Archive for March, 2007

The fiveblogs

Published on 21 March 2007 in meme and blogs. 0 Comments

‘Nother meme, this one from Rachel Singer Gordon, which asks librarian bloggers, which five non-library-related-blogs do you read?

When I first saw this on Walt’s blog, I thought, just five? I could list twenty blogs off the top of my head - food blogs, language blogs, lit blogs, and just general people blogs! Still, if I’m going to play I will pick, out of my list of twenty:

  1. Global Voices Online. Thanks to the power of RSS I can occasionally take whirlwind skim tours of what’s going on in the world. And whenever there’s some major event happening somewhere it’s nice to be able to hear from local people rather than just relying on our extremely selective traditional ‘news’ media.
  2. Eating Asia. I think this is my favourite food blog. I get all hungry and nostalgic when Robyn writes about Malaysian food, and love learning about cuisines from other parts of Asia. And the pictures on this blog, by Robyn’s partner David, are just wonderful.
  3. Terra Nova. All about games, game culture, game worlds… What’s not to like?
  4. Languagehat. All about languages. Confession: I wish this was my blog.
  5. Sorrow at Sill’s Bend. Written by Lucy Tartan in Melbourne, all about her life. Recently I enjoyed her commentary on the old newspapers (December 1953 - January 1954) found when she was cleaning out her new house. I also like the occasional appearances of her cat, Basil.

Library-types, what five non-lib blogs do you like? Non-library-types, if you read five library-related blogs, what are they? (Lots of hyphens!)

Mobile phones

Published on 20 March 2007 in mobile phone, information and technology. 6 Comments

Ages ago I blogged about my mobile phone, which has to be The Worst mobile phone in the whole wide world. THE Worst because it has the most pathetic battery life of any mobile I have ever seen. I don’t know if there’s much danger of people buying it now because it’s an old model, but if you ever come across the Sony Ericsson J200i, run away in the opposite direction and don’t look back.

I don’t know about you, but to me, a phone you have to charge every day, after receiving a few text messages, doesn’t really have an adequate battery. It’s worse if you actually use it for a phone call longer than say a minute. If I don’t use it for a couple of days, the battery still goes flat. The battery has been like this for its entire life, so it’s not that it has deteriorated over time. And it ain’t the features, either - this phone doesn’t have a camera or a radio!

The annoying part is that when I got this phone, I did my research and took a look at a range of phones available at the time. The J200i didn’t rate all that badly. What I now find amusing (in a jaw-clenching sort of way) is the fact that “official” reviewers’ claims that the phone has a decent battery life is still prominent, while users’ comments make the opposite claim. See Cnet Asia’s review, for instance.

What I’m wondering is, if purportedly authoritative reviewers don’t test a phone enough to know what sort of battery life it has, how useful or accurate are their reviews? I’m just glad I can see users’ comments - but it’s frustrating when you already have the product and it’s way too late to take it back to the shop. We did go back to the shop about a week after getting the phone but getting a new battery would have cost about as much as the phone itself, and in any case I don’t think it would have made much difference.

When it comes to buying mobile phones I have yet to find a shop assistant who can give any good information about phones. All they seem to want to sell you are phones with flashy features, and if you ask about battery life, they look at you as if you are a fuddy duddy. What do you mean you don’t care if you can play 5-minute-long ring tones? Look at this super-uber-mega-wonderful hot pink case which you can personalise with all the dangly cutesy doo-dads you could ever want! And why don’t you want a phone that will display animated wallpapers that coo at you when you look at it*? …Battery life? Huh??

What should I do? What do you do when you buy a new phone? Where do you get your information?

* Okay, I am exaggerating a bit, but it is frustrating to talk to sales people who only have one sales pitch. We are not all 16 year old teenaged girls who need a fashion accessory you know!

More thoughts on Twitter

Published on 19 March 2007 in Twitter and connecting. 2 Comments

I just took the Twitter party badge thing off this page. Not because I don’t like it, but because it seems to have been slowing things down a bit lately.

I haven’t been using Twitter much these past few days, but that’s mainly because the Instant Messaging side of it seems to be down a lot and I don’t want to blow out my mobile phone bill too much. I suppose I could use the web interface, but too much web can be distracting, especially at work. CW sees link. Oo shiny link… must click…

I’ve been keeping my Twitter notifications switched to my mobile phone and it’s been very amusing to have my normally inactive mobile constantly beeping or vibrating. People seem to be using it to carry out conversations with each other (which can be interesting when you only get one side of the conversation, because you are only following one person and not the person they are talking to), and twittering things that might also go into a blog, like interesting links.

I’ve been enjoying hearing from people occasionally during the day, via Twitter. Using my mobile phone means I feel a lot more connected, especially when I am away from my desk. A few commentators and observers are predicting that the next big thing, development, evolution, of The Web will be mobile. danah boyd reckons that “geographic-dependent context will be the next key shift. GPS, mesh networks, articulated presence, etc. People want to go mobile and they want to use technology to help them engage in the mobile world.” (She also talks about the barriers to this mobile revolution, namely, the carriers/providers.) Have you ever been out and about and wished you could just look something up, take and upload a photo now, chat with so-and-so halfway around the world and get them to send you a link to their experience…?

The 2007 Horizon Report (on the impact of emerging technologies on higher education) suggests that mobile phones are “becoming the storehouses of our digital lives, containing a growing share of our personal and professional resources and data.” (see page 15 of the report, which, incidentally, is worth reading for the other predictions. Even if it does make me feel like we are hopelessly behind here in Western Australia.)

Apart from all the conversation, Twittter is generating some interesting apps. This morning I have been amusing myself watching twittervision, which is a neat mashup combining Twitter’s public feeds and the Google maps API. All the activity seems to be happening in the US and Europe - so far nothing’s appeared in Australia. Are there just not enough twitterers down here?

And then there’s Twitterfiction. Intriguing. (Thanks, PigPog!)

*Pic shows my Twitter friends‘ avatars.