Light-skinned-ed Girl

What Am I Doing in the Web 2.0 World?

That last post with that sad little rabbit rubbing his head on the wall was not meant to be a post on this blog.  It became one because of my new ventures into the Web 2.0 world which have made me a tumblr-ing,twitter-ing, utterz-ing, hellotxt-ing mess.  If you don't know about any of these things check them out.  They are new ways to micro-blog and can connect your content to just about anything it seems.  You can also waste an immense amount of time first figuring out how and then why to use these services.  Why do I do this stuff?  I have real work to do!

Geek Links

It's Sunday, and the bustle of the last month has died down so it was time to . . . troll the internet.  Today, I discovered the Internet archive, which is "a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form."  More specifically, I discovered the Wayback Machine.  Type in a url and you'll be able to see old versions of the site.

The Internet Archive also led me to LibriVox, a free audiobook site.  I also enjoyed finding Brickfilms, a site dedicated to films starring Lego minifigs.  I liked Frenetic and Paroxysm, both from the dictionary word series.

The Internet Archive also led me to this racist cartoon from 1941 aptly categorized under the heading "Racist Black Cartoon Universal."  If you watch it, please make sure to leave your thoughts so that it isn't archived without comment.

Finally, I listened to some old Vincent Price radio shows, hat-tip to my father who loved that guy's voice. 

And then it was time for a Sunday afternoon nap.

Widgets and Bells

I'm adding some new tek stuff to the blog in the next couple of days.  Please check it out and let me know whether it's too distracting.  I like this geek stuff a lot.  Sometimes I can go overboard with it.  Remember, I was the second-vice-chair of the Chicano Engineering Society at Stanford.  Once, a tekkie, always a tekkie.

Read about this new feature:

Introducing Snap Shots from Snap.com

I just installed a nice little tool on this site called Snap Shots that enhances links with visual previews of the destination site, including condensed excerpts of Wikipedia articles and IMDb profiles, instant playing of videos, display of stock charts and more.

Sometimes Snap Shots brings the information needed right to the readers, without them having to leave the site, while other times Snap Shots enables users to "look ahead," before deciding if they want to follow a link or not, saving them time and effort and increasing their ability to focus on the content that matters most to them.

However, should you decide this is not for you, just click "Disable" in the upper right corner of the Snap Shots bubble and opt-out.

confessions of a geek wannabe

i don't think there's anyone who actually remembers the fact that i started college as an electrical engineer.  in middle school and high school i was a math genius.  no, i'm not kidding.  i took calculus as a sophomore in high school and, well . . . i was technologically advanced.  as a college freshman, i was elected SECOND VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE CHICANO ENGINEERING SOCIETY.  (that is also not a joke--in fact, it touches on deep identity confusion on many fronts!)

my stint as an ee major came to an abrupt because: 1. i was taking the slow series calculus (i ran out of high school calculus knowledge on day 3 in college) and 2.  i dropped out of my cs (that's computer science for the non-geeks) class right before the final.  i became an english major the next quarter.

still, there is a geek lurking within me.  i have spent the past few weeks happily struggling to teach myself html, xtml, and css as i re-design my website.  it's amazingly fun.  and it's a better distraction from stalled writing than shopping for dresses on ebay, or for books on abebooks, or googling myself and my friends all day.  i hope to re-launch my website in the next week or so.  i'm excited.

even this blog has been a great exercise in geekdom.  i am experimenting with adding the typepad widgets.  any recommendations?  and can anyone help me figure out how to tag things on blog posts?

my friend at tismoi hips me to new tek stuff--(thanks for introducing me to blogher).  but if there is anyone else out there who has recommendations for tek blogs, (simplified) tek books on web design, mind-mapping software and other geeky computer stuff.  please let me know.