Now that the 23 Things challenge is winding down I decided to see how one can go about deleting all the various accounts that were created in doing the 23 Things.
Some of the web 2.0 services are fairly straight forward and the method to cancel an account can be easily found. Those that shine in that regard are Google (not that I'd want to cancel any of my Google services), Twitter (again, I'm planning on keeping that account), Flickr (I bought a two-year membership so that's staying), Technorati (Oct. 19th this may go), YouTube, and Del.icio.us.
I had to go to "About" and then "FAQ" to find out how to delete an account on LibraryThing but it does give instructions (you have to send an email to Abby, hopefully Abby won't be leaving LibraryThing) A "Help" link would have been nice.
Technorati admits that they have not incorporated an option to automatically delete an account but do provide detailed, albeit slightly outdated as some of the wording has changed, instructions.
Bloglines and Rollyo do not provide a way to delete an account. Guess that keeps their numbers high.
Friday, September 21, 2007
Thing 6 - library websites on a Treo
I would think that if someone was using a smartphone to go to a libary's website, their goal is to search the catalog. With that in mind I took a look at the 23Thing library examples on a Treo smartphone.
Charlotte & Mecklenberg County - A survey showed up on the Treo at the top of the homepage with a button to close it. That was annoying, it took up a lot of the screen, but I was able to scroll down to their page, it was VERY long (on a computer it has lots of navigation areas). The website is not very mobile friendly. After I closed the survey the screen appeared as a big box of gray, scrolling down two screen worths finally got me to the top of the heading. There is just too much going on in their main page for mobile use.
Ann Arbor - took a long time to load as it is very graphic intensive. It too has too much going on for mobile use. I clicked on the catalog link. It too took a long time to load. The search fields were three screen length scrolls down. It's very hard to scroll on a Treo. The book reviews on the bottom of the page are confusing since one can't take it all in easily on a tiny mobile screen. It also must have added to the time it took to load (a few minutes) If I were using a mobile device to search the catalog I'd be very annoyed with all the extra content mucking things up.
Denver Public Library podcasts - Simple clean page, mobile friendly. I was able to download a podcast and later listen to it on the Treo. DPL homepage was much more mobile friendly than the others. A catalog search box appears prominently near the top, on the first screen length. The page rendered a little funny but it was navigable. The rotating banner was annoying, it caused the page to reload repeatedly. If our plan had data charges based on usage I would not be happy.
Seattle Public Library - cleanest of the bunch, easy to find the quick catalog search box. The catalog results page itself took a long time to load and doesn't display well. I had to scroll to the right (most pages on the Treo resize so no right-left scrolling is needed).
Charlotte & Mecklenberg County - A survey showed up on the Treo at the top of the homepage with a button to close it. That was annoying, it took up a lot of the screen, but I was able to scroll down to their page, it was VERY long (on a computer it has lots of navigation areas). The website is not very mobile friendly. After I closed the survey the screen appeared as a big box of gray, scrolling down two screen worths finally got me to the top of the heading. There is just too much going on in their main page for mobile use.
Ann Arbor - took a long time to load as it is very graphic intensive. It too has too much going on for mobile use. I clicked on the catalog link. It too took a long time to load. The search fields were three screen length scrolls down. It's very hard to scroll on a Treo. The book reviews on the bottom of the page are confusing since one can't take it all in easily on a tiny mobile screen. It also must have added to the time it took to load (a few minutes) If I were using a mobile device to search the catalog I'd be very annoyed with all the extra content mucking things up.
Denver Public Library podcasts - Simple clean page, mobile friendly. I was able to download a podcast and later listen to it on the Treo. DPL homepage was much more mobile friendly than the others. A catalog search box appears prominently near the top, on the first screen length. The page rendered a little funny but it was navigable. The rotating banner was annoying, it caused the page to reload repeatedly. If our plan had data charges based on usage I would not be happy.
Seattle Public Library - cleanest of the bunch, easy to find the quick catalog search box. The catalog results page itself took a long time to load and doesn't display well. I had to scroll to the right (most pages on the Treo resize so no right-left scrolling is needed).
Thursday, September 6, 2007
More of the 23 Things on a Treo
I went to the 23 Things blog at http://our23things.infopeople.org/ on the Treo. I can see the postings and the blog roll, so it works very well. Nice and clean.
Thing 2 -Blogger on mobile - you have to "claim" your phone which I didn't want to do because it would incur a cost, but information about blogging through Blogger on a mobile phone can be found at: http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=42448
Thing 18, Google docs and spreadsheets, does not work on a Treo. A message appeared that the browser must support javascript and I also got an error that the page was too large to display.
Thing 20, Youtube. The first page is a warning "Information: YouTube Mobile is a data intensive application. We highly recommend that you upgrade to an unlimited data plan with your mobile service provider to avoid additional charges." Searched for Kirtas (the robotic book scanner) and got "No results for 'kirtas'. Only a portion of YouTube videos are available on mobile at this time. We are working hard to bring you more!"
Thing 2 -Blogger on mobile - you have to "claim" your phone which I didn't want to do because it would incur a cost, but information about blogging through Blogger on a mobile phone can be found at: http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=42448
Thing 18, Google docs and spreadsheets, does not work on a Treo. A message appeared that the browser must support javascript and I also got an error that the page was too large to display.
Thing 20, Youtube. The first page is a warning "Information: YouTube Mobile is a data intensive application. We highly recommend that you upgrade to an unlimited data plan with your mobile service provider to avoid additional charges." Searched for Kirtas (the robotic book scanner) and got "No results for 'kirtas'. Only a portion of YouTube videos are available on mobile at this time. We are working hard to bring you more!"
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