Re: [MCN-L] Website - Content Management Systems
1. Wordpress 2. Always the latest 3. I do. Others edit, but I make the original post/page. Stan Orchard Pacific Science Center Seattle, WA > On Oct 19, 2016, at 12:01 PM, Russ Brooks <rbro...@mus-nature.ca> wrote: > > MCNers, > > Just doing some research about websites and the systems used to maintain your > online content. Any and all responses would be greatly appreciated. > > 1. If any, what CMS (content management system) do you use (Drupal, > Wordpress, other)? > 2. What version are you running? > 3. Who does the posting? > > Thanks very much! > > Russ Brooks > Digital Production > Canadian Museum of Nature > rbro...@mus-nature.ca > [http://nature.ca/email/signatures/reptiles/reptiles_email_signature.jpg]<https://goo.gl/ZoHXC8> > > More information<https://goo.gl/ZoHXC8> Info<https://goo.gl/Q3HrI4> > ___ > You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer > Network (http://www.mcn.edu) > > To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l@mcn.edu > > To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: > http://mcn.edu/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l > > The MCN-L archives can be found at: > http://www.mail-archive.com/mcn-l@mcn.edu/ ___ You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer Network (http://www.mcn.edu) To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l@mcn.edu To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: http://mcn.edu/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l The MCN-L archives can be found at: http://www.mail-archive.com/mcn-l@mcn.edu/
[MCN-L] Online Catalog
Hello! I’m working on a project where we want to allow users to search our database of butterflies that populate our butterfly house…search by color(s), wing shape, maybe some other criteria. We use Wordpress so it seems Woo Commerce is a safe bet with maybe another plugin to turn off certain elements such as price. We’ll have 150-200 entries in this database. This will utilize the same Wordpress theme we’re using and it will be on the same domain, so part of our main site. I’m looking for any examples of such a thing. Or any advice anyone may have regarding this type of project. Should we set this up off our main site? Any advantage/disadvantage to doing that? I have a feeling we’re missing something as we work through this. Thanks. Stan Orchard Pacific Science Center Seattle, WA ___ You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer Network (http://www.mcn.edu) To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l@mcn.edu To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: http://mcn.edu/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l The MCN-L archives can be found at: http://www.mail-archive.com/mcn-l@mcn.edu/
[MCN-L] A working list of free/low-cost alternatives to Adobe Creative Cloud products
Amadeus Lite is an excellent, inexpensive audio editor for the Mac. $24.99 in the app store. Highly recommended. http://www.hairersoft.com/lite.html On Jun 26, 2014, at 9:16 AM, Edson, Michael EDSONM at si.edu wrote: http://smithsonian-webstrategy.wikispaces.com/Alternatives+to+Adobe+Creativ e+Cloud+products
[MCN-L] Tax ID Number Online?
I received an email from a recent visitor and thought I'd ask in here if anyone has done this. S/he was asking if we could publish our tax ID number because... Flexible Spending Account reimbursement requires us to include in our paperwork. I'd never heard of that before. Have you? This person clearly ID'd so it wasn't some kind of phishing expedition. Is this common among museum Web sites? -- Stan Orchard Web Publisher Pacific Science Center - Seattle http://google.com/profiles/stanorchard --
[MCN-L] Who manages your social media presence?
At Pacific Science Center, Marketing handles Twitter, one of our blogs, YouTube, Flickr, Yelp, and our site. We also have several Facebook pages. Marketing is involved with all of them but a few people from education also contribute. We do a monthly 21+ event and the three people involved with that (Group Sales) maintain a MySpace page for it. And we have a new blog for our Life Sciences Dept. One of our volunteers posts to that (she's a photographer) though Marketing maintains the blog. We have no New Media Team per se. Marketing now includes all of the above so it's just part of what we do. Stan Orchard Web Publisher Pacific Science Center On May 19, 2009, at 11:40 AM, Melissa Kinkley wrote: Dear all, In your museum, does your PR/Marketing staff manage your presence on flickr, youtube, facebook, your blogs, etc. or someone else? If you have one, how does your New Media team interface with PR/Marketing? Thanks, Melissa Melissa H. Kinkley Manager of New Media Family Interpretation Smart Museum of Art University of Chicago 5550 S. Greenwood Ave. Chicago, IL 60637 ph. 773.702.2362 fax 773.702.3121 http://smartmuseum.uchicago.edu ___ You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer Network (http://www.mcn.edu) To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l The MCN-L archives can be found at: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/pipermail/mcn-l/
[MCN-L] Twitter - Follow?
