TechBits

Credit and Debit Card Acceptance: quick, easy & cheap

Guest post by Andy Barnett of McMillan Memorial Library

Many libraries have trouble accepting credit/debit cards for payments from patrons. They need a solution that is quick to install, easy to operate and offers low fees. Regular merchant accounts are too complicated and expensive, especially at the relatively low volume that libraries generate.

While a long term solution is being worked on, libraries have a new option—one that McMillan has implemented: Square. The hardware installs in minutes, the account setup is simple, there are minimal up-front costs, staff training is easy. It works with MasterCard, Visa and Discover credit and debit cards. Fees for a scanned card are 2.75% with no per-transaction fees. Fees for a typed-in number are 3.75% with no per transaction fees.

Square is a free card scanner that fits in an iPod Touch or smart phone jack. Square software is also free. Staff signs into the account and scans the patron’s card. Patrons sign on the screen, though that
can be optional for amounts under $25.00. Receipts can be emailed or texted if desired.

McMillan had a spare iPod Touch, which we were using for staff training and familiarity. Our Business Office had no trouble setting up the account and verifying that it deposited the funds appropriately. Charges are still rung up on our cash register and reconciled daily. Square does not interface with Koha or any library system, so it solves the problem of card acceptance, but does not address the wider topic of e-commerce. Still, it was a way for us to say yes to patrons when they wanted to use plastic.

Previous coverage of Square on TechBits

imo.im

Meebo is shutting down on July 11th. What will SCLS be using instead for instant messaging? imo.im.

How we chose it

• First we identified how we use Meebo and what features Meebo had that were important to us. These included:
  • web interface (so we can use it from anywhere without installing a client)
  • Android app (so the techs can easily message from their phones)
  • a widget for our staff contact pages (so library staff can easily message us)
  • good notifications (ideally both audible and visual)
  • ability to integrate other services (we haven't used this much in the past, but we didn't necessarily want to rule it out)
  • ability to enable or disable chat history
  • good price
• We polled the SCLS staff about which features were most important.
• We identified the possibilities. (Some of the contenders included imo, Trillian, Zoho Chat, LibraryH3lp, IM+, and eBuddy, but there were lots of others whose features we reviewed.)
• We narrowed it down to 4 services that we wanted to test (imo, Trillian, Zoho Chat, and LibraryH3lp).
• We tested. (Thanks, Joanna, Mark, and Jean!)
• We decided.

The bad news
The bad news was that none of the services we identified did *everything* we wanted it to do. The big missing feature in most cases was a widget.

The compromise
We compromised with imo. It has a pretty nice web interface and a good collection of features. SCLS uses Google Apps, and we can use our existing Google Apps accounts to log into imo.im (that's slick!). Staff who want a widget will create a Yahoo account, pull that Yahoo account into imo, and use a Yahoo! Messenger Pingbox widget on their contact page. It's a little clunky, but it should do for now.

LibraryH3lp
SCLS uses IM mostly to communicate within the office. Although we had Meebo widgets on our staff contact pages, most staff received messages from these widgets infrequently. That being the case, we opted for a chat service that didn't provide a widget.

For libraries relying on widgets for reference service, a better alternative might be LibraryH3lp. LibraryH3lp is a product geared specifically toward chat reference and has a widget, as well as features that allow tagging for follow-up and emailing of transcripts.

SCLS is subscribing to LibraryH3lp through the state and is coordinating a pilot virtual reference chat project for SCLS libraries. If you're interested in more information, contact Jean Anderson.

The scoop on Scoop.it

What is Scoop.it?
Scoop.it is a curation tool that allows you to pull together content from other sources in a visually appealing way. For those of you on Pinterest, you might think of it as Pinterest with better tagging, more text, and an RSS feed. After you sign up for an account, you can add sources for content and/or follow other topics. As content comes your way, you can recycle it to your topic.  Or, you can create new posts by adding a link, picking a picture, and adding some text  (sound familiar, Pinterest users?). You can also tag posts for easy reference later, and users browsing your content can easily share it to Facebook, Twitter, or via a link. The Huffington Post wrote about it last week in the article, "How Long Before You Will Scoop.it Instead of Google It? A Year, Two, a Decade?"

