firehose sipping – managing your rss feeds

Like we said a few weeks ago, RSS is a great tool for keeping up with frequently updated information sources. If you followed our NetworkEducation you even set up a Google Reader account. The problem with RSS is the absolute flood of information you can open yourself up to.

If you follow 50 blogs that post weekly, that’s 50 posts each week, so fewer than 10 a day. That’s not too hard to keep on top of. You can easily manage to read all of those posts, even if you don’t check your reader every day. But if you’ve got a site like CBC.ca in there updating you with dozens of the day’s headlines that can add up to piles and piles of posts, taunting you with their unread status.

There are a couple of good habits to develop as you become a heavier RSS user that’ll save your sanity.

Continue reading “firehose sipping – managing your rss feeds”
Categories
Sharing Online

Facebook – Being a Smart User

Let’s face it, the world has gone the way of Facebook. Most of us are on it, or at least know tons of people who use it. The point of this post is not to trash talk the service, the point of this post is just to clarify some things for people with Facebook accounts. Whether you’re a casual user, a fanatic user, or anywhere in between the two, there are a few key privacy and security aspects you should be aware of.

One really important thing that not all users know is that your information, including your photos, might be made available for use that you would not want – depending on your account settings. If you are using Facebook, you should be aware of the security and privacy options available to you and set them to whatever level you are comfortable with, keeping in mind the internet forgets nothing.

Some Security and Privacy Options:

The first thing you should know is to use a secure unique password for your Facebook login.

Second, make sure your account is set to ‘Secure Browsing (https).’ The point of the setting is to prevent people from intercepting your account while you’re signed in on an insecure wi-fi connection and start browsing your account. [You can read more about this at LifeHacker’s article “Firesheep Sniffs Out Facebook and Other User Credentials on Wi-Fi Hotspots”].

Continue reading “Facebook – Being a Smart User”
Categories
Sharing Online

Hello Google Calendar (and Goodbye to the Planner You Lost or Forgot at Home)

Juggling school with lots of other things? As much as dayplanners are nifty and sometimes even free, sometimes you lose them and other times you leave at home when you need it most! Google Calendar gets rid of these conundrums with its free, online, shareable calendar service provided by Google.

What do you need to get one? An internet connection and a Google account. Yes, that’s it.

Let’s explore this a little more …

What are features? Loads! The following is not an exhaustive list but it will probably give you a good idea of the conveniences this tool offers. With Google Calendar you can:

  • Access it anytime, anywhere
  • Put in all your appointments, due dates, extra-curricular activities and even that helpful reminder to get more milk
  • Organize and promote your organization’s or community’s events
  • Share the calendar with others
  • View your events through daily, weekly, monthly and agenda views to stay on top of everything you’re juggling
  • Sync it with your Droid, Windows Outlook, Blackberry or ICal
  • It’s free (yeah I mentioned this already … but hey, free is always nice!)

What do you need to get Google Calendar? It’s pretty simple!

Continue reading “Hello Google Calendar (and Goodbye to the Planner You Lost or Forgot at Home)”
Categories
Sharing Online

The Power of a Tweet – Microblogging

When people first hear about microblogging, there are two common reactions: “Why would anyone want to know what I’m doing right now?” and “It’s fun on Facebook, but how could it possibly be part of my personal success story?”

Like many other new web tools, however, the more you microblog, the more uses you can find for it. It’s the little tool that could and part of the next wave of online products that could really change the way we do things.

What exactly is microblogging?

Here’s how microblogging works:

  • Write a text messages (less than 140 characters)
  • Post it online through a microblogging tool like Twitter or identi.ca.
Continue reading “The Power of a Tweet – Microblogging”
Categories
Working

Evernote… A Crafty Note-Taking Tool

Taking notes is a daily event in the student life. Whether you’re taking notes in class, taking notes for course readings and assignments, or keeping track of things you need to get done throughout the semester – a note-taking tool is a necessity. For some students, the tried and true traditional method of pen and paper is good enough for getting the job done. However, if you want to go digital, Evernote is a really useful tool.

