Workshop: Primp your blog
Speakers: Maura Chace, Megan Garnhum, Skye Kilaen, Jan Kabili

Widgets & Plugins

• Spam
  • No follow becoming ineffectual
  • Spam Karma (used here on Blogaholics) – plugin and go
  • Akismet (my fave) – a service which manages spam, learns over time
• Photos (sidebar or within posts)
  • Flickr badges, photosets, etc (dozens of plugins)
  • Webshots badge
  • Bubbleshare (more sharing format options than Flickr, via HTML clips)
  • FilmLoop
• Books/Movies/Music
  • Amazon Associates (cut and paste into blog or via plugin) **Note, there are some bugs in the code created within Amazon for displaying images.
  • TypePad Media TypeLists
  • Movable Type Media Manager
• Calendar
  • Upcoming.org
  • Google Calendar to sidebar or page
  • Trumba
• Social Bookmarks
  • Delicious
  • Magnolia
  • Wists
• RSS Parsing (combine RSS feeds into one e.g. add delicious, Digg, etc to your blog’s feed)
  • SimplePie
  • Feed Digest (more user friendly)
• Widgets (aka Module or Plugin)
  • Typepad Widget Gallery
  • Blogger Add-Ons
  • MovableType Sidebar Manager Plugin
  • Wordpress Widgets
  • Wordpress Plugins

Accessibility

Accessibility is a broad term, defined best here on Wikipedia:

Web accessibility refers to the practice of making Web pages accessible to people using a wide range of user agent devices, not just standard web browsers. This is especially important for people with disabilities which require such devices to access the Web.

The disabilities that Web accessibility is concerned with encompass users who are:

• blind or visually impaired, e.g. various common types of poor eyesight, various types of colour blindness
• motor impaired, e.g. Parkinson’s Disease, muscular dystrophy, cerebral palsy, stroke
• cognitively impaired, i.e. poor short-term memory (as commonly caused by senile dementia), dyslexia
• hearing impaired or deaf
• non-native speakers of the website’s language(s) (including users of sign languages)

Things to make your blog more accessible:

• Text, Links
  • Break up text into smaller chunks
  • Name your links rather than linking ‘this’ say ‘this post on browsing’
  • Make links longer, easier to click on
  • Warn if linking to videos, pdf’s etc
  • Have a different color for ‘clicked links’
  • Underline for links for color blind
  • Make sure contrast of text to background is clear
• Images
  • Label/describe your image for people who cannot see them
  • Add an alt attribute (label) and title attribute (brief text describing image or text it may contain) to the image – alt and title can be the same
• CAPTCHA
  • have non-visual options for comment authorization
• Templates
  • place your sidebar(s) the right so the posts go through the audio readers first
  • don’t set your font size in pixels or points (leave it open so users can set it in their browsers). Percentages are good.
• Widgets
  • Check for structured markup and alt attributes
  • If Javascript, a title or caption would be useful
  • Flash getting better – if you can tab past the page past the flash element, it’s accessible

Screencasting

Defined: a video you can make without a camera. A recording of everything going on on your computer screen: movement of cursor, action on your screen, sound, etc.

• Good info: screencastsonline.com
• SnapzPro a cool animation program
• Can edit screencast in iMovie
• Steps to make screencast: prepare (your outline and workspace), record, edit, export, upload, blog, rss
• Note for mac: use an external mic
• Mac recording equipment: Snapz Pro, USB Mic
• Windows recording equipment: Camtasia Studio, BBFlashback Express, Fraps, Mic
• Mac editing: iMovie, Final Cut Express, Final Cut Studio, Quicktime Pro
• PC editing: Movie Maker, Adobe Elements Premiere, Adobe Premiere Pro
• Hosting: Libsyn, Ourmedia, Blip.tv, .Mac, YouTube

Tags: blogher06, blogher, primping, blog, blogs, widgets, gadgets, tech, software, plugins, screencasting, how to, accessibility, typepad, wordpress, maura chace, megan garnhum, skye kilaen, jan kabili