Twittering and Tweeting Not For Me

Well, my pseudonym is 'Never Too Old'. I think I finally found something I am too old for. I just don't get the appeal of Twitter. Most things I can at least understand the appeal for other people. For example 'The 5 Minute Herald' doesn't do it for me but my husband furiously scans it every morning when he is in a hurry. For him it works and I understand why. I would rather get up earlier to read the 'real paper'. Twitter holds absolutely no appeal for me and for the life of me I don't get why others would like it. So I guess I am 'too old' for some things. Oh and by the way , does someone have a text message dictionary? Apparently I am also too old to learn a new language!

Library Thing

Well, I think the site is pretty good in general but I found the overall look to be kind of outdated. I know it isn't our site but it is kind of ironic given that this whole course is about looking and being tech savvy and up to date!

Online Productivity Tools

Do I see these free online tools eventually replacing Ms Office ,etc.? I really don't think so and I certainly hope not! I can see the application for specific people needing to print out say, resumes every so often or a cover letter without having to shell out for their own expensive software. However I personally feel that there are some things that should be private and confidential. Having certain personal documents on a web based application or depending on them being properly deleted would make me very uncomfortable. Although I use web based banking, etc. I, perhaps naively, assume that banks have better security than some random free document website. In addition, in my experience, there is nothing like being in charge of your own destiny. So many times my kids all the way through university would run into problems with servers being down when they were trying to access, print or read assignments, tests and exams that I have developed an aversion for allowing a machine to be in charge of said destiny!

YouTube and Flicker Entertaining?

To say that YouTube and Flicker are entertaining would be the understatement of the century! My first real intro to Youtube was to watch Susan Boyle's astonishing performance. The amount of time you could waste, particularly on You tube, would have to be measured in days or weeks! In terms of usefulness I would say that as a quick resource for a picture of this or a video af that it is pretty good. As far as the quality there is some pretty amateur stuff on there but also some very professional things as well. Overall, I think YouTube is best for things you have missed and Flicker best for posting photos to family.

RSS

I had no problems setting up an account. I'm still on the fence as to whether or not this makes info gathering easier or not. As I am not necessarily on a computer every day things may either pile up or become stale news! Time will tell I'm sure.

Googley-eyed for Google

Well....several months ago we went to Hawaii. It was lovely and we had a great time driving all over the island. Shortly after we came back my husband was 'driving' the same routes we had followed on Google maps. I really thought he was crazy so when this assignment came up I thought I would try the same virtual experience! I first tried Hawaii and 'drove' some of the same routes we actually motored along. Not my cup of tea, after all I had seen it in real life! There was absolutely no appeal there for me. So then I thought I would try a'virtual holiday' somewhere I hadn't been but have always wanted to go. So off I went to The Hague. I even have a friend living there so it is not inconceivable that I might go there. I 'landed' at the airport and attempted to 'drive' to her house. Well, suffice to say that had it been for real I would have ended up in a canal several times over! In addition I kind of felt like like a bit of a voyeur peeking into her windows. By the time I was done I was really on the fence as to whether I would actually enjoy going there. All in all I found the street view to be quite helpful in envisioning where my friend lived but zooming around not so great - in fairness it isn't really designed for this purpose. Would I recommend it - yes, but for the purpose it was designed for - finding places!

Social Networking

Well, in my day social networking included alcohol and munchies! At the very least coffee and perhaps a nice lemon square came along with the gossip of the day!! That was the real definition of time wasting, I think. Now, having mentioned time wasting perhaps I should answer the question on the assignment about that very same topic! Am I finding Facebook a time waster? Well considering I just accessed Facebook for the first time tonight I don't feel qualified to answer that just yet - give me a few more hours searching out my kids, their significant others, my nieces, nephews and old friends hunting for the "dirt" on them and I'll let you know. Hmmm, I think I know the answer already!!!