Over the last few months I’ve virtually put my blog to the side as I’ve been so busy with work, my home and social life. However, as I look back I realise how differently I use the Web in such a short space of time.
iPod Touch
I use my iPod Touch every day but not so often to listen to music or videos. Daily I check my Facebook account, email, RSS feed (from hotukdeals!) and surf the web. It’s faster and more accessible than waiting my laptop to boot up and with having a wireless connection at home and work, it’s also portable.
Me 2.0
Over the last few months I’ve really delved into the world of social networking and anything Web 2.0 in general. As I mentioned above I now have a Facebook account, I have umpteen RSS feeds that I read on my PC first thing every morning, which often lead me into hours of R&D and frequently new ideas for design/development work I’m currently involved with. I have a del.icio.us account, in fact I’ve two, one for development bookmarks, which is listed on this blog and one for web design stuff. I don’t know how I lived without these before as they are a fantastic way of managing your bookmarks and sharing with colleagues. I’ve set up a Flickr account and have uploaded many photos for sharing. Admittedly I’ve been a little disappointed with Flickr. It’s not as intuitive or user friendly as I’d expect and also I have to pay for it if I want to create several sets rather than bung all my photos into one. Hmm!
Not Biting
There are other social networks I’ve looked at and quickly dismissed. I don’t get Twitter at all and really don’t see the need to tell the world what I’m doing or where I’m at every day! There must be good applications for this tool but I’ve yet to see it. Digg just doesn’t float my boat, why would I want to waste my valuable time promoting something to world? What’s in it for me? Wikis are great and something I really want to implement in the NICS but finding practical uses and more importantly, content contributors are even bigger challenges.
What’s Next?
I now feel so 2008 and can’t help wondering what new fads will grab my imagination in 2009. Already with my iPod touch I’m newly fangled with interactive comics such as Bone, Shadowhawk and Atomic Robo while I patiently wait on the English version of Lucky Luke to be released.
Work wise I’ve eventually got a Flash video streaming service in place and will be launching a campaign site at the end of the month which will be the first to use it. High on my list of priorities are projects to replace our content management system, a corporate Intranet integrating with Sharepoint and the launch of a NI version of Directgov in March.
A busy year ahead awaits – yet again!




