Thing 13: Reflection

Did this turn out to be what you expected when you started? 
This turned out to be better than what I'd expected it to be. Although I've had prior experience using web 2.0 and online tools. This blog made me revisit some things that I had forgotten about. It is always good to go back and refresh on the tools that are useful.

Were you already familiar with any of these "things"? For example, did you already have a Twitter account? Or were they mostly new?

I already answered part of this in the previous question, however, there were certain things that I hadn't used before. For me the mashup, word cloud and visual thesaurus were completely new tools. I greatly enjoyed using both and  I believe I have new tools that I will be able to incorporate at some point in the future work.

Did your Wordle of your blog give you any insights?

The Wordle of my blog did bring in some words that summoned what my blog was about: "professional, internet, people, creative, hobby" were few that stood out besides the words that we use everyday. Apart of these visual summary of my blog, the wordle didn't provide too much. I guess this is the limitation of this tool, however, it did help me provide a great summary of this blog: For people who are looking for things related to professional and/or personal use of the internet.

Which was your favorite post?

My two favorite posts have been the mashup and the delicious ones. I really enjoyed putting together all the facts about Bob Dylan and the mashup was pretty interesting. For delicious, I had to go out in the web and search for things that I would like to refer back to. In that process I came across some really interesting web pages.

Did you discover anything new that could be helpful in your day-to-day activities?

The best discovery through this blog has been Twitter and Delicious. I think these two will always stick with me and be helpful in my day-to-day activities. I knew about Twitter but had never used it before this blog. Now, am getting used to it and find it useful and fun. I haven't used Delicious as much as I'd like to but am sure when required (when working on a paper, etc), I will not forget about this tool. I was very impressed by both of these web tools.

Did you discover anything new that you think you might use in your Life After Coe?

Like I mentioned about am sure I will use both Twitter and Delicious after graduation too. And in overall, maybe I will continue working in the other blog or I may start a new blog that will either be a professional one or something related to my interests.

How did you feel about "self-discovering" as opposed to having specific due dates created by the professor?

I had mixed feelings, in one side I think this is great in that self-discovering allows for us to be completely involved with the projects. Unlike when there are set deadlines the self-discovery process lets us to get into details, which sometimes is not possible because of the deadline. However, on the other hand, when things are left without set deadlines, we tend to forget about it and unless we have set a personal deadline or formed a habit, it's very easy to trail away from the required word.

Overall, I thought this was a really good project. I rediscovered a lot of new tools and this assignment made me realize that running a daily blog or a blog in general requires commitment and is not as easy as it may seem. However, the best of all is that I will always credit this blog for making me use Twitter and Delicious.

Thing 12: Word Cloud

The first word that stands out is "great". The visual representation of my blog was interesting, it gave me some idea about what this blog was about. I seem to use the word "great" a lot meaning I thought the things we had to do for this blogs were very interesting. This seems like a great way to visualize things like speech, books, blogs etc but I can't think of any way in which this may be used professionally. It represents some interesting things about the blog but isn't scientific enough to really be used in a serious manner.

Thing 11: Visual Theasurus

This was pretty cool, I really liked how the results were very elastic in nature. To define the nature of the result better I chose the word "elastic". Some good alternatives were: stretchable, stretchy, springy, bouncy.
I generally use thesaurus when writing professional documents or papers. I never really had a big problem using thesaurus because when applying the new found words, I make sure that I read its usage and I read the sentence with the new word, if it sounds awkward or if am not 100% sure I never use the new word and stick with the simple ones. 

Thing 10: Creative Commons

I think Creative Commons is a great idea. One of the most significant advances in current technology has been through things like collaborative projects over the internet among the people all over the world. A great example of this is Wikipedia. Such things are called crowd-sourcing. The Creative Commons allows internet to be the great resource that it has always been and makes it available for everyone without the legal confusion or hassle. There are many people who wouldn't want all their works to be copyright and wouldn't mind people using their works.
I have done some photography as a hobby and have uploaded them in Flickr. All of the pictures I have used are under CC and recently one of the photos was used in an online article. I didn't mind that at all, in fact I was proud that they chose my picture. Most of my work has been done as a hobby and aren't professional in any sort. The only work that I would like to keep under copyrights would be the ones that I would do professionally.

Thing 9: Google Reader

Reflection:
I was already familiar with Google Reader so it wasn't a new experience for me. It's a great way to stay updated and provides all the updates in one place - this can be great to check up on multiple websites. I only wish that the look/design could somehow be improved so that we didn't have to scroll so much.

Thing 8: Deli-ci-ous Beer

Check my delicious bookmark to read some interesting facts about BEER

Delicious is a great tool. It neatly organizes any webpage that we like or might use in the future and since it's in the web, it can be accessed anywhere. In college work, this is great especially when working on papers and such. When I have to write intensive economics papers, I literally have to search the internet for hours to find the reference papers or data to write my paper. If I lose the links to the website all the hard effort of hours will vanish. So, Delicious can keep those safe and help me with my research papers. 

After college, it can still be used to just save some book I might want to buy, or a good travel coupon that might pop up somewhere or even great electric guitars that might be for sale that I hopefully will be able to afford after I graduate. 

My Delicious Username: pranav.srest

Thing 7: Tweeeter

Currently I'm following: Charlie Sheen, Paul Krugman, The Rolling Stone Mag, Shaq, NFL, NBA, Pearl Jam, etc.

