Week6: Exercise #14 Explore Technorati and learn how tags work with blog posts

I had explored Technorati in the previous exercise and I loved it. I revisited once again in this week’s exercise. I had more understanding about it.

One new finding that I observed is Technorati really makes its search function easy to use for all levels of users. I made an experimental search with the phrase Learning 2.0. I got different number of results while I set the field into three categories: All Blogs, Blog Directory and Tags. There was no surprise that I retrieved the most results in All Blogs, which were 31,863. However, I went to advanced search and refined the phrase into the EXACT phrase. I got only 715 results. The number of results obviously dwindled drastically.

In addition, Technorati gave me options to limit my search into various suggested categories such as Libraries, Web2.0, library2.0 Librarians etc. What does it mean to me as a librarian? I think I can use this powerful feature to organize good blogs for reference purpose or even I can use it as an educational tool.

As far as Technorati’s Favorites and Popular, I do not feel very impressive. To me, it is just another site for the unofficial picks. However, I do like Technorati’s timeliness and accuracy of the links which I think is very important.

Week6: Exercise#13 Learn about tagging and discover Del.icio.us (a social bookmaking site)

This week's exercise is useful. I learned a lot by exploring watching the video, reading the articles and exploring Del.icio.us. I am tired of using Yahoo to bookmark the Web sites that I frequently visited. Also I have been trying to find a better tool to organize my favorites. Now it seems I found a good bookmarking tool- Del.icio.us.

I enjoyed watching the short video tutorial since gives me an overview of the very basic functions of Del.icio.us. Ms. Kathleen Gilroy introduced several fundamental advantages of using Del.icio.us : Find good materials on a topic, Build a shared reading list and Connect with other people. While I explored Del.icio.us, I confirmed the feature of sharing and connecting is excellent to be used in the library. For example, if the staff in the library picks a unique tag, then people can connect with each other and sharing the information. I think it would be an efficient tool regards communicating and sharing.

The two articles gave me more understanding about Del.icio.us. The help menu from Del.icio.us is also very thorough. I particular think the Popular tags is a good feature which helps to know how many people had saved this link. In my opinion, this is a very useful function that the librarians can use to organize the links for library’s online catalog. For example, Library Thing has 8375 subscription so I can know that this source is valuable. Therefore, I can introduce it in the library blog or online catalog.

Overall, this week’s lesson is helpful. I am sure that I will use it in the future as a bookmarking tool for both work and personal use.

Week5: Exercise #12 Rollyo

This week's exercise is extremely useful. I think Rollyo is a powerful reference tool which is like a miniatured search engines. I like its sharing feature and the flexibility of editing posts. The library definitely can use this tool to customize the reference sites to enhance service quality.

I created a Rollyo account with the topic: Legal Research following this link My Search Roll.

I also created a search box in the following.

Select...Legal ResearchSearch The Web

These are the web sites that I compiled for legal research.

SITES SEARCHED:
law.cornell.…
stu.findlaw.com
gpoaccess.go…
kids.gov
kids.gov
consumer.gov
consumer.gov
science.gov
thomas.loc.gov
lib.umich.ed…
lib.law.washingt…

Week5: Exercise #11 Explore Web 2.0 awards list

This award list is a good reference resource which contains broad categories that most people would feel interested.

Over all, I think this award list has its high standard of evaluation and credibility since I observed there are some categories without any winners.

I am impressed by the categories of Classified &Business Directories and Collaborative Writing & Word Processing. I like the Craigslist for its comprehensive coverage, free services, clean layout and ease of use. This is a useful classified list that I would recommend to the library customers when they are look for housing, free stuff, jobs, sale items etc. I heard a friend who purchased an used car with reasonable price; therefore, I assume this might be a good place for car purchase too.

The Collaborative Writing and Word Processing list is a wonderful resource to know. I have been using Google for a long time but I never knew Google has this online word processing feature. I would recommend this list to the library customers who want an easy collaborative word processing tool for group projects. I explored all the three winners in this category and recommended they were excellent tools which are easy to use.

Week5:Exercise #10 Online image generator

Obviously, this week's exercise has more fun than the previous one. To me, the main reason is I enjoy the beautiful colors and images; I think that is a powerful channel to deliver a clear message. For example, I love music and had learned to play the piano for a couple of years.
Then the following image will just tell the message perfectly.

Week4: Exercise #9 Locating Library Blogs and News Feeds

The week 4 of exercise is confusing. Honestly speaking, I do not enjoy much. After I stared bloglines account, I do not know how to subsribe the blogs and share the blogs. I submitted some questions for exercise #8 above and hope I get the answer of how to solve the problems.

Exercise 9 provides four search tools. I found out each has its strength and weakness.

Feedster- The layout of this site is simple and clean. It is easy to navigate. I like best the function Subscribe to this search which locates right after the search box. The position is obvious that the users won’t miss it. Also, there is less advertisement for this site.
I think this is a good choice for the users who want quality search results.

Topix.net- This is an excellent search tool which contains a wide range of information. I like the menu bars best which gives a clear idea where to start. I especially found out the organization of all topics and forums are useful. This is a good search tool for all levels of users. It is especially helpful for the users without any searching experiences. The well constructed topics are helpful for them to start a productive search.

Syndic8.com-This is an open directory with free submission. There is no wonder that I found out the information is disorganized and chaotic. I do not think this is a good search tool.

Technorati- It seems to me that this search tool is most appropriate to the users who want the information about popularity. The three broad categories, Popular, Top Searches and Top Tags, display the popular interests. I would use this search tool if I want to find the news feeds and blogs that are appealing to majority of people

Week4: Exercise#8 Learning about RSS feeds and Set up Bloglines Account

This week's exercise is no fun and confusing to me.

First of all, I would like to say RSS feeds is an advanced technology to get the most current news in a simple and efficient manner. It allows me to browse the headlines and filters the ones that I am interested and rule out the ones that I do not enjoy.

Setting a blogline account and add news feed is simple to me.
However, I encountered problems when I followed the instructions to find the Share tab within my Bloglines account. The screen print is not the same as what I saw on my bloglines account.

Could you tell me how to do the following things?

1. How to share it with the public: I cannot find the share tab to make it public.

2. How to remove the feeds that I do not want to subscribe: I have the problem of removing the feeds when I accidentally added it. I could not take it off.

3. Can I arrange the feeds into folders?

Thanks!