iGoogle

I was not sure what I was letting myself in for with this exercise.
One of the advantages of the iGoogle page is that you can customize and change it to have all your Google tools and gadgets in the one place. A bit like a one stop shop.

I found it quite easy to add new stuff once you got the hang of it. There was so much to choose from. I liked the minimize feature so that the important stuff to you (like the map search, the Weather, latest news etc) was prominent on the page with the tools like google docs, editgrid spreadsheets in the minimized size.

I also had fun experimenting with changing the artist theme and select theme tabs. You could never get bored with your iGoogle page with so much choice for colours, moods and tastes.

Working at Google
It’s so different from a traditional workplace most of us know. In the careers part of the Saturday Age, they have a regular feature about perks of the job which I find interesting. Google surpasses all of these.
This philosophy is used to attract and retain the best people so that all their energies are channeled into developing and improving new and innovative tools. It certainly has worked with the success of Google. Our exercises these past two weeks has given us an opportunity to explore some of these.
It will be interesting to see what happens with the retirement of Bill Gates at Microsoft and how these two rivals develop.

Google tools

Wow! I was not aware of the variety and range of tools that are available and still growing. It’s no wonder it is referred to as the new Microsoft.

Google docs
It was easy to create a new document or upload a document from one of your files. There were sufficient editing and formatting tools. It would be great for collaborative group work especially for academics and business.

Google maps. Working through the exercises was a great way to see the range of information available.
I was very impressed with the directions between A and B. Great for letting people know how to get to places and no more reasons to get lost.
I checked out a few favourite country gems to use the satellite and terrain function and was impressed with the detail and quality of the maps.

Google booksearch
I added this as another favourite to use to find books. Tested this out with a book I recently purchased. I was surprised to find additional information in this instance, a summary of the report that you could download.
I liked the additional links on the page where you could purchase; borrow the book as well as the reviews and contents pages.

My space and Facebook

These two social networking sites were interesting to look at and provide an insight into this growing phenomenon. They have a very different purpose to those websites I access at work. This made me a little uncomfortable using these at work.

These sites are so different to how we as a generation generally communicate and use the internet.

The younger generations having gown up with constantly evolving new technology have adapted and used technology to communicate, interact, share and participate in a multi media environment in a world eliminating borders and distances.

Organisations and Libraries have to join out into this community to capture and invite the participation of this generation. The use of their tools of communication can be used to promote library services to this group. I see it a valuable resources for public and academic libraries.

Facebook
This exercise provided an opportunity to see what this is. However at this stage I don’t see any need to put myself out there. I’ll put this down to fear of the unknown, lack of knowledge, experience and exposure to this social space.

I liked Ning. I guess it was more within my comfort zone and something I could easily relate to. I guess that is how the younger generations relate to Myspace and Facebook.

RSS feeds and feedreaders

I have been aware of RSS for some time but had never used it…probably because it meant venturing out of my comfort zone. This program provided the perfect opportunity.
I think rss would be a useful tool for current awareness services.
Looking around the web there are plenty of sites offering rss feeds.

To test this out I added a few feeds that would be of interest to me.
Currently I receive a service of table of contents for select journals via a weekly email
You can read your feeds when you want instead of waiting for the email and you don’t have to be in the Office to check your feeds.

I chose google reader in preference to Bloglines as I had already set up an account with google setting up the blog (blogspot). Not another account and password to remember.