Evernote is a note-taking app that works on Windows, Mac, iPhone, Android, etc. and allows you to sync between devices and the cloud. With the app you can create digital notebooks, setup checklists, capture images, upload images from your smartphone and digital camera, bookmark webpages, tag notes, tag bookmarks, and copy and paste online text/images into your notes.  It also recognizes text within images (using OCR) so that you can search the images and text at the same time. So if you still rather take notes with pen and paper, you can just take a low resolution photo of the notes (keeping the file small), upload it into one of your notebooks, and still be able to use the handy searching feature. Evernote also allows for sharing of notes and notebooks, and so it can be used as a collaboration tool. Keep reading though because there is some fine print that you should be aware in deciding if you want to use the app…

Evernote is ad supported, which means you can use it for free because a little ad at the bottom left corner of the window is how it gets its revenue. In the ad supported free account you get 60MB of upload space per month. If you want more space, you can pay $5/month or $45/year for the Premium option of 1GB of space. If you’re just taking text notes and not uploading many images, the 60MB/month is plenty of space for a semester’s worth of notes. However, if uploading images is really important for your note-taking purposes, then depending on the file size of your images, the 60MB is going to go fast, so you would probably need to pay for Premium space. The other important thing to mention is that the ad supported option only lets people who you share notebooks with view them. The premium option lets those you share notebooks with to view and edit them. Therefore, as a collaboration tool, Premium Evernote is a better option.

Continue reading “Evernote… A Crafty Note-Taking Tool”
Categories
Sharing Online

Google Docs: More than just documents

Yes, we all know Google is master of the search universe, but did you know some of the other cool stuff Google is developing?  One awesome collaborative tool for the digital student is Google Docs.

If you’ve used it before, skim down a couple sections for highlights of some less-used and new tools available in Google Docs.  But here’s some basic information if you need an overview…

The basics first

Google Docs is most aptly compared to a wiki, so go read that article first if you’re curious. Similarities include the ability to upload documents in several formats (such as MS Word, Powerpoint, and Excel), the ability to edit privacy settings, and the ability for any number of collaborators you may choose. Contrary to some beliefs, you do NOT have to have a Gmail account in order to use Google Docs – any email will do. If you don’t have an account yet, it’s easy to start one…

NetworkEducation for Beginners

  1. Go to docs.google.com
  2. Explore some of the different types of documents you can create on Docs by clicking on the icons for Document, Spreadsheet, Presentation, Drawing, or Forms. Documents works pretty much like MS Word, Spreadsheet works pretty much like MS Excel, and Presentation works pretty much like MS Powerpoint, which most people are more familiar with; so I’m not going to spend much time talking about those. But if you want some tutorials or directions on those, go here and watch some of the tutorial videos https://www.youtube.com/docs
  3. Click on Try Google Docs Now to try a live demo.  To start an account, click the Get Started button.  Fill in the required information: email, password, some demographic information.
  4. Go to your email and click on the verification link.
  5. Go back to docs.google.com and log in.
  6. You should see a screen like this — click to see a bigger version with some highlights: Google docs screenshot
  7. Choose Create New document, spreadsheet, or presentation. Create and save a couple practice files, click Share to invite your best friend to collaborate, and by now you’re ready to go on to the….
Continue reading “Google Docs: More than just documents”
Categories
Sharing Online

Linkblogging = Pointing at Awesome

So you’ve found something awesome on the internet. Maybe it’s a comic or a LOLcat or an article that completely supports your side of a recent argument about the economic foundations of Prussia. Great. How are you going to tell people about it?

You’ve got a lot of options in the current digital environment. You could email your friends, you can put it on your Facebook (under sharing Links, it’s on the lefthand side of the page), or you can make a linkblog and share it with the world.

