Developing mobile, scrolling horizontally, undergrads usage of wikipedia (links, links)

Just a couple of various links from various places:

how to build mobile versions of existing sites, including links to some mobile site building tools:
http://designshack.co.uk/articles/css/quick-tips-for-creating-a-mobile-optimized-site

How undergraduates use wikipedia:
http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2830/2476

scrolling horizontally!
https://xd.adobe.com/#/articles/article/530

direct link to the horizontally scrolled page:
http://www.thinkingforaliving.org/

Semantic web, Metadata an introduction (for Catalogers)

I'm having trouble with slideshare (and facebook and my email and...) in the meantime, here is the presentation for tonight's guest lecturer presentation.


enjoy!

Presentations/Training Spring/Summer 2010

This takes me up to early June (and dreaming of vacation), but here is what is on my schedule:

March 30, 7 pm. Semantic web & metadata (I'm tentatively calling this Semantic Web for Catalogers): Guest Lecturer/VSU MLIS program

April 15, 7 pm: Intro to Free Image Editors: Gimp, Aviary & more : UGA Linux Group/Chugalug -- -- Open to anyone on the UGA Linux Group and Dweebs

April 19, 2pm; (Encore April 23 @ 10am): Get Blogging: Learn about blogging and microblogging (Twitter!) and get started! -- w/ Amy Watts (part of the 10 Weeks to a Web2.0 U; Social media & Web 2.0 training program for UGA Libraries -- more on that later, when I can breathe)

April 22: Image Editing: It's not all about Photoshop, Lunch n Learn @ 11am (UGA Web Editors; we are going to try to video this one)
Do you know there are both downloadable opensource image editors free for use as well as online image editors? Have you ever been away from Photoshop but wanted to quickly edit a photo? Or perhaps, you have a colleague who just needs to quickly resize a photo, but doesn't have access to Photoshop? Interested in collaborative EDITING online, in addition to just sharing? We'll look at a few popular choices including GIMP, Aviary, and Picnik. -- Open to anyone on the UGA Dweebs listserv

May 3, 2pm (Encore May 7 @ 10am): Get Photo Saavy: Learn about FREE online photo editing and management tools such as flickr and picnic. Discover some of the basics of editing photographs and how to share photos using feeds and widgets. Sample images will be provided, but feel free to bring your digital camera. (part of the 10 Weeks to a Web2.0 U; Social media & Web 2.0 training program for UGA Libraries -- more on that later, when I can breathe)

May 5, 2-4pm Drupal Basics for Libraries offered through Lyrasis; introduction to Content Management Systems, Drupal and a demo.

June 1, 10-12 Drupal Basics for Libraries offered through Lyrasis; introduction to Content Management Systems, Drupal and a demo.

As you can see, heavy on the web stuff; it's true, I frequently do this kind of stuff at lunch or after "regular" (what is that, these days?) hours. I am kind of booked up at the moment, but I'm always looking for speaking/lecture opportunities. Drop me a line @ georgiawebgurl@gmail.com

Free Cataloging Tools (!)

I can't believe I never posted this beyond delicious.com. Sorry! So there, ya go -- free cataloging tools. Yup, free.

Free Cataloging Tools

View more presentations from robinfay.

web dev links

Just passing along a couple of web dev links:

http://go2web20.net/

http://www.killerstartups.com/

that is all...

Question of the day: How to embed youtube videos & make them fit...

Depending on what browser and resolution you are using, you may find that your content (such as blog posts) which have embedded videos are running over your blog post area. You COULD change your stylesheet, but if everything works except for embedded Youtube videos, an easier answer might be to change the width of the Youtube player. This is super easy to do.

First you need to find a video that you want to use. ;-) Not all Youtube videos are embeddable and many copyrighted ones are not. If that is the case, you'll need to just link to them.

Get the code from Youtube

If you're looking at the main user channel, you may not see the embed links, but you can get to them in a number of ways.

Underneath each of the videos posted on the channel, is a tab/button which says Info. Click on Info and you will see
View comments, related videos, and more
Click on this get to the video with its embeddable info.


The Embed box holds the code for the embeddable video. If you look carefully in the Embed box, you can usually see what the size is -- object width is the width that the embeddable video will be.

If the pre-configured options will work, you can skip customizing the code; just grab a copy (Ctrl + A) of the code from the Embed box. You'll be ready for the blogger section then.

To customize the embeddable video:
Click on the tiny star icon (whoa, is that easy to miss!). Clicking on this will show you the different pre-configured sizes for an embedded video including size and color for the player.

Below the Embed box you will now see a bunch of options to configure your players.

Note: Include related videos may or may not include videos from the same user or necessarily on the same topic. If you want to create a group of videos, your better bet is to make a playlist, which can then be embedded.



