I Never Promised You an Organic Garden

As I finish  knitting projects (most recently a baby sweater and set of  wash cloths), I record my new projects in Ravelry.  Ravelry is a perfect union of two of my strongest areas of interest: knitting and the internet.  It is an online community for knitters and crocheters that goes way beyond social networking. Ravelry allows its users to post and track projects, search patterns, store information about stashed yarn, search forums, keep a list of needles owned, join groups, see what others are making, comment on other users’ projects, and much much more.

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I just completed an online survey hosted by A List Apart gathering information about what it is like to “be the people who make the websites”.  This is one of the fastest growing fields in the country, and A List Apart is gathering information to better demonstrate what it means to work in this profession.

So if are a designer, developer, information architect, project manager, writer, editor, marketer, or anyone else who makes websites, even you freelancers, I encourage you fill out the survey. It will only take a few minutes.

This week’s Technology Today is not a brand new service, but I just used it for the first time this week and was impressed: Goog411. Goog411 is Google’s 411 service, and it is totally free. It makes it extremely simple to find and connect to local and national businesses.

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This week on net@night I heard about a very exciting new web service out called Animoto. Animoto is “a web application that automatically generates professionally produced videos” from a selection of your photos and favorite music. It is amazingly simple to get a high quality video you can send to your friends and family, post on your blog, or use in a presentation. And best of all…it is totally free! (for a 30 second video)

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I started a Technology Today section in my blog with the intention of posting each week about a neat item in the technology community, but have not bee very successful. Matt and I have been quite busy and will continue to be, but I will try and be more intentional about posting.

For this week, I want to highlight Geni (Chris Hardie also highlighted this in his blog). Geni is free web 2.0-style online genealogy software. It allows you to create an interactive family tree that you and your family members can join and update. The software has a social networking feel and allows each person on the tree to create their own profile, containing personal information, photos, and news updates.

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I have decided to add yet another new section to my blog. I am adding a “Technology Today” section, where I will select one technology related item each week and write about it so the average non-geek can understand. It could be a website, software, a gadget, or anything else related to technology.

There is always something new and exciting going on in the world of technology, but information is not always accessible to those who don’t have time to devote hours to surfing the net or listing to podcasts. I hope to be able to wade through some of the information out there and pick out one item a week that I find interesting and share it with everyone who reads my bog.

For this week, I have selected the Common Craft Show. The Common Craft Show is run by the husband and wife team of Lee and Sachi LeFever, and they take complicated or commonly misunderstood concepts and make short explanatory videos. Their easy-to-understand videos cover a wide variety topics including RSS, Twitter, blogs, social networking sites, and new light bulbs.

New videos are posted approximately once a month, and they are a great way for non-geeks and geeks alike to learn how things work.

My favorite is their video on RSS (Really Simple Syndication):