Wikis

I've often heard the term "Wiki" mentioned but was afraid to enquire what it meant in case I still wouldn't understand after the explanation. Now I'm chuffed to be in the know. Given their ease of use, I think Wikis must become the knowledge-sharing tool of the future.

Wiki.openstreetmap is really amazing as is Wikileaks. You could lose all track of time when exploring these.

From a work perspective, because of the simplicity of updating and saving, I think Wikis could become a popular way to share and update information.

EBooks, Readers and eAudiobooks

Being a fan of the "actual" book, I approched this exercise with a degree of scepticism. However, the facility in ebooks to fit the text to the width of the page is really useful. The feature on the readers which allows you to increase the size of the font is even better, especially if you need glasses! In particular the readers are quite appealing. Being able to download a number of books to a reader saves a lot of weight. This is really important nowadays when airlines are so weight conscious. I don't think I'd download and read an ebook on my PC but I would be open to doing so if I had an ebook reader.

I think the eAudiobooks are great and must be a real Godsend to anybody with sight problems. Equally, they could be of value to old people and even could be used to encourage young people to develop a love of books.

I downloaded Pride & Prejudice from UL Library ebooks and, when skimming through it, noticed that particular pages were blank and had the message "not available for download". I wonder if anybody else experienced that.

Del.icio.us and Technorati

I was able to set up an account in Del.icio.us without any trouble and went on to bookmark a number of websites. It's easy to see how useful Del.icio.us would be in most work situations to allow for sharing of information. I (think) I even managed to set up an RSS feed from one of the bookmarked sites to my blog.

When exploring Technorati I ran into problems with the explanatory video. I didn't have the relevant software to run the video but, try as I might, I was unable to download this. It kept stalling half-ways through the operation. I finally gave up on the video and read the introduction instead. Technorati is definitely a great tool if you want to track blogs but, for the moment at least, I'm not going to go there. For now, the RSS updates to my blog are about all I can keep up with.

Evergreen from A Star is Born

Flickr - Image generator

Living Bridge Linking UL Camus Between North & SouthBanksOfRiverShannon,
originally uploaded by Phoebe-Talktime.

New bridge spanning the River Shannon on the UL campus

Flickr - Image generator

I have been a fan of Kris K for years. His lyrics are powerful and relevant.