FaceBook

I signed up on FaceBook yesterday, and contacted a few people (at least requested them as friends; I've not checked back yet to see the results). It went smoothly enough. Although this is just an exercise in social contact, it doesn't accomplish anything, it just takes time away from being productive. A good way of keeping up with friends, I suppose, but not really something for work time.

Flickr

It took me a while, but I found a set of only 14 photos! The movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was based on three different Mercedes in the 1020's, and I found it. The first car reached 101 MPH, the second was somewhat less impressive, the third got up to about 170 in 1926.

Pandora

I took a quick tour through Pandora music today. It is an interesting idea, so that you can listen to music online. I still like having my music on the local computer, it gives a sense of ownership, and I get true quality music (streamed music could have cut outs if the network goes out, and I suspect they only have mp3 music not wav files). But it does give a chance to listen to other music that may not be playing on the radio, and expand to other artists that you may not have heard about. If you listen to country music on the radio, you're missing out on the legends like Glen Campbell and Gentleman Jim Reeves. But I plan on keeping my Musicmatch Jukebox in good working order!

RSS Feed

Now this can be usefull! I will have to get used to it, but this can be an excellent way to keep up with important advances in computer technology, space exploration, other stuff. I've wondered for some years how some people can keep up with developments and I just seem to fall further behind; this is one way of keeping up. I love it!

Finally IM'd

I finally sat down with someone (thanks DC) to go through the IM lesson. What a pain to sign up for this, only to have to sign up for that. So much for personal security, I'm a little bit more out there on the web.

So what did I think of it? I can see the benefit of it for two people who are separated by miles. It can be quicker than email, if you both happen to be online at the same time. It's more of this 'communication' that I've been condemned for not doing enough of (I disagree, I think I talk often enough).

I know, I'm two months behind everyone else. It's embarassing to admit that an IT person is behind in computer stuff. The plan is, if other duties allow, to try and catch up one week a day.

University admissions

So here is another random thought. Why is it that universities are willing to educate students from other countries? It seems to me, we ought to be educating our own citizens and allowing other countries to educate their own citizens, rather that allow the frustration of our effort to go back to other lands.
This would also cut down on the problem of foreign languages having to be translated for just a few students. Certainly we want to provide for deaf, blind, or other impairments; sign language is not the problem. We don't need to be competing on the world market against those people who took our education and ran back home with it. Just a thought...

So this is a blog, huh? I usually don't post or read blogs, there are too many other demands on my time. If I'm looking for some information, I might read a blog to find information, but often I'm too busy to be conversant on one. Now to poke around and see what the different buttons on this page do.