Blog

Fix no www

Date Stamp:

18 October 2008

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Here’s a bee that’s been in my bonnet for a while. Your web-site should work whether you include a www or not.

I get frustrated by web-sites that don’t enable/configure a no-www version. That is, you should be able to type “www.google.com“ or “google.com“ into the address bar of your browser and both should work. This is not an argument for getting rid of the www, but just to make sure that with or without both work.

I was keeping a little list, and have finally published it. Unfortunately it looses a bit of oomph because two of the sites have fixed the problem since I included them on the list. Anyway, send me any sites you find that don’t work unless you include a “www”.

My Fix no www page.

Follow-up to Google forms

Date Stamp:

9 February 2008

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As a follow-up to my post on Google forms where I had a link to a example form for gathering data, here’s a screenshot of the data being collected in my Google Spreadsheet.

There was no effort in setting up this spreadsheet to collect the data, once the form was created, Google Spreadsheets did the rest.

This is a really excellent addition to Google spreadsheets. Two uses I can think of: using in a maths class to collect data from students which they can then analyse; a survey in a group or organisation (like a church, or reader’s of a blog ).

How Google works

Date Stamp:

17 July 2007

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The title of this post oversells the post itself…

Some people don’t seem to “get” why Google has been buying/creating all sorts of online applications. Particularly when it is not immediately obvious how their earning strategy (ads) fits in.

Here’s the answer. Google can use these applications to extend the value of their ads to the business and consumer. Take this post on the Official Google Australia Blog. A business can now buy a sponsored link on Google Maps.

Web 2.0 Carols

Date Stamp:

24 November 2006

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The Toongabbie Anglican Church Carols event is happening soon, and like previous years a lot of effort goes into it. Of course, the event is advertised on the web-site – this year, however, “Web 2.0” made things much easier.

First up, YouTube made presentation of the “Carols Scene Investigation Trailer” a snap to put online. After the event, keep an eye on the Toongabbie Anglican profile on YouTube for the full versions of the videos.

Secondly, the night is held in the local high school’s oval. The Google Maps API made it easy to show where the event actually takes place, rather than just describing it in words.

ps, has anyone from TAC pointed Andrew Lim to the video?

coComment

Date Stamp:

10 October 2006

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When commenting on a blog post, often the conversation is slow or stops half-way through, because commenters forget where they have left comments or they don’t know that someone has responded to their comment.

coComment keeps track of online conversations you’ve been involved in, or are even just interested in. And, it does it in a nice unobtrusive way.

The coComment bar (see image below)

appears on sites that have included the coComment code with their comment form (like this site).

If you’re using coComment, then it’s worth installing the Firefox extension that enables coComment on some sites (for which it recognises the blogging platform) even if the author of the site hasn’t included the code. The extension also shows a little icon if there are new comments to the conversations you are tracking.

coComment is a handy service. I used to mark blog posts that I had an interest in the subsequent conversation as “unread” in Bloglines, now I can just track them with coComment.

Time Tracker

Date Stamp:

4 October 2006

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Whilst it is school holidays, for me this first week will be preparation for next term. My plan was to spend four days preparing, but with a pile of procrastination on Monday, I’ll probably add an extra day.

On Tuesday morning I was frustrated that I had wasted Monday, so I turned to the internet to find a tool that would time what I was doing, and keep an eye on breaks. It’s ironic that to help reduce procrastination, I went web surfing.

I had previously tried the procrastination hack, splitting my time into smaller chunks with regular, but small, breaks. But it didn’t really fit with what I’m doing (creating lesson plans).

So, I went searching for a tool that I could time each task and breaks. I found Time Tracker. You add a task, start the timer, flick between tasks by starting the timer on the second task. Tasks can be grouped, marked as completed. You can see how much stopping and starting occurred whilst completing a task.

In the image above (actual class name removed), you can see the grouping, tasks marked “done”. Yes, I considered writing this as a “break” not “TimeWasting”.

Time Tracker hasn’t fixed my procrastination, but it is helping me to concentrate and be accountable for my time.

Updated 5/10/06: Seems that there’s a bug with the timing mechanism. I have marked tasks as completed, but they are still being timed. The bug is listed in the forums, but no response from the developer.

Further update 5/10/06: I’m now using SlimTimer, a more complicated looking, but simple enough tool. May review further later.