Earlier today a tweet popped up on my #highered feed with a document about the need to redesign an institution website (Warning it’s a PDF). It was created by a group called Plattform Higher Education, which is a company based on marketing and communication needs for higher ed institutions. I really suggest you reading it yourself. It’s only one page after all but here are the bullet points.

1. You’re three or more clicks from the contact form
2. Your website’s look and feel doesn’t fit with your institution’s identity.
3. For content updates to the site, you have to rely on a website designer.
4. Your website features outdated content and images.
5. Web analytics reveal a high bounce rate.
6. A designer hasn’t touched your site in more than three years.
7. Your institution has a website but lacks a mobile-specific site.

These are all really good things to look into. But I would like to suggest an 8th bullet point that pointed to your site needing a redesign.

8. It looks like shit

I’m not trying to be mean or sound like an ass but as I continue my job hunt I regularly come across department webpages that face this exact issue. In truth many face issue eight because they have fallen into issue sixes clutches. That should not be an excuse though. Your webpage should be there for a simple task. To help your students. You can’t expect your website to be of much help if it looks bad. You wouldn’t use a flyer to attract students to your program that was drawn with crayons would you?

Poor design leads to lost information. I could put all the information a student would need on a website but if it’s poorly designed and “looks like shit,” the student may not be able to find what they need or they may just give up and leave the website and end up calling or coming into the office, thus taking up more of your limited time. You can’t just “throw something together” and expect it to work.

A blog post I found earlier today characterizing some of the biggest mistakes in web design was really glaring at how common some of these errors are in higher education websites. It’s really something that needs to be properly addressed. Whether it’s through an institution-wide template or something. Allowing departments to exist with bad websites only will reflect badly on the institution as a whole.

I don’t want the impression to be though that I think that department pages that differs from the main university page are worse. Far from it, in many cases the department page is better.  But largely I’ve found it to be more poorly put together.

So I suggest to all people in higher education, sit back and take a real look at your website. It may just be time that you need a redesign. And don’t think about the money first, as by improving your website you may be getting more students and thus making the money back.

I finished my Nanowrimo novel on Saturday. I had meant to write this then but got distracted when I got home.

I honestly can’t believe I wrote a 50,000 word anything. I really didn’t think it was possible for me. Writing in truth is one of my weaker skills and I think part of it has to do with the fact that I have to be stationary to do it and can’t move around. But it did show me that I can write and while the many red lines underneath errors show it needs editing I think it is a sign that I can write.

What makes this so important is that I still need to finish papers for school but I felt like I was in a rut and couldn’t get out. I still have that fear in me but writing has helped that. There is still one more week of Nano and I’ll be going to two write-ins and since my word count is don’t I’ll be working on my thesis papers again. I have the motivation and drive now and I think I can put  together a better paper. I just have to not worry about the finished product or what my committee will say.

I just need to write.

I honestly think that everyone no matter profession, age, or skill should try out Nanowrimo and just test themselves. You never know what may have been hiding in your head.

I found the forums down the other day when trying to find and answer I had with one of the games I have from Steam. I wasn’t sure what the whole deal was and thought they might be upgrading their system since software updates can sometimes require websites to be taken down. Today when checking up on the current situation I was greeted with a new message this one more than just “We are down” but that “our forum and subsequently possible database has  been hacked. Account info and Credit card info may have been exposed.”

Well shit. This is some bad news for a top PC game distribution platform.

Here’s their official statement from the current forum splash page:

Dear Steam Users and Steam Forum Users:

Our Steam forums were defaced on the evening of Sunday, November 6. We began investigating and found that the intrusion goes beyond the Steam forums.

We learned that intruders obtained access to a Steam database in addition to the forums. This database contained information including user names, hashed and salted passwords, game purchases, email addresses, billing addresses and encrypted credit card information. We do not have evidence that encrypted credit card numbers or personally identifying information were taken by the intruders, or that the protection on credit card numbers or passwords was cracked. We are still investigating.

We don’t have evidence of credit card misuse at this time. Nonetheless you should watch your credit card activity and statements closely.

While we only know of a few forum accounts that have been compromised, all forum users will be required to change their passwords the next time they login. If you have used your Steam forum password on other accounts you should change those passwords as well.

