Connections made and monitored

So the last module of CCLlearn and I've chosen making and monitoring connections. This has actually been a nice way to round up on everything so it hasn't been too bad at all. Though throughout this I've been looking to make the big discovery of something new that I'm going to find that will be integral in my online life. I haven't found it yet, but perhaps it will come when I'm least expecting it.

Doing this has reinforced that I really do love some of the things that I'm already using; and that they really are some of the greatest tools out there. Of course I'm talking about RSS, iGoogle and Stumbleupon. These are all tools that I use pretty much daily at home and couldn't imagine being without them. Conveniently two of them (RSS & iGoogle) are mentioned in making and monitoring connections so I figure I can give myself a tick for this bit. One particular thing that I use to monitor my connections is a little add-on to FireFox that's called Morning Coffee. Its a really nice wee add-on that just sits in the tool bar and looks like a coffee cup. You can click on it and it will automatically launch however many tabs of sites you have set up. You can also configure it so it will launch certain sites on certain days (really useful if you know what days a site updates). I'm sure there are other tools out there like this, but this is one that I really like and get a lot out of. I also had a wee play with using my blog as an anchor. It was all OK, but not really for me. I like what I've got at the moment and I'll stick with that. I think that's what its all about really - finding the options that work for you, and lets face it, there are so many that I reckon there is something out there for everyone.

Addressing the last thing about whether iGoogle or Netvibes would be useful for a team I think it would be. I experimented with this a while ago when I was at Linwood using iGoogle. However it made Google launch a lot slower which wasn't very good and also it was a little before Web 2.0 was really main-stream so people were a little hesitant at doing much to it. If it is to work all members of a team need to be reviewing, adding and weeding feeds. That way it is meaningful for all.

So that is me done with the modules. Overall I've really enjoyed it and its been so great to be paid to play with these tools. I do wish there were a few more things to push the boundaries a little, but I think that's just me!

Playing with gadgets

Widgets & gadgets done! I've been playing round a bit with gadgets through Google. I tried adding a couple of things to my blog which was OK. I found a very pretty fish tank which looked nice, only it added minutes to my page loading time so I deleted it pronto.

I also had a go at making my own widget through DigitalNZ. i found this to be really fiddly and not terribly intuitive. It took a lot of playing around to get it working. I've put it on my blog so if you want to have a play just go for it. It links into CCL's image databases.

Then it was onto experimenting with gadgets in iGoogle. If you've read any of my other posts you'll probably already know that I'm a fan of iGoogle and use it regularly. I set myself the goal of finding a gadget that was actually useful and looked good too. And I succeeded! See the screen shot below - I found a birthday gadget where you can see how many days it is to each birthday, have a small present planning list for everyone and the like. Its very cool and I think it might just stay on my pages. Fun fun.


So that is week 2 done. I enjoyed it a lot and found some new and interesting things to play with. I particularly like Google Reader and think I will keep on using this. Next week brings on social networking and info connect discovery which I'm particularly looking forward to. More on that next week!