Del.icio.us Review

This seems like something that could be quite useful if one needed to keep a lot of bookmarks for research or to keep up with additional feeds from others who share the same interests.  Maybe I do not keep that many URLs, but I have managed to organized the URLs I keep based on folders within my favorites options.  If I have an interest or research on a specific subject, I will either subscribe to their RSS feed or save it for later review.  As with Flickr, I see this as another method of Pinterest.  You can view what people are pinning (or tagging) and if you like their ideas, you can continue to see what they are pinning for ideas on your project.
I did not like that I had to create a user profile to log in, but I can see the need if the system is to bring up things the user call important.  I do not foresee me continually using this Web site, but I will likely keep it around to see if it becomes useful over time.  The Web design looks simple enough to use in the future, so maybe I will use it; I am just not sure if it is needed for my limited uses.

~Christina

Flickr

Bah!  I did not like using Flickr!  First thing's first, it really irritated me that I had to create a Yahoo account to even get started reviewing anything within the program.  I did not have a Yahoo account until this point and I will likely delete my account after the need for Flickr is gone.

That being said, it was easy enough to add photos to Flickr; the download agent simply allows the user to drag and drop their pictures to be uploaded.  It was easy enough to view the pictures I had downloaded, but I had to do some investigating to see how to tag them and to find how to review the other images with the same tags.  I did not see this as being very new user friendly but then, I am not used to this software because I usually do not have a need for it.  When I did find out how to search for the tags noted in my photos, it came out with thousands of images.  All three of my images were tagged with Web 2.0; in addition, one was tagged with Collective Intelligence, and one was also tagged with user control.  If this was something more concentrated, I imagine I could be lost looking at photos all day - as I have done numerous times within the world of Pinterest - but with such a broad spectrum and anything tagged with anything, I feel I could have just Googled the tag words and received a better, focused, group of images.

~Christina

OpenOffice vs. Closed Microsoft Office

Color me happy when I found this program called OpenOffice!  This Open Source program allows the normal home user to do just about everything needed for the, otherwise very expensive, Microsoft Office suite.  I do not believe I could substitute OpenOffice for my work documents, presentations, and/or spreadsheets, but in the home, this would be more than acceptable.  The components of OpenOffice allow for normal number manipulation, document processing, and the normal options for presentations.  I prefer the Microsoft Office versions, but that may be because I have been working on them for years and I am very comfortable with the newer, sleek layout and options available to me through the Microsoft.
~Christina

Google vs. Firefox

The Open Source battle rages on.  I currently use Google Chrome for the majority of my browsing needs, but at times, I am required to go back and user Internet Explorer or Firefox.  I was not aware that Firefox was an Open Source browser; I knew that I didn't have to pay for it, but not that it was an actual Open Source player.  Honestly, I do not see a lot of differences between the way my Google Chrome browser and my Firefox browser are set up, but one thing I like best about Chrome is the option to use the address bar as a search bar.  Other than that, they are very similar in nature and I don't tend to notice much difference.
~Christina

Gimpshop

My deep dive into Open Source content has commenced!  I have decided to dip my toes in the water with Gimpshop, the Open Source picture editor - akin to Photoshop.  I found that many of the tools I use with Photoshop are found in the Gimpshop, such as burn, dodge, smudge,shading, cutting, image re-positioning, fill, magnetic tools, etc.  It was a little difficult to navigate for me at first, but I am pretty comfortable with the Photoshop program, so anything new is a bit confusing.  I think the beginning user to the experienced editor could find use of this software because there are many options for photo manipulation, and it is free!  If I were to spend the time to really get to know this software, I believe I could use it for just about everything I do in Photoshop.  I found a great blog that explains the few differences between these two programs, but the main differences are that Gimpshop is free (both in cost and as an Open Source program), the user community provides a lot of helpful feedback, it works on all OS platforms the same, and it does not have all of the bells and whistles that Photoshop has because of the revenue it makes.  Here is the picture part of our family Christmas card this year; one I just did real quick on Gimpshop (the zoomed out one) and one is from Photoshop (the zoomed in one).  

~Christina

Periodic Table of the Internet Image

This image is pretty cool because it has many of the Web 2.0 sites meshed into a periodic table.

What is Web 2.0? What is Social Media? What comes next?

This is a very informative video of the how technology has somewhat evolved from Web 1.0 (one way communication), to Web 2.0 (two way communication), to social media (user to user communication), to the new direction of augmented reality (bridging the gap from the online world to the offline world).

Read/Write Web Summary

The ReadWrite Web blog is filled with many different types of blog links, ranging from government spying irritations, to phone cases, to the new direction of ridesharing as a business opportunity instead of calling a taxi, and even information on how to use technology to help stay fit during the holiday season.  It seems the main focus on this blog is tech - any kind of technology will do.  This is a great blog for people with varying tastes because it gets the real tech savvy, to the political reader, and even the novice that just wants some cool information to update their tech knowledge base.

ReadWrite Web: http://readwrite.com/2013/12/09/stay-fit-holiday-parties-exercise#awesm=~opzsJXZyXdGNXj

TechCrunch Summary

This blog is very interesting and is kept up to date with very meaningful technical information.  It seems to be updated by more than just one person; at the time of this summary there were around 10 people posting on this blog.

The most current blog topic when I logged on was that Microsoft may bring back the Start Menu on the next version of Windows.  I really hope this happens because we have one computer with Windows 8 and the other with Windows 7.  Going back and forth between versions really confuses me and the biggest gripe I have is that the Start Menu is not there on Windows 8.

TechCrunch: http://techcrunch.com/