Connect Schedule, Fall 2013

A new series of Connect sessions begins in September.  The two topics we'll be focusing on are Basic Dreamweaver Skills and the iPad App of the Month!  Dreamweaver sessions will be the first Wednesday of every month, iPad sessions will be on the third Wednesday of every month. All sessions will be from 9-10 a.m. and last about an hour. Instructions for participating in the sessions will be emailed out at the beginning of the week each session takes place.

• Sept 4 – Defining and downloading sites, adding basic content in Dreamweaver
• Sept 18 – Presentations Using iPad
• Oct 2 – Optimizing images for the web
• Oct 16 – Evernote for iPad
• Nov 6 – Online Polling and Survey options for your website
• Nov 20 – Office apps for iPad
• Dec 4 – Using named anchors on your site
• Dec 18 – iFilmaker and Action Movie for iPad

Any questions?  Email me at jeffrey.wood@colostate.edu. 

Evernote

Evernote (https://evernote.com/) is a well designed and useful repository for notes, pictures, video, audio, documents, webpages, and clips from webpages.  You can install it onto all of your devices (desktops, laptops, tablets, phones) and it will automatically sync your devices so they all share the same information (this can also be done manually).  There are add-ons for Outlook and most browsers as well, so you can quickly send emails and websites to your Evernote account. And it's free!

You can, for example, add to your shopping list from your desktop throughout the week, and when shopping day comes along you just take your phone with you, and your up-to-date list will be in Evernote.  The folks at Evernote suggest that you start with one project (a shopping list is a great place to start) until you get a sense of how it works, then branch out onto other projects.


Its versatility becomes more apparent the more you use it.  You don't need to be in Evernote to add  notes.  Outlook allows you to forward an email simply by clicking an icon (screenshot at left). Browsers with the Evernote add-on have a similar icon so you can send an entire webpage as a note, or if you have selected a portion of the page, it will clip only that section (screenshot at right).

It also works well as a place to store documents. You can email documents, pictures, audio and video to your account.  If you have your notes divided into folders, put @name-of-folder in the subject line of the email, and it will go to that folder.  Similarly, if you put #name-of-tag in the subject line, it will automatically tag the note for you.

Evernote accounts can be shared with colleagues, so you can set up accounts for specific projects.  While you are limited to 60 mb of data a month, storage is unlimited.      

There is much more to this versatile tool.  Give it a try at https://evernote.com/.  We will delve into the specifics of its use in a Connect session this Fall.
  

IFTTT (IF This, Then That)

IFTTT is a free on-line tool that triggers an on-line action when a specific event happens.  It sounds  simple, but potential uses for it are limitless.  It is easy to customize and use, and many examples are available to browse.  Find it at https://ifttt.com/.

Examples: Have an email sent to you when someone tags you on Facebook.  Have a text message sent to you on any day it is supposed to rain.  Email travel receipts to Evernote.  Get an email whenever the Mets win.

You choose the trigger (the event) and the event (what happens when the trigger is activated).   Let's go back to that example where you get emailed when it's going to rain.


The trigger (this) in this example is a specific weather condition (you could also, for example, get a text when the weather goes below freezing). 

 The action (that) is getting a customized email telling you it's going to rain (you could also, for example, have it send you a text or a post to Evernote).

It's very simple, but infinitely customizable, and you can create complex chains of triggers and events.  There are many "recipes" on the site, so you can browse until you find one that is close to fitting your needs, and then tweak it until it does exactly what you want it to.

This is a fun and powerful tool.  Give it a try! 

Three Ways to Reduce PDF File Size

Most of you who have access to your county's Extension website frequently post Adobe PDFs on the site, as it is seen as a universal format, since it does not requite the end-user to buy anything, but merely download the Adobe Reader.

Just like images, it is a good idea to compress the size of your PDF document as much as possible, to save valuable file space on the web server.  Here are three ways to do so.

Save as a Reduced Size PDF. In Adobe Acrobat, choose File, then Save As, then Reduced Size PDF.  A screenshot is below, taken from Adobe Acrobat Pro X.  You'll then get a dialogue box asking for Acrobat version compatibility.  As it states in the dialogue box, the later version of Acrobat you choose, the lower the file size.

 

 Optimize the document.  In Adobe Acrobat, choose File, then Save As, then Optimized PDF.  Set Compression quality to Low (see screenshot below) for both Color and Grayscale Images.  For more control, you have a panel on the left to control which objects to compress (Images, Fonts, etc.).

 

Housecleaning.  Realize that when you delete a PDF file (or any other file) in your local copy of your website, that file is NOT deleted on the website itself.  So, perhaps twice a year, go into the site (in Dreamweaver's FTP use the Remote Panel, typically on the left) and delete any old PDFs (and any other files) that you no longer link to or use.  You will be surprised at the unused documents that can accumulate over the months.

Selecting Recently Modified Files in Dreamweaver

This command is a real time-saver.  Let's say you've been working on your website for the past two days and you are finally ready to upload your changes to the server, but you've worked on so many pages you don't want to go through the entire site and pick the ones to upload.  You can have Dreamweaver do it for you.

First, expand the File pane using the Expand icon, shown at left (you should always expand the File pane before uploading to the server.).

Next, go to the Edit menu and choose Select Recently Modified.  The dialogue box gives you three useful options, shown below.  You can select any files you've created or modified in a specified number of days (the screenshot shows 2 days).  You can select files you've worked on in a specific date range.  Or, if you are using the Contribute option, you can select files worked on by a specific person.

Caveat!  Dreamweaver often will NOT select images or documents you've added recently, even if you are linking to them from your recently modified page.  You need to do that manually.  And ALWAYS check your links after you've published.

   

11 Google Products You Never Knew Existed

Business Insider recently ran an article entitled "11 Google Products You Never Knew Existed."  As might be expected, some of these are fun, some are fairly useless, and some appear to be useful, well-designed on-line tools.

The most interesting of the 11:

• Google Scholar lets you access articles, theses, books, abstracts, etc., from academic websites. http://scholar.google.com/
•  Google Art Project lets you see works of art from museums and galleries all over the world. http://www.googleartproject.com/
• Build With Chrome lets you build 3-D structures with Lego bricks.  Truly fun (and my favorite)! http://www.buildwithchrome.com/static/map
• Power Searching With Google is a tutorial that gives you tips and tricks for more efficient web searches. http://www.google.com/insidesearch/landing/powersearching.html
• Encrypted Google lets you search more securely via an encrypted SSL. https://encrypted.google.com/

The entire article can be found here.

Adding Captioned Photos to a Webpage

You can use a table to place a photo and accompanying caption to a web page.  Start by clicking the Table icon in the Insert panel (screenshot at left).

Use the dialogue box (screenshot below) to create a table consisting of 2 rows, 1 column. Select the table width; the example is set at 50 percent of the containing element. Set border, padding and spacing in pixels.  Click OK.

 

Click inside the top cell of the table.  Click the Image icon in the Insert panel.  Select the image you'd like to insert, click Okay, and give it Alt text (a succinct description of the image).  Click inside the bottom cell.  Type in your text.  Give it a style from the format box screenshot below); Headings 4, 5 and 6 are generally best suited for captions.  

If you'd like to align the content (i.e. - the image or the text) of either individual cell, click inside the cell and use the Horizontal and Vertical cell alignment tools (screenshot at left).





To get the accompanying text on the webpage to wrap around the table you'll need to align the table either left or right. Select the table by clicking the border.  Choose Left or Right on the Table alignment tool (screenshot at left).

Before you publish the page, make sure to preview it in at least two different browsers, as tables appear differently in different browsers.