Wide Load

Do you get the text chopped off on the side when you try to print a web page?

This is caused mostly by the author of the web page. But some of it could be your page setup margins. Up to now, your only solution was to print the page in Landscape mode. But now, there is a neat little tool that will solve your problem.

It is called "fitted-width print". You can download the program here. Go to the section marked
Internet Explorer Fitted-Width Printing and click on the underlined text. Accept the option to run the active X program. When you restart your browser, you should have a small printer icon with the letter W next to it in your toolbar. Click on that icon to automatically resize the page to fit your printer. Hold the control key and click on the that icon and you get a print preview.

Thanks to Librarian Jessica Marshall for passing along this tip.

Webmaster Tools

At one of the recent conference sessions I attended, the presenters showed a long list of interesting open source tools for web workers. Here are a few:
Yahoo Design Pattern Library
Google Webmaster Tools
Firefox plugins like Linkify, Firebug, Link Checker
Open Source Web Design-- style sheets and design templates
MyBlogLog--analytics
Crazy Egg--get statistics, analytics, heat maps
gvisit--a visitor map based on statistics
Trailfire--create web tours

ManyEyes--creates data visualization, comparisons and correlations, cloud tags

• Tonight's bonus round: What's My IP?

Bargains Galore!

I recently attended the Computers in Libraries conference and have about 10 pages of notes to share. (Jane and Leigh, I will send those along as soon as they are legible.) Among the many amazing free and open source resources discussed were the following three FREE versions of very expensive multimedia applications:

Wink: Create screencasts, tutorials, add text boxes and voiceovers. Wink is perfect for creating a little software demo to place online, to clarify and illustrate a procedure.
CamStudio: Create streaming desktop video with audio, text boxes, etc.
Audacity: Audacity is a free sound editor and recorder, perfect for podcasts, can manipulate multiple tracks.

Hell, I'm feeling generous--here's a fourth, PodOMatic, which creates audio and video podcasts, uploads and stores on their server, and creates an RSS feed. Don't say I never bring you anything!

And the Apps March On...

Great news from Google Operating System--the ability to create charts in their spreadsheet application, "Google Docs and Spreadsheets," has finally arrived. Moreover, they have announced that they will be adding a presentation application soon.

Even better from my perspective is their recently added ToDo List feature in Google calendar. While not as glitzy and polished as other web-based ToDo list options, it's integration with the calendar makes it work for me.

If after all this you still see a need to use MS Office let us know in the comments section.

Fresh as a Daisy

Want to keep your web site fresh and full of relevant, timely content? I was lately investigating how to get a blog to automatically feed into a web site and found this list of resources extremely helpful. My favorite was the RSS to Javascript converter, because it brought in the images and it was e-a-s-y.

Keep Those Fonts Coming!

I don't know about you, but I'm a real sucker for these free, downloadable fonts. It's not that there aren't enough choices bundled with MS Word, it's just that there aren't enough choices I like and can use.

Book Burro

Yet another reason to make the switch to Firefox! Book Burro is a greasemonkey script that recognizes when you are looking at book information on a web page. It will then search other sites to locate less expensive prices and display them in a small box. It will also indicate whether the book is available in libraries close by! Additionally, you can add sites for Book Burro to search fairly easily. I can see my students and I really using this add-on frequently.

Zoho Gets Zestier

Zoho's developers have been busy and have created a host of useful apps in addition to their basic word processor, presentation, and spreadsheet applications. The company has rolled out wiki, notebook, and todo list apps for personal users, and project management, database creation, chat, and even web-based conferencing capabilities for group users. I'm thinking Google ought to start looking over its shoulder; I just keep getting more and more satisfied with the range and functionality of Zoho!

Peepel for Busy People

It seems there's a boom these days in online office suites. The newest, Peepel, takes the next logical step--a suite that allows multiple applications to be opened in a single browser window. You can resize the application windows within the browser and it has the look and feel of your standard desktop. While still new, developers plan to provide tight integration among the applications. While I have not tried this one out yet, it seems well worth keeping an eye on!

Convince Me, Convince Me Not

Yes, there's actually a new web 2.0 site up, running, and gaining ground called Convince Me. This site allows users to do exactly what you'd think from the name--post, respond to, and vote on claims made by others in the community. A convenient tag cloud allows users to find interactions dealing with almost any topic you can imagine, from politics and "hot topics" to the "best decade" and the perennial "legalize marijuana" debates.

This semester, I used the Convince Me website in lieu of assigned essays early in the semester with a greater degree of success in teaching active, critical reading. For this exercise, I chose a competitive debate on the legalization of marijuana, hoping that students would start the activity with a strong interest in the topic.

As you can see from the screen shot, competitive debates take place between 2 people only. After the initial post, each debater adds new arguments or arguments in response to the previous post in generally short posts. This format slows down the reading/responding process in a way that students often fail to do when reading extended prose. To open the activity, I had students "tell me about tggdan" and "drummie." That is, they were to write a short character description of the two, telling me also which one they "liked" better and why. We discussed their responses as a whole group, thus allowing them to see how tggdan's credibility and authority were established by his stating his claim and reasons openly at the start. We then looked closely at drummie's first argument--the role of government--and dan's subsequent response. Students worked in groups for this part of the activity, discussing the merits and logic of drummie's argument, both on its own and in relation to tggdan's original claim. As we read on, students could see how and where the exchange succeeded and, in some ways more importantly, where it disintegrated and why. I then had students write a short response of their own, stating their own position and reasons.

The exercise and site worked for them; thus it worked for me--I'm convinced!

Enough Already with the Image Editing

I know the list seems endless, but here is another new online image editor, that is almost Photoshop-like in its abilities. Also very forgiving in the sense that you can apply and remove effects easily. Take a peek at pixer.us.

Top Ten

Lifehacker's Top 10 Free Windows downloads -- promising to make your machine faster, better, stronger. Read about the Top 10 Emerging Technologies 2007 from Technology Review. And take a look at the Top 10 Free Downloads from PC World. Also, the CNET Top 10 downloads of the last 10 years (no surprises here) which led me to this fun technology quiz: The 10 Year Technology IQ test. I scored a "You Lived It, Man." How about you?