Facebook backtracks on its latest privacy invasion tactic. After more than 50,000 Facebook users signed a petition blasting Facebook’s latest changes, Facebook has changed its new advertising and marketing strategy using Beacon to gather and distribute information about purchases Facebook users were making through over 40 popular online shopping sites. Facebook said it provided 2 opportunities to opt out of having your information shared, but many people did not notice the opt-out window before it disappeared and it defaulted to sharing your data.

With the many popups that come up when on the web and knowing that it is not a good idea to click on a popup that you do not recognize, I’m sure many people ignored the popup and had no idea that Facebook was gathering information about their purchases and sharing it with their Facebook friends.

This caused some Facebook users to find out what they were getting as gifts for the holidays and others to have items such as their movie purchases distributed to all their friends without their knowledge. I’m sure that there are people on Facebook who would prefer that the movies they buy are not shared with everyone who knows them on Facebook!

Facebook users rose up in protest and Facebook announced that it would change its policy to one of ‘opt-in’ instead of ‘opt-out’. In other words, you would have to specifically agree to share your purchase information as opposed to specifically saying you do not want it shared.

Here is some information from MSNBC in a post called “Facebook does an About-Face on Privacy Policy” on the purchase gathering and distributing that Facebook implemented about 3 weeks ago:

40 commerce Web sites using Beacon
More than 40 different Web sites, including Fandango.com, Overstock.com and Blockbuster.com, had embedded Beacon in their pages to track transactions made by Facebook users.

Unless instructed otherwise, the participating sites alerted Facebook, which then notified a user’s friends within the social network about items that had been bought or products that had been reviewed.

Facebook thought the marketing feeds would help its users keep their friends better informed about their interests while also serving as “trusted referrals” that would help drive more sales to the sites using the Beacon system.

But thousands of Facebook users viewed the Beacon referrals as a betrayal of trust. Critics blasted the advertising tool as an unwelcome nuisance with flimsy privacy protections that had already exasperated and embarrassed some users.

Some users have already complained about inadvertently finding out about gifts bought for them for Christmas and Hanukkah after Beacon shared information from Overstock.com. Other users say they were unnerved when they discovered their friends had found out what movies they were watching through purchases made on Fandango.

And an apology was offered:

“We’re sorry if we spoiled some of your holiday gift-giving plans,” Facebook’s Paul Janzer wrote in a posting addressed to Beacon’s critics. “We are really trying to provide you with new meaningful ways, like Beacon, to help you connect and share information with your friends.” Janzer also acknowledged Beacon “can be kind of confusing.”

I think that “kind of confusing” is Facebook-Speak for “deliberately misleading”.

This is not the first time Facebook has had users rise up over privacy changes. Last year, Facebook rolled out a “news feeds” tool that tracked changes to users’ profiles. After thousands of users rebelled, Zuckerberg issued a contrite apology and added a way to turn off the news feeds.

I saw that on my (and other friends) Facebook and thought that it was a bit iffy. And actually, I still have it on mine and so does most of the people I know. Even though Facebook offered a way to turn it off, that doesn’t mean that they made it easy or clear. I really didn’t even know it could be turned off until I read the article from MSNBC and I still don’t know how.

And there was the whole debacle about Facebook making people’s profiles available to search engines. I went through the process to do what they said so my profile was not shared, but it was extremely complicated and I really don’t know exactly what I ended up with.

I am so totally against the whole ‘opt-out’ style that Facebook is going with, especially since it is doing some really devious things without people’s knowledge. Yes, there are changes all the time to various social networking sites in order to improve their services. But I really don’t see how Facebook can stand there and say that these fall under that category. Either they don’t care, or they think their users are too stupid to know what they are doing, or both.

These are things I don’t think Facebook should be doing in the first place. But at the least, they should be something that Facebook users can choose to implement only if they want to, and can easily turn it off if they decide against it. Still, I think it is shady to even have it as a part of Facebook.

Facebook has come a long way from when it started and it was a safe and secure site for students to congregate. And while it is nice that it has opened up some, I really don’t see it as being much different from MySpace anymore and in some cases, even less reliable as far as privacy and respect for its users are concerned.

