Here’s a recap of the Thursday (Thu, May 14th, Rosenwald 405, 12-1:30pm) presentation on Google Earth (http://earth.google.com/) and Google Maps (http://maps.google.com/). Google Earth is a powerful yet simple to use mapping and visualization tool. For this presentation, we focused on advanced features of Google Earth. Several interesting humanities related projects utilizing Google Earth were showcased, including ‘Ancient Rome’, ‘Las Vegas Growth’, ‘Rumsey Historical Maps’ and ‘Historical Imagery’.

Media

The presentation was recorded using Podcast Producer. You can view the recording now in Quick Time player. This and future Tech Talks can be subscribed to using iTunes or another RSS reader.

Links

• My previous blog post on this subject.
• Google Earth itself
• Satellite imagery of the growth of Las Vegas
• A gallery of KML files that can be loaded into Google Earth
• The newest and most exciting feature: Time Slider
• Rumsey Historical Maps. Note that this actually is built into Google Earth. It can be found in the “Gallery” list in the “Layers” panel.
• Also see Ogle Earth, a blog that “documents how Google Earth and other neogeographical tools are affecting geopolitics.”

Tech Talk presented Thursday March 19 2009.

Peter Thorson provided an introduction to the Division’s blog software (WordPress Mu) with a specific focus on the admin interface chances coming in the the 2.7 revision of WordPress.

Watch the screencast (requires QuickTime)

http://mahimahi.uchicago.edu/media/pcast/2009-03-19/Blog_Tech_Talk_2-reference.qtl

More about WordPress 2.7

The first thing you’ll notice about 2.7 is its new interface. From the top down, we’ve listened to your feedback and thought deeply about the design and the result is a WordPress that’s just plain faster. Nearly every task you do on your blog will take fewer clicks and be faster in 2.7 than it did in a previous version. (Download it now, or read on for more.)

Next you’ll begin to notice the new features subtly sprinkled through the new interface: the new dashboard that you can arrange with drag and drop to put the things most important to you on top, QuickPress, comment threading, paging, the ability to reply to comments from your dashboard, and sticky posts.

You can read more (and watch the video) about WordPress 2.7 on the launch press release:

http://wordpress.org/development/2008/12/coltrane/

Tech Talk presented Thursday Feb 12 2009.

For your convenience, information provided in the talk has been made publicly available on the Division of the Humanities Wiki. Please follow the link below for more information, tips and tricks.

Firefox

Mozilla Firefox is a free and open source web browser descended from the Mozilla Application Suite and managed by Mozilla Corporation.

This TechTalk was targeted at people already somewhat familiar with the division’s wiki which can be accessed at http://humanities.uchicago.edu/wiki/. During the presentation and Q&A we discussed various matters including how to plan and structure complex documents, employ simple wiki macros to generate pages (such as a table of contents) automatically, how to share or restrict access to your pages and gain more control over their look and feel.

Probably the best place to start to learn more about the capabilities of the software (Confluence) we use to power our wiki is the Feature Tour on its website. This is a great place to get a succinct overview of its main features. The Confluence website also hosts several excellent introductory videos explaining the product.

Following this, to dig deeper, you’ll want to look at the official documentation pages. These are actually fairly well written and organized from the perspective of a user looking to accomplish a specific task, for example, working with images. Please keep in mind too that if you are a staff or faculty member in the division you can always contact Humanities Desktop Support to help you solve a problem with the wiki.

Advanced features in Confluence are generally accessed via a system of simple macros and (optional) plugins. If you’ve browsed through the lists of plugins and macros and found something that may look useful for your project, please contact Humanities Desktop Support for assistance.

Finally, to make the most of your wiki, it’s going to be very helpful to keep abreast of ongoing new features and updates. These so called “major releases” generally get rolled out three or four times a year. To read a brief summary of the highlights of recent major releases, please consult the following links:

v2.10 (December, 2008)

v2.9 (August, 2008)

v2.8 (April, 2008)

Tech Talk presented Thursday Jan 15 2008.

For your convenience, information provided in the talk has been made publicly available on the Divsion of the Humanities Wiki. Please follow the links below for more information, tips and tricks.

Thunderbird

Mozilla Thunderbird is a popular email client available on both windows and mac platforms. The talk hinged on getting the most out of Thunderbird’s sorting and searching capabilities.

Phishing Emails

Phishing emails are scams designed to trick the mail recipient into revealing sensitive information. Often these messages appear to be authentic communication from NSIT or computing groups on campus. Please keep in mind that NSIT and Humanities Computing will NEVER request your password, nor will we ask you to change or “validate” your password at a site other than http://cnet.uchicago.edu. If you receive a message that asks for your CNet password, it is a fraudulent email.