Canvassing in Cincinnati

Working the shifts banging on doors. More photos here...

Citizen Action IL Annual Dinner

Attended the annual Citizen Action IL Dinner. Jesse Jackson Sr. was the honoree.

4th of July Parade in Evanston

Always a fun time (even at 100 degrees)!

New Web Design for UIC's Office of Academic & Enrollment Services (AES)

I'm kind of pooped having spent a fun morning at Dominican University with the "Chicagoland Drupal in Libraries" group. I then hustled back to UIC (thanks Gwen for the lift!) where I had the usual list of web editing chores. I also had enough time to upload this baby: http://admissions.uic.edu [6/24/2012]

This marks the final phase of a redesign that I've been working on since the beginning of the year -- spurred on by two requirements: 1) fresh new look 2) gots to work on mobile

Happily, 'responsive web design' came along right at the time I was tackling this project. (What's 'responsive design' you ask? When looking at the above page, slowly make the window more narrow. Then go back out. That's responsive design.)

Anyway, I still had to do the 'landing pages'. This one, the Admissions page, is the first of four.

But back to my itinerary: At around 5:15pm, I left UIC and headed over to DePaul for a couple of hours of 'Fun @ the Reference Desk'. It was a relatively quiet night. In Summer, Reference closes an hour earlier (i.e. at 8pm instead of 9pm) so I made it back home before 9pm.

In any case, as I said, long day -- productive just the same.

[Historical note: a certain other unit claimed it was the first to launch a responsive site. Yeah right...]

Jesse Jackson & Me

I ran into Jesse Jackson while in Milwaukee. I've run into him a couple of times before. One memorable occasion was in West Berlin during the Eighties. He had made a speech to thousands of Berliners at the Gedanknis Kirche (i.e. the center of town) finishing with the line, 'we defeated the 3rd Reich in Germany and we'll defeat the 4th Reich in South Africa'. The Berliners cheered. Then he added that he'd be at a party in Dahlem later that evening.

Party in Dahlem! With Jesse Jackson! The moment we heard that, we headed straight to the location -- a lefty social center for students. Unfortunately what Jackson forgot to mention -- probably because he didn't know -- was that they were charging at the door! Charging at the door? Impossible! So instead of going in, we waited. Finally a car arrived and Jesse Jackson got out. "Jesse," I said, running over to him, "I'm from Chicago and they won't let me in!"

He turned to me. "You're from Chicago", he asked. "Come with me!"

We walked arm-in-arm into the place. I headed straight to the liquor table. I filled up my glass and then sauntered back to the entrance to wave to my companions who were still outside. I motioned to the doorman to let them in. Having just walked in arm-in-arm with Jesse Jackson, the doorman assumed that I had a certain elevated degree of mojo -- so he let my friends in.

I reminded Jesse of this episode when I saw him in Milwaukee. He was in good spirits and laughed.

9th Congressional District Kick Off Rally

The 9th Congressional District Dems held a kick-off rally in Evanston today. Great chance to see a whole bunch of old friends -- including Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky who's speaking to the audience way in the back of this photo.

Comment from a Student fresh from the 'Stacks'

We worked together to find a few books he needed. I was on the phone AND doing chat reference when he came back -- so he switched to handwritten communications.

Talk Next Week on Google Analytics

In the middle of 'project hell' as a colleague put it, but why let that stop me from giving a talk on Google Analytics at the UIC Webmasters Brownbag next week? (Actually it was the talk I was supposed to give last February when I blew it away in favor of talking about Responsive Design).

Check Your Website for Accessibility?

At the UIC Digital Accessibility Expo. http://dae.uic.edu/

TechCocktail Chicago

Hard to find room at the bar!

Responsive Design Doesn't Have to Be Butt Ugly

The Next Chapter of Responsive Web Design
By John Yuda on April 27, 2012
For designs to be truly responsive, we need to move beyond flexible grids and media queries. John Yuda outlines five building blocks for the future of RWD

I notice that this is .net magazine's third article/post on responsive web design in as many days. I think an interesting follow-up would be something along the lines of 'the next chapter of responsive web design' -- from the perspective of visual design -- an aspect that's oftentimes forgotten in the rush to praise, for example, the Boston Globe site which if you ask me is visually rather bland and unexceptional.

We already know there are other sites that are 'responsive' and still appealing -- so one doesn't rule out the other (unless we want it to).

Facebook Issues Me a Stern Warning

I got a stern warning from Facebook telling me that I might be "blocked from commenting on public posts" if I went through with posting the following strong words on a post originally by Tony ('Maakies') Millionaire about chickens being found with caffeine in their feathers:

As someone who in a former life actually was a chicken, I'd like to strongly object to the arrogant assumption by pampered human beings with double vowels in their names that chickens don't appreciate coffee. We do! In fact, it's common knowledge that coffee beans were first plucked out of the soil by enterprising chickens -- long before humans even stopped swinging in trees.

