#5b. RSS & Newsreaders 2 (week 4): Find some feeds

So I used a couple of search engines to find more RSS feeds. I used feedster and technorati, and had limited success. Ultimately I ended up just using google to find more feeds that I was interested in. I selected four new feeds today; top Stories from cnn.com, movie reviews from rottentomatoes.com, and both college football and college basketball feeds from espn.com. I was able to find the links to the RSS feeds on these site with no trouble.


I think that I might add a couple of more feeds to my bloglines account, but i might have to remove some as well. I think that having all of my news delivered to one spot simplifies things, but now I have so much content to read everyday that it is becoming overwhelming. I need to weed out my list.

p.s. my favorite feed by far is the one that delivers clips of the Daily Show.

Thing #5 RSS & Newsreaders 1: Explore Bloglines

My Bloglines account is all set up! I have 18 feeds set up. I am excited at the prospect of having the news delivered to one website. It's like having a daily newspaper delivered that only has articles pertaining to my interests. RSS feeds are supposed to save us time, but I am beginning to get the feeling that with all of this exciting information being delivered right to me from a broader scope of sources than I generally consult, that I will be spending more time reading the news. By clicking a few links I have managed to create a healthy list of interesting topics that will only grow as my comfort level with RSS feeds grows.

I went from checking 3-5 websites on a regular basis to having 18 (a number that will surely grow) websites delivery new stories to me. Some of my favorites that I have found are: an RSS feed that has clips from the Daily Show, a feed to the Alternative Energy Blog, and a feed to the headlines from the Science section of the New York Times.

While all of these exercises have been interesting so far, sometimes I lose site of the practical application of these programs to the library. RSS feeds could be very useful for updating students, patrons, staff, and faculty about Library events. Whether it is a new exhibit, information on the addition, or information on classes offered at the library RSS feeds could efficiently get that message out to many people.

Thing #4 Flickr

Here are the first three pictures that I have loaded onto Flickr. All three are from a recent trip to Lake Tahoe, they also happen to be the only photos of mine that I have access to from my work computer.

I found that signing up for a Flickr account, browsing Flickr, and uploading my picture was fairly easy. The uploading process was similar to any other photo site out there (snapfish, photobucket, etc.). I like the style of organization that this website uses with their tagging system. You could literally spend hours upon hours exploring other people's photos. There are some pretty fantastic amateur photographers on this website.

The other thing that I found fascinating about Flickr was the use of other programs, mashups and 3rd party programs, that allowed the user to do more with their photos. These mashups are really interesting because there are no limits to what kind of programs you can make to mesh with Flickr. Here are some links to my favorite mashups or 3rd party programs that I found and a quick description of what each one does.


retrievr - this is really fun program to use to kill some time and express your own creative side. This program has a little window where you can create a small piece of original artwork using an application similar to Microsoft paint. Then, it uses your creation to browse similar photos posted on Flickr.

Trip Planner - this program allows to you make a trip itinerary with restaurants, hotels, and attractions. Then when you return you can upload photos of the places that you visited and have an itinerary with photos of the locations to show your friends.

Mappr - allows you to map out photos with geographic tags.

Montager - creates mosaics out of other people photos found on Flickr

Spell - lets you type a word or words and then grabs images from Flickr that spell out the word you typed. Also, if you don't like the first photo that comes up, simply click on the image to change the photo until you find one that you like.

Thing #3 Blogging 2: Keeping track & more about blogging

I began to explore the various search engines presented in "Thing #3". I used the same two search queries, one with regards to academic library and one totally unrelated topic, so that I could easily compare the different search engines. Here is a brief rundown of my experiences.



Technorati - This being one of the larger search engines, I found that simply searching for key words was not sufficient. If you are searching for "academic libraries" or anything that is more than one word you are better off using the "exact phrase" search line. There are some pretty off topic blogs out there that may have the words "academic" and "library" some where in the body of the text.


Blogscope - This is search engine turned up more relevant searches than Technorati. Its interesting that when you search blogs for content relating to academic libraries, most of the results have to do with some sort of technology training similar to what we are doing with our "23 things". Blogscope turned up this interest power point presentation, http://elearnpracticeresearch.blogspot.com/2007/06/virtual-future-of-academic-libraries.html


Sphere - This one seemed to be a step below the search engines mentioned above. The results returned were not as relevant as as I had hoped.


Blog.ask.com - A good idea, I like the expansion of the original web searching tool ask.com to include an option for searching blogs.


I used to think that blogs were simply online journals. Some were entertaining to read, depending upon who authored them, but for the most part I thought that they borderline worthless. I mean really, who wants to read about the day to day life of your average web geek. However, my feelings toward blogs are rapidly changing for the better. I have recently started using blogs to help me troubleshoot various do it yourself projects around the house. I am in the middle of replacing the water pump on my boats engine, and I wasn't able to figure out how to disconnect the shift linkage in order to remove the lower unit. The repair manual for my engine didn't have proper instructions, but I was able to figure out how to do it by reading a blog written by some one who owns the same engine as me.

One of my other hobbies is cooking. I really enjoy experimenting with different types of food and recipes from around the world. I am always on the look-out for a new or exciting recipe. So I was very pleased to see the the Bloggies had a separate food category. So, to answer the question in the training, yes I will now be subscribing to two newly discovered blogs in hopes for inspiration in the kitchen. The two new blogs are Help! I Have a Fire In My Kitchen and 101 Cookbooks. Exploring Cookbooks, One Recipe at a Time.

Thing #2 Blogging

I am getting started with the I am just trying to figure out how to add pictures to my posts and profile.


If it works, the picture to the left is me at Dog Beach on the westside. I have two German Shepherd mixes that love to play in the water, roll in the sand, and terrorize the occasional seagull.