RSSSSSSS

This was probably the most confusing site to me so far.  I knew the idea of RSS, but did not know exactly how it was set up.  It seemed as though when I logged in everything was already set up for me because all my blogs I follow were in a row on my home page.  It took some searching to find the add subscription button (I know its not hard to find but it took a while) and it made it a lot easier to subscribe to what I wanted.  I could not find a subscription to my organization I looked around but got nothing.  I could not find them on Twitter either.  I like how the home page shows all of your subscription with subcategory stories that you can click on.  I (like Matthew) also follow NFL for updates.  My favorite subscription had to be Discovery News because it is all new breakthroughs and news going on in the science world.  A lot of it is random, interesting stuff.
When deciding on a subscription, I look at the stories under it and id the seem interesting, I follow.  I'm not sure if thats the way it is supposed to be done but that is how I do it.  In terms of following blogs, It was already done for me since the google accounts are linked.  There is a "Blogs I'm Following" tab on the left side that shows all the blogs in order that people post them.  It is actually very helpful if I want to view others' blogs rather quickly.  RSS allows me to do that along with viewing all the other information .  I am only subscribed to one or two wikis I can't seem to subscribe to the others unless I am already subscribed to them and don't know yet.  As for custom links, I made one that links to my blog and on that links to my twitter account it wasn't very hard.
Overall, if I continue to use RSS it can be less time consuming rather than opening like 5 tabs at once to check everything for this class.  It is everything I need to check for this class in one site.  I can also get updates with stories of what I want to subscribe to as an added bonus.

Facebook&Twitter

     I already had a twitter and facebook account before this class started but I was not as active on twitter mostly because I do not own a smartphone.  I had no idea that twitter was micro-blogging probably because I did not really know what blogging was in the first place.  The difference I believe is the way each is done and the length of the messages.  This is how I see it:  your on a walk and something incredible happens.  A tweeter would pull out his or her smartphone and share with the world what just happened almost like an exclamation point post.  A blogger would get home from the walk, get on the computer, and describe his or her walk in detail including the exciting story all the way until he or she is home like a story book post.

     On twitter, I am not to familiar with lists but I am with retweets trends.  Pound signs are used to indicate a trend.  This is a way of grouping tweets on topics, similar stories, and stuff that people can relate to.  I use them to let people know sort of the "subject" of what I am tweeting about.  I haven't retweeted anything but people I know sometimes retweet celebrities' tweets for example because it is a funny tweet.  

     Facebook has been not only my go to procrastination tool, but a way to stay connected to my friends.  It is always active with people posting all the time.  It is essentially a complete profile of a person.  I have had a profile since freshman year so a lot of information about me is on there.  I only let my friends see what is on my profile and I mean everything.  Facebook is good with privacy you just have to know how to use it.  As for posts that may or may not hurt a job opportunity, I do not think after going through my profile that I have posts that would affect anything.  For the most part it is comments with my brother and wall posts by my girlfriend.  I am safe for now...I hope.

     There are many organizations in my career field that use twitter and facebook.  I "Like" my organization's facebook and can see how the organization operates, and what goes on in it.  My organization does not use twitter but I follow another pharmacy page that is helpful in learning about he field.

News

Fox news has a facebook page, twitter page, and website.  All share one thing in common...the news.  The only thing different is the format of which it is presented.  The Fox news website is very large, with a wide range of news with many tabs to navigate the site.  On the facebook page, there are news headlines with a description, picture,  and link for further information on the story.  Each story has hundreds or thousands of comments with opinions about it.  The twitter page shows even shorter posts with an embedded link that goes directly to the entire story.  These are similar to the "Up Next"  parts of the news where the anchors say what stories are up after the commercials.
These media are ambient journalism because they are so easy to obtain and even participate in with commenting on facebook and tweeting.  It is a newer form of media with the technology of smartphones where people can update anything anywhere.  I do not have a smartphone so I guess I am out of the loop and disconnected to society.

Wikis

I just set up my wiki and I thought it was pretty challenging.  At first I thought it was all set up when I saw I had a profile and everything but I soon realized that was only a home page where I can look at my wikis (I had none at the time).  I created my wiki and was also lost at that point too.  There seemed to be no home page but a pages tab.  There was a discussion tab and a few others.   I posted two different pages one for news events and one for information about the organization.

I feel like the wikis are harder to understand than blogs because it is used for a lot more things.  It has more potential than blogs so it would make sense to be a little more complicated.  Once I get the hang of it I feel it wont be that bad and this project on organizations can get rolling.  I hope I wasn't the only one struggling with setting up my wiki.  The link to mine is

Classmates

Hello followers!  I don't think I am able to follow all of your blogs because not everyone has written one!  It took me a while to figure that one out I hope I am right about that.  If not then could someone please give me some more insight.  Tara thank you for the reply to my other post.  It seems that the only blogs as of now are me, Matthew, Tara, and Bistra.  If anyone else has a blog please let me no so I can figure out how to follow you.  Thank you!

Blogging

I hope this course can give me a little insight to the blogging world.  It started out great I created my own blog, I customized it to the way I wanted, and I explored the site.  I added a few gadgets to add to my blog to make things more appealing and easier.  The problem with my blogging experience is following people. I still have no clue how to follow a classmates blog because I don't have the url and I can't find it anywhere.  It's a little frustrating but all part of the blogging experience I guess.

It does seem like blogging could be a very useful in professional fields.  As for me, I plan on becoming a pharmacist.  In the drug world there are always new medications coming out and different treatment opinions so I believe that pharmacists could work together with blogs to teach and learn about new treatments and medications to offer patients.

For my privacy settings, I decided to not show my email address because everything that should be said will be on my blog I don't need emails about my blog.  I show the state I live in because I feel like that is enough information for people to know where I'm from. 

I wanted to layout of my blog to be appealing and simple.  I added a few gadgets (Fish being one of them) to be able to look at my blog and figure everything out.  I even put a poll on my blog for other people to make it more user friendly.

Myself

     Hello everyone my name is Corey Christie I'm 18 almost 19 and a sophomore at the University of New England.  I am a pre pharmacy major and this is hopefully my last year as a pre pharmacy student.  I have a big family I'm one of four, one being a twin brother.  I happen to be the younger one by twelve minutes its really not a big deal.  We always get asked the same questions like "Do you guys play tricks on all your teachers?" or "Who's older?".  It's not annoying it just comes with being a twin and it's something we learn to live with but being a twin is the best I have no regrets from making the choice of being a twin...as for my other two brothers, doesn't matter they're not as important one's 17 and one's 13.