Thing 25: Bloggers Toolkit

Oh geez. I spent what seemed like ten hours looking at widgets, trying them out, making them work, and making them fit my page. I spent WAY too much time looking at things that were broken, useless, or ridiculous. I ended up adding a favicon, a search bar, a subscription feed, a widget that turns my posts into a podcast, and a widget that pops-up mini-screens over the links on my page.

I ended up rejecting many widgets mostly because they came with advertising attached. I guess that's the downside of free widgets; I despise ads because they make the page so cluttered. In fact, I'm not sure how long I'll keep Odiogo, the podcast widget, and Snap Shots, the pop-up box widget, because both of them add a visual element to the page that I don't like. The podcasts themselves are hilarious, though. They're all wooden and mis-pronounced in a charming, robot kind of way.

The really great widgets were the ones that could be added with one click. My favicon was a little more complicated and even now seems to only work intermittently. Also, during the customization part I had no idea what to put in for number of pixels that I wanted the widget sized at. Mostly, I'm pleased with what I found, and I'm still thinking that Lil Wayne widget would have looked SO good...

Thing Nineteen. Podcasts

I think podcasts are a great idea. I really, really do. I just can't seem to get myself to actually sit down and listen to anything (that needs my undivided attention) for any appreciable amount of time. I don't like listening to people read stories, I don't like audio books (sorry Kristen). There is a special place in my heart for all the public radio greats: Sarah Vowell, David Sedaris, This American Life, and A Prairie Home Companion, but I can't be bothered to seek them out. There are very few occasions that I feel comfortable sitting and listening, and even then I must be very entertained to be able to focus. Even lectures at school allowed me to look at the speaker. I must be one of those lame people who just can't learn through listening. I listen to the radio almost exclusively in the car, I've tried audio books and the format grates on my nerves. Why? I cannot tell.
The upshot is is that I've read about all kinds of good podcasts but put off listening to any until later. And it never happens. I like the MPR directory, I didn't listen to a podcast, I'm sure this format would be great for a library. Enough said.