Thing 45. Cloud Computing

Cloud computing, that is, no application or storage on your box or laptop, seems to be the way to store info. Once a few bugs are ironed out, that is. At this point, I've only used the cloud via some of the more common applications mentioned on this Thing: Google docs, Zoho, etc. Access and retrieval have worked fine, though at times a bit more sluggishly than if I had the application stored on my own hard drive. (Oh, I did have had some formatting problems with the various PP copies.) Another plus is having the ability to easily access documents, work with 'em and share with other folks.

At this point, access to a person's stuff is what may be the big problem with the cloud. Consider what's been happening in Iran and China. If you've got all your information sitting on servers rather than on your own box or laptap, big brother surely has pretty easy access to it, no matter how well firewalled or otherwise protected. Govs have ways of getting around that kind of stuff and there's always lots of Dick Cheney types who love to stick their noses into other people's biz. And of course, it's not only governments. Using the cloud means whoever's doing the hosting also has access. And their company's motto may not be as nicey-nice as "don't be evil."

Thing 44. The Economy

This Thing started off with some thrift and money-management sites that I found conceptually problematic: for the most part, they offered money management tools that I'm reluctant to use. I'm just not comfortable letting such sites have access to account numbers, the accounts themselves, credit-card transaction records and the like. I mean, most folks in the know about internet security scoff at the mere plausibility of online safety; for the most part, they think that the sheer number of numbers (social security, checking account, and so forth) out there is the only safety factor to be guaranteed--too many numbers, too few blackhats...yet.

That said, some of the sites this Thing linked to seem worthwhile:
GasBuddy.
A site that lets you find the best gas prices in the area. Cool--if you're ready to accept the irony of using up gas while driving to get it cheaper.
Craigslist.
What can you say: buy anything, anywhere. It's what killed the newspaper.
Freecycle
This site is a great idea. It allows you to recycle your stuff and find other things that folks have made available. I checked my local group and was pleased to see so much activity.
MadCity Chickens
I just like this site 'cause our neigbors used to have a couple chickens, and I miss seeing them strutting around in the yard, cockle doodlin'.

Thing 43. Online TV and video

Hulu's a great way to spend some time; there's tons of content like old tv shows and movies. Not all are complete shows, but there's enough of 'em there to spend DAYS watching. Of course, Hulu's not the only site offering such stuff. It seems like there's more of them every minute. Joost is from the Skype folks, and it's a lot easier to use now that you don't have to download a player. The site has lots of movie, tv and music, too. Then there's YouTube (improving their player, so complete episodes can be viewed) and other sites such as LikeTelevision and Veoh, which offer similiar content and are pretty cool, as well.

The network and cable channels are also offering more and more stuff. In the case of the networks, it's free, but the cable network sites often bait you with a few episodes of a new show, then turn it over to pay-per-view only. Jerks!--what are they trying to do, make a buck or something?

Online TV is the future. With increasing bandwith availability and better players like Flash 9, as well as increasing use of devices like Slingbox to enable internet access on your living-room flatscreen, online will eventually take over from cable and broadcast. DVDs, too. Look at how Netflix and Blockbuster are doing the streaming thing now. In fact, I predict the DVD store will be a thing of the past eventually, just like the video store. To rephrase the title of MTV's very-first video: The internet killed the DVD star.

Thing 42. Music 2.0

I've been using Pandora for quite a while, both on the home box and laptop and on Touch, too. There's a free ap. from iTunes called Slacker that's pretty cool, too. It's just a bit more youth oriented than Pandora, with more stations offering electronic stuff and hiphop.

I like the search engines that link you to radio stations around the world. It's kind of like when you were a kid (this will date me) and you've got your transister radio under the pillow. It was way-cool to be able to pull in baseball games from faraway towns like St. Louis or Cincinatti on hot summer nights when the ionsphere was weird and allowed cosmic radio shenanigans to happen. Once on vacation in Brainerd, I even got an Orlando station on an old black and white TV! Anyway, it's very cool to be able to access radio stations from just about anywhere. The only trouble is most of the stations don't stream very well.

I also use LastFM, which is a great site. It's fantastic to find both music and vids at the same place. Here's a widget with my profile (very limited at this time):

Thing 41. Mashup your life. FriendFeed

I starting working with FriendFeed, but found it kinda problematic. I mean, I like the concept of being able to aggregate all your 2.0 items on one site and allow friends to access it and share their stuff. As the conservatives would say, it's downright socialism! A nifty concept. As long as one isn't too paranoid about all your eggs being in a single basket and available for all to see (depending on your privacy setting).

Now the problem(s). As stated, the coolest thing with FriendFeed is bringing all your 2.0 stuff, in FF called services, under one roof. But, just try to find a way to do it. Like so many new 2.0 sites, the developers place very little information on the front page. Often, you have to register just to get an "about" link. So, you're entering like a new-born babe, all blinking and blind and trusting and who knows how your registration info is going to be used. Hopefully it won't be hooking you up to a Russian mob's botnet or something.

After giving in and registering and posting my pic (easy), I needed to set up my 2.0 stuff on FF. But, lo and behold, I couldn't figure out how to do it. I ended up clicking around the site just about forever, tried Googling for more info, even found YouTube vids that weren't too helpful. Finally, under "settings," I discovered the tiny little RSS icon for services and started adding stuff.

But, get this: to do this, you need to find the right url for your 2.0 items within their respective web pages and FF isn't too friendly about helping you do this, either. After more hand-wringing and a few f-bombs, I managed to get the links for my blogs and Delicious to work, but none of the others. So, my FriendFeed page has the blog links and a bunch of Delicious bookmarks and that's it. And as for the other cool thing about FF, being able to add friends and their stuff, that doesn't work so hot either. I send invites off to folks and they all found the site either too confusing or didn't want to register just to take a look around.

So, while FF is a good concept, I think the developers need to user-friendly it a bit. Make adding the services simpler and add some content to help folks join in, that's all. Good idea, but clutzy execution. So far.

Thing 40. Mashup the Web

I took a look at several Mashups on this Thing. I especially liked LibWorm, an RSS aggregator that allows you to track blogs and podcasts on feed catagories (ex.: Academic Libraries, Art Librarianship) and subjects (ex.: Reader's advisory, Reference) from the library world.

My other focus was on mashups that used Flickr: Visual Headlines provides a cool interface and links to photostreams about current news events. Favorite Surfer, from Big Huge Labs, allows you to browse Flickr user's photostreams. Interestingness is a great-looking site, using Flickr images, but it's got little in the way of navigation and is thus hard to work with.

Below is a mashup from Bubblr.

Thing 39. Digital Storytelling. Part 1

I used Smilebox to create the online scrapbook, adding Flickr Creative Commons images to those from family vacations. The application runs on Flash and is a bit clunky in design: there appears to be no logout button, it's hard to find and re-enter a scrapbook in progress, that kind of stuff. But, once you click around the various layers of the site, you can find what you're looking for. All in all, Smilebox is pretty cool. Turn off the music, though, it's gawdawful!