What I learned online today: The challenge

So many cool and different things I have learned online recently, you know how I really prefer facebook over myspace, well I have just found even more reason to love it, I have found 2 very good blogging groups there. Also thanks to one of my blogging/facebook contacts-thanks shaz , I have realized the benefits of the Mashable blog site. It is the#1 blog about the most popular social networking sites. I signed up for it sort of by accident before, and really didn't give it much of a second thought, but they actually have very valuable info for utilizing the social network sites to the fullest, as well as keep you informed of all the new applications, and on top of all that gives some good info for bloggers often as well. Facebook has become such a popular social networking site, that Stanford University has designed a course about it . Gotta love the Ivy league schools, "Oh the things you can think, if only you try." Next item- Blog Rush , oh yes people it does work, I find myself scrolling down to the bottom of my page and checking the post titles, I have found 2 really good blogs through Blog Rush already. One of those blogs you can view here and the other is a Piece of Shirt , no that wasn't a typo. A piece of shirt is a blog about...you guessed it shirts, well t-shirts to be precise. The reason I like the blog is because it has links to really cool t-shirt sites. Two of them in particular are Johnny Cupcakes his story about how he started is another inspirational entrepreneur story, for those who have ideas, but are too fearful to give them a try. After you read his story though, be sure and check out the t-shirts! The other really cool T-shirt store is Threadless Chicago they have a really unique approach in that some of their fans are able to design some of the shirts. It goes like this, you have an idea for a cool t-shirt you submit it to them, and they post the ideas for everyone to vote on, if your design is made into a shirt, you get $2000 dollars + a $500 dollar gift certificate, and membership into the alumni club. In addition if your design is reprinted, you get an additional $500 everytime they reprint. If you are not artistically inclined, you can enter an original slogan and possibly win $200 dollars. Some bloggers who I think have the creative aptitude either though their ramblings, or their artistic display are Bent Objects , Kartoen , and The Ranting Monkey , I would mention Basic Instructions , but they already sell their own line of t-shirts. So if any of you happen to read this there is a challenge for you I would be interested to see what you could come up with. Moving on-I was considering moving my blog to another blog format, but I may change my mind after I check out some of the blog layouts that have been graciously formatted for blogger by Blog and Web . I may try to change the layout soon, and this time I hope I do not lose my links, I will take some different precautions this time so hopefully... Finally my new fav. online tool is Sketchcast.com. It is this really interesting widget that you can embed in your blog posts, or send your visitors to your channel, to view you sketches. You can record your voice into it, if you have a microphone, while you draw. Click here to see what I mean. I tried to embed mine in a post, but it did not work for me.

Aaahhh The Joys of the Internet

One more for the road: The Internet can be a very cool place and yet scary at the same time. You can network and meet new people, play games watch videos and T.V., do research, and even start your own business or expand a current one. But there are also things to be concerned about on the net as well, such as predators, identity thieves etc. But the ones that annoy me are the users (or should I say losers) who post at forums and comment on websites and blogs, in the most negative and offensive way. You know the type I mean; the person who not just leaves their feedback, but incites and lures others into a name-calling match and all out trashing and bashing of someone they've never met. I find it very childish and wonder if these people have nothing else better to do with their time than play these games. It is easy to throw insults and threats around so freely behind a computer screen. But I ask, "What's the Point?" Also of annoyance are the extremely needy people who think they are your instant BFF because you belong to the same online community, or they have visited your website once or twice. I ask, "do you not actually get to know a little about a person before you declare them BFF?" If that is what you do in real life, then online should not be an exception. Chat with them in the chatroom a couple of times, or exchange messages or e-mails, before you call that person your BOF Of course the people who are this anxious for you to buddy them are never the sane people either, who maybe if you met in real life you could see yourself being BFF, nooo these are the slightly loony folks. Over at Thoughts, Reflections and More Ramblings e-mino has an interesting, yet funny and all too familiar topic for one of his posts. I think many people can relate to this.

