Thing 15: Podcasts

Podcasts have been out for a few years now. I remember first seeing them on iTunes and then it just caught like wildfire shortly after that. Podcast, meaning Personal On Demand, is a non-musical audio or video file that is distributed over the internet. When new content becomes available, the file automatically downloads onto your computer or iPod (or any mp3 player). Podcasts can range in topics to cover anybodies interests.

I personally use the iTunes application to find an subscribe to my podcasts. I am currently subscribed to the Minnesota Twins and a couple of the KFAN Radio podcasts.

My favorite thing about podcast is the convenience of the whole process. It automatically downloads it and uploads it on my iPod, and then its always there for me to listen to whenever I want.

Thing 14: Research Project Calculator

I have used these services before when I was attending St. Cloud State. Basically it's a tool that suggests a way to complete a research project on time. I used the University of Minnesota Assignment Calculator. It breaks down your project into 12 steps and provides a date as to when those steps should be completed by. Its really helpful for those who like to procrastinate (like me). I will be using this online tool a lot in the future.

thing 13: Online Productivity Tools

I have been using iGoogle for a couple years. I like it cause you can fully customize what appears on your site. You can select the news feeds you care about, as well as add some fun features like YouTube, and games as well. The main reason i choose Google for this over Yahoo is because Google integrates all their services together (Reader, Docs, iGoogle, Calender, etc), which makes it much more easier to use.

I also tinked around with some of the other productivity tools. The calender wasn't anything special, I would still prefer to use an old fashioned paper planner for this task. The only benefit I can think of would be to help coordinate events among friends and family. Which for my isn't that hard to do so I find this tool to be rather useless for my purposes.

Thing 12: Tagging and Del.icio.us

OK, so were back to tagging again. I feel like we have already covered this before, but this thing does include some new points to this topic. To start with, tagging is a feature on many sites that allow users to label things with whatever keywords they choose. You can use this to help categorize and organize things. You can even do it in these blogs, as I have done on this one.

Del.icio.us is something new entirely, and something that seems very interesting and helpful to me as a student. Its considered to be a "Social Bookmarking" site. This means you can create an account and bookmark all your favorite sites to the website, which you can later access on any computer. You can also add your own tags to help organize all your bookmarks. Then, you can create a network with others and share thier bookmarks thus creating an online community or social network. I will find this tool to be very useful in school. Often I am working on multiple computers and do not have a place to store my bookmarks. With del.icio.us, I now have a way to remember what sites I find when I am not on my home computer.

Thing 11: LAME

REALLY? I very sick of signing up for accounts on all these different websites. I choose not to participate in this thing to rebel against the system.

Thing 10: More Flickr

I really enjoyed playing around with some of the Flickr apps. I spent the most time with the Flickr Color Pickr, which allowed you to use your cursor to move over different colors on a wheel and see different photos on Flickr in that color. It was really cool. Another Flickr app I spent some time with was "Spell with Flickr", which allowed you to type in a phrase or sentence, then it would search Flickr for images of those letters or numbers. Then, you see your phrase represented by pictures of each of the characters you spelled out. You can then click on each one to get a new pictures. Its really sort of fun. Here is a link to see what I did

Spell with Flickr
Flickr Color Pickr

I also was playing with the online Image Generators. I went to a website called Big Huge Labs. There they had many cool tools to add cool effects to your photos. Here is one I did.

Thing 9: Flickr

Flickr is an online photo sharing website. It has many cool features that make it a very useful tool. It can store all of your photographs in a safe location, where they can be accessed from any computer with an online connection. Additionally, it allows you to share your photographs with family, friends, coworkers, etc, as well as making them public for all to see. Users can provide feedback on your photos as well.

The tagging system works really well on this website. Its nice how others can tag your photos, which will only help the searchability of your photos, thus gaining exposure to your photography. Another good feature is the groups you can join and create. You can create groups of friends and family that you can share and comment on each others work with.

I personally don't use Flickr. Despite it's many advantages and useful features, I find it easier to use Facebook for this because my network is much larger and it's just easier to use one site for both social networking and photo sharing.

Thing 8: Wikis

I am actually pretty familiar with these Wiki sites. I have used Wikipedia and WikiHow the most of any I'd say. The important thing to remember when using Wikis is that ANYBODY can edit these sites, unless its a more restricted site. With that in mind, the information on these sites might not be 100% accurate. I don't think it's appropriate to use a site like Wikipedia for a research project. What I have done in the past though is to go to the bottom of a Wikipedia page and check out their references. Sometimes you can find more reliable sources that way. In other applications though, its a great idea. For example, planning a event. It easily allows you to allow multiple users access to make changes to the plans.

