Articles – Page 12 – David Shanske

Semantic Comments and User Testing

Last month, I unveiled my new theme for this site, which I had spent two weeks working on. There is still a lot I want to fix…not thrilled with the business card in the sidebar and I think it needs work.

But since, I’ve been systematically dismantling everything I built. Not quite. I’ve been taking the theme and breaking off pieces of it into independent plugins. The first of this is the Semantic Comments plugin. This is an extension of the facepile code I created. Facepiles are a row/rows of profile photos of individuals who have completed an action related to the current page…such as Like, Mention, Repost, etc.

It gave me the chance to do something even more geeky. I posted my code to Github. You can visit the repository and download it, criticize it, comment on it, at Semantic Comments. A professional programmer friend of mine told me that you never stop being convinced your code is garbage.

But, one of the more recent decisions I made for this plugin, and thus my site, was inspired by the words of Kartik Prabhu on his site, Parallel Transport, in an article called, “No Comment.”

“Why this expectation that every blog must be a discussion forum? Public discussions can be had on social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Google+”.

So, comment over there, and I’ll pull your comments in back here. I’ve automated it and it is no trouble. Or comment on your own site. But this is something of a novel idea for people. So I took the comment form out. It was only one line of code anyway. I could change my mind later, I guess.

So, at the bottom of the post, you’ll see some options.

Then, below the comments, you’ll see…

If it is a full article, you’ll see different Quick Actions. The Favorite, Reply, Repost ones go to Twitter. They are the only ones who support this sort of link without demanding I use their social buttons…you know, the ones everyone has.

I rearranged the order, I fiddled with the text …and I asked a lot of people if they’d have a look at my test site to see if they understood it. Some of you may have been in that group.

I still haven’t found the magic bullet. Some people told me they thought they needed to paste whatever the link they commented on into the box. Others weren’t sure how they’d respond. It is proof that any new way of doing things may contain a barrier in adoption.

You may have noticed that Twitter, Facebook, Google+, etc all are starting to look very similar. One reason seems to be that people instantly are familiar with portions of the layout.

I’m continuing to iterate, change, try to find the best way to do things, but this is where user testing comes into place. What is missing…what could be better…how can I have the simplest presentation possible with the elements I have?

Thoughts?

Thinking about Social Buttons

Been working on webactions, which are similar to the social sharing buttons on many sites. Does anyone actually use them?

Making Fun of SEO Optimization Offers

I got a comment on the sharing of a link on rainy weather in NYC. So…it was just the link and a short comment on it. It was not an article.

Hello Web Admin, I noticed that your On-Page SEO is is missing a few factors, for one you do not use all three H tags in your post, also I notice that you are not using bold or italics properly in your SEO optimization. On-Page SEO means more now than ever since the new Google update: Panda. No longer are backlinks and simply pinging or sending out a RSS feed the key to getting Google PageRank or Alexa Rankings, You now NEED On-Page SEO. So what is good On-Page SEO?First your keyword must appear in the title.Then it must appear in the URL.You have to optimize your keyword and make sure that it has a nice keyword density of 3-5% in your article with relevant LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing). Then you should spread all H1,H2,H3 tags in your article.Your Keyword should appear in your first paragraph and in the last sentence of the page. You should have relevant usage of Bold and italics of your keyword.There should be one internal link to a page on your blog and you should have one image with an alt tag that has your keyword….wait there’s even more Now what if i told you there was a simple WordPress plugin that does all the On-Page SEO, and automatically for you? That’s right AUTOMATICALLY, just watch this 4minute video for more information at.

So, according to Mr. Spammy SEO type, I should spread an H1, H2, and H3 tag in my article. Let’s convert that into English. I should have three levels of headings. Title, subtitle, section?

Then, I should have a keyword in my title and it should appear in the first paragraph and last sentence of the page. This would be basic advice on non-fiction writing dating back long before Google. The title of your article should be relevant to your topic(or keyword). Your first paragraph should set out the point of your entire article. The last sentence of your article should summarize the point you tried to make.