While almost all of the Web 2.0 social networking sites have been pretty decent and relatively trustworthy in my opinion, I am having serious doubts about Facebook. And I think Facebook users should too. It is not what it once was and I’m not sure that Facebook users realize that.

UPDATE: Here is a link to another interesting article called “Takesies Backsies: Facebook Flouts User Privacy… Again“.

~Susan Mellott

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I’ve been thinking about how to locate various things, specifically, my luggage when I travel, especially when cruising. If you’ve ever taken a cruise, you know that they give you a tag color such as red and then you have to go to the ‘red’ section and hunt through hundreds of bags to find yours. I wanted something that I could attach to my bags that would make a loud noise so I could find them.

I also wanted something I could put on my car so that when I lost it in the parking lot, I could push a button and it would make a loud noise so I could find it. And of course, there are many other things I lose and could use help finding such as my keys, my purse/wallet, etc.

But there isn’t really any devices specifically for locating luggage so I thought that a key finder/locator would work to put in the outside pocket or on the handle.

That sounded like a great idea, but all of the key finder devices I could find had really poor reviews and/or were very expensive and many of them worked like “The Clapper” where you made a noise and they supposedly responded. But I guess in most cases, they either don’t respond at all, or they go off with every little noise.

I found something on Amazon called a Child Locator for $27.99 that I thought I could use. It says “Simply attach the Teddy Bear Receiver to your child’s shoe or belt. If you lose sight of your child press the Keychain Transmitter and the Teddy Bear chirps, alerting you of your child’s whereabouts, while drawing attention to the dangerous situation your child may be in. Both units are water and shock resistant, with long-life batteries already installed. Available in Pink or Brown.”

But I was not sure about it so I kept looking. And I found several recommendations for a device called KeyRinger. KeyRinger is $29.99 for two units. They do not require a base unit so either device will ring the other (and any other KeyRinger devices). Here is a scenario they present in which you might use the KeyRingers:

“In a typical application, you might put one KeyRinger on your key chain and attach the second KeyRinger to the TV remote using the included double-sided tape. If your keys are missing, you would use the KeyRinger attached to the TV remote to find the keys; and if the TV remote is missing, you would use the KeyRinger attached to the keys to find the remote. Or you could keep one KeyRinger handy at all times on your refrigerator using the included stick-on magnet.”

It has a flashing light and loud sound (~106 db) to help you find your missing item. The two 2032 lithium batteries last approx. 12 months and can be replaced at most hardware or electronics stores (or online through their website). It weighs 3/4 ounce. It can locate the other device up to 300 feet and is supposedly durable enough to withstand being run over by a standard-size car. Here is the KeyRinger FAQ page.

In response to the question, “Will the KeyRinger ever false alarm?”, it says:

“Yes, but extremely infrequently compared to devices that respond to whistling or clapping. The clap or whistle type devices have to accept a wide range of sounds to accommodate variations in different people’s claps or whistles. But because they have to respond to such a broad range of sounds, they respond (false alarm) to various random sounds as well. The KeyRinger, on the other hand, is listening for the precise microprocessor-controlled tone sequence generated by the another KeyRinger. Because the KeyRinger can reject all other sounds, it is far less susceptible to false alarms. When the KeyRinger does false alarm, however, it is usually as the result of a hissing type sound such as that produced by a loud exhaust or air conditioning fan, or the water running in a sink.”

The KeyRinger is $29.99 for 2 units plus $4.95 S&H. You can order it here. Interestingly enough, I also discovered another use for this. In this thread from RC Hangout (for Remote Controlled Airplanes), they were discussing how to find a downed plane and one person attached the KeyRinger to their plane. It is amazing how many things you may need to locate.

Another key/item finder is by Loc8tor. The Loc8tor system is supposed to be very good too, but it is considerably more than the KeyRinger. The Loc8tor Plus is $169.99 plus S&H. It is pretty impressive sounding though. Here is what it says:

The Loc8tor Plus is the ultimate tool that will help you keep tabs on your children, pets and possessions and is ideal for use at home, out and about or for business.

The Loc8tor Plus has two main functions; Locate and Alert mode.

