With Apple's recent firmware updates to the iPhone and iPodTouch, users can now save a 'webclip' to the device's home screen. When you add a Web site to your home screen, the default icon is a cropped image of the site. This tip explains how to add a custom icon for your Web site. The process is similar to adding a favicon, or favorites icon, to your site.

First, create a PNG image, name it apple-touch-icon.png, and upload it to the root of your Web site.

I have created an IU webclip icon and posted it to the iu.edu/ indiana.edu server. If you have an IU subdomain (such as creativeservices.iu.edu), this webclip won't work by default. To get this to work with an IU subdomain, you'll need to either upload the PNG file to your own Web account, or add the following line of code to the head of your documents:

The Sculpture

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Contest Rules

This year´s contest has two categories: Cookies and Bars. Each cookie or bar will be judged based on appearance and flavor. Entries must be homemade, and each person can enter a maximum of one time in each category, for a total of two entries. Please bring approximately two dozen cookies or bars for each entry. Judges: please refrain from compromising your palates with alcohol, spicy foods, or excessive sweets prior to the contest.

Categories:
Best in Show
Damen´s Choice
Best Taste
Best Appearance

• Download PowerPoint File (11MB)
• Download PDF (2MB)

A year later, the Indiana University Office of Creative Services received notice that one of our Web sites was among the top five finalists in the “School” category. For nearly a month, we wondered about our chances of winning. Then, the day the winners were announced, I got a call just after 7:00 a.m. No, it wasn't the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences. It was Jane Below, the information architect for the project. We had won. She had checked the site twice before calling me.

The Webby Awards ceremony is held in New York City on Wall Street, the financial center of the world. It was fitting for David-Michel Davies, executive director of the Webby Awards, to speak about the financial impact of the Web, especially to an audience that included Meg Whitman, the CEO of eBay, and Steve Chen and Chad Hurley, co-founders of YouTube.

Whitman accepted her award along with a few hand-picked eBay millionaires, Chen and Hurley joked about their billion-dollar deal with Google, and after the ceremony we walked outside to see Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz conducting one of their Diet Coke and Mentos experiments. It's mostly how they are making a living now.

The Web has certainly affected the U.S. economy and culture in the past decade. (Did I mention that David Bowie and the Beastie Boys were in attendance to receive awards for their pioneering methods of connecting with fans?) In fact, it's even difficult for me to remember a time before the Internet (but I do remember Gopher). My first job after college was writing a newsletter for the Indiana Higher Education Telecommunication System about how new technologies such as BITNET and even e-mail were being used to foster communication among researchers in higher education. We've come a long way since then, and I'm proud that IU has been at the forefront since the beginning.

No one knows what the future of the Web holds, but I have a feeling we'll be ready. We really liked being part of the Webby crowd.

Webby Coverage:

• Video Coverage
• Webby Awards Official Photos

Our Webby Photos:

We will be discussing a new committee tasked with investigating and recommending solutions for the following issues: accessibility, creative commons licenses, IU web servers, IU search engine, visual identity, RSS feeds/multimedia, privacy/disability information, vision/outlook/Web 2.0, integrating institutional data, calendaring, and intranets. This committee will be launching a Web site in fall 2007 with resources for IU Web managers. Visit the IUMMUG site for details.

And yes, Bob will be giving away prizes :)

Wednesday, June 20
1:30 to 3 p.m.
Kelley School of Business Room CG1034

By now you've probably heard that our office won the Webby for the best school Web site. The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences gave us the nod for our work on the IU is Red Hot Web site. The awards ceremony is on June 5 in New York City. The Webby Awards are famous for their five-word acceptance speeches. One idea is "IU is red hot," but we know there are lots of creative people in the IU community. Please send us a comment with your idea.

But we were up to the task. Armed with our Chicago Manual of Style, various examples from other Web sites, usability recommendations, and of course, our geek pride, we discussed the issue at our editors' meeting this afternoon.

After a lively debate, we, the editors, have set a new style regarding punctuation usage in links. I'd like to thank our two honorary editors—Jane Below, our information architect, and Ashley Callahan, our interactive technologist—for their input and expert opinions on the matter, as well as Margaret Londergan at Adaptive Technology Services for her usability recommendations. I'd also like to thank the Academy. Well, not really. But see what I did there?

