Twitter. Thing 35 revisited

've recently had cause to revisit my earlier learning 2.1 posts, and back on January 5 I posted about Twitter.

What amuses me most, looking back on that post, is where I said "I'm not really sure what I would use twitter for - it seems like an online version of sms (although you can access it on your mobile phone as well). "

I went on to say that I couldn't really see the point of it and implied that I probably wouldn't use it.

Well let us fast forward to today.... do I use twitter? you bet.

I have it set up on my Flock homepage at both work and home, and regularly use it as a communication tool.

Am now thinking I need to revisit other learning 2.1 (and 2.0) tools to see what else I could/should/ be using that I didn't think I would.

So much for what's the point of twitter!

Encyclopedia Britannica has widgets

As demonstrated by the American Literature link on the right hand side of this page Encyclopedia Britannica now has widgets on a range of subjects that you can embed in your webpage.

At this stage there are 30 or so subject widgets with more being added almost daily.

EB are also offering free online access to qualifying websites (webmasters, bloggers, writers, etc.)

You can also follow EB on Twitter.

and bop when it stopped...

I am typing this on my new toy.

I was a bit concerned that the mini keys on the keyboard would cause my typing to deteriorate, but I am a cack handed typist at the best of times so the smaller keyboard was no worse and no better than the full size.

Everything on the PC eee is smaller but in proportion so maybe that's why the smaller screen, keyboard, touchpad etc. didn't faze me.

I've also found a blog for eee hacks so I may have some fun playing around.

At the moment all the software on the pc is open source although it is Windows XP compatible (prob won't bother tho')

What I wanted was something to replace my late PDA, something that I could travel with, that was sturdy, lightweight and small.

So far the eee meets all these expectations and then some.

Will see how it is after a few more days of use.

It went zzzip when it moved...

Today I ventured out to the wilds of Cheltenham, to Southland, a full 1.25 hours by bus from Chez FiFi. I had been planning this expedition for some weeks now. I'd looked up the bus timetables, found my passport, and set the alarm.

Why Southland I hear you ask?

Well in March last year I reached 25 years with CoBLS which meant I got a Westfield gift certificate to spend however I chose.

My closest Westfield is Doncaster but much of it is closed for renovation.

Fountain Gate was also a possibility, it depended on what I wanted to buy as not all stores accept the gift card.

However once I decided what to buy Southland was by far the best option as I could use the card at DJ's, Harvey Norman, and JB Hifi - all of whom stocked my marvellous toy.

I decided on DJ's as they had 10% off all notebook pcs, (and the Asus PC eee certainly fits into that category).

The next decision was what colour?

The Asus comes in black, white (actually more of a pearly white), pale pink or pale blue. I went with black (it goes with everything) and headed home with my prize.

It is so cute.

It's not much bigger than a paperback book and it took fully five minutes to get it up and running and I love it already.

Will post a proper review later...

Can it be that it was all so simple then...

Thanks to Catalog Card Generator at Blyberg.net for bringing back some awesome memories.

First job - weeding the University catalogue over the Christmas (largely student free) break, working from photocopies, pulling out cards for withdrawn books.

Second job - typing catalogue cards, running off copies on a duplicator and then typing on the additional entries, subject headings and the like.

Aaaaaaaaah the heady smell of the duplicator (ink, oil or whatever it was)

MTC: The 39 steps

Shots ring out across a crowded theatre and Richard Hannay is drawn into a murder mystery that takes him from London to Scotland and back again.

Based (hysterically) on the Hitchcock film this play is aprt slapstick, part farce, part Monty Python and completely hilarious.

A cast of four plays 139 different roles (Actually three of the cast play 138 roles as Marcus Graham only plays our hero - Richard Hannay)

I highly recommend this play - it is one of the funniest pieces of theatre I have seen in a long while. The cast is excellent (particularly Grant Piro and Tony Taylor) switching from role to role with ease.

I could very easily go and see this play again...

Blogged with the Flock Browser

High School Musical on Ice

Took my 8yr old niece to see High School Musical on ice (it was her birthday present from me).

I have not seen the films (there are 2 - imaginatively titled High School Musical and High School Musical 2)but I have it on expert 8yr old authority that they are awesome!!!

The guy playing Troy was an excellent skater (and he was the highlight as far as I was concerned).

The story (!) revolves around a group of kids at an American High School. The main characters are Troy (captain of the basketball team), and Gabriella (capain of the science club) who decide to audition for the school's winter musical. This is much to the disgust of brother and sister Ryan & Sharpey Evans who are always the leads in the school musicals.

Troy's friends want him to concentrate on basketball, gabriella's friends want her to concentrate on the science competition, and Sharpey & Ryan want Troy & Gabriella out of the musical.

After the interval we moved into the 2nd movie's storyline.

The gang get summer jobs at the Country Club 'ruled' by Sharpey. Sharpey is worried thqt she and Ryan won't win the talent contest if Troy & Gabriella are in it so she plots for Sharpey & Troy to be the stars of the show.

I won't tell you how it ends but suffice to say the Vodafone Arena was packed full of 'tweens' knowing the words to every single song.

Anyway, and most importantly, Kate loved it.

