googlemaps

Google maps is way cool

I use it lots. For some of the bike rides I do, people have put up the routes with waypoints and directions on a site called Bikely, which somehow uses Googlemaps. See for example http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/Altona-Essendon-Docklands-Altona


I like how you can make your own maps too. I haven't worked out how to put an image in a waypoint yet though. Any advice very welcome. Map below highlights the beach round the corner from my house which is a great place to watch sunrise.


View Larger Map

social networking utopias?

I still feel like life is too short for Facebook and Myspace. I get an email, I answer it. Someone sends me a message on Facebook, notification turns up in my email, I have to open facebook, open the inbox, and respond. My daughter has a myspace account. I can't see what's in it without being invited. Probably just as well.

One good thing about Facebook is the capacity to link up with people from your dim distant past that you have lost contact with. I've had one nice lunch and exchanged messages with some old friends, which is nice.

I've put the "ask a librarian utility" on my Facebook profile. I like the slogan - "Real People, Real Help, Real Fast!" I haven't actually been able to connect to anyone yet.

On the train this morning a forceful young woman was lecturing her younger male companion on the dangers of facebook. "People think we live in some utopia where you can put anything on your facebook and it won't impact on their professional life. Its bulls**T. There is no distinction between your professional and private life. And you need to put a better photo of yourself on ...."

She was articulating was one of the reasons why Facebook and myspace make me nervous - they have a sort of social private feel, but they are public spaces, and there is a very uneasy connection between the potential professional uses, the public visibility and the personal dimensions which the medium seems to encourage. Now with a blog you can make up a hokey nom de plume and just let rip. Much better.

Library thing

I must confess I could never quite see the point of Library Thing, but having put a few titles in, I begin to grasp how it could be valuable. The power of the network effect! The capacity to alert you to other good stuff like the good stuff you already like.

image generator

My sense of play is seriously deficient.

But maybe we could print off 200 of these and stick them on the machines on levels 1,2 and 3


http://www.addletters.com/warning-sign-generator.htm

RSS readers

Tried out Google Reader again, which is actually a lot slickr than bloglines which I usually use.

subscribed to "The Distant Librarian" and "Panlibus" as well as "Spanish word a day" - which has very useful expressions in spanish like " She is as beautiful as her mother" which I am sure I will find many opportunities to use in daily conversation.

Blog comments and photo sharing, image in blog

Thanks everyone who made comments on my blog, and I managed to make some comments on other blogs as well. Its a good instance of what goes around comes around isn't it - if you comment on someone else's blog they are more likely to comment on yours. Works in real wild out there blogspace too, I find.

Not sure how to link to my Flikr account - here's the url of the most recent photo which should lead to the rest

http://www.flickr.com/photos/59159784@N00/1462254607/

Sneaking into next lot of tasks, at the right is a photo from my flikr account - it was taken Friday on our exciting bike trip to Warburton - its my daughter Jess smiling stoically, seconds before a mighty hail storm engulfed us.

I've joined the Swinburne BUGS Flikr group - thanks Jane W for setting that up.

2 keys to success

Stumbled over these the other day, and this seems like a good spot to share them: For anything you want to achieve, there are two fundamental keys to success:

1. Start
2. Keep going

So, I've started my 23 things blog. Number 1 was pretty easy. Number 2 might be a bit harder.

I have another more interesting blog (well I think so anyway ...) see Deadlion's Bike Blog