Thing 8: Document sharing in the Cloud

I have created an American Corner Programs Spreadsheet and shared with 23 things administrators and my colleagues who is responsibile for the newly setup Kaohsiung American Corner programs.

1. How might you use Google Docs as an alternative to the standard document creation tools in Microsoft Office?

If I go on training and stay in the hotel and only the public computer available, I can use the Google Doc. to create/edit a document or a spread sheet. We can also use the cell phone to access the google doc, so I can read the doc. when I don’t have a computer.

2. What drawbacks did you notice in Google Docs, if any?

Google docs only has basic function, for example, merge, wordart, smartart are not available, not as powerful as Microsoft word. It is a web base service, if no internet, then can not access this google doc.

3. Describe your experience of collaborating on a single document with multiple users.

I used the google doc. to plan a family reunion lunch – hot pot. First I wrote down the items and quantities of food we need, and then sent it to my family members, asked them to fill out what they want to bring. I also used ”Create Event w. these people” to send out the invitation. It is very convenient, I shared this spreadsheet to all the guests. Eveyone is editing the same docs, it will be updated instantly, there will be no version chaos.

Thing 7: Collaboration Using Wikis

I have added thef following links and information to Diplopedia at http://diplopedia.state.gov/index.php?title=IRC_Taipei created by Taipei IRC colleagues.

American Corner in Taichung
The American Corner in Taichung is a partnership between the American Institute in Taiwan and the National Taichung library. It is a one-stop center for information and culture from the U.S.
Virtural Branch Office in Tachung
AIT's ongoing efforts to maintain a presence in Taichung via the Virtural Branch Office (VBO) and the Taichung American corner.

Thing 6: Finding RSS Feeds

1. Add at least five resources that have RSS feeds to your reader using one of the sites listed in this Thing.

a. “What’s news in Asia”
Source from Asian Wall Street Journal

b. “Taiwan” from Times Topic
Source from New York Times

c. Consumer news from Pueblo RSS Feed
From US government

d. Asia and Pacific News
From US Army

e. H1N1 vaccine
From PubMed.gov

I added the above five topics, our officer always requests articles from AWSJ and NY times, so I add the RSS feeds from these two sites with the topics of Taiwan and Asia. For the H1N1 vaccine is the hot issue in Taiwan society. I will receive more updates from adding the feed of "H1N1 Vaccine" at the PubMed.gov

2. Go to America.gov and find a section of the Web site that you'd like to receive feeds from.

The feed I added from American.gov is: East Asia andEast Asia and the Pacifichttp://www.america.gov/articles/rss/en/region/eap.rss

3. Create a Google Alert on a topic that interests you.

I have created two alerts at Google Alert
a. AIT
b. 司徒文 (AIT director's name in chinese)

4. Describe how RSS may help you in your job and in your life.
IRC assistant received reference questions from AIT officers about current news, we has to know what happen in the Washington D.C. so receiving an RSS feeds from America.gov and some newspapers will save lots of our time, and make our job more efficient and serve our officer better. Creating a google alert, the news on our director will simply sent to my email account, I don't need to go to different websites to search news. I also created a google alert on "entrance exam", because my son will take this exam next summer, all the updated news on the entrance exam will sent to my email account automatically, so I won't miss any important news on this.

Thing 5: RSS

1. Which feeds did you add to your reader?
I added New York Times, New Yorker, UDN News, VOA news, Defense News.
I also select feeds from the topics of the bundle “ Taiwan” “Baseball” and “Web”

2. What do you like about RSS and Newsreaders?
Very convenient, I only go to Google reader, and then I can read all my subscribed topics messages. I don’t need to go to each website to read the updated news or message. Some feeds are bundles together by its topics, that’s even better and combined same topics of message together.

3. How can You use RSS to take advantage of this technology
RSS feeds let our website message syndicate content automatically. The audience only need to subscribe the pages or the topics to received updated messages.
I am supposed to send the updated news about “Taiwan from Defense News” to our officer. So I just subscribe “Asia Pacific Rim News” of Defense News to my google reader. So every morning, I only need to go to google reader, I can find out the updated news and provide it to our officer.

Thing 4: Microblogging Using Twitter

My twitter link :
http://twitter.com/tsao5/

I searched "Taiwan Eelction" on Twitter search.
Taiwan just had a mayor and magistrate election last saturday. I found lots of people talking about the loss of KMT and the Taiwan people are warning the KMT government, and the election setback of KMT and Taiwan President Ma.

Thing 3: Social bookmarking and tagging

Vicky's favorite bookmarks at "Delicious"

My favorite bookmarks:
American President: Resource on the U.S. Presidents
Crimes A to Z - Criminal Law
FRUS: Search Results SAVE

Thing 2 search blogs and leave a comment

the date I commented: 12/07/2009

Comments on "A Guide for the Perplexed: Libraries and the Google Library Project Settlement"

If we don’t think about the copyright issues and google violating anti-trust law, Google Library Project is a very powerful book project, we can search more than 35 languages and 100 countries’ publications, it is a very useful tool to discover new books and old books easily. It also provides book reviews, bibliographical data,vendor information, and preview some pages or full texts, it could help audience to find or purchase the book they need easily. It is both good for the users and publishers. by Vicky TsaoDecember 7, 2009 at 06:42 AM (UTC)

the article I commented
A Guide for the Perplexed: Libraries and the Google Library Project Settlement
http://www.llrx.com/features/googleprojectsettlement.htm

Thing 2: three blogs focus on issues of my country

Taiwan Photographers
http://www.blogcatalog.com/blogs/taiwan-photographers.html

Taiwan Love and Peace League 台灣愛與和平展望會
http://www.blogcatalog.com/blogs/taiwan-love-and-peace-league.html

Hubert Hsu's blog
http://huberthsu.blogspot.com/

My trip to Japan

My job keeps my really busy, travel could make me relax, so I always have a vacation twice a year. Last January I took my daughter to KANAZAWA, Shirakawa-go, We enjoyed the cold weather, snow, and Japanese food.

All my grand parents and parents speak Japanese, when I visit Japan, there is a special feeling from my heart like going home.