RSS is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines or podcasts. An RSS document, which is called a “feed”, “web feed”, or “channel”, contains either a summary of content from an associated web site or the full text. RSS makes it possible for people to keep up with their favorite web sites in an automated manner that’s easier than checking them manually.

RSS content can be read using software called an “RSS reader” or an “aggregator”. The user subscribes to a feed by entering the feed’s link into the reader or by clicking an RSS icon in a browser that initiates the subscription process. The reader checks the user’s subscribed feeds regularly for new content, downloading any updates that it finds.

RSS feeds are a great way to keep up to date with what is going on in a particular field or industry. RSS feeds are on most news, radio, magazine, etc web sites. Almost any topic is covered by RSS feeds. You will get a quick snapshot of the article and can then quickly skim what that web site has to offer without actually going to the web site. You can read the full article if you choose. A lot less time consuming than going to each site and seeing what articles are new.

RSS feeds can be read on your mobile phone too! MS Outlook has a built in RSS read along with MS Vista. You can utilize these or any other RSS reader. There are tons out there. Yahoo and Gmail provide RSS readers within your email too.

Bloglines (RSS Reader) - http://www.bloglines.com/

A podcast is a collection of digital media files which is distributed over the Internet for playback on portable media players and personal computers. The host or author of a podcast is often called a podcaster. Podcasts have given the average person the ability to produce radio broadcasts. You do not have to be a radio DJ to be heard anymore. Anyone can have a voice now by creating a podcast and posting it online. A podcast can be on any topic. It can be a speech on a particular topic like politics or just a recording of a random conversation.

A podcast is an mp3 or video file that can be downloaded and played on a computer or portable media device. Podcasts got their name from the original device they were intended – the iPod. Individual podcasts can appear as episodes that are updated daily or weekly. By subscribing to a podcast, you can receive automatic updates. You can also listen to podcast episodes on a web site.

Podcasting’s initial appeal was to allow individuals to distribute their own radio-style shows, but the system quickly became used in a wide variety of other ways, including distribution of school lessons, Church sermons, a means to distribute playlists of music, official and unofficial audio tours of museums, conference meeting alerts and updates, and by police departments to distribute public safety messages.

Podcasts are not hard to make. All you need is a microphone on your computer and a piece of software to record your voice. There is free software on the Internet that will allow you to record your voice and edit the sound bite. One example of this free software is called Audacity. Once you have produced the audio file, the file must be uploaded to a web server in order for people to be able to download it.

New York Times and CNN, along with most major news agencies, all have their own podcasts from different columnists.
Podcast Directories - http://www.podcast.net/ and http://www.apple.com/itunes/store/podcasts.html

Have you ever had an unbelievable experience with a hosting service? I have had the pleasure of being on tech support for iPower for over 8 hrs now. I have gotten no were. I just cant believe the circle I am going in. All I want is the username and password for my client’s service. Should not be a hard task you would think. I think this is the hardest thing they have been asked. You know you are in trouble when you call on the phone and you get the message “All lines are busy” and the call is disconnected. Then you go on their “Live” web chat and you are number 105 in line and the wait time is 51 minutes. Hmmm…..two hours later I was still waiting for the “Live Chat” person to come online. This was the fourth time I had talked to them. In previously conversations I had managed to change the administrative email they had on file to a real email address, or so I had thought. Four conversations that took! In those four conversations I had also found out that the hosting service had expired months ago but the site was still live. I also found out that my client had three different accounts. One for each domain name - .com, .org, .net. Not sure why that required three different accounts. But never the less I pressed on. The tech said he merged all three accounts into one for me. Great I thought. Well that was a week ago and they still are not merged. I finally got one username and password which was for the .org domain name. So I logged in and discovered that I needed yet another username to log into their domain name manager system. Huh? So yes I need 2 usernames to log into their systems and yes they are different. OK back on tech support. … Well now they can only email me the username/passwords for all three domain name managers for my three domains. OK making progress I thought. Not quite…I had to contact them back in 48hrs after my email was updated. So I did….Then I get a tech guy who tells me nothing has been changed since I did not fax them??? What?? Why did the other four people not tell me this? He would not do anything unless I faxed him my contact info and filled out a form BUT he would only email the form to the email account that does not exist! Yes you read that right. I have never dealt with a more incompetent tech support or disorganized company. Not sure where I am going from here but as soon as I can get into the system I will be moving the domain names to some where else….