Locate mode – Is for Finding. To find an item, simply select from a drop down list on your handheld which tag you want to locate. Directional audio and visual cues from the handheld will guide you to the exact location of the missing tag. It will literally take you minutes (even seconds) to find things that would normally have you hunting around for hours and maybe never found at all.

With amazing accuracy you will be guided to within an inch/2.5cm whether you are indoors or out, in complete darkness or in a noisy room.

To find your item turn around in a full circle then walk in the direction the handheld indicates has the strongest signal – It’s as easy as that!!!

Alert mode – Helps stop things getting lost. Enables an invisible boundary to be set around the Loc8tor (you) and warns the moment any tagged item goes out of your preset safety zone (Alert Alarm) with a vibration alert, audio alarm and handheld display showing which item/s wandered off or has been stolen.

Select from three present safety zones - near, medium or far each of which can be further fine tuned to help define the distance required.

The Panic Tag (when used in Alert mode) contains a Panic button enabling a child or dependant to call for help. When pressed it activates an Alert Alarm on the handheld advising which child activated the Alarm. This is ideal as a personal alarm for a child or dependent and can be used on a beach, in a park or shopping centre to name but a few.

The regular Loc8tor pack is $99.99 plus S&H. It only has the locate mode, not the alert mode (as described above).

I’m sure these are very good too, but for the price, I’m going for the KeyRinger.

Happy Shopping!

~Susan Mellott

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Have you tried Picnik? It’s a great online tool for editing your pictures from various online services such as Flickr. It should definitely go on your list of Web 2.0 tools in your toolkit. And best of all, it is free for the basic services (which are plenty) and is only $24.95/year for the premium services. Here are a couple of posts about Picnik that I’d written previously, that explain all the features.

And now they are offering new shapes, fonts and borders for free, for the holidays. Read about it here, then check it out at Picnik.

Create Your Holiday Greetings with Picnik! Available for FREE immediately, Picnik offers you a fabulously fun and easy way to create holiday greetings. Use a new library of awesome holiday shapes, new fonts, and custom borders to creatively turn any of your photos into a smashing holiday greeting. Then use Picnik to print or email directly to your friends and family. The combinations are endless. Unleash your inner Santa! Check it out now at www.picnik.com. Start Picniking! Help spread the word, share this email with a friend!   New Holiday Features: • Santa hats! • Holly borders • Beautiful ornaments • Gorgeous gifts and bows • Holiday stickers • Christmas stockings • Holiday stamps • Snowflakes galore • 8 new holiday fonts and much more! Happy Holidays! Team Picnik — Mike, Darrin, Jonathan, Peter, Brian, Justin, Monica, Steve, and Charlie

~Susan Mellott

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I was looking through My Yahoo news and found an interesting article about a robot that the japanese were developing called Twendy-One.

Twendy-One, named as a 21st century edition of a previous robot, Wendy, has soft hands and fingers that gently grip, enough strength to support humans as they sit up and stand, and supple movements that respond to human touch.

It can pick up a loaf of bread without crushing it, serve toast and help lift people out of bed.

The robot is a little shorter than an average Japanese woman at 1.5 m (5 ft), but heavy-set at 111 kg (245 lb). Its long arms and a face shaped like a giant squashed bean mean it resembles the alien movie character E.T.

Here is the website for Twendy-One. It is mostly in japanese, but has videos of Twendy-One performing various tasks.

So I went to YouTube to see if there were other videos of Twendy-One, or other robots. I found this video of a montage of Japanese robots.

And this video of the LandWalker Robot Suit:

And I love this one of Robots Fighting. It is so cute!

And here is a totally cool robot toy ROBOZAK RZ-1 that it looks like you can build yourself? Watch it’s amazing moves. For some reason it is not displaying in my post, but follow the link to view it in action.

Here is a video of and a link to the Humanoid Robot Project: Promet MK-II, very cool. The HRP-3 Promet Mk-II is a blue-collar android tough enough to trudge through heavy rains, carry out disaster relief operations and work in environments hazardous to humans. The robot was unveiled on June 21, 2006 at Kawada Industries headquarters in Tochigi prefecture, Japan, where it showed of its ability to operate power tools and walk on slippery surfaces.:

And last but not least, here is a picture (and the set of pictures) from our local ACPL Shawnee Library branch of their Sumo Robot building and testing from their teen robot program.