I don't follow everyone who follows us at Pacific Science Center. I always check who they are and eliminate thusly: 1. If they hide their tweets, don't follow. 2. If they've never tweeted, don't follow. 3. Spammers...block 'em. 4. Read their last 20 or so tweets. If they tweet maybe once a week, probably won't follow. 5. If they tweet mostly about things totally unrelated to our area, or nothing related to education, science, etc, probably won't follow. 6. I use Twhirl so I set up a number of searches and integrate the results into my twitter stream (other clients do this as well). That way I find people I'm not following who are talking about us or some of our interests. I may then follow them. Strongly recommend using a Twitter client (Twhirl, Tweetdeck, Twitterific, etc.) There are MANY. Stan Orchard Web Publisher Pacific Science Center http://twitter.com/PacSci http://twitter.com/ScienceCalendar http://twitter.com/StanOrchard On Mar 13, 2009, at 3/13/0912:50 PM, Christina DePaolo wrote: Hi, I set up a twitter feed for SAM recently @iheartSAM. I am loving tweeting for SAM, but there are still a couple of things that I am fuzzy about. I am following everyone who is following us, but it is a bit overwhelming. How do you chose who to follow? Looking at museum's feeds I see a variety of solutions. I am curious about those of you who don't follow everyone, but follow a targeted group of individuals and institutions. This looks like a good option for a somewhat targeted dialogue/community. How do you decide which individuals to follow? Not so concerned about institutions because that is easy to do/resolve. Thank you. Christina ___ You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer Network (http://www.mcn.edu) To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l The MCN-L archives can be found at: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/pipermail/mcn-l/
[MCN-L] Web Tech Guy and Angry Staff Person
Nailed it! On Mar 9, 2009, at 10:28 AM, Edson, Michael wrote: To my MCN colleagues I offer this animation: Web Tech Guy and Angry Staff Person. May it soothe your pain. http://smithsonian20.typepad.com/blog/2009/03/web-t.html Michael Edson Director, Web and New Media Strategy Smithsonian Institution, Office of the CIO edsonm at si.edu mailto:edsonm at si.edu | m: 202-445-9746 | o: 202-633-8447 ___ You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer Network (http://www.mcn.edu) To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l The MCN-L archives can be found at: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/pipermail/mcn-l/
[MCN-L] social network CMS?
