Simply Amazing

The new NYPL.org

The New York Public Library announced today (via Facebook) the launch of their new website.  Complete with a new logo the site is warm and inviting, exhorting visitors to “Discover, Connect, Get Inspired”.  The color palette is soothing; shades of green and brown (or is that taupe, I’m not sure) remind me of warmer months in Central Park.  I’m a little more split on the navigation.  While I’m grateful that there are no fly-out JavaScript menus to fight with, the titles they gave to their sections are a overwrought.  Do we really need the long title of “Find Books, DVDs & More” when the directory the link takes you to is simply “Collections”?  When I go to a site to see what’s going on at an organization am I more likely to click on the “Classes, Programs & Exhibitions” link?  I think I would be more likely to hunt around for the “Events” link for a while before giving up and using the site search (which, thanks to Drupal, is very fast and gives very pertinent results).

It really is a great site, and I know I will use it as a model when I am consulting with libraries on their site redesigns, but there are naming conventions for elements of sites with which people are comfortable…let’s use them.

The video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was launched for multiple platforms last week and broke sales records not only within the video game industry but over other entertainment sales platforms, including those for movies, music CDs and bestselling books. Public libraries have begun to experiment with circulating video games, some with great success. Library customers love the newest of the new in lots of different media categories. Even more excitement can be generated and new customer bases forged by offering popular video games for a variety of platforms including Wii, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.

Have you ever wondered how to create a random mix of your favorite music on your portable digital audio player that you could continue to update so it would always be fresh?  Here’s an easy way to do just that!

What you’ll need:

• A Windows PC
• A Windows portable digital audio player
• Windows Media Player Version 11
• Digital music files.

1. Load your digital music files onto your computer’s hard drive.
2. Find the files using Windows Media Player.
3. Using Windows Media Player, rate your favorite music files and give them a 4 or 5 star rating.
4. Connect your portable digital audio player to your PC  and select the Sync tab at the top of the Windows Media Player interface. Windows Media Player should automatically recognize your digital audio player and an identifying column for it should open up on the right side of the screen.
5. Right click on the entry for your digital audio player in the left column. Choose “Set Up Sync” from the resulting menu. A “Device Setup” dialogue box should appear. Remove all playlists from the right hand column except for “Music rated at 4 or 5 stars.” Put a check in the box above the left hand column labeled “Sync this device automatically.” Click the Finish button in the bottom right corner.
6. Making sure that your portable digital audio device is empty, click the “Start Sync” button at the bottom of the right column indentifying your portable on the Windows Media Player Sync screen. Windows Media Player will now start to synchronize all of your songs rated at 4 or 5 stars to your portable device.
7. Once the sync is complete, set your portable device to shuffle all the songs and play them at random.
8. As you add new music files to your computer, always select your favorites by giving them a 4 or 5 star rating in Windows Media Player. Whenever you want to add the new music to your portable device, bring up Windows Media Player, go to the Sync tab, plug in your portable and Windows Media Player will automatically sync your new 4 or 5 star music to your device.
9. Enjoy your constantly changing music mix!

It was a year ago today that Google launched its “10 to the 100″ campaign.  Google invited people to submit an idea that would change the world by helping as many people as possible.  They have pledged $10 million to bring the winning ideas to life.

Google is asking people to vote on the 16 themes (narrowed down from more than 150,000 entries) and will fund five finalists.

Go here to vote!

Here are the 16 themes:

• Enhance science and engineering education
• Create real-world issue reporting system
• Promote health monitoring and data analysis
• Create genocide monitoring and alert system
• Make government more transparent
• Provide quality education to African students
• Help social entrepreneurs drive change
• Create real-time natural crisis tracking system
• Build better banking tools for everyone
• Collect and organize the world’s urban data
• Work toward socially conscious tax policies
• Encourage positive media depictions of engineers and scientists
• Drive innovation in public transport
• Make educational content available online for free
• Build real-time, user-reported news service
• Create more efficient landmine removal programs

Image via Wikipedia

instantShift brings us this article on “The Konami Code” and ways it can be implemented in your site with a little JavaScript.  Scroll down the article for some examples of how the code has been used on some of the most popular sites on the Internet.