Category Archives: technology

New Facebook View

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Earlier this week, Facebook revealed its new look for the News Feed.

I know what you may think, why change it again? According to Facebook, they wanted to make the content consistent across both mobile and desktop environments so that users can focus more on stories from people and Pages.

The new Facebook view is not necessarily new, but was in the works for several months. If you have a developer account, the “new” view has been there for some time and tweaked a bit before being officially announced.

My impression about using the new design for months now is how easy and uncluttered the feed is. It also shows improved visibility for brand and Page owners by displaying photos that fill the entire width of the feed if the photo is as wide or wider than the feed itself. This also applies to photos pulled directly from a website or blog and works both on the desktop and mobile versions.

Facebook New Feed - Desktop

Notice that the desktop feed shows a preview of the website, including having it display across the entire width of the feed.

The only difference between the mobile and desktop version is the website preview box pulled from the shared website does not display on mobile views.

Facebook New Feed - Mobile

Notice that the mobile feed does not contain any information under the picture.

Other than that, I prefer the new improvements. At least when I make a post with an attractive graphic or image, it will gather other people’s attention faster than before.

Attend the 2014 Mid-Atlantic TechComm Conference

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Have you heard of the Cloud? Do you live on the Cloud? How do I get into the Cloud? Find out more!

Sunshine in the clouds

Soar into Cloud technology

I will be presenting, “Seeking Sunshine in Cloud Technology,” which will discuss how our profession can use Cloud technology to give us a competitive edge. How can we soar into the Cloud successfully without fear of being washed out and hung up to dry? I will talk about ways to plan, transition, and use Cloud technology and keep up to speed with the demands of our clients, customers, and our audience.

If you live in the Philadelphia Metropolitan Area, or within a few hours away of Philly, I encourage you to attend the STC Philadelphia Metro Chapter’s Mid-Atlantic Technical Communication Conference on Saturday, March 22, 2014.

STC Philadelphia Metro Chapter

STC Philadelphia Metro Chapter

This full-day conference features an array of technical communication topics to learn from. Speakers include locally and nationally known technical communicators. Many of them have presented at other conferences, such as the STC Annual Summit and LavaCon.

I  arrive Friday afternoon in Baltimore and plan to present in Philadelphia on Saturday. Then, I will travel to New York on Sunday and return home to Albuquerque Monday afternoon. If you would like to meet, please let me know and I would be happy to visit over food, coffee, or a tourist attraction.

See you soon!

Minor Website Updates

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Websites undergo updates all the time. My website is no exception. This time, I’m experimenting with a few visual improvements.

Responsive Web Design

I noticed that a lot of websites use the entire width of the browser and adjust columns according to the width. Why waste space? I took this approach and increased the maximum width to display text. This change allows me to display larger graphics and minimize the amount of scrolling. In addition, if you prefer a smaller width for your browser, the columns and images scale down. Try it by changing the width of your browser!

CSS Visual Improvements

Going along the same lines of adjusting the columns for responsive web design, CSS is used to make these improvements possible. For example, I manually changed the maximum width in the WordPress theme to allow for a wider header image and use a Child Theme to override CSS styles present in the current theme. In addition, I updated the background color to a blue gradient.

Header Image

If I could go back to 2012, I would have made it a habit to save my website graphics. Instead, I had to go back to the source picture I own and recreate it. This time, I cleaned it up a bit and made the colors pop out a little more. Also, I had a better resolution image for branding other places, such as Facebook and Google Helpouts.

Backend Improvements

Using a shared server is also a challenge, especially when you want your website to load quickly. People do not like to wait for a website to load. W3 Total Cache is a great WordPress plugin to optimize page load time and it works amazingly!

Enjoy the minor improvements!