brandonballentine.com

Graphics for mobile banking

admin — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 01:00:21 +0000

Ipod-based training program

admin — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 00:55:02 +0000

Working with the corporate trainer, I recently created an iPod-based training system using audio files and a customized navigational menu. In addition, I created print materials promoting the new service and designed a certificate system used to reward participants for using the materials.

New UTFCU website redesign

admin — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 23:20:34 +0000

I recently launched the redesigned UT Federal Credit Union website. In addition to a new look and feel, I also created a content management system that makes it easy to keep the site up-to-date with the most current information and rates. Some of the features of the new site include:

Larger text and more space between lines for readability
Consistent navigation structure throughout the website
A more reliable search feature
RSS feed for subscribing to credit union news, special promotions, and financial tips
A site index for quickly locating the pages
A list of external resources featuring links to websites on a variety of financial topics (using Delicious.com account)
Partner login for providing information to business clients and indirect dealers
CMS backend making site updates easier

Get SMS alerts for important email

admin — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 01:39:18 +0000

Here’s a quick idea for setting up text notifications for important email. With gmail, or just about any other email service for that matter, you have the option to set filters for your incoming email. Although I try to keep up with my email throughout the day, I have several different accounts and don’t bother to check some of them for hours at a time. So here’s a quick way to get alerts on your phone when someone sends you an important email to your gmail account:

Using gmail’s settings pane, create a new filter. Next you’ll want to choose what messages are forwarded to your phone. I recommend creating filters for specific email address, then adding keywords. For example, I may want to forward only messages from my wife’s email address that has the phrase “this is an emergency” in it. After you’ve finished setting all your parameters, you’ll need to enter the address you want to forward messages to. All mobile phone service providers offer an email to SMS gateway, which allows you to send a message to a particular address and have them converted into SMS and sent to the recipients phone. My provider, AT&T uses the following format: telephonenumber@txt.att.net, but you can look here for a complete list.

Once everything is setup, any messages that meet the filter requirements will be sent as a text message to your mobile phone. Text messages have limited characters, so long emails will be shortened, but at least you’ll be notified that you have an email that needs immediate attention.

iPhone Screenshot

admin — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 00:29:49 +0000

Have you ever needed to grab a screenshot on your iPhone? If so, here’s a quick tip from the Apple website:

Press the Home button and the Sleep button at the same time. Your iPhone will then make a camera sound and your screenshot will automatically be added to the camera roll.

Secure Downloads in Expression Engine

admin — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 23:07:40 +0000

This tutorial covers using two free plugins for Expression Engine, File Upload & Lock Download, to create a secure area for sharing files with members of your EE site. At the conclusion of this tutorial, you will have created a system whereby administrators can easily upload files to a folder, and members logged into the site will be able to download files without actually being able to see the true URL of the file.

This tutorial should take approximately 30-45 minutes to complete.

1. Download the File exension for Expression Engine

Download the File extension from Mark Haut’s website.

2. Upload the necessary files to your EE installation and activate the extension

As discussed on the plugin’s website, upload ext.mh_file_ext.php to your system/extensions directory, Upload lang.mh_file_ext.php to your system/lang/english directory, and upload the icons folder to your images directory.

Activate the plugin by going to Admin > Utilities > Extensions Manager

3. Choose a folder to upload the files to

Create a folder in your root directory to hold all of your downloadable files. It would be a good idea to name the folder something that is not easily guessed. In this tutorial, I’m going to use a folder called download_folder_name, but you can choose whatever you like. Go ahead and upload the folder to the server using the FTP program of your choice.

4. Edit the upload location in the control panel

Navigate to Admin > Weblog Administration > File Upload Preferences and click on the button to create a new upload destination. Choose a descriptive name for your directory, enter the server path to the folder you just created, and enter the URL for your upload directory.

Since I’m creating a way for individuals to share PDF files, I’m going to make sure to choose All file types in the Allowed File Types field.

That’s it for the File extension right now. We’ll add a custom file upload field to your publish form a little later in the tutorial.

Tip - You can find your full path information by opening your control panel and clicking Admin > System Preferences > General Configuration.

