Playing catsup

Well our new Intersession - oh, wait, I mean, "Tiger Term™" -  has proven to be even quieter than I expected. That being the case, I have been able to check a bunch of things off my to-do list (and there was much rejoicing - yaaaaay). Among other things, I've sent in a proposal to a conference, made some headway with the designers of the new website, created a log detailing pretty much every outreach event that has taken place since I started this position (boy am I glad that I've been keeping up this blog), and finally finished backfilling the microgrants webpage.

Thankfully I got a little help with the microgrants from the student assistants in the main office, who I tasked with compiling title and PI information, converting all the files to PDF, and renaming and organizing the files according to a standardized directory structure. As with many projects, though, getting help is both a blessing and a burden. Although it saved me a notable amount of effort, the work was not quite done to my specifications; I already had to go back and ask for revisions once, and after that I kind of gave up and decided it would probably just be faster to finish it myself. So, adding everything to the webpage was partnered with confirming and updating nearly every entry. To top that off, as I mentioned before, organization was very poor to begin with. Many reports are missing (were they ever provided?), files were sorted into incorrect directories, some proposals and reports were not correctly associated, et cetera. Because of these issues, I still can't even be sure that this webpage is 100% exhaustive and accurate. But, it uses everything I've been provided, so I guess that means I'm finally done.

...Sort of. I still don't have thumbnails representing each awarded grant. Maybe I'll be able to task one of the new students in the main office with that (I originally asked the previous students to - twice). Though, I wonder how necessary that truly is? It may not add enough to the page aesthetically to make up for the amount of effort required.

Check out the webpage as it currently stands and let me know what you think.

Interns, Ready! On your mark... Get set...

GO! The 2014 Summer Intern application cycle has begun!

...Okay, so it was supposed to begin yesterday. But with "Blizzard 2014" closing RIT yesterday, I wasn't able to get it posted. Hopefully that hasn't caused too much of an inconvenience...

Anyway,

Get your application instructions here!

And now, I wait to see how my new online application works in practice... and how much things change (or don't?) in light of the changes to the program this year. Magic 8 Ball on my desk says:

Uh-oh. 

Good thing I'm not superstitious.

It's (pretty much) all the same to you

Who knew that my last post about snowballing would be so prophetic, what with last Thursday's 18" of snow and the impending "Blizzard of 2014" predicted for tonight and tomorrow. Nonetheless, I've been working (how nice and quiet it has been!) and have managed to complete the updates I mentioned previously to our USB drives.

Just like last time, this is all kinds of zoomed out to fit here as an image.

The most obvious change is the update to the new color scheme that incorporates varying shades of gray, and then also the updated digital booklet cover. Besides those changes, this probably looks almost identical to before - however, I actually completely rebuilt this whole menu. 

You may ask why I bothered to make significant behind-the-scenes changes, when essentially it appears like only simple updates occurred. There are a few reasons. For one, I built this menu before the class I took last quarter, which you may recall involved building websites. With that increased knowledge under my belt, I could see a lot of ways in which the html and css code could be improved so as to be more robust while also being simpler and more efficient. Secondly, there was room for improvement in terms of functionality: previously, the backgrounds behind the text were clickable, but the text itself was not. While there were several ways to fix this, all of them relatively simple, I did not truly know a good way to do it until now. So, I rebuilt the page from the ground up by hand; and although the changes may not be apparent to anyone else, I know it is overall a much better product. Plus, there will surely be more updates in the future, and this new clean code will be much easier to modify.

With all that, plus a straight forward replacement of the updated digital booklet itself, the USB is now ready to go in its new and improved state.