In the Embed box, you will hit Ctrl + A (or right click Select All, if you have that functionality).

Embedding a video into a Blogger post
For Blogger (blogspot blogs) you MUST switch to the Edit Html button in order to embed the video. In any other blog service or product, you will need to somehow get to the html, unless you have embed Youtube functionality.

Edit Html
Find a spot in your post where you want to add your video.
Now hit Ctrl + P (paste) or right click paste if you have that functionality.

It will paste in something that looks
like this. Recognize that stuff? It is
indeed, the code from Youtube.


If you click on Compose, you will not see the video.Don't worry, the code is still there and if you click Edit Html you will see the code.


If for some reason, you need to edit the width and height even more you can do it by tweaking the height and width even more, directly in the code.

..and that's how to do it (or at least, one way to do it). I realize this question has probably been answered alot over the 'net, but it was a question asked to me, so there you go!

If you do it right, you'll get something like this... yes, I am in this movie... LOL

Good use of social media (Charter)

Okay, I am neither endorsing or denouncing Charter Cable (I'll leave that to you!), but I do use it (have to have the high speed, you know). A few days ago I posted (tweeted) about how bad my network/reception was in my area. I had considered calling, but I just hadn't gotten around to it -- end of the day & too tired. I wasn't expecting anything -- it was just a vent.

Within a day(!) , I received this tweet back from
Umatter2Chtr2
:@georgiawebgurl (yep, that's me @twitter and also google buzz) What's been going on with your net connection? If you DM your Name/Phone# we can take a look at it for you.

He even followed up the next day (although my connection was fine by then). Now, I don't know about you, but I think that is kind of a cool use of technology and it seems much better than the 1-800 service!

You can follow @ http://twitter.com/Umatter2Chtr2

Happy BD to my robot!

Okay, so it's not really my roomba's birthday, but it IS the 20th anniversary of irobot. irobot started out as military kind of robot proj and now, it's cleaning my floors... LOL I need a scooba though! ;-)


Anyhow, I wandered over to the irobot site and discovered this popup "warning" (I'm still laughing, what doesn't it cover? the weather?)

The press release that you are about to view contains certain forward-looking statements that are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statement. Those risks and uncertainties include, among other things: the risk that our business could be adversely affected by changes in the policies and spending priorities of our customers, which include governments and governmental entities; the risk that the commercial robot market does not experience significant growth or our products do not achieve broad acceptance; the risks associated with our dependence on government contractors and third-party retailers; the risks associated with competition; the risk that our products become obsolete; the risk of errors or defects in our products; risks associated with our reliance on skilled personnel; and the risks associated with the protection and defense of our intellectual property and other proprietary rights.

What happened to tr.im (& reviews of URL shorteners)

Wandered over to shorten a URL @tr.im and found this:

tr.im is no longer accepting URL shortening requests via its website. May we respectfully suggest that you choose one of the many other wonderful alternatives available.

Please understand that this does not affect any software that has tr.im available within it. tr.im's API is available, and redirections are working normally.

Found this article about it:
http://thenextweb.com/us/2010/03/22/trim-small-app-problem/

Oooh, sounds like some political intrigue, hand wringing, and possible hurt feelings (not twitter's favorite child?) I know that I'm not the only one who used tr.im beyond twitter posts, though....

I know about tinyurl and bit.ly, but I thought I'd check out other options. I found this review of URL shorteners. Probably more info than you'd ever want about them, but there ya go.

http://blog.watchmouse.com/2010/03/url-shorteners-make-the-web-substantially-slower-facebooks-fb-me-is-slowest/

end of books? (video)

this is kind of nifty.. Just about the time that I was feeling that I was about to click off, it actually changed direction. So stick with it -- lots of stereotypes about 'net users and millenials (altho' never called such):

Statewide EAD project survey

Over the past few years, some members of Georgia's archival community have expressed the desire to have a state-wide EAD project. Given UGA's and DLG's recent successes in developing finding aid databases, we are wondering if now might be the time to leverage our expertise to develop a state-wide EAD database. As a first tentative step we'd like to gauge interest and basic institutional needs before deciding whether such a project might be feasible. We would greatly appreciate it if archivists at Georgia repositories would take a few minutes to fill out our brief (only 10 questions) survey.

The survey can be found at: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/2FNDJ3X

HTML5, CSS3, and Chris Mills

Yesterday I was super fortunate to get to hear Chris Mills of Opera talk about HTML5 and CSS3 (which totally made up for that fact that I couldn't go to NISO -- one day....). He really focused on crossbrowser compatibility and standards (excluding IE, which we all know never seems to play by the rules much to the bane of web designers everywhere... yeah, yeah, I know about IE 8 and 9 and ... but they still fall short).