I tried to edit the "Ultimate Dream Supply Kit" wiki but I had me apply for access, so I was not able to do it yet.

Thing 7: Online Collaboration Tools

I really wish I would have known about these Online Collaboration tools earlier, it would have made things much, much easier. In the past few years, there has been a countless number of times where I have been involved in a group project where multiple drafts of the same document were being tossed around. Usually we just emailed them to each other, as attachments. Not only would this clutter my inbox, but it would make it confusing to figure out what draft was the latest, and it didn't track what changes were made and by whom. Both these things are something that Google Docs can do. All you have to do is to sign into your Google account, assuming you have one (which you should from some of the other 16 Things). Then upload your document into Google Docs. Next we would invite those who we want to share the document with. Any computer with an internet connection will be able to access that document now, as long as they were invited. Those people would then provide feedback and all changes are recorded. Brilliant!

Thing 6: Digg, StumbleUpon

Sites like Digg and StumbleUpon are nice because they allow you to view the best content on the internet from any specific category you choose. The best part is that it is determined by the users what the best sites are. I like these sites because I can find many cool websites that fit my interests, that otherwise I would probably never find myself. If I am surfing the web and find something of interest, I can also share that with these sites so others can find the content.

What I like best about these sites is that they work with Facebook and Twitter. If you find something you like and want to share it with your social network, you can do that. It really makes things easier when they integrate the two together.

Another thing worth mentioning is the credibility of the websites we may come across. Because there are no editors on these sites monitoring the material posted, we cannot be 100% certain of their credibility.

Thing 5: Twitter

Twitter has sure gotten a lot of attention recently. It seems like everyone and their mother is using this site. From movie stars, athletes, rappers, journalist, and everyone in between, they all seem to be "tweeting". I have used this site in the past recently to see what all the buzz was about. Twitter allows you to answer one questions in a short, mini blog format (140 words or less), "What are you doing?". It's basically very similar to the "Status" feature on Facebook, in the effect that all you can do is post a short message about what you are doing or thinking. Similar to Facebook, you can find and follow your friends to see what they up to.

I have never really found much of a use for this site before, but now I can see how it can be a very powerful communication tool, for both school and work. Companies can "tweet" and have their employees know about stuff going on in the company instantly. Schools can tweet information about events or classes so their students can know whats going on and when.

Thing 4: Social Media

Social Media is something that I have been using for a few years now. Sites like Facebook and Myspace make it easy to connect and stay in touch with friends, family, and colleagues. They also allow you to share photos, videos, and other content with your network. That being said we all need to be careful about the content that appears in our profiles. In addition to your family and friends, employers also use these sites to help recruit. It's very important to keep your online profiles in good taste and not post anything you wouldn't want your boss to see. While pictures from parties might be fun, the whole world doesn't necessarily need to see what you did last night.One thing you can do to prevent this is to adjust the privacy settings to not allow anyone outside of your network to view your profile.

Online Communications

OK, this one is an easy one. I've been using e-mail for as long as I can remember so its safe to say I am quite familiar with it. I have used other e-mail services in the past, but now days I primarily use my MSN Hotmail account for all my personal and work related emails, and my student protal acconunt for all my school related emails. I personally like having separate emails accounts for school, and personal life because otherwise my inbox would get cluttered with too many emails and wouldn't be as effective.

In order to access our student email accounts, we had to log into MyAICampus.com. On this website you'll find much more though. You can register for classes, check your grades, pay your bill, access class material, and find a large amount of other useful information all on one site. My favorite feature is the ability to register online. For busy people like me, trying to balance school and work makes it hard to find time to meet with advisers to register, this makes it much easier.

RSS

I really enjoyed learning about RSS News Feeds today. I have always heard of RSS, but have never took the time to figure out what it does exactly and how to use it. Now that I know though, this will be something I use everyday. It's just a great way to minimize your time spent on the internet checking up on all the things you care about. Programs like Google reader, which is the one I used, puts all your subscriptions onto one single page where you can go to look at all your favorite sites. For example, I subscribed to a bunch of websites I regularly visit, which included the Minnesota Twins, Vikings, Weather, and IGN XBOX 360 news feeds, as well as some fellow students "16 Things" blogs. I am really looking forward to playing around with this some more and learning all its features. Hopefully I can find a way to get facebook updates or email alersts through Google Reader as well. I can't believe I have went so long without using this tool before.

16 Things: Thing 1

Alright, so this is pretty easy so far. I've never actually used a blog before so this is my first post ever. Not so bad, I'll get the hang of this pretty fast. I enjoyed creating my avatar. I am looking forward to some of the other 16 Things.