Thing #5: Flickr

This assignment had me going to delve into the world of Flickr. I must admit that I'm still a hold over from the days of Photobucket; although, I think I may just make the migration sooner than later. (After all, change happens; why fight it?)

So, I'm putting together a presentation I plan on making later this summer on user evaluation, and am in need of boxing images. It actually took me a little while to find a picture I really like, but I think once I start playing with Flickr more I would get better results from my searches.



First, I tried searching the term "boxing." When I did, the images brought back to me looked like this.

O.K., try again with "boxing gloves." First couple of pages were mainly pictures like this one.

I re-thought... what I really want is a picture of a "boxer," so I found pages and pages of this little guy.

Finally, I thought that "boxing ring" would be specific enough to get some images of boxers without bringing up anthropomorphic UPS boxes, cars, underpants, or dogs. While there were some images like this one, I also found a picture I rather liked. It is by claudiogennari and is titled "My son David into the ring for a boxing."

I need to figure out how Flickr's search engine works better for me to have faster and better searches.

Thing #3: Blogs!

This activity was setting up this blog and the avatar. It was a little stressful for me. But then again, any time I set something up on the internet I tend to stress about it more than not. I fret over every detail of what to call the blog to what kind of cat would be in my avatar (mainly because they did not have a cat that looked like mine.)

However, the tools themselves were pretty straight forward. When I think of it, I find blogs to be generally good for people as a whole. I love finding new and different kinds of blogs out there; things that pre-internet, I feel would never get beyond a small group of like-minded people. I think you should start a blog, too! You never know what will strike a cord with the masses or what will just be really enjoyed by a few.

The only problem I had that was not of my own doing was exporting my avatar to my blog. The code that Yahoo! was generating was incorrect so the picture was broken. However, after playing around awhile, I figured out what the long string of letters that identified my special avatar were, and just edited the script so my lovely avatar would show up. BTW, I don't really look like my avatar, in real life, I'm much more three dimensional.

Hmmmm... the prompt says I'm to write about looking at other people's blogs. I have looked at other people's blogs before, many in fact. I'm not sure if I'm to write about others who are doing 23 Things or just in general. I've done both so I think I'm covered.

I took a long look at Cynthia's blog where she covered her 23 Journey. She's already done, so it's a great place to look and see that there is a way to finish all of these in time!

Another blog I follow regularly (and comment) is my friend Kimberly's blog where she talk about cooking and food. She's an amazing cook & baker, and we are kind of in competion. However, what she doesn't realize is she has already won.

Thing #2: Life Long Learning

I didn't skip #1 if that is what you were thinking. No, you just don't have to post anything for Thing #1.

For this activity, I watched a presentation about life-long learning, and habits of life-long learners.

The easiest habit for me to implement in my own path is teaching or mentoring others. I love to talk with people, answer their questions, and assist them with their tasks. This is particularly true with food and crafting.

The best part of whenever I'm teaching or just talking about a subject is when someone asks me a question I do not know the answer to. It's such a delight because then we get to look up the answer, and I get to learn more: what a Passion Cake is or how to turn a heel when making socks.

The most difficult habit for me is actually the first one: begin with the end in mind. I tend to think of myself as a lover of learning for the sake of learning. Starting with this mentality, it is hard to know when I'm done learning something.

On my list of things I really enjoy, languages are right up there. I would love to learn to communicate in Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, and speak better German (my minor in college). However, I'm not really sure what the end result would be other than "an ability to do so." This leads to not being diligent in my language study and my skills not really improve.

To combat this tendency, I take classes, order workbooks, and make public commitments in order to have some kind of statement of my goals and accountability to achieve them.

Which takes us back to 23 Things... a structure that provides me with set-in schedule and accountability (I want that certificate!) in order to make continued learning a priority for me.

23 Things @TTU

O.K., so I'm starting this program to learn more about Web 2.0. What can I say? I love finding new gadgets and tools for the computer and general interneting.

I'm a bit behind as it were, but I'm going to try to get as much done in a month as I can.

If you are interested on learning while you play, I feel you should try the activities, too. It's free, and well... interesting!