Recently I was told the job of an IT person is to babysit their users on computers and hand hold them every inch of the way. That we should not expect a user to learn how to do things on their own. Do you agree? I certainly don’t. I feel the job of an IT person is to give the user tools to do their job and to educate. IT people do not need to waste their time customizing desktops or address books for the user. There is never enough time in the day to do everything and dealing with things that a user is perfectly capable of doing themselves. If an IT person takes just a few minutes to explain to the user how to do something or to write directions that can be sent to all users, this will help make their job easier in the future. Our job is to teach people how to use the computer too, not just fix broken things.

I have worked with users of all skill levels. Even people that have never touched a computer. I have found that it makes my job much easier to take a few minutes to do some basic training and write some directions. When installing a new system or network feature I always run a training class for all users. Get a group of users together and go over the system. I have them try using it and then answer some questions. This saves me a lot of time in the future - no hand holding. When a user asks me a question like “How do I set up my vacation filter?” I do not go to their computer and set it up for them. I write them step by step directions and let them do it themselves. Next time they do it on their own! They feel great about learning something new and it saves me time in the future. So why is it that some IT people don’t want to take the time to educate users? Why do they look down on their users?

I also believe that users/employees should be expected to learn computer skills on the job. Most employees would like to expand their knowledge and learn new skills. Keeps the job interesting. So we should let them learn new skills! There is nothing better than showing a user how to do something and them coming back to you saying “hey I did that on my own or on my home computer and it worked!”

Article written for NAWBO:
Blog, short for web log, an online, regularly updated journal or newsletter that is accessible to the general public. Think of a blog as a web based journal. Anyone can have a blog. Many blogs provide commentary on news or a particular subject area. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art, photographs, videos, music, audio (podcasting) and are part of a wider network of social media.

The publishing technology has become a cultural and political force. I think the biggest impact of blogs on mainstream journalism is the presence of a more personal voice. A blog allows anyone to post their thoughts on a particular topic, for the world to see. Anyone who reads the article can then respond with their own opinion on the article. This starts an open conversation regarding the article. People can collaborate and obtain others thoughts and ideas all over the world. This is a form of “social computing” or “social networking”. This is not possible with a standard magazine article where the author may never hear any comments about their article. Blogging allows anyone to write and share their opinion not just mass media.

Blogs are also used by politicians, businesses, and others to keep voters, and customers informed on matters of common interest; they can function as a significant alternative to television, newspapers, and other mainstream media, especially in nations where the media are controlled or censored by the government.

Since 2002, blogs have gained increasing notice and coverage for their role in breaking, shaping, and spinning news stories. The Iraq war saw bloggers taking measured and passionate points of view that go beyond the traditional politics. Blogs by politicians and political candidates, that expressed opinions on war and other issues, cemented blogs’ role as a news source. Bloggers were said to be the driving force in the 2004 presidential election. Bloggers began to provide nearly-instant commentary on televised events, creating a secondary meaning of the word “blogging”: to simultaneously transcribe and editorialize speeches and events shown on television.

The software that runs a blog is available for free. You can sign up for a free blog at www.blogger.com / www.wordpress.com or many other sites. You can also download the software and install it on your own web site. You can then customize how the blog looks and functions. The most popular blog software is at www.wordpress.org.

Article written for NAWBO:
Many of the technologies that Lisa Johnson spoke about fall into a category called “Web 2.0 Technologies”. So what does Web 2.0 mean? The concept behind Web 2.0 is aimed to facilitate collaboration and sharing between users. The web is becoming less “read-only” and a place just to publish content. It is moving towards more interactive sites and a form of socialization. Web 2.0 is changing the way we use the web. In Web 1.0, a small number of writers created web pages for a large number of readers. Web 2.0 is a vision of the web in which information is broken up into “microcontent” units that can be distributed over dozens of sites and in which many people contribute. The key to Web 2.0 is rich user experience and interactivity.

A good analogy to help understand the difference between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 is to think of the phone. We used to have just a standard house phone. Then cell phones came around. They were not impressive when they first came out. Now cell phones have advanced and there is not much they can’t do anymore – text messaging, Internet access, email, etc. Web 1.0 was our basic house phone. They had very little interactivity with their users and no customization. Now jump ahead to the cell phones that we have today. They are Web 2.0 technology. There is a great deal of interactivity and we can customize them to meet our needs.

Examples:

• Blogs
• RSS Feeds
• Social Networking (Facebook, MySpace)
• Social Classification (Flicker, Delicious)
• Wikis
• Podcasts
• Richer User Experiences (Google Maps)

In the upcoming articles I will be talking about the above technologies…Stay tuned…..