Monday, September 13, 2010
Saturday, September 4, 2010
RSS feeds wrap-up
I like RSS feeds. They don't really have any problems. They don't make life any more complicate. You don't have to fiddle with them to get them to work. They can be accessed through any reader, provide what you want to know. There isn't too much to discuss with RSS. It's useful, doesn't cause problems. I guess you could say you can't customise them most easily, but programs like pipes eliminate that problem.
Flock- bookmark and social tool wrap-up
This is a compilation of what I like about flock as a tool
1. Universal account- can be accessed anywhere, don't even need flock installed.
2. Can categorise my bookmarks easily,
3. If you've got flock installed will be easy to get to from a new tab.
4. If your friend has an account you can share your bookmarks
All these above features are for the bookmarks side of things. The chief advantage is your not using another site for your bookmarks. They're just there when you open flock, no fuss. Basically thats the reason I use flock instead of delicious or something like that for bookmarks.
These features are for the social networking side of Flock.
1. No log in- it all works through flock.
2. Sidebar- For a twitter hater and a Facebook irregular this is great. You can skim it while pages load find out things without going into a site you hate the interface of (twitter), filter posts by all kinds o things. I can look for coworkers, best friends and so on, find what I'm really interested.
1. Universal account- can be accessed anywhere, don't even need flock installed.
2. Can categorise my bookmarks easily,
3. If you've got flock installed will be easy to get to from a new tab.
4. If your friend has an account you can share your bookmarks
All these above features are for the bookmarks side of things. The chief advantage is your not using another site for your bookmarks. They're just there when you open flock, no fuss. Basically thats the reason I use flock instead of delicious or something like that for bookmarks.
These features are for the social networking side of Flock.
1. No log in- it all works through flock.
2. Sidebar- For a twitter hater and a Facebook irregular this is great. You can skim it while pages load find out things without going into a site you hate the interface of (twitter), filter posts by all kinds o things. I can look for coworkers, best friends and so on, find what I'm really interested.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Game wikis and wiki wrapup
Hi all,
Recently I've been looking at computer game wikis. These are really very interesting. They tend to provide a lot of help and detail, since people add in as much information as possible. I know they aren't KM tech related, but they do make finding information so very easy. You could make a wiki related to anything and it would be really useful for people who are interested. Companies using wikis would be good as well. I mean, wasn't the first wiki a company run venture, for staff? Very handy.
One clever thing about some of the game wikis is that they have a list of wanted articles that have been linked to but have no content yet. I would edit or add to them, but that means I have to play the game as opposed to work and I'd get distracted. Maybe in some spare time I could take notes. But anyway, its a clever way of setting things up.
It shows the way you could run a company wiki. It means that people with specific knowledge can just add their section as they go along.The fact that anyone or many can edit a wiki means any errors or deliberate damaging changes can be fixed up.
Overall, I think that wikis are useful in knowledge management in that you can find all the information you want written down, or write it down if you have knowledge in that area. The fact that you can easily log in to most wikis and the ease with which you can edit them makes them highly useful. The only problem,when trying to edit something like Wikipedia, is finding something interesting to say, which has appropriate sources.
Recently I've been looking at computer game wikis. These are really very interesting. They tend to provide a lot of help and detail, since people add in as much information as possible. I know they aren't KM tech related, but they do make finding information so very easy. You could make a wiki related to anything and it would be really useful for people who are interested. Companies using wikis would be good as well. I mean, wasn't the first wiki a company run venture, for staff? Very handy.
One clever thing about some of the game wikis is that they have a list of wanted articles that have been linked to but have no content yet. I would edit or add to them, but that means I have to play the game as opposed to work and I'd get distracted. Maybe in some spare time I could take notes. But anyway, its a clever way of setting things up.
It shows the way you could run a company wiki. It means that people with specific knowledge can just add their section as they go along.The fact that anyone or many can edit a wiki means any errors or deliberate damaging changes can be fixed up.
Overall, I think that wikis are useful in knowledge management in that you can find all the information you want written down, or write it down if you have knowledge in that area. The fact that you can easily log in to most wikis and the ease with which you can edit them makes them highly useful. The only problem,when trying to edit something like Wikipedia, is finding something interesting to say, which has appropriate sources.
Pipes continued and mash-up wrap-up
People build all kinds of functionality into these mash ups- like date ranges and stuff. Google badly needs to rip this idea off. They have made something really flexible, even for beginners. Only problem with pipes is that if the source is big you get a crash in the pipe sometimes. It possibly needs some fine tuning. Also, I've found a really good pipe called Library-N-Tech. It basically finds a whole bunch of news, but you can set the date range. I can see that mash ups have actual uses and could be really useful to me. I just need to educate myself, which could be the major barrier. However, using pipes built be others is just as effective. May I just mention that I don't have such a problem with google maps now I've calmed down a little. They are very easy to edit, so they do provide a lot of useful tools. My little problem wasn't really anything I should have worried about as much as I did. The fact that you can set up a map for people to view for, lets say a meeting place is brilliant.
Pipes Search engine
Pipe has a great idea. Adding a search engine for other pipes means I can cheat and just modify existing pipes. This is really handy. I mean, some one usually seems to have already designed a pipe to do what I want. All I have to do is clone it and edit it a little. Also, they'll nearly always work since they've been published. Really like mashups for specific news at the moment.
Twitter wrap up
I'm sorry, but I still think that Twitter has no substantial uses. The problem is, since I'm using Flock now, most personal communication I see comes through Facebook, as well as twitter. Also, since Facebook isn't micro blogging, I get more detail through that. I do like company posts more- they tend to place more relevant postings up. Companies usually do sales details, release dates, stuff like that. Friends tend to do social stuff, which usually is relatively trivial. You usually find there aren't enough details to be otherwise. Plus, they aren't usually aimed at one person. I've got to admit, I haven't tweeted much, probably because I don't know what substantial things I can put up.
Pipes
Pipes sounds really cool but I've run into problems. It keeps coming up with 'could not parse feed' errors. It worked fine for a while, even when I had put it through some filters, but then proceeded to have errors. It was after I added another filter variable. I removed it to try and get it working again, but it was still having problems. Maybe I did something wrong?
Got to admit when it did work, it was really great. I mean, you can filter RSS feeds so you only get the interesting bits. I know thats only one of the functions, nut that really is useful.
Got to admit when it did work, it was really great. I mean, you can filter RSS feeds so you only get the interesting bits. I know thats only one of the functions, nut that really is useful.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Google maps comments
It might be easy to edit these, but come on! Why doesn't it at least pick up a middle point between your little flags and notes. Major confusion until I worked that out. You'd think that this would be a given, that it would auto ad .au if you were working in Australia but no. What's up with this? Its no use if it isn't intuitive.
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