Second Life and more

Today I really revolutionised the Second Life Experience for myself. I branched out into the different worlds that are so vast in this virtual world. It is amazing how something like this can make you feel, real feelings. Sounds weird well it is. I thought only the sad, lonely and desparate visited and hung out in these places. Think again it is a wonderful imaginary (although it isnt in your mind) place where you can do everything and I mean everything and communicate with the vastly different cultures and personalities in this world.

You kind of get the feeling that this place real, are my feelings valid when someone makes nice comments to me and or something rude? It is amazing that this sort of communication can have this effect on me, since I dont know the person I am talking to, only through communication and yet I can carry out meaningful conversations and have indepth friendships within this world.

Still not convinced that this is the best way to communicate but boy oh boy I have had a huge learning experience in Second Life, plus I have ridden an Orca, been to the Ballet and visited Art Galleries, Islands that take your breath away and unlimited clothes and shoes on offer for free. The last option is for my benefit, I am a girl and I love to shop be it viritual or not, dont care.

Anyway my take on this experience will be delivered in my last blog but I am learning and learning alot. So I will be back with more on the Second Life.

To fax or not fax..

Facsimile - everybody said it was dead. But it is alive and kicking everywhere. New life has been breathed into the good old facsimile, which has been around for generations. Fax from your computer via the internet. I had to question why this would be a viable option considering that email, mailing lists and list servers are taking the world by storm. But companies can use this form of communication and information sending technology right from the good old PC (or Mac). What are the advantages? No extra telephone line required for the fax, paperless communication, integrated with email send and receive multiple faxes simultaneously,
reduction in phone costs (taken from the Web). But really isn't this just hanging onto a technology that is wasted and of no use anymore. Do faxes have their place. This is debatable really, PDF is used to send Docs world wide and you can protect important docs via email, everything is electronic and available on the net. I have yet to see what my team thinks on this technology. I suppose with anything new or old, it depends on the user and what their preferences are. People still have dial up Internet access for goodness sake and why because it is what they know, so why not still use a fax, it works and saves time learning a new technology, the flip side of this being that learning that new technology means saving time in the long run.

MMM The technology war continues. What to use and what not to use, when to upgrade and move on - it depends on the user and collaboration can help with this, who will ever have the utmost up to date technology for longer than a week - find me someone and I will eat my words.

Text Messaging and Mobile Technology

AYT = are you there, texting what is this phenomenon that is taking over the world on our mobiles. I use it but not to the extent of which it can be used. There are online dictionaries, schools are letting Students use texting jargon in Exams and marking on it. What is the world coming too or I am turning into a Nana and needing to jump on this bandwagon.

It seems a Teenage thing to do, know the jargon or get left behind, not cool if you don't know what it means. Recently a friend received a message with .{}. what does this mean, we figured it was kiss each cheek, LOL. or was it YABA = Another Bloody Acronym. New txt message meanings are created daily - who is doing this. Do companies use this sort of messaging. They do Big corporations use it, their staff know the meanings. I thought that texting was meant for creating short and meaningful messages from your mobile but think again this is a technology that is literally taking over the world. Ha I hear you say, I wont use it, well be prepared to be left behind it is here and here to stay.

Another technology for the good old mobile phone is the push to talk, a walkie talkie system, cost effect and efficient within a certain radius, if you are out of the zone then you can use your mobile the good old fashioned way by phoning or texting. Farmers are using this on their acres of land to keep in touch with their staff and building companies are using them on sites, push to talk is instantaneous and eliminates the time consuming task of texting or pushing a number into a phone.

Wireless devices are efficient and allows the user with the services such as bluetooth to be available where ever and what ever they are doing - even in the loo if need be. No hands needed, staff are accessible and available all the time.

Businesses seem to be embracing these effective ways to communicate, saving them time and money, even staff it seems.

I have to end this post with a message - work it out ..

I12 X n H U! IWYWH

cul8r

List Servers - Painful or Useful

List Servers are they useful or just a big giant pain in the you know what. MMM I had to think on this one and of course do a bit of googling and research. Unbeknown to me I am subscribed to several of them. One provided by my ISP, a Coding Forum (informative and helpful if you are into Web Programming, dull as dishwater if you aren't), Jacob Neilson's Monthly Newsletter, Jacob Neilsen is WWW's leading man, helpful aswell, plus several others which I won't bore you with. I have also joined in discussion groups just to find answers to various things, including Macromedia's Dreamweaver forum - extremely useful.

"Yawn" I hear you say, well I am getting to the point, that is that - list servers have their place in the Collaborative Technologies world, they are informative and helpful, help not only the person subscribed but those who read the threads posted by the various members of the group. It would an interesting exercise to hit count these sites and actually see how many people use the help (and it is a wealth of help and knowledge out there) online. Anyway that would be for another paper, another day.

Downsides ... well I subscribed to one that shall remain nameless as I don't know whether I will get into trouble by naming it. I have since received unlimited spam via email about all sorts of interesting weird and wonderful advertising campaigns, how annoying is that?

So list servers definitely have place in the WWW, in the form of communication they are useful. If you are waiting for immediate responses this is not the place for instant gratification. You may have to wait hours, days or weeks or the site could be outdated and just sitting on the web gathering dust. Watch this one, I experienced it.

The List Server is a place for me to hang out discuss whatever I want with various types of people all sharing the same interest and don't just think that they are for the Techno Junkies, Brad Pitt Forum is alive and well and groups are gathering just to talk about him.

Next Week Texting - so mke sre u r arnd 4 tht. xx00 cul8r