Day #38
Well, its been 38 days since I left for Linköping and it feels a bit surreal right now how much has happened, how much is happening, and how much is still left to happen...
I just got the wireless network up and running in the Jacobsson house, so I finally have time start writing a bit about what I am up to.
What can I say...life is good. I don't have much class right now and I have lots of time to relax, which feels good after a first month where I didn't have any time to think. It feels a little weird though..I had my first classes last monday and tuesday, and now have none until Feb 5, which is over a week away...well, I'm not complaining..theres are lots of other things to do
I am moving to my own apartment on Feb 4th which will be good for a number of reasons, even though the Jacobsson's have been great to live with. Its always a bit constricting when you have to live by someone else's schedule. I found a pretty sweet place too and it is only about 5 minutes walking from the Jacobssons.
I don't know what else to write now...I talked to the manager of LHC (Linköping Hockey Club) and put me in touch with some people who will try and help find me a place to train and play while here. He also mentioned possibly teaching some younger Swedish goalies in the hockey school. Hopefully I'll know more about later this week...
I think thats it for now...I will post the link to here on my facebook page so you will be able to find this page from there as well.
all the best to everyone back in Canada, and wherever else you might be!
Will
My mobile phone can....(class again)
<---This is my phone
It was the 2nd cheapest phone available on a 'pay as you go' type plan, meaning I didn't have to commit to anything (hmm..I didn't know this assignment would also be a biography of my personal traits...)
Anyways, the phone is much better than the one I used back in Canada, even though it cost less than half the price. This is one of the only things I have found to be cheaper in Sweden...
It has a built/in mp3 player that runs off a 128mb memory stick that I just pulled out of the phone to find that out..
The memory stick also serves the purpose of storing pictures, movies, and sounds files that can all be recorded by by the camera and microphone built into the phone. You can also save new ringtones, themes, games, applications (like facewarp, music mate or newsreader...these are the pre-installed apps I found on my phone) that are either pre-installed on the phone and dowloaded via the WiFi network on the phone or via USB port from my computer.
The phone has a built in personal organizer that can alert you of your events inputed into the calender feature. Also, there are calculator, timer, and stopwatch functions. Of course you can save all the contact numbers, as well as information on the people you contact frequently as well.
The phone can also work as an FM radio, as well as being able to play online games with other people through the PlayNow function (this sounds expensive...)
Finally, the phone also functions, as a phone! You can make and receive calls and the same thing goes for sms messages(which can include photo, audio, or video attachments)...who'd have thought...a phone that functions as a phone!
My template looked like yours so... (class)
Well, after about 2 minutes of looking at 600 different blogs that looked exactly the same as mine I decided I would try and figure out how to make my own, more original looking blog
I'm feeling pretty smart right now...I managed to reformat my template by editing the html script for the template. I thought it might be of interest to document how I did this, both in case anyone else in the class is interested in doing the same (and is, like me, not particularly good with computer code and other such computery things) and also to document the fact that for once something on a computer actually worked for me. I will include the steps below that I followed in order to change the template.
1. First I looked around google for a good site for blog templates and found one that had some pretty cool ones. ............NO! I will not tell you which site I got it from because then your blog will, once again, look the same as mine....
2. I picked one with a picture I liked, but I am pretty sure the template code is pretty standard (meaning if you follow the steps below, you could probably put in the web address for any picture and it would work.) In other words, it is not so much the picture you are choosing, but the template, or format of how the blog will look.
3. I then downloaded the blog template from the site, and unzipped the file (it was a .zip file with 3 files inside: 1. the template file which is .txt 2. the background pic file and 3. a shortcut icon which i havent figured out quite yet)
4. Then, I had to open a photobucket account and upload the background picture (this is the part where I think I could have uploaded pretty much any picture I wanted to be the background...I chose the one that came with the template) I have the feeling this step may also help me in other areas with my blog as I had never heard of 'photobucket' before, but it seems like a pretty useful site.
5. I took the web address given to me by photobucket and pasted it into the html code (which is in the .txt file that came in the zip folder) under 'background: transparent URL' It should tell you where to do this on the site you download your template from.
6. I copied the entire text file and pasted it into the html section under templates in Blogger, and voila...a pretty blog!!
n.b For stage 6, I had to click on the link at the bottom of the html template page that said revert to classic mode...I got this tip from the website I downloaded the template from, and it wouldnt have worked unless I did this.
