#33 Online art

This exercise states "The Internet provides endless opportunities to waste time. Here are a few sites where you can be creative, have fun, and, yes, waste time."

To express yourself artistically try Mr. Picassohead. More time to kill? Then click to String Spin to create string art or try your hand at snowflake making or one of the Falling Sand games.

Here are my string craft, I had a play with the Falling sand, and created a couple of Snowflakes.

Yes it is just idle fun, but having the computer stylise and move your creations adds another dimension to it, and if you spent some time really thinking about what you're doing, it could be a work of art.

#32 Online file storage

This 'thing' deals with Omnidrive which was - but no longer is - an online storage company, allowing users to access, share and publish their data and content. The company website was shut down in late April 2008 after it failed to renew its domain name and the service stopped working, the defunct web page now directs you to a financial service.
So I’m using another online file storage program: Box.net instead, as you can still do the exercises - editing a text document with Zoho, and uploading & editing an image (though it uses picnik not Snipshot, but you can add Snipshot) I think I might have a play with picnik's photo effects later.

Here's another storage device, the caption was "Wooden Google".

#31 Plaxo

Plaxo is just one of the many organisational calendar websites. The exercise required you to set up some events, including a recurring event (I found this easy and what an assert, I now have all the User Group dates marked, with a countdown to the next meeting). I changed the date display from the US format which can be confusing, and added in the local weather forecast, all easy, but could not get the icalshare subscribe to connect, can see the calendar preview, but the subscribe link won't work. In the work enviro, Plaxo is more intutive than our current Publisher one.

Collection of churches

(the collective noun for a group of churches is "a collection")

St Marys Church of England, Sandford
Opened in January 1888, the church building was sold off in 2006.

Sandford was one of the pastoral properties owned by the Henty brothers, the town site is on the banks of the Wannon River just south of Casterton.

Tullyvea Church west of Tarranyurk, was used as a school for 12 months 1934-35, when the building across the road burnt down.

The church building now sits in the corner of a wheat paddock, and provides shelter to any stock grazing in the paddock.

Does the building below look familiar? This is the Pepper's Plains Church, approximately 30kms east/north-east of Tullyvea, between Tarranyurk and Warracknabeal.

Pepper’s Plains was named after Pepper who had a grazing lease there before the land was opened up for closer settlement.

What makes Pepper's Plains stand out is this artwork still looking remarkably fresh on the far wall.

Still using the same architect or the same plans is the Antwerp Methodist Church below.

Antwerp is 10kms south of Tarranyurk on the Dimboola-Rainbow Road.

Built around 1890, on land donated by botanist and chemist Joseph Bosisto (of the Eucalyptus Mallee Oil Company and Emu brand), he was probably the earliest manufacturer of essential oils in Australia. He was also twice elected to the Victorian Legislative Assembly.

In May 1897 the first Antwerp school No. 3104 (originally named Tarranyurk North) operated in the Church till a school was shifted in from Dart Dart in 1902. Also now in a paddock, it is used for storage.

#30 I'm in UR Libary, Readin UR b00ks

I love LOLcats, and it's easy to spend time just trawling through all the pictures, here are some of my current cute favourites

and a couple with a Christmas theme

and this one "what's delaying my dinner" which is really a captioned postcard from 1905.

This exercise was to cruise the LOLcat sites, and Blog about your favorite LOLCat, and include a link to it.

My favourite is the fishtank one, as it isn't staged and still manages to look cute. Interestingly when I first viewed it some time ago, it's caption was "pls not letting them eat mai toezz!!", but I think both captions work with the situation.

#29 Scrapblog

Scrapblog as the name suggests is a form of online scrapbooking. Again, I've played with scrapblog previously, and found some aspects really good and some a bit annoying (especially all the email notifications).

This time the exercise required that we create a scrapblog with the images representing our favorite books (gathered in Thing 27 - Photobucket) and integrate a few of the effects, then publish it and share it on flickr.
You can see my pages below or go to flickr and find it tagged: mccaffrey, harryp and scrapblogbooks (all participants use this tag).


For those without access to programs such as Photoshop, Scrapbook lets you use its features to be creative with your photos, or from other photo-sharing sites to have a play and combine them with fancy frames, stylish stickers, brilliant backgrounds, etc. Flyers and notices will never be the same again.

Faithfully abandoned

It's a while, since I've 'Abandoned' anything, so now at this time of yuletide, are some abandoned churches. Nowdays old churches are being converted into private homes, quaint B&Bs, and pizza restaurants, but some have just been left alone after the last congregation left.

For some like the Kalkee Methodist Church, only a few bricks and the entrance remain at the site.

The first Wesleyan church of sun dried bricks was established in 1876 one km north of the present site. In 1885 a new wooden church was completed, this was severely damaged by white ants and the dust storms of the 1902 Federation drought. A new church on the present site opened in 1905, it closed on 17.8.1975 and the building was sold for removal.

The church in 1974

Ebenezeer Church

Ebenezeer Mission Station was first established in 1859 by the Moravian Church, for the Aborigines of the area. The Mission was located on the banks of the Wimmera River, south of Lake Hindmarsh, near the town of Antwerp.

The missionaries opened a school for the Aborigines, hoping to educate the Aborigines to read and also to ‘civilise’ them into European ways. The Aborigines on the station were involved in the building of the stone and wood cottages, as well as hunting, fishing and farming for the men and domestic duties for the women. The mission was successful and a model for other missions in Victoria.

The mission closed in 1904 after the last missionary had died in 1903, and due to the government's assimilation policy which only allowed full-blooded Aborigines to live on the stations. The land was divided up and sold for farming, except for a small section on which the buildings still remain. These are the oldest surviving mission buildings in Victoria, and have been stabilised and partly restored. The historic station property is now jointly operated by the National Trust and the Goolum Goolum Aboriginal Co-operative.

Rev. Kramer's grave

#28 Magazine image generators

This exercise stated "I don’t know how many of you recognize these lyrics from Dr. Hook’s 1973 hit, On the Cover of the Rolling Stone. But if you've ever dreamed about being featured on a magazine cover, these image generators will give you that chance."

We had to create a cover and post it to our blog, so here are a couple for when some multi-national coffee-table type magazine executive commissions me to tour the world on photo shots of exotic locations.


And yes I remember "On the cover of the Rolling Stone" by Dr Hook. Interestingly the Web2.1 link to the song is no longer available, here is my link.

#27 Photobucket

I trialled photobucket nearly a year ago (post of 8th December 2007), as it allowed for bulk uploads of photos. It has grown in leaps and bounds since then. I searched for favorite books/authors, and used the Find stuff to browse and added them to My album.
Like flickr there seems to be a level of duplication and some average photos loaded, but I did like this illustration below (depicting Anne McCaffrey's book "Lyon's pride").