The regular podcasts to me was extreamly difficult to embed into the blog that i simply did not do it. I tried to figure it out but it was not happening. As for the podcasts, i do not like them. I am not interested in listening to stories and other topics without video and i find that i get board quickly. I am not a fan of the audio books either. I would much rather read a book or watch a podcast than listen to one. However the two of them are good for on the go. Listening to them in the car or during a run could be interesting and many people do it. However, for me i will stick to the music!

As for the video podcasts. I had a great deal of difficulty embedding them into my blog so i simply tagged the URL into the blog and the user can watch through the link. I listened to a few triathlon video casts on the ITU website. These gave me some tips for when i do my triathlon races. I will be using these in the future. As for you tube, the video bar is on the side of the blog screen. There are multiple videos with Triathlon races which i love to watch. They inspire me to want to train and race harder. I think that you tube is so successful because it has so many videos submitted by users that have an almost unlimited amount of topics. From how to cook anything to videos of weird and funny moments, you tube has it. It is a huge internet device and i think it will be the same for a while but will perhaps get better quality wise. I also watched a few trailers coming out into theaters soon. I watched them in the 720p quality on my laptop and it is amazing. I do think that it may help with advertising the movies to have them in high definition however i do not think that it is the main reason. I think that the high definition videos are better at marketing high definition movies and DVD players to tell you the truth! I am not truly sure though.

http://www.triathletemag.com/Assets/Podcasts/TriathleteMagPodcast_March17_2008.mp3

This internet activity has once again introduced me to some more parts of the internet once unknown to me. Along with it comes some new "lingo". Tagging and Mash ups. These new concepts have showed me how people search and mix by having a key word for retrieval (Tagging) and other ideas for mash ups. Flickr is a website for pictures and it is quite interesting. Some of the most interesting photos i have seen were on Flickr. There are also different ways which one can search for particular photos. My personal favorite is the "color fields experimental pictr" mash up where a colour pallet is displayed and you can click anywhere on the pallet and a variety of pictures with that primary colour is shown. Links to the pictures are accessible once you click on the thumbnail. I am not a fan of the Flickr vision mashup. You enter the site and it takes you through a slideshow of pictures with the location on the google map in the background. There is really no choosing the country or city you would like to see. It is all done automatically and randomly. Spell with flickr is also interesting where you bring up the webpage and type in any word or list of letters. You then press enter and each letter is represented with a letter from a picture. I typed in my name and it was interesting to see where the pictures were actually from. You can do this by clicking on the actual pictures.

Google maps and google earth have examples of mashups within their programs. For instance, the popular google earth program has pictures from the sight Panarimo which are tagged by a user geographically on the globe. It is easily explained like so: One may take a picture of the CN tower in toronto, then upload it to panarimo and select on the google earth map where the picture should be tagged to (ie: the bast of the CN tower or where the photograph was taken) Real time traffic and weather are also embedded into some maps!

Thanks to this class, i am now the worlds biggest procrastinator! The web Generators are tones of fun. There are many different online generators which you can use to create so many different things. My personal favorite is the Airline Ticket Generator where you can create an airline ticket for many airlines with your name on it and in first class. I have e-mailed an image to some people who think it is real! There are others which you can see on the side panel. A bar of soap with a message on it and a fake magazine cover. There are many others available. This is a neat application for having fun when board or simply playing around and creating projects online. Best of all, no software is required. Just the Internet!

Internet Activity #2

Once again this class is introducing me to many aspects of Google i never knew about. First of all, the only thing i thought google was useful for was searching. I also knew that you could have an e-mail address (g-mail). Now i know there are many interesting applications such as blogger and reader and docs etc. to use for free! i just thought i would throw that in there as i am sure some other classmates agree. The new google application for this assignment is google reader. Do i ever like it! Google reader lets you browse your favorite web sites through subscriptions to feeds from web pages and enables you to easily see which pages have been updated and with what content. There are three main ways to add feeds to your reader. Firstly, you can add a feed by searching for feeds using key words in the "add subscription" tap. For example, i typed in "CNN" into the add subscription tab, then saw many possible feeds i could choose from to subscribe too. Next to that tab is a button called "Discover". Click that and the first thing to load is a group of feeds under the recommendations tab. Based on previous searches or your very first search, the reader gives you recommendations for popular sites with the number of suscribers next to it showing the feeds popularity. Finally, there is a packages tab which gives you the option of subscribing to a bundle of feeds under one topic. There is a sports package, a news package, a fun package and much more created by google reader. This enables you to see many popular and interesting feeds in one interest area. I have been using google reader for only a few days now and i find that it is much more efficient at seeing what is new on my favorite web pages. I no longer have to type the entire web address and let it load and then browse and suck back my already limited spare time. Now i only have to click on each subscription to see the changes and updates on the site. If i am interested in knowing more on the subject, i simply click on the article and it sends me to the website! In all it saves time. You can also add interesting articles or events through sharing and attach them to your blog. On this blog on the top right side is a list of shared articles which interested me and i am allowing other people who visit this blog to read them. I think that google reader is much better than searching individual sites. It is perfect for first thing in the morning searches or quick updates on your favorite topics. However, if you simply wish to visit one site and browse, it is better to just type in the URL. This technology i will defiantly use everyday, especially when time compressed! I think it would be more useful when more people and friends start using it so that it is easier to keep up with their interests and find more interesting things that you can add.

Internet Activity # 1

My first blog post.

This is my first blog post and also an internet activity. I have heard of blogs before but did not really understand what exactly a blog is and how it works. What i do know now is it is an interesting way of posting anything (pictures, comments, updates, information). This older but newly popular idea is booming across the world. It seems that their is a blog on almost every topic you could imagine. It lets u see what other people think and do. One blog i have checked out before is on an inspiring Athlete names Simon Whitfield. His blog, which he updates quite frequently, tells people what he has been up too, shows recent pictures, you tube videos of him and ones he likes, as well as other information. Other blogs i visited were on other topics i find interesting such as global warming and traveling.
I think that blogging is almost like an alternative to checking in on people. its a sort of diary on the internet. Letting people know your opinions or facts, or even just letting people what u are up too. I found that it is sort of a neat idea in a way. People can look me up and find my blog and see what i am up too, my thoughts, achievements and goals, and any other content which i like can I've attached to the blog site for people to link too. Blogger is a neat site and the different applications will keep being added on.

Simon Whitfield, http://simonwhitfield.blogspot.com/, is a very inspiring and talented athlete. His blog gives me inspiration and i can see what he is up too training wise and his personal life. I Visited http://globalwarmingfacts.blogspot.com/ where i found out about current facts and events in the weather that is potentially caused by global warming. I also visited http://www.lonelyplanet.com/blogs/travel_blog/ where i can look at different places in the world and interesting travel information about certain countries.
Twitter is very new to me and i only herd of it as of the beginning of this assignment. Im not sure what will come of twitter but it is an interesting tool. You simply sign up, add other people you know, and they can instantly know what u are doing based on the question "what are you doing right now" format of the site. It can be attracted to your cellphone and other can be updated or you can update your site on the go. It is really interesting and fast. That is the difference between the two. However, Blogging is better in my opinion for simple interesting facts and seeing what people are up too. Cell Phones and Instant messenger can be used as they are today and i think they will to get informed and let people know what you are up too.


PS. I could not apply the QUIZ application as i did not have the choice too, so i set up a poll instead and set up to expire in April. I hope that is alright.