So long, Farewell, and thanks for all the fish

So, this class has reached its end. I have learned to Tweet with the best of them, Blog like there's no tomorrow, and Joomla with abandon...and I re-discovered my hatred for writing papers.
I enjoyed this class- even if it was a bit frantic. Technology is not my strength (which is why I am taking this course) and I have learned so much more than I expected. I think the deal breaker for this class was, unexpectedly, the use of Twitter. Since online courses are not done in person, we as classmates tend to feel isolated. The use of Twitter bridged this gap to some degree and gave us a sense of camaraderie and rapport.
So now I say goodbye to those who read this and hope to talk to you again. Judith

Assignment 4: Instant Messaging

Yay! I finally finished! Whew, this last paper lay in wait, saw me coming and attacked me. But here it is:

 https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B57kcHBB3MnqWlNCaFZsWVpVUE0/edit

Trick my truck. Library Style.

I find myself quite fascinated with the idea of having a mobile library that you can print on demand. A vision of an ice cream truck tricked out to be a bookmobile, playing its tinny song, rocking down the road, plays through my head. I find this a quaint picture, past memories of ice cream trucks mixed with future technology of digital printing. 

It probably would not be popular with today's kids, but can you imagine having it available in the past? This would have been so cool! 

Does nobody sleep anymore?

 So, here I am, still awake. It's 11:30, and Evelyn and I have just finished posting our posting prompt. So I know she's still awake. Then I checked Twitter to check up on what I missed. Well, either my classmates are night owls, or like me have no social life to speak of. Twitter was quite busy. People tweeting about homework or life in general. Either way, everyone was still awake in the middle of the night still doing class work. This class apparently breeds zombies. We only come out at night with our eyes glazed over from too much reading of class material. It's a shame. #needbrainfood

Assignment 3: Interview transcript

For my assignment, I interviewed Dixie Henning. She is the IT person for the Houston County Public Library System. Within the last year to the last year and a half, this library system has implemented the CMS Wordpress. The following is the transcript of my interview:

Question 1: How and where did you hear about CMS?

Dixie: We discussed CMS in college when I was working towards my degree. That was it until later, about a year to two years ago, the branch manager at one of the Houston County libraries mentioned switching to one , specifically Wordpress, for our website.

 

Question 2: What were your motivations for adopting the CMS?

 

Dixie: Wordpress is very user friendly. The old website was not very interactive and their was no social media on it. The library director of our county system decided to implement it and I had to see how feasible it was. I contacted the GPLS (Georgia Public Library System) to see if they could support Wordpress on their server and found out they could. So I contacted them again and had them get it running. Lucas (the branch manager of one of the Houston libraries) and I then built a webpage to display.

 

Question 3: What was the criteria for choosing this CMS?

 

Dixie: We wanted a cheap, user-friendly program. It also needed to support social media - specifically a blog. Lucas had some familiarity with Wordpress and it looked easy to use and most of all: it was free. It also had to be supported by the GPLS server. So Wordpress met all these needs and we went with it.

 

Question 4: What are the benefits or advantages of using a CMS like Wordpress over the old webpage?

 

Dixie: Previously, the old webpage was constructed with HTML. You had to have coding experience to change or update the website. This meant basically only I was able to change the website. With Wordpress, it is very user friendly, so you don't have to know HTML to manipulate it. It also has interactive contents and supports a blog. Also, it was much more difficult to add plug-ins to the previous website. With Wordpress, adding very complicated plug-ins such as Mango,  Overdrive, or any other large software is very simple - no code involved. It would have taken a lot of time on the old webpage to incorporate all the resources our library has available. A lot of HTML writing.
 

Question 5: How is the learning curve of the software?

Dixie: There was a learning curve, but it was small. Most everyone could figure it out with little to no trouble. Our system ordered a Wordpress for Dummies book so that if any questions came up, we could also use this to solve problems.

Question 6: Was any formal training done?

Dixie: No, no formal training was needed. The people that would be using it just played around with it and if they had any questions, they just asked me. But, honestly, there weren't that many questions.

Question 7: How many people have access to your administration page?

Dixie: We have two parts: the webpage itself and the blog. Three people have access to the webpage: myself and the director and a branch manager. Five people have access to the blog: those that write blogs for the county, the director, and a branch manager.