We finished off her birthday treat with dinner at the Pancake Parlour and we handed a very tired and very happy 8yr old back to her parents.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Fetchez la vache

Last night it was off to Her Majesty's Theatre for the final Melbourne performance of Spamalot.

We'd seen a preview of Spamalot before Christmas and it was a last minute(ish) decision to see the final performance. So last minutish in fact that TappingBetty & I were not able to get tickets together. No matter.

Most of the cast members were relative newcomers to leading roles in musicals (with the exception of the always brilliant, incredibly talented, Derek Metzger)

Nonetheless they were all excellent.

The musical is based on the 1975 film Monty Python and the holy grail, and along the way also manages to send up Andrew Lloyd Webber, Phantom of the Opera, West Side Story and several other well known musicals and musical styles.

It is ridiculously silly, very funny, and a great evening's entertainment.

For me there were 2 standout musical moments...

Patsy (Derek Metzger) performing "always look on the bright side of life"

Sir Robin (Jason Langley) performing "you won't succeed on Broadway"

Would definitely see it again

Flock

I've been experimenting with the Flock browser of late.

Flock bills itself as the social web browser and is built on Mozilla's firefox codebase.

It integrates social networking sites such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr, Blogger, etc. so that when you log into to any of these sites, Flock automatically activates these services within it's features.

Flock allows media sharing via drag and drop, photo uploading, and a built-in blog editor for posting from anywhere on the web.

I'm still exploring it and am not yet using it to it's full capacity as, according to wikipedia it also has the following built in functions...

Features
The current 1.1 Release has the following features:
Flock's custom homepage, "My World", tells you when your friends have new updates, photos and videos and when you have new feeds. My World gives quick access to your recently visited favorite sites as well.

Bookmarks, in addition to being saved offline, can be replaced with del.icio.us or ma.gnolia. When a bookmark (known as a favorite) is added, it is added to the user's account.

Favorites can be tagged

A favorites and history section are integrated into the favorites manager

Built-in full-text search using Clucene. Search as you type for pages in the cache

Technorati tagging

Blog Editor with WYSIWYG mode and offline writing capability that can post to Blogger, Blogsome, Xanga, LiveJournal, Typepad, Wordpress and some Self-Hosted blogs.

News aggregator

"Drag-and-drop" capability and a clipboard like feature known as the "Web Clipboard."

Media Mini Bar, allows you to search, stream, view, share and subscribe to content off of YouTube, Flickr, Photobucket, Picasa Web Albums, Facebook and Truveo.

Built in Photo Uploader, to submit content to Flickr, Facebook, Picasa Web Albums and Photobucket

Webmail feature that integrates with Yahoo! Mail and Gmail. Icon glows when you have new messages, dropdown menu shows you what's new, and mailto: links are sent to your chosen webmail account.

And so far I think its very useable -

I like having twitter & facebook always displayed in a left hand menu type bar

I've changed the default search engine from Yahoo to Google

Wonder if I can *accidentally* install it at work?

The good, the bad, and the wtf

First the good.

Power was resumed to the Mont Albert branch at 10.30pm last night, just as I was trying to pack my bag (by increasingly dim torchlight) as I'd decided to move to TappingBetty's for the duration (her power has been back since 6am yesterday).

The bad.

I'd enrolled to attend 2 talks yesterday - both were being presented by the same person, but they were marketed as completely different - so I signed up for both. The presenter (at the first one) began by saying that the two talks would be very similar so he wouldn't be insulted if people left after the first one and didn't stay for the second.

Now I'm a naive little vegemite - despite this I still believed that the sessions would be different - after all they'd been marketed separately, been titled differently, how could they be the same?

They were. Even the jokes were the same. What a waste of time and money. And talk about false advertising - don't get me started...

I don't like cold showers

Yesterday's freak winds left a trail of destruction behind them.

The Mont Albert 'branch' is currently powerless and, being all electric, is currently operating by the light of two small torches and 2 clip on booklights.

On the way to work this morning I walked past (or was forced to detour around) a hell of a lot of SES tape. One house I walked past had (or used to have) a huge gum tree in it's yard. The tree had apparently been struck by lightening as it had split pretty much down the middle and one half had fallen onto the road - totally obliterating the three cars parked there. (I only know there were 3 cars there cos the owner told me - I could only see the back of one.)

Hopefully power will be restored by the time I get home tonight as I do not fancy another cold shower.

MTC: Holding the man

The next MTC in our subscription was Holding the man.

Based on the book/memoir by Timothy Conigrave it's brilliant, it's poignant, it's confronting - you laugh, you cry, and you remember.

In 1976, a young Xavier schoolboy called Timothy Conigrave fell in love with the captain of the Xavier football team, John Caleo. So began a relationship that was to last for 15 years.'

Holding the Man' explores the highs and lows of their life partnership: the intimacy, constraints, temptations, and the strength both men had to find when they tested positive to HIV.

There are six people in the cast and between them they play close to fifty characters. They are all brilliant.

A few people left at interval - perhaps they found it too confronting. Maybe read the book first so that you know what you're letting yourself in for.

'Holding the man' is playing at the Merlyn theatre at the Malthouse