Pretty cool, huh?!

~Susan Mellott

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and all through our house, everyone was stirring (Ubi played with her mouse).

Well, all of our family has arrived and we have a houseful! We have my mom, Sean’s mom, Sean’s brothers Tane’, Julian, Crispin, Nat and his girlfriend Lily, Sean’s sister Celestine, Tane’s mom, her husband Guy and Tane’s sister Cornelia.

Barbara and Julian arrived last Wednesday and the last of everyone came in at 6:30 Wednesday evening. People were from everywhere, New Zealand, England, California, Virginia and Florida. All came to our house in Indiana.

We ordered pizzas when everyone got in and then the games began. We had a 4 way game of Call of Duty 4 going on in the living room where people were happily killing each other. And all the budding Guitar Heros were rocking out in the den.

We went to bed about 11:30 along with mom, barbara, Jane and Guy, Nat and Lily. The rest stayed up who knows how long, playing video games. Then they crashed in the den where we had a dorm set up with 3 queen beds and a single (us older folk had the bedrooms).

Tomorrow my niece Danielle is also coming for Thanksgiving dinner, and maybe my sister Jill and husband Dan. If they can’t make it for Thanksgiving, they’ll be here Friday. Here are some pictures from the fun!

Here are the rest of our Thanksgiving pictures that will be updated throughout the weekend.

Happy Thanksgiving!

~Susan Mellott

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I have been working on getting Veteran’s Administration benefits for my dad who is 86 and does not have a lot of money and needs to go into a care facility.

The very first item that was required before I could do anything to start the process was his DD214. The DD214 is also known as the Report of Separation. Here is more information on that document:

Report of Separation generally is needed for the following:

• Home Loans
• Veteran Organizations Membership
• Social Security
• Burial/Flag
• Education
• Homeless Veteran Services

Without that document, you cannot do anything towards receiving Veteran Benefits and if you don’t have it, getting a copy is EXTREMELY time-consuming. Also, be aware that if you have it and make copies of it, make copies front and back. There are stamps on the back that also need copied.

If you cannot find it, there are a couple of ways to get a copy. One way, if you are lucky, is if you or the person you are looking for the document for has ever belonged to the American Legion. There is a possibility that the Post they belonged to has a copy of their DD214. Unfortunately, the post my dad belonged to did not have a copy, but they did have some useful information such as when he entered and left service, what branch and his Navy ID.

I called our local VA officer and he pointed me to a government website where you can request a copy of your DD214 (or other military personnel records). It is called eVetRecs. And here is a link to a general FAQ from the VA on obtaining a copy of your DD214.

Here is the website for the National Personnel Records in Saint Louis, which is where most of the records are stored. And here is general information page about the Military Personnel records and here is an FAQ page and another one for Veterans.

However… here is the kicker (and this is direct from the National Archives Military Personnel page on the fire), on July 12, 1973, a disastrous fire at NPRC (MPR) destroyed approximately 16-18 million Official Military Personnel Files. The affected record collections are described below.

No duplicate copies of the records that were destroyed in the fire were maintained, nor was a microfilm copy ever produced. There were no indexes created prior to the fire. In addition, millions of documents had been lent to the Department of Veterans Affairs before the fire occurred. Therefore, a complete listing of the records that were lost is not available. Nevertheless, NPRC (MPR) uses many alternate sources in its efforts to reconstruct basic service information to respond to requests.

Here is a link to The National Personnel Records Fire: A Study in Disaster. This is a 29 page study of the fire that appeared in the American Archivist in 1974 and linked to from the National Archives page on the fire.

Thankfully, my dad was in the Navy, but otherwise, I don’t know what we could have done. eVetRecs is a nice online tool, but you do need to know several pieces of information, such as the branch, officer or enlisted, ssn, date and place of birth, approx date of separation and most difficult, their service number. The American Legion post information was invaluable for this.

Miraculously, as I was looking for dad’s birth place on some papers he had marked “School Papers”, I found his DD214. We were so, so lucky. I was getting a timeframe of when we might expect the DD214 if we traced it as 1 to 6 months or more. And unfortunately, usually the time that people need it is when the situation is such that they need the benefits quickly. And I have still barely gotten anywhere on the process for dad even though it has been about a month, but at least I can plug away at it, which I couldn’t even have started until I got his DD214 if I didn’t find it.