It then tells me there should be an image with an alt tag that has the keyword. Well, people respond to images. I always try to find a random image(and I have a plugin that helps with that) to add a little color. I probably should start searching my own photo archives for photography.

So…what if there was a plugin that could make me more popular, regardless of how horrible my writing is? I think I’ll just try to write well, thank you very much.

Getting Started with the Indieweb – Part 1

I’ve lately, if you’ve been paying attention to this website, gotten started with a movement called the Indieweb movement. To remind you from last time I mentioned it, the ideas of the movement are:

Your content is yours
You are better connected
You are in control

So, I figured it would be a good idea to write a simple tutorial in case you want to join on this. If you visit the indiewebcamp site, there is a wealth of information. But it seems overwhelming to some. This is my version of things, where I focus on it from the perspective of a non-techie typ. A large portion of the indieweb is about markup. Basically, marking up the elements of your site so they can interoperate with other sites.

Get your own domain name and web hosting. If you want to own your content, you need to rent a place to put it.
Put Up a Site. Will cover more of this. I use WordPress as a platform, which is very simple to set up.
Add Links on the Site to Your Social Network Profiles and Links on your Social Network Profiles to Your Site. These should be marked up with a property called rel-me. This allows you to effectively say that Facebook you, or Twitter you is the same person as your new site, and vice versa. Both have to point to each other to avoid spoofing.
Put up a Bio/About Page – Good to tell people who you are.
Start publishing. What is the point of a worrying about some of this other stuff if you have nothing there.

The above doesn’t get into all the markup I mentioned. This is staking your claim for your little piece of the web. Next, I’ll get into the ‘cooler’ stuff. I’m really enjoying getting involved in this.

This site is running WordPress, which is used by roughly 20% of websites. A lot of the functionality I mentioned, as well as what I’ll be talking about on this in the future, can be put into WordPress using plugins. This includes things like syndicating content to other sites and importing content from those locations. It has given me an excuse to start developing and redeveloping code to support this.

So, some of those who follow me may find me being a bit more techie than normal.

Memories

I imported all of my old Livejournal posts from a decade ago into WordPress to store them and purge them from Livejournal. Also appears I accidentally autoposted some of them to Twitter and Facebook. I’ve deleted them, but many of you may have seen them.

Something of a stupid mistake. Many of them were private at the time, and were supposed to come unpublished into the system for review. But, it is also evidence of how I’ve matured over the years, I suppose. You come to the realization of how you felt at different times in your life, which is why I moved the old entries in the first place.

It reminds me of why my sharing on the internet is so limited. Once you say something, you can’t unsay it, or delete it.

Design Obsession

One of the essential principles of the Indieweb is selfdogfooding: Using your own creations on your own personal site. Those who have been following this effort see I continue to make changes. But, what is interesting as I work on design is how the little details can drive you crazy. It is surprisingly challenging.

This is an example of a standard status update on the site. The blue icon is the comment icon, and next to it, linked to same, is the number of responses. I can’t help thinking that I don’t need both. But the rest of the line has an icon and information: Status and the Status Icon, the Time and a Time Icon, the Shared Icon with the icons of the sites I syndicated the post to.

If you look at this, which I classify as an article, not a status update, some of that information migrates to the top.

I also wanted to add a business card like area in the sidebar.

This is not a finished feature…but I’m innovating in public. I spent a lot of time on the other site, but this part is just temporary. You can see the icons that indicate places I syndicate copies of these posts to. I really like the look of those icons, however, they don’t quite fit on the full version on the site. It looks fine if it is on a phone(Yes, the site scales for mobile. Try it.)

Then we get to the profile box. The picture is too big. I probably need a new profile picture anyway, but I’m usually behind the camera, not in front of it. We’ll see what else I can do with this. I’ve been looking at other sites and how people do these sidebar bios.

There actually has to be a picture of me on the front page of the site, much as I don’t really want it, for syndication purposes. The photo is used as an icon for the link should anything I say be replied to elsewhere.

