WINOL round three

This week WINOL went live at 5 (give or take half an hour due to technical problems) and judging by the Google Analytic stats coupled with student feedback it was a success.

The atmosphere was one of excitement this week rather than the stress and apprehension that could be felt in the previous two dry runs. People mostly made their deadlines, and on the exceptions where they didn't we established a second deadline and that was met on time.

People are settling in to their roles nicely now, everyone knows what's required of them, and it's really starting to feel like a real news room. Though we do seem to be improving drastically each week, we still have a way to go-technical problems need to be ironed out and we need to decide who's best for the news anchor position (Tom seems to be in his element as sports anchor).

How to embed html objects in a Joomla article

1. Log in to the back-end of Joomla.

2. Click the 'user manager' tab.

3. Find your name from the list, and click it.

4. Click the 'user editor' drop-down menu and select 'editor-no editor'

5. Click save

6. Click 'content' and select 'article manager' from the drop-down menu.

7. Click the name of the article that you want to imbed the object in.

8. Navigate to where the html of the object is (for the purpose of this tutorial I will be embedding a Youtube video)

9.Click the Youtube video you want to insert.

10. Highlight and copy the html embed code.

11. Open the back-end Joomla tab again, and paste the code where you want the item to appear. (note: you can insert line breaks for layout purposes using the tag
)
Click save.

12. Job done.

How to add an image in Joomla

1. Enter your user and password into the logon field.

2. Click either Add new article, or article manager.

3. Click the name of the article you want to add the picture to.

4. In a new tab or window to to http://www.flickr.com and click 'sign in' in the top-right side of the page.

5. Sign in using the log on field. (Username and password on production desk board).

6. Click 'Your Photostream'.

7. Find the photo you want to upload, and click it.

8. Click 'all sizes'.

9. Click 'Medium'.

10. Highlight the text in the URL box (careful not to copy the html by mistake).

11. Click the image tag in the toolbar.

12. Paste the URL you got from Flickr into the 'image url' field.

13. Click the 'appearance' tab and change the alignment to 'Left'. Then click insert at the bottom of the pop-up.

14. Click 'Save'

15. Job done!

"I'll work until I DIY"

You know how buses always come in twos? and how....other things often come in twos as well (but what those other things are I can't recall..maybe magpies or something?) Anyway, it seems that my blog seems to be taking on this trend in it's subject matter. The other day I wrote about death twice (the metaphorical death of Myspace and the Facebook 'memorialized' thing). Next up was a bit of rambling about strikes-BA's and the Royal Mail's. And today this blog seems to want geriatric content.

I mentioned earlier about the 83 year old referee and how I thought his dedication was outstanding. That story is now in my eyes boring, and the ref's achievement minuscule. This is down to the truly outstanding achievement of Syd, 5 years away from his hundredth year, still working in B&Q. (the achievement is that he is working at nearly a hundred, not that he is working at B&Q.) There seems to be a link between stories about old people being employed in some sort of position and my mood improving- normally I find the headlines in this particular paper annoying, but I think "I'll work until I DIY" is just great.

The only problem with these light hearted stories is that in terms of blog posts they don't lend themselves to great length..in fact I'd even go so far as to say I find it hard to write more than a paragraph about them. So the fact that I'm doing it anyway is an indicator to how much I like them.




danwoodger.blogspot.com

83 year old ref

As the nights draw in and the mornings become colder, you need a warm little pick-me-up to get you out of bed. Some people drink coffee, others eat porridge, but this morning I read the news.

The story about the 83 year old Derbyshire referee put a smile on my face almost an hour ago and it hasn't faded since. For those of you who aren't familiar with the story-the BBC interviewed a man who has been refereeing football since 1957.

Peering up towards the heavens through the haze of cataracts and three inch thick glasses Harry (that's the ref's name) looked lost, and like he was being interviewed by Nikolay Valuev.

As he talked of how the pace of football has increased since he started refereeing, a nostalgic look crept over his face. Obviously thinking of better times or the good old days, his expression was not dissimilar to Kate Winslet's old counterpart at the end of Titanic.

The charming old man certainly has gained my respect, and it seemed from the footage on the site that he wasn't having any problems dealing with the players. I wonder how Wayne Rooney would react to being sent off by an 83 year old man though....




danwoodger.blogspot.com

BA strike...

Some may feel that it may be unnecessary or downright boring to blog about strikes more than once a week. But I see myself as a curator to the torch of truth and as such I like my blog to reflect what I feel is wrong today. One of these things is BA staff striking over Christmas. The 'fuck everyone else' attitude is in my opinion a bit of a slap in the face. Forget the little old lady who can't fly somewhere to see some family member (and who for some reason is legally obliged to fly solely with BA). Yet again, this strike will hurt customers as much as it will hurt management. If anything, it gives the management a media leg to stand on-they can try to demonise the strikers and their inconsiderate behaviour.

I wholeheartedly back striking action, but think that maybe there could be a better time to do it.

I think that BA are going to ruin some peoples Christmases, and I'm not just trying to be controversial, honest.




danwoodger.blogspot.com

More postal strikes announced

The communication workers union (CWU) has announced more strike dates. Previous strikes have involved various types of employees striking at different times. The upcoming strikes due to take place on Friday 6th and Monday 9th of November will, however, be blanket coverage. This means that whereas before some employees could continue working, now the royal mail's postage system will go from slow to stop.

