Thing 23: The end of the beginning

The summer has gone away as quickly as it arrived, my time in Cambridge is coming to an end, and what better way to round it off than with a bit of reflection about our rerunning of the Cambridge 23 Things programme.

I have greatly enjoyed blogging on a regular basis; it has helped keep me writing and reflecting in my post-graduation period and I hope I will manage to keep it up during the years to come, even if the focus of the posts might shift a bit. 

My blog, in Wordle format! Created using http://www.wordle.net/

There is no doubt that a lot of the Things which I have learnt about in the programme will come in handy in the years to come, though admittedly, some will see greater use than others - I'm going to start my reflection with the less successful Things (but only so I can end on the good ones!)

Bottom of the class

• LibraryThing was an unmitigated disappointment for me. The design was poor, the interface complicated, and the results inaccurate at best. A great idea wasted, in my humble opinion.
• Google+. I know this wasn't a "Thing", but it popped up during the programme and again, promised so much but delivered...not a lot. It claimed to be "the" successor to Facebook and 101 other media tools but frankly (FB's new update and all), it really has to step up to compete with existing applications, not to mention taking a good hard look at its privacy policy...

by  rich115

My Cam23Things end of term report

Must try harder
(N.B. It's really me that should try harder, rather than the applications...)

• RSS feeds are a fantastic idea and I am using them in a small way via my Netvibes homepage. However, I am yet to find a reader/streaming program that really works for me, but I'm sure there is one out there.
• Evernote is a great resource, but I've yet to make it a real part of my online routine. Initially I used it for links, but Delicious overtook it. I have saved some images to it but I'd rather just keep them all in the "My Pictures" folder on my PC. I really like the idea and the design of Evernote but is it really useful to me? The jury's out.
• I need to get into the habit of using Creative Commons licensing tags because a) it's far more professional, b) provides more information for people who might see my reuse of stuff and c) it's an excellent idea that needs promoting! The problem is getting the formatting to match up to the picture, but once I get to grips with Ange's very useful workaround, I will develop better CC-tagging habits (see above for my first attempt!)

Gold stars all round

• Lightshot - lauded by all, so I won't bore you with any more hyperbole about the incredibly easy-to-use, superb, immensely useful and all-round Best App in the World Ever. 
• Prezi's popularity is attested to by its prominent position in the Wordle cloud above, which was unexpected...but then I really did enjoy all the neat tricks and formats it provides (to be used in moderation, of course)
• The Thing I use with the most regularity is probably Delicious - so much clearer than browser favourites and accessible from everywhere, it's simple but superb.
• I'm ready to hang my head in shame as I admit that Twitter is the second most used Thing that I have used in this programme. I only use it during work hours but as a medium for sharing professional information and engaging with others in the profession, it's unparallelled. I have also benefited from it in a personal capacity in terms of hearing about culturally exciting things (the Short Story Tweetathon, for one) and understanding certain issues better (mental illness, for example).
• Finally, all the amazing Cam23 bloggers, who have brought their own take on the Things offered and presented them in their individual and inimitable styles - it has been a privilege to read so many interesting things by interesting people that I had never heard of before.

On that note I'm going to finish with an homage to on of the other participants, my fabulously supportive boss Lyn, who has inspired me with her fantastic final post from last year's programme:

Blogging 'bout Things
Like a Doodle or two
Things
Like iGoogle for you
Things
(Things?) Like a Wordle cloud
Turn that podcast right up loud

Things that Flickr makes so pretty
Things that make a blog so witty
Screencasting for all the world to see
Though wikis may not be the Thing for me

Read about Things
On an RSS feed
Things
On Delicious to read
Things
Filed in Zotero
(Oh Oh) Reflecting on the Things you know

Things
Like the Lightshot feather
Things
That Link(ed) us In together
Twitter is the Thing we're talking through
And Facebook is one Thing we like to do.
(You can find Bobby Darin's somewhat more lyrical original "Things" here)

Thanks for the good times.

Becky :)

Thing 12: Delicious and my Picky Palate

After last week's happy experience with Evernote, I was wondering what bookmarking tools might be able to add to my increasingly enhanced web-browsing experience.

I'm terrible for finding interesting links and images, emailing them to myself and then losing them in the slew of renewal requests, important stuff about periodicals and myriad other emails that come to my cam.ac.uk account. So a bookmarking service is precisely what I need, right?

Yup, this is as far as I got. And I have no motivation to
[dii]go any further.

I decided to go a little off-piste and try diigo first, because I vaguely remember hearing something positive about it at the second Teachmeet in March (more about Teachmeets can be found here and here). This was a monumental failure, as the "diigolet" button on the browser toolbar seems to do precisely nothing, and is also fairly aesthetically offensive in comparison with the Lightshot feather and the Evernote elephant. I also could not work out how to even add a first bookmark on the main site, which kept trying to get me to watch a tutorial. If I can't work it out for myself or browse through decent FAQs in my own time, I'm not interested.

