With the class wrapped up and the dust settled, I thought I’d take some time and look back on how my approach to writing in this blog evolved over the course of the semester – and how I might continue to evolve from here.
When it was first announced that we’d be participating in a group blog, I got very excited. I had toyed with the idea of starting a blog for some time – mainly as a one-stop resource for letting my friends and family know what I was up to, so I wouldn’t have to write a bunch of different, personalized e-mails every time something fun happened. (Lazy, huh?) But I never actually started it up – mostly out of the fear that I would end up with nothing exciting to say.
I wasn’t sure how a “group blog” worked, either – the closest analogue that I could think of was a message board, where multiple people talked back and forth on different threads about a variety of topics. Blogs don’t contain “threads” per se, but you can comment on each other’s posts – so I figured it would be a similar atmosphere. With that in mind, I decided to try to “break the ice” with my new community – starting off with a silly post about blogging in class, and then posting a little write-up about my experiences on Halloween.
The reactions I got were … mixed. The very first reply was someone offering the opinion that this wasn’t what the blog was supposed to be for. And although dissenting opinions weighed in, this wasn’t exactly the conversation I was trying to start. I got confused – apparently a group blog isn’t like a message board after all! – so I decided to fade into the shadows for a little while and see how others approached blogging there.
The blog theme seemed to me to quickly turn to “here’s a link to something web-related, plus my thoughts” – and although I found a few articles and wrote a few drafts, I didn’t feel like I had created anything worth posting. I’ve always been somewhat of a luddite, internet-wise – I don’t know how to torrent, I’m not sure what an RSS feed is, and I can’t socially-bookmark to save my life – and now I was self-conscious to boot. These guys are blogging way over my head! I commented on a few articles, but couldn’t find a comfort level blogging about web-related news articles.
Eventually, as I thought about it more and more, I realized that a compromise solution existed. I could blog about my day, I could tell anecdotes and try to engage my audience – other bloggers – on a conversational level … as long as I made the posts web-related!
After a harrowing family illness, I blogged about my apathetic feelings toward e-cards, and got a number of favorable responses. After trying vainly to find a certain clip on YouTube, I blogged bemoaning the loss of a wild, untamed clip-sharing community, and got a pretty good conversation going there as well.
Hey, this is kinda fun after all! I was happy with the balance I was striking, but it still seemed to me that everyone else was linking to other stuff more than I was. I felt left out – so I tried a series of posts where I listed various ways of accomplishing a goal on the internet. I brainstormed ways people could find other people’s contact info online, and about ways I could have checked the weather without turning on my TV, radio, or looking out the window.
I was happy to be linking to things like all the cool kids, but those posts didn’t generate much feedback at all, and I started to dislike them as a little too forced. Sure, I was telling anecdotes and sharing experiences with the group, but they were getting a little too David-Letterman-Top-Tenny. Here’s the premise, here’s a list of links. Not very organic. I decided that I liked my previous approach better – it fit me more comfortably, and came out of my head onto the keyboard much more smoothly.
So now, the class is over and I’ve tried on a few different blogging styles for size. I’m glad that I tried them all – glad I stretched myself in the format, checked out the boundaries of what I was comfortable with and what the group/audience expected and enjoyed. I think I had a few awkward moments, to be sure, but – as I kept reminding myself – the purpose of this group blog was to learn about blogging!
And, despite any nervousness or awkwardness I went through, I certainly did learn – what blogging was all about, how it differed from writing for print, how audience feedback and group interaction could shape future entries practically in real time.
Honestly, I still don’t know if I’m ready to launch my own blog. I’m still worried that I’ll have nothing to say, and that my friends and family will roll their eyes at my non-adventures ("dear blog: today I had soup!"). But I definitely feel more comfortable with the format. I now know what I feel makes good blog posts – and more importantly, I got some experience with making what I feel to be bad blog posts.
I’ll keep my eye on this blog from time to time, to see if any of my fellow classmates continue to post up adventures, or links, or thoughts about the web. And if I ever do launch my own blog, full of ramblings about my day and snarky, self-deprecating one-liners – well, I’ll be sure to post the link right here.
