Indiana University: IT Training Tips Blog

For people new to the web design game, the process can seem kind of overwhelming. After all, at various points when designing and developing a website, you need:

1. aesthetic skills (to make things look good)
2. information architecture skills (organizing the content in a way so that users can find what they need)
3. interaction design skills (making sure that the paths within a website makes sense and are pleasurable for the user)
4. technical skills (XHTML, CSS, knowing how to turn on a computer)

Many web design shops have pros who are experts in each of these areas. How can you, a smart but inexperienced person, compete with that?  You're just trying to put together a little web site for yourself, your aunt the locally famous banjo player, or a volunteer organization...

divide et impera, or, Divide and Conquer

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Registration's now open, and a weekend of awesome hands-on training on Flex and ColdFusion is only 10 days away! This is, by far, the best deal you will encounter for this type of training. Small, hands-on sessions conducted by experts who also know how to teach. A great opportunity - don't miss it!

Get More Info and Register!

What Is Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing has burst onto the computer technology scene like a fast-moving cold weather front. Essentially, "cloud computing" refers to a new concept and delivery model rather than a specific program or platform. Traditionally, when you wanted to achieve a task on your computer such as filling out a spreadsheet or typing a letter, you'd purchase a piece of software at the store, install it, and then use it as long as you owned the computer. Cloud computing turns that notion on its head - the functionality is available via the Internet, not a program sitting on your computer. And, rather than buying a permanent license, cloud-computing services are usually offered according to a cafeteria model where you pay for only what you use when you use it. (And, unlike a real cafeteria, many cloud-based services are free). Cloud computing is now used for a lot more than just replicating the functionality of traditional desktop applications, too, including virtual server hosting, database processing, and lots of technical business operations.

What does Cloud Computing have to do with me?

Perhaps more than you realize! If you've ever used a service like Google Docs or Zoho, you've been working in the cloud. And even if you're just using 3rd party applications, like Gmail and Facebook, many of the issues discussed here will apply to you, too. (more...)

If you're an IU community member and go to IUWare to download Microsoft apps, you will not find Microsoft Visio.

Um, what's Visio?

Visio is a Microsoft desktop application geared for building informational, structured graphics, like diagrams, flowcharts, hierarchy structures, and so on. Since those terms may not mean a whole lot to you, let's look at some examples of things you might create in Visio:

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Way back in the day, when there were endless deep piles of snow, uphills both ways, and lunchpails filled only with scraps, people used writing instruments known as "pens" to inscribe letters and words onto dead trees, known as "paper".  Once the person was finished inscribing, s/he would fold up the paper, tuck that paper inside other paper, and inscribe more words on the front as a means of addressing (kind of like an email address, but way more complicated, taking up three lines or more!)

This whole process was known as "writing and mailing a letter". Nowadays, of course, this antiquated technology has been surpassed by IM, texting, Twitter, and status updates on Facebook. I think we can all agree that there is nothing that needs to be said if it can't be said in 140 characters or less! But let's say for a minute that you wanted to "write and mail a letter, " but didn't want to go all the way back to 1920 to do it. (more...)

Way back in July, the W3C (the governing organization of web standards) announced that it was not going to renew the charter of the XHTML2 working group. In non-bureaucracy speak, that means the W3C has stuffed XHTML2 standards development into a bottle and chucked it out to sea, where it will spend the rest of eternity bobbing on the waves and following the thermal currents. The W3C did this so that it could focus all of its attention on developing HTML5.

"Wait a minute, " one might shout on hearing this news, "I thought XHTML was the wave of the future, and HTML was what Cro-Magnons used to code their web pages??? What's going on?"

Its easy to be confused, and, yes, even a little bit alarmed by this news. But, in essence, the labels here don't really represent what you think they do: XHTML2 isn't really XHTML as you know it, and HTML5 encompasses a lot more than HTML4.01. Here's what you need to know about both of these standards: (more...)

IT Training and Education currently offers three workshops on Dreamweaver CS4:

1. Dreamweaver CS4: The Basics covers the Dreamweaver environment and building a publishing a simple web site using tables.
2. Dreamweaver CS4: Creating Websites with CSS concentrates on how to build a website using Cascading Style Sheets to control the layout.
3. Dreamweaver CS4: Navigation, Templates & Media Integration covers how to create pop-up menus for navigation, build Dreamweaver templates to simplify site maintenance, and include multimedia on your web sites.