Well, if anyone actually gets to the bottom of this post I congratulate you! I'm sure this info is pretty redundant, but....well...too bad!!!
Now there are probably only 200 blogs that look just like mine, which is just fine with me :)
Personal Media Profile (classwork)
Personal Media Profile
Alright, so here is a brief list of some of the forms of media I involve myself with on a fairly regular basis. As I mentioned in class, my 'media self' is in a bit of a transtion period for many reasons, most notably coming to a different country to study. I find many of the forms of media I used quite often in Canada are less important to me here and some new forms of media are quickly replacing them. In the list below I will denote whether I am using the listed form of media more or less since coming to Sweden from Canada 5 weeks ago.
- Television - LESS - I am a pretty active tv-watcher, meaning that I rarely sit down to just 'watch' tv. I usually have an idea of what I want to see and it is usually a sporting event or movie. Seeing as most of the sports I watched back in Canada are now on at about 3 in the morning, the amount of time I spend watching tv has gone down significantly.
- Newspaper - LESS - I used to read the newspaper everyday in Canada, but now am reading it only occasionally when I can find one somewhere.
- Books - LESS - as per our class discussion I decided to add books, because obviously being an English major and Philosophy minor in Canada, books take up a significant part of my 'media self.' However, my studies here will require significant less reading than in Canada. I will of course read on my own, but have not done much of this as of yet.
- Computer - LESS - I find myself more involved in different things here that have greatly reduced the amount of time I spend on the computer, however there are certain things I am now using more, and that I wasn't using at all before. I will list some of these below:-
Facebook – LESS - This is simply because I lived on facebook for the last year or so. Since coming to Sweden I have used facebook a fair amount, but have had less time to log on than before. I use it for networking with friends, especially those overseas, as well as sharing photos and of course the scrabulous app (haha..i didn't want to admit that part)
- MSN – SAME - Overall I'd say I'm using MSN less because I am on the computer less, but the percentage of the time I am on the computer where I am using MSN is higher than it was before, so I the average amount of usage per minute on the computer is about the same. When I was younger I used the chat system ICQ, but switched to use MSN a number of years ago. I use it to contact people who are expensive to phone and to chat about unimportant things while multitasking on the computer
- Email – MORE - I am using Email more here for sure, despite being on the computer less. Keeping in touch with family and friends is easiest this way I have 4 email accounts, two with the universities I am with, a hotmail account and a yahoo account. The hotmail account is used for most of my emailing with friends and for business. The school accounts are used mainly for correspondence with my universities and some classmates as well.
- Sports forums – I used to spend quite a bit of time browsing and posting in forums for different sports teams I was a fan of, however they quickly became annoying because of people who used them to ‘spam’ or ‘troll.’ Now I will occasionally read other’s posts, but rarely contribute to them.
- MySpace – LESS - A convenient way to discover new music and hear bands that normally wouldn’t get any publicity.
- Video Camera - LESS - well, I don't even have a camera here, so I obviously am using this medium not less, but not at all. Either way, I used to have a job filming and editing video back in Canada as well as working on a few small projects of my own.
- Mobile phone – MMMMMORRRRE!!! I bought a new phone when I came to Sweden and find that mobile phone systems are much more advanced here than in Canada. Better phones with more features for less money. Consequently I have also noticed people use their mobile phones a lot more here. SMS is a system that is used in Canada, but not on the same scale as here. I have noticed a major increase in my mobile phone usage since arriving in Sweden, to the point where it is an absolute necessity. In Canada I could get by without my phone and sometimes would go a couple days without using it. Here I need it everyday. I would suggest there are 3 main reasons for this change:
1. Cost – it is much cheaper to use a mobile phone here
2. Service – The university campus I was studying at before had almost no mobile phone service anywhere, making it pretty hard to use my mobile phone…
3. Portability – My studies and extra-curriculars here involve more travel, making the mobile phone the obvious medium preference.
So thats about it for now, I'm sure I've missed things from the past, but as for a present profile I think that pretty much covers everything.
Opening Comments
This blog is being created for two seperate reasons:
1. For a course I am currently taking in Norrköping called 'Information retrieval and new new media'
2. To keep a bit of an online journal of stuff I am doing in Sweden and Europe over the next few months.
I will try and update a couple times per week, but time will tell how often I will be able to. Also, because this is a dual purpose blog, although everyone is welcome to read all my posts, I will try and denote in the title whether it is a class related post or not.
Hopefully I can find some interesting and controversial things to say, and of course feel free to comment on the blog entries!
