It's a brave new world...

but am I really interested?

Okay, so assignment this was simple enough, I went to Google Reader and subscribed to NPR's Planet Money podcast, which is something I always think about doing when I hear them mention it on the radio. So far so good, now all I need to do is find the time to all 65 back issues and I'll be 100% up to date. Like that's going to happen. Yes, I know, I know, I don't have to listen to any of the back numbers or I can pick or choose etc. I have iTunes at home, and actually subscribed to a couple of podcasts there, but the problem is that I only sync my iPod if I'm adding new music and that's kind of rare. And even if I have a podcast on my iPod I'm more likely to say "ho hum" and choose a favaorite playlist instead.

It's not that I don't appreciate the potential...is value the right word...maybe utility is better...of podcasts for entertaining and informing people. Webcasting video might even be better. It's just that I don't have any burning desire to bend media to meet my schedule. I'm still happy with the old paradigm. Maybe it's because I don't pay much attention to media on a regular basis. If I turn on the TV (which is pretty rare really) and there is nothing on, I turn it off. Ditto the radio, and mostly I just listen to the evening news and the Pirates games. Now, if you could get me a podcast of the Buccos where they edit out the bad innings (which see: bottom of the 9th on Saturday July 11th) and replace it with soothing music to assuage another horrible loss..well send me a link. But otherwise, podcasts and I will go on ingoring each other. The republic will survive.

Firefox...meh

Well, Firefox is just fine, but I can't say I really feel like it's all that better than IE. I suppose it's because they copy each other. I've been using tabbed browsing in IE for quite a while, and though there are differences, none of them are radical enough for me to care. I downloaded an Ad-on (I guess since they have a different name and aren't from Microsoft they are therefore better than plug-ins) which changes the color of the tabs. It's pretty, but it didn't revolutionize my life. I definitely do not like the fact that when I updated Firefox it set itself as my default browser without asking--that is BAD behavior in my book. I also hate that Ctrl-O opens a file rather than allowing me to open a link. I learned to use computers in the old, dark days of the command line and control keys. I still miss WordPerfect for Dos. I also downloaded an ad-on that brings up a wikipedia article when you go a goole search. It's kind of cool, but the resolution on the google search is fuzzy in the display. So in a short amount of time, I'm not converted. I'll continue to mess with it from time to time. Right now there's nothing I want to do on the net that I can't do with IE.

Minimalist post--time is short.

So a Flickr image and a YouTube Video?

(Thanks to BikePortland.org)

Contact Microsoft Product Support

I'm familiar with NetLibrary and the other online books, so I thought I'd try Overdrive, since I haven't used that much. Browsing and checking things out, no problem. Downloading them? Hah! I keep getting error messages about Microsoft Digital Rights management and etc. I've tried rebooting machines, getting the Windows Media Player security upgrade for the overdrive console, rebooting, redowloading the Overdrive console, but every time I try to do the security upgrade I'm told there's an error and to contact Microsoft Product support. If I try to download anyway, I get a different error message and a suggestion to contact Microsoft Product support.

Probably I could make this work at home. I might give it a try. Though I'm not a big fan of audio books. The video selection is nice.

But this points up one of the problems with this sort of thing. My wife has our new laptop. The other computer I have at home has "gone slow" on me and no amount of messing around with it has fixed that. I could work on this there but I could also just give up. Not everyone has the latest and bestest and fastest, and for the non-techno savvy (I'm techno savvy--but I'm also in tune with those who aren't) this all can be very very frustrating. You can see an audio book or a video you'd like to borrow, but a parade of slow installs and error messages leaves a sour taste in your mouth. I'm glad we have these available for people who want to borrow this type of material, but I can see where it might be much more difficult to provide assistance from the staff perspective.

I will say this...

Participating in 23 things is making me look at some tools I rejected months or even longer ago, and clearly they've improved (or I've gotten better at reading the instructions).

Do posts need titles? It certainly looks better.

Let me also add that captcha is a giant pain in the ### and that I really dislike programs that insist on adding a toolbar to my browser. If you let it all run amok eventually all you'd have is toolbars and sidebars and a tiny 1 x 1 inch window of web content.

Maybe it's just that I haven't gotten into the habit of saving feeds to read later. I just remember the website.