While these workshops provide an excellent platform on which to start exploring web design and development using Dreamweaver, they are by no means exhaustive. And, there may be certain concepts (especially related to CSS) for which you'd like additional reinforcement. This is where lynda.com can come in. Remember that from now until Dec. 20, IU community members get FREE access to lynda.com. As of this writing, lynda.com has 8 Dreamweaver CS4 series, for a total of almost forty additional hours of training on Dreamweaver CS4. Awesome! And when we retire, we'll actually have time to watch all of it.
Here's a chart to help you narrow down which lynda.com Dreamweaver CS4 videos cover the topics you're interested in:

See a more detailed chart after the jump... (more...)

In a fascinating article in The Guardian titled "Facebook should compete on privacy, not hide it away, " noted security expert Bruce Schneier argues that social networking sites with fairly robust privacy policies (like Facebook) should use it to their competitive advantage, rather than burying the details deep in the sites. Schneier describes the findings of a recent study at Carnegie Mellon^[1] about perceptions of online privacy like this:

The social networking sites don't want to remind users about privacy, even if they talk about it positively, because any reminder will result in users remembering their privacy fears and becoming more cautious about sharing personal data. But the sites also need to reassure those "privacy fundamentalists" for whom privacy is always salient, so they have very strong pro-privacy rhetoric for those who take the time to search them out. The two different marketing messages are for two different audiences.

And therein lies the rub: social networking sites are really just an amped-up version of the old-school telephone.  If Sally Sue is the only person with a telephone, the telephone has practically no value (except maybe to throw at an intruder).  When Sally Sue's friend gets a telephone (and, more importantly, makes a commitment to learn how to use it and then actually use it), the telephone's worth has just exponentially increased. The worth of social networking sites is entirely dependent on the number of members (in the short term), but also the members' free labor to self-disclose (over the long term, as these member-offered knowledge bits are what increase usage and draw new users into the site).   The study cited by Schneier clearly finds that the more privacy policies are made evident, the more people are aware of privacy issues and less freely giving with knowledge bits. While many users would probably benefit from a privacy policy reminder (especially just before releasing pictures from an inebriated vacation in Cabo), it's clear why Facebook and other social networking stalwarts trumpet everything but their privacy policies: it's not in their best interests to do so.

1. Read the original paper: "The Best of Strangers: Context Dependent Willingness to Divulge Personal Information."
   Citation: John, L., Acquisti, A., Loewenstein, G. (2009, July 6). The Best of Strangers: Context Dependent Willingness to Divulge Personal Information. Social Science Research Network. Retrieved August 17, 2009 from ssrn.com: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1430482. [↩]

Back in the day, one of the more tantalizing promises of the internet was the ability to shop favorite stores while still wearing jammies. (For those of us living in small college towns, it seems like there's no shame in wearing jammies anywhere - shopping, school, out to dinner - but I digress). We're now at the point where the internet wave has also brought the ability for many folks to work a full-time, professional job while still wearing their jammies, via telecommuting.(Seen at right is the Business Bib, a suit-falsie so that jammies-wearing telecommuters can still look professional when in a videoconference.)

Many Windows users are familiar with Remote Desktop, which allows you to access your work computer, say, from your home or elsewhere. Depending on the robustness of your internet connection, however, you may find that Remote Desktop sometimes lags or provides a slow screen refresh, so that moving your mouse results in action on-screen several seconds later.  In this post, I'll cover how to change a few settings in order to improve the performance of Remote Desktop so that you can be just as efficient in your jammies as you are when actually at school or work.

Four Steps to a Faster Remote Desktop Experience

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There's an old adage that the only sure things in life are death, taxes... and that new operating systems from Microsoft will require more powerful computers. (What?  Your grandparents didn't tell you about that last part? )

A (Brief) History of Microsoft Operating Systems

Many people (myself included) grow weary (and poor!) from endless upgrade cycles: each new software release seems to require an additional investment in a new, or upgraded, computer. Look at Microsoft's absolute bare minimum system requirements for their most recent operating systems: (more...)