ISUtv Website

WordPress is best known as a blogging software and provider, with websites at WordPress.com and WordPress.org. Users can make both posts and pages, and they have the ability to organize them and add them as they please. WordPress also provides plenty of documentation for altering site templates and manipulating the software to customize a personal blog. With such flexibility, it’s been very tempting to use the WordPress software as a content management system, or a software system that makes updating and maintaining a website very easy.

I decided to go with a CMS for the ISUtv website because I knew I’d only be around for a couple more years, and if we had a sustainable CMS operating the website, it would simply be a matter of passing along the password to the next webmaster of the organization. Also, WordPress has great features, including plugins that are developed by people across the world, and an RSS feed option.

I customized the basic template, using PHP to display only posts with certain categories and certain tags on the main page. I also used the jQuery UI library to make the rotating carousel on the front page. In fact, anything marked with the tag ‘front’ will appear in the carousel. The tagging option is available when writing a post.

Use of WordPress on the ISUtv website was split between pages and posts: the posts acted as the “news” items and shows that I wanted to appear in the website’s feed. Pages served as more of an informative look into the station and things pertaining to more static information. Another benefit of using pages is that there is a built-in commenting system, where users can speak their mind on a particular post.

After a bit of CSS, JavaScript, and PHP work, the site is running. While there is still quite a bit of development yet to be done, I think it has served the organization well as a new medium for broadcasting its content.

Student Affairs Website

As a part-time employee for the Office of Student Financial Aid and the Vice President for Student Affairs, I’ve done two complete web redesigns. Last summer, I redesigned and launched the Office of Student Financial Aid’s website.

Yesterday, I helped launch the new version of the Vice President of Student Affairs website, located at http://www.public.iastate.edu/~saff/. The new version of this site is greatly improved from the old one, with a simpler navigation and a defined layout. It also features photo slideshows with the jQuery Lightbox (I think) library.

I hope to continue to write about web design and other things regarding technology at Iowa State University – check back later!

Intranet browse/filter interface for the database

Because I’ve never done anything serious with databases before, this has been quite an undertaking. Here’s an overview of what the database looks like:

• Scholarships table with unique, static information
• Tables for categories, majors, classifications, states, counties, high school, etc
• Tables for links between scholarship unique scholarships and unique category entries

When working with entries in their primary tables, the coding is pretty simple. However, when parsing through the links and connections between two (or more) tables, things get tricky. It normally results in an PHP loop similar to this:

for ($x=0; $x<count($_POST['Category']); $x++)
 {
 $sql = "insert into CategoryLinks (ScholarshipID,CategoryID) values
 (
 '" . $ScholarshipID . "',
 '" . $_POST['Category'][$x] . "'
 )
 ";
 RunQuery($sql,$con);
 }

A large amount of data is entered per scholarship, and a large amount of links are made between each scholarship and it’s respective category tables. The creation process goes smoothly, but when it comes time to filter the scholarships by category, things get trickier. I’ve been working on a scholarship search/filter function that allows the user to select a variety of details describing himself or herself (grade, GPA, location) to determine which scholarships will best suit him or her.

I’ve been running into a problem, however: it’s difficult to define which scholarship belongs to a category, which belongs to all categories, and which belongs to no categories. For example, if a scholarship is open to every major, would the user select every checkbox for every major during the creation process, or would they select none (because the scholarship has no major requirements)? I have yet to find a solution to this issue.

In the meantime, I’ve been working on a filter/search solution to help users pinpoint what entry they’re looking for. They can do a live search (example here: http://www.financialaid.iastate.edu/scholarships/), filter by category (see screenshot above), or do both. Included with the tool is a pagination function; this has become increasingly useful as the amount of entries approaches 1000. I’m still working to combine the three functions, using a mixture of front-end JavaScript and jQuery and backend PHP and MySQL. It’s a learning experience, I’ll tell you that much.

Hopefully, this tool will be available to the public…soon.

Gmail

It took me a year, but I finally did it: I switched from Iowa State University’s Webmail program to Google’s Gmail. I can’t believe how beneficial the switch ended up being! For any Iowa State students who find Webmail cluttered and hard to use, I highly recommend jumping on the bandwagon and creating a Gmail account for the following reasons:

Usability

After creating the account, Gmail requires a simple login (likely your email address and password). You’re immediately directed to a page showing your inbox, options, chat and other gadgets. As soon as you get started using the application, you’ll realize a few things:

1. Load time is quick, and doesn’t require a page load.
   Gmail uses a technology called AJAX, or Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. This means that your browser only needs to load the data required for the request, and puts the data into a container within the document. I love this feature because it makes browsing, composing and organizing information such a breeze.
2. Gmail remembers things.
   After you type in an address or contact for the first time, Gmail will remember that person and will offer an AutoComplete option as you enter a new name. Very handy for long names, or for times that you don’t want to go to your address book, copy & paste or anything else.
3. Spam is canned.
   You generally don’t have to worry about dumping spam out of your inbox; Gmail does it for you. Last summer, during an email hijack relating to a ISU listserve I was on, I received around 3000 spam emails within 24 hours. Gmail only let about 50 through. Not bad, in my opinion.

Organization

For people like me, organization is key when it comes to getting through a day successfully. Not to mention the possible collaboration with Google Calendar, Gmail offers several ways to organize emails:

1. Conversations
   The first thing you may notice about reading emails is that Gmail shys away from calling each message a “message.” Gmail calls a message thread a “conversation,” and each series of messages based off of a unique message (i.e. forwards, reply-alls) will be contained in one conversation and split up by color-coded names and times. This feature is very handy when you have a listserve of people that like to click the “Reply-All” button for every response.


Labels may be used to sort conversations

2. Labels/Filters
   In Gmail, you have the option to filter your mail in a certain way. You can create a label to send a certain type of email to, or you can archive it (see below). I like to use filters to keep certain emails from organizations together.
3. Archives
   Archives are simple: they allow the user to send the message straight to a folder and skip the inbox. This could be useful for things that you, well, don’t really want to read, but might want to later.

Accessibility

This point is pretty simple: I’m not saying that ISU Webmail can’t be viewed from different places, but Gmail can be operated conveniently through different media. WIthin a few minutes of being connected to the internet, I had my Gmail account set up on my iPod Touch, and I check it through that medium every day. Gmail is also the first web application that I’ve trusted to handle ALL of my email: Iowa State University (forwarded), Hotmail (forwarded) and, of course, Gmail. This eliminates the hassle of (1) having to check my email in three different locations everytime and (2) eliminates the need of having to check my email on one email client on one computer. I love being mobile with my communications, and Gmail can do that!

How Do I Do It?

If you’re an Iowa State University student, follow these steps:

1. Visit http://mail.google.com/ and create a normal email account
2. Visit http://asw.iastate.edu/ and login
3. Click on “Manage User [yourusername]“
4. Click “View/Edit your email delivery”
5. Choose the option “Forwarded to email address:”
6. Type in your Gmail address
7. Click Update Now. The changes may take while to be saved (i.e. overnight) so be patient. Other than that, you should be set!