Thanks for helping me feel my way into the wild world of blogging, folks. I had a great time with you all this semester and I wish you all the best of luck in your future classes and endeavors.
-Jeph
Monday, January 21, 2008
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Correction http://stalkingjorge.googlepages.com
Oops - sorry, there is no www in the address
http://stalkingjorge.googlepages.com
http://stalkingjorge.googlepages.com
For my final project for this class I created a website.
Stalking Jorge and Other Adventures
Essays by Deborah Chaisson.
Its been so long since I have done anything in html I can barely remember how to make text bold. To create the site I used googlepages and it was amazingly fast and easy.
To find google pages I just googled "google website creator" or something to that effect. I found the page, registered for an account, and since I am apparently the one last person on the planet that did not have a gmail account it created one for me, so be careful what you use for a login name because that becomes your gmail address.
Google hosts your website for you so no figuring out how to get a domain name or where to park the site, its all right there.
The page creator was ridiculously easy to use once you have all your text written and have decided how to lay the site out. It probably took me less than an hour to get the content up. You simply copy and paste the text in and then insert photos and links by clicking buttons named "insert link" or "insert image." Once I got it up I had to fine tune things, the text and line spacing got a little weird in places. To fix it I would simply cut the text that had the wrong format and paste it into a paragraph that had the right formatting and the text would pick up the right formatting and then I could just hit enter to move it down into its own paragraph and retain the formatting.
I had several online friends test drive it in different browsers and operating systems and after a little tweaking it looked good on any browser on any platform.
One especially cool feature that googlepages added without me even asking for it, is if you click on any picture on the site it opens the picture in its own window, full size. This was something I had wanted to do because my site is pretty photo heavy and I really wanted to showcase them, so google did it for me without me even having to figure out how to do it myself.
A+++++++ Would create website with this software again.
My website is
http://stalkingjorge.googlepages.com
I would love to see sites and blogs other people have created for the class.
Stalking Jorge and Other Adventures
Essays by Deborah Chaisson.
Its been so long since I have done anything in html I can barely remember how to make text bold. To create the site I used googlepages and it was amazingly fast and easy.
To find google pages I just googled "google website creator" or something to that effect. I found the page, registered for an account, and since I am apparently the one last person on the planet that did not have a gmail account it created one for me, so be careful what you use for a login name because that becomes your gmail address.
Google hosts your website for you so no figuring out how to get a domain name or where to park the site, its all right there.
The page creator was ridiculously easy to use once you have all your text written and have decided how to lay the site out. It probably took me less than an hour to get the content up. You simply copy and paste the text in and then insert photos and links by clicking buttons named "insert link" or "insert image." Once I got it up I had to fine tune things, the text and line spacing got a little weird in places. To fix it I would simply cut the text that had the wrong format and paste it into a paragraph that had the right formatting and the text would pick up the right formatting and then I could just hit enter to move it down into its own paragraph and retain the formatting.
I had several online friends test drive it in different browsers and operating systems and after a little tweaking it looked good on any browser on any platform.
One especially cool feature that googlepages added without me even asking for it, is if you click on any picture on the site it opens the picture in its own window, full size. This was something I had wanted to do because my site is pretty photo heavy and I really wanted to showcase them, so google did it for me without me even having to figure out how to do it myself.
A+++++++ Would create website with this software again.
My website is
http://stalkingjorge.googlepages.com
I would love to see sites and blogs other people have created for the class.
Monday, January 14, 2008
A New Year's Ritual: Endings & Beginnings
It's the end of class and the semester, but a new one will come soon. In the spirit of the new year, I thought I'd comment on a story on a story I saw on New Year's. (yeah, it's a little late--and I can't find the actual article anymore!)
It was about how people would bring in all their old junk that they wanted to get rid of—bills, bad grades, letters from exes—and burn them in Times Square. For people who didn't have anything physical with them, they were provided paper to write down the things they wanted to get rid of in the new year.
I find that neat, how we humans need these rituals to start anew. Our class is on the web, and we've talked about how the web is better at some things and traditional print is better at others—I think here is a great example of something you can't do electronically. I supposed you could erase your hard drive, but there's something about the physical act of crumpling or ripping or burning or smashing that is substantial. The physical act lends weight to the symbolic, making it all the more real.
