Rocket Science

First off thanks to Alan Levine of NMC for the post that inspired me to automate a bit of my process of including Flickr photos.

I downloaded Alan’s script that uses Greasemonkey (for Mozilla) and made a change to match the way I’ve been doing citations on my site.

I commented out the way Alan does his attribution, and inserted what I use on this site:

+ '<br />Brandon\'s Blog Citation<br /><textarea rows="5" onClick="this.select()" name="ccatttxt"><div id="mura-citation">Photo Credit: @' + '<a href="'+ photolink + '" title="' + phototitle + '">' + usernick + '</a>/flickr</div></textarea><br /><br />';


So when I go to a flickr page with a Creative Commons licensed photo, I see a small box at the bottom of the left column.

Photo Credit: @muramatsub/flickr

Flickr CC Attribution Helper Script

Which produces HTML which looks like:
<div id="mura-citation">Photo Credit: @<a href="http://flickr.com/photos/80185247@N00/2612619153/" title="Napkin">muramatsub</a>/flickr</div>

That I then include with the photo I’ve linked.

Alan also talks about how he downloads images from Flickr that he uses on his site. I do something similar. On my computer, I’ll keep a copy of the URL directly to the image until I’ve had a chance to write the article or otherwise use the photo. I think modify the filename to include “flickr” and the “username” before I upload or use the photo. This tells me the site I got the photo from (“flickr”) and which user’s photo I’m using (“username”). As Alan points out in his article this is all good as long as the user’s account is still active (or Flickr continues to exist). I think the site Don of the Education Technology that is Changing Alaska blog suggests, Imagestamper is also an interesting way of tracking licenses.

This is all Tom‘s fault.

(And this might help as folks prepare to fly for the holidays.)

Here’s a nice writeup from the Wall Street Journal on The 10 Rules of the Road for Air Travel .

(Here’s another related article at CNN.)

Yes, you read that correctly…it’s possible to enter “alt” text for images in PowerPoint, if you’re using a Windows version. This feature is not supported in the Mac version–which, yes, is just really dumb.

Why would you want to use alt text? For accessibility of course.

Alt Text for PowerPoint 2003 and Prior

Right‐click on an image then choose Format Picture, then select the Web tab. Enter text that describes the purpose and appearance of the image. Click OK.

Alt Text for PowerPoint 2007

Right‐click on an image then choose Size and Position, then select the Alt‐Text tab. Enter text that describes the purpose and appearance of the image. Click OK.

Photo Credit: kvitsh

Free Shampoo

Actually, for most people, this is probably a good idea. Hey, I’ve done it myself. I started accumulating soap, shampoo and the nifty personal hygiene items from the “nice” hotels that I stayed in. I put them in the guest bathroom of my house. But remember, I travel a lot. Pretty soon I was accumulating too many of them and I had to stop. (Here’s an article on CNN about taking hotel amenities.)

You may be wondering, why don’t I use them myself? Well, there’s a reason.

Have I said that I travel a lot? One of the things I’ve decided to do is to take along my own bar soap and shampoo to try and retain some semblance of normalcy when I travel. It’s a small thing, but being able to use the same items helps all those hotel rooms feel a little more like home. And, while I haven’t done it yet, I have thought about taking a pillow case with me too for the same reason.

So for me, “I say no! to free shampoo.”

(And for Tom, yes this is another one of my travel tips.)

As a followup to my Messenging post, I thought I’d include a post on the style I’ve been using or at least trying to do.

• First paragraph: The first paragraph should stand alone, fairly short, and most of all be “interesting” enough to grab the potential reader’s attention.
• Visually interesting: Ideally every post would have a visually interesting element that doesn’t overpower or overwhelm the article. Most of the time I accomplish this using an image from Flickr, my own photo or image, or even a blockquote.
• Images: When I can’t use my own image, I try and use one from Flickr that’s Creative Commons licensed that enable me to do what I’m doing. I also add a “Photo credit” in the style of Flickr.
  <div style="font-size:8px;margin-top:-5px;text-align:right;margin-right:5px;line-height:10px;">Credit/Source: <a href="http://hostname/filename">Author</a></div>
• Quotes: I like to include quotes in <blockquote>s to help amplify points in my posts. I add a source line in a close to APA style format with a <div align="right"> style.
• Embedded Media: Similarly to images, I’ll embed media that’s Creative Commons licensed to enable me to do what I’m doing, or is publicly shared on a site like YouTube. I also add a source citation similar to quotes.
• “More”: Sometimes, when an article gets long, I’ll use the WordPress <!--more--> tag to separate the post into a more manageable chunk.

Aside: There are a couple of my previous posts that don’t follow these guidelines that I’m still trying to figure out how to handle.