As of moving here, I have had no formal form of internet. Despite the numerous wireless signals that hang about the Avery, I cannot tap into a single one of them. Because of this, I was forced to get something to work with. That something being the worse air card that this world has ever seen. Acknowledging the fact that it already is a horrible device as is, the fact that my signal in my apartment is usually one bar to none– unless you’re standing in the grass of our porch. Granted, it does give me signal occasionally. Signal that has a tendency to die in the midst of work, and make me lose everything.

But, one may argue, why don’t I go someplace? Up to school, or maybe even, to a Starbucks or something. But of course I don’t have a formal mode of transportation other than the bus. And, just my luck, I am horrible with the bus system. I’m doomed on in unless I have someone with me. (I’ve already nearly missed classes twice, and ended up 2 hours late due to it.)

Therefore, craziness is with me. I am a very internet dependent person. If time is not spent living in general, I am on my computer. I am, unfortunately announcing, I cannot live without some form of technology. I’m already going into withdrawal from not having both my desktop and laptop; God forbid I ever had neither of them. But, there is good news to this rant. Let me tell you:

Through what little money I had, three weeks ago I ordered internet via Time Warner Cable. Hoorah! But wait, that was three weeks ago. That’s right. I’m not getting my internet installed until August 14th– that was the earliest date they could manage. I swear I might just die before I even get to that day.

And consider my rant concluded. In other news, my personal blog is up, but in the works: ✗Laconic.

So here’s the jist of it: RSS is taken from the idea, what if instead of going to every little site and checking it for an update, you could get just the headline (and maybe more) of all those sites– at once! Thanks to technology, that’s all possible; it’s called RSS. Most people know it as a “feed” rather than a RSS, because they’ve seen it all around (like the “News Feed” featured on some TV channels).

So, you know what an RSS is now, but what the heck do you do with it? How do you get all these RSS/Feeds to pile up in one place? Well, you use an aggregator, a RSS/Feed reader, or whatever other alias you know it as. Most blogging sites have widgets where you can automatically obtain the RSS Feed of whatever website or place you desire, but there’s also variations like desktop programs and online portals that can do the same.

But what does the mean to You and Me?

Life is easier! Instead of me repetitively checking Kotaku, Cracked, Fark, and whatever other sites I renovate, I can get the headlines from all those sites conveniently on my NetVibes.com account, and pick out the headlines that are within my interest. And then, everyone lived happily ever after.

Extended Reading for You!

• Wikipedia – RSS (The always essential.)
• Slave to the Internet (Amusing blog title.)
• Cadimage Blog (Cross browser explanation!)

As far as my drawings go, I’ve come to draw to rather nice things I’m proud of. However, I’m lacking in a printer/scanner… That really is something I need to go get. I guess I really should be off to bed soon, got to get up nice and early after all. My roommate is out for the night, so I get to enjoy being alone (once again). Good night folks, and have a nice day.

So when I went about actually reading what Web 2.0, I couldn’t help but sort of slap myself in the face. Of course I knew what Web 2.0 was! It was in the internet, all around, and I used it constantly if not everyday. First, blogging; the new way to get your word out to the world. I had seen this all too often to even before the term was well known to the masses. I had an amusing shirt that read “I Blogged Your Mom” and people seemed to constantly be asking what the heck blogging was; so I chunked the shirt. RSS Feeds, Tagging and Social Bookmarking seemed to came in on a wave close to Blogging, so, I knew of it to. Several of these were tied into art websites I frequented on, so I was quite familiar with them.

I’m almost certain that this was originally intended for social networking, but, it’s certainly not the case anymore. Bleeding into social networking, like a chemical within a plant, is the business world– but profit and non-profit, trying to get into our lives. I can’t think of a single site I’ve ever seen that didn’t have ads– both good and bad alike. But, moving on to more of Web 2.0 so I don’t ramble on just a step stone of a huge world around us.

Out with the old, in with the new. That’s mostly what it’s all about, hence the 2.0– for we’re no longer on version 1.0 of the Web, we’re on the next. But, who’s to say it won’t be long before we move on to the next? The world is changing, and changing fast; particularly in technology and the web. It won’t be much longer before we’ve entirely moved on, and we’re in Web 3.0. But hey, who knows? I’m probably already immersed in the slowly-growing Web 3.0, and I don’t even know it!

Places of interest:

• Techsoup – What is Web 2.0 Anyway?
• Paul Graham – Web 2.0
• TechPluto – Core Characteristics of Web 2.0 Services

I know right now it’s not pretty and customized to my own standards, but, within due time I’ll have it looking as one of my own creations. Being the OCD type, I will make sure that it is 100% me.