Now I know you're all wondering, "So what's the rule? Do I ever use punctuation in the link?"

Check out our updated style guide for the answers. If you're also wondering, "What the heck are jots and tittles?" you can e-mail Linda Stephenson, senior writer-editor, and beg her to write a blog about her expertise on the matter. Or you can just check it out on Wikipedia. That's what we did.

These are just some of the topics we will discuss at the next IU Multimedia User Group meeting scheduled for Wednesday, April 25, 1:30-3 p.m. You can read all about it here.

All of our designers use Mac Pro's running Adobe Suite, including Acrobat, which has become an indespensible proofing tool. We've moved from Quark to InDesign for print layout, and for Web development we add Macromedia Studio 8. It will be interesting to see what Adobe comes out with with the release of CS3. Adobe just bought Macromedia and is saying that this is the biggest software release in the history of the company.

Our programmers tend to use Dell Windows machines, as do most of our editors and support staff. Windows is necessary for working with IU financial systems; Macs just do not work.

Windows machines require more attention to security threats, but updates and virus checks are run automatically, and our main threat vectors have been social engineering attacks such as the I Love You virus and the more recent Credit Union and Paypal phishing scams. We will not be moving to Vista anytime soon. For one thing, most of our machines, which are run on a three-year replacement cycle, would not run it well (we could run without Aero, the new graphic interface, but then the only advantage would be security, and XP is to be supported for another five years.) So although new machines will be "Vista ready," it may be a while before we are all using it (hopefully after the first service pack is released).

On the Mac side we have different concerns. Macs are more like a sports car than station wagons (that's Windows, you know, you've seen the commercials.) They are more finely tuned and run more complex programs, usually all at once. They are run hard and put to bed wet, but just keep on ticking. Font conflicts often cause print jobs to go wrong, so here is a shout-out to Linotype Font Explorer X: you rock! Free, fully supported software from a font giant that works like ITunes, it is the best font software I have ever used.

Recently we have been having some workflow problems within the Web team, as Dreamweaver does not interact well with itself on different platforms; files get locked and users get frustrated. We have pretty much fixed this problem by having our designers log into our OS X server using SMB only; then the confict does not occur. Our programmers use Windows as the main platform with a Mac Mini to do compatibility testing, but as we are still having some issues, this may reverse, with everyone on the Web team (except the editors) using Macs as their primary workstation.

On the server side we have one OS X Server with X RAID, which serves files for Creative Services, and three Windows servers, one with a large RAID array for backup of all of VPUR, one to serve files for our cousins in Media Relations and Marketing, and one to run our test Web server. All but the Web server are in our rack in Poplars, which will soon move to a real server room in the Von Lee.

Bottom line: Although Windows machines are more vulnerable and perhaps XP is now boring, they do the job, and with auto-updates, are stable and useful. Macs are much more elegant and full featured, built for the heavy lifting required by designers and programmers, but they can be touchy and still require some fine-tuning and upkeep. Are Windows/Macs worth the trouble/extra expense? Ask any user!

So there we were, gathered in the spirit of nonspecific December holidays for a festive luncheon at the home of our fearless leader, Marcia Busch-Jones.

We were relaxed, bursting with cheer, and happy to leave the office behind for a couple of golden hours with our colleagues. (Overheard: “Can we talk about that proof?” “No way!”)

The food was delicious, the company charming, the mood relaxed—that is, until the cookie competition began.

There were 14 entries and five judges: Me (Jennifer Piurek, former food writer for the Herald-Times and past judge of Bloomington’s annual salsa and chocolate competitions); art director Damen Morris, widely known for his chocolate-dipped strawberries; writer/editor Lesa Peterson, poker shark/banisher of sticky wickets; art director Dave Harper, former skateboard champ and silo/primer expert; and Jeff Lindauer, director of special gifts and annual giving at the IU Foundation, and husband of one Angela Lindauer, our traffic coordinator (thus his presence at this exclusive OCS event).

We judges took our seats—closely watched by the very bakers we’d be judging—with our rating system in mind: 1-5 for taste and 1-5 for creativity, 5 being the best. The four categories were Best in Show, Best Taste, Most Creative, and Damen’s Choice. Rebecca Salerno and Erika Knudson began bringing out the cookies, one by one. Everyone held their breaths as we tasted the first cookie, a chocolate marshmallow creation. You could cut the tension with a spork.

