High Ed Hangout

Dan got a new phone (cheap!), Dave got rid of Facebook, Daniel updated WordPress, Scott likes Reply All Podcast, Ken is scared of browser fingerprinting… and MORE! Dave deleted his FB account. There’s a place where FB shows you what it knows about you. Your Information > Your Categories Daniel just barely missed out on... Read more »

This week’s chat is about security. Dave went to a conference and wants to disconnect and move to the woods. We mess with Ken’s new Google Home. Dan is just sort of with us this week due to some technical issues. Ken got a Google Home… so we played with that a bit. Dave went... Read more »

Should Daniel get an iPhone X? We all weigh in on his tech purchase. We also chat about the Digital Summit Conference, how the new GVSU Admissions app is going and password vaults – is the cloud safe for your passwords? Thoughts on the iPhone X VERY expensive for what? Daniel is going to get... Read more »

Where does almond milk come from? We have a (maybe too in-depth) conversation to try to figure it out. We also chat about a bunch of other randomness including google tracking, home assistants (Google Home and Echo), and Dan’s upcoming Magic the Gathering event. A discussion on Almond (and various other) milks Dave got a... Read more »

We took an episode to talk about our tools a little while back. This time we take some time to talk about our favorite apps for our mobile devices (outside of the normal preinstalled ones). What are your favorite iOS or Android apps? What are you favorite smartphone apps? Kindle For (pleasure) reading Kindle Book... Read more »

Ken tells us all about his trip to WordCamp Minneapolis. We dig into cloud hosting (mainly for CMS), and get a bit into using Docker. Ken has Apple AirPods (and likes them) Wordcamp Minneapolis (~200 people) Keynote was about technology industry and mental health The community behind WP is very involved Rest API PODS (for... Read more »

It’s a random conversation this time, folks. We chat Zime (it’s back!), Dan getting stopped by the TSA, some future conferences, new podcasts we enjoy and Dave’s classes starting this fall. ZIMA IS BACK, BABY! The US asking for passwords to your phone at the border. TSA always asks to touch Dan’s belly. Dan accidently... Read more »

Russian hacking (they’re after Daniel), Admissions Apps, Google Search Appliance, Analytics, Icon Libraries, and more… brought to you today by the letter H (as in HEH, as in High Ed Hangout). Enjoy! Daniel gets hacked (likely Russians) and keeps dropping out of the podcast. He changed all his passwords. They will be listed in the... Read more »

Scott had a son, and is adjusting to life as a new parent (and the time he took off work). The GVSU guys jump back into accessibility training with a new consultant…. and then somehow the conversation transitions to quilts. Scott had a son, and talks about paternity leave and FMLA and paternity/maternity leave at... Read more »

Daniel kicks things off by trying to enjoy some fried chicken, but is foiled by his cats. From there we chat about our design process and making sure it fits the larger university brand. Then we try to figure out the definition of a landing page. Design process paper sketch Photoshop Omnigraffle for wireframing How... Read more »

It starts with the weather, moves on to politics, and then to religion (or at least a TV show slightly about religion) before the conversation moves on to discussions about college applications and how to improve their usability. It’s storming in Iowa and Daniel lives in tornado alley. (small talk about the weather) Presidential Politics... Read more »

The conversation tonight includes things learned via penetration testing at GVSU, what we know about retention policies at our schools (Internet Archive?) and content update policies. We also learn that GVSU Library has puppets you can check out… like a lot of puppets! Penetration testing at GVSU Very fixable things were found (one thing was... Read more »

Daniel is in Iowa City visiting Ken and Scott, so they are podcasting from the same location at the University of Iowa Libraries. Dan and Dave join remotely to discuss personal sites and hosting on campus and focus groups and how the kids use the internets these days. Ken, Daniel and Scott are in the... Read more »

The lost episode. Scott lost his internet connection, so the episode got called off. No internet = no podcast. 🙁

How do we handle user tracking and privacy policies for our university? What do we do for retargeting and advertising? What do we all use personally to keep our internet usage private? He got a new one https://www.crabbygear.com/ Privacy policies on our sites User tracking is somewhat new in higher edu, but commercial sites have... Read more »

Dan and Dave bring an enlightening report back from the CSUN Accessibility Conference in lovely San Diego, CA. Dan and Dave just got back from CSUN Accessibility Conference “Everyone will have a disability at some point in their life” Accessibility is just a branch of usability The UN has a ratification to make all their... Read more »

People keep uploading HUGE images, so we chat about the best ways to handle automatically optimizing them via the various CMS tools. We also dip into usability and card sorting exercises. Ken has an issue with people uploading non-optimized LARGE images. What’s the best way to deal with that? Img tag can use “srcset” which... Read more »

Tonight the topics center around outside vendors and products for various tasks at our universities. We cover digital marketing, scholarship searches, chat and events calendars. We also touch on strategic planning. What outside vendors do you use? GVSU: Siteimprove GVSU: google and FB ads consultant provide a report for digital advertising UALR: digital marketing buyer... Read more »

Tonight the High Ed Hangout gents talk about security and what they’re doing to make their sites more secure. They also chat about rolling out new features and updating their CMS. Possible SQL injection attack on GVSU reported by a student Security offices in all of our separate universities who look for this. UALR has... Read more »

The gents chat about current books they are reading and then talk about what (non-computer) hardware they use for home, media, health and more. What books are we currently reading? What hardware do you use? Amazon Echo Smartthings Home Control Ken built an echo with a Raspberry Pi Nest Thermostat Automatic bluetooth connector for car... Read more »

This episode is the podcast podcast (how meta!). The gang shares their favorite podcasts that span the gamut on topics. Tune in, and you might just find something new to listen to. Our Favorite Podcasts Serial Season was waaaaay better than season 2 Reply All Random topics about the internet Startup Podcast The startup of... Read more »

A site gets destroyed (temporarily), and how we all test our sites and prepare for the worst. We also talk about our favorite childhood games. Ken destroys his Iowa Library site Testing with the new google tester Used a plugin for compression (w3 total cache plugin) Got all 100’s (because an error 500 page loads... Read more »

The gang talks about the what new strategies and goals they have for their schools/sites. It covers speed, new applications, and updates to the CMS. They also look into web boot camps for new hires. What’s 2017 going to be in your area? Strategies? Goals? GVSU Upgrade to the CMS to reflect the new design... Read more »

For some reason throw-up is a common thread to kick this one off. Dan’s cat throws up, and Dave and Dan take a trip which involves a (rather humorous) throw-up story as well involving an airplane barf bag. We also chat about web infrastructure in other parts of the world, and how much we hate... Read more »

Ken goes to an island and gets married. GVSU looks at taking over web representation of grad programs, We talk about staff training opportunities and communities that our individual universities provide. Leroyyyy Jenkins! GVSU, after looking at analytics has taken over grad programs centrally because there is very little (or poor) data available. Does the... Read more »