Wix: Whizzing thru website building

I work with digital collections and have been looking for an easy-to-use web-based tool to create mobile websites to promote and display those collections. Today, I discovered Wix and it might end up being something for my tech tool belt. Of course, I've got a lot more evaluation to do, but I thought I'd post about it and see if any of you have any experience with and/or comments about Wix. By the way, Wix also let's you build regular websites, but I'm going to concentrate on the mobile version in this post.

First, there is a free version and a series of paid "premium" versions. With each upgrade of the paid versions, you get increased storage and bandwidth, as well as a few new features like removing Wix ads, connecting to your own domain, and integrating with Google Analytics. Obviously, since I'm still in the test mode, I using the free version.

Basically, building a mobile site is a four step process: choose a template, add a title, enter content, and publish. And the interface is point/click and drag/drop so it is very easy to learn and use. For templates, Wix gives the user a cornucopia of theme/style templates from which to choose. Once a template is selected, you can change colors, fonts, and backgrounds. Each template also sets you up with a few generic pages like Home, About, Contact, Call Us, and Email Us. You can edit the pages, delete any or all of the pages, and/or add additional pages. Images can be uploaded and text can be typed in or copied/pasted. Once you're done editing/entering the content, you publish by clicking a button. That's my kind of web dev tool!

My very basic, initial test of Wix can be viewed at http://m.wix.com/bilewis/test. I'll be testing it more in the weeks to come, so look for more posts.

Also, if anyone is using another tool of this type that you'd like to recommend, please leave a comment. I'd be grateful for the input.

Week Cal: The Slightly Better iPhone Calendar

Sometimes it is the little things that make a big difference.  I have always been slightly disappointed by the standard iPhone calendar app (Calendar).  I usually use the List display because it takes up the least room (meaning I can see several days forward) and so it allows me to schedule a meeting without having to click thru several days worth of calendar.  But the List display shows only the start time for my meetings and other events.  It's hard to schedule meetings when you're not sure if your other meetings are only 60 minutes or possibly as long as 90 or 120 minutes.

So it's a little thing, but I have discovered Week Cal, an iPhone app (the iPad version isn't available at the moment), and Week Cal's List view shows the start time and the end time of each item.  At a glance I can see if I have time between meetings, or if I have unintentionally overlapped two meetings.  The font is a little smaller than the one used by Calendar, too, but not too small to read, so I can see a little bit further into the future without scrolling. 

Siri (again): Will Remind, Will Remind, Will Remind Me

No, not the song by Royksopp.  Now that I've had a little more time to play with Siri, I may have stumbled upon one of its most useful additions to professional productivity: the ability to remind me to do things.  Let me elaborate.

iOS 5 has a built-in app called Reminders.  It isn't quite "Tasks", although when you open it up, you can swipe between Completed, Tasks, and Reminders.  I'm already using a different system for tasks, so the interesting part for me here is the Reminders part.  I had a little bit of trouble getting this to work the way I wanted, until I found some online sites that explained how to configure this. 

First, in the iOS 5 Settings, you need to turn on Location Services.  They have to be on for Reminders, too.  (I also have it on for Siri.)  Then, in the Mail/Contacts/Calendars setting, you go all the way to the very bottom and set Default List to Reminders (where it syncs with the iCloud).  If you leave it set to Tasks, it will sync with your work Exchange server, but that setting didn't handle Reminders the way I wanted.

If you've gotten past all of the techie stuff so far, I'll now explain how this is going to work in practice.  You can say to Siri "Remind me to call Barbara at 5pm", and Siri will dutifully repeat this back to you (to make sure it's right).  You confirm that it is, and Siri adds the reminder to your Reminders app list.  At 5pm, your iPhone 4S beeps to remind you to call Barbara. 

Now let's get fancier.  Siri can know where certain places are (such as your home and work).  You can say "Remind me when I leave work to stop by the dry cleaners."  No matter what time you leave work, you'll get beeped when you're geographically away from the location Siri knows as your work location.  You could also have a reminder such as "Remind me when I get to work to speak to Barbara about my orientation idea". 

Suddenly, you've got time-based reminders and location-based reminders.  Just when and where you need them.  How handy is that?

Event Observer

One of the things we do occasionally is observe the traffic in the Library, trying to determine how long patrons wait for service or the room count for different areas of the Library. Even with a smart phone or tablet that has clock and timer applications, getting good data is cumbersome.

Recently I discovered an iPhone/iPad app called Event Observer, which provides the ability to time or count multiple events at once. The free version (Event Observer Lite), can record the time or count for up to four events. The for fee version, which costs a whopping $0.99, lets the user track up to 10 events.

Event Observer is an interaction analysis tool and it has made my observation tasks much easier. I've set it up to record the wait time for patrons in line at our different service points, the amount of time there weren't any patrons waiting in line, and the amount of time there weren't any patrons at the service point. All I had to do was to create the list of events (also called attributes), indicate whether I wanted to time or count the attributes, then start conducting the observation. If I want to time multiple events simultaneously, Event Observer can do that or if I want to toggle between timers, it can do that too. It is also easy to setup and use for counting the people in a room, the number of students attending instruction or library events, or anything else I'd want to count.

I just began my use of this app, but I think it's going to be a very useful addition to my little toolbox.

Keynote Remote: iPhone Control of Your iPad

A year and a half ago, when I bought my iPad, I began using it for presentations when I traveled.  I had the Keynote app, and I would create my presentations using PowerPoint on my desktop computer, then save the presentations into Dropbox, and then open them on the iPad using Keynote.  Other than fixing a few font problems, I was good to go.

Almost.

The only drawback was that, unlike with a laptop, I didn't have an easy way to control the presentation remotely.  I was essentially trapped behind the podium so that I could advance my slides.  Clearly, I needed a way to run my presentation remotely.   Then along came Keynote Remote, an app that would run on my iPhone.  By using Bluetooth, I was able to link the iPad to the iPhone, and suddenly I could see the current slide and the next slide on my iPhone screen.  Now I could walk around the front of the room, holding the iPhone, and advance my slides.  This worked with only one minor hiccup during one presentation.

Life was good. 

Then I upgraded to an iPhone 4S (from a 3GS), and upgraded my iPad to iOS 5.  And suddenly, the ability to link the iPad to the iPhone via Bluetooth went away.  At least when using Keynote Remote. 

I discovered one workaround.  By downloading and installing another pair of apps on my iPad and iPhone that communicated using Bluetooth, I was able to re-establish the Bluetooth link, and then Keynote Remote returned to the ability to communicate with Keynote using Bluetooth. 

Life is ok.  But it will be better when they fix the iOS 5/Bluetooth bug in Keynote Remote. 

Do any of you out there use Keynote on your iPad to present with?  And Keynote Remote to control the presentation?