Tnx for yrs

TNX FOR YRS

Time was when I wrote longhand, heard w. glee
praise for this "almost C18",
& wd, to ease the hand strain, which was gt,
C18ly abbreviate,
w/o the aim you charge, of seeming cool.
Altho' I tk to email as a tool,
I'm one whom loss of scope for longhand vexed.
I do it w. predictive when I txt.

This was written in October 2012 for a competition organised by the magazine The liner.  The theme was that of letters.  The poem achieved publication of a sort when I posted it on a friend's Facebook page, as a comment on a picture she had shared; then, being opportunistic, I went to the picture itself, by Julia Quinn, and posted the poem as a comment there.

Thing 16: Facebook

I have been using Facebook since early 2008, have read several people's articles about it and logged them, with view to MCLIP revalidation, and have, for 23things, added the COPAC widget to my Facebook page. I made a guarded attempt to use Facebook as a blog in the autumn of 2009, but I have never had the same enthusiasm for it that I have for some other Web 2 applications.

Reasons include the site's terminology that makes 'friends', or not, of people whose relationship could be better described in other ways, the invitations to games offering minimal interest in return for account details, the sense that Facebook brings together play versions of lots of things that thrive better in a full-size version elsewhere. Facebook does photos, but without Flickr's ready searchability from outside and innovative approach to rights. Facebook notes are like a blog, but with a smaller typeface than Blogger. So far as I can see, anyway. I have done what I can to confirm this general perception by uploading a few photos; you will obviously be in your rights to correct me if you know better.

I don't hate Facebook with the level of aversion that Miss Crail reserved for Twitter. But, in pursuit of 23things, I find that Facebook is for me neither a new thing to explore, nor a hobby that I'm eager to expound.

Hence I am not drawn to getting up a library Facebook page in addition to the library blog. Ready though I am to see that others have made a go of it....

OK, down to business. Thing 3: blogs

It says "Write something here about what you hope to get out of Cam 23 and your previous experience of Web 2.0 and social media."

What I hope to get out of Cam23 is a proficiency in the use of tools I have up to now dabbled with, in hopes of making myself a bit more useful. As to my previous experience of those things (shown in cam23 order, and not shown at all if my experience is zero):

iGoogle

I appear to have got up an iGoogle page at some point in the last couple of years, and have, for cam23, put more stuff into it and made it my homepage.

RSS

I have since last autumn used RSS in connection with Twitter -- an RSS feed on an advance Twitter search tells me whenever anyone tweets the words Haddon, archaeology, anthropology, arch or anth within 15 miles of Cambridge. But I must admit I've never really found the swing of RSS feeds in general, or seen why going to a bookmarked RSS feed is meant to be less bother than going to a bookmarked web page. Perhaps I will know better by the end of cam23.

blogging

I have been writing the Haddon Library's blog since the summer of 2007, but that's in space from the Computer Officer. I did acquire some LiveJournal space by having my say on a story in the Independent in February 2009, but I've made no further use of LiveJournal.

Doodle

I use this regularly to schedule meetings, and have tried to use it as a substitute for meetings. But the groups concerned have not always been willing to join in.

Google Calendar

My brother set up a Google calendar two years ago to co-ordinate family visits to parents. I'd been using mosuki.com since 2006, but that was taken down last month. I am now using Google with everyone else.

Twitter

I joined Twitter in April 2009 and started tweeting in earnest a couple of months later. My tweets are of two kinds, in general: responses to other people's tweets and announcements of things that are inherently public. I keep my enthusiasm for Twitter under control by the rule that I don't look at it during working hours if anything is in my email inbox. I also use Twitter (see above, under RSS feeds) in hopes of hearing what people are saying about the Haddon. So far, be it admitted, I haven't heard very much that way.

Flickr

I have a few photos on Flickr. I very rarely take photos myself, but I have had more experience of uploading pictures elsewhere. My wife Clare and I use her photos in e-cards.

Wordle

An excellent displacement activity, when I am stuck on minutes or a heavy memo, is to throw what I've got so far into Wordle and see what comes out.

Slideshare

I have not put anything on to Slideshare, but I have occasionally viewed presentations on it by speakers I've been to hear in person.

Delicious

This is a new enthusiasm of mine. Saving web resources to my Delicious account, and being able to call them up on any computer, is better than downloading them to one machine and then having to recall the URL on another machine, or copy the downloaded resources on to a data stick with all its vulnerabilities. Though I can see, after the Mosuki sadness, that I need to be a bit better prepared for Delicious to crash, or go down.

LibraryThing

I have been using this for about a year to catalogue our books at home -- specifically, to catalogue our music scores.

Facebook

I'm writing on what some have designated as Quit Facebook Day. I don't see myself taking that step, partly because my interest in Facebook has declined as my enthusiasm for Twitter has grown. My usual metaphors for the difference between the two are these: that if Facebook fits its 'walled garden' soubriquet, then Twitter is more like seed on the wind, as per Cory Doctorow; and that Facebook is like a holiday camp while Twitter is like a cycling tour.

Zotero

I have used this in preparation for an Alumni Weekend presentation. I expected the wrong things -- starting with a hope that it would function like Delicious or Google Docs and not need carting from machine to machine -- and maybe cam23 will let me see more point to it, or to its rival Mendeley.

Google Docs

These are another thing that I was introduced to my my brother, who got up a document for the discussion of certain shared concerns. Clare & I keep our Christmas cards list on it now.

YouTube

I have occasionally followed links to videos on YouTube. I have not, so far, made much use of it as a resource to be deliberately explored, though this evening I made a desultory YouTube search for llamas, in hopes of adding their vocalisations to the animal sounds I can mimic.

Wikis

I have not explored wikis much beyond Wikipedia itself. On Wikipedia, I have made a few tiny corrections, a bit like annotating the programme during a concert interval, to Wikipedia entries -- see those for Gringley-on-the-Hill, Michael Drayton, open secret, and Polesworth.

That's my experience up to now. I will do the reading for thing 3, & register this blog as part of thing 4, later in the week.