#7 Blog about technology

When it works smoothly and quickly technology can seem amazing and indispensable. How quickly this can fade when things start to go wrong.

After months of careful consideration followed by an impulsive 'I want it now and I want it now!' moment, I finally bought myself a computer. The set-up was all going smoothly until I tried to connect to our home wireless network. The computer could detect and, with some assistance from the IT helpdesk, connect to our wireless network but was unable to connect to the internet. With every failed attempt my frustration was building and boiling.

I think that while this is fresh in my mind I will have more empathy for customers experiencing IT problems. In my case, the technical support offered while experiencing technological frustration did make a difference to my experience of the problem. The computer company helpdesk spent about half an hour on the phone with me trying various different methods to solve the problem and got me about half way there before referring me to our internet service provider. Our internet service provider prefaced their couple of suggestions with the statement 'we don't actually provide support for wireless' (but they're happy to sell it to you) and referred me to the modem company, whose recorded message asked me to call during business hours. Although the first person didn't solve the problem, at least they attempted to and didn't immediately claim that it wasn't their area or problem. I'll try to keep that in mind when someone complains about the speed of our internet (or something else that we don't really have control over but influences their experience using our service). I think that's enough frustrated ranting for one day.

#6 More Flickr Fun

My creation
Originally uploaded by Alice Fahey

I was a bit overwhelmed by the number of flickr tools on offer. After having a bit of a browse I decided to play with fd's Flickr Toys trading card maker, which was very easy to use.

#5 Discover Flickr

dreams (reprise)
Originally uploaded by velco

I created a Flickr account earlier in the week and started exploring but have only just got around to actually posting.

I enjoyed browsing through the interesting last 7 days feature in the explore section.

I uploaded some photos, which was easy enough, but I had some difficulty deciding what tags to use. I guess it doesn't really matter as you can always go back and alter them but part of me wants to set up a system for myself from the outset to make it easier to remain consistent when I upload more in the future.

I found this photo when I did a search for 'Melbourne' and it captured my attention as I was scrolling through the many postcard-like cityscapes that dominated the search results.

#4 Register your blog

I'm about to register this blog. Originally I was going to use my facebook page (I even registered it but it hasn't appeared yet on the Darebin participant blogs- hope this won't cause any problems for the program administrators) but then I decided that it would probably be better to learn how to use something new. While I read some blogs that my friends have created I've never been tempted to create my own. Despite being part of a generation that has grown up using computers I've never been an early adopter of new technologies. I've heard of most of the 23 things that form part of this learning 2.0 program but I haven't actually used them.