Flickr

The Flickr account seems like a great way to share photos with larger groups.

Takes quite a while to upload the photos - perhaps I need to compress the photos? So now I've got photos on Flickr - here's one of Sea Lions - but how do I link to the whole Flickr page?

I feel fairly twitchy about posting any photos other than scenery as "public".

The Age of Persuasion - podcasts

I enjoy listening to radio programs but often catch only snippets as I drive.  It's very satisfying to be able to download the entire program and fill in the missing information.

One of my current favorites is CBC's The Age of Persuasion.  Listen to this interesting clip about Van Halen contracts requiring that all the brown M&M's be removed from the candy dish in the dressing room.

Holly Cole Coming to the Jazz Festival

Holly Cole is one of my all-time favorite jazz singers - I've seen her in concert just once and it was a magical evening.  Here she is singing Girl Talk.

 Hope you enjoy it.

Wikis for Work

Whew!  It's catch-up time for me for my 23 things.  I just completed Week 7 on Wikis. 

I can see Wikis being quite useful for longer-term projects with multiple people.  In my job, it would be useful for projects like the planning for the Collaborative Learning Lab, planning Phase III renovations.

Prezi - Oscar Peterson

Any presentations I do are usually centered around budgets - and I gauge the success by Q&A and by how few heads nod off as I speak.  I wonder - if I'd had Prezi as a tool, could I have made a dullish subject more interesting?  Doubtful.  So - click here Prezi on Oscar Peterson to see  my prezi on a more universally interesting topic.

Popular Culture - Dr. Who

I'm often way behind on popular culture - I discover great TV series in their third season and so on.

My latest discovery is Dr. Who.  Last summer a friend had to explain to me what  a Tardis is.  I listened and thought, scifi, not my cup of tea.  And then a different friend lent me the DVD of Dr. Who, the 9th series, starring Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper.  I laughed so hard I almost fell off my chair.  Now I'm ready to start into the 10th series, starring David Tennant.

Here's a promo clip for the 2007 Children in Need fund-raiser, showing a meeting of the 5th Doctor (played by Peter Davison) and the 10th Doctor (David Tennant).  Dr Who

Hope you find it as silly and fun as I do.

Shared documents on iGoogle

Now this looks like it could be really useful for projects.  I already collaborate on documents with others, storing them on o:, but this makes it just a little easier to share with selected individuals rather than setting up new directories and permissions. 

RSS feeds - who has the time??

Okay, I can't imagine how anyone has the time to read their RSS feeds.  I signed up for a few (latest news from CBC, music, cartoon of the day), checked 2 days later, and thought I can't cope with sieving through all this.  I unsubscribed from most.

RSS feeds

Nice and simple to set up.  I can see how these would be addictive - you could spend hours looking at this and forget to do anything else.

Piano duets

My friend Angela has two pianos and we play duets weekly.  We are playing this Bach piece right now (albeit at a slower pace) - but are having great fun.

Italian Shoes - my favorite dance tune since it came out in the 80's

Vicar of Dibley - it should have been me

SOS - how do I add in my own music?

I want to add a song from my own library. Any advice?

Thanks.

My first post

Previously I have regarded blogging as something for the extroverts amongst us - those who are happy to share all kinds of personal information without filters.  As a more introverted person, I couldn't see why I would not just share my news with close friends by phone, e-mail or - better yet - in person.  And frankly, I don't see my news as that interesting to a larger audience.

However, I am approaching retirement and am willing to be publicly silly for a bit.

My goals in taking the 23 Things program?

• To learn which options would be useful to me personally.
• To understand my nieces when they talk about Twitter and Facebook and Vuze and international phone calls being free via gmail accounts (how is that possible and how do I get one??).
• To be able to carry my end of a conversation! (Last week the appliance repairman and I stood next to my malfunctioning washing machine for an interminable 15 minutes, waiting for the machine to hit the trouble spot in the wash cycle.  He's 20-something and chatted about apps and iPads and 3G and his Blackberry coverage when he snowmobiles up north.  I couldn't keep my end up about snowmobiles, but at least I could chip in on the other topics.)

On a more serious note - as recent events unfolded in Egypt, I started to see the utility of blogs, twitter and Facebook.  The blog ILIKE2READ sums it up very well.