Here’s a link to a page that explains how to write an HTML page you can put in your root directory (which, on Dreamhost, is the folder that has the same name as your domain name, e.g., amandafrench.net) to redirect visitors to your “project” folder: http://www.instant-web-site-tools.com/html-redirect.html

Also, here’s a link to a really great site that a Digital Libraries course at Simmons built with Omeka: http://alanis.simmons.edu/daisie/ They worked as a group, in committees, rather than individually, as explained on their “About this project” page: http://alanis.simmons.edu/daisie/exhibits/show/about/site — I’d actually be interested to know whether you think that’d be a good model for this course, though the pedagogical goals for this course are perhaps somewhat different than they are for that course.

How do you unzip a file again?  I have completely forgot.

Many of you are working laudably hard to customize your websites, and I wanted to post some links that will help.

• The Omeka project has just posted two helpful screencasts on editing your themes: check out “Modifying Themes: Navigation and Header” and “Modifying Themes: Basic PHP” at http://omeka.org/codex/Screencasts .
• If you do start changing code, you’ll probably want to download a better text editor than the default ones that come on your computer. As usual, be sure to look for free ones (but consider donating some money to the developer!) at http://download.com. I like NoteTab Light for Windows and BBEdit for Mac. NoteTab is free, but BBEdit isn’t.
• Because a lot of your customization will involve editing existing code (not writing new code), it’s almost indispensable to have a tool that will tell you what the heck code in that CSS file controls the thing on the screen you’re looking at. I use the Firefox add-on Web Developer Toolbar, but lots of people recommend Firebug as well — I should try it. See also this list of the Top 15 free and open source web development tools: http://www.andrewsellick.com/34/top-15-free-and-open-source-web-developer-tools-updated
• Here are some programs for capturing screenshots: http://www.andrewsellick.com/34/top-15-free-and-open-source-web-developer-tools-updated — remember, though, that pressing “Print Screen” on a Windows machine copies your screen into your clipboard, so that you can open a photo editing program and paste it in to a new image. On a Mac, press Command-Shift-3 to take a picture. See also this post for more help: http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/2006/01/01/mac-os-x-screenshot-secrets.html
• Hotlinking / Deeplinking images — Wikipedia has a good, brief discussion of the pros and cons of displaying an image on your site by using the URL instead of the file: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inline_linking Basically, if you put a URL instead of a file location in your <img src=”" /> tag, you avoid triggering copyright law, but risk angering the owner of another website. If the image is small, though, it’s no big deal, so I say go ahead. See the W3 Schools for more on images: http://w3schools.com/html/html_images.asp

I have a question relating to an html/javascript document (with mouseover features) that works on another page on my website outside of Omeka (http://njmilano.com/pictures/chemist2.html) but won’t work when I plug the same code into the html box on a page in my Omeka exhibit.  It allowed me to include the link, but then the link on the page (http://njmilano.com/daguerreotypes/exhibits/show/exhibit/birth/making) doesn’t work  .  However, when I copy and paste that same link into another browser outside of Omeka, it works.  Do I need to upload this code to a Simple Page within my website, and then it will allow me to link to my image?  Is it not working on Omeka because it has javascript as well as html code?

Technical Question:

I changed the font on my website (in the css document in my screen folder), and it worked on Mozilla on my computer at home, but didn’t work when I opened Mozilla on my work computer.  I also changed the color codes, which worked on both computers.  Why is the color change but not the font working?

Reading Question:

Is Omeka automatically set to the standards mentioned in the Preservation chapter in “Digital History” regarding website preservation, or is this something we have to do on our own?

Also- how can archives support website preservation and maintenance with limited funds, especially considering projects that were shut down after several years due to a lack of funding?

I am wondering if there is a way when using Omeka to allow only certain people access to the archive? Because I was not able to gain permission for many of my documents I cannot make them public, is there away to give people access but not have documents public?

Also, regarding content of the archive, I am wondering what is applicable and what isn’t? I have done interviews in the past with community members and their experience with the Tawana Brawley case, would these interview be appropriate to add to an archive?

After watching Wesch’s youtube video I clicked onto the “a vision of today’s students” video next to it.  Both videos stress is a kind of crowd sourcing mentality and the variety of sources available to students (i.e. students aren’t looking solely in textbooks for information). I was really struck by one student who’s page said “I will read 8 books this year, 2300 webpages and 1281 facebook profiles.” all of that reading, and presumable commenting on pages, creates a huge source of new user-created information.

My question this week is how are we going to incorperate this “we will edit the web” group-power mentality? I think someone else mentioned this question early and I’m also wondering about the ability to allow people to create their own tags.  Is this an option in Omeka? (I couldn’t find it when I was looking early today)

Also, as a side question, does anyone know if Omeka has a timeline plugin? (I’m trying to figure out a way to link objects in a chronological way)

I have a technical question related to John’s question from class last week.  I’ll be posting some Civil War letters to my archive, and if I can type transcripts of these letters in Microsoft Word can I also enable a keyword search similar to the one on EEBO or JSTOR where you can search the Microsoft Word documents, but the image the viewer is able to see will actually be the scanned letter?  I know we talked about this a bit during the scanning demonstration, but I’m confused about how to accomplish this on my website.

If I’m adding documents to my collection in PDF files, is there any way to have a thumbnail of the first page or an associated page image show up in the item listing (in a collection, the overall item list, etc)?  For that matter, is that even desirable?  Do we think that mini-visuals of documents, for example, are useful? Or do they get in the way?

Also, I know we’ve discussed how to make the project coincide with the domain name (without the “/project”) and I know that it involves moving the files up one level.  Still, I don’t really feel comfortable trying to figure out exactly what that means (and risk messing it up) on my own.  Is there any way we could do a very short demo in class about exactly what gets moved and where to?

The first question I have is related to the readings, though it wasn’t discussed much, and the costs of digitization- it seems like before something is digitized it should first go through conservation first because it would seem counter-productive to make a digital copy and THEN conserve the original document.  How much consideration is given to conservation costs in the process of budgeting for digitization?

Also, if we are using some images from other sites as well (i.e. images already uploaded at different archives), will it make a visual difference if we save them as a .tiff format if they are already in a .jpeg format, or does that have to be done during the original scanning of the object?