Yet More Embarrassing Incompetence

Note to self: when uploading a file creating a whole bunch of new accounts for your content management system, remember to include passwords along with usernames, or frankly there might be one or two people who can't log in. Oops.

Chicago Drupal Meetup Group (CDMUG) for February 2012

You can't tell by the photo but there were around 50-60 people at the event -- all levels from programmers to newbies. There was free beer and pizza -- so you know I had a good time. To sum up, it's just plain interesting to see what's happening in the 'community'. Different perspectives are great -- invigorating even.

Thu, 2/9/12 (8:08pm)

Got a call from a student wanting to research a topic in marketing. I coached her through finding the right database for her subject and only after we had found a number of promising articles did she mention that some of the pdf files were giving her problems -- using her screen-reader. I can imagine what a mess some of these pdf files are for someone with a screen-reader. I showed her how to look for other versions (i.e. text versions). Also, the Disability Office will convert the PDFs to MS Word which is a big help.

QR Code Fail

It's bad enough you see these things all over the place -- usually without any indication of what they're going to do. Here, not only do you have the usual enigma but you're required to choose your operating system before taking the plunge.

Sat, 2/4/12 (2:50pm)

Midterms -- computer labs are full, plenty of students needing help finding articles. Subjects ranging from Biology to Original Sin.

Dear John Letter: In Which Leo Klein Turns Down 'History' in Favor of 'Multimedia' (Circa 1997)

I came upon of slew of emails I had written while at NYU in the mid-to-late 90's. I hadn't seen them for years. Here's one from 1997. In it, I'm telling the Grad Adviser from NYU's History Dept. that I'm dumping him in favor of the far more attractive "Multimedia" Program at NYU's 'Interactive Telecommunications Program" (ITP):

Dear Mr. W*:

You were assigned as my adviser, so I guess you're the one to whom I should address this message.

The gist of it is that I am a new grad student in the History department. Over the summer however I had a moment of epiphany while taking an intense course in multimedia. It was something I found intensely rewarding and when the course ended (a week ago, by the way) I felt like a kid at the amusement park when a really good ride is over. In other words, I wanted it to continue or at least for me to pursue something similar. Since then, I heard that Tisch offered a program in this area called the Interactive Telecommunications Program. So I ran over there and spoke with a Mr. G* who told me to come back on Friday, Aug. 29.

I'm not exactly sure what's going to happen on Friday except I think he may be able to sign me up for two courses. I won't be an official student there of course since I've succeeded in missing every deadline for application possible and will have to wait till next year to be officially entered into the program.

I know this is rather pathetic--much like being engaged to be married and then falling in love with another woman. It's particularly awkward since I don't know exactly what I am supposed to do or how to go about doing it other than I want to somehow be involved with that program at Tisch. After I meet with Mr. G* again on Friday, I'm sure I'll have a clearer idea.

Sincerely, LEO

Slides: UIC Webmasters Brownbag on Responsive Web Design

Okay, so here are the slides from my presentation on Responsive Web Design that I gave today at the UIC Webmasters Brownbag. It's not the longest thing in the world -- I was only supposed to talk for 30 minutes but ended up going the whole hour. The group was great -- very engaged and asking a whole lot of good questions.

The Age of One App Per Website is Over

While preparing for next week's presentation on Responsive Design, I tried to recall my original uneasiness over the phone app frenzy. You remember -- that short painful period only a few months ago when either you were developing a phone app version of your site or you just weren't serious. You thought it silly? So did I. But it took me a second to remember why. I mean, this was before Responsive Web Design had sunk in as a possible solution. So why the initial uneasiness? And then of course I remembered: the notion that your average user was going to download a separate app for every site -- the equivalent of taking your collection of bookmarks and downloading a separate program for each -- was a complete absurdity. Thank God, we're beyond that. It's history.

Presentation on Responsive Web Design at UIC

Gearing up for a presentation on 'Responsive Web Design' that I'll be giving at the UIC Webmaster Brownbag next week. From the official announcement:

UIC Web Professionals,

Join us for a discussion about Responsive Web Design on Thursday, February 2, noon - 1 p.m. Leo Klein, Coordinator for Web Communications in the Office of Admissions and Records, will discuss Responsive Web Design as a significant development in how we approach web design -- what's got us to this point, the need to design for various platforms from PCs to tablets and smartphones. The session will include discussion of key topics including Media Queries and Mobile First.

Audience: all levels. Also, experience and thoughts from others on this subject is encouraged and highly appreciated.