I'm not advocating violence though! I just thought it was neat that in this century, we still have rituals like that, in the one of the busiest areas of the largest cities in the U.S. It's also interesting that it was a mass ritual—just as we are social animals and like to build relationships and communities, we also like to tear down things together. That's another thing that is sometimes harder to do online.
I remember a friend used to say that he preferred that we meet in person, then second came phone, then last, the internet. I didn't understand then, back in undergrad. I thought online was the best because I could multi-task. I understand now, that there's no replacing the real-time face-to-face contact. We'll always develop better technology and have convergence, but the physical, real sense of self and of the other will never be replaced.
--Hana
It was about how people would bring in all their old junk that they wanted to get rid of—bills, bad grades, letters from exes—and burn them in Times Square. For people who didn't have anything physical with them, they were provided paper to write down the things they wanted to get rid of in the new year.
I find that neat, how we humans need these rituals to start anew. Our class is on the web, and we've talked about how the web is better at some things and traditional print is better at others—I think here is a great example of something you can't do electronically. I supposed you could erase your hard drive, but there's something about the physical act of crumpling or ripping or burning or smashing that is substantial. The physical act lends weight to the symbolic, making it all the more real.
I'm not advocating violence though! I just thought it was neat that in this century, we still have rituals like that, in the one of the busiest areas of the largest cities in the U.S. It's also interesting that it was a mass ritual—just as we are social animals and like to build relationships and communities, we also like to tear down things together. That's another thing that is sometimes harder to do online.
I remember a friend used to say that he preferred that we meet in person, then second came phone, then last, the internet. I didn't understand then, back in undergrad. I thought online was the best because I could multi-task. I understand now, that there's no replacing the real-time face-to-face contact. We'll always develop better technology and have convergence, but the physical, real sense of self and of the other will never be replaced.
--Hana
Weather or Not
After my last blog entry this morning, about my office shutting down due to inclement weather and not letting me know, I got to thinking: maybe it's partly my fault. I mean, surem they could have tried harder to contact me -- but if I had known the storm was coming, I might have thought to check with someone about the office's status before shoveling out the car.
Most people learn about upcoming weather by watching the evening news or reading the paper, but I don't have cable and don't get the paper -- so, since I just listed a bunch of computer-related ways that my boss could have reached me, what are some computer-related ways that I could have learned about the storm?
Well, right off the bat there's WeatherBug -- a downloadable program that sits on your desktop and shows your current staus, predictions for the next few days, and alerts you with warnings about upcoming extreme weather. I've encountered WeatherBug on my mother's computer and some co-workers' machines -- but each time, all it's seemed to do was get in the way. I've found that my co-workers' computers started up significantly slower ("Loading WeatherBug, please wait ... zzzz..."), and the weather-alerts feature pops up a small box in the corner that just will not go away unless you've you've opened the program and read the alert.
I've always found WeatherBug annoying. But, given that last feature, if I had it, I definitely would have known about the storm...
What else? There's Weather.com, which is run by the Weather Channel. They've got a "local weather" feature right on the front page, where you type in your zip code and get the current status and a 36-hour forecast. Handy, but I've never seen such an ad-heavy page. I literally have to work to figure out what content is weather-related and which content is an ad -- and that's a very bad thing. (Plus, right now one of the ads is that stupid "dancing man/woman/alien" gif from LowerMyBills.com, which just makes my teeth grind for some reason.)
Weather.com seems to have downloadable desktop feature much like WeatherBug. I wonder if it would slow down my co-workers' computers' startup time any less than WeatherBug? Hmm.
There's also Yahoo Weather, which runs weather updates (powered by weather.com) and weather-related news stories. This storm certainly qualified -- look, here's an AP news article about it.
I'm sure every major online news site has a similar weather subsection -- msn.com, USA Today.com, cnn.com. If I'd been paying attention, or used these sites for my news more regularly, I probably would have noticed a mention of the storm.
Also, I could have been signed up to receive weather alerts by e-mail. This site offers them, as does weather.com. (Oddly, boston.com weather doesn't seem to have this option, although I could have sworn they used to offer something similar.)
