“Cookies” are generally harmless and oftentimes helpful bits of information stored by your Web browser when you visit many Web sites for the first time. Once a Web site sets a cookie in your Web browser, unique information stored in the cookie is used by the site identify you on subsequent visits. Because the site is able to set you apart from all of its other visitors, it is able to effectively customize itself according to your past preferences and recall information that you may have entered on previous visits; the reason that the Google search engine “remembers” how many results that you prefer per page or your favorite Web-based store is able to display the contents of your shopping cart from a week ago, for example, is due to the fact that cookies from these sites have been implanted in your Web browser.
It should be re-asserted that cookies are essentially harmless; they are not viruses or malware and cannot directly alter information on your computer. Many Web sites, in fact, will not function properly unless your Web browser is configured to accept cookies. Cookies are not, however, viewed positively by everyone. The use of “tracking” cookies by advertisers to monitor personal browsing habits is considered by some to be a violation of their privacy. In addition, cookies can in rare instances cause Web-based applications such as the Fordham University Portal to malfunction until they are removed.
Because of these concerns, it is advisable to be aware of how to control the way in which your particular Web browser handles cookies and delete cookies from your browser if necessary. This week’s screen cast will demonstrate how to configure cookie handling and removal in the Mozilla FireFox Web browser. Next week, I’ll do the same for Internet Explorer and Safari.
This feature that enables this is a portal “channel” called “My RSS”. Along with many other useful channels, this feature may be added to your personal Fordham University portal page as you customize it to suit your needs.
Although not as powerful as using a full-featured RSS reader such as those demonstrated in my previous posts on the topic (e.g. see posts demonstrating Google Reader, NetNewsWire, FeedDemon), using the “My RSS” channel can allow you to quickly check up on one of your most valuable RSS-enabled Web sites while conducting your daily business on the Fordham portal.
Documentation regarding the use of the Fordham portal as well as several screencast tutorials can be found on your portal home page.
-Jim
(behnke@fordham.edu)
Photo Credit RSS and MyFilesby technovore via Flickr
Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic
Most people don’t give much thought to what browser they use to surf the internet; in fact they might not even realize how many different kinds there are to choose from.
Why should you make the switch from using Internet Explorer to another browser such as Firefox? There are several good reasons: security, customization, and speed. Firefox is not only a more secure browser and faster than Internet Explorer, but it also allows you to customize your browser experience with add-ons to make your browsing experience easy and save you time.
Delicious Bookmarks integrates delicious into the browser. For all readers who are new to social bookmarking or have not yet signed up for a Delicious account, take a look at my previous post on “What’s so Delicious About Social Bookmarking?” for more information and resources on using Delicious.
Twitterfox: I primarily use Twitter to keep in touch and share resources with other educators. At work I use Twitterfox and Twhirl to keep up with the latest tweets (at home I prefer to use Tweetdeck). I’m planning a future blog post on the benefits of educators using Twitter, but in the meantime if you are interested in learning more then take a look at the Twitter tab on my Pageflake for some helpful links. If you are a Twitterer, please feel free to follow me (kris10_), I primarily tweet about education, technology, and math.
Download Statusbar: Instead of getting an annoying little pop-up every time you download something from the web, you’ll see a notification on the status bar of your browser. There are also many other features available to customize your downloads.
Session Manager: I like this add-on because it’s an easy way to restore previous browsing sessions. This is especially helpful after a crash occurs when I’ve got multiple tabs open!
Multirow Bookmarks Toolbar: I’m a big fan of being organized and this add-on lets me further customize the bookmarks toolbar so that I can not only use folders to organize my bookmarks by groups, but I can also add multiple rows.
Coral IE Tab: While most web pages that are created now are compatible with various browsers, sometimes websites need to be viewed in Internet Explorer. This add-on is a great way of viewing a page in Internet Explorer in a tab which avoids having to open up a new window.
Colorzilla: This handy add-on lets you get a color reading from anywhere inside the browser. If you are into graphic design or frequently use products like Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator, this add-on can save you valuable time when you need to match a particular color on a website.
FireFTP: If you are looking for a free and secure FTP client, this is an easy and intuitive option.
FoxyMeter: An unobtrusive way to keep track of the number of web pages you surf.
Additional Ways to customize Firefox:
Browse for Firefox add-ons by catagory or collection. There is even a collection add-on that will notify you when there are updates made to the collection. In addition to add-ons, you can further customize your Firefox browser by changing the theme, which is the way the buttons, icons, and browser looks. Personas are a new Firefox feature that adds an image to the top and bottom (status bar) of the browser.
NetNewsWire is a free RSS aggregator for Mac OSX created by Newsgator, the same company that produces the free “Feed Demon” RSS reader for Windows. In addition to NetNewsWire and FeedDemon, Newsgator offers “Newsgator Online“, a free Web-based RSS reader service that can synchronize with NetNewsWire or FeedDemon. This allows users of either desktop application to follow their RSS feeds when away from their computers and effectively create a backup of their RSS subscriptions.
For my third screencast on the topic of RSS feeds, I’ve decided to demonstrate how to use NetNewsWire’ to subscribe to RSS feeds, organize their subscriptions, and, in conjunction with Newsgator Online, create custom RSS feeds based on existing RSS-enabled content from around the Web. Custom RSS feeds are made using NetNewWire’s “Clipping” feature (also available on FeedDemon). For professors who maintain their own Web sites or Blackboard pages, this capability could provide a way to quickly share content from around the Web with students and colleagues who use RSS readers applications.
As we all know, it’s important to avoid infringing on copyrighted material. So, how can you find excellent quality images to use in presentations or on blogs without having to pay expensive royalty fees to use licensed material? The simple answer is to use the Creative Commons on Flickr. There are literally millions of excellent photos that have various types of creative common licenses that allow you to use them without having to spend money or sacrifice quality!!
How does creative commons work on flickr?
There are several different types of licenses to choose from, you should search for a photo with the license that best fits how you will be using it. Here is a brief description of the different types:
Attribution: Others can copy/distribute/display/perform copyrighted and derivative works based upon it but only if credit is given. Noncommercial: Others can copy/distribute/display/perform copyrighted and derivative works but for noncommercial purposes only
No Derivative Works: Others can copy/distribute/display/perform only verbatim copies of the work, not derivative works based upon it. Share alike: Others can distribute derivative works only under a license identical to the license that governs the work.
If you have not signed up for an account, and plan on using Flickr images in the future, it might be worth it for you to take a minute or two to create a free yahoo account (Flickr’s parent company). One of the many reasons why you would want to have your own Flickr account is because you can conveniently keep track of images that you would like to use. When I am searching for images on Flickr I quite often find other photos that I would like to bookmark for later– since I have an account I can do this quite easily by marking it as a “favorite”. Take a look at the Newbie’s Guide to Flickr for the basics of uploading photos on Flickr or view a presentation that includes a step by step guide to signing up for a free account.