So, Veterans! Take care of that document and treat it as if it were gold. Even a will can be replaced by going to the attorney who did it (although dad’s will is lost and he can’t remember who he went to, but that is a different story). But the DD214 is a really, really important document, if not now, then in the future when you need to get your rightful benefits and may not be in good physical or mental state.

And make copies front and back and make sure you can find them. If you have kids that are old enough, give them a copy. I’m not sure if it needs to be certified, but that would not hurt in the slightest.

Just please, whatever you do, don’t lose it. Because someday you or your kids may be trying to get your benefits for you and then you will realize how important it is.

Thank you for serving our country and Happy Thanksgiving,

~Susan Mellott

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Are you ready for Black Friday? Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving, traditionally the day for the biggest sales, especially the Early Bird specials. People line up at 3 or 4 in the morning, or sometimes overnight, to get the best, limited deals. Last year we got a Hitachi 51″ rear projection TV with true high-def. We could have gotten a very nice b RCA 52″ rear projection TV with true hi-def and DVI inputs for $474.00 from Wal-martut were not quick enough (and I was first in the door, but went in the wrong door and I think there were only 12 or less available). I just looked at the price on this now at Wal-Mart and it is $698 and it is one year later. This is that TV. We did get a very nice Hitachi 51″ though from Best Buy for $698 which was still good. I was able to order this online so I didn’t even have to go to the store. And shipping was free.

So anyway, Black Friday is the day to get all sorts of great deals. And many of the deals can be ordered online so you don’t even have to leave your house! You just have to figure out exactly when they go on sale online so you can quickly order them before they sell out.

And to help you with that, there are several websites that make a point of getting copies of the ads way before they are released (by hook or by crook) and posting the information so you can plan your shopping experience. They even separate them into the the deals you can get online, which is by far the easiest way to shop.

My two favorite sites are Black Friday @ GottaDeal and BF Ads. Each has things they do best and you can sign up for email updates from both of them. BF Ads lets you sort by several categories by store and by Early Bird Specials only. They also list “Better than Black Friday” deals that have come along, such as the Acer Aspire Laptop with 1 gig memory and 14.1″ screen for $279.99 after rebate at Circuit City. Currently it is selling for $599.99. You can also create and save a shopping list of items for your reference. They also have a message board to discuss online and offline Black Friday deals and more.

Black Friday @ GottaDeal lets you look at every item listed by category, such as Televisions without having to go to each store and look. You can also make a shopping list with them and they list the most wanted items based on everyone’s shopping lists. They also list the items that are available online now at Black Friday prices. The parent site GottaDeal.com has deals all the time and is a year round good site for deals. And they have very good forums that discuss the online and offline Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals.

Have you heard of Cyber Monday? This is less well known than Black Friday. It is the Monday after Thanksgiving and is the day that has online specials. Here is the wikipedia entry for Cyber Monday. And here is the official website for Cyber Monday. The term “Cyber Monday” was invented by Shop.org and was never in common use before the 2005 holiday season. According to Scott Silverman, the Executive Director of the organization, the term was coined based on research revealing that 77% of online retailers reported a significant increase in sales the Monday after Thanksgiving in 2004.

And here is a link to the Amazon Black Friday deals. And here is a link to the Amazon Black Friday sweepstakes to win a $10,000 Amazon.com shopping spree.

And here is an UPDATE: Dell has the Dell Vostro 1000 Dual Core Laptop w/ 1GB Memory and 15.4″ Widescreen Display for $399 shipped right now. For those who prefer Windows XP over Windows Vista, you can also get the Vostro 1000 w/ Windows XP for the same price by clicking here. A better than Black Friday deal.

So stuff yourself with turkey, then shop ’til you drop. It doesn’t get any better than that.

Happy Thanksgiving,

~Susan Mellott

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In Blog Tip: Adding Pages to Enhance your Blog - Part 1 I talked about adding pages like “About Me” or “Our Location” (or whatever you want) to your blog. Now let’s look at adding sub-pages and a few widgets to enhance your Wordpress.org (self-hosted wordpress) blog.

