It's It seems that Classmates.com wants to digitize high school yearbooks and post them, and while the thumbnails would be viewable for free, the larger sizes won't be. I don't pay for Classmates and don't intend to. There were the 3 months I had a Gold membership, but that was so I could read a message from one of the two people I wanted to reconnect with, before I was on Facebook, and it was worth the small fee to read her message and get her email addy. Canceling that account wasn't easy, but I did it. I wouldn't pay again and certainly not to see old yearbooks.
I have my high school yearbook, and my photo isn't pretty. Photographers who work those gigs, at least back then, didn't put much time or effort into their craft. They had hundreds of students lined up and it was in, snap, out, no effort to find anyone's "best side." They didn't let us sub better pics, so I let them use whatever they wanted from the batch of unflattering pics and whenever asked to sign a yearbook for someone, I wrote over my face. And I had a lot of company doing that. So, I'm not thrilled about the idea that a digital version of that yearbook could be online someday. Hopefully, after I'm gone, but who knows? Maybe they'll be able to track one down in the next couple of decades.
The article says they also want to get into the reunion business. It's clear that Classmates.com is looking to make itself relevant again in an age of social media that is far more popular and powerful for people connecting. Facebook. MySpace. LinkedIn. Twitter. Anything to help with the bottom line. Who knows if it will work, but as long as sites like Facebook let people do similar things for free, I don't see Classmates.com seeing much gain from their plans.
So, would you want your high school yearbook online? Would you pay to see it?
~~~o0o~~~
Friday, February 19, 2010
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Blogger in Draft Enhancement
Blogger in Draft now allows captions for photos. So, let's give it a try. First, I need to add a photo. (Excuse me a moment.) (Okay, I'm back.)
So, I uploaded and once the photo appeared, I got the edit options that let me align it to the left and an option for caption. Clicking that put a little caption under the photo that said Caption (well, I can't recall the exact wording), which was highlighted, so you can just delete and add in your own, as I did. I deleted letter by letter to make sure I didn't delete the caption feature itself. But it looks pretty cool.
There's also a little stretchy icon in the bottom right of the compose window that allows the window to be expanded. It seems to allow stretching vertically, but I can't get it to go horizontally. I wouldn't mind a wider window, but stretching it downward is nice.
Finally, video uploading should be faster, but I don't post video, so I can't comment on that. I do think I'll be enjoying this caption feature, though. Very cool.
~~~o0o~~~
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| Library Cards Here |
So, I uploaded and once the photo appeared, I got the edit options that let me align it to the left and an option for caption. Clicking that put a little caption under the photo that said Caption (well, I can't recall the exact wording), which was highlighted, so you can just delete and add in your own, as I did. I deleted letter by letter to make sure I didn't delete the caption feature itself. But it looks pretty cool.
There's also a little stretchy icon in the bottom right of the compose window that allows the window to be expanded. It seems to allow stretching vertically, but I can't get it to go horizontally. I wouldn't mind a wider window, but stretching it downward is nice.
Finally, video uploading should be faster, but I don't post video, so I can't comment on that. I do think I'll be enjoying this caption feature, though. Very cool.
~~~o0o~~~
Friday, February 12, 2010
And Now the Follow-Up to the Google Facebook AOL Login Search String Mess
Now to see if I get more hits when people Google "Facebook Login." And here's the follow-up entry at ReadWriteWeb.
~~~o0o~~~
~~~o0o~~~
Thursday, February 11, 2010
You Can't Get There From Wherever
I had to share this on ReadWriteWeb. Not the article, but the comment thread. I don't have time to read every one and the comments are multiplying almost exponentially. That people are still leaving comments that indicate they're on FB and not a site discussing FB even after the disclaimer was posted in the article would be be mindboggling to me, except I work with the public and it's really really hard to boggle my mind after 28 years and counting.
