Google Visualizations powered by Docs Spreadsheet

The Google Visualization API offers some really great ways of visualizing data. One example of it's use can be found on the Research departments Credit Hours page.  In this particular case we're using the Gauge visualization to represent data.  

The information is being pulled from a Google Docs Spreadsheet that the department maintains.  Though some nifty Javascript and a few API calls we're able to take the data from the spreadsheet and create those gauges on the fly. No manually updating the page, or exporting images and then SFTP them up to the server.  It's really quite a nice solution to visually displaying data.

There's a ton of visualizations available, and you can even create your own if you're so ambitious (and an advanced geek).

Linking Tip

Here's a little tip when linking to a URL on a webpage:

Just simply link the text to the URL.  Don't give instructions on how to get to the URL or ask them to type in the URL manually.

Examples:

Bad:

Goto our home page and scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on directions, then click on Mays Landing.

Good:

Directions to Mays Landing Campus

It's much easier and more convenient for a user if links are done this way versus suggesting someone go through numerous steps or have to type in a URL manually.

ACCC Latest News Dashboard Widget

ACCC now has a OS X Dashboard widget available.  It will provide you with the latest news releases from ACCC.

The dashboard widget requires a Mac running OS X 10.4.3 or higher to run.  

• Download ACCC Latest News Dashboard widget (496KB)
  

YouTube Channel

YouTube is a fantastic resource for viewing and sharing original videos online.  It's also one of the most popular destinations on the web today, so sharing your videos there opens it up to the possibility of an extremely wide audience.  

The school has a channel setup to share various short original videos.  It is also being used to serve up the videos featured on the recent What's Cooking that's currently airing on NBC40 as well as the web.  We're working on some other pretty nifty ways of incorporating YouTube within our site leveraging their developer API's.  So hopefully they'll see some light and go live soon.

Setting up your own channel for your own personal use is simple as well.  Just sign up for an account then begin uploading videos.  That's really all there is to it.  You can customize the look of your channel, create playlists, embed videos into pages, and even work with their robust API if you really want to get advanced.  Just be sure that what you're uploading isn't copyrighted and you should be fine.

Edu Web 2008 Conference

I attended the Edu Web 2008 Conference at the Trump Marina in Atlantic City this week.  It's a conference aimed at the use of technology in higher ed.  There were several hundred people there from all over the world.  It was a good conference and I did learn a lot that I hope to work into our website.

I blogged about my daily events on my personal blog.

• Day 1
• Day 2
• Day 3

I didn't take too many photos (been to AC many times already) but many attendees did take some very nice photos and they can be found on flickr.

Enhanced Search

Just rolled out some enhancements to the search on atlantic.edu. The search results are now pulling several searches into one convenient tabbed page. With Communicator backissues and news release separate from web page results.

Searches include:

• web page on atlantic.edu and venus.atlantic.edu
• college news releases
• CommuniCator issues
• employee listings
• site images

The employee results are marked up using the hcard microformat which is a first for our site.  Other microformats will be adopted throughout the site as well.  Also the image search is another first for atlantic.edu as well.

Since additional searches are made via an AJAX call, the entire page doesn't need to reload.  Resulting in faster, almost immediate searches.

Check out the new improved search on atlantic.edu.  While it's still in beta, if you have any suggestions or comments please share.

Cafeteria Menu Online

If you're feeling kinda hungry and wondering what the fine folks in the cafeteria are serving, you're now just a simple click away from finding out.  The cafeteria menu gadget can currently be found on the cafeterias page as well as by clicking on the employees link in the footer of atlantic.edu.

It will also be offered shortly as stuff to be added to the employee start page at its.atlantic.edu.  Check under Add Stuff to see if it's been added yet.  I previously wrote on how to Add Stuff to the start page.

Google Reader

If you visit many sites often than you've probably heard about RSS feeds.  RSS feeds allow you to subscribe to a sites changing content.  So instead of checking out 20 or so site every morning, you could just have their RSS feeds pulled to you.  A great free RSS reader is the Google Reader.  

As part of our Google Apps for Education, you can just login using your email address and password.  You can add new subscriptions from pasting one you found on a site you enjoy or browsing through some suggested feeds on the site.  You can also opt to share a story from a feed so others can subscribe to your personal Google Reader feed.

ACCC has been offering an RSS feed for a while now with more on the way.  Log in and check it out, it's really cool.

Use the Web Calendar

If you're not already submitting events to the college's online calendar, you really should.  It's extremely easy to do, and with over 15,000 unique page views to the calendar a month a great way to get exposure for an event.  

Anyone can submit an event to the calendar (submissions are screened before being posted).  To submit an event just do the following:

1. From the top right of just about any page on atlantic.edu click on the calendars link.
2. From the calendar page, there's a link to Add Event Form in the sidebar.  Click on that will take you to a form to fill out to submit your event.
3. Fill out the form and submit it. Required fields has an asterisk (*) besides their title.

That's all there is to it.  

Add Stuff to your Google Start Page

There's a ton of useful gadgets that can be added to your personal Google Start Page.  And it's really easy to do.  In this example I'm going to demonstrate how to add the WACC Radio gadget to your start page.

First go to your Google Start Page (http://its.atlantic.edu).  Locate the Add Stuff link as depicted below and click on it.

You should now be at the page where you can add stuff to your start page.  There's categories on the left.  In this case we want to locate the WACC Radio gadget in the ACCC Content category which is most likely selected by default.  Locate the WACC-Radio gadget and click Add it now to add it to your page.

That's it!  If you want to add other gadgets choose a category on the left then just click Add it now under the gadget that interests you.  When you're all done adding gadgets click Back to homepage.

Your Start Page will now have your newly added gadget(s).  Feel free to move them around by dragging them around by their header.  

If you're interested in creating a gadget info can be found at the developer page.  Or if you have some suggestions for a gadget let me know.

How to set up a free blog using Blogger

While I'm sure we're all aware that employees have access to Gmail now, there's also many other great Google Apps that we have access too as well.  Today I'm going to discuss how to setup your own free blog using Blogger.com and your existing atlantic.edu account.

First login to your account through its.atlantic.edu navigate to your email.  At the very top of your email screen you'll see a couple of links like pictured below.

Click on the more link to discover all the other Google App goodness that awaits you.  From the listing of the many Google Services available to you (I recommend you check them out when you have a second) locate the Blogger one that's under the Communicate, show and share heading.

This will take you to Blogger.  This is a very popular and free blog host.  As an employee with an atlantic.edu email address you already have a Google account and can login with your email address and password to get started.

And that's it, you're now logged into Blogger and can follow the simple steps to setting up and customizing your blog. Congratulations you are now the proud owner of your very own blog!