But before that, Christopher was kind enough to leave a comment on Part 1 explaining how to simulate multiple link list widgets in Wordpress. I knew that there was only 1 link list widget (blogroll) in wordpress, but what I didn’t know was that if you give the links you add different categories, it will break the list down by that category so it functions as different groups of links. You can see this in action on this blog. I have a list of links called Blogroll and another list of links called Life. You cannot separate the lists, they appear one after the other, but you can get different groups of links. So if you were a company, you could have one group called “Our Locations” and another called “Our Distributors” (as examples). The heading of each group is based on the name you used for the category.

As Chris points out: Just go to the blogroll in the admin and select categories. Add a category for whatever topic you want like ‘books’ and add the new links to that category. They will show up as their own list. These instructions are actually for a wordpress.com hosted wordpress blog, but it is very similar if you have a self-hosted wordpress.org blog. Go to Admin—>Blogroll and add or edit a link. When you are on the page to set up the link, pick (or add) the category for the link from the list at the right and when you save it, it will show up with that category as the name of the list it is under. You can also do this if you have a wordpress.com blog, but only if you have already added the category previously. If not, you have to add the category through admin—>Blogroll—>Categories first. I don’t know why wordpress.com makes you do that extra step, but it does.

Anyway… On to sub-pages!

A sub-page is a page that has another page as its parent other than the main page. This is used to relate a set of pages to a particular page other than your main blog. As an example, you can see how I have set up an “Our Travel” page that appears in the list at the top of my blog. All pages that are sub-pages of other pages do not appear in the main heading of the blog. That lets my “Our Travel” be a completely different section of my blog and is similar to a website. In fact, this lets you almost use your blog as a website with more information than just your blog. You can keep lots more on your blog than just posts.

In Google Blogger, you cannot create pages, so obviously, you can’t create sub-pages either. But there are still things you can do to simulate sub-pages and/or use your blog for more than just a blog. One thing you can do is to create a back-dated post (see Part 1) as say, your “Locations” page that you put in your “Pages” link list in your sidebar. Then you can create several more posts with your different locations and then add links in the text of that post to each of your locations posts. You can get an idea of that by looking at my “Our Travel” page. I have added links on it to my sub-pages for 1996 and 1997. And on my 1996 sub-page, I added links to additional sub-pages for each of our travels in 1996. You can do the same thing in Blogger, by just substituting back-dated posts for sub-pages.

Another thing you could do is create a link list called “Locations” and then add links to each of the back-dated posts you have created for each location. Then you could add another link list for say, “Distributors” and add links to a post about each distributor (or a link to their site). Anyway, you get the idea. Pretty much the only thing you don’t get is the list of pages across the top of your blog like you do in Wordpress.

On to Wordpress: In Wordpress, you can create actual sub-pages that are attached to a page and that won’t show up in the tabs across the top of your blog (only pages that have the main page as a parent show up on the top). What this means is that you have to have a “Pages” widget in your sidebar in order to access these sub-pages (unless you link to them from within the text of your page, which I have also done in my Our Travels pages).

In most Wordpress themes (both wordpress.com and self-hosted wordpress), in the pages widget, it will show all your pages, with the sub-pages indented below each page they belong to. Unfortunately, this particular theme Prosumer 1.4 that I am using does not do that. All pages show at the same level in my Pages list. That really isn’t very nice and it is much nicer when they are appropriately indented. Hopefully they will fix it at some point. If you go to my All Things Web 2.0 wordpress.com blog, you can see how it looks indented. And here is a clip of the Pages sidebar widget from my wordpress.com blog.

Doesn’t that look a lot nicer than the one in this theme? I do like this theme though so I put up with some idiosyncrasies.

And for self-hosted Wordpress blogs, there are several plugins that you can use in place of your standard “Pages” widget. It is a little tricky to install a plugin on your self-hosted blog because you have to get the widget files from their site and then upload it to your own site where your blog is. If you aren’t familiar or comfortable with doing that, you can just use the regular “Pages” widget.

My favorite is the Flexi Pages widget by Srini G. It has several option for displaying that the regular Pages widget doesn’t have.

