Twitter twaddle

Duckling saviors, rain shower lovers, business ads, scalpers, a Library program -- it's all there on twitter. Why? Why "tweet"? I do not know. Is it excessive ADD behavior where the mind and fingers need to be active all the time? Do I really need to know someone is walking down Kensington without shoes? Do I need to know someone just put their toddler to bed? Apparently, based on the number of day to day observances I do.

I must admit I did create a Twitter account so that I could announce that drivers can't get to 16th Avenue from my street because it is now a cul-de-sac. I guess it wasn't a popular tweet, because people still try.

Library Thing

Two years ago I created a LibraryThing account and was absolutely thrilled to share my favorite books with other read-a-holics. Then I forgot about it. So now, after rediscovering LibraryThing, I'm excited about it again. The groups are entertaining and informative.

I just discovered the "What is Stephen Harper Reading" thread on the Canadian Bookworms group. The thread is based on the website of the same name created a while back by Yann Martel, author of Life of Pi. "For as long as Stephen Harper is Prime Minister of Canada, I vow to send him every two weeks... a book that has been known to expand stillness," he says on his web site. His site lists every book that he has sent Stephen Harper, so far. The Canadian Bookworm thread has inspired people to read the items on Yann's list as well as list the items that they have already read. The highest number read so far is 16 out of 81. (I have read eight, mostly because of school LIT classes.)

Quite often Homebound Readers will ask me to suggest something new for them, especially the mystery readers. I could go with a genre list or search E-Library's NovelList and hope for the best, or I could read what LibraryThing people say about particular authors. For instance I had planned on reading James Patterson since he seems to be really popular. The gist on LibraryThing is that his earlier works are good, but, as one writer puts it, "Now they are just like fast-food and leave a bad taste in my mouth." You can't get that kind of opinion on NovelList!

Online Productivity Tools - Google Documents

I now have a business card! It took a bit, but using the Google Documents business card template I was able to create a card for Wanderfull1 Photography. While it is very convenient to be able to create a business card or a resume or whatnot using Google Documents, the process is a bit touchy.

Moving the card components around in the little card space took a few tries, and figuring out how to copy the initial card to produce eight cards was totally by fluke. Intructions were non-existant and the Help option took me to a YouTube video that described how Google Documents works in general.

As to whether this will replace Microsoft Office products, I am thinking probably not. Microsoft is so entrenched in the pc market, with so many computers sold with MS Office installed as a standard feature, that I can't see anyone using Google Documents on a regular basis. On the other hand, I would recommend this to a Library customer if they already had a Google email account and wanted to create a resume, but did not have a device to save their document onto.

Flickr & YouTube

Flickr
What can I say about Flickr without sounding like a gushing teenage Bieber fan? Since creating an account last year I have uploaded almost 1500 photos. Well, 1,417, but I’m sure I’ll hit the 1500 mark soon. I have met the most interesting people, shared amazing photos and experiences, and learned new photographic tricks. The networking aspect is pretty cool, too. My photos have been invited to join galleries (including several created by the Calgary Cultural District) and various Flickr groups. For me, the appeal of Flickr is sharing my creative or journalistic photographic endeavours, learning from like-minded photographers, and the comments! The comments can become epic when a large number of people view your photo. It’s all I can do to keep from becoming a comment groupie ... oooh, I gotta go ... someone just commented on my recent upload.


YouTube
Last night, on the CTV’s 6:00 evening news there was a story of a drunken man riding outside of the C-Train between the Sunnyside and downtown stops. A student had captured him clinging to the wiper blades between cars with her cell-cam and posted it to YouTube. In last night’s newscast, police indicated that the rider could face criminal charges. That is probably why this morning I see the video has been deleted. The ride occurred last week and did not become news until the video was posted to YouTube, yesterday. The thing is, an ordinary person, a student, suddenly became a journalist. Sure, lots of people use YouTube to share family events (like the Bieber’s talent contest video), teach new skills, or self-promotion. The real power of YouTube is how the average Joe (or Josie) is able to make or break news. Some might say it’s a voluntary Big Brother thing, with thousands of cell-phone eyes watching. On the other hand, the person capturing the video runs the risk of personal injury, just like a paid journalist. For adrenaline junkies, this is probably what makes YouTube appealing. Then there’s the whole society/media communication discussion. Basically, YouTube has changed and continues to change how we see and interact with each other.