Question 8: Is your CMS open sourced? And how long have you used it?

Dixie: Yes. It is open sourced. And we have used Wordpress for about one and one-half year.

Question 9: Do you have any concerns about it not being supported in the future?

Dixie: No, not really. Wordpress is well supported and is a pretty popular service.

Question 10: Does it have limitations?

Dixie: Some forms, or plug-ins, you have to pay for. Other than that, I'm sure there are some, but for our needs, we really haven't run into them.

Question 11: So it satisfies all your needs?

Dixie: Yes, I am happy with how it was set up. We even added a testing site that helps with any changes made that lets us see the results before it goes live. So yes, so far, so good.

Question 12: Have you seen an increase in the web usage for your library?

Dixie: Yes, we offer so much more now on our website that people access our site with regularity. For example, we now post and update the children's events and programs calendar every month, so this alone gets many views. One downside to using a CMS is that we get a lot more spam. I have to go through and check for comments everyday and delete all the spam. This can get frustrating.

Question 13: Are there other security issues that come with using Wordpress?

Dixie: Other than the spam, we really haven't encountered any. The GPLS is in-charge of the server end and I know they have security features in place. I have heard of some site using CMS getting spoofed. Or in other words, someone has hi-jacked the URL and the link sends them somewhere other than the site. But this hasn't happened to us and hopefully with our security, it won't.

Question 14: Would you choose a different CMS given the chance?

Dixie: I would probably do a lot of research first. I would probably look into Drupal or some other equivalent software. But Wordpress is free, so I can't complain. Really, it depends on what you want the site to do - for us it is fine.

For this assignment, Dixie gave her permission that her name and the library name could be used. Thanks and appreciation to her, for being willing to participate and take the time to answer my questions. The webpage is www.houpl.org 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For want of a nail...

So this Joomla thing got me curious about other CMS's. Surely if I can manage Joomla, I can conquer anything. Somebody on a post (thank you Renee), mentioned that Droupal was easier. This sounded great to me, so I decided to dabble......Well, it turns out Droupal provides no way to dabble with it - you have to download it to a server. Now, I will be the first to tell you that I am technologically challenged. My specialty is in crashing computers, not working them. 

So I called our IT person. Needless to say, my simple problem (how do I get a server) turned into a long and over-my-head discussion. The long and short of it is, if I want to create a website and don't have readily access to a server, I would be better off using a provider rather than trying to get my laptop to serve as one. Apparently, it's a little involved. 

So there you go, my dreams dashed in one fell swoop. "For want of a nail the kingdom was lost". However, I will not give up! I will not surrender! I will carry on! .....<shuffles off to look for server providers>

Oh Joomla....

Why do you hate me so.

Entry 5/19/13

As one who does not have experience with creating or maintaining websites, I find myself at a loss when dealing with Joomla. I don't know if it is just me, or if easier programs exist. I would certainly hope so. When one has to watch an hour tutorial to have any chance to understand what to do, something is wrong. I am in the middle of said tutorial and have the nasty suspicion that I am going to have to restart from scratch. Not good. But the positive is that once I understand what to do, I should have a great looking website. So, there's that. At this point, I will take what positives I can.

Entry 5/21/13
What joy, I did not have to start from scratch! It turns out I tried to change something that messed with the home page - and therefore, it broke the link. After struggling with this CMS, I finally had a breakthrough with how I placed my information when I realized the website follows a cascade style. Once it became clear how the information was ordered, it was much easier to navigate.

I finally had menus, articles, pictures, and logos placed on the website. There's not much to them, mind you, but they are there. Yay! ......And then it got tricky. Some stuff I did not want or wanted to move. Oh my gosh! Talk about difficult! I had to search high and low for some of the administrator change sites. And some I did not find at all. I gave up. And one particular article, I clicked the star to see what it would do (after all, that is the point of this assignment), and it stuck it to my home page. Well, OK....now that I knew what it did, I wanted to switch it back. So the obvious thing to do would be just to click the star again, right? RIGHT?!!  Wrong! It didn't work the other way. There was no easy switch back. And forget just unpublishing it - didn't work. So there it sits. On my homepage. "Installations", it says. And I can't get rid of it......

So my experience with Joomla is that in some ways its great and easy to manipulate, but in others, you reaaaaaally need to know the "ins" and "outs" of the CMS.