There will likely be more exploratory posts like this. So, here I am, worrying about the smallest detail. No wonder designers boast about chamfered edges and all sort of things users don’t normally focus on. I’ve never heard anyone say…”I see you picked Helvetica as your font. Great choice.”

More on exploring this to come. Feel free to comment on whether you want to hear about it or not. You can comment on the site or over on any of the syndicated networks. It will come back.

I’ve Joined the Indieweb Movement

Those of you following me on various networks may have noticed a flurry of different types of posts coming through. Taking a moment to explain this.

I recently learned about the Indieweb movement. Their philosophy is based on the idea that you publish on your own site and syndicate elsewhere. This matches up with the philosophy I currently have.

This site, david.shanske.com, has been here for a while, not doing much, and I’ve decided to try and adopt the Indieweb concept and use it as a place to distribute to all of the various social networks. I also want to get into sharing more, and am making an effort to add content/value.

I’m still working on the formatting a bit. So, there will be some changes to site appearance as I play with the site appearance and organization.

The site currently offers multiple different types of content:

Articles – longer form content
Notes – Notes are short content, and I’ve divided them into some types.
- Status Updates – much like what you would expect on Facebook/Twitter
- Photos/Images – Sharing photos
- Links – sharing a link to a website/story

I am thinking about adding some more types as needed. The types are designed to have different display formats, which is why you would see some experimenting each time I post something, as I’m still trying to get it right. I do like to tinker and changes may come.

So, please pardon our appearance. Under Construction…permanently.

Musings on Library Automation

: Image via Wikipedia

I’m still trying to find my voice for writing here. Every project needs an editorial style, and I’m sure it will take me more time to figure out what I want to talk about, and how I want to talk about it.

When I was observing at Cardozo High School in Queens, I was assigned to improve the metadata on books in their OPAC. Many of the MARC records had been brought in from online services, and several were inaccurate, others sparse, and often not directed at the needs of the patrons. Original cataloging is something librarians do less and less of nowadays.

I learned a lot while doing what was a small part of the school library. A patron browsing the shelves of a library may find books casually. But now, many people looking for books use the online catalog the same way they use Google…a keyword search. Having more information to search with, rather than less, increases the possibility that people will find a book, justifying keeping it on the shelf.

When you pull a book off the shelf in a library during the process of weeding(removing books from the collection), you get to see the records indicating the last times it was taken out, as cards inside the book. Some books may not be used often, but they fill in gaps in a collection that it isn’t worth buying new books for. You can’t abandon a book because it is old and not used as much.

Google Books has been providing the service of digitizing out-of-print books, and many libraries are migrating to digital e-books to save on shelf space. But the need remains for proper metadata. The more information, the easier it is to find out.

It is to this end that I indexed my video collection in a open-source program. I have plans to organize the metadata associated with my digital music collection, which serves as use copies(with the original CDs as the archive). And finally, plans to index my entire book collection in LibraryThing, which will allow me not only a complete list, but the opportunity to share parts of my collection with others, as well as get recommendations on new books.

This is a massive project. My video archive took several days of organization, and then only a little to add each new video as acquired and thus maintain the collection. But without it, browsing through the collection is hard. Doing the books is going to be much harder.

Why I love Oldies

: Image by Adam Melancon via Flickr

I love Oldies, and I don’t appreciate most music made after 1970. Recently, I contemplated how that could have happened. I’m under 30. I wasn’t even born in 1970.

It all starts in 1985. The movie Back to the Future came out, which contained a number of classic 50s songs. This was one of my favorite movies. For those of you who haven’t seen it, in it, a 1985 Teenager goes back to when his parents were the same age, in 1955. It was in this movie I first got introduced to songs by the Penguins and Chuck Berry.

This is where my love of 50s music came from, especially doowop. It didn’t come from my parents. Their music era was the 60s, and era I also love. My mother exposed me to a little of that, but my brother introduced me to the Beatles, among others, and I branched outward to enjoy other classic rock.

