Searching on Delicious compared to Google

For those not familiar with Delicious, it is a social bookmarking site, which means that many people bookmark websites here so they can access them on any computer instead of only the one they bookmarked it on. In Delicious it is important to tag or label the sites to help others find them and other sites that might be relevant.


Google search for Web 2.0



I searched for Web 2.0 on both Google and Delicious. On Google I got about 1,600,000,000 results. On Delicious I got results for 752 stacks and 413,680 results for links. The results for Google seem to be more about what Web 2.0 is, while the result in Delicious link to more sites that are Web 2.0 sites. None of the results on the first page returned from each of these was the same.



Delicious search for Web 2.0



I think both of these searchs produced reliable and useful information depending on what type of information you are looking for. The first results from Google are reliable and useful if you are looking for information. I would assume that with as many results as this search came up with there would be some results that are not so reliable later in the list. The Delicious search would produce more results that someone might actually want to use and explore as opposed to finding out what Web 2.0 is.

For Delicious, I would assume that if more people are saving a link that it would be more current, especially if they are actively using Delicious and deleting old or bad links. For Google, I am sure that some results are out of date, mostly because I have run across out of date sites on other searches.







Creative Commons licensing and Flickr

I don't think Flickr does enough to promote the use of Creative Commons licensing. If someone is not familiar with Creative Commons licensing, it is a way for photographers to indicate under what conditions they would allow reuse of their work. Some of the options are Attribution meaning that others need to give you credit for originating the work, Noncommercial means others can use your work for noncommercial purposes but not to make money, No Derivative Works means that others can use it but only as is, and Share Alike means that if derivative works are created they must have the same licenses that you assigned to your original work.
The reason I don't think Flickr does enough to promote this is because nothing appears about Creative Commons licensing on the individual's home page to let anyone know that this even exists. They do mention that you can let just your family and friends see your photos or can make them public. I had to search the menus across the top of the page and find Creative Commons under explore, so I feel that unless someone is specifically looking for it or just exploring everything, they might not find it.
I think some people allow their photos to be shared because they would like others to see what they created. I think I would allow it to be shared as long as I knew how it is to be used and depending on the subject of the photo.

Displaying an image from Flickr vs uploading to a blog

Here is a photo from my walk in Maumee.

This image of a squirrel in a garden is stored on Flickr. To display this image on my blog I needed to enter the code to embed it. I had to figure out where to find the code for the image. I did that by right clicking and viewing the properties of the photo, then I copied the url and entered it into the Blogger form for displaying a photo from a url. To display other photos, I had to find them on my computer and upload them first. Advantages of embedding my photo from Flickr is that I only have to upload it once and I can link to it from anywhere. Also it is stored at Flickr and can have a creative commons license.The advantage of uploading to my blog is that I am more familiar with uploading various types of data.

How Blockbuster uses rss feeds

One company that uses rss feeds is Blockbuster. To see the listing of all the feeds that they have that you could sign up for, to to http://www.blockbuster.com/rss.  Among their feeds are the top 100, new releases and recent reviews. They also have feeds on what is popular at the theater and listings for the top 25 in any type of genre someone might be interested in viewing. Blockbuster has a blog too, usually listing the top weekly rentals. Check it out at http://blog.blockbuster.com/.

Feed readers and what they can do for you

In case you're reading this to read about walks, if you are familiar with feed readers go ahead and skip this post. If not, please read it anyway. This is something new to me that I learned about through class. If you want to follow a blog or news feed, this is what the orange icons, such as this example and links to subscribe are for. This can be very useful especially if you follow very many blogs. First, you will need to have a reader. The one I have started using is the Google Reader, which is a web based reader so all you need is an internet connection and you can read your blogs from any computer.  To get started go to google's webpage, click on the more link and then go down to reader. Then sign up for an account. Using a reader and subscribing to feeds can save you a lot of time. Instead of going to the website for each blog to read it, you just go to your reader, sign in and all the blog posts that you haven't read are listed in one place.  It is also easy to unsubscribe if you decide this content is not for you, unlike when something is sent to your email and then you may have difficulty getting off a list because the link to do so isn't valid.

The reader program can also keep track for you when you have read a post. One disadvantage of this is that if you scroll through the post without actually reading it, it will be marked as read unless you either specially tell it not to mark it as read or you disable this function and then you will need to mark each item as read after you have read it. Another disadvantage of a feed reader is that you can't see the url of where the information is coming from, so it can be difficult to identify the source if you need to do so. It can also be very addicting to use them and by having the content come to you instead of having to go out and look for it you could become overwhelmed with too many posts to read if signing up for many sites with frequent updates.

A Sunday walk in Maumee, Ohio

The Wolcott House

Last Sunday (Oct 23) I decided to do a local year round walk.  It started at the Maumee Police Station. After picking up my map and directions, I walked past some historic houses and St.Paul's Episcopal Church. The church bells started ringing just as I passed the church and were they ever loud. After passing the Maumee Library the walk went to the Wolcott Museum Complex. Besides the house, there is an old church, log cabin, train and garden at the Museum. Although we have had some cold days lately, there were still plenty of flowers in the garden at the museum and around town.

After walking past  more historic houses, including one that was part of the Underground Railway, I entered a park and walked along the old canal towpath by the Maumee River. While walking along the towpath, I was surprised to see a deer laying in the brush beside the path. It seemed to be used to people and did not get up or run away. I had to take a few pictures of her.

From here the trail continued into Side Cut Metropark. In the park I walked on a trail with stone steps to view several of the canal locks.

After exiting the park, I walked through St. Joseph Cemetery which has some old head stones in it. The remainder of the walk was past many more historic houses back to the Police Station.

Canal Lock

This is a very nice walk by the Maumee Valley Volkssporters, the local club for the Toledo area. If you are interested in doing this walk, look for directions to the start point on the American Volkssport Association's website.

Some favorite walking websites

Since most of the walks I do are volkswalks, one of my favorite websites is the American Volkssport Association site. At this site people can look up walks all over the United States. Walks can be searched for by state, whether they are a regular (traditional) event or a year round or seasonal walk, and by special programs, such as Covered Bridges, Murals, Waterfalls and many others. This can be a good way to find walks that are near you or interesting to you.
Another web site that I like is About.com's walking site. Here you can find everything walking-from walking for weight loss, fitness walking and walking programs to shoes and gear, problems like blisters and heel pain, what to eat and drink and walking marathons.
I also like the Buckeye Trail site. For those who don't know about the Buckeye Trail, it is a trail that loops around the state of Ohio. It is 1444 miles long. This site lists events from short hikes to longer hikes to trail maintenance and work parties.