Exercise No. 12 Finding new feeds

Searching RSS feeds is a little bit different. In my opinion, to search the feeds effectively is to go to the main website. For example, New York times main page or U.S.A today. It will bring you a lot of things you need. For example, if you put the RSS feeds of CNN.com, it will bring out  a lot of daily news to you through google reader. However, it will be a little bit difficulty to find a certain thing you need to read. In this aspect, using the RSS feeds searching engine might be a little bit helpful.

The searching engine I used here are Topix.net, Technorati and Syndic8.com. For Topix.net, it is a little bit difficult to navigate through because it is too blurry. A lot of advertisement there and didn't bring a distinct link to rss feeds. Technorati is a little bit similar.  However, Technorati is good at searching the blog article. Spending a little time, you will find some excellent blog about the topic you want. Syndic8. com is very clear. Just put your topic, than you can get a lot of outcome for what you want to read. In short, I personally prefer Syndic8.com because it is compact and clear.

I personally think that RSS feed is a subscription service; therefore, the most useful searching way is to use categoric searching. As you find your subject, it is easy to get what you want.

Exercise No. 11 RSS & newsreader

Before I finish this assignment, I knew nothing a bout RSS and newsreader and I always confused about the icon in the blog which I always read through. However, after I finish this section, I found that RSS and newsreader are very powerful tool to read through website effectively and effortlessly. 

For the most important, it takes less time to navigate the website, especially blogs. Before I use RSS, I had to navigate the website by click each one and open every page which it embedded. By using newsreader, I can read all the new article at once and at same page. It greatly reduce the time which I have to spend to navigate it. Secondly, the newsreader can notice you that whether or not there is new article there. You also don't need to wait for the website especially when some websites take a lot time to transmit the data it has. In short, the reading of website and blog become very easy. And you can do it by using any computer. You don't need to take your laptop all the time. In brief, it bridges the website into the newsreader. As you log into google reader, you got it

   

Exercise No. 10 Librivox

Librivox is an audio books online database. To me, it is similar to Voice of America. However, it is more delicate and elaborate in many aspect. You can find some very important book in our academic study.

Because of my history major, I search for the history catalog. Some of the item makes me excited. For example, The history of the decline and fall of Roman empire, which is written by Edward Gibbon. As a history lover, you can miss this zenith work in the history society. The period of the book starts from 180 to 1590. It illustrates how West and East Roman Empire collapse. When I was a college student, one of my class is the history of Roman Empire. I have to struggle with the a lot of reading especially  part of this book. If I have this audio book that  time, I probably can read through the article more quickly.

The other is Mary Queen of Scots. This is the topic I have read through during the time I was struggling with my TOFEL IBT test. During that time I read a lot of history about United States and United Kingdom in order to practice English. Things about Queen Mary always makes me curious.  In my opinion, it is rare to find a noble to have the same experience as Queen Mary. She divorced four time. She stayed in Scotland only seven years and in England's prison for nineteen years before execution. In my opinion, her life seems like a funny joke. She is a Queen but lives in prison for major part of her life. She never has a entirely controlling power over Scotland. Her life is always kidnapped by other people, for instance, her fourth husband.

All in all, it is a worth searching website. It renders so much useful materials to read.

Exercise No. 9 Podcast

Podcast is a kind of web broadcast using a easily disseminating channel to be obtained by the general public. It started from with in no more than a decades.  Because of the convenience, it became flourishing during the past five years. Now you can get a lot of audio materials through Internet. Moreover, you can access to materials from your cell phone.

At the beginning, I searched the Podcast alley. I am not assure but that the podcast rendered in this website can be easily download through Juice, a software that this website recommend to get this podcast. I found an interesting podcast about Irish and Celtic music Podcast. It updates bi-monthly. The main speaker is Marc Gunn. The content is much fantastic. As you know from the topic, it provide a lot of "interesting" music from Irish culture. Some instrument like Bagpipe will be heard in this podcast. And, in my humble opinion,  some other "weired' singer. The music genre here is much more unconventional, nonacademic, folklore and a little bit isolated taste.

Subsequently, I searched the Podcast.com. Here the Podcast collection is much more bigger than Podcast alley. You might say that  all most every kind of podcast can be seem here. Juice seems not workable in this site. But you still can access online. One of the most interesting thing I found here is the Beethoven symphonies in nine days, which is rendered by the CBC radio 2. It is a elaborate introduction of Beethoven's nine symphonies. The speakers includes Bill Richardson and Bramwell Tovey, music Director of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Tovey demonstrate a lot of details about them by piano. In my opinion, it is worth to listen. The other interesting material I found is the podcast from The Sheridan Libraries, Johns Hopkins University. It seems to be the introduction of libraries service for undergraduate freshman. It includes JHsearch, citation guideline and virtual library service. In my opinion, it portray the general idea of library service.


It is quite funny to learn Podcast here. Because it is not flourishing in Chinese world,only a few will  use it in Taiwan. However, I can still find some interesting thing there.