5. Download the Download Lock module for Expression Engine

Download the Download Lock module from www.media-cow.com. Please note that you will be requred to register at the site before you can download.

6. Edit settings in mod.download_lock.php

After you’ve downloaded and extracted the download_lock.zip, go ahead and open mod.download_lock.php in the text editor of your choice. Although you have access to several settings here, in this tutorial we are only going to change one. Edit the download_path variable to include the full path to the folder you just created to hold your secure downloads. In this tutorial, my path is /Applications/MAMP/htdocs/download_folder_name/.

7. Upload files and activate plugin

Follow the instructions on the media-cow website for acivating the plugin:

Now upload the lang.download_lock.php file to system/lang/english/ and the download_lock folder (containing two files) to your system/module/ folder. Go to Modules and enable the module and you’re good to go.

You know everything worked according to plan when you see the Installed in nice, green letters in the modules tab of your control panel.

8. Create a new weblog for posting links to files

In the EE control panel, click Admin > Weblog Administration > Weblog Management > Create a New Weblog. Name the weblog whatever you want (i’m going to call mine super_secret_downloads) and then head on over to the Field Groups section of the admin panel to create a new set of fields for our new blog. I’m going to keep my download page simple, so I only need to add two field besides the default Title and URL Title fields.

The first field will contain the name of the file you’re planning on sharing. I’m calling my field my_file. Choose Text Input for the field type.

The second field will be the actual file upload field. Choose File for the field type and choose the name of the upload location you created earlier in the tutorial for the upload location.

Once you’ve finished creating your custom webglog fields, head back to the weblog manager section and assign the new field set to the weblog you created earler in this step.

9. Create your download page template

Not that we’ve created the necessary weblog and custom fields, it’s time to display a list of the downloadable files. Create a new template of your choosing and use the following code an an example to setup your list.
{exp:weblog:entries weblog="super_secret_downloads"}

`{title}`



{if logged_in}Download

{if:else}You must be logged in to download.{/if}

{/exp:weblog:entries}

You can certainly jazz up the template to match your site template, but for now I’m just going to keep everything simple. The above code simply looks through the list of entries in your download blog, listing the title of each post as a header and placing a link to download the file under the header. The actual file location will be hidden from the user and anyone not logged in would simple see text reminding them “You must be logged in to download.”

10. Test the system

Let’s test everything out and make sure it works according to plan. We’re going to go through the whole process of uploading and downloading a file to make sure that everything is working correctly.

11. Upload a file

In the control panel, choose Publish and select the blog you created to hold your secure downloads. Enter a descriptive name in the Title field, the file name in the my_file field, and choose the file you want to upload in the File field.

Click Submit when you’re finished.

12. Test the file download page

Now that we have created a post and uploaded a new file, we need to make sure the download page correctly lists and links to our files. Head on over to the template you created and let’s see what we have. You should see something that looks like the image above. Hover over the link to see that it does not point to the actual URL of the file.

13. Log out and try the page again

Everything should be working smoothly at this point, but there’s one more thing we need to check out first. We need to make sure that only individuals logged into the site are allowed to download the file. So, let’s logout of the system and visit your template once again. This time, you should not see the download link, only some text telling you that you need to login in order to download the file.

14. Conclusion

That’s it for now. From here, you could certainly go back and spend some time styling the actual download page or create a member login form for the page. You might also want to add a few other custom fields to the publish form for displaying information such as date the file was uploaded, a short description of the file, or the number of times each file has been downloaded.

Adding an iPhone Web Clip Icon to your Website

admin — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 02:24:29 +0000

By default, when an iPhone user saves a webclip to the springboard, a screenshot of the current web page is used as the icon. However, you can create your own custom icons yo replace the standard graphics.

This tutorial should take about 5 minutes to complete

Create a new file in Photoshop

Using Photoshop or an image editing application of your choice, create a new file with dimensions of 57 x 57.

Create Your Icon

Create your icon using whatever tools you want. For this example, I’ve decided to stick with a solid background and simple text. You don’t have to worry about creating the glossy, 3-d effect on your button. That’s added automatically by the iPhone.