You can name the list whatever you want. And have a lot of different sort options such as by Page Title, Menu Order, Date Created, etc. You can also pick certain pages that you don’t want to show up in the list. You can have an entry on your page list to the home page (main blog) and call it whatever you like. The rest is pretty self-explanatory (except that the theme I’m using doesn’t indent the pages regardless of whether or not it is chosen).

The custom depth level means how many sub-pages of sub-pages down you want to show. Blank means all of them. You can see that I have entered -3. That is a little trick that is not really explained or mentioned that I found buried in the widget information. You can see how it works by clicking on my Flexipage widget to go to other pages. Here is what it does (from the info):

“Have the child pages, parent pages, sibling pages and top level pages displayed on a page while still leaving out the siblings of parent pages. This is not possible with older versions. Version 1.2 doesn’t include this as an ‘option’ though. You have to specify the ‘Custom depth’ as -3 to achieve this.”

Another Pages widget is the MultiPages Widget by Jerome LeCoq. It is more difficult to use because you have to know the ID of each page (which you can find by going to Admin–>Manage–>Pages and the ID is the number on the left of the title. It doesn’t really give you any extras over the flexipage widget either, except that you can have up to 9 of the multipage widgets. So unless you need more than 1 page list, the FlexiPage widget is the best and easiest of these two. Here is what the setup looks like for the MultiPage plugin:

And if you look at the very bottom of the Admin–>Presentation–>Widgets page, that is where you choose how many instances of the widget you want. NOTE: This is also where you choose how many of various other widgets you want also. I always forget where it is when I need to increase the number of a widget, like if I need more text widgets.

You can see how these different widgets/plugins work by looking at my left sidebar of my blog.

So try out some pages and increase the power of your blog!

~Susan Mellott

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I was just catching up on reading the weekend newspaper so I could throw it away and I saw an article in “On the Scene” in the Journal-Gazette Weekender about one of my very favorite activities at our local library.

It is called Paws to Read and is one of the many programs the ACPL provides for kids. Quoting from the article in the Journal-Gazette:

“Good ol’ Fido. Not only will that lovable mutt of yours fetch your newspaper, keep your feet warm at night and search your garbage for any half-eaten cans of beans you might have “accidentally” thrown away, he’s also the world’s best listener.

He never gossips, judges you for not switching to energy-saving light bulbs or teases you about your inability to pronounce the word “pulchritudinous.”

This is why Fido – and a host of other therapy dogs – arrives weekly at several of our local library branches for Paws to Read, an opportunity for kids to read aloud to a smiling, tail-wagging pup.”

Euneisha Bright, 9, gets encouragement from therapy dog Phil while reading with the Paws to Read program at Hessen Cassel library.

Arial Lee, 11, reads a story to Phil. Doesn’t he look like he is reading along?

Photos by Cathie Rowand | The Journal Gazette

This was also written up on the ACPL’s Innovation through Technology blog and the comments talk about how great it is that kids get to read to someone friendly and non-judgemental.

Other libraries are also doing this type of program. Gail Wechsler Says: There is a similar program in the St. Louis area called, I believe, Love on a Leash. Part of the success of these programs, I think, is that animals are not judgmental and are not intimidating so kids are not afraid of how they will sound as they read to them.

You can look on the ACPL main library Children’s Services programs page and the ACPL Branches Children’s programs for more programs.

And just for fun, here’s a link to a post and pictures of the Dupont Branch Llamas @ the Library.

And check out all these pictures from the various ACPL children’s programs (and a little more).

I love my library!

What: Paws to Read

When and where : 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. Wednesdays at Aboite branch, 5630 Coventry Lane; 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. Wednesdays at Dupont branch, 536 E. Dupont Road; 4 to 5 p.m. Tuesdays at Georgetown branch, 6600 E. State Blvd.; 7 to 8 p.m. Thursdays at Grabill branch, 13521 State St., Grabill; 5 p.m. Mondays at Hessen Cassel branch, 3030 E. Paulding Road; 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. Mondays at Little Turtle branch, 2201 Sherman Blvd.; 7 p.m. Mondays at Tecumseh branch, 1411 E. State Blvd.; 4:30 p.m. first and third Mondays at Waynedale branch, 2200 Lower Huntington Road.