A very well-organized, information-rich layout (in my
humble opinion)

So diigo diiwent. Delicious was next up, apparently revived and rebooted after the fairly indifferent reception it received in last year's Cam23 Things programme (comments here and here illustrate the "it's OK but...meh" attitude that seemed to prevail). This was somewhat more successful from the off - I installed the add-on (though I'm still not quite sure why it necessitates three icons on the browser) and added my first bookmark without too much pain. The 'tag' icon add-on is swift and effective, and I like the web-based homepage, which provides a lot of information in a clear, digestible way. However, I dislike the fact that you can't just drag things around to make links appear, and that tags can only consist of one word. And they're really difficult to get rid of in the case of typos!

Delicious, frankly, has left me a little unsatisfied and still waiting for the next course. It seems quite useful, but I'm not sure that it captivates me enough to make regular use of it. It seems good for sharing huge lists of links en masse, as the excellent cpd23 programme has shown to good effect. I can also see its application in libraries for reading lists and the like, though for Classics in particular, so little of our material is online that it seems a little redundant there too.

To really sum up how I feel, I'm going to rely on the ever-insightful Library Wanderer to do the talking for me. A year ago, she expressed largely the same feelings, noting that she'd probably switch the most important stuff over to Evernote, which is what I'd be tempted to do too...I prefer the tag system and the way it can include attachments. The biggest factor is, that Delicious does what it does well. But Evernote does it just as well, with a lot of other features (see here for an extended take on this with beautiful accompanying pictures...)

Cake. Mm.
Photo by Dimitri N

The Delicious cupcake is trumped by the towering Evernote pineapple upside-down cake, with glacé cherries to boot.

Now I need to go and find cake...

Thing 11: Who is that girl I see / Staring straight back at me?

A girl who knew all about reflection
Photo from fanpop.com

...As Mulan said. Now, I'm not saying that the effect of Cam23 2.0 on my life is as great as the changes she had to make, but it has been a formative experience work-wise, and has made me evaluate more closely the ways in which I work and the changes I may have to make before October.

Most of the Things in the programme have not been new to me, but through exploring them more closely I have come to use them in slightly different, and hopefully more efficient, ways. As an example, I was always aware of Google calendar and had used it at work from September, but now it has completely replaced my paper diary and has made things simpler in (an aspect of) my life outside of work, too.

Of the new Things, there are a couple which really have filled a gap: taking screenshots may not be a crucial part of my working life but Lightshot makes it infinitely easier; Netvibes and RSS feeds combined have allowed me to keep in touch with much more information from a wider sourcepool; and I think that my sporadic and disorganised bookmarking habits will gradually be replaced by a much better-looking and effective platform in Evernote.

Other Things have had less of an impact: Pushnote is definitely being consigned to Room 101, and whilst Twitter is growing on me (and produced a very amusing conversation yesterday about Koine Greek and mooses' upper echelons), I'm struggling to see how it will be truly useful once I leave the Cambridge library mafia (sad days ahead).

After being stuck in a bit of a bubble, I'm finally breaking out again
Photo from Wikipedia

And so to the wider application of the Things and the programme generally. I have realised that my organisational skills will be key in order to succeed (and stay sane) on my Masters course next year, and that it is OK to write things down in order to remember them! I have also learnt that, in order to get the most out of web 2.0 technologies, you have to be prepared to put in and keep putting in, even if you occasionally feel like you're shouting into the wind. Which leads me on to the thing (with a small 't') that I have most enjoyed: having the motivation and the material to get me writing again, not only because I needed to get back into the habit for academic reasons, but for the pure enjoyment of manipulating language, the self-imposed discipline of proofreading and revision, as well as becoming more aware of other people's styles and how writing needs to be adapted for different new media.

Thing 5 (at last): Screendump no more

After a long period of unsuccessful wrangling, hand-wringing and shaking of the office computer, I have finally realised that it really wasn't it, it was me, and now Lightshot is installed...and what a huge amount of time it shall save with these very posts! Once I had finally succeeded in attaching the pleasant purple feather to Firefox I wanted to play with my new toy straight away. I wasn't quite sure at first why my screen had become greyed over, but then I realised that it was my turn and within about 5 seconds I had my first painfree screenshot. Lovely. I genuinely found no issues with it and it did exactly what I wanted it to do. Cam23Things nirvana? Maybe. Although the other new toy that I chose to take the image of may yet, in time, prove to be infinitely more useful...

I'm intrigued to learn more about Google+ and what it can do for me

P.S. If you're also on Google+ you can find me here, all suggestions of how to maximise its potential welcome!