Myspace-My Journey

This is a post I put in my blog at Myspace. I don't really blog there, but I was reflecting on this and just decided to post it. Title: Thinking_ Current mood: contemplative_ Category: blogging-- People grow up and evolve and if you don't keep up you miss out on everything. If you are fortunate enough to reconnect, then you may be surprised at what you learn, and how much has changed...... I wrote this somewhere else listed under my heroes: Those individuals who have the courage to do what's right, even when everyone is doing wrong. Who is your hero??

My Response To a Question at Yahoo Questions Concerning Facebook

Can someone help me understand facebook? I tried creating an account just for fun but it makes no sense to me. It's not easy to search for other members and view their pages. I just don't get it. I created a myspace account and it was pretty user friendly, so I expected this to be easy as well. I haven't been on since my initial sign up. Any suggestions?------------------------------------------- Facebook is about connecting with people who are within your network, in other words your regional area. If you don't already have friends at Facebook, then you can join a school network, work network, or a geographical network. This does not mean you cannot connect with people outside you network. Facebook has tons of fun groups and with members from different networks around the world. Once you join a group, you can share ideas and meet more buddies through your different groups. In addition they have many downloadable applications that you can add to your profile page such as glitter text, games, youtube etc. much like the things you can add at Myspace, only a little more classier. You can also go to www.widgetbox.com and get different applications to add to your Facebook page as well.~~Wasaski My Journey

Early Morning Ramblings; Too Much Clutter; I Need My Space

I went to Myspace to try to IM one of my buddies there ( the only reason I got the account) and I was soo turned off by the website. I really don't know why I am creeped out by the place, and it seems so cluttered as well. It took me forever just to try and send an IM. I can honestly say I definately prefer Facebook over Myspace. But I will try and keep the account active, because I don't think I can convince my 2 buddies to come to Facebook. My Journey

Too much web helps to keep my spanish up--Introducing Facebook

I know my post titles can be a bit of a conundrum sometimes but that is the way I like it ;).

Not too long ago I joined Facebook because a contact of mine invited me there. I like the place a little too much now I think :S Although I am not like some of those people who live, love, and long for anything MySpace and Facebook related. I like to keep my life exposed to a minimum. I don't invite or accept invitations from everyone in the world to be buddies at these places, I keep my buddy list to a very modest number, and alot of my info is set to private. In fact I never wanted a MySpace account because I did not like the publicity I would see and hear about it. I only recently got an account there because I have too real life buddies who love MySpace and that is one way I keep in touch with them. My MySpace profile is pretty dead through I just joined and that is pretty much it. No fancy pages or anything, and if I can convince them to come to Facebook I will probably disable my account. I don't know what scares me about that site, it just is not my favorite place to interact. I know that there could be plenty of weird people lurking at Facebook as well, but it just does not scare me as much as MySpace and it seems to have just a tad bit more class.

Well anyway I added an application at Facebook that allows me to have a new Spanish phrase a day displayed on my profile. I loved this idea, because when I was in school I majored in Spanish with a minor in Asian studies, I was able to study Chinese reading and writing for a year. That was like a dream to me, I've always loved languages. Every since I was about 9 yrs old, I've pretended that I could speak Spanish. I would walk around the house answering my family's questions or asking them questions in Spamish (that's made up Spanish). I don't know what first attracted me to the Spanish language or Asian languages either. I just took an interest to it. That is why I was so surprised my mother was shocked when I decided to change my major to foreign language during my college career. I've always wanted to know at least 6 languages. But since I've been out of school I have not been keeping up with my studying, and I have forgotten a majority of the language I did learn. That is why I decided to add the Spanish phrase application. Just a fun way to learn a new phrase everyday. I will post it, every time I post here. ......

Other languages I would love to learn: Arabic, Japanese, Russian, Korean, Tagalog and Swahili