- Author: Bruce Lidl
Usually, as an IT communicator, my job is to inform people about an amazing new technology or service. A new tool or offering that will profoundly impact their work experience and propel their company or university into a new era of success (we hope!).
That is not my task today, however. Instead, my first announcement as UC ANR IT Communication Specialist is… me.
Last week, I joined CSIT to support ANR web development and to assist IT in getting the word out about all the cool new things we are building. I, myself, am not likely to have a profound impact on your daily work, at least in comparison to the ANR Portal or SiteBuilder 3.0, but what I can promise is to keep you very well informed about the powerful tools and services that CSIT provides.
Often, the role of an IT communicator is to be a kind of translator, taking very technical topics and making them understandable, and useful (!), for a general audience. Luckily, I love technology and have a hard time NOT telling people about it, as my friends and family would eagerly confirm. After a short career in academia, I have spent the last decade or so working for technology companies, both big and small, to bridge the gap between the bleeding edge and the safe middle of the road. Ultimately, no technology has value beyond its ability to empower the user, and I am very excited to assist in deploying great IT tools in the service of ANR's mission of healthy food, healthy environments and healthy communities.
Please don't hesitate to email me or drop by my desk if you have any technology questions*. I would love to hear from you and I look forward to getting to know you and ANR better in the coming weeks.
*(topics including but not limited to: SiteBuilder, Portal, Collaborative Tools, Survey, web development, web design, SEO, blogging, social media, computer hardware, digital video, Game of Thrones, Star Wars, comic books, German philosophy, the films of Stanley Kubrick, anything from Joss Whedon, and pretty much anything labeled as “nerdy.”)
- Author: Bryon J. Noel
When choosing a category from the list the mouse or the keyboard may be used to select a category. When using the keyboard; up / down arrow keys highlight the selected category and the "Tab" or "Enter" key adds the category to the list. When using a mouse simply click on the category to add it.
This is a small addition but one we hope helps people write their Blogs! Keep an eye out as you may see this used in other places as well.
- Author: Bryon J. Noel
It time for another Blog update. This time the Blog update is on the Site Builder 3.0. People have really liked the Blog Showcase. So we decided to give people the option of using that view within their Site Builder 3.0 websites. Here's some examples:
This extra wide view can only be sen when the left navigation has been removed.
This is the normal full page size.
For pages with multiple columns the Showcase view adjusts it's number of columns accordingly.
As you can see the Showcase view scales very well to almost any space you need to put it into. The width scaling and tiling is automatic depending on the width of the column on your Site Builder 3.0 Page.
Selecting Spotlight Stories view or Showcase view is simple. Edit your Blog Asset and select the appropriate "Display Style" from the drop down list. Here's a couple examples.
The other Blog Asset settings apply (when applicable) so you can adjust how many posts are shown, how much text to display (Spotlight Stories View), and so on.
This concludes today's update! Stay tuned for more updates to come!
- Author: Bryon J. Noel
The ANR Blogs have seen quite a few more changes this week in both the administration area and the public side. In the Administration area we've changed the main section of the page from lists of links to more informative view of your Blog. The new view shows the number of posts on your blog, number of comments, comments waiting to be approved, stats from the past month, and more. There are also links to each of these summarized areas to see them in greater detail or deal with moderation needs. The Administration area is in it's infancy stages and will be going through several changes / additions before the final form is settled upon.
One nicety that was added was the ability to delete all unapproved comments. This will be helpful to those who get many comments that should not be published.
Another improvement to comments are that comments now can have replies. This feature is currently limited to Blog Moderators as we'd like replies to be an official informed reply that is meant to help the public.
When replying to a comment a copy of the comment is shown so to make it clear which comment the reply is for.
Recent Comments have also been added to the navigation as well!
Time and care has also been taken to ensure that these changes are also being applied properly to Site Builder 3.0's integration of the Blogs. However, there are still a few features that need to be added.
The freshest addition to the Blogs is the Subscription list. Right now it is very basic, and needs to be flushed out with proper functionality that allows the moderators to properly manage the list.
Changes to the Blogs are coming along, slowly but surely! There are many more on the way, so stay tuned!
- Author: Bryon J. Noel
The new subscription system is really quite easy to use. Every Blog has a link in the menu named "Subscribe". Simply click on this enter your e-mail and security code and your done! You will receive an e-mail confirming your subscription.
Believe it or not it get's even easier... If you're already logged into the Portal then simply click subscribe and your subscribed!
The new subscription system is available to anyone in the world. It provides nightly updates to the subscribers. If someone is subscribed to many different blogs then they receive all the updates in a single email. We don't send out the full post in the e-mail just enough so that people can get an idea of what it is about and follow the link to the site to read the full site.
Now let's say you're an Advisor or Specialist and you need an easy way to send people directly to the subscription page. We've made sure that such a link is available to all Blogs. To find the link to your blogs subscribe page first go to your Blog's home page (Web / IT News is: http://ucanr.org/blogs/wat/) then add "?subscribe" to your blogs home URL. The Web / IT News subscribe link would be: http://ucanr.org/blogs/wat/?subscribe
That's all there is to it! I'm sure some of you may have questions. If you do, please ask!