iHCPL #14 Technorati tagging

I've taken a look at Technorati and tried doing an advanced search by typing "Learning 2.0" as a keyword search in Blog posts, in tags and in the Blog Directory. The results ARE different. It also depends on whether you use the "exact phrase" option. I used the exact phrase option or quote marks for "Learning 2.0"as needed. I also tried it without and got 10X the hits since learning and 2.0 were used as separate keywords.

Searching by Blog posts using exact phrase option- There were 554 hits on blog posts.
Without the exact phrase option there were 6000+ hits. I'm sticking to "Learning 2.0" when I don't have an exact phrase option.

Searching tags gives me a variety of results because it searches for posts (127 hits), blogs (309 hits), videos (20 hits) and photos (20 x 20+ (400+) hits). Wow - a LOT of photos!

Searching the Blog Directory gave me 309 hits.

Searching results depend on how you phrase it. What you get might not be what you expect either - it depends on how someone else tagged it.

Popular blogs, searches and videos have some interesting results. I recommend checking this person's videos http://youtube.com/user/mwesch. They give you something to think about.

I'm not ready to get too involved with Technorati at this time. I may do so later.

iHCPL #13 Tagging and Del.icio.us

Tags are one-word (usually) descriptors that you can assign to things like bookmarks, blogs, books, and other things. These are descriptors YOU assign because that is what it means to you. As you can see to the right, I have a list of tags for my blog.

I've used Del.icio.us for work. It is handy to be able to access the links from any PC. Since it is a shared list, I get not only items I may have added, but what others have added as well. This gives me extra resources that I may not have known. The user comments give new insight on the various sites that I may not have seen.

I can see where this could be a useful research tool. The tutorial video showed how this can be used as such. Finding a good link and looking at what others have could get you another good link or lead you in a new direction.

I'm not ready for a Del.icio.us account yet. I don't have enough sites I want to track. but I can see where it coul eventually be useful for me.

#10 part ll - Having more Fun with Image Generators

Just because it is FUN! There are really so many fun things you can do. It's hard to choose just one. This one is from Sign Generator.

iHCPL #12 Library Elf

I get Library Elf emails for 5 different library accounts. I have 3 different library cards (different libraries) myself and watch 2 other accounts for family. I admit that most of the holds on the family cards are mine anyway, but I do have their permission to use their accounts.

Library Elf gives you a summary of all your accounts together, instead of you needing to go to each library site to check the accounts. This is really nice when you are waiting for stuff to come in for a request. Settings can be customized to your preferences. (e.g. number of days before item is due to be notified) You still get notices from the Libraries themselves, but I like the summary from Library Elf.


You still need to remember your card when you go to the Library.

iHCPL #11 LibraryThing

I have a Library Thing account and now that I remember the password, I can talk about it. As of this writing, I only have five items cataloged. I would have more, but I've been trying to weed my home collection to a more manageable size. Until that is done, there is no real time to use Library Thing . Because, once I start, I will be addicted. It is really easy to catalog your books. Your collection can be private or public. In a way, this site can be for social networking also. You can see who else has books you own and contact them to get recommendations.

You can see random books from my library at Library Thing on the right of my blog page.

iHCPL #10 Online Image Generators

This is is the result of using Comicstripgenerator . It was fun! I found that txt2pic has a list of various types of image generators. Have fun yourself!

Update : I added another post on image generators just for fun! Look for the "Dummies" book.

iHCPL #9 Finding Feeds

Finding feeds was fairly easy. It helped that sites I regularly visited decided to add RSS (or similar) to their sites. Bloglines instructions are clear and understandable. A few of my subscriptions are in the previous post. Take a look.

I looked at the tools listed by iHCPL.
Feedster has some preset "channels". This is nice when you just want to have a look a what is there without having to sort it out.
Topix has a feature to search news by city, state or zip and looks user driven.
Syndic8 seems more about statistics and syndication.
Technorati literally updates as you view it. It reminds me of those news tickers and the bottom of the screen on several cable news stations.

Since I've been using the Bloglines search tools, I haven't needed any others.