Help for commenting problems

I'd been having trouble commenting. Well, in fact, I was failing miserably to comment at all, so contacted the lovely "23 Things" help team. Jane Rawson (officially designated as having the patience of a saint:) ) sent the following replies which I thought might help other folk having difficulty.
The root of my woes, I discovered, was that I was using Explorer when I needed to be using Firefox. Here's Jane's helpful advice on this bit :-

"When you open up your internet from your desktop, is the icon you click on a blue "e" (Internet Explorer)or a red swooshy type thing (Firefox)? You should hopefully have both programs installed on your machine. If you're using Internet Explorer (with the blue 'e') then just close the program, and double-click on the Firefox icon (red swoosh) instead.

If you don't have both icons on your desktop, then open up your start menu (click on the start button on the toolbar in the bottom left of your screen) and look in your program list where hopefully they will both be listed."

My next problem was that I couldn't work out how to make my IGoogle page appear as my homepage on Firefox. Here's what to do:-

"You'll need to set iGoogle as your homepage on Firefox to make it show when you open it up. To do this, go to the 'Tools' menu and click on 'options'. In the box that opens, click on the 'General' tab. Type https://www.google.com/ig in the location box and click OK. You will probably need to sign in to iGoogle the first time, because Firefox doesn't 'know' you yet like Internet Explorer did, but you can ask it to remember you on sign-in for next time."

Yaay! I'm now commenting like a mad thing! Thanks Jane.

Thoughts on Blogs

Well, I've been blogging for all of 2 days now & having a look at other people's blogs both within "23 Things" & on the web. There is some really good stuff out there & I can see the potential for library use. Looking at the British Library's blogs you can really see how the Bodleian could use them to introduce collections & departments & encourage exploration of the academic tools we have on offer.

Here's the BL link for anybody interested:

http://www.bl.uk/blogs/index.html

Looking at other "23ers" blogs I have seen several people have said that they've had blogs in the past & then given them up, & I could see this being an issue if they're used to promote exploration of the library & then not kept up to date. It doesn't seem hugely realistic to expect very busy subject & specialist librarians to keep numerous blogs up to date & one wonders how much willingness there would be to let ordinary staffers get involved & help out.

So, yes I've enjoyed blogging, yes I can see it has huge potential for libraries but I think that there would have to be a big cultural shift in working practices if we were to embrace blogs as a primary information tool.

Things 1 & 2

Well, let's start by confessing that I didn't have a clue that Google & I-Google were different things ! I've decided that I like I-Google but you have to wade through an awful lot of rubbish to find Gadgets that are useful (although I did succumb to "Poke the Penguin" & a recipe page!)

I'd love to show you all a lovely screenshot of my I-Google page, which I've successfully saved to "My Pictures" but I'm not having a lot of luck finding the Image icon.

Also, dear writers of instructions for "23 Things", *please* assume *total* ignorance on the part of the older & woollier of us taking part. Stuff like the following is totally incomprehensible to the uninitiated :- "...Now open an image editing program (Paint will do!)...." - you *what* :) Though you'll gather that I puzzled it out eventually :)

Ooh! Proof that we're a community! A fellow "23er" has just shown me the (alright, obvious!) Image icon !!!

Yaay!!! I've uploaded my image :)

My first blog

Hello! Well, here we go. Being somewhat longer in the tooth, I suspect, than most folk taking part this is all alarmingly new to me. Why am I doing this? 1/Amazon voucher - I respond better to chocolate biscuits but a voucher will do :) 2/ So that I can understand what the merry heck all this stuff *is*.
Blimey, since last week I've embraced I-Google, discovered I have a Twitter account (goodness knows *how*, I have no recollection of *ever* creating one!) &, this morning, I have created a URL - not *entirely* sure what one of these *is* but I'm sure all will be revealed.
Moan number one (& I'm sure there'll be plenty) following instructions on screen is a tad wearing on the eyes of the more mature!
What do I hope to gain? The ability to look as if I know what my readers are talking about when they mention this stuff :)