Saturday, October 4, 2008

RSS Feeds

This weeks post is about RSS Feeds. I went to Bloglines, set up an account, added 6 Feeds including The Powerhouse Museum's picture of the day blog, ABC News, The SMH, ABS For Librarians, The Weather Channel and Bloglines News. No problems encountered with any of this.
I am not really a big fan or RSS for my own personal use. I prefer to search for the information I need, when and where I want at the time.
I am finding it hard to find the time, both at home and at work to follow the course. I am doing it at home as the Library computers are much too slow and the settings do not allow access to some of the necessary sites. It is really only 15 minutes a day on a resonable computer, if everything goes well, (and so far it has). But then there is the distraction of all the information that you get in the form of, say the RSS feeds, which you just have to stop and read and You Tube clips which you have to stop and watch. I just can't help myself.
I can see so much potential for these tools as the public become more comfortable with using new technologies.
I have tried today to add a RSS Feed to my Blog but following the instructions to the letter I cannot get it on there. I get an error message "Invalid Feed URL". I'll keep trying until I get it. But AAAHHH!!!
I got it! I subscribed to the "Wikipedia - Recent Changes Blog" using the Subscribe to this feed facility withing IE. Then copied the URL and pasted it in the Configure Feed ...Feed URL as I was trying to do before. I dont know why but it worked and now I have placed another feed the same way from "smartraveller.gov.au. All good.

Ciao
Princess Carolynne

Flickr

Lane Cove Library
Lane Cove Library,
originally uploaded by Chris Luisa and Beth.
This is where I work. This photo was taken by a fellow employee Chris who no longer works with us. I was watching him take the picture in March 2008 and now I have found it in Flickr. That is pretty cool. Today I set up a Yahoo account then Flickr account and searched for a photo in my community after that it was easy to just "Blog this photo". Fingers crossed I have not encountered any real problems so far.
Thats enough waffling on for now.
Ciao Princess Carolynne

It begins



Well here goes! Strap yourself in and hang on.

So far I have set up a Gmail account, a Blogger profile a Blog and now a Post.
I was going to set up a Blog to use while travelling recently but.. you know, I never got around to it. I took this picture while I was away. Guess where I went????
This is a fantastic opportunity to learn and experiment with all these new concepts that we hear about, but don't quite understand eg. Flickr, RSS, Wiki etc.
I am certain that this will be an interesting learning experience and when mastered, a fantastic tool to be used for sharing information both at work in a library setting and at home with family and friends.
It seems that if all goes well with the computer, the server and the Internet connection it is relatively easy to set all this up. It is trying to think up what to write for the content of the postings that will the real challenge.
Anyway I hope my posts won't bore you to tears. Any ideas, feedback even constructive criticism will be greatly appreciated.
More next time,
Ciao
Princess Carolynne