suffers these problems sometimes]!
I am intrigued by the MP3 disc recording capacity of 200 songs. But when I'm burning my own compact discs part of the fun is anguishing over what songs I want and in what order. And I know how long that takes. I can't imagine how long it would to assemble and cut an MP3 disc or the amount of nursemaiding involved.
But I'd love to be able to archive such a large collection, if I could also copy from it and make backup copies. I wouldn't want to spend an enormous amount of time burning the perfect collection and than have it magnetically erased or damaged when I dropped it. [Especially since I know the agony that comes of a chewed audiotape, a scratched record album and a cracked CD].
I look forward to playing with photos and specialty web sites! I'm hoping that the Cnet game download site and the "old school gaming" site will provide some fun at home, and that the CD and DVD covers site will come in handy. I know that YouTube can be an enormous amount of fun, but I won't be doing any investigating of it at work since the site is blocked on my computer.
Ah, well.
In particular, the explanations of various gadgets that I'd heard of, but never really seen good definitions in my wanderings.
When it comes to collecting music I'm fairly "old-school," in that I have record albums, audiocassettes AND compact discs. I like burning my own music CD and movie DVDs, but I have separate stand-alone CD and DVD recording machines at home for that. I've been saving digital photos to CDs at home on the computer, but haven't been downloading music or videos. It's always seemed simpler to record from original sources rather than from on-line.
Maybe I'm just remembering years ago when music and videos played on computers generally suffered stop-and-starts, gaps, jumps and shutdowns during playback. [wait a minute, my work computer still suffers these problems sometimes]!
I am intrigued by the MP3 disc recording capacity of 200 songs. But when I'm burning my own compact discs part of the fun is anguishing over what songs I want and in what order. And I know how long that takes. I can't imagine how long it would to assemble and cut an MP3 disc or the amount of nursemaiding involved.
But I'd love to be able to archive such a large collection, if I could also copy from it and make backup copies. I wouldn't want to spend an enormous amount of time burning the perfect collection and than have it magnetically erased or damaged when I dropped it. [Especially since I know the agony that comes of a chewed audiotape, a scratched record album and a cracked CD].
I look forward to playing with photos and specialty web sites! I'm hoping that the Cnet game download site and the "old school gaming" site will provide some fun at home, and that the CD and DVD covers site will come in handy. I know that YouTube can be an enormous amount of fun, but I won't be doing any investigating of it at work since the site is blocked on my computer.
Ah, well.
Monday, September 24, 2007
Week 2: Exercise #3 - Day 1 on Blog Island
I've crawled ashore onto Blog Island, wondering if my random thoughts and ideas can survive here.
I very much enjoyed the introductory class at Freeman Branch today that showcased the multitude of interesting web tools, features and devices that I hadn't been aware of or had the time to explore.
I think the hard part of blogging and other web lessons for me will be the time away from my duties that it will take. Too much fun. Too easy to play around and not get work things done.
I very much enjoyed the introductory class at Freeman Branch today that showcased the multitude of interesting web tools, features and devices that I hadn't been aware of or had the time to explore.
I think the hard part of blogging and other web lessons for me will be the time away from my duties that it will take. Too much fun. Too easy to play around and not get work things done.
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