lesson #7 web2.0 continued

This module has been more enjoyable than the others so far; I can always appreciate links to sources with brief descriptions that leave me to make my own judgements on the content. Also, kudos to Learn 2.1 for posting a link to the Google Maps video. That sort of humor is right up my alley. ^_^

After browsing through some SEOmoz's Web 2.0 Awards winners, the most interesting to me were still those that I have known about for a while, like Mango Languages and Pandora. This module has allowed me the time to finally play with Mango Languages. The format is clean and clear enough, and it allows you to start lessons right away. I went to the Japanese lessons to see if they would be good to recommend to Japanese language leaners, and found that, though pronunciation is authentic, translations and usage may not be accurate. For example, they gave a corresponding Japanese phrase to "How are you?" The problem is that there is no direct corresponding phrase to "How are you?" in Japanese, and that, "Ogenki desu ka," is generally used when you haven't seen someone for a while or you are concerned about the (health of) the other person. It is not used regularly in greeting as "How are you?" is used in English.

The usefulness of Pandora is well-known --so well-known that we are forbidden to use it at work! (Oh noes!) I don't listen to the radio much, and, when I do, I tend to listen to NPR or more eclectic stations. Pandora makes it much easier for me to find music I like. (I have to admit that I'm a little confused about why Pandora is forbidden for use in the workplace; people tend to substitute Youtube poor quality music for Pandora, and I think that that probably eats a lot of bandwidth as well. Then again, I don't know the stats. I do think it's a bit ironic that, if something is so useful that it actually gets used by lots of people here, it becomes disallowed.... ^^;)

Lulu.com also has its merits, but I would like to hear some personal stories of successful business with them from people close to me or from those in the smaller publishing circles (i.e. at universities).


One last word: Blogger needs to seriously improve its customer support. I have had to request a human review of my blog 3 times because it continues to be labeled as a spam blog. It's supposed to be reviewed within a few days of the request, but since it keeps promting me to request a new review after a couple of weeks, I have to assume that something is wrong. I don't have the time or inclination to search for a solution on their forum (though I tried, briefly). (I also don't want to sign up for their forums because my work email includes my full name --too risky for public or other posting, thanks.) It would be nice if I could directly email them to ask them to remove my blog from the spam list and keep it off, but their help resource pages narrowly define issues and funnel only to very specific problems (which do not include my own, as far as I can see).

There are far too many parentheses in that last paragraph. That's a sign it's time to end this post. >.>

Until the next module,

-M