Why would you use Scoop.it?
I've been using Scoop.it for a while now as a place to stash things that I run across that I more actively want to share with others (and keep for myself) on the topic of "technology for libraries". It's kind of a way to share the good stuff I find without writing much. You can see my Scoop.it topic here: http://www.scoop.it/t/more-techbits.

I don't really want to review Scoop.it in great detail as much as I'd like to point it out as a possible place to find some interesting folks curating some interesting topics. One of my favorite library-related topics so far is "Cha-Ching" -- a topic all about fundraising ideas for libraries (and well worth a look)!

If you are interested in more of the nitty-gritty about how Scoop.it works, take a look at their Guided Tour and FAQ.

Facebook Page Insights

The librarians I know love to count things and keep statistics.  "we circ'ed 1,051 items today," "we had 246 wireless sessions last month," "we received 372 red delivery baskets last week"... sound familiar?

If your library has a Facebook page, you have access to all sorts of lovely stats about that page. Just take a peek at the "Insights" section of the admin panel (click on the photos in this post to view them full-size).

What will you find?

• Overview - gives you 4 metrics to help you quickly understand the size and engagement of your audience, with indications of whether these numbers went up or down. There is also information about your page's posts and what sort of response they've received from Fans.
  
• Likes - demographic and location information for your audience, and information about how you acquired, reached, or engaged them. (Looks like 78% of SCLS' fans are female and 20% are male!)
  
• Reach - information about who you reached, how you reached them, your page views over time, and how those views break down
• Talking About This* - demographic and location information about people talking about your page and information about whether they were talking about your page or being reached by someone else talking about it
• Check-Ins* - info about people who have checked in at your place and how they did it (mobile device? through the Facebook website?).

Nifty.  Now what do you do with this data? Probably the easiest things to do are to:

• see what's popular, and
• use that information to plan posts.

Take a quick peek at the SCLS page's Overview:

Interested in more in-depth information about Facebook Page Insights? Facebook's 15-page PDF will help you "understand the performance of your page, optimize how you publish to your audience so people will tell their friends about you, and learn more about your audience." (It also includes much better explanations and details than we can provide here on TechBits!)

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* Demographic and location data for these features is only available when 30 people did this activity in the 7 days preceding the last day of your selected date range. If your page is busy, you'll see this info. If not, you won't.

PicMonkey

 Regular oatmeal with blueberries.
Had-too-much-coffee-before-my oatmeal with blueberries.
You'll find effects, tools, and more with the ever-so-awesome PicMonkey - a free online photo editing and effects site from some of the former Picnik developers. For a chuckle, have a peek at their "About" page. Need a review before you swing on over to play*? Try this one at the Photo Software Blog.

* When you swing on over to play, be sure you've got some time. I found myself investigating the various tools and trying out all the effects and quickly lost an hour. Neat effects, and pretty easy to use!

Send large files the easy way.

I was looking for a way to transfer a large file over the internet without having to sign up for any services. Sometimes email clients limit the size of the files you can send or receive, so what can you do if you want to send a large file to someone.  I found Wetransfer, a site that lets you transfer a file up to 2GBs for free. It’s fast and easy to use. Select the file you want to transfer to someone. In my case it was a video clip I created that I didn’t want to share with the world, just one other person. Enter in their email address and your email address. Type a message (optional) and click transfer. Within a few minutes the email addresses you entered will receive a message with a link to the file to download, the link will be active for two weeks. You will also receive an email notification when the receipent downloads the file.

Dropbox, Skydrive and Google Drive: a Quick Comparison

I've been a big fan of Dropbox for years but recently there have been some new and/or improved competitors to the Dropbox drive service:  Google Drive and Microsoft's SkyDrive.  Here's a quick comparison of all three