A number of my clients use Remository within Joomla for document management. The QuickDown plugin, available from the same site, is used to insert document information within an article. While I have been very satified with Remository, I have not found that QuickDown matches my clients’ needs.
QuickDown basically creates a link to the Remository page along with a variety of document information formatted within a table. Instead, I am usually interested in having a direct download link inserted inline with the article’s content.
“Science is a way to teach how something gets to be known, what is not known, to what extent things are known (for nothing is known absolutely), how to handle doubt and uncertainty, what the rules of evidence are, how to think about things so that judgements can be made, how to distinguish truth from fraud, and from show.” — Richard Feynman
As part of a project I am working on, I have added a Sugar CRM help blog to dvector.com. This is specifically designed for my clients but you are welcome to peruse what is there and ask questions.
Every now and then, I recommit myself to actually writing something on a regular basis. Ideally, I would like to post once every two weeks. Sometimes this gets hard, especially when real life interrupts. Some upcoming posts to look forward to include:
Discussion of recent State of Wisconsin bills proposed by a joint legislative committee I participated on.
Various aspects of a Case Management web application I am working on in cakePHP.
Discussion of a Twitter application, I am developing.
Google is the leading search tool and its map service also ranks very highly. It is therefore important that your business appear in Google Maps searches. You may not know it, but your business likely already appears in Google Maps. Not only may it be listed, you also have the ability to adjust your Maps listing information.
It is really a simple process to either add your business or adjust the information that displays. In most cases, it will take you fewer than 15 minutes. This video goes step by step through the process.
In my role as a Red Cross representative, I work with a number of Public Health agencies. At a recent meeting, I mentioned Twitter and stated my opinion — that all public health Public Information Officers should be using Twitter. I got a bunch of blank stares and not because of disagreement or boredom but because out of about 30 representatives only one or two had any idea what Twitter was.
What follows is both a quick overview of Twitter and my reasons why I believe public health should be using twitter. The information is directed to public health agencies but others may find it useful as well.
I have thrown together a simple proof of concept (POC) in cakePHP for displaying cloud words. What are cloud words? Word frequencies displayed in a cloud similar to a tag cloud. A tag cloud may be found on right column of this blog site. The POC may be tested here.
What does it do?
Cloud Words allows for the upload and analysis of plain text and MS Word files. MS Word files are converted to plain text for the analysis. The analysis simply does a count total for each word in the file. A simple word count is actually not very useful since the most common words will dominate the count list. The most common words are generally not very useful for understanding the contents of a document. “THE” is the single word found most often in documents.
Joomla uses a MooToolslightbox in the administrative backend, called SqueezeBox. By default, SqueezeBox is not available to frontend sections, categories, and articles. It is a relatively simple matter to include squeezebox onto the frontend and improve your visitors’ experiences.
It is not required to understand what MooTools and Squeezebox are nor how they work in order to successfully create a wonderful lightbox effect. A lightbox may be used to display a large picture from a thumbnail or any link. Additionally, any web page may be displayed within the lightbox (a great way to display a map or directions).
This article has three parts:
Template setup (not required for GGIS clients)
Using SqueezeBox
Update:
See comment #6 and #7 for a patch to modal.js that makes this work for multiple images on the same page. Without the patch clicking on the next image displays the first image in the lightbox.
The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is a broadly written, extensive and secretly negotiated agreement currently being worked on by the US, European Community, Japan, and others. The stated goal of ACTA is to create a new standard of intellectual property enforcement beyond the existing standards and to increase international cooperation, including the sharing of information between signatory countries’ law enforcement agencies. Negotiations are expected to continue for much of 2009.
Based upon documents that have been leaked into the public domain, ACTA is expected to cover for more than just counterfeit products. In fact, one of the focuses seems to be upon copyright and intellectual property to the point of targeting “Internet distribution and information technology”. This is definitely something that should be publicly negotiated to involve the full range of philosophies on these issues.
Instead, it seems we need to be concerned about our privacy rights and civil liberties. The original hope of negotiation supporters was to seal the deal in 2008. Fortunately that has not happened. Now your opinion about the benefits or drawbacks of such a treaty may differ than mine. In fact, I urge you to look into the details and make up your own mind.
Oh, wait. You can’t. AND THAT IS THE POINT!
Please urge your elected representative to push for transparency on this issue.
A few weeks ago, I had a conversation with Chief Holton of the Milwaukee Fire Department. He noted that they were close to having under 10 fire fatalities for 2008. It had been a few years since that mark was reached. Chief Holton was a little concerned that the fatalities would rise over the last 2 weeks of the year. The holidays are a dangerous time for fires.
Well, there were many fires and a few notable fires over the Christmas – New Years week. The fatality count did not rise. Great! Every fatality has an impact on the family and community. See the JSOnline article.
Since coming to office, Doug Holton has worked hard to push information to the public on fire safety. Additionally, he has worked to increase the safety of his firefighters. It seems he has succeeded in both of these efforts.