RSS Feeds - Blogline

Interesting. Another way of overloading my brain with too much information. At least I can create my own file folders, so it's not total information anarchy. At one time I had one web page on which I listed all my favorite web pages. Now I have three: a blog web page, a bookmarks web page, and now an up-to-date-information web page. This is progress.

Google Products - Google Translate

谷歌有一個整潔的應用程序中調用谷歌翻譯。你可以粘貼文本在翻譯領域，選擇你的語言翻譯的，然後選擇所需的語言轉換成文字。為了好玩，我把這個段落的翻譯，選擇中文作為傳統的語言我希望它翻譯和谷歌給我的上述文字。

Translated:

Google has a neat application called Google Translate. You can paste text in the translation field, select the language you are translating from, and then select the language you want to convert the text into. For fun, I put this paragraph in the translator, selected traditional Chinese as the language I wanted it to translate to and Google gave me the above Chinese characters.

This would be very handy for customers wanting to translate documents or web pages into her home language. I'm thinking the guy looking for Chinese or Hindi characters for his next tattoo would love this, as well.

However, I wonder about the accuracy. The translation might be word-for-word, but without knowing how a culture articulates and the nuances of the culture there is something lost in the translation. For instance I used Google Translate to read a news story from the Persian newspaper, Kayhan. This is how Google translated it:

Islamic leader in meeting the country's passionate explanation of nurses replied Hazrat Zeinab (SA) if no blood on the sword was not victorious

Leader emphasized that the Iranian nation against the threats and telling big enemy will not surrender stipulated that this nation shall Thdydknndgan also brought to the knee. Ayatollah Khamenei meeting yesterday at a large gathering of nurses across the country, with the celebration of the role of nurses in mental and physical health of patients, Hazrat Zeinab PBUH the pattern of human history and pattern of different levels of the Iranian nation in the Islamic revolution and knew emphasized: the main cause of power and inspire the Iranian nation, he is the essence of Imani and the nation, thanks to God in all areas before and will be increasing their faith and insight on the tricks and threats will be overcome.

Mousing over the translation activated a popup that invited the reader to contribute a better translation of the article. As a universal translator I'm thinking Google Translate still needs a little tweaking.

漫步2.0 (Wander2.0)

Facebook

At one time Facebook was the in-thing to do and it does have its positive aspects. For the most part, though, I think its adrenaline-rush popularity has come and gone. It's kind of like when radio and television were new. Everyone was excited with the new technologies, but now they are regular facets of Canadian society.

I created an account when Facebook was fairly shiney and new. My co-workers were on Facebook. My sister-in-law in Medicine Hat was on Facebook. I found a couple long lost friends from school on Facebook. My favorite politician, musicians, activists, library applications, and film writers were on Facebook. Everybody seemed to be on Facebook. I had lots of friends to play games with, too.

Then shiney new Facebook dulled a bit. It seemed playing games was all anyone did. The invites to play farm yard games and never ending quizes grew tedious. My sister-in-law's abbreviated wall messages seemed cryptic to the point where I could not tell if she was having a good day or not. Then came the system crashes, the slowness to upload, and the many annoying ads and invites to join applications.

Now, I only use Facebook to keep up on the goings-on of activists, the Library, and group events. For this week's 2.0 assignment I used my Facebook account (Wanda Martin, aka the waving alien) to write a message on the Calgary Public Library's wall about this weekend's Ecopalooza Fair.