When I first starting hearing words like "transparency" and "opacity" using CSS, I immediately (truly) created a website with transparencies and layered graphics. Unfortunately, it was a big dud in at least half of the browsers. The website that was going to be so cool (it had a "seaweed" theme in deep greens with swirly seaweed throughout) was just plain out ugly and WONKY. For one the opacity didn't work in all of the browsers and to top it off, I used PNGs w/ transparency (which I had no clue at the time) were not transparent in IE without a workaround. My next few HTML (or php) + CSS sites were fine, nothing too exciting because I was afraid they wouldn't render properly in various browsers. They were almost all the standard 2 column layout w/ header + footer (aka traditional, classic, or boring -- I suppose all of those apply). Throw it all into a wrapper, control everything, and add in hacks just to appease IE. Cleanup the code as much as possible and aim for elegance. You know, the "code is poetry" mindset.

..and then I met a CMS. It enticed me with all of the possibilities. I enjoyed mucking around in the databases, wrangling with Expression Engine templates, Wordpress plug-ins, Coppermine code (whoa, did I hack that), and Drupal modules.
I tried just about every opensource software out there. Yes, I was an opensource junkie.

So, yesterday was really good for me, because it reminded that I CAN start with a blank canvas...and I need a site redesign anyhow. I will still use Drupal to feed the content (it's just too easy to use to create and maintain content quickly), I do have spots of my website which are not controlled by Drupal (it's fairly seamless now as design elements are mirrored across my sites as well as my blog).

Drupal Basics for Libraries

I had a great time teaching my Drupal Basics for Libraries class for Lyrasis. It includes a good grounding in CMS basics, including how those differ from what many of us think of as traditional web design. Anyhow, the class will be repeated in June, so, just keep an eye out. This is not content that I can share, but I do remind you that I write (and share freely) on Drupal quite a bit. You can also email me questions and I will answer them as the question of the day, as I am able. I do love ♥ Drupal, although, I confess, I will always love the straight up blank notepad and coding. In terms of maintenance though: Drupal wins hands down.

graphic design / moonshine covers

As I finish readying moonshine arts magazine for re-launch and migration to Drupal, I thought you might like a snapshot of the covers from the past few years:

It's kind of funny, I rarely do graphic design at work (too many fighting over such a small slice of the pie) that I think people forget I do alot of graphic design and digital art, in addition to traditional 2D. Generally, what I do outside of work is more creative that the corporate/institutional look, but I've certainly done, that.

Your private life, well, it's not so private (higher ed, social media, and privacy)

Interesting article about faculty and social media, touching a tiny bit on online presence & digital identity ( because you know -- say it with me kids -- if you're not building your digital identity, someone is building it for you...)

but also further removes the illusion that faculty members -- or anyone, for that matter -- can maintain a completely private life on the Internet.

Heh. Did we think otherwise? Come to think about it, is any part of our life private? Our financial transactions and life are stored online, webcams almost EVERYWHERE, so what IS private?

Faculty may make efforts to preserve their private lives, but professors really have “24-7” jobs and can never fully distance themselves from their identities as educators held to high standards, said Brad Ward, who advises colleges on using social media.

I think that the EXPECTATION that we ALWAYS have to represent our institution or company is outdated and doesn't fit very well with social media. If you expect to participate in social media, there has to be understanding that people will be... well... people. Otherwise, it just into yet another digital platform for pr and publishing.

Open Identity Exchange project

Interesting article about a potential project involving google, paypal, verizon and others.

"Open Identity Exchange (OIX) is a newly founded non-profit organization, launched today at the RSA Conference 2010 by Google, PayPal, Equifax, VeriSign, Verizon, CA and Booz Allen Hamilton. The aim of this new organization is exchange of online identity credentials across public and private sectors; in other words, it can certify online identity providers to U.S. federal standards."

http://mashable.com/2010/03/03/google-paypal-oix/

Hmm... Google, Paypal, and Verizon?

Mobile dev resources

For those of you developing for mobile devices... I know, I should be...
great list from a friend...
-------------------------
The Complete iPhone Development Toolbox
a list of blogs,tutorials,screencastss,code snippets, and bookss
http://iphone.appstorm.net/roundups/developer/the-complete-iphone-development-toolbox/


A great list of links for creating mobile enabled sites

18 Mobile Frameworks and Development Tools for Creating iPhone Apps
http://iphoneized.com/2009/11/18-mobile-frameworks-development-tools-creating-iphone-apps/

Free learning from Microsoft

Just passing along a link and bookmarking for myself ;-)
http://learning.microsoft.com/Manager/Catalog.aspx?view=free