Just thoughts …

Category: Blogposts

  • Shared services by stealth

    A colleague (Huw Gulliver) was talking to me the other day and he was recalling the “good old days” when we got things done by talking to each other and realising that doing things together just made plain sense. In some situations the idea was so strong that the business case was easy to make and it was then easy to secure external funding to do it – the Welsh Video Network being a case in point; in other cases it was more a case of sharing expertise and working collaboratively together to just get things done. At other times the funding was there, we just had to work together to deliver the solution – the Metropolitan Area Networks of North and South Wales being good examples.

    What these projects did however was to encourage IT staff in different institutions to work together towards a common goal in their joint interest. This is the thought I’m seeding/reminding you of today. It’s not a great revolutionary thought, but it’s one that has to be shared because in times of gloom and doom the natural tendancy is to look inwards and think about preservation, rather than think imaginatively (outside the box) and progressively. So that’s where the “big idea” that Huw shared with me comes in.

    What if all the institutions in Wales were to share rackspace as a policy rather than thinking of a mega data centre type initiative. You would get disaster recovery on the cheap. In the good old days we used to look for sites that ran the same hardware/software to provide such a service, and very few such schemes actually worked. The beauty of this idea is that the hardware is owned by the home, not the hosting, institution; you’re just borrowing rack space. The electricity charges are offset by you hosting for someone else. The network charges are insignificant, given our exceptional wide area network in Wales. All you need to do is move kit around. Here comes the trick!

    Starting from this point, which is self-interest business continuity, you can so easily ramp it up to be off-site data storage with those sites that have the capacity providing additional rack-space at a cost far less than could be found commercially. The trouble with traditional shared service initiatives is that the first step – “giving it all away” – seems so scarey. Doing it this way lets you review your decisions and options every step of the way.

    Think about it!

  • Embedding a Picasa Slideshow in a WordPress Blog

    [Update … two links which provide a better way to do this – Inserting Picasa slideshows and The gigya shortcode 3 – inserting Flash]

    [Further Update for Blogger and for responsive slideshows – create Slideshow in Lightroom, export as Video and upload to Vimeo]

    There are two methods of embedding slideshows within a blog, both using Vodpod; one enables you to take the embed code from the slide-sharing site (this includes Flickr as well, I believe, but has only be tested so far with Picasa) and generate the code for your WordPress blog without any hosting. The second requires you to have a Vodpod account, in which case you can host the video or slideshow there and get greater control over the hosting and showing of your videos.

    I will focus on the first method as that’s the easiest to get started with.

    Method 1:
    You first of all need to get a “Post to WordPress” button for your browser from the Vodpod site. This allows you to capture any video you see anywhere that uses Flash with embed code, and post it to your WordPress blog. It can be found with instructions here.

    So assuming we’re dealing with a Picasa Album (public or restricted – it shouldn’t make a difference as you’ll have made the blog have the same restrictions as the album) open the album and press the “Link to this album > Embed slideshow” and make your selections for size, captions and autoplay from the pop up box and then copy the embed code that’s been generated.

    Now press the “Post to WordPress” button you’ve setup in your browser and do the following:

    1. Paste the embed code into the box under the heading “Video Preview”;
    2. Uncheck the box “Save to Collections”;
    3. Supply your WordPress Blog Details and the name of the blog post you wish to create (if they haven’t already been saved);
    4. Decide whether you want to Publish immediately, or (perhaps better) “Send to blog editor”.

    Your WordPress Blog will open in the editor and you can now add to the post, make further edits and finally … publish. And that’s just about it!

    Method 2:
    The starting point here is obtaining a Vodpod account – it’s free. It’s a good idea to do some housekeeping before you get started, for instance going to “Settings > Collections” and setting up at least one Collection (perhaps your default one) as Hidden. Some of the details of your Profile will have been created when you registered, but you can come here to change, or add to it, as required.

    You then need to get the “Add to Vodpod” button and add it to your browser – this can be found here and is described here [although his URL may change as the text refers to the beta release version].

    Using this button you can then grab videos – again using the embed code as required – and store them in your Vodpod space and during the save process you can share them to Facebook, Twitter or your blog which can be any of WordPress or Blogger. Have fun!

    Showing your Vodpod videos in a WordPress sidebar widget.
    Won’t dwell on this one; all the instructions are here and for customising it – here. You will also need the information that’s stored here to complete the sidebar.