Cost : Ear scratches and belly rubs

~Susan Mellott

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First of all, I’d like to give a huge shout-out the Grabill Library Branch of the ACPL who were featured in a talk that Jessamyn West  gave on 11/8/07 called What Works: More My Library, Less MySpace. If you look on slide #32, you will see a screen capture of their Grabill Branch Library blog, that shows how they successfully use the Twitter stream to promote their branch.  Way to go!

Also, thanks to David Lee King for writing about The Big Juicy Twitter Guide by Caroline Middlebrook.  This is a great online guide about everything Twitter, with an emphasis on how it can be used to market your product or services.  Which is exactly how Grabill Branch of the ACPL is using it!  Here is a brief overview: “I have tried to present a complete picture of Twitter and show techniques / tools / guidelines for Twitter usage for all kinds of people”.

And last, but not least, here is an email newsletter that I received from Biz Stone and the Twitter Team that I thought I would share since it has lots of great Twitter info.

Hello Twitter-ers,

There have been raging wildfires and rumbling earthquakes
inspiring avalanches of Twitter updates over the last few weeks
out here on the West Coast of the US. In Tumultuous times, people
turn to Twitter. In fact, there’s been a steep increase in the
number of SMS and IM devices activated recently. This is probably
due to the Track feature which allows folks to follow keywords or
phrases in real time. Is your phone activated?

Activate: http://twitter.com/devices

Do You Owe Someone A Beer?

Foamee.com is a fun IOU system built on Twitter that helps you
track who you owe beers to (and vice versa). All you have to do is
follow the account “ioubeer” and then send it @replies. So, say
you owe me a beer for helping you change a flat tire, this is what
you’d send to Twitter:

@ioubeer @biz for helping me change that flat tire

Then, your IOU will show up on the front page at foamee.com.
There’s even a way to tell it when that beer has been redeemed.
I think a root beer version is in the works. Maybe even a latte
version? Those are foamy too. Dan Cederholm of SimpleBits design
is the mastermind behind this fanciful creation. We think it’s
really cool. Thanks Dan, we owe you a frosty one!

Visit: http://foamee.com
Follow: http://twitter.com/ioubeer
More: http://simplebits.com

Other Cool Stuff

Foamee is part of a growing list of interesting applications that
interact with Twitter. Jott, for example, has created a way to
send a Twitter update by speaking into your phone–your voice gets
converted to text and sent out to all your followers. This is a
much safer solution for people who insist on updating Twitter when
their attention is required elsewhere–like driving!

Twitter by Voice: http://jott.com
More Twitter Apps: http://twitter.pbwiki.com/Apps

Featured Twitter-ers

We have a sidebar on the Twitter public timeline page where we
occasionally mention accounts you might want to follow. For
example, during the San Diego wildfires, KPBS News, LAFD, and the
LA Times had important live updates. The following accounts are
less of an emergency situation but interesting, nevertheless.

SkinnyJeans is wondering if Twitter can help her lose 10 pounds.
http://twitter.com/skinnyjeans

Jamie Kennedy is experimenting with Twitter.
http://twitter.com/jamiekennedy

Maureen is serving up a steady stream of tiny recipes.
http://twitter.com/cookbook

Sara Bareilles is sharing the details of her budding career.
http://twitter.com/SaraBareilles

On the subject of emergencies, that earthquake we had recently in
Northern California was highly Twittered. This blogger captured a
lot of the action: http://tinyurl.com/2xv5el Also, if you’re a
Bay Area resident you might want to follow the updates of this
profile http://twitter.com/SFSurfrider regarding the recent oil
spill in San Francisco Bay.

Twitter on the Mobile Web

In case you didn’t know, Twitter has a mobile web site that you
can access from your phone’s web browser at m.twitter.com. Twitter
developer Britt Selvitelle has been quietly improving the site
recently. It’s a great way to check out what people are up to when
you’re waiting for a bus or taking the subway home from work.
Britt’s Twitter profile is http://twitter.com/bs in case you want
to @ioubeer @bs for making the mobile site!

Happy Twittering!
-Biz Stone and the Twitter Team
http://twitter.com/biz

~Susan Mellott

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