The way I see the whole strike situation is as follows:
I know strikes are meant to put the managers and high-end employees at an inconvenience, but I really feel that this is where the level of inconvenience should end. Any excess inconvenience spilling out onto the public is detrimental to the company, and therefore to the employees who are on strike. To put it in a less obscure way, if these strikes piss people off enough to start using, let's say, amazon's new postal service, then the royal mail will downsize and the strikers will have well and truly done themselves over. I know it's a taboo thing to say, but Christmas is approaching, and headlines along the lines of "cards posted tomorrow won't arrive by Christmas!" isn't doing the already tarnished reputation of royal mail any favours.




danwoodger.blogspot.com

How to change a front-page video

1. Enter your username and password in the log on field



2. Click on the "Front page manager" tab.



3. Note: Top:Video box only must always be at the top of this list.
Note no. 2: when accessing any article you must click save when you are finished, or that article will be locked to everyone.
Click on the link "Top:Video box only"



4.Go to the video you want to embed in Youtube and copy the url from the box on the right of the page.




5. Go back to the Joomla back end site and click the video tab in the toolbar.



6. Paste the URL into the file/URL field in the pop-up window and click OK.



7. Click save.






8. Job done.

Fry twitter row pointless and boring

Stephen Fry has been all over the news this week because of his actions on the micro-blogging site Twitter.

Apparently someone called Fry 'a bit....boring' and due to this comment he decided to leave the social networking site. Now, I won't even begin to hint at how I think this is a little bit of an over-reaction, because Stephen Fry is of course a Manic Depressive. Instead I will concentrate on the level of coverage this 'story' gained in the media.

Don't get me wrong, this is something which could be considered moderately interesting if someone mentioned it in passing, but I'm fairly sure there is no larger debate around the situation, and the conversation would last all of 15 seconds.

The BBC gave the story which centered around Fry and the offending party's reconciliation just shy of 500 words. This is a higher designated word count than the clearing of the Lisbon Treaty in Czech courts today, which seems a little strange.

This is of course all becoming more and more hypocritical as my wordcount ascends whilst I talk about how I feel the BBC has covered a story not worth as much coverage as it's been given, instead of the Czech courts announcing the Lisbon Treaty is in line with their constitution, for example.



danwoodger.blogspot.com

How to post an article using Joomla

1. Log in by typing your Joomla username and password into the circled field.

2. Click the circled link which reads "submit an article"

3. Give your article a brief tag and type this in the Title field. Then copy and paste your article into the main field, (or type it straight in)

4. Scroll down the page until you see the options above. Make sure "unpublished" is checked and that it isn't set to publish to front page. Also make sure you set the category to your team. ie. features, sport or news.

5. Scroll back up to the top of the page and click "save"

6. Job done

A concerning story

A 29 year old man has been sentenced to prison this week after admitting to raping a 12 year old girl. I know a little about media law, but criminal law is a different world. I'm sure the process of prosecuting a sex offender is complicated, and that there are many things to consider. One thing that does strike me as a little odd though is the length of this particular sexual predator's sentence-3 years. So if he joins the Sex Offenders Treatment Program (SOTD) chances are he'll be out in 24 months. After spending a weekend talking to Gerry Conlan of the falsely accused Guildford four this story leaves a bit of a sour taste in mouth and a slowly emptying space where my faith in our legal system should be.

Chubb

As Bob Dylan once said (or sang, rather-but I'm sure he said it as well): the times they are a-changin'.

It is a truly said day in the British lock trade industry, and I feel that as such it is a sign of the times we live in. Some of you may have already heard, but in case you haven't, here we are: it will soon be impossible to buy a Chubb padlock on British high streets.

That's right, as published in a newspaper yesterday, the iconic anti-burglar locks that were originally made in Winchester and later in Wolverhampton will now be used exclusively in Prisons.

It is not yet clear whether or not there will be a rise in crime resulting from people who simply can't live without the household name Chubb.

Note about upcoming posts

Some of the following posts are being made as part of a project between myself and an illustration student from Brighton University. No copyright laws are being broken, and the illustrations are the artist's interpretation of the news stories about which the blogs are being written.

The death of Myspace?

Another cheery post revolving around death then as it's been revealed that Facebook are in talks with Murdoch's Myspace website about absorbing their content. Should Myspace be absorbed into the global social network Facebook, then this day will surely be marked as that of Myspace's demise.

The metaphorical skin of Myspace's teeth does seem to be holding if only for a short while longer though, as last-ditch plans to turn it's focus and content entirely on music continue.

Facebook users out number Myspace users threefold, and the future does look bleak indeed for those die-hard 'emo' Myspace users. Their accounts would eventually be redundant, and Facebook account details will be used to log on to the music-focused website.

This corporate take-down has been a long and drawn out struggle-Myspace has long been in a stranglehold by big daddy Facebook for months. It was always simply a matter of time before Facebook killed Myspace however. (or absorbed it's content) Truly a gritty fight to the end, the underdog Myspace which once was king now looks like it is dead in the water. This nasty affair will be made to seem like a picnic party compared to what's going to happen to Facebook when Google Wave goes public though, believe me.