Week 9: Youtubing

Since "googling" is such a commonly used term, I think the popularity of Youtube, practically parallel to Google, justifies the use of "youtubing." Anyway I'm a big fan of Youtube, so here are my top favourite Youtube clips:

1. I've been anticipating the release of Twilight (based on Stephanie Meyer's Twilight)which is coming out on the 11th December this year. I'm super excited and couldn't help but youtube every trailer. This one is my favourite so far!


2. This is one of the funniest clips, and one of the most talented ventriloquist i have ever seen. Hope you enjoy this and get some good laughs out of it.




3. I've just started watching a great British comedy series called Black Books but unfortunately I can't add the clip into my blog. But if you click on Black Books it will take you to the clip.

4. Here's a funny one I found about Librarians and the funny side of miscommunication, or rather, misunderstanding.



5. I recently saw Carl Barron live at the Atheneum Theatre and he was hilarious! Here's a small snippet from his DVD

Learning 2.0 Week8

After searching for the "New page" button for a good minute, expecting it to be next to the "Save" button, I've finally found it just below the Zoho Writer.

This zoho writer does seem to be very easy to use (once you've found the new document button ).

This is fun to play around with and also very handy. I've always got to rely on my usb to save my assignments onto, but I tend to forget my usb at home or forget it somewhere (i've only lost my new usb once so far!), so being able to use a sort of online word processor would make it easier to access and much less susceptible to being lost. So I think I'll be using this program a fair bit for uni. I'm espcially enjoying the emoticons . But there is one annoying thing about this program, which is you can't copy and paste sentences from other internet websites or word documents. You can't even do it from within the document. I hope I'm wrong, or that they intend to improve this, because i'm always rearranging things.

Anyway, i've just added ina few photos here that my friend took at Edendale Community Farm where people grow organic vegetables and fruits, has its own indigenous plant nursery and also a heritage orchard. There are also many animals there.

Hmm, another thing i've just noticed is that having published my document to my blog (as a draft), the photos became a little messed up and didn't fit the the blog, so i've had to alter them a bit. And i still couldn't find the button to allow me to change the font colour :(

And chocolate of the post is Koko Black's Classic Belgian Truffle . It is one of the most richest, overwhelming, chocolaty truffle i have ever tasted! The truffle is so smooth and rich that it just melts in your mouth and the sensation is also pure bliss. The truffle is lightly covered in cocoa powder, a slightly bitter but pleasant surprise to the senses, which makes the truffle even more delectable. Koko Black also has a very wide range of different chocolates, just check out their website - it's enough to make your mouth water.

Week 7: Wiki's the Way

If you couldn't tell from my blog title, I'm a fan of alliteration. Being a student, I'm an avid fan of wikipedia, but I never actually new that there was a whole "wiki" phenomenon going on and that wikipedia is only a small part of it.

It would be pretty good to have a CCLC website. Although I didn't like Princeton Univerisity's wikisite. I think it's best to keep it simple, and stick with the same format of wikipedia. Makes it a lot more easier and less intimidating I think. Anyway, we don't have a catalogue of our stock for the public, so a wiki would be a good way to build one up. People are always asking about our catalogue lists for DVDs. So WE could have lists of books, DVDs, CDs, online databases and magazine subscriptions, locations, etc. Maybe with a review or explanation accompanying each item. Although considering our stock, this could be really time-consuming and I'm not sure how effective it would be. But i think it would be fun, and very useful.

Anyway, since writing about a favourite book is too hard, since there are far too many good books out there for me to chose merely one favourite, I've just decided to write a post about my favourite restaurant (a chocolate restaurant) Max Brenner, on the PLCMCLearning Wiki Site. It's right near the bottom. The picture above is of one of my favourite desserts at Max Brenner - you have to try it, if you haven't already. It's absolute bliss!

Back Again! Week 6

Back again! Uni and exams are finally over for the year, and on my To-do list is completing Learning 2.0 and so here i am!
I've had a browse through Delicious - except having browsed through so many websites - i've lost track of which passwords i've used for which websites (this is where a little notebook would have come in handy) and it's pretty good idea for bookmarking - a bit like Bloglines except that you don't need an RSS to keep track of the website. Technorati is pretty good but only keeps track of blogs - so overall one could just use Delicious (which also allows you to categorise your tags). Although i think i prefer to use Bloglines for the simple fact that is so easy and simple to use (i had to read a bit to understand what on earth Delicious was about and how to use it - and i still haven't quite got the hang of it yet) and also keeps a record of what's new.

