The Academy website needs to be conserved between now and sometime in 2015 when we are ready to announce it again. Can you please make the following changes?

Title page:

–          Add praise plastered all over (I will supply).

–          Change date to May 2016

Details

–          Change the dates throughout to May 1 – May 5, 2016.

–          Only two modules (reorganize the Details page accordingly):

• Applied (May 1): identification of bark and ambrosia beetles, diagnostics of damage in the field, and management of pest species in the Southeastern US. For tree health practitioners and extension faculty/agents. 1 full day
• Academic (May 2-5): advanced identification, global scope, 12 hours of hands-on microscope sessions, specialized topics, and field trips. For students, researchers, agency entomologists, and enthusiasts.

Presenters

–          Confirmed presenters:

• Jiri Hulcr University of Florida
• Anthony Cognato Michigan State University
• Sarah M. Smith Michigan State University
• Tom Atkinson University of Texas, Austin
• Jeffrey Eickwort Florida Forest Service
• Marc Hughes University of Florida

–          :

Schedule: TBD (perhaps just a pop-up saying TBD?)

Updates:

–          delete existing updates

–          Keep the: Sign Up thing…

• but remove the “Interested in modules…”

The Registration page:

Get ready for to the SECOND Bark Beetle Academy! This is the biggest educational, scientific and social event focused on bark and ambrosia beetles. Register and join us to learn more about these important insects and to meet leading bark and ambrosia beetle scientists.

…work directly with specialists

…receive state-of-the art identification and management materials

…participate in hands-on identification practice

…learn how to collect beetles in the field during their peak season in Florida’s Spring

…receive Continuing Education Units from the Society of American Foresters and the International Society of Arboriculture.

…enjoy a high instructor/student ratio

Registration for the 2016 Academy is not yet open

If you don’t want to miss the registration for next Academy in 2016, we recommend that you sign up for updates. Our quota for the first Academy in 2014 filled up in less than two months!

Sign up here for updates!

– access for Paloma
– change the button from Amanda to Paloma
– Adam and Paloma should have the task list in a table-like format, or something more simplified and easy to review and edit quickly
– the email function has to work, let’s switch to something that works
– conserve Academy website
– visit count on Forum and all other websites needs to be seriously recorded, i still don’t know how to do that with Google, so i probalby need training, or written-down guidelines, or a slightly different mechanism.

Rhiannon,
Do you know why on this post: http://www.ambrosiasymbiosis.org/2014/02/congratulations-winners-2013/

There is a second beetle image at the bottom? It shouldnt be there, i don’t know where it’s coming from. Will you have a minute to help?

(as you see, I also don’t really know how to do the alignment… how do i put the beetle simply below the first image?)
Thanks!

test

Rhiannon,
Could you also please address these three things?
– Adam Black (button “Adam”) is not getting notified when I post something. Could you please update that? His email is adamblack@ufl.edu

– Polly is no longer with us, was replaced with Amanda, her email is anderson4357@ufl.edu.

– just to make sure that it’s all working, could you please check that all people that have buttons are set up to receive notifications? Thank you!!!!

– The Bark Beetle Academy website continues to impress people and attract attendees. I am super happy with it, thank you! It is unfortunately not fully compatible with Internet Explorer. Some version of IE don’t open up the tabs. Most federal employees have only IE at work, so consequently, I am getting a lot of confused questions. Can we make the site IE-proof? Thank you!

-Would you be able to stick an inconspicuous IFAS logo on the Backyard Bark Beetles website somewhere? Just so that it is recognized as official by IFAS, but not ugly….

Rhiannon,
Two quick questions:
I was wondering about the Captcha that you mentioned you set up for the Forum registration process. Somehow I don’t see it there. Also, fake users keep registering with the same rate, now there are many over 300…It appears that the website is now somehow broken again… sorry that it keeps happening. If you try to register, you will see what I mean.

Also, seems like Adam Black is not getting emails when i post something under the Category “Adam”. Can we please make sure that it’s set up for him correctly?

Thank you!
J.

PS: I trust that you keep track of the hours working on this stuff, right?

Rhiannon,
I can’t figure out two things, and would appreciate your help. (I hope you got the recent payment – please consider these questions to be a part of the “contract”.)

– my google analytocs account shows data only for the treehealth/index and treehealth/sample_submission.shtml, but not for the Forum… obviously,t hat’s a different website. But how can I track that one? Ideally Iwould like to see all those in one analytics report, because otherwise the Forum, a one-pager, will have high bounce rate.

– how do I filter out meaningless visits (for example, robots and mistakes” from user visits? I tried to filter out only visits that lasted more than 1 minute, but that doesn’t seem possible. Is it something related to the “bounce rate”?

Thank you!
J.

A couple more things:

The #3 Send ’em in will also have a movie box.

Right side of the map:
– title “More interesting stuff here:”
– topics:
–What is this project all about, anyway?
–Why do beetles
–What are these “bark beetles”?: These beetles are much more that just what the name says: yes, many live in bark, but many also live inside trees and grow gardens of fungi for food (those are called ambrosia beetles). Many live in a strange family system with one brother an many sisters that have babies together. Several species are the world’s most destructive forest pests which, withe help of climate change, are turning Canada into grasslands. Want o know more? Click on the species that you trapped on the map, or visit our website: www.ambrosiasymbiosis.org.

–Several cool beetle species:
—the redbay ambrosia beetle, a foreigner from Asia that’s destroying Florida’s forests and the avocado industry: https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/in886
—the Southern Pine Beetle: a native pest that once used to kill thousands of acres of pines yearly (http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/in333) but now it is a rare insect!
—the granulated ambrosia beetle: the most common beetle in your trap is probably not a native insect, but this invader from Asia: http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/in288

Tings to look into on the otherwise awesome site (i’m looking at it in Chrome):

– mouse arrow disappears when touching links
– can the tabs “Join project” etc be numbered 1 to 3?
– the MAP YOUR BEETLES” should perhaps be “4: AND SEE WHAT LIVES IN YOUR BACKYARD” I just really want it to be a clear sequence of steps towards the map.

Bottle trap:
– replace ethanol with “Purell alcohol-based hand sanitizer”
– the tab “catch beetles” disappears after a while
– Supplies: soda bottle (2 liter), hand sanitizer (alcohol-based, Purell is best), string, paint brush, small ziploc bag, padded envelope for shipping
– the link to the printable PDF is a good idea, but a heads up: we will have to use a different one that reflects this simpler method, based on hand sanitizer. Good for now though…

The lower field, that contains the map:
– Can the map be big? I mean as big as is convenient/possible? Ideally across 2/3 or 3/4 of that field.
– The remaining portion of that field should have the heading “What is this project about” that’s good. And I think underneath that we will have to include a couple of educational or explanatory items, or links to them. For example, on of them should be: Why do beetles fall into hand sanitizer? The explanation is: “When a tree dies, the process of wood degradation produces alcohol. Because bark and ambrosia beetles evolved attraction to alcohol, because need to find dead trees to reproduce. Hand sanitizers contain lots of alcohol, and that’s we can use them to attract bark beetles!” Should we make a pop-up? Or some other type or short paragraph-type records? There will be more of those…