Joseph Baldwin is getting a new look online. The President’s appointed WWW Redesign Committee has been working steadily since January to improve the look and functionality of the Truman site.

In addition to a new homepage with spiffy new features, we are also bringing many of the Truman sites under a common template to make them easier to update and provide a more consist experience for surfers throughout the site. Follow this link for a sneak preview of how it’s coming together so far, but keep in mind it’s still a work in progress.

The committee wants your feedback! See our blog at redesign.truman.edu for up-to-date information. Browse past articles and leave comments to become a part of the ongoing dialogue about the process. Also posted on the site are survey and research results, committee minutes, and more support documents than you can shake a mouse at.

Expect a flashy new site with improved search and navigation in September. Or don’t expect anything. It’s really your call.

With BCC (blind carbon copy) you can hide recipients in  email  messages.  Unlike  addresses  in  the  To: or  CC: (carbon  copy)  fields,  addresses  in the BCC: field cannot be seen by other recipients.

The most obvious reason for using BCC is to make someone, such as a supervisor or team member, aware of the email without actually involving them in the exchange. This way, you’re not advertising you are doing it and if anyone “Replies to all,” they will not be included.

Here are a couple more ways to use BCC:

Tracking -  You can use BCC to send a copy of the message to yourself without confusing your recipients. For example, you may want to archive the email you are sending in another email account for reference or so you can read it at home.

Respect  for your recipients - Forwarded email messages often contain long lists of email addresses that were CC’d by previous senders. Many email-borne  viruses and spammers harvest these addresses to add to their junk lists. If you or any of those recipients get infected, those long lists in forwarded messages pose a risk to all the accounts they point to.

So when you send an email to multiple people, consider putting their addresses in the BCC: field instead of the To: field. If your email client requires an address in the To: field, use your own.

Likewise, encourage people who forward messages to you to use BCC so your email address is less likely to appear in other people’s inboxes.

Do you ever get tired of typing the “http://www.” and “.com” when you’re surfing the net?   There is an easier way that works in Internet Explorer and  Firefox.

1.  In the address bar, type the name of the website you want to visit and leave off that stuff. For example, for http://www.google.com, you would just type google.

2. Hold the Control key and hit enter. The rest is automatically filled in.

Ctrl+Enter works for .com sites, while Shift+Enter takes you to .net domains and Ctrl+Shift+Enter takes you to .org sites (this may vary by browser).

So stop typing those extra 15 keystrokes, and save some time!

This live webcam is 70 feet up in a white pine tree on the coast of Maine, providing live video of a nesting pair of bald eagles 24 hours a day. These eagles are the most successful pair in the state. They have nested at this site for 13 years, and raised 20 offspring.

Ever needed to convert a file to a different format? Zamzar.com, for free, will convert any file you upload to a number of formats – including images, documents, music and video files. There’s a 100MB filesize limit, and the converted file is available for download for 24 hours.