As for chocolate of the post - it's got to be Green&Black's Organic Milk Chocolate. It contains about 34 per cent cocoa, so it's slightly richer than your average milk chocolate but not rich enough in cocoa to be considered dark. If you're a fan of dark chocolate though you won't be disappointed with Green&Black's Milk Chocolate. This brand also has a very smooth texture to it, and just melts in your mouth....

Playing with Generators

Well this is a tough one, there I was in my previous post going on about how great bloglines is (which i still strongly believe!) but then i began to play around with the generators - both totally awesome and great fun!

Anyway, since i'm studying journalism i figured i'd use a generator to make an article clipping (which looks quite authentic). I've written a small article about a Chocolate event that took place up in Emerald last Thursday. Author Suzie Wharton was there to talk about chocolate and also a bit about her book 'A Chocoholic Guide to Melbourne.' I attended the event with a few of my library friends, and we had a wonderful time discovering what good quality chocolate is about (being shiny, melting in your mouth, snapping when you bite it and also flavour). We were also quite full, having test-tasted so many Haigh chocolate samples (which were totally yummy - i strongly recommend the Haigh's dark chocolate!). Anyway, the generator requires that you not use real names so i had to change it a bit.

Also played around a bit with Library Thing, which is pretty cool. Although i think it needs more resources when trying to list all the books you've read because despite using Amazon there were some books that i've read which weren't listed. That was a tad disappointing. But aside from that, the sites pretty good. Great for people who read way too many books to keep a track of!

The beauty of Bloglines!

What an awesome idea! A website that tracks all the latest updates on your favourite websites and provides the updates all on the one site. Genius!

I have just signed up with Bloglines which does just that and I am loving it! I've also discovered what on earth RSS feeds are (basically special buttons which allow you to track updates on a website - a bit like an informal subscription to the website). So now, instead of travelling to each of the individual sites, I can keep track on everything that's going on! I think this has been my favourite exercise yet. I can't get over it!

Below is the link to my Bloglines site. Some of the sites that I now receive feeds from include The Age, Al-Jazeera, Unshelved (where the comic strip is from), Quicksand (totally awesome and worth checking out if you're reading this!), BBC News, New Scientist and Librarians' Internet Index, just to name a few.

http://www.bloglines.com/public/Chocoholic

Also I've decided that since my blog url is chocolate and books I should make some reference to them in each post.

Today's chocolate indulgence is Darrell Lea's White Rocky Road Chocolate. I'm not one for white chocolate, but my mother is and she bought a bar of it yesterday and it was so nice! It has a crisp coconut base, marshmellows, peanuts and lots of white chocolate! Yummy!

Flicker without the E!

Alright, so i've fallen pretty far behind now. And exams are over, so I have nothing to hide behind now, and subsequently I'm going to try my best to finish Learning 2.0 as best I can. Not because I merely would like to finish it in time, but because I have a commitment to make to Quicksand and myself.

I'm up to Week 3 now. I've just become a member of Flickr (which I only realised, while typing it into my blog title, has no 'e'). I've also just uploaded some photos of Lebanon following my recent trip there early this year. The photo I have here is of the Temple of Bacchus in Baalbek, Lebanon. Many people think of the war when they think of the country Lebanon. But there's so much more to it, so much beauty. Lebanon still has many ancient roman ruins left, but the Temple of Buccus is my favourite. Hmm, I'm having trouble trying to upload my photo from Flickr to my blog! Well I will readily admit that technology and the internet isn't exactly one of my strengths. Anyhow, instead I've uploaded the photo from my computer, and will add the link to Flickr just below. I might ask someone how to do this (and yes, I already tried using Help - i often find that computer help files aren't really all that helpful).

http://www.flickr.com/photos/28371396@N03/2648721591/

Anyway I'm enjoying going through the little slideshow of my photos on the right-hand side there on Flickr. I searched for Casey-Cardinia, i found a number of wonderful photos! There's even pictures of the Bollywood Dance photos, which a bunch of us from the library attended! Good times!

Well that's it for now.
Peace out,
Rafah