We do not know of any compromised Steam accounts, so we are not planning to force a change of Steam account passwords (which are separate from forum passwords). However, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to change that as well, especially if it is the same as your Steam forum account password.

We will reopen the forums as soon as we can.

I am truly sorry this happened, and I apologize for the inconvenience.

Gabe.

That is quite a lot of issues. I’m sure they’ll be sorted out but if you have  a steam  forum or steam account I highly suggest changing your passwords when you can. Note: I tried earlier today to do just that but is seems that steam isn’t able to do that right now. Will try later.

I have really gotten into this Nanowrimo thing. Yesterday I wrote 5k and that put me at over 20,000 words today. I know I should be putting that much effort into my thesis work but it’s a different writing style. BUT! I have found that by actually taking the act of writing and staying with a set goal for daily writing it actually is helping me get into writing overall. I mean I wrote my papers conclusion yesterday. I just need to sit down and put the body together.

Honestly though, I really wish my job hunt comes to an end soon. I have been checking out webinars and podcasts, and reading many blogs to help improve my ability to sell myself as a professional. I have to say that HigherEdLive and Student Affairs Live are great and anyone interested in higher education should check them out. I think one of the hardest aspects of my search is that I’m limited by location. It’s hard to be told that I would get a job easily on the mainland when I’m committed to Hawaii. Hopefully something will work out. I had an interview but that didn’t pan out but it was interview experience and every little bit helps.

November is upon us, as a result it’s National Novel Writing Month again. I’ve decided to pick up the pen (metaphorically) and take part this year. I think I’ll only strive for a goal of 10k but we’ll see how far I can get.

Although I finally came down with what my wife had last week I still managed to put myself together for the Fall NAFSA luncheon that was held today at a nice Indian food restaurant. I really wish I could say more about the food but in all honesty it tasted pretty bland to me because my taste buds have stopped working because of my cold. Overall though it was a great decision to go since I was officially announced as the new Web Admin for the NAFSA Region XII Hi/Pacific District. I think getting my name out there is key in my job search. In all honesty this wasn’t an “if I do this it’ll look great on my resume” decision or one I thought up simply last minute. I had decided to do this way back in April, as I was not getting anywhere with my job search in higher ed, and yet I still wanted to be involved so that I wasn’t “left out.” Also having strong technical skills didn’t hurt either but it’s not a problem either. It was nice having someone say that they were happy  I was on the team so they had someone who wanted the position and had the skills to do it well as opposed to someone who simply accepted it cause it needed filled. I always enjoy self-esteem boosters.

Sadly I wont be able to attend the bi-regional convention next week. As much as I would love to go I can’t get the funds together. And it’s not like I’m presenting either.  I hope to put a presentation together for next April’s local conference though. I’m going to be very active in trying to create a good web presence for our district I think. I may put together a district Facebook page and a twitter hashtag, maybe something like #nafsaHI I don’t know. Plenty of time to decide it all.

I know now that, especially trying to work in private sector, that higher ed is where I want to work. It’s the environment and people that make it feel like a thriving my place. I also see that while student affairs is a kick ass place I still want to focus on international education. 5 years, 10 years, 20 years I see that as where I want to be.

I sat back and honestly took a look at my life and realized that the one thing that was supposed to be doing the most for me, this website, was in fact doing the exact opposite.  I saw that the website didn’t represent  now, nor even a goal me, but rather a me I thought I could sell in a career path I didn’t want but rather as money was tight, needed.

I’m a fool. I’ll be first to admit it.

I figured that selling myself as a consultant at all would be good for me but I see now that I was wrong. So I’m rehearing the blog to be about me, my research, my hobbies, and random things. Writing all about code and web design may work for some but not me. I may point now and then. But not fully. There’s little point for me to be doing that.

Furthermore, I’ve really fallen off the wagon with this blog. I keep intending to post things but then I get distracted. I’m going to focus better and get this blog fully active with great articles too.

Also with a little change. I’ve switched from the client machine theme to the yoko theme as the parent theme for my site to build off a child theme.  I hope to add a little more customization in the near future but I felt I needed the change to get things started.