So, with all these high-tech options available to me -- I really should have had an inkling that we were supposed to be walloped with a foot of snow. So I guess part of the fault for not checking if my office would be closed does rest with me.
I think I'm going to look into weather.com's downloadable desktop app. If it turns out to be less obtrusive than WeatherBug, they may have just gotten themselves one more customer...
Most people learn about upcoming weather by watching the evening news or reading the paper, but I don't have cable and don't get the paper -- so, since I just listed a bunch of computer-related ways that my boss could have reached me, what are some computer-related ways that I could have learned about the storm?
Well, right off the bat there's WeatherBug -- a downloadable program that sits on your desktop and shows your current staus, predictions for the next few days, and alerts you with warnings about upcoming extreme weather. I've encountered WeatherBug on my mother's computer and some co-workers' machines -- but each time, all it's seemed to do was get in the way. I've found that my co-workers' computers started up significantly slower ("Loading WeatherBug, please wait ... zzzz..."), and the weather-alerts feature pops up a small box in the corner that just will not go away unless you've you've opened the program and read the alert.
I've always found WeatherBug annoying. But, given that last feature, if I had it, I definitely would have known about the storm...
What else? There's Weather.com, which is run by the Weather Channel. They've got a "local weather" feature right on the front page, where you type in your zip code and get the current status and a 36-hour forecast. Handy, but I've never seen such an ad-heavy page. I literally have to work to figure out what content is weather-related and which content is an ad -- and that's a very bad thing. (Plus, right now one of the ads is that stupid "dancing man/woman/alien" gif from LowerMyBills.com, which just makes my teeth grind for some reason.)
Weather.com seems to have downloadable desktop feature much like WeatherBug. I wonder if it would slow down my co-workers' computers' startup time any less than WeatherBug? Hmm.
There's also Yahoo Weather, which runs weather updates (powered by weather.com) and weather-related news stories. This storm certainly qualified -- look, here's an AP news article about it.
I'm sure every major online news site has a similar weather subsection -- msn.com, USA Today.com, cnn.com. If I'd been paying attention, or used these sites for my news more regularly, I probably would have noticed a mention of the storm.
Also, I could have been signed up to receive weather alerts by e-mail. This site offers them, as does weather.com. (Oddly, boston.com weather doesn't seem to have this option, although I could have sworn they used to offer something similar.)
So, with all these high-tech options available to me -- I really should have had an inkling that we were supposed to be walloped with a foot of snow. So I guess part of the fault for not checking if my office would be closed does rest with me.
I think I'm going to look into weather.com's downloadable desktop app. If it turns out to be less obtrusive than WeatherBug, they may have just gotten themselves one more customer...
Rumor Blogs & First Amendment
Chatting with my brother recently, he mentioned something that I thought was relevant to our class, if a little late:
That's what happened to AppleInsider, a blog devoted to supplying consumers with rumors and gossip about the latest Apple product news. It was so accurate that even employees like my brother (well, a former employee) would follow it.
Well, Apple sued the blog because the accurate information had to come from sources disclosing trade secrets, but AppleInsider argued that it was its First Amendment rights to not disclose its sources. Apple won at first, but lost on the appeal, because
This brings up why blogs are valuable as another form of journalism today: "As AppleInsider's Kasper Jade commented: 'Letting corporate America dictate what bloggers and journalists can say or publish threatens to set a very ominous precedent.' ....The blogosphere is full of such people [as the blogger for AppleInsider], who sometimes publish stuff that is of public interest but which no mainstream outlet will touch."
We need different individual voices who write for themselves, not for a corporation, to counter the official voices.
When it comes to a blog whose sole purpose to provide rumors, though, I'm not sure that counts as journalism...what do you think? As my journalism professor has discussed, the purpose of journalism is to present a fair, balanced picture to the public and help them make sense of the information. A rumors blog, by its nature, is not about presenting a balanced picture, although I suppose it could by analyzing how true a rumor could be. I think a blog that debunks rumors might be more likely to be true journalism.
An interesting point is the contrast between blogs and Apple—blogs by their nature cater to users, and Apple is supposedly user-friendly but actually very harsh on its most fervent followers if they happen to leak information. I'm not surprised that Apple isn't as "nice" as it seems, because like Microsoft and other big corporations, they need to protect their bottom line.
