2/25/08

RSS Aggregators

To people who aren't familiar with RSS Aggregators it is a useful tool in today's technology. In order to understand the meaning of RSS Aggregators you must need know to know the definition of aggregate means first. Aggregate means something formed by the conjunction or collection of particulars into a whole mass or sum. So an Aggregator would be a client software or a web application which aggregates syndicated web content. Today these web 2.0 tools are very important. How are they important? Well say if you needed up dates about something like the news or car dealerships, then you would need to check for new up dates. With RSS you can just subscribe to that website and it will tell you if there is something that is new. Without RSS you would have to go back to that website then go to what you were looking for and look for yourself to see if there is anything new. If a person knows what how to use RSS then they should be able to set up aggregators. There are websites that let you make aggregators so lets have a look at the most used web - based RSS Aggregators.










When subscribing you want to look for an orange icon or an icon that says something about RSS. The icons that are used look like some what like these. If you are unable to find any of these icons then it means that the person of the blog does not know how or they don't want any subscribers.

There are many ways to how you can go and find RSS icons so you could add them to your aggregator and I will show you 3 ways that you can do it. Most RSS are linked with small icons with letters on them. There are a variety of how the icons can look like with the color, size, and sometimes there might only be words of RSS icons. Try to look on the menu page on the left, right, or footer of the page. Most of the blogs you already read may have RSS so you can go to BlogStreet’s RSS Discovery and type in the website.

2/12/08

Picnik.com

Picnik.com is a really good website for adjusting your photos with cool effects and has lot of different type of things you can do. When you use Picnik.com you can change certain things on your photo. You can change the size of your photo, or the color of your picture. You can get rid of red eyes, or make it more eye catching.




With Picnik.com I was impressed with all the free things you were able to do to change your picture. I was able to change the coloring or how much exposure I wanted on it. I was able to cut off what I didn't want and keep what I liked. The thing I liked most was how I was the one controlling what I wanted changed and how much I wanted it to change.




Picnik.com is useful the way it is right now but should try adding more things to it. To improve Picnik.com they should try more special effects without the premium. The other thing they can improve on is the text. There should be more exhilarating and exotic types of text.




Picnik.com gives us free photo editing items unlike other photo editors; who make you pay for what Picnik.com can give you for free. Picnik.com does make you pay somewhere around $24.95 but other photo editors like:






Adobe Photoshop is the most used and most professional photo editor.




To me Picnik.com seems really cool but people like hearing more then one person talking about something so here is another Picnik Review by Jake Dahn.


This is my photo that I changed on Picnik.com. I changed this picture in many different ways that I could think of. I cut off the pieces that I didn't need and changed the shape into a circle. To me I have passion for basketball, so I decided to put in some text to show how I felt and my passion I have for it. With Picnik, it was easy for me to express myself to you readers.

My overall view of Picnik.com would be pretty good. To me I liked how I was in-control the whole time with MY picture but with THEIR product.

1/30/08

Web 1.0 VS Web 2.0

Web 1.0 was how the Internet used to be back then in the days. You were only able to read the information. It was individual and all about advertising. It was all about information instead of people SHARING the information. Web 1.0 was about companies instead of collaborating together. With Web 1.0 in use we were consumers. We were only able to get the information but weren't able to give out the information. Web 1.0 was like monkeys using tools.




Web 2.0 is now the upgraded version of how the Internet works. Now instead of being about companies 2.0 works as communities. Now instead of monkeys using tools its like now the "monkeys show you the finger". Now Web 2.0 is about opinions instead of just information. We can also collaborate with other people in our projects also instead of having the trouble of carrying around a floppy disc and the trouble of it not working. Web 2.0 is writable now instead of just being able to only read it. We get free software also. With web 1.0 you would have to go out and spend a bunch of money on software that we now get for free. We also have free online webware.

















We now get free stuff from 2.0 that allows us to make things and put them up on the web. A couple of these online web wares can be





With these online web wares and Web 2.0 we are able to make our own web pages and publish them online. This was the one thing that makes it greater than Web 1.0.