The Low Road

Power to the people

anyworld — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 01:10:21 +0000

San Francisco’s cycling community learns how to make city politics work for it. All those hills are making them strong.

Final project

anyworld — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 18:44:47 +0000

Limp to the finish

anyworld — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 18:01:01 +0000

Personally, I’ve never been able to find much humor in the possibility that spending too much time in a bicycle saddle will leave me with erectile dysfunction, as certain studies seem to show. So leave it to CycleDog to see the lighter side.

ICM 506 project advice

anyworld — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 01:53:55 +0000

I’ll admit: I’m a little behind the curve on the technical end. I don’t even have DreamWeaver or Flash software, and my HTML is pretty weak. But I wanted to finish the semester with my project up on a working Web site rather than a PowerPoint presentation. Earlier this semester I worked out a relatively easy way to do this on a WordPress blog, so I thought I’d post it here in case anyone else was struggling.

A method for creating interactive blogs for ICM 506 projects:

Go to DASHBOARD

Under “WRITE” select “WRITE PAGE” (not “WRITE POST” — pages are different!)

Write a new page for each page of your project and publish it. Tabbed browsing will keep you from going insane — sorry IE users. Make sure put the page number in the title or somewhere else so you can keep track of them.

When you are done, select “MANAGE PAGES” and select “EDIT” for each page of your project, in order. Use tabbed browsing to keep this manageable (sorry IE users).

Open MANAGE PAGES in a separate window (so you can toggle between them). Again using tabs, select “VIEW” to open each page of your project in order.

OK. You now should have two windows open, one with all of your pages in “edit” mode and one in “view” mode, showing all of the pages themselves.

One housekeeping task before you get started: In the edit window, go from window to window and uncheck “allow comments” and “allow pings” so you don’t have people commenting and pinging on every page. You might choose to keep them on the final page.

Now you need to create the “NEXT” and “BACK” buttons. (Don’t bother plugging in text — it’ll be easy once you get the formatting done.) Here’s where it pays off to be able to toggle between the edit and view windows.

Go to the first page in edit mode. Since this is the first page, you only need a NEXT button. Type NEXT and then toggle over to view; copy the URL for page 2, return to edit mode and link NEXT to that URL.

Move on to page 2. Here you’ll need a BACK and NEXT button, so you need to go to view mode, select the URL for page one, link it to BACK, then link page 3 to NEXT.

Continue the process for each page of your blog. (Don’t forget, you don’t need a NEXT button on the last page.) It’s laborious, but it works. Be sure to check that the links all work the way they’re supposed to.

With a little experimentation, you can do all sorts of things using this method. If you’re really masochistic, you can display the page numbers, linking each number to the appropriate page: 1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.9.10.11.12. I tried this but gave it up as too labor intensive.

You can also add a HOME link, sending the reader back to the main blog.

MORE TIPS:
* Even if your quiz isn’t interactive, you can make it functional. Post the questions on one page, and create another one for the answers.

Bitch bitch, moan moan

anyworld — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 01:07:40 +0000

Random bitching:

American cyclist’s nightmare: Approach to Edinburgh via Queensferry Road. Brutal traffic and buses that claim the shoulder; traffic circles rather than stoplights. And, oh yeah — the traffic is all going around it the wrong direction.

Most bruising hill: The ride to Penmar Park in Maryland.

Worst moment on two wheels: The day before my wedding, I rode to get my wedding outfit. About five blocks from my house my suit bag got caught in the spokes — bike stopped, I didn’t. Not the fall that bothers me per se: What really gets me was the three or four drivers who slowed down but didn’t ask if I was OK. Turned out I broke my arm at the elbow. Wedding went on as scheduled — just couldn’t move my arm.

Worst place to ride in greater New Haven: Dixwell Avenue near the Hamden Plaza. Clearly built with the four-wheel crowd in mind — can’t even walk across the street without risking your neck.

Map it out

anyworld — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 18:29:37 +0000

ECC members have been posted links to maps of bike routes in the New Haven area.

* Official City of New Haven maps.
* Wikiwalki community trail guide.

Worth a look in you’re a local.

BikeSummer New Haven

anyworld — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 19:14:03 +0000

Crazy Biker Chick reports Toronto residents are fighting for a bikeable city. Meanwhile, I spotted another BikeSummer 2007 update on ECC Web site, announcing a century ride as the marquee event. Up for it? Register here.

Spring has sprung (sort of)

anyworld — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 05:26:50 +0000

After all this rain, those May flowers had damned well better be pretty friggin spectacular this year. Is your bike ready should Mother Nature ever decide to cool it with the British weather?

First the good news …

anyworld — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 05:20:51 +0000

A bill before the Ways and Means Committee would give bike commuters a break every April 15. Learn more about how you can help make it the law of the land.

But what the federal government giveth, the state taketh away. State budget authorities this year face tough choices in how to spend transportation funding, and some fear improvements benefiting bicyclists will be first in line for the chopping block.

Click here to learn how to contact your representatives in the Capitol.

Dodging doors

anyworld — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 00:20:48 +0000

Most drivers don’t realize it, but doors can be deadly. One cyclist is doing something about it.