This question has sorta come up before in different ways, but thought I'd ask again. Does anyone use one of the social network-type sites as a content management system? For example, we use Wetpaint for an internal wiki for our staff. We also use Wetpaint for a section of our site for our Science On Wheels teachers. We've had mixed results with both. But what if we moved our entire Web site to something like Ning or Wetpaint or some other such site? Alternative is to build our IT staff and create, maintain databases, Web servers, networks, etc. That means fewer resources (people) for creating content. Budgets being what they are, what if we used an outside source for the ENTIRE infrastructure and spent money on content creators? We also use Google calendars, Feedburner, Twitter, Facebook, Constant Contact, Upcoming. Google maps, etc. But the entire Web site? Lots of questions about ads, security, reliability, etc. Just wondering if any institutions do this? Stan Orchard Pacific Science Center
[MCN-L] Production value of online content
Hanan...you didn't say what is the purpose of the video. What did you hope to accomplish with it? What is the target audience? If you're trying to show young people how this works and illustrate certain math concepts, it seems to work fine for me. If you're trying to do something else then maybe not. Why not give your camera to some young people and have them shoot and produce the video? If young people are the target audience, telling the story from their perspective might be more effective. Stan Orchard Web Publisher Pacific Science Center On Jan 7, 2009, at 1/7/0912:21 AM, Hanan Cohen wrote: Shalom, First, please take a look at a short new video I have just uploaded to YouTube showing an exhibit at the Bloomfield Science Museum, Jerusalem. http://il.youtube.com/watch?v=x7yDZd8oug0 http://il.youtube.com/watch?v=x7yDZd8oug0 It has very low production value. I shot it once, in sub-optimal lighting conditions, added some simple video effects, slapped opening and closing titles and added a soundtrack I have downloaded from http://ccmixter.org/ http://ccmixter.org/ This is one way of doing it. (The curator of the exhibition was very pleased with it.) Another way would have been to hire a video production company, write a script, have multiple back-and-forth discussions with them and then show it with fanfare. What I wonder is if online content, that just does the job but has low production value, is the right path to take. Does it undermine the public image of the museum? Is accessible, fast and cheap, social media presence good for our outreach efforts? I am not sure where we should draw the line and invest in production of online content. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks, Hanan Cohen - Webmaster The Bloomfield Science Museum Jerusalem http://www.mada.org.il ___ You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer Network (http://www.mcn.edu) To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l The MCN-L archives can be found at: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/pipermail/mcn-l/
[MCN-L] Museum internal Twitter-like service?
Here at Pacific Science Center in Seattle we're just starting to get moving on a staff wiki. So far things look good. But...as an avid Twitter/identi.ca user, I see an internal Twitter-like service as even more useful. Read about it here: http://tinyurl.com/64da9g The example there is a corporation with far-flung sales, etc. folks. But just inside our rather small organization we all seldom, if ever see and interact with each other. We're just too involved with our own areas. I think a non-ending, constant stream of thoughts from my colleagues would be most valuable. Is there anything like this being used anywhere in our museum/science center universe? I can just imagine a Dennis Schatz and Heather Gibbons along with a Bonnie VanDorn and Lesley Lewis and Bryce Seidl and ALL those many others who share the collective braintrust of our industry watching this stream of tweets go by...seeing questions go by that they remember from their past and saying, 'I remember how we did that back then.' Maybe an astc-sponsored service that utilizes identi.ca's open-source software? Just spewing some thoughts as I watch streams of incredibly intelligent ideas float by. StanO
[MCN-L] Google mail versus MS Exchange or others
Chuck raises one issue that I'd LOVE to learn more about: keeping staff directory updated. I am a Mac guy and never liked Entourage and absolutely detest the Outlook Web interface. So, for many months now I have been using Gmail for all my work mail. While ANY Web interface, IMO pales compared to a standalone mail client, I find myself loving this. Gone are the constant nags from our in-house system telling me I'm over my storage limit, I can use the far superior filtering, it even takes meeting requests from colleagues using Outlook and places them on my google calendar. When I first switched it was trivial to dump the GAL to a text file and import to gmail. But as staff members come and go (or marry and change user names), it sometimes becomes troublesome to keep my contacts straight. Does anyone have suggestions on that issue? I'm REALLY enjoying this thread. I agree with just about everything said so far. Putting your critical business apps online is something we all should be looking at one way or another. It makes sense on many levels. Thanks VERY much! Stan Orchard Web Publisher Pacific Science Center On Apr 16, 2008, at 4/16/089:20 AM, Chuck Patch wrote: OK. I held off hijacking the thread until someone else did it for me.. Interesting. During the month(s) our internal systems were down following Katrina, I set up initial communications among the staff using Google groups and set up people without personal email accounts on Google mail. While we later developed an online staff directory that people could personally update while on the road, it was the initial use