5/22/13
I guess it would help if I posted the URL. Here is my website: http://casite-507966.cloudaccess.net

If a tree falls in the forest.....

...and no one is around, did it really happen?This analogy is sort of how I feel about Twitter. If nobody follows you-did it really happen? It seems to me, Facebook lets you follow a person's progression through their life. Twitter is just a small glimpse of what that person is doing or feeling. I think Twitter could be easy to misinterpret. It just is too small a sample size to get a clear picture of a person or event. Facebook feels much more stable, Twitter goes where the wind blows.     

My Wiki Choice

The library I will be chosing a Wiki for will be the Houston County Library System. Any social media for the three libraries operating within the county will be done under the Houston County brand. Houston County has a population of 137,958 people (www.quickfacts.census.gov) and the fiscal year budget for 2012 is $310,680.

Page History - yes. As this will be a public site, I do want the added security of a page history.
WYSIWYG - yes. As more than one person will be updating this page and as they will have different experiences and knowledge of working web pages, "what you see is what you get", is crucial to have an easy to update page.
Commercial Support - no. The Houston County Library System employs an IT person, so commercial support will not be needed.
Interface Language - no. English is the primarily spoken language in my area. Spanish would be a distant second, but most everyone speaks and reads English.
Hosted Software - yes. To make things safer, easier and smoother, I would chose to have a hosted Wikipage.
Own Domain - yes. As it is important to brand businesses, I would chose to have a personal domain for the library.
Corporate Branding - yes. In the theme of creating a brand, I would chose to have coporate branding.

After selecting these options, a list of 15 remained for me to choose from. I finally decided on Mindtouch (although I liked Wetpaint also). Mindtouch is open source and free. It does allow adds (which Wetpaint did not for educational sites), but if offers blocking and encryption. And although I do not particularly care about having an interface language, it offers 26 different languages. The writing format also looked easy to use and allowed for copy/paste and HTML. So for my wikipage I would choose Mindtouch.

Hello Hal, we meet again....

I have to say, this class is very intense. I am starting to dread my computer. While the information is great and the assignments are mostly fun (so far), packing the whole class into 4 (3?) weeks makes it an all out sprint.

 I am tired of giving my opinions on things. I am tired of telling everybody what what I ate for breakfast. I am tired of sooo much social media. I like lurking. Let me lurk. 

How am I feeling today, Hal? I am feeling worn out. 

I will survive.....

I feel like I just spent the day responding to posts. Wow. However, it was very informative. I learned most libraries have Facebook or twitter accounts- most have both. But, incredibly, some libraries still don't. Is this bad? I don't know. I don't know where they are or who their constituents are.... So who am I to judge. 

It is interesting that many people believe that with time Facebook will go the way of MySpace. Should I rejoice? After all, I finally caved and signed up for it (willingly). My luck it will be obsolete by next year. Then something new will come along that I will have to learn. I think I'm tired of Progress. I wish it would just be happy where it is. 

Do I have what it takes?

I have a feeling I am going to spend all my time with my head bent over my phone- when not on the computer, that is. Web2.0 apparently takes dedication and determination. Do I have what it takes? How do people find the time and have the continuous passion for this? 

Smart phones only

It occurs to me that Twitter lends itself best to those with smart phones. Dumb phones need not apply. I don't see how anyone could properly twit(?) without owning a smart phone or a tablet. This class would be brutal if one had to start a desktop everytime to follow tweets or post. Twitter seems to rely on stream of conscious posts and that lends itself best to easy access- hence, the smart phone exclusivity. 

It's just the beginning

Soooo....my background with Web 2.0 is: trying to duck it as much as possible. It finally caught up with me in my job though, so now I have somewhat resigned myself to dealing with it. At present, I do have a Facebook page, which I must admit, is useful to access and keep up with friends. I work at a public library and am in charge of blogging once a week about library.....well, stuff. So there's that.

For this class I have opened up a Twitter account (why do they make you follow 5 people you don't want to right off the bat?!!). This 140 character limit might be a good thing as I am notoriously succinct in my wording. As Einstein said, "If you can't explain it simply, you don't know it well enough".

 My expectations of this class are that I will learn and become familiar with many applications that I did not know existed. 

testing

This is a test.