Curse Librarything's Tricky Sign-Up

After being locked in a bitter struggle with Librarything in a bid to join it, I was finally enlightened by Marie as to how I sign up for it. Either its unnecessarily complicated, or it is a test for people with greater intelligence than myself.

Anyway here is my Librarything page: http://www.librarything.com/home/postpostmodernist

This generator was found at http://www.imagechef.com/ic/make.jsp?tid=Studio+Neon+Animated

A New Proposed Marketing Investment for Te Matariki

Librarything

I can't join up to LIbrarything, and I've tried many different ways. I have taken the tour but it simply won't let me when I click on the 'Join now' button. May have to skip this step.

The Rollyo Experiment

Well as you may have perhaps noticed (if indeed anyone is reading this blog) I have discovered Rollyo. To be frank I fail to yet see the benefits of this idea, that is, creating your own search engine to find information you need. Or, to put it another way, how creating a search engine to search specifically chosen blogs performs a task that Google can't. This is because if one knows how to perform boolean searches on Google or any other search engine, it shouldn't be a problem to find very specific information.

I do, however, like the idea of having a search engine on your blog. The search engine I have here has the ability not only to search the web, but all the posts on my blog. This has very little use at the moment, but if I were to produce hundreds of posts then it would be a good way to locate past comments I had made.

On the Hunt for New Feeds

With regards to using the search engines to find new feeds, I found Technorati by far the most user friendly and definitely the prettiest. For me it was what Google is to search engines for regular web pages. Through Technorati I was able to find some professional blogs which were specific to my interests, such as developments in the global political economy.

This searching for new feeds using these engines, however, brings up the same old issue - the amount of feeds one can get through in a day is very limited. Unless you are collecting feeds for the sake of it.

Beginnings of Week 3

I've been titu-ing with the blog generators and although this was not one of the true 'image' generators I found this one mildly amusing, but it was also one of the easiest to post onto my blog - all the url/http script was right there and ready to be copy and pasted. This generator is found at:

http://www.blogthings.com/italiannamegenerator/

There are some other interesting generators but again I found I could not get access to quite a few of them due to MCC restrictions.

Now to plough on through the confounding cyber-jungle.

Your Italian Name Is...

Raul Bianchi

What's Your Italian Name?

Having Overcome Aforementioned Obstacles

Hurrah! I've basically completed week two now. My public blogline account is http://www.bloglines.com/blog/escalating-entropy.

I like having access to only the information and articles that I personally want to read from the net, which this RSS system provides. In this way you can keep up with that special part of the world which interests you. However, it also seems to have a limited value - there would only be a certain amount of feeds that you would have the time to read each day.

For example, it will enable me to keep up with the current event which interests me most, world politics. I will be able to glean more news about international politics from RSS than any local newspaper would be able to provide. It also enables me to avoid sorting through various online international newspapers for information. Again, however, there is only so much I will be able to read in a day, especially considering that I have 19 feeds.

Libraries would be able to use RSS primarily for the purpose of keeping up with developments in libraries in other countries. In this way we would be able to gather new ideas about how to expand the horizons of the various libraries in Manukau - making them more accessible to the public, raising their appeal in the public eye, and so on. Library staff will also be able to keep in touch with current developments in technology, science, politics, literature, art and all other fields so as to improve their knowledge of these subjects.

Knowledge, after all, is the very essence of a library.

Blogging Dilemmas, Setbacks, and General Woes

This week has proven to be substantially more difficult than the first week. I have set up a bloglines account and somehow I am subscribed to six news feeds. It is beyond me as to how this happened. It is also beyond me as to how you subscribe to more news feeds, or anyone elses' blogs. I suspect this has something to with:

A) the various restrictions on MCC computers

but more importantly, B) my refusal to read and follow the instructions and try and work it out by myself.

How frustrating it is to be a young man who cannot even come to grips with the technology of his own time.

On the Purpose of The Blog

Having been introduced to blogging, my first thought was to question the purpose of blogging.

Is it to fulfill the need all people have to express themselves outwardly?

Or does it fulfill some greater need to communicate your thoughts to others?

Is it a result of some societal development in the early twenty-first century, or does it reflect human need which is not restricted by historical development?

The ultimate irony being, of course, that this is a blog in itself.