Advanced blog features

Have changed a few "settings", as recommended by the 23 Things team. Have set time to "GMT", and have chosen a different date format.

Posting from a mobile phone may not be possible - it says "for US numbers only". Does anybody know more?

tinkering

Have read a few blogs of other participants and found that some people have a very good command of Web 2.0 customization & design skills already. I know that one can do a lot of beautiful things, but when I fiddle for too long and experiment, I start to feel guilty for "wasting time". And I run out of patience.
But a lot of web stuff, and Web 2.0 in particular, is all about learning by doing and trial and error, it seems.
I therefore hope that this 23 Things-thing will teach me a few basic skill that will come in handy when needed.

iGoogle page

Last week, I customized my iGoogle opening page and made it my "home page" for the Mozilla Firefox browser.

• date & time [GMT]
• weather [set to "Oxford"]
• Picasa web albums [not sure they display okay]
  Note added on 9.4.2010: I think that I linked to the Picasa Web Album folder overview, and NOT to particular images. In any event, on my PC, Firefox often doesn't display images, and I haven't been able to alter browser settings to change this. Therefore viewing in "Internet Explorer" is recommended.
  On 9.4.2010, I have sorted this out and an album of Picasa images now displays as it should (after sorting out login/password problems).
• Perlentaucher.de [German website that aggregates news content]
• BBC [UK & world news]
• CNN [World news]
• Zeit Online [German weekly]

I haven't done much customization and the page doesn't look great. I didn't find out how to resize the application windows. Here is a screenshot:

Google Mail account

I already have a google mail account, because I use Google's picture editing/uploading program "Picasa".

Blog is now set up / blog name

It's done - the blog is set up and I am ready to go.

I got very excited about the possibilites of Web 2.0 during the staff development day with Phil Bradley in 2009. I came back to our library with many good intentions. I particularly liked the idea of creating a web-based desktop, which can be used from whatever computer one uses. But I never got around to build one...
And I wanted to tag and store my bookmarks in a Web 2.0 interface. But never did...
And my colleagues weren't too keen on a facebook site for the library. So my enthusiasm fizzled out...
But I *do* think that we need to communicate with "digital native" readers in their language and using Web 2.0 tools is after all just another new-fangled way of communicating.
I am glad that this "23things" training came along - just at the right moment!

REGISTRATION
Have registered my blog (Thing4).

NAME OF BLOG
The name I have chosen for my blog relates to the beautiful old garden I see from my office window - it is called the "Gooseberry Garden", and it has a goldfish pond.

My youngest niece Nilufar standing next to the goldfish pond.
Nilufar is the Persian word for "water lilly", and there are many water lillies in the goldfish pond.

But none of them is as lovely as my niece!