However, the thought that people apparently search for FB each time they want to login, rather than bookmark the site or type in the amazingly easy to remember URL in the little box at the top of their browser is rather sad and comical at the same time. And really points out how computer illiterate so many people who use computers and the internet truly are. And as the person who pointed this out on another blog said, for the first time, she realizes why phishing scams might work. There really are people who are clueless.
Read it and weep, with tears of laughter. Or just skim the comments the way I did. ;)
~~~o0o~~~
However, the thought that people apparently search for FB each time they want to login, rather than bookmark the site or type in the amazingly easy to remember URL in the little box at the top of their browser is rather sad and comical at the same time. And really points out how computer illiterate so many people who use computers and the internet truly are. And as the person who pointed this out on another blog said, for the first time, she realizes why phishing scams might work. There really are people who are clueless.
Read it and weep, with tears of laughter. Or just skim the comments the way I did. ;)
~~~o0o~~~
AOL and Facebook Chatting Together
AOL and Facebook are hooking up for instant messaging. Such a big deal is being made of this, but given Gmail has allowed a connection with AOL/AIM Buddy Lists for messaging, this is not radical. But it is a big deal. It'll be interesting to see how it shakes out and if AOL, now that it's been liberated from TimeWarner, can re-establish itself as an internet service.
It looks like we'll end up with a lot of overlapping services, with people choosing the one they prefer as a home base. The services/companies that can't get enough people to choose them and keep them viable or that can't make enough connections with related services will go out of business. I wonder how Twitter, etc, will fit in. Right now, you can connect Twitter and flickr and many other services to FB, Yahoo, AOL, etc. Cyberspace is shrinking daily and getting very interesting, indeed.
~~~o0o~~~
It looks like we'll end up with a lot of overlapping services, with people choosing the one they prefer as a home base. The services/companies that can't get enough people to choose them and keep them viable or that can't make enough connections with related services will go out of business. I wonder how Twitter, etc, will fit in. Right now, you can connect Twitter and flickr and many other services to FB, Yahoo, AOL, etc. Cyberspace is shrinking daily and getting very interesting, indeed.
~~~o0o~~~
Tuesday, February 09, 2010
Google Buzz
Google Buzz could be big. I don't have it yet, and I only chat and email with a couple of people regularly. Most of the people I keep in touch with online is through Facebook, and getting people to use that has been difficult. I'm not sure how much, if at all, I'll use Buzz, and I definitely want to limit access to my stuff, but I am curious and eager to see how it works.
For instance, I tried Google Wave at work, which is limited because only 3 of us have Firefox loaded and it won't work in IE without downloading software which we don't have admin privileges to do. And the 3 of us who can use it really don't, though 2 of us did give it a try. I like it as a way to collaborate. I can jot down notes whenever they occur to me, usually when I'm at home, and the others can add to that or make comments and slowly, a discussion occurs. And yet, it's just as easy to email or wait til we're at work together and talk face-to-face.
This looks just as useful, but I have reservations how much I would actually use it. So few of my friends actually use Gmail.
~~~o0o~~~
For instance, I tried Google Wave at work, which is limited because only 3 of us have Firefox loaded and it won't work in IE without downloading software which we don't have admin privileges to do. And the 3 of us who can use it really don't, though 2 of us did give it a try. I like it as a way to collaborate. I can jot down notes whenever they occur to me, usually when I'm at home, and the others can add to that or make comments and slowly, a discussion occurs. And yet, it's just as easy to email or wait til we're at work together and talk face-to-face.
This looks just as useful, but I have reservations how much I would actually use it. So few of my friends actually use Gmail.
~~~o0o~~~
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Blogger Changes
Blogger is dropping ftp service, according to Blogger Buzz. Also, Google Pages are being dropped in favor of something called Google Sites and files stored there for blogs will need updating/fixing. The reasons they give for this seem sound to this non-techie and I appreciate the promise of big updates for Blogger this year
~~~o0o~~~
~~~o0o~~~
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