I realized a few years ago, when I was giving a lift on behalf of a college club to a guest, knowledgeably discussing Leiber and Stoller, and answering trivia questions lobbed at me about the Diablos, that the community for classic media is still alive, and includes people of all ages. More recently, the popularity around the remastered release of the Beatles catalog proves it as well.

So, when people talk about more modern music, I am the one who doesn’t know as much. But I can live with that.

March of the Living: Part 2

This narrative is exactly as written in 1999. No corrections have been made to any grammatical mistakes I may have made in 1999. Any items in italics are editor’s notes, circa 2016. The journal includes a film log and the pictures are captioned as per my notes in the log.

Sunday, April 11th, 1999 – Krakow, Poland

Arrived in Krakow around 4PM local time, 10AM EST. Was bussed from plane to airport where I went through customs and waiting around for our luggage, I met our guide, Peter, and got on the Orange Bus, 105.

I recall that Krakow did not seem equipped for a 747, and they had a single man driving the luggage cart and unloading it, then going back for more. And when we tried to assist in unloading, we were stopped by the armed guards. In 1999, the airport had less than half a million enplanements. It had over 4 million in 2015. The airport has a variery of discount carriers, and a new terminal opened in 2015. The older terminal is being remodeled.

Jewish Quarter – Isaac Synagogue

We arrived in the Jewish Quarter of Krakow and walked to the Isaac Synagogue, which is over 300 years old and now a museum. We all davened minchah there and Chaim Lauer spoke of his feelings and mentioned the Song of the Day for Wednesdays. Then one of the Rabbis, a survivor, I think it was Moskowitz, spoke of his feelings, of how all Jewish buildings would someday be in Israel. He quoted off the wall on which fading words were written from the Midrash.

He urged us to experience and capture a moment. We then sang Kol Haolam Kulo, which was written in Krakow, and returned to the bus.

The Isaac Synagogue was built in 1644 in the Kazimierz district of Krakow. The synagogue was funded by Isaac Jakubowicz, aka Isaac the Rich, who is buried in the Remuh Cemetery. The Gestapo destroyed the interior of the building during the war, after which it was used by a theater company, an exhibition space, and ultimately renovated. I cannot recall the details of who allegedly wrote Kol Haolam Kulo in Krakow allegedly. The words are based on a quote from Reb Nachman of Breslov. I believe the composer of the tune we sung was Shlomo Carlebach.

March of the Living Part 1: The Flight and Setup

Saturday, April 10, 1999 – JFK Airport

Airplane — Shot of people around me on airplane

I arrived at the airport bearing a giant bag on wheels and a bookbag the size of a duffel. We went through El Al procedure and was eventually ushered into a waiting room where I ran into Ilana Shreck. Eventually, Solomon showed up. We were all talking and continued to do so until we went to the gate and sat with the blue people of which I’d formerly been. Plane departed 11PM.

A Paper Ticket...ah the nostalgia — A Paper Ticket…ah the nostalgia

Sunday, April 11, 1999 – Montreal, Canada

We stopped here to pick up more people and didn’t take off again until 2:30AM EST.

They fed us several times on the flight. A snack, a dinner, a breakfast…

Editor’s note: I have the clear recollection of them refusing to give us drinks on the flight, and a few of us conspiring to distract the flight attendants so I could grab a bunch of drinks from the galley and distribute them to the individuals around me.

We should be arriving soon in Crakow. I am unsure of what to expect, this being my first trip to Europe and the disturbing nature of this trip.

The setup for this trip actually started months earlier. I began the journal in question with entries at Queensborough Community College where we had classes to prepare for what we were going to see.At the time of this trip, I was a student at the Bronx High School of Science. The only other student from my school was Solomon Schatten. I still hear from him once in a while to this day. He would be the only person from the trip I have contact with. The other people I became friendly with on the trip, for example, Ilana Schreck, I have lost track of. According to Facebook though, she has a family now and still lives in New York. We still have mutual friends.

I found this scribbled on one of the pages. It still seems like good advice.

Laver’s Travel Laws for March of the Living

Prepare.
When you see a bathroom, use it
Be there for others, reach out
Be flexible and patient
You pack it, you schlep it

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