tiddly (wiki)

I confess that before taking my social media class, I was clueless about any wikis other than Wikipedia. I had no idea people had jobs where they're busily collaborating, or lives where they're coordinating camping trips. But a professor is posting his classes in tiddlywiki, so I decided to use it as the platform for my recent project. If you're a little information-geeky and enjoy indexing, structuring information, and links galore, head on over! (No, no, I'm not being sarcastic - really, it was kind of fun.)

There are all kinds of plug-ins, coding, etc. that I completely ignored, but Tiddler Toddler was enough to get me going, and tiddlyspot is kind enough to give free web hosting, so there you go!  There are also other wiki platforms that look more like websites, if you insist on a little more WYSIWYG and visual allure.

The New York Times - oh, dear

My reaction to the Times's much-commented upon new digital subscription plan evidently matches the norm: entry point at $195/year? Better to have started at $5/month. At first I thought "No way" - but my attachment to the paper, which was always in our house as I grew up, are deep, so I'll see what deals they have up their sleeve.  The Times is my homepage, and I agree it's fair to pay something.

My even greater alarm, however, centers on their peculiar interpretation of how people use the web. They make distinctions among articles arrived at through Google - vs. though social media - vs. directly from their site. No one uses the web this way, and in fact it's contrary to what hypertext is all about. If I can't click through freely, why tease myself by going there at all? I care about the future of the Times, and actual news reporting, and hope they can get this right.

The Google cloud

I know I'm awfully late to this, but my previous exposure to "the cloud" was limited to Google documents popping up unexpectedly on our library PCs (students: not sure how to prevent this, but your confidential writings are not necessarily private when done on public PCs. Ditto on the stuff you print out and leave in the copier. Please be more careful. But I digress).

So it's good news that one class requires all work to be available somewhere in the internet ether, meaning that I've now used Google docs, spreadsheets, and sites. It's a relief to finally understand how these work, and create a little website without any anguish:

(sigh) Maybe it's not Facebook...

...maybe it's me. Am I a sociopath, or just a garden-variety, antisocial hermit? Social networking just isn't happening. Sad to say, this isn't a technological issue, but something deeper and darker (sob). You can always learn a new skill, but changing your communication style (or lack thereof) is a different animal. "Keeping in touch" just isn't my default mode.

Best to focus on using networks as a source of information and professional contact, because it's otherwise putting me in the doldrums.