Twitter is a very different experience. When I started using Twitter, I didn't exactly "get it". I think that has been one of the reason why many people from my age group haven't turned to Twitter. It's not as intuitive and Tweeting isn't the same as putting stuff in Facebook, the way it's laid out is very confusing at first and it seems that with the rate people tweet, whatever you put up in the Twitter Universe just gets lost. So there's no incentive for people to tweet if it just gets lost among a million other tweets. Maybe I will get used to it, may be not. I'll give it a try for a month and we'll see what happens.

My Twitter add: www.twitter.com/pranavsrest

Thing 6: Why Comment?

Commenting in a blog is equivalent to buying a ticket and attending an event. It shows participation, encouragement and feedback. Some online communities are built entirely on commenting and participation - take Facebook or any other forum websites as an example. For professional writes and PR people, commenting can help get them great feedback on non-biased third party perception as well as for marketing people, it's also a tool that helps them count the ROI (Return On Investment) in their online advertising/marketing efforts. Currently I am following Garrett, Nick, MJ, Meredith and Katie's blogs.

Thing 5: Mind Map - World War I

This really worked well for me. I really liked the tool, it was very easy to use and was very intuitive. The colors are very rich and it is very good to look at. I am not sure if I'd prefer this or on paper, it really depends on the context and on the timing. However, I would work on this if I was doing all my research on computer, mainly because it is so easy to edit.
Other situations where this can be used is any sort of planning: such as events, travel, fitness plan, art project, etc.

Thing 4: Wikis

Coca-Cola: the biggest brand in the world has an awesome Facebook fan page

1. Advice on Creating a Facebook Page
Static FBML Advice by: Pranav Shrestha
So, setting a basic Facebook Fan page is very easy as you can read from the advices posted below. Once you have setup the page, you can do more to make it better - add a customized sub-page within your Facebook Page. This can be easily done with some basic knowledge of HTML and with the help of an app called Static FBML. Here's a great example of a customized page (note: the developers have used high level HTML and Javascript coding):http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/DietCoke
However, here's how you can setup a basic custom sub-page using Static FBML:
To add the Static FBML App:
1.Click "Edit Page" under the Page's large avatar image
2.If you don't see "Static FBML" then scroll down to "More Applications" and you'll probably see Static FBML listed
3.Click on "Static FBML" to go to the Static FBML application;
4.On the Static FBML application page, click "Add to my Page" in the left column
5.You have successfully added Static FBML to your Page.
To create a page using Static FBML:
1.click on "Edit Page" in the left column right under the logo/avatar
2.Under "Applications" scroll until you see the "FBML - FBML"
3.Enter in the "Box Title" field the name you want your tab to have
4.Enter the HTML/CSS codes in the box.
5.After you've added in your HTML/FBML — Click "Save Changes"
6.That's it. You have created a customized sub-page that can add a lot more content to your Facebook Page.

2.Advice on Posting:
Social networking is all about creating connection. Businesses and organizations created a social networking page in order to create new levels of connection with their customers. So, the best advice in posting is to only post things that directly communicates with customers and provides them some value. Advertisements are fine as long as it provides customers with something new that they wouldn't have been aware of. Photos and quizzes are also great as long as it provides customers with some form of positive interaction. It all boils down to ensuring that there's a positive connection, so things such as spamming, blunt ads, etc that people have seen a million times fail to create a connection and should be avoided.

3.Great Professional FB Pages:

The Rolling Stones - I am a big Stones fan and their FB page is very well kept. It gives its "fans" some exclusive content, they frequently post stuff online and from time to time honor other musicians also. http://www.facebook.com/DietCoke#!/therollingstones?sk=wall&filter=2

Coca-Cola - It is the biggest brand in the world. So obviously, whatever they do that represents their brand has been polished to perfection. Coca Cola has been around for ages and this is how they are still the biggest and the most recognized brand in the world. See for yourself: http://www.facebook.com/cocacola?sk=app_161193133389

Thing 3: Mashup - Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan



Feedback:
* how did the collage-like aspect of the mashup work help (or not help) your creative capacity?
It did help a lot. Having all the digital resources in one place has always been a hassle (opening multiple webpages and tabs ). This simplified that process, however this still didn't have the best user-friendly control. Moving the items around sometimes got very frustrating to use.

* did you enjoy the visual aspect--moving items around and creating a pleasing collage?
Yes, I did enjoy this. But like mentioned above sometimes moving stuff around wasn't very intuitive.

* what are the advantages to a mashup versus a written story on a topic? disadvantages?
Advantage: the variety of media. Songs/images/videos/live webpage makes it a very good resource.
Disadvantage: even though it really help with the brainstorming process, it can still get very confusing. It doesn't have any order and we can overlook somethings.

* is Datamasher a great tool for writers? Or is it "lying with numbers"? Or "a cool way to get ideas for opinion papers"?
It is a cool way to get ideas, specially when working on papers (am thinking related to Economics being an Econ major) but I am not very certain of their sources. I wouldn't in any case use this as my main research data. There can be a variety of things that can skew the way the data is being presented and Datamasher does very little in explaining how the charts were formed. It's like Wikipedia for me, it can help but we can't rely on it.

Thing 2 : Post a video

I made this mashup video for my digital art class. It consists of around 8 different videos and 3 songs and showcases the story of a drummer struggling with his past and internal conflicts.

Thing 2 : Post a Picture

The one featured in the Pearl Cover. This was taken in Chicago, IL. Although it can't be seen in the picture, it was raining at the time when I took this picture: