Calendar in Monthly View (not much happening)
Collaborative Tools has been given a few new features in the past two months, with a few more to come soon.
First, there is a new calendaring system that everyone can use. The calendar system is composed of two distinct components: a standard calendar of events and a planning tool. The calendar will be familiar to users of our other calendaring systems while the planning tool may be a completely new concept.
This is the plan
Based on the popular online planner, Doodle, our new tool allows group administrators to create a meeting or event plan and solicit group members for availability. Once the group administrator feels that enough votes have been cast to select a date, he or she can simply click on the time and Collaborative Tools will add it to the calendar.
Since we have not yet created documentation regarding the calendar and event planning tools, please contact Dave Krause if you have any questions.
The second new feature gives group administrators the ability to edit the name and email of newly added users, provided the user is listed as "Unverified." This happens when a new account is created to allow access for a non-ANR person to the system. Previously, the system would only allow the new user to edit this information.
Click "edit" to change the name or email!
Administrators can click "Edit Roster" to view the list of members. "Unverified Users" will have an edit link next to their names. Once a user logs into the system for the first time, this editing capability will disappear. Active users must control and update account information individually.
The future of Collaborative Tools includes integration with Adobe Connect. Many of you have heard us mention this as a possibility. Our chief technician of really complex tasks and equally complex solutions, Bryon Noel, has already successfully integrated the ANR Portal with a test server provided to us by UC Davis IT. Once we are given the go-ahead to move to a production environment, you will be able to create Adobe Connect meetings in the Portal and ultimately, in Collaborative Tools.
Google Analytics has been updated in the blogs to the latest version. For those using Google Analytics on the Blogs you don't have to do anything. The update simply keeps up with Google's updates to their Analytics software. Updates like this are very standard and normal practice.
If you are not using Google Analytics to track your blog statistics and would like to here's how.
We've added some new features to the ANR Blogs. The first feature you may or may not notice right away depending on who's blog you visit. In keeping with the ANR Strategic Vision we have added a brand new style for the ANR Blogs. Part of this addition is giving you blog owners the option of choosing what style you want to use. If you use the new style you can upload your own custom header. This was added due to popular request and also due to the fact that not everyone can use the UC logo. Some other features that come with the new style is automatic meta tagging to help some search engines with page rankings. More on meta tagging below.Let me explain how to change your blog style.
- Login to the ANR Blogs
- Go to the Administration area
- Select "Edit Blog Style"
- If you select and save the "UC Blog Style" an option to upload a custom header will appear
The custom header will automatically be resized to 740 x 117 pixels. So it's best to make your header this size from the beginning. Only JPG file types are accepted for custom headers.
The changes to meta tags are quite extensive so let me explain them below. Firstly, the page title has been updated to better reflect the page content by providing data that is context sensitive to each page. For example: "Post Title - Blog Name - ANR Blogs". The "Blog Description" is a field in the Main Blog Information page. This description is now added to all Blog pages. So you may want to check your blog description and make it properly represent what your blog is about. The last addition is the keyword meta tag. This meta tag is simply a list of keywords that describe the content on the page. A keyword field has been added to the main Blog Information page. So you can add keywords pertaining to your blog as desired. In addition to the keyword field tags that you use in your posts are added to the keywords meta tag. The meta tags have a limit as to how much data you can add so not everything can be added. Instead we try to keep the information added context sensitive. So on your blog's home page the keywords will list the keywords you've entered plus all the tags from your post's tag list sorted by count. When viewing each individual post the keywords lists that posts specific tags first then the keywords added for the entire blog.Once again all of these changes are to help your blogs and blog posts rank higher on the different search engines. To see how best to make use of descriptions and keywords please take a look at the links below...
Google suggestions
Bing suggestions
Yahoo suggestions
Can you remember back to Kindergarden when you were taught to share toys? Well, today we are having a similar lesson only this one is about sharing the web. A recent popular trend is to share news articles, web pages, blog posts, and most anything interesting you can find on the web with friends, family, or co-workers. There are a few sites that specialize in this type of sharing. A new feature we've added to the Blogs is to easily share pages with these social networking websites. Dave developed this feature for Sitebuilder 3.0 and he adapted it to make it easy to use for the Blogs.
Using this feature is quite simple, it does require an account with each social networking application you would like to use. Sharing a page with one of these applications simply involves going to the page you would like to share. Clicking "Share" and selecting the Application you would like to share the page through. Click on one (or all the applications) each one will prompt you to login if you are not already logged in. There may be some other options before the page is shared. But the hardest part is already done.
You may not want to use an application. That is ok, you can e-mail the link directly to a friend or co-worker. Click the "email" link and enter your recipients e-mail address and your done. Of course you can enter a personalized message if you like.
We hope you like the new features and use them to your hearts content!
We get a lot of questions about social media here at the Web Action Team headquarters, and not all of it comes from Bryon. The conversation usually revolves around someone in the division wondering if they should be on Facebook/Twitter/Blog/Delicious and other social networking sites. Most of the time, the answer depends on how much content the inquisitor produces and who the intended audience is.
Even though we may not always encourage users to jump on every new bandwagon, we are responsible for knowing what is out there, how it works and whether or not it would be appropriate to suggest. Cruising blogs and media reviews of new social media applications often requires trudging through tedious rants of excited users who proselytize the life-changing benefits of the applications.
That's what makes this little parody from The New Yorker so perfect. It pretty much nails the bombardment of buzzwords that ensues when social media devotees start discussing their cult(s).
Excerpt:
To start: Do you blog? If not, get in touch with Kris and Christopher from our online department, although at this point I think only Christopher is left. I’ll be out of the office from tomorrow until Monday, but when I get back I’ll ask him if he spoke to you. We use CopyBuoy via Hoster Broaster, because it streams really easily into a Plaxo/LinkedIn yak-fest meld. When you register, click “Endless,” and under “Contacts” just list everyone you’ve ever met. It would be great if you could post at least six hundred words every day until further notice.
If you already have a blog, make sure you spray-feed your URL in niblets open-face to the skein. We like Reddit bites (they’re better than Delicious), because they max out the wiki snarls of RSS feeds, which means less jamming at the Google scaffold. Then just Digg your uploads in a viral spiral to your social networks via an FB/MS interlink torrent. You may have gotten the blast e-mail from Jason Zepp, your acquiring editor, saying that people who do this sort of thing will go to Hell, but just ignore it.