Linkblogs are a bit different than regular blogs. While a blog can be a platform for you to write and express yourself, a linkblog is more like a pointer to cool stuff you didn’t make. The benefits of this kind of thing should be easy to see: it isn’t as hard to point people at something cool as it is to create something cool yourself. Remember our post about RSS readers, and how we called them news aggregators? Well, a linkblog is kind of like an attention aggregator. You’re pointing out things you think someone else should pay attention to. The more people who do it, the more will be infected with whichever your favourite meme is.

Continue reading “Linkblogging = Pointing at Awesome”
Categories
Sharing Online

Wikis: Fast, free, and simple!

What exactly is a wiki?

Wikis are basically simple websites that do the coding for you and allow multiple editors. The word “wiki” is a Hawaiian word for “fast,” and they are indeed that! Since wikis use a simplified coding language, you don’t have to be a webmaster to create an online site – anyone can create a wiki, just as with blogs.

Probably the most famous use of a wiki tool is Wikipedia. It was created as a free, online, collaborative encyclopedia.  Any user can quickly and easily contribute to update the site content.  That’s right… you could update a Wikipedia article.

But unless you are an expert on Karmichael Hunt or the events of November 21, you are more likely to use wikis to collaborate on smaller-scale projects. Because they’re available online and editable by anyone who has the right permissions, they’re perfect for

  • group projects
  • taking class notes – easy way to get the notes from last week when you were, um, indisposed.
  • sharing thoughts
  • organizing events – everybody sign up for what you’re bringing to the party next weekend!
  • using all the great features of a website – hypertext linking, media sharing, easy page organization – without having to know any HTML coding.

There are lots of free wiki sites out there, and most are pretty easy to use. There are occasional issues with cutting and pasting from (or into) a program like MS Word, and sometimes the “back end” – where the magic takes place – does formatting things you don’t want it to do. If you’re using wikis simply for group collaboration and then will hand in a final project or paper in another format, you can copy and paste information from the wiki over to some other program, but sometimes the formatting will require a little correction. But for publishing your information online, 99% of the time, wikis are the fastest, cheapest and simplest way.

Continue reading “Wikis: Fast, free, and simple!”

Tag! You’re it!

You have probably already used tagging – or have been tagged – and may not even know it. Have you ever received an email from Facebook telling you that “You’ve been tagged in a photo”? Or maybe you’re a movie geek and enjoy adding descriptive words to movies on The Internet Movie Database. These are examples of tagging in action!

What exactly is tagging?

Tagging is a common term that refers to adding labels to items (photos, books, movies, webpages, etc.) that are found online. When you’re looking for something online, often you can find it quicker and more easily if there’s a label. With the growing vastness of information available on the Internet, it’s impossible for “professionals” to label everything and computers just don’t have the human touch required to do the job right. But now that the web has gone interactive, we don’t have to rely on pros and ‘bots – anyone can tag! Everyone can collaborate through online tagging to point other web surfers in the right direction to find stuff online.

Continue reading “Tag! You’re it!”

RSS makes staying up-to-date easy

It’s a crazy, busy world out there. Who has the time to read newspapers, catch up with TV news or regularly visit their favourite news sites, blogs and listings pages? RSS is an ultra-simple way for you to get the kind of news you want delivered to you instead of forcing you to go out searching.

What exactly is RSS?

The idea behind RSS is that you subscribe to customizable streams or feeds of news and information which are sent to your reader or possibly your inbox. Instead of you going out to a pile of websites to find the news, “Really Simple Syndication” means the sources you trust can send you information whenever there’s something new to report. And it’s not limited to news – you can get RSS feeds for events listings, blogs, quotes of the day, job listings, sports scores… whatever tickles your information fancy. If you see this orange RSS symbol on a website, you can subscribe to its RSS feed. Sometimes It’ll just say RSS and sometimes it’ll just say subscribe, but whatever it says it means the same thing; the site will send the new articles to your reader every time new content is published.

Continue reading “RSS makes staying up-to-date easy”

Spam prevention powered by Akismet