Monday, October 22, 2007

Tagging, without spray paint





OK, so now I'm a blogger and a tagger. I was under the impression that tagging was spray painting some kind of signature mark all over town--fences, buses, newspaper stands--but alas, in the age of technology everything one knows can no longer be learned from bad (OK I liked them at the time, but really) '80s break dancing movies (I mean really, didn't they call the one chick Special K...flashbacks, baby).

Anyhoo, back to my high-tech tagger lifestyle. As a resident of the hole, I had been unaware of this del.icio.us thangy but its actually pretty cool. I don't care too much about the social aspect--I do live in a hole largely by choice. The having a list of links that I can get at from anywhere...that's awesome. For someone like me who has limited access and generally gets online from somewhere other than my own personal technology dinosaur this could actually be...dare I say (well, type) it?...USEFUL (wow, who'd a thunk it?).
I can see the usefulness of group lists for reference desks, I'm not so sure about some other positions for work use. I mostly tagged some of my personal interests and general info (knitting pattern sites, boat sites, various news and weather sites). They are the kind of thing one might like to have handy, you never want to be without information about an approaching storm or a last minute knitting pattern.

As for the other people looking at my list, that does add potential creep factor and makes me sure that I won't be tagging anything too personal, or that would lead anyone to anybody else's personal info. But that's part of my whole disinterest in sharing personal stuff in general, much less on a potentially worldwide forum (if anybody peeled themselves away from ridiculous youtube videos long enough to stumble on my blog). I don't tell people I know everything about me, why would I spew it out to the world, regardless of what name it's under.

So, assignment completed. Trying to maintain momentum and enthusiasm to stay with the larnin' sperience.

Back to my hole sweet hole.

4 comments:

krl2pt0 said...

i think many of us may have a similar creep factor about sharing some, or all, of our boomarks. check out "private saving" at the bottom of the help page in del.ic.ious for info on how to keep specific bookmarks private.

Bob C.

kli said...

hey chick-
i'm watching you. ha! just kidding. actually,bob already touched on what i was gonna say but i'll keep commenting anyway. i don't want people spying on my brain's inner workings either so i checked all the del.icio.us fine print and saw that you can keep your stuff private which is exactly what i'm doing!! as you tag a site you have the option right then and there to click the box that says something like 'do not share'. click it and your good to go. i'm leaving quite a few like helloyarn & such open but you get the point.
=)

Underground Dweller said...

Thanks,both of you. I did find how to turn on the privacy option. It should be handy for both the "work appropriate" issue and the general privacy for me and any more personal bookmarks (like friends baby picture albums, etc.) Hey, just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they aren't watching.

Constance said...

Great blog, and thanks for raising the privacy issue. It bothers me too. Now, thanks to infovampire, I will go become a little less public.