So...to all those out there who want to start a rumors blog, be careful who you choose to talk about!
--Hana
User-friendly Apple shows a blogger its ruthless core
What happens when your blog is so successful (and is all about leaking secrets) that a company wants to shut you down?That's what happened to AppleInsider, a blog devoted to supplying consumers with rumors and gossip about the latest Apple product news. It was so accurate that even employees like my brother (well, a former employee) would follow it.
Well, Apple sued the blog because the accurate information had to come from sources disclosing trade secrets, but AppleInsider argued that it was its First Amendment rights to not disclose its sources. Apple won at first, but lost on the appeal, because
"The higher court ruled that there could be no distinction between 'legitimate' and 'illegitimate' news when it came to the first amendment, and that bloggers were functionally identical to journalists within the context of California law."Still, Apple kept going after the blog, saying that it violated the Uniform Trade Secrets Act by asking for "insider tips", so the court finally arranged a compromise: None of the sources had to reveal themselves and the blog didn't have to pay Apple, but the blog had to shut down.
This brings up why blogs are valuable as another form of journalism today: "As AppleInsider's Kasper Jade commented: 'Letting corporate America dictate what bloggers and journalists can say or publish threatens to set a very ominous precedent.' ....The blogosphere is full of such people [as the blogger for AppleInsider], who sometimes publish stuff that is of public interest but which no mainstream outlet will touch."
We need different individual voices who write for themselves, not for a corporation, to counter the official voices.
When it comes to a blog whose sole purpose to provide rumors, though, I'm not sure that counts as journalism...what do you think? As my journalism professor has discussed, the purpose of journalism is to present a fair, balanced picture to the public and help them make sense of the information. A rumors blog, by its nature, is not about presenting a balanced picture, although I suppose it could by analyzing how true a rumor could be. I think a blog that debunks rumors might be more likely to be true journalism.
An interesting point is the contrast between blogs and Apple—blogs by their nature cater to users, and Apple is supposedly user-friendly but actually very harsh on its most fervent followers if they happen to leak information. I'm not surprised that Apple isn't as "nice" as it seems, because like Microsoft and other big corporations, they need to protect their bottom line.
So...to all those out there who want to start a rumors blog, be careful who you choose to talk about!
--Hana
Snow Day!
Hey, lookit me blogging twice in a row!
I just got home from my office. I drove 25 miles in white-knuckle, blizzard conditions, only to arrive and find that nobody was there.
Apparently, my boss decided last night to close the office today, because of the inclement weather. However, the way he chose to let me know this ... was by e-mailing my inter-office e-mail account.
Now, of course, I have no idea how to check that account from home. I gather it's possible, and involves logging into our company server and some other voodoo, but it's fairly cryptic to me.
When I got to work and found it abandoned, I called my boss. He told me that his standard procedure was to use his home computer to log into the office server, and pull up our contact database, which is where my contact info is stored. However, since our office had lost power last night, the server was off and he couldn't log in. So the only way he knew to reach me was through my office e-mail address.
But you know what? That's BS. This is the year 2008. His home computer had power, he had internet access, and there are a million other ways -- 'net-related or not -- that he could have located my contact info. Let's count off a few, shall we?
I'm in the phone book. That means he could have looked me up on whitepages.com.
It also means, even if he didn't have internet access, that he could have used 411 to get my number.
He could have googled my name -- one of the top few hits would probably have some mention of, or link to, my e-mail address.
(EDIT: Okay, maybe that one's not fair. I just googled myself -- a search for my name revealed a link to a website that I contribute to, and where I have an e-mail account that forwards to my regular one -- but that fact isn't easily discoverable from the main page. And a search for my name plus "e-mail" turned up my public Facebook profile, which could be used to send me a message -- but I understand that my boss might not think "Facebook" would be the ideal way to go in reaching me.)
Okay, google aside, there are other ways to find my home e-mail address. I've e-mailed my boss from that account before. He could have searched through his old messages to find it. (Sort by name and there I am!)