of the Google group that allowed us to get in contact. Although I suspect that there would still be significant resistance among our tech folk, the truth is that there is nothing that our institution does with Exchange that couldn't be done in Google mail, which is another way of saying that no one uses any of the useful features in Exchange, such as meeting scheduling etc. Or rather, a handful will and the rest never pay attention to those features which makes them useless. I also agree with Ari that staff will probably hate the Google apps and prefer Office, but then when has anyone's staff not hated anything other than what they've been using? Switch them to Office 2007 and I promise Google Apps will look fabulous. I think the real hump for most institutions to surmount is the sense that you're much more reliant on your ISP with this system. In fact, it's not email where web services are making inroads, it's in more peripheral stuff like event registration, online calendaring, shop stores, etc that are raising the comfort level for things closer to the mission. Chuck Patch On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 10:43 AM, Leonard Steinbach lensteinbach at gmail.com wrote: I have been strongly urging cultural institutions, especially those with minimal or overworked, overstretched technology staffs to give serious consideration to moving to G-mail under their education/non-profit organization program. Many colleges/universities have been going, or are considering going, this route, with Arizona State University among the leaders in this. (they have been a bit radical in some other technology approaches as well). The academic sector may prove a good role model in this. I wont recapitulate the full apps programhttp://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/org/index.htmlbut the increased storage capacity, sophisticated spam filtering, easy access to other google apps , migration assistance, retention of institutional email addressing, ease of remote access, become compelling cases for evaluation. Undoubtedly one factor would be the extent to which specialized features of Exchange used by staff can not be easily replaced. I have long posited that, generally speaking, the core competency of museums is not the management of complex systems, but the creative use of them and that museums should be vigilant in periodically reevaluating where there time and costs are dedicated. For some museums, internal email management may be appropriate, but for many it probably no longer is. In an era of increasing emergence of webware as an effective application strategy, legacy, in-house systems will come under increasing scrutiny. I think Email is a start. http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/edu/index.html On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 9:32 AM, Chuck Patch chuck.patch at gmail.com wrote: I'd be interested in learning what led you to consider this option. Chuck Patch On Tue, Apr 15, 2008 at 2:05 PM, Stan Orchard stanorchard at mac.com wrote: I'd love to see any comments here on the list. Thanks! On Apr 15, 2008, at 11:07 AM, Nancy Pinn wrote: We are taking a look at switching from Microsoft Exchange to Google mail for our email services. I am curious if any of you have
[MCN-L] iPhone and email access
I am a Mac guy and had been using Entourage while at work and the Outlook Web interface while outside the building. Both are a pain to me. So recently I started redirecting all mail sent to my Pacific Science Center (PacSci) address to my gmail address and created a PacSci identity there. I don't synch at all. Everything ends up in gmail where I have WAY more storage than our local Exchange Server can provide, better spam filtering, and a better interface. First, you can now use IMAP with gmail so you can use Mac's Mail app, Outlook, whatever. Or you can use the gmail Web interface. I still need to go into my PacSci account with the Outlook Web interface every now and then to clean out deleted items. The rule I set up redirects all mail (as opposed to forwarding) and then deletes all messages. But it does not clean out deleted mail so the mailbox still fills up eventually. The only other issue I've found is that when the mail is redirected to gmail it strips off more than my address. So, if the sender has put any cc addresses or multiple addresses in the To: field, they get stripped off. I have tried in vain to find a solution for that. If anyone knows please enlighten me. Other than that, gmail is WAY better at handling mail on my multiple Macs and PCs than Outlook or Entourage. I also use Google Calendar. When an Outlook meeting request comes in via email, Gmail detects it, asks me if I want to accept the invite, then updates my Google Calendar, then sends a message to the sender confirming. It cannot update my calendar back at work, but frankly most people I work with RARELY use that feature. Stan Orchard Web Publisher Pacific Science Center On Nov 16, 2007, at 11/16/07, robin.dowden wrote: I love my iPhone but can?t get Walker email on it. The Walker uses Microsoft Exchange for mail and my attempt to convince IT to open IMAP access beyond the Walker network over SSL or VPN was met with resistance. Our IT manager is concerned about security, specifically providing another opportunity for misuse which they would be responsible for monitoring. I?m wondering if anyone has had success convincing IT it's not a big issue/security risk or found another solution. I?ve considered forwarding Walker mail to my gmail account but anticipate headaches keeping the mailboxes in sync. Thanks. Robin Dowden Director, New Media Initiatives Walker Art Center robin.dowden at walkerart.org 612.375.7541 walkerart.org mnartists.org ___ You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer Network (http://www.mcn.edu) To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l
[MCN-L] Adding mutlimedia to museum websites: bandwidth hit?
