Second Life

I created my Second Life account last week for the new unit assignment. I can now see why this unit is twice as long (time wise) as the others and the accompanying assignment worth more points. I have spent a considerable amount of time in second life already, spread out over three sessions and have just gotten off Help Island and am exploring Dublin.

The reason I haven't advanced so far yet is because I have a problem when I play the 3D games either on my PC or on my TV. After 30 - 45 minutes, I start to get a headache and I feel off balance. The only way for me to get rid of it is to go lay down in my dark & quiet bedroom and try to take a nap for maybe an hour. So the first 2 sessions really gave me headaches with trying to get orientated with movement and features and stuff. Yesterday I went out and bought a box of Dramamine tablets. I took one, then did some unit reading for about an hour, them logged onto second life. I explored for about 2 hours with no headache! I would have stayed on longer, but alas, real life called and I had to go make dinner.

There are so many things to learn in Second Life! I mean WOW! And every new step leads you to new stuff, new places, new people. Its quite fascinating. I have been shy though. I talked to a few people on Help Island, but no one yet in Dublin. Just the basic, Hi, how are you. Are you new here? kind of stuff. I thought maybe that online I'd be more willing to talk to people, but maybe I just haven't been doing it long enough yet to get over the shyness.

Social Bookmarking Comparison

OMG! I have been surfing the social bookmarking sites for the upcoming assignment, and I can't believe the difference of what I found versus what I expected to find. I browsed about 11 different sites before I settled on the two I was going to seriously create and compare. I chose Delicious & Diigo. I have been hearing about delicious for over a year now. I have seen the little icons you can click on to add them to your favorites and all that. I expected a freaking awesome site once I got there. And since Diigo was fairly new, I expected something... well, I wasn't expecting much, let me put it that way.

You probably have figured out from my build-up that my expectations were totally wrong!!!

I love Diigo! I really didn't think I was going to get into a social bookmarking site, but I have. I may not use it to connect to other people, but I will use it to manage my bookmarks and find new ones that interest me. There are so many ways that you can navigate through your stuff, and you can make yourself notes & lists & things.

Delicious left me wanting. :( There were no folders, lists or any way for me to organize my bookmarks other than alphabetical and most recent. And If you don't tag them, you can't to a search. Half the time I can't remember what the name of my links are, I just know by content. So I would be out of luck and would have to go down the entire list to search for a bookmark. Not very efficient.

I have explored probably only half of what Diigo has to offer on its site, and its way more than I have found on Delicious, and I have think I have explored most of what they have already.

Its nice when you get a little surprise you weren't expecting.

Folksonomies: the people's labels

Whether or not we remember, we've all seen those scientific charts showing taxonomies, or other representations. Taxonomies are classifications of things in a hierarchical structure. But they are very structured and items within the scheme have specific relationships. The most commonly known taxonomy is the Linnaean: Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species.

While this gives us specific information about things, unless you're a scientist, you probably won't know all the tags given to narrow down what you're looking for. But folksonomies are created by everyday people. Lets say you upload a photo of a girl and her dog at the park. You tag it with common everyday words that everyone can understand, girl, child, dog, park, etc... That image can now be found by millions of people just by them searching for the same words. Maybe they are looking for a picture of a dog, or a park. Because you labeled all the possibilities, they can now find exactly what they were looking for.

So by having the common folk labeling the content rather than the scientists or other professionals, the material is accessible to so many more people.

When I first read the unit's topic of social bookmarking, I was like, oh, boy, another account I have to sign up for and never use again after class ends. But I was wrong.

I have bookmarks I use on my home computers, and I have bookmarks I use on my work computers. I never thought about mixing the 2. But the other day I was at work, and the way our network is set up, I can log in on any staff computer and my profile loads and all my files and bookmarks are right there. But some computers have a generic staff log in where anyone working that desk can use it. When you're working there, you can't log in as yourself. It was there that I really wished I had access to my bookmarks.

So even if I only use my work related URLs, it will be valuable because I will always be able to access them, no matter what computer I may be sitting at.

Should we or shouldn't we?

Remember that scene from Jurassic Park when Jeff Goldblum is sitting at the table with the other scientists & he is saying that the the scientists were so worried about whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should? I kind of had that same thought when I was visiting sites from the Most Comprehensive Web 2.0 lists. In particular the Mologogo site.

Mologogo is a mobile locater site. Basically, it uses GPS to track movements of cellualr phones. At first I was like, "Cool! How many of my friends and family can I get listed on here?" But as I clicked around, I was able to see info about the people who were signed on, I could look at the map and see the last 100 places where their mobile device had been located. Then I was like "No, way!" Every little dot on the map was telling me where these people had been. Sure, it would be nice to be able to see where my people are on the map-- mom is at the mall, hubby is at work, etc... but uh... they would be able to know where I was too. That stopped me. Not that I have anything to hide. But sometimes you DON'T want to be accessible to people. I am a grown woman, I don't need my mother knowing where I am every minute. I don't ask my husband every stop he made this week, I certainly wouldn't want him to be checking to see every little place I went. And what if that friend I occassionally talk to, is tracking me becasue I am not answering her calls? So, what first was a novelty, now became an issue of privacy. Would I want my boss to be able to track my location? If I was in a work vehicle on company time, sure I can see that, but with this and my cell phone #, she'd be able to see where I went in my off time. I don't like the idea of people being able to get that much information so easily.

The advances of technology...

Well, its true right? Technology has changed our lives, it has brought us out of the paper age and into the digital age. We are free of the endless stacks of papers, the books, the bulky folders and binders full of information. Only... what happens when you're without your computer?????

I love my computers. All of them, the ones at home and at work. At work they make my job so easy, I work at top speed, I am so productive and can access just about any information int he world with a few clicks and keystrokes. But if our system goes down? Everything comes to a screeching halt!!! People stop coming in, because with out our computers its very difficult to find the information. And alot of my job can't be done without those computers.

And lets talk about home. I took 2 days off work this week, thinking I could get caught up on some online stuff, blogg and post like crazy and still get a nap in. WRONG! The first day I was so sick I went from the bed to the couch to the bed, and then to the recliner. So , even a laptop doesn't do you any good when you can't stay vertical. The second day, I am feeling better & am ready to go. My laptop is out of commission temporarily, I should be getting it back next week (hopefully!!) So downstairs to my desktop and I get into position. Only, no Internet connection! yikes! My hubby is checking the connections, sending me up & down the stairs to check the lights on the modem, restart the computer, turn off the modem, turn on the modem, check the wires on the router, restart the computer again, disconnect the phone cords, reconnect the phone cords, restart the computer, run back upstairs and check the lights on the modem.... Eventually he got it connected again, and then when I finally had Internet again, I didn't' even want to use it anymore. :(

Why do some spend so much time online?

As I sit here & ponder the meaning of life and other random thoughts, it occurs to me that the people I know who are really happy with their lives, where they are, who they're with, what they're doing, they really don't spend a lot of their time online. They get on, do what they need to do and get off. While some of the people I know who seem to spend the most time online are the people who are unhappy with their jobs, their partners (or they don't have one), they complain a lot and wish they were somewhere else. Are virtual activities acting as an escape for those people who find it difficult to make real changes in their lives?