Cole W. Camplese

Update to WordPress 1.5

This morning I decided it was important that I update this space from WordPress 1.2.2 to 1.5 ... the system looks great under the hood, but it blew all of my customization up. I'll have to figure out the tabs that I worked on last night, fix the random banners, get my creative commons license back in and all sorts of other stuff. I hope it was worth it!

Update

I've gotten most of the site moved over to WP 1.5 and I am very happy. I still haven't been able to get my random banners working again, but other than that I seem to be in business. Two things I am working on is getting the navigation links to show up on all pages and my background color of my page is slightly different than all my existing banner images ... the difference is driving me crazy. Anyone know that value and where to set it? At any rate, this version is worth the upgrade ... there really are some nice features.

Random Headers: Followup

I noticed that D'Arcy Norman posted a little thing about how he setup some rotating banners based on my site ... thanks! It isn't like I invented the stuff but hey, I appreciate the nod! Since then, I've had a couple of people ask how its done. Here's the simple way ... first, install the Random Files plugin and put a bunch of headers into a directory and point to it. Then drop this code into your index.php file (if you are using the kubrick style) for WordPress by finding the #header style directive and changing it to:

#header { background: url("< ?php echo random_file('/images/random', 'jpg gif png jpeg'); ?>") no-repeat bottom center;

That assumes you have a directory called "random" in your images directory ... that's really it ... oh, you might want to take a bunch of good pictures to make it worth while ... not sure I've done that, but I'm doing what I'm doing. Thanks to Elliot Black for helping me get it rolling!

After its all said and done, watch your traffic explode as you sit there and reload your own blog 20 times to see it work!

The "Life Poster" or What I did on Vacation

I just saw this little idea over at Mike Matas' blog this morning ... a "Life Poster" as he calls it. An absolutely great idea! I can imagine a few great things to do with this ... my daughter's first (or second, or third) year, a poster of my in-progress vacation, or something a little more academic ... some sort of team-based visual progress report perhaps. Endless opportunities. Mike is kind enough to show off the finished product and provide instructions. I will be making one today.

They Can't All Be Winners ...

Coming into the New Year, I have been thinking a lot about the fact that I tend to wait quite a while between posts so I can make them all "winners." Now that I have my new setup running, I'll be posting more short things, simple ideas, pointers to articles, and some other quicker hitting items. I guess what I am saying is that I am not going to be trying to make every post a magical occurrence -- they simply all can't be winners. I have a lot of things going through my head right now and want to get them out here ... that's the reason I started this space in the first place.

So, I’ll be posting a lot more in the coming days and weeks ... please drop some comments, just realize they are moderated to help curb the tide of spam I get.

WordPress on HigherWeb Followup

Its done ... the big move from blogger.com to the WordPress system is complete. I used the blogger to wordpress script and it all seemed to work. The shitty part is that comments don't move with it. That's a real big problem -- not for this blog, but for my IST 110 Class Blog Space. I have hundreds of comments from students in that space and I have no idea of how to get them off there. I need help!

As far as this new blog space goes, I will continue to do the usual teaching and learning with technology thing here. I am still waiting for my domain name to transfer ... that's a real pain in the ass by the way. So for now, I hope people are finding their way over here from the old higherweb/blog space nd are now getting their rss and xml feeds from the new site. In the coming months I have all sorts of stuff going on that I'll be writing about ... so drop by.

I am also installing the same WordPress hack to push podcasts through here. I've been doing quite a bit of that over at the fromthebasement.org site and will be doing more audio blogging and podcasting over here as well. That will also be available via the RSS. So, do yourself a favor and subscribe ... and as always, please leave comments!

WordPress on HigherWeb

So I have finally started the move off blogger to WordPress here at HigherWeb. I should have it complete by the end of the weekend. Looking forward to it all-->

RSS Nation

A while back I did a posting on podcasting ... I am so into the stuff! Not just because there is finally some content I can stand to listen to -- The Daily Source Code just flat out kicks ass -- but because it has opened my eyes to the power of RSS. I really think as you are envisioning your solutions it would be important to think about how RSS plays into your ideas ... trust me on this one, you'll see RSS exploding into the mainstream within 6-12 months. Its all just too powerful ... BTW, you know its got legs when Madison Ave is interested ...

Just as the RIAA and MPAA are filing more and more suites, the whole underground scene is exploding with content. The FCC is trying to figure out how to regulate blog spaces and the free Internet ... to that I say, good luck! Do me a favor, read this silly little intro to RSS and really think about the fact that you will be getting exactly what you want, when you want it without the overhead of the media machine. It is just too important to ignore. Anyway, take a look and let us know what you think.

IM Me

So I've been doing quite a bit more with IM technology lately ... as an avid Mac user, I should be clear, I use iChat. I have an iSight camera that I carry with me everywhere and it has come in handy for quite a bit of stuff. The other day I had a guest lecture in my PGSIT class I teach ... he was so good that I fired up the iSight and invited people from my staff to listen to what he was saying. They ended up coming to the classroom and participating in the discussion. That's not really a big deal, but it has gotten me thinking about how cool the whole AV IM thing really is.

Another story ... I do some work with Apple as the lead of Penn State's Apple Digital Campus project ... this means I get to visit Apple a couple times a year. Something very cool happened the last time I was there -- everyone in the room (about 20) had a PowerBook and wireless Internet. Everyone also had their iChat up and running. What's cool is that Apple has a zero config network setup in iChat that finds other iChat members within your subnet ... which means I could "see" everyone in the room. What I found amazing was how there were sometimes three or four IMs flying at me from people I had barely met ... asking me to pose questions, offering insight, and just talking about what Apple was talking about. For the first time I started thinking that IM is not just a toy, but a VERY powerful business tool.

Since that trip I've required my staff to have their IM clients open and their screen names shared so we can communicate more quickly. Gues what -- it actually helps productivity.

So, naturally, I thought I'd start to let my students have their IM clients open during class and it is helping as well. I've stopped getting pissed about them doing that and engaging them more and more via the technology. They hand in assignments -- its faster than the network -- pose questions, respond to polls, and send me presentation files that we can instantly look at in front of the class. Very cool and the students really do like it. I'm teaching again this fall and I am going to use it even more ... I am going to ask them what the uses are for it and see if we can't get an agenda together to look at real functional applications for the technology in and out of the classroom. By the way, IM me at workercole.

More on this later-->