Thing 16: Geotagging

I think geotagging is a pretty useful feature, especially for professional photography. There have been times when I've come across a picture of something that looks interesting, and I've wondered where it was taken, but unless the person added a caption to it, I may have no way of knowing. With geotagging, it's much easier to find a picture and know exactly where it is, or even the other way around. If you have an area you know you want to search in and have a specific subject you need, it's also very easy to search that way. I'm not sure yet if I will personally be able to use it professionally in the future, but you never really know until you get there.

Thing 15: Podcasts

I've never really listened to podcasts in the past except for one that I used to follow regularly from a TV show I used to watch. I do, however, believe that I could actually gain some interest in them and if I am able to find some that are interesting to me, follow them and listen to them on a regular basis. I did use the Podcast.com directory and I found that it was fairly easy to navigate. I wasn't sure exactly what I was interested in at the time, so I decided to just go straight for the Most Popular Podcasts section where I actually found one podcast that I listened to for a while from How Stuff Works.com where they spoke about the phrase "low man on the totem pole", it's context, usage, and meaning. While it may sound boring, it was actually oddly entertaining for a while hahah.

Thing 14: Research Project Calculator

Personally, after playing with both the University of Minnesota Assignment Calculator and the Research Project Calculator, I prefer the University of Minnesota Assignment Calculator more. I just happen to like the fact that it provides you with a 12 step process rather than a 5 step process. This makes me feel like I'm on more of a schedule since it basically gives 12 deadlines rather than 5. For me, deadlines are what I need to make me work, without deadlines my work just doesn't get done until the very last minute. with the University of Minnesota Assignment Calculator, I feel like I'd be able to get my work done better, assuming that I follow it closely. As for the future, I'm not entirely sure that these tools would be very useful to me considering that I'll be going into graphic design. Especially with the Research Project Calculator, I feel like these tools are more for mapping out deadines and outlines for papers, etc.

Thing 13: Online Productivity Tools

If you've been paying any attention at all to my last few blog posts, I'm pretty sure you can guess the option I went with for this one... Yes, I created an iGoogle home page (surprisingly, I didn't already have one!). I used to My Yahoo! but that was when I used Yahoo! as my primary email address, so I haven't actually checked that in a few years. However, iGoogle actually seems pretty handy so I'll most likely be setting it as my homepage once I get home. It's helpful because not only can I get the news that I want to hear about, locally and nationally, I can get information on the entertainment industry (movies, music, etc.) and most importantly, get the weather right when I log in, since one of the first things I always do in the morning is check the weather to see how I'm gonna need to dress that day. So, I think this iGoogle page will be very beneficial to me. Thanks again Google! ^_^

Thing 12: Tagging and Del.icio.us

I've seen the Del.icio.us buttons on news stories, etc. before, but I've never really known what it was. I guess I always just kind of assumed it was like Digg or Reddit or one of those news sites back in Thing 6 because the buttons were always near each other. While the site layout may be similar to those, the concept is not quite the same. I do, however, like the way Del.icio.us is set up. The way you can always have your list of bookmarks available wherever you are, and especially the way you can view comments people have left on given sites, based on the tags. I think it's a much handier way of getting to know a site a little bit better before actually using it yourself; similar to reading a synopsis of a movie or book. If the comments sound interesting, then it's worth checking out.

Thing 11: Online Creations

As you can see, I chose to use the Big Huge Labs tool Mosaic Maker. I actually found this tool quite easy and very intuitive to use. You just simply choose how many rows and columns you would like your collage to be, choose a background color, set the spacing between photos, select which photos you want to be included, and voila! You have a nice little collage of your photos. I can't really see a professional setting where you might need to use a tool like this, but I can definitely see its uses in a personal setting; simply to make collages of you and your friends and family or of a special event.

Thing 10: More Flickring Around

First of all, here is my beautiful puzzle that I made from one of my Flickr photos.

And here is my lolcat, her name is Panda.

I think it's nice that there are tools like Big Huge Labs online for photo editing, however I feel like if you need a photo edited for something professional or an assignment, it would still be better to do the work yourself. Personally, I would feel more accomplished having done the editing and everything on my own, rather than putting pictures into a generator and having the final product just spit out. Though, if you find yourself in a time crunch and just can't do it yourself, these tools can be quite useful.

Thing 9: Photosharing with Flickr

CLICK HERE for the original shot by moonjazz on Flickr

Here is the image that I eventually chose from the many that I came across on Flickr after using the keyword Minneapolis. Depending on the reason for searching for an image, I feel like Flickr can be much more useful than the image function of a search engine. For one thing, using a photosharing site like Flickr, you tend to get many more artistic shots from professional photographers rather than the random assortment foun if searching with something like Google Images. I actually find searching with Flickr much more enjoyable, because of the artistic nature of most of the images found as well as the fact that you can find many different types of pictures that you won't find with a search engine.

Thing 8: Wikis

I've heard that Wikis can be unreliable due to their open, public nature, but I've never actually attempted to edit one and seen how easy it really is. I decided to search up the Philippines Wiki and decided to edit the page regarding Boracay Island. I added some of my opinions to the Recreation section very easily and now understand a little better why teachers are reluctant to accept Wikis as a realiable source. While not all wikis are as easily accessible as this, many are, and the fact that they can be edited by anyone, leaves the chance of compromising information being added to be highly likely. I'd say, think twice before using a Wiki as a reliable source, especially if it's for a topic that you're not familiar with, it's just that much harder to know what's true or false.

Thing 7: Online Collaboration Tools

Well, long time no see, Blogger.

Of the two collaboration tools that the documents were provided for, I chose to use Google Docs, mainly because, to be honest, I am a Google fanboy. And with my obvious bias aside, I actually found that Google Docs is a pretty useful tool. I've heard of it before, but never actually used it; having tested it out now, it has a fairly wide range of functions. It has just about all the basics that one may need to edit a document. On a sidenote, however, along the lines of my Google favoritism, there is also a new... let's just call it an Uber-Collaboration Tool, in comparison to these... that was recently released in beta form, Google Wave. Google Wave, in a sense, is much like these document editing tools on steroids. Not only does it include this document editing function, it has improved the functionality and added more. The diversity of Google Wave is way too much for me to discuss right now, but I would recommend that you Google it and maybe do some research on what it can do; I'm sure you'll be impressed.