Fun with Rollyo

This is some weird stuff. I don't know how people think to create such clever things!
Rollyo is a site where you can create your own searchroll. So you name the searchroll, then nominate all the sites you want it to search. You can make it public and give it tags so that the content is recognisable.

I made one called Eleanor's Books - it contains the urls of all my favourite online bookshops. So all I'll need to do is put in the title or the author and it'll bring up a list of results that will let me keep my books up to date.

Select Search Engine...Eleanor's booksSearch The Web

Powered by Rollyo

I can see that this tool could be hugely useful for me, both personally and professionally. Also, potential for heaps of fun!

Image generators

I started playing with Big Huge Labs Mosaic Maker.
It was heaps of fun, it allows you to select images from your computer, or Flickr and composite them into a mosaic. I decided to create a mosaic based on Flickr tags. I started by creating one which contained dolls:

1. September Dusk, 2. September Dusk, 3. September Dusk, 4. September Dusk, 5. September Dusk, 6. September Dusk, 7. September Dusk, 8. September Dusk, 9. Zeisha, 10. Eden, 11. Portrait of Isabella Ortensia, 12. Portrait of Isabella Ortensia, 13. Isabella with Mrs. Isobe, 14. Alice and the Pirates socks, 15. "It's a little big, no?", 16. BTSSB barrette, 17. Momoko: "Anything in there for me?", 18. BTSSB loot, 19. Isabella with Masumi Kanoh, 20. BTSSB darlings, 21. Candela, 22. IMG_4337, 23. Sofia, 24. Sofia, 25. 150, 26. 137, 27. 106, 28. 109, 29. 126, 30. 086, 31. 170, 32. 092, 33. 090, 34. 111, 35. 160, 36. 159

Then I tried one using Library - but the pictures were all naff. So then I tried Flowers and that worked beautifully... I love the way that html is also produced so that you can easily credit the people whose images are shown. You can either elect to use a Flickr tag or a specific Flickr user.

1. Pretty blossoms 1, 2. Pretty blossoms 2, 3. Untitled, 4. Flower in the morning sun, 5. Due Diligence, 6. favorite shot, 7. Flower, 8. Untitled, 9. Aura's daisies, 10. CAMBODIA-Angkor, 11. Dew Drop Refractions, 12. Donna's garden, 13. Passion, 14. 大青, 15. DSC_0041, 16. Jerusalem Artichoke flowers, 17. DSC_0043, 18. DSC_0037, 19. DSC_0038, 20. magenta y amariLLo, 21. Bee - Amman, 22. Spider - Amman, 23. Untitled, 24. DSC_0040, 25. 大青, 26. De Leòn, 27. Roses and the Moon, 28. Untitled, 29. Garden, 30. Pink rose, 31. Love, 32. Garden close up, 33. Pretty in pink, 34. Untitled, 35. flower5, 36. Last Clematis

Finding more feeds

I've now found some really interesting feeds on some of my favourite websites and added them. Technorati was very useful and so was Syndic8, they enabled me to find The Kept Up Academic Librarian and the Technorati Technology Channel which I've now subscribed to. I'll keep an eye out for more when I'm travelling around the web.

There does seem to be so many ways to receive RSS feeds. I've noticed the icon in my Outlook, my Internet Explorer, and now I'm really starting to see it on sites that I visit. I've always sort of known they were there, but now they really stand out to me.

Which begs the question, RSS feeds are designed to reduce the information overload that we face everyday -but could they also give rise to an information addiction? How many feeds are too many? How much information can one person absorb in a day?

RSS feeds and newsreaders

I've played with RSS feeds using Internet Explorer before but hadn't heard of Bloglines. I signed up for a Bloglines account and subscribed to various feeds including cartoons, news, recipes and library issues.

It's quite interesting, I like having all the information together in one place. It's also good that you can put the feeds into different folders so they aren't all cluttered up together.
I've had some difficulty working out the url for my public account so I'll add it here when I work it out. It isn't located where it's supposed to be in the interface and the help doesn't.

Time passes...

Aha! I've cracked it! You need to actually alter it so that you click on Blog and edit the options. Add in a username and also 'Yes, publish my blogroll'. Then you can copy the url and add it thus... My Blogroll

More Flickr Fun

I've been spending some time playing around with Flickr and seeing what clever things people can do. I particularly like retrievr. It's so nifty! I started by just drawing a black squiggle in the box, and pausing to see what results were retrieved. Then I added some coloured dots and waited. It was interesting to see how the quantity of coloured dots affected the general colour hue of the results. I've looked at Flickr before, but I didn't realise there were all these fun things that you could do.

Here's another Flickr pic that I really liked. It's been taken by Damien Douxchamps

I do love a bit of Loli. I'm looking forward to going to Japan someday.

My experiences with technology

I find technology very difficult to get away from. I used to be really nervous about it. We had one single very basic computer when I was at school - and I broke it. It was an accident, really it was, but it made me nervous around these newfangled things.

In recent years I've got my own laptop, MP3 player, setup my own secured wireless network at home and learnt the intricacies of my mobile phone. I love getting to grips with new technology, as long as there's nobody standing over me telling me what to do. Playing with the wireless network and the laptop, kept me happily occupied for quite some time. The timing was bad though - for a moment I actually felt drowned in new tech. We bought the laptop, router, digital camera and new phones all in the same week. Thankfully it was a moment that passed quickly and has never returned.

I'm now just as happy playing with other people's devices. Mum sends me SMS messages all the time now that I've helped her work it all out.

My job entails a HUGE amount of tech savvy. Such a large proportion of my work relies on it. I purchase such a variety of print and electronic materials. I need to be able to troubleshoot potential access problems, provide management information at short notice, manage a large budget with audit trails, communicate with other staff and with vendors, find quick answers to problematic questions, and think at least 3 steps ahead.

It is a great challenge, but I do like that. That being said, I do prefer my challenges to be realistic, so let's not start pushing the boat out, alright :-)

Flickr fun - "Sweet Tian in the Flowers"

This image was taken by cpanda01 and shown in her photostream on Flickr. I found it when looking at the interesting things that were posted on 10 July 2008. It was a difficult choice, lots of good images were uploaded on that day.

7 & 1/2 habits of successful lifelong learners

As part of the Week 2 'Discover exercises' I need to decide which habits among the 7 & 1/2 are the easiest and the hardest for me.

The easiest habit for me is Habit Number 7 & 1/2 itself - Play
I find the best way for me to learn anything technical is to sit down and play around with it - see what it can do, learn its weaknesses and its wonders. It's the way I've learned how to make my own personal blog the way that it is, update my own website, setup a new PC, use a digital camera and play with the graphics, understand the workings of a new doll I've never seen before. Playing is second nature to me - no comments from the floor please!

The hardest habit for me is Habit Number 3 - View problems as challenges
It has always been one of my failings. All too frequently I see a problem as being a stress, a crisis - something to lose sleep over. I can see that I really need to begin seeing what I can learn from these events rather than just get into a flap over them. On the occasions where I have learnt a lesson as the result of a problem, I've only seen it as the result of a failure on my part to perceive a potential pitfall. Habit Number 3 will be a tough one to learn, but will be very valuable.

Well this is a bit different...

I am writing a non-doll-related post in a blog.

I've created this blog as part of the UniSA 23 Things exercise.

I actually already have a personal blog which I use to share my hobbies with like-minded individuals, but this one will be interesting to maintain for a while as well.