Also, my company gave me a cellphone for office use. I generally bring it with me to various courthouses and registry offices when I'm running errands and filing paperwork, so I can call the office if there are any problems -- and I tend to leave it off when I'm off-duty -- but my boss could have tried anyway! I just checked the phone, and I have no missed calls and no voicemail messages -- he didn't even bother to call.
"Well, if your cellphone number was in the unreachable contact database..." No. We all have office cellphones, and the phone numbers are arranged in a sequence (i.e. I have one number, an attorney has the next number up, my boss has the next one after that, etc etc). If my boss knows his own cellphone number, he could easily have doped out mine.
Heck, he could/should have it programmed into his cell.
Heck, while I'm at it, why don't they have my home number programmed into their cells? They call me at home often enough.
So -- yeah. Off the top of my head, I just rattled off about six legitimate ways that my boss could have tried to find a way to contact me. And I'm a little steamed that he didn't try ANY of them -- instead opting for the lazy way out, and using the inter-office system to tell me not to come to the office.
Can anyone else think of any ways I missed? How else can you use the internet, the phone company, or plain old common sense to find someone's contact information?
I guess I'm happy to have a snow day -- I'm swamped with finals, and can certainly use the extra time. But I really wish I hadn't had to slog through six inches of snow and drive fifty miles in terrible conditions just to discover it.
Bah.
I just got home from my office. I drove 25 miles in white-knuckle, blizzard conditions, only to arrive and find that nobody was there.
Apparently, my boss decided last night to close the office today, because of the inclement weather. However, the way he chose to let me know this ... was by e-mailing my inter-office e-mail account.
Now, of course, I have no idea how to check that account from home. I gather it's possible, and involves logging into our company server and some other voodoo, but it's fairly cryptic to me.
When I got to work and found it abandoned, I called my boss. He told me that his standard procedure was to use his home computer to log into the office server, and pull up our contact database, which is where my contact info is stored. However, since our office had lost power last night, the server was off and he couldn't log in. So the only way he knew to reach me was through my office e-mail address.
But you know what? That's BS. This is the year 2008. His home computer had power, he had internet access, and there are a million other ways -- 'net-related or not -- that he could have located my contact info. Let's count off a few, shall we?
I'm in the phone book. That means he could have looked me up on whitepages.com.
It also means, even if he didn't have internet access, that he could have used 411 to get my number.
He could have googled my name -- one of the top few hits would probably have some mention of, or link to, my e-mail address.
(EDIT: Okay, maybe that one's not fair. I just googled myself -- a search for my name revealed a link to a website that I contribute to, and where I have an e-mail account that forwards to my regular one -- but that fact isn't easily discoverable from the main page. And a search for my name plus "e-mail" turned up my public Facebook profile, which could be used to send me a message -- but I understand that my boss might not think "Facebook" would be the ideal way to go in reaching me.)
Okay, google aside, there are other ways to find my home e-mail address. I've e-mailed my boss from that account before. He could have searched through his old messages to find it. (Sort by name and there I am!)
Also, my company gave me a cellphone for office use. I generally bring it with me to various courthouses and registry offices when I'm running errands and filing paperwork, so I can call the office if there are any problems -- and I tend to leave it off when I'm off-duty -- but my boss could have tried anyway! I just checked the phone, and I have no missed calls and no voicemail messages -- he didn't even bother to call.
"Well, if your cellphone number was in the unreachable contact database..." No. We all have office cellphones, and the phone numbers are arranged in a sequence (i.e. I have one number, an attorney has the next number up, my boss has the next one after that, etc etc). If my boss knows his own cellphone number, he could easily have doped out mine.
Heck, he could/should have it programmed into his cell.
Heck, while I'm at it, why don't they have my home number programmed into their cells? They call me at home often enough.
So -- yeah. Off the top of my head, I just rattled off about six legitimate ways that my boss could have tried to find a way to contact me. And I'm a little steamed that he didn't try ANY of them -- instead opting for the lazy way out, and using the inter-office system to tell me not to come to the office.
Can anyone else think of any ways I missed? How else can you use the internet, the phone company, or plain old common sense to find someone's contact information?
I guess I'm happy to have a snow day -- I'm swamped with finals, and can certainly use the extra time. But I really wish I hadn't had to slog through six inches of snow and drive fifty miles in terrible conditions just to discover it.
Bah.
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