Look forward to some interesting topics in the near future!

I decided that with the new relaunch of the DC Universe it was a good  time to get back into the world of comic collecting.  Though I will definitely be taking it slow at first, I don’t want to get back into my $50/week habit (that was bad). But getting back in I picked up some of the Flashpoint tie-ins and most importantly, Justice League #1. What surprised me most was it was the digital deluxe edition. Not quite sure what that meant I figured it out to be that it was a print edition with a code to get the digital edition for free. Much like how DVDs and Blu-Rays have a digital copy. In all honesty it’s actually an excellent strategy to not only keep the print market alive but also boost the digital comic market.

I was really impressed with how Justice League turned out. The superheroes are real vigilantes again who are seen as opponents of the regular police forces as opposed to supplanting them. I’m looking forward to the rest of this month comic wise and see where things go.  I am worried though about what will happen to characters I used to follow. Whether they stay relatively the same or get a ret-con.

It feels fresh again and I’m thinking that this will be a fun adventure to ride.

Working on websites for companies has really made me think a lot about customization. For many client that extends beyond what their users see but also their own backend.

With the release of WordPress 3.2 came a newly designed backed. To me this is bar far one of the best things about this new release (it was even the reason why I started running this site on the release candidate) . This newly designed dashboard though comes with a simplified code as well making customizing it a lot easier. I’be found two very useful customization options already; changing the admin logo as well as the active menu section arrow.

WP Beginner had put out a great tutorial for changing the admin logo and from that I was able to include the changes to the menu.

The original tutorial still works but in WordPress 3.2 the logo was shifted over and shrunk done to 16×16. So if you followed the original tutorial to the letter your logo has now been badly cropped.

Here is the code that you put in your WordPress theme’s functions.php file

//hook the administrative header output
add_action('admin_head', 'my_custom_admin_style');

function my_custom_admin_style() {
echo '
<style type="text/css">
#header-logo { background-image: url('.get_bloginfo('template_directory').'/images/custom-logo.gif) !important; }

#adminmenu li.wp-has-current-submenu a.wp-has-current-submenu, #adminmenu li.current a.menu-top, #adminmenu .wp-has-current-submenu .wp-submenu .wp-submenu-head {
border-bottom-color: #851212;
border-top-color: #F42D2D;}
#adminmenu li.wp-has-current-submenu a.wp-has-current-submenu,#adminmenu li.current a.menu-top,.folded #adminmenu li.wp-has-current-submenu,.folded #adminmenu li.current.menu-top,#adminmenu .wp-menu-arrow,#adminmenu .wp-has-current-submenu .wp-submenu .wp-submenu-head{
background-image:-ms-linear-gradient(bottom,#851212,#F42D2D);
background-image:-moz-linear-gradient(bottom,#851212,#F42D2D);
background-image:-o-linear-gradient(bottom,#851212,#F42D2D);
background-image:-webkit-gradient(linear,left bottom,left top,from(#851212),to(#F42D2D));
background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(bottom,#851212,#F42D2D);
background-image:linear-gradient(bottom,#851212,#F42D2D);}

#adminmenu a {color:#F42D2D; }
</style>
';
}

So really all you need is a new 16×16 image instead of the 30×31 size image WP Beginner says to use. Really nice way to customize the feel of your admin screen.

Next is the menu color.

The image to the right is a good example of how the colors can be changed. Just like the icon changing the color of the selected menu section gives a nice personalized aspect to the dashboard. Along with the above code is  changing the link color to match the new menu color.  It can be customized further.

Also if you prefer you can use an image as the background instead of the gradient.

#adminmenu li.wp-has-current-submenu a.wp-has-current-submenu,#adminmenu li.current a.menu-top,.folded #adminmenu li.wp-has-current-submenu,.folded #adminmenu li.current.menu-top,#adminmenu .wp-menu-arrow,#adminmenu .wp-has-current-submenu .wp-submenu .wp-submenu-head{
background-image:url(your-image-location);
}

I suggest using an absolute url path from http to prevent a fail to load occur.

Other stylings are possible with the right CSS but unless you know what you’re doing you don’t want to go overboard with the styling