December 05, 2007

you think you know, but you have no idea

Dear wide-eyed and bushy-tailed juniors (and seniors),

Are you sick of supply, demand and net present value? Accounts receivable and bad debt expense? Well, you'll love BIT330. Because it's actually useful in the real world. No theories, formulas or foreign professors. To better prepare yourself for the class, I have highlighted my thoughts and reflections, to ensure your experience reaches its fullest potential.

Rule #1: Don't be a know-it-all

Just because you've used Google and/or del.icio.us doesn't make you an expert web searcher. I also came into the class with very basic knowledge of web information retrieval and came out a (close) expert; teaching my friends and family about new tricks I learned. My favorite is to enlighten people about RSS feeds - it blows their mind!
Specifically, I entered the semester as a self-proclaimed "Google Genius". I had used Images, Maps, GMail, Finance, News, Scholar and the basic web search and I used simple queries.
After taking this class, I have a much deeper knowledge of the search engine.

Things I Learned About Google:

  • Syntax
    • intitle:
    • inurl:
    • insite:
    • link:
    • ~

  • Products
    • When the Google guy came to talk to our class, I had never associated Google with "Products". First of all, they refer to all of their sites such as Google Maps and Google Docs as "products". Products begin as a 20% project, meaning employees are required to work on non-scheduled work for 1/5th of their work week. These off-beat and high-risk projects are often taken to Beta, and eventually launched. Many, however, fail. The other association with "product" I learned from the Google guy was when he talked about Google Checkout (something the speaker was developing himself). Most of the class (including myself) had never heard of this feature. Basically, you search for products from online retailers with the option to buy right away - kind of like good ol' Froogle.

  • News
    • The Google news-of-the-day in class (in which one student is assigned to track the company and report any news-worthy events) is very informative. I learned about gphone rumors, multi-terabit undersea cables, the huge stock price speculation, etc.

Rule #2: Keep an open mind: What you don't know will HELP you

Before coming to the class, I had heard the term "RSS" thrown around, but didn't have the faintest idea what it meant. I thought it had something to do with E-mail alerts. I learned that RSS uses a special type of language called XML that reads web pages and notices changes on them such as new blog entries or news articles. Subscribing to a web-based feed reader such as Bloglines, I have created an organized set of RSS feeds that track my favorite websites regarding news, sports, health and technology. I am now more efficient in the way I gather information because it's what you DON'T know what you're looking for that is best in this case. The information on a general topic such as "Google News" will come to you, straight to your RSS feed reader - you don't have to mess around with detailed search queries or have anything specific in mind at all. The RSS feeds do all the work for you! :-)

Rule #3: Apply what you learned in the real world

See below for my blog about this class and the interview process.

I will definitely use RSS feeds after the semester is over. I love getting news and deals from woot and slickdeals.net straight to my Bloglines account. I definitely won't use e-mail alerts because I already get way too many messages.

Rule #4: Be Brave!

One of the things I would omit from this class is the second term project. I feel that I have learned and applied enough information in class through exercises, guest speakers, tutorials, news-of-the-day's, etc that I don't think it's 100% necessary to have a term project - much less two of them. Just my opinion though.

To wrap up, I really enjoyed BIT330 with Professor Moore. I learned a lot of useful information that I didn't know before and that I can apply to the real world. It should be interesting to see how much technology will change in the next year for you students. Anyway, I hope that you have the same learning experience and I wish you the best of luck!

Posted by rohdec at 10:49 AM | Comments (0)

November 08, 2007

RSS Feeds

Click for my personal Blogroll

I hate to admit it. But I check Bloglines religiously. My friends may call me a loser for my structured use of the Internet, but I'm not sure how they live in a non-RSS feed reader (also called aggregator) world. I'd call myself efficient.

Get Recommendations
When I began my quest for an all-encompassing RSS feed reader, I turned to the masses. I did a simple Google search for "popular RSS feeds" and was directed to a website with the top 100 most subscribed-to RSS feeds. I scanned the list and subscribed to feeds that seemed interesting enough to track on a daily basis. This included Dictionary.com's Word of the Day, BoingBoing, Wired News, etc. I started categorizing my interests and decided to keep my eyes open for additional interesting websites.

The Orange Button - CLICK IT!
The second part of my RSS feed search included the brainless task of acknowledging that a website is useful to me. Then, I would hunt the website for the ubiquitous orange RSS icon and subscribe to the relevant feed. For example, I read the WSJ every day. However, I particularly value certain columns and types of articles including Market Updates, Technology and Health. I found that the WSJ Online offered a variety of feeds to subscribe to including News, Blogs, Videos and Podcasts. I subscribed to the interesting ones and have enjoyed waking up to my Market Updates straight to my Bloglines.

Subscribe to a Search
The third step in my RSS feed retrieval has come from looking for very specific information. If I know exactly what subject I want to track (i.e. for our term project), I will do a search for RSS posts in Bloglines and subscribe to that search. Or, I will search for feeds, scan the results and subscribe to the most relevant blogs.

Categories of Feeds
Like a snowflake, everyone's RSS feed reader is unique. The following are the categories in which I have RSS feeds:

Weird Blogs ...Of the Day Environmental Facebook Google Health and Fitness News Shopping Sports Technology UofM UBS Vegetarian

I find the technology feeds to be particularly interesting because there is ALWAYS something happening and there is ALWAYS a blogger willing to write about it. I also like checking slickdeals.net and Woot for shopping deals - (I'm always hunting for a bargain). In general, my RSS feeds have saved time and have provided information that I would never have found on my own.

Criticisms
Though I <3 Bloglines a lot, using RSS feeds isn't for everyone. In fact, it can be an inefficient way to spend time. Sometimes, I find myself wondering how broad and encompassing my feeds are. What am I missing? What can I add to my Blogroll? What else is out there? These questions are constantly flowing through my mind and keeping up with an active and effective blogroll is hard work. Interests change.

Also, sometimes the amount of information is overwhelming especially if I go 2 or 3 days without checking my Bloglines and all of a sudden there are 1000 new feeds! I end up hitting "Mark All Read" and starting from scratch. This sub-optimizes the purpose of the aggregator.

I have successfully converted at least one of my friends to start using RSS feed readers and hope to continue the trend. I think Bloglines is a great place to begin an RSS feed even for my "technologically illiterate" parents and friends. (No offense guys).

Posted by rohdec at 02:43 PM | Comments (0)