Save and upload your image

Save your image with as apple-touch-icon.png and upload it to the root directory of your site.

Bonus

Use the above steps if you want to use a single icon for your entire website. If you need more flexibility, such as different icons for each section or page, you can refer to icons directly in your page’s header. This method allows you to change the name, location, and format of the image and control which image is used on a per page basis.

Repost: More Cool Uses for Text Messages

admin — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 01:45:02 +0000

Earlier today I published a post on some new and exciting uses for SMS messages on UTFCU-Rocks, the student site for UT Federal Credit Union. The subject is also relevant to this site, so I’ve decided to repost it here as well. Make sure to visit the original post to leave your comments!

I love all of the new and interesting ways individuals and companies are using sms (text) messages these days, and judging from the number of people I see texting and walking on Cumberland Avenue, it looks like I’m not alone. In a previous post, I mentioned a few of my favorite mobile productivity tools, several of which made use of text messaging. In this post we’ll talk about two additional services that allow you to use text messages in new, interesting ways.

Tatango

Now that school is in full swing, you probably find yourself juggling homework, your social life, your job, and probably even a number of school-related projects all at the same time. There’s a good chance that you use your mobile telephone to call teammates or friends to schedule things like study sessions and meetings, but what if you could send one text message to update an entire group of people?
Tatango helps make life easier by allowing you to create groups of contacts and easily send messages to all members through your mobile phone or a web interface. As Tatango describes on their website,

Send one message directly from your computer or mobile phone to all of your group members, keeping them connected anytime, anywhere.

Using the site is extremely easy. After you’ve activated your account, simply use the control panel to create a contact group. Although you can join several groups with the free plan, you’re only allowed to create and manage one group at a time without opting for the pro account. Once you’ve setup your account and created a group, update members by sending text messages to Tatango’s short code or login and use the web interface.

ReacTee

ReacTee helps you promote your causes and express yourself with shirts that text back. The site allows you to create and purchase interactive shirts that you can use to help spread the word about your organization or your interests. Each shirt features a keyword that anyone can text to 41411 for additional information. Within seconds, users receive a reply with a custom message you create just for your shirt. Changing the outgoing message is easily accomplished through a control panel on the company’s site.

Some examples mentioned on the ReacTee website include a New York DJ who uses her shirt to accept requests during parties and a sports fan who updates his response with his favorite team’s schedule.

UTFCU Tailgate Party

admin — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 16:36:44 +0000

What a busy weekend! In addition to celebrating my wife’s birthday with group of friends in Market Square and helping my mom build the IKEA chair that was her birthday present, UTFCU, the credit union where I work, hosted its first of two tailgate parties.

We arrived a couple hours ahead of time to setup the grill, popcorn machine, tents, and games. I had a great time at the event and was able to meet and look forward to our next one on September 20. Check out some pictures from the event on my Flickr page or read my blog post on the utfcu-rocks student site and plan on swinging by to visit next weekend if you’re in the area.

Gladiator Games 2008

admin — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 02:03:19 +0000

Earlier this summer I assisted the Knoxville Leadership Foundation in planning the social media component for one of their annual fundraising events, the Gladiator Games. Working with Zane Hagy from Z11 Communications, we developed a plan including the use of social media sites such as Flickr, Jing, and YouTube to help get the word out about the event. My wife and I were also happy to volunteer to photograph and videotape the event. You can check out a brief video montage here or view the photographs here.

Our photography company, FinestraPhoto, used photographs from the event to create a custom fundraising book for the Knoxville Leadership Foundation, which is now available for sale online. Lia provides a short description of the book on her own blog:

The book is a 10×8 Blurb book, and is available in three different formats: softcover, hardcover with dust jacket, and hardcover with ImageWrap. The book is filled with more than 60-pages of photographs from the Gladiator Games, arranged in order of the events. The winners of the Games are featured in the book, and information about KLF is included at the end, along with the KLF’s mission statement and vision.

The book is now available through her Blurb Bookstore, and proceeds from every sale will be donated to the organization. Click here to preview or purchase the book.