Most of the cookies were delicious, making our decision difficult, and compelling more than one of the judges to employ decimal points in their ratings. Some were not so tasty, something Damen subtly indicated with the little row of unfinished cookies on his tray. We were getting full, but we soldiered through, taking increasingly smaller bites. Eight, nine, ten cookies … finally, we had tried all fourteen. We retreated to our chambers to tally the votes.

As we went around the room sharing our scores for each cookie, we also shared a running commentary. Comments ranged from those about taste (“Like buttered popcorn.” “Nice layered flavor.”) to those about appearance (“Boring!” “This is a cookie contest and that was a bar—zero!”).

And then, the winners: “Cinnamon Love,” by Kyle Haskins, won Best in Show. My favorite, Rick Faris’ peanut butter cookies (with that perfect balance of crunch and peanut-buttery softness) won for Best Taste. Marcia’s decorated gingerbread cookies took home Most Creative, while Damen’s Choice went to Kay Daniel’ shortbread cookies.

While prizes were distributed, Lesa tried her best to assure everyone that our choice was a difficult one, that there are no losers in cookie baking.

We judges knew she was wrong.

But we kept those opinions to ourselves, knowing that in the fierce world of competitive cookie baking, the cream always rises to the top. So start practicing your recipes now, OCS team—if we apply to our cookie baking the same rigorous standards that we apply to our work, next year’s competition will be even tastier.

And that, as Rebecca Salerno said, was the way the cookie crumbled.

But what is a Millennial? The term is used--along with "Gen Y"--to describe the group of people born in the 80s and 90s. I've even heard that it's used to describe anyone born between the years of 1979 and 1997. As with Gen X and the Baby Boomers, Millennials supposedly share certain characteristics--having overprotective, or "helicopter" parents, for example. Perhaps because of these helicopter parents, we are sheltered, achieving, and special (we think we're special, anyway). We are also technologically savvy, teaching our parents the newest trends, which they will then, by this definition, use to find the quickest way to e-mail our professors, demanding next semester's syllabus so their child can be the best-prepared student. Other descriptors I've heard include "confident," "team-oriented," and "conventional." I've even heard students' rudeness be attributed to being Millennials--we're just too darn special to be bothered with saying "excuse me" when we bump into someone. I perked up at this one. You mean I can be a jerk and blame it on my generation? This is great!

But then I thought about it, and I realized my dad would kick my butt if he saw me acting that way. In fact, he'd probably fly in and salvage the situation before anyone thought less of me. Wait a second--that is so, like, Millennial of me.

In fact, the more I think about it, the harder I fight against this Millennial accusation, the more I become one. No wonder my co-workers are smirking at my protests. I'm just too "special" to believe I fit in a category.

What do you think? Submit a comment and let ME know. But could you e-mail it to my dad first?

To simplify the available information and graphics, we will be merging some of our current Web pages into this new site:

:: The IU Web Policy site will be removed from the server. Information from that site will be updated and moved to the Visual Identity site. When the IU Gateway is redesigned, new templates and standards for that site also will be available in the Visual Identity site.

:: The Logos, Colors, and Wordmarks pages currently on the Creative Services site will be removed and all the downloads and information will become part of the Visual Identity site.

As always we welcome your ideas and suggestions. Please let us know how we can help you manage this transition smoothly.

Update: The IU Visual Identity Guidelines

The short answers are no, probably not, no, and because of its great slang. For the long answers, check out the Web site for Do You Speak American? This three-part television series, featuring reporting by Robert MacNeil, debuted on public television a couple of years ago. Its Web site is a great resource for information about the history, dynamics, and future of American English.

WTIU viewers can see the first part of Do You Speak American? on Friday, August 11, at 9 p.m. The other parts will air on subsequent Fridays. You can also order the series on DVD or video, or you can buy the book.

Do you agree or disagree with what Do You Speak American? has to say? Do you think American English is in decline, or are we merely expressing ourselves in new, informal ways? What do you love or despise about our language? Submit a comment and let us know. Thx! TTFN