#14 Getting not-so-technical with Technorati

Technorati - sounded like a secret society when I first heard the term! Then I remembered, ah, yes, this is the thing I didn't like very much weeks ago and vowed to come back and try to make friends with it.


So now friends we are... and I have found it quite useful too. I searched under blogs, posts and received different results as you would expect.

I like the watchlist feature although this could do with some advanced searching options to rule out irrelavant results.

This is also something I will continue to use - although not on a daily basis.

#13 Tagging, folksonomies & social bookmarking in Del.icio.us

At first glance Del.icio.us created a blank look of cluelessness, but after looking at it and then looking at it some more, clicking here and there, tilting head to side, scrunching up face, the light bulb then started to shine.

I created an account, exported and uploaded all my bookmarks from home and work and started to get very excited :) No longer I thought would I have to save individual shortcut files on my USB that travels between the two locations on a daily basis. My bookmarks would be available to me no matter where I was in the world and I could share them with friends and colleagues.

I liked the comments feature too. This is helpful for some bookmarks, although most are pretty self explanatory.

After uploading both home and work I then worked towards unifying my categories into uniform tags that would make this account much more manageable.

Installing the Del.icio.us buttons to my browser on my own PC was useful too as researching throughout the day, I'd be sure not to miss any useful finds through my web travels.

This is definitely a service I will be using on a daily basis. Very relevant!

#12 Roll your own search engine with Rollyo

Oooooh! I can't tell you how handy this one is at the moment!

As I am planning a wedding and doing a lot of online searching, Rollyo has just made my life much easier! All of the great wedding planning sites I have come across have now been rolled into one online wedding search tool particular to Melbourne! Nice one! A huge time-saver :)

And it's on this blog :) Yaye!

It was really easy to set up too. I set it all up without reading the instructions and did just fine!

Who would have thought I'd be doing all my online searching for my wedding from my own blog?

I love it!

#11 All about LibraryThing

LibraryThing was made for me!!! I love it. My excel spreadsheet of all my fave reading and want-to-read may have to take the back bench for a while.

Creating the account was super easy :)
Adding books to my own library was simple and logical :)
And what I really love about it...drumroll please...is I can change the covers of the books to reflect my edition! How awesome is that? Very I say!

I like that I can see my own books on my virtual shelf from my blog too :) I'm feeling abit techno geeky and I'm liking it ;)

This exercise was particularly fun because I discovered how to add widgets and sidebar thingys all on my own! Yeehah!

Also a great feature, is that LibraryThing connects you with like-minded people which you can blog and discuss with which is great when reading the heavy philosohical texts or thought provoking books. This is a really enjoyable feature. It's a pity you can only add 200 for free - but I guess that's a rule they have implemented to tackle people like me! I looked at my bookcase at home and my eyes lit up! Dorky I know - but very cool!

And recommendations - another great feature if I do say so myself. Based on what is in my library I can be given other recommended reads when I am having a clueless moment. Great if I'm going through a phase but maybe not so helpful if I want to dive into something completely new.

Amazing!

#10 Play around with image generators

Now this is my kind of thing. I love creating new stuff, especially if a giggle can be resulted from it! I used Captioner which I must say I have been hanging out to use. Well use it I did and I found that you really do need to have a full size digital photo so that it can fit the caption inside it (that's why I had to pick a new photo than the original one I was going to use).

This photo is one of a dog I took in Santorini recently. It was a very hot day and this dog which was almost the size of a horse (I swear I could have ridden it), just lay there as customers walked over and around it. The poor thing was not phased in the least and seemed too hot to budge! It was definitely photoworthy.

#6 More Flickr fun

Fun fun fun! had a few giggles along the way when I created my own magazine cover and then had to remind myself to get a grip when the imagination went a little overboard. And so much to choose from! There are many other 3rd party and other mashup services I will be checking out, but this Magazine one is very fun. If you havent had a go already - do! *Fingers twiddling in excitement Smithers style!