An internet click fest

Does anyone else find it really hard to concentrate on your blog when you are online? I check my blog most days but always end up going on a tangent looking at other blogs, then links in blogs, then random websites, then my emails.... :-) It is just a never ending click fest!! I can now see what other bloggers mean when they say they can spend days on end trailing through site after site after site..... Not that I'm saying I don't enjoy it, just that I now have considerably less time in the day for other things!

Wordle....

I'm making this up as I go....

Well apologies for my recent absence here! Kidney infections are proving to be a recurring nightmare for me at the moment :-( It's amazing how work can be shoved onto the back burner when you feel ill! Anyway enough about me and back to my research! I struck upon an idea the other morning over coffee of a possible issue for my dissertation. I was searching through blogs and came across one (can't remember which sorry!) that talked of the work of someone who had passed away and wanted to keep people's interests in the ideas raised. It made me wonder about the internet in the future. If people have active blogs, bebo/facebook profiles or websites and then pass away what happens to them? Since most of these are password protected it would be impossible for friends or family of that person to delete their profile. Should these profiles be deleted by the company providing the service or is that against people's human rights? These profiles could be used by friends and family as a way to leave messages and help mourn. So how long to these webpages stay online? The internet must already be full of people's online profiles that have now passed away and are not being used anymore. This build up of layers could conceivably become a port of call for future archaeological research in the future. Will it be possible to excavate the internet?

Also the title of this blog for any hardcore Indiana fans is a little quote from Raiders. DVD out this week!

Am I an Internet Impostor???

Since setting up this blog I have started to ask myself some fundamental questions as to why. There are many different types of blogs online such as newfeeds, blogs done by an organisational unit about a particular excavation or simply personal blogs; a reflection on studies or experience or just an area of interest. The reasons for 'It's not just a trowel, it's a way of life' was to gain more of an insight into the world of the blogger. Questions such as why do people blog, what do they want to achieve and what do they discuss are among the huge list I currently have! So if my blog is only active and online to try and claw my way into the 'blogosphere' for research about the bloggers themselves does that make me a fraud? After making contact with a couple of other bloggers (thanks Neko and Cas) who's blog pages are kept up to date with interesting posts that obviously mean something to them, I now feel slightly unnerved at my almost 'fake' blog. The one thing that surprises me most about this whole process is that I have become very attached to 'It's not a trowel...' After noticing I hadn't updated the blog for two weeks (shock horror) I felt incredibly guilty! Maybe that's due to the fact that its for my dissertation..... or maybe I'm being sucked into the 'blogosphere'.........

Blogging....

So my dissertation is on the use of blogging within archaeology. What purpose it has and the effects on the subject as a whole. Right now I have more questions than answers! I guess that's to be expected though. I wonder though what people's perceptions are of bloggers. Before I started this I had images of sad old balding men sitting at their PC's ranting and raving about how young un's were ruining society. Now that I am a blogger (argh!) I can see that is nonsense!! I suppose it can just be an outlet for some people. A way to twitter on without someone telling them to stop moaning and get a life...... I tried to get a life once, but they were sold out.......

First Post

Ok I'm new to this blogging thing but decided to give it a go anyway! The real purpose of my blog is to follow my dissertation progress for my final year at university. I'm hoping this will help me gather my thoughts! I wonder how long I can keep up to date with it though..... :-)