Social Networking Sites are not the Emperor's New Clothes

There you go....

Instant sketch image generator

I was mucking around on the weekend and went back to have a go at the sketch image generator that Aristea blogged about. I tried a photo of a kitten that I am waiting for, (7 weeks to go). It is 3 weeks old and so cute. www.dumpr.net - for fun with your photos.

Rollyo

I've spent some time exploring rollyo and some of the searchrolls that others have put together. I found that whenever I used someone else's roll, I could never quite find the information that I was after, and would have been better off using google, as I have worked out how it wants me search and the keywords to use to get the best results. I guess perhaps that if the rollyo guys allowed more than 20 characters when naming a searchroll I may not have encountered this problem. I also know that I can always edit the searchroll to suit myself, but once again, why not just google it? Still determined to work it all out, I created a searchroll of my own. My searchroll is called My Australian Music, and the great thing about it is - it works for me. Therefore, I can perceive some educational advantages. The main use being- the ability to create a kid friendly searchroll for use with research in the classroom. Here is my attempt: My Australian Music (By the way, I worked out the link thing)

Simpsonize Me

In the generator blog for play week, I found this really fun Simponize Me link. It's an advertising gimic for the new movie, and a bit of fun if you are a Simpsons fan. Peter (unenthusiastically) allowed me to take his photo (Photo Booth again) and after uploading it into the generator, I created this image of him as a Simpsons character. You get to choose all kinds of options like dude or chick, age, clothing style (birthday suit is an option) etc. Once an image is created you can play around with hair colour, length and style, mouth, nose etc. I will be e-mailing this link to my Simpsons mad in-laws for sure. To have a go at Simpsonizing yourself click on the link in my Links column on the right. (by the way, I tried to get the link to appear in this post, but couldn't get it to work, if anyone has managed to do this I would love some helpful hints)

Playing with my MacBook

I know, I know- nothing to do with Learning Web 2.0, however after playing around with Photo Booth on our new Mac my grade buddy Colleen conceded that she doesn't think that Macs are "that bad after all". Check out the fun pics. I'll have her converted, just give us another 18 months together.

Newsfeeds

Before I begin, I have to admit that I spent a very small amount of time exploring the different search tools for finding feeds. I decided to take the quick approach and use the same key words in every search tool just to compare the results. I found that the Google search tool worked best for me. It may just be because I am used to the Google format, however the feeds I found were the most useful and relevant to my search. As for the other tools I found Feedster quite slow (I'm not a technowiz so perhaps there is a logical explanation), I found Topix.net easy to use but the search results not as relevant to my search. When using Syndic8.com I got very few results and the format for search results was v. different, I will have to spend a bit more time exploring to make the most of it. Technorati gave me a big variety of feeds, however some were very inappropriate (Censorship needed). When I have more time I will definitely be sitting down to use the search tools again to hopefully find some gems to add to my reader. For now I'm not really ready for any more reading material- if only there were more hours in the day.........

RSS and Newsreaders

What do I like about RSS?- well so far it has been easy to use, easy to add to and easy to access. I am really looking forward to scouting around all of my favourite sites to see if I can add them and get updated on the one page without having to google them every time as I can never really remember web addresses. What a shame that my fav site jjj radio doesn't have that little symbol I am looking for to add it to my reader.

How can I use this technology professionally? - Some sites that I access provide e-mail notification of updates, if I can add them to my reader I no longer need my inbox to be filled full of updates. It will be a great way to get up to date information and I am more likely to read the info in this format, rather than clicking through all the links on the e-mail system.