YouTube

YouTube is so much fun! I could waste a lot of time looking around and watching videos, definitely a great time killer. :)

Problems loading Twitter

Twitter is giving me a bit of a problem loading right now, as in it will not load! From the podcast video about Twitter (by the way, the Common Craft videos are really easy to understand and the guy doesn't have a boring voice), I know that I have used something similar to it in Facebook. Twitter sounds more organized as it only keeps track of what people are doing. When the page will load, I am going to go back and try to set up a Twitter account

Meebo

Wow! Meebo is great! I wish I had known about it/ it was available a few years ago. I have at least 3 instant messenger programs on my laptop just so that I could talk to my friends who used one type of messenger exclusively. In college (the height of my IM career,)typing a paper or completing an assignment while im'ing 3 people on 3 separate im programs meant I had about a gazillion windows open or minimized at a time. Talk about a mess! Meebo is a genius invention!

Wiki's

First of all, I have to say how much I love the way that the word "wiki" sounds. To me it brings to mind this colorful, squiggly line that can be reshaped. Anyway, in reality, wiki's are really useful and have so many uses; I have seen them used in a class book discussion. The kids loved being able to use the wiki to share their opions and comment on what other people said. It also opened up discussion for everyone, including those kids that normally wouldn't talk in class. I haven't personally participated in a Wiki group but after watching the podcast of what a wiki is with the camping example, I can think of several applications for a wiki in my own life, especially when camping with a group of friends.

Bride Magazine cover

Create Fake Magazine Covers with your own picture at MagMyPic.com

Erica's Travels

http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/map.php

Tagging

I've seen tagging done before, in Facebook particularly. I have seen tags listed under links on websites and I often wondered what they were but never tried to figure them out either. Now that I know that there is a broader use for them on the web and not just in Facebook photos, I think that I will download the del.icio.us application to my home computer. It seems similar to bookmarks but a little more flexible.

Flickr account

I have set up a Flickr account today but don't have anything to post to it b/c I am at work and my pictures are at home. I do plan on adding a bunch from my recent trip to Israel and Egypt.

My blogging experience

So, I've recently, I haven't been as big of a social networking type of person as I was. I used AIM religiously throughout college, updating my every move on and off campus, thanks to my laptop and high-speed internet connection. Life post college no longer revolves around who's eating what, where and with whom, etc; in that respect, I have fallen out of the social network loop. I have a Facebook page but haven't updated it since Christmas and I have realized that I might not want the whole world to know every nuance of my life. One of my learning experiences in this excercise is that there are other uses for blogs/social networking besides reporting who is having the best party this weekend or who is single/dating/broken up.

One learning goal that I have for myself as the Brooklyn branch manager is to start a blog based on books that I am reading. Maybe using teens/young adults as a test market since they dwell in the online world. As a goal, this may change as I have a tendency to hatch a new idea, play with it in my mind and mold it into something different or come up with several possible paths of reaching that idea/goal. Maybe I should try a contract with this one or just let what is in my brain be my unwritten contract. The hardest part of the 7 1/2 habits is the having fun part. I tend to be very goal focused and will often keep going until the job is done. It is important though to stop and take a break to clear your mind. I have even found that after taking a break, you will come back refreshed and motivated.