Thing #11 Instant Messaging

Well, wasn't Iming fun! I entered a music chat room and watched some of the conversation for a while before starting a chat with a 23 year-old male in Sydney. That was an experience; the first thing asked for was my a/s/l. After determining what that meant I assured the young man I was old enough to be his mother and that I was doing this as a learning experience for work. He wished me the best of luck and promptly said good-bye. Fascinating! I had another request to chat with a young female wanting me to go to a web site that had a photo of her naked! My reply was that I was not going there on the grounds of morals. Good experience; however now I know how teenagers get into trouble so easily. My initial goal was to converse with individuals about country music, but instead I got a lesson in just how user "friendly" the Internet can be.

My username for other NT23 members is fwarchivist using Yahoo Messenger.

Thing #10 Ning

My impression of Ning.com is that it is a good blog tracking network. It is nice to see photos and profiles of individuals who are members of various blogs. I like the look of the site and the way the pages are laid out; very user friendly. I find it interesting that some sites have added user guide videos. I looked at several blogs including ALA; TWU; and Lone Arrangers, which is an archive group. To view the "Fort Worth Public Library Staff" blog you need to be a member; darn I wanted to see who I knew on the site without becoming a member. I was surprised, but probably should not be at the number of religious affiliated groups using ning.com. I did not create a Ning account because of the cautionary note in the NT23 instructions stating, "there has been some controversy surrounding the way Ning.com uses the data submitted by members its hosted networks."

Thing #9 More Facebook

When I originally joined Facebook I created a profile and uploaded a photo. I have located or invited friends to become a "friend." Searching for "friends" on Facebook is interesting in that during the search there is a high probability of finding forgotten acquaintances from years past. Today I became a fan of the group Society of American Archivists as this organization is representative of my profession. Three groups I joined are the American Association for State and Local History; the Society of Southwest Archivists; and the Society of American Archivists. In the past I have posted "what's on your mind" statements with and without links.

Thing #8 Facebook

I had been invited to join Facebook about a year ago and created an account at that time. Recently I added my profile and invited friends to join. Now I receive email notices when someone has posted or commented on my account and sign in to Facebook daily. Facebook is a great way to interact with friends and colleagues. In the beginning I worried about privacy; however quickly realized only people I invite as "friends" are able to view my posts. I like Facebook and recommend it as a social network for everyone who likes to stay connected.

Thing #7 RSS Feeds

RSS Feeds is not dissimilar to Blog Readers. Locating the RSS Feed orange icon on various web sites was the difficult part of this task. It seems most sites are going with blog additions as opposed to RSS Feeds. Could it be that as technology advances more people are doing the "blog" thing instead of the "feed" thing?

Thing #6 Blog Readers

Blog Readers reminds me of inviting people to be friends on Facebook except that permission is not required before viewing various feeds. Also, Blog Reader is similar to Outlook mail in that you can set up mail rules so incoming mail can be delivered to pre-set folders alleviating the problem of a full inbox.

Thing #5 Image Generators

Creating or generating an image by adding text to an image previously uploaded to my computer was easy once I "felt" my way around the "Image Chef" site. Deciding which image to use and the border was the hardest part. The process was similar to working with "Big Huge Labs."