Roly-Poly Pudding

Select...CactipleaseSearch The Web

Here's my Rollyo searchroll entitled Cactiplease. As the title suggests this Rollyo search tool contains website urls devoted to the weird and wonderful world of cacti and succulents. This personally customised search engine allows me to search only my favourite sites on this subject rather than searching, for example, in Google and then wading through potentially numerous unsuitable search results. Very handy indeed. I can certainly see a use for Rollyo on my home computer.

Library Thingamajig

Eventually managed the simple task of creating a Library Thing account. Well, OK I may well have created 3,207 separate accounts when 1 would have sufficed - obviously a computer error. (How will I ever remember all the usernames and passwords?) Thank you Karen J. Mc for putting up with my cursing and for your invaluable assistance. The suggested username of Camry wasn't appreciated quite as much though.

I'm content with the cataloguing of books taking place in IR&T and with the actual reading of books occuring at home, so I can't see any practical, personal use of this software eventuating at 7 Lawrence Ave. Was a little disappointed that I couldn't find any matches for my collection of Dick and Dora books and with the lack of available covers for anything printed over 20 years ago. Yes, most of my purchases occurred many, many moons ago and were obtained from second-hand bookshops. Therefore the covers featured in my Library Thing catalogue may not exactly match the actual books on my home bookshelves (yes I cheated). My Library Thing catalogue can be found where X marks the spot.

Image Generator Playtime

Flickr's Image Generator program Big Huge Labs Captioner was fun. As was Big Huge Labs Warholizer

Finding Feeds

Finding Feeds was, at first, the least interesting exercise for me. Searching for images on Flickr is much more entertaining. As I suspected I'm not too interested in the majority of other people's blogs (give me face to face conversation anytime). When I initially browsed Technorati my opinion wasn't altered especially when I looked at the top 10 most popular blog searches:

1. Taskbar (?) 2. News 3. Environment 4. Jennifer Garner (is she really that interesting?) 5. Men 6. Cheat codes 7. Google 8. Paris Hilton (why?) 9. Jennifer Anniston (what?) 10. Vanessa Minnillo (who??) - It takes all kinds I suppose

I wonder why a generic search for 'Men' is popular but a general search for 'Women' is less popular than searches for specific individuals of this gender?

After some random searches I discovered that I was actually having fun. I particularly liked the timelapse videos. Many an hour could be fritted away 'playing' (play is a habit encouraged by 23 Things remember) in Technorati. I thought I'd share the following video with anyone who might be interested.

RSS feeds

Weeks 3 already: how time flies especially when one is mucking around trying to fulfil all of the requirements of 23 Things!

RSS feeds and Bloglines Newsreaders

Setting up the Bloglines Account and subscribing to RSS feeds was quite straight forward.
The Using Bloglines Tutorial was very helpful but the "How to find your public Bloglines URL:" instructions were completely misleading. Fortunately Adriana, the RSS feed Guru, was on hand and very, very helpful. Thank you Adriana!

Basically in Bloglines you need to click on Options (top left hand side of the Bloglines screen), select Blog Settings, create a new username (no spaces), check the Yes publish my Blogroll radio button, Save Changes and copy the second displayed public bloglines url into your blog.

My feeds can be viewed here:
FeedsfromTony

A non-23 Things related post

How could I possibly have a blog without any reference to the glorious Port Adelaide Football Club? Naturally I can't! Adjacent is my favourite image of Harold Oliver of who Victor Richardson said "the finest all-round exponent of Australian football in my playing and watching experience of it". Harold was a member of 4 PAFC Premiership teams and captain of the PAFC in 1921.

Technology and Me

I'm not sure if the words 'technology' and 'me' belong in the same sentence.

When personal computers first came into being I couldn't see myself ever using them. For what purpose would I ever need (let alone want) to use a pc? Later I thought the same of mobile phones. Having said that, I only use a mobile phone sporadically and usually under sufferance. That's not to say I'm not in favour of technological advances. Sure ball-point pens and lined paper are a huge improvement on stone tablets and chisels, cd-r's are a massive advance on cassette tapes (although I do miss vinyl lps - see pic), and life just wouldn't be the same without television. Today I know that I wouldn't be employed without being proficient in the use of a pc. Not only that but I also choose to spend some of my leisure time sitting in front of a computer either surfing the net or organising music playlists. The convenience of being able to communicate with someone on the other side of the world instantaneously, either by email or via a blog on the internet is truly amazing and something I wouldn't have even imagined could happen when I left school all those eons ago (calculators had only just replaced the abacus).

Spell with Flickr

I spent many a pleasant moment 'playing' with the Spell with Flickr program. Just type in a word or phrase at:
http://metaatem.net/words/
and it will generate a logo based on images in flickr of just letters or numbers.
I did waste quite a bit of time trying to save and upload the resulting images though. The code provided on this site doesn't seem to be compatible with this blog but maybe that has more to do with me than any compatability issues.
Apologies to Ian Curtis.

I have a 'follower'

Wow.
I can't believe that someone has signed up to be a 'follower' on my blog.
I'm a little stunned and can only think in cliches that any 'follower' of mine would be:
'led astray', an example of 'the blind leading the blind', at risk of being 'led up the garden path' or being 'led a merry dance', etc, etc.
Thanks Greg, the cheque's in the mail.

Cuba

cuba_car
Originally uploaded by simcoemedia

Flickr post.
I've really enjoyed browsing through the countless images on Flickr. The difficult part is trying to select an image for this post. Initially I searched for images from nature, then Art and Architecture, followed by Archaeological sites and then onto photos of my favourite early 80's 'punk/new wave' bands. There are so many great images that it's almost impossible to choose just one. Finally my procrastinating had to come to an end. So what image would I select? After watching the first episode of Monty Don's Around the World in 80 gardens which featured Cuba, I decided to search for images of Havana. I was intrigued by the combination of classic 50's American cars and Havana's crumbling Colonial Architecture. I quite like the composition, the light and the blue accents of the inserted image.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/simcoemedia/2315022299/