Safety Information

The Safety Information on atlantic.edu has been undergoing a redesign. The information found there has now been broken up into individual pages for more efficient reading and consumption. All pages are now linked via the sidebar on the Safety Information pages too, making it easy to navigate. A refreshed look also helps for a more inviting experience.

Users are now allowed to fill out a simple web form to report a crime in addition to contacting security through the phone, via a guard, or at the security desk.

There's also now a listing of various ways to follow safety alerts. Check them out and see which one's you might want to follow.

Many other improvements are also still being worked on, so check back often to see what additional features are added.

Google Web Elements

Google Web Elements makes it really easy to share Google products on the web.

For instance if you've created a Presentation or Spreadsheet in Google Docs, just paste the URL of the file and it gives you the code snippet to paste onto the web. The little display widget is pretty slick and easy for users to interact with.

It seems like a really cool way to share info, so if you have something created with your Google Apps account check it out.

ARIA Landmark Roles

atlantic.edu now include ARIA Landmark Roles to help improve the accessibility of the site. ARIA roles help to improve the the semantics of the sites layout.

For instance, if a user is depending on a screen reader to have our site read to him, they can much more easily navigate directly to the main content or the search box with the use of ARIA.

This is another way we are making our website more accessible as well as more semantically sound for our users.

Library

The library information commons has just been redesigned. The goal with the redesign was to make is easier to gain access to the great online services that our library offers.

The lengthy text has been replaced with easy to scan links to the most commonly used services. Each library location also has a page now detailing what specific offerings they have as well.

Be sure to visit and check out all the great services our library offers.

atlantic.edu footer upgrades

The footer on atlantic.edu got received some upgrades today. Cosmetically it should be easier for users to read and we've also made the following additions as well:

1. All locations and very basic contact information can now be found in the footer for our 3 main locations.
2. Additional Information links such as contact us, feedback, etc. are now grouped under 1 column in the footer and made a little easier to get to.
3. We've also added links to our numerous social networking properties that the school maintains. So now it's even easier for our fans, followers, or whatever they might be for that service to keep track of what we're up to.

Hope you enjoy, and please let me know if you have any further suggestions. Also check out the various social networking sites that we belong to, we're constantly added new content.

Tasks added to Google Calendar

Google Calendar finally added an integrated task list. It's incredibly easy to use, and works well with the already impressive Calendar app. I highly recommend you check it out.

Learn more about Tasks.

ACCC is on Facebook

Atlantic Cape Community College just launched their official Facebook Page just a few days ago.  

Some of it's current features are:

• Keep informed of current ACCC news
• Find out about latest events and activities
• View photos (including Professor Tom C. with pink hair)
• Watch videos
• Find other related Facebook Groups and Pages
• Find out who else is a Fan of ACCC

Check it out and become a Fan!

Google Labs

Google Apps does a great job of rolling out new features. However, they also often make some pretty cool features available through their Labs area. The Labs area is easy to get to if you're logged into your Gmail. Just click on the erlenmeyer flask found at the top right of the window.

Then you'll see a listing of all the currently available features available in the Lab.  If there's one you are interested in, just click on the Enable radio.  It's that simple.

My current favorites are:

• Offline - it allows you to use Gmail without online access.  Very useful.
• Canned Responses - automatically have a reply go out if it meets a certain criteria. Great for dealing with forms.
• Google Calendar Gadget - incorporates your Google Calendar in Gmail, very cool.
• and there's many more.

Google Mobile Sync

Google recently released a very cool syncing solution between some of their Google Apps and many mobile phones.  If enabled on your mobile device, it allows for two-way syncing between Google Calendar and Google Contacts.  So your calendar and contacts are always up to date regardless of whether you updated them on your mobile device or via a web browser on your computer.

I synced my calendar up with my iPhone in just a few easy steps.  They also offer instructions for configuring other mobile devices as well.  This is really useful and easy to use, check it out. 

10,000+ Visits

atlantic.edu set a new record for visits in a particular day on January 20th. We had 10,893 visits the first day of the spring semester! We've come close on a few occasions to the 10,000 mark in one day, but that marks the first time we've had that much traffic in one day.

Notable trends for January 20th:

• 10,893 views
• 37,659 page views
• 3:21 average time on site

atlantic.edu upgrades

Below is a summary of some of the upgrades to atlantic.edu that were released on Friday.  

1. Main navigation - the main navigation found in the header of the site is now larger and easier to read. Sub-menus are now displayed via a horizontal drop down versus the previous display. 
2. Reduced HTTP requests - the overall number of HTTP requests being requested per page load have been reduced on the majority of pages. Reducing the number of requests greatly improves page load time.
3. Minified JS and CSS files - the majority of Javascript and CSS files have been minified. This again reduces page load time a great deal.
4. Increased use of white space - the increased use of white space between elements on most pages, gives the site a cleaner easier to read appearance.
5. Increased font size and spacing - increasing the font size and spacing in the content region again makes reading the pages content easier on the eyes, resulting in a better web experience.
6. Separation between regions - the different regions of the pages through use of lightweight background images and CSS better define the different areas on the web site. The header, footer, sidebar, and main content area are now better defined.
7. CSS sprites - are used throughout the site now to reduce the amount of images loaded onto the page, resulting in a faster web experience.
8. Use of PNG vs GIF - switching many of the GIF images on the site to PNG reduced filesize a great deal. In some cases a 60% savings was had! Less filesize to download the faster a page loads.

While there's a ton of further improvements being worked, I hope you find these recent upgrades lead to a better web experience. If you have any comments or suggestions, please feel free to share.