I just served on a panel that presented a session at ASTC in LA yesterday. We covered this very topic and there seemed to be a LOT of interest. So let's talk. There are certain advantages to serving your own video: better quality, no ads, no potential for inappropriate videos adjacent to your own, and you control your own destiny. The downside, as mentioned, is the bandwidth and server maintenance. But the other side to posting video on YouTube and elsewhere is the community aspect. If our mission is to reach new audiences to help further our quest of inspiring a lifelong love of learning, then developing a community on YouTube and everywhere else we can works. One of the concerns raised at our session was: what if YouTube starts sticking ads onto our videos? That is a potential danger, but there are always options. Yahoo also offers such services, so does MetaCafe, Revver, and on and on. Some stick on ads, some don't. If they all start to then I have a feeling someone will start a site that doesn't since that clearly is what those in our area (and many others) desire. Hey...if the ads and porn spam, etc. get to be a problem then I have a feeling ASTC and our friends at NSF and elsewhere could help us all easily collaborate and build our own system. We could then invite others and watch it grow. Such is the nature of such systems. While these are challenging times for many reasons this is also the Golden Age for communication. At least it is in my mind. We will one day look back at this time in awe. Best advice: start telling your stories any way and everywhere you can. We all have people in our organizations who are passionate about what we do. Point a camera at them and turn them loose. Keep everything SHORT and post it everywhere. Engage as many others as you can. Get them talking about what we do. Be passionate about it. It is infectious. If one thing doesn't work, try another. If you can't find a system that works, then ask some questions here and elsewhere. Chances are good you'll find others who can help build one. We all have MANY great stories to tell about those in our organizations. Get out there and start telling them. If you need help just ask. Stan Orchard Web Publisher Pacific Science Center Seattle www.pacsci.org On Oct 11, 2007, at Thursday, October 11, 2007 - 11:45 AM, Ari Davidow wrote: A few years ago, even serving audio seemed to want a separate audio server ( e.g., real server, apple's quicktime darwin server) and there were lots of bandwidth issues. In our current setup, we don't have a lot of multimedia content, and are increasingly using Flash for audio (mp3 files; flash player) as well as flv files for video. For the low use these files get, we haven't had bandwidth issues. But we're also looking increasingly to using YouTube for video. Where we have permission to do so, this means that YouTube is eating the bandwidth cost for the people who encounter the video on our site (although, once they start watching the video, they are on YouTube's site potentially earning YouTube revenue against that cost). Even better, people who wouldn't think to look for us, or for content on our site, are encountering our materials, and have a pathway back to our site. The numbers are too small for us to have a good sense of whether this is the best use of the video (as opposed to hosting only on our site), or whether a noticeable percentage of people are more aware of us, or our website, but our initial sense is that everyone gains from this sort of approach. I'm not convinced we want to be in the video serving business. (I am absolutely certain that we don't want servers in-house either--we have no desire to have 24x7 tech support and monitoring, and no other use for the skills it would take to have our webservers physically in our server room, so clearly we are moving in different philosophical directions from ya'll. For the record, we do maintain our own servers, just off-site at a professional ISP, and we share our webmaster with other clients.) ari On 10/11/07, Real, Will RealW at carnegiemuseums.org wrote: Our IT staff is concerned about the bandwidth effect caused by delivering multimedia content, particularly video, on the museum's website. Would folks from museums who have gone thru this care to comment on their experiences? I realize it comes down to what the content is and how much traffic there is, but we are hoping we can extrapolate, in a general way, from the actual before-and-after experience of others. Thanks in advance, Will Real Carnegie Museum of Art Pittsburgh PA ___ You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer Network (http://www.mcn.edu) To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu To unsubscribe or change mcn-l
