picasso, picasa...

anyone use picasa? or is all the world a flikr??

i've to admit that i've never used flikr to upload my photos. i've received a few invite to view albums but i've never actually been a subscriber. i choose picasa as my web album of choice. with much of the same core features as flikr, it gets the job done.

mostly, i use the site to put up pics for my family members to see. once, when a group of friends and i took a cruise together, we were all able to upload our pics to picasa and share with one another different perspectives of the trip. it was kinda cool to see the attractions and events that i'd missed while i experienced different adventures.

picasa is the web photo sharing environment for web 2.0 power house, google. so naturally, picasa albums have all the latest wiz-bang about it. you can link albums to corresponding greographic locations on a map, play back video, and (obviously) share photos with friends. you can even receive notification when your "favorite" friends make updates or post new photos to their albums. users can search public albums to see what random folks are up to and the staple 2.0 attributes, like tagging, are also features of the picasa albums.

another thing i find to be cool about picasa is that it will find all of the pictures on your computer and organize them for you. further, if you're using iPhoto (the mac photo application), there is a seamless interface between your iPhoto library and your picasa account (much like a lot of google applications). there seems to be quite the love affair between apple and google. do any of my fellow mac users concur?

any who... i thought i'd embed one of my albums here. we're currently renovating our basement. actually, finishing it. we're sharing the job with a few contractors that put up our drywall. from here out, however... it's all sweat equity. i enjoy watching it unfold step by step. what i don't enjoy is the muscle aches and pains after manual labor.

enjoy!

a new type of profiling

say what?

inauguration day, CNN, & Facebook

amidst all of the hoopla of this past tuesday's events, there was much to discuss, watch, see, take pics of, and just marvel in. unfortunately for me, however, i was stuck at my desk watching the inauguration festivities streaming over the web courtesy of hulu.com. surprisingly, the stream was awesome. it was like watching tv! long gone are the days of internet via phone lines. remember when you could here the dialing and connecting? or even worse... the waiting. these days, technology, and the web in particular, is so responsive and provides so much to its audience. for a split second, i was lamenting about how i was going to miss the inauguration and that i'd have to set my dvr. what was i thinking?!??! with google being one of my best inanimate friends, my momentary lapse in judgement quickly turned resourceful as i "google"d (yes, it's a verb these days) "streaming inauguration." BAM! therein lied my solution. whew! crisis averted.

so, after tuning into hulu for about two hours, i (figuratively) turned to the CNN stream of the festivities. CNN had the coolest sync with facebook! the window was split into two frames: the left being the streaming screen and the right frame of facebook status updates. users were able to view their friends updated status or all facebook user updates... real time! it was awesome to watch as folks updated their status. updates were posted in less than one second intervals. facebook reported its highest usage during the inauguration and status updates surpassed the one million mark. the collaboration made plenty of headlines peaked the interest of a lot of journalists... obviously.

yet another example of the internet platform bringing folks closer to events and other folks. in this particular case, the event just happened to be one of the most memorable, historic events of our lifetime.

toodles.

change of pace...

okay so... even though there are tons of wonderful things to write about here recently, i have to switch gears for a few weeks. i'm taking a special topics course on web 2.0 technology. i don't know much about the topic... hence my enrollment. so, in the weeks to come, (as part of a recurring assignment) i'll be talking about different emerging web technologies as i learn and gain exposure to said technologies. i'll also be asking for your opinion, feedback, and wisdom on the subject matter.

right... so... one of my first assignments is to create an alter in second life. racking (sp?) my brain on a name. stay tuned and i'll keep you posted on what i come up with.

(fast-forward a few days)

i created my avatar. i thought about whether or not i should go total beyonce and create an uber alter ego. but, alas, i decided to forgo anything that is dramatically different and i'll keep her rating in likeness to mine (G-PG). after all, this is for an assignment shared with academic peers. i named her (yes... i elected to remain the same gender) after my sister and the program provides the last names available for selection. so, cheyenne overland was born. i made

if no one has ever experienced the second life environment, you should check it out. it's mind boggling (to me) that folks have developed this environment to this extent! the options available to even create my alter being are endless. not to mention the gestures and all the movements that come along with the personality. it's going to take a while for em to get the moves down. in that arena, i feel as if i'm at a complete handicap. but, if i can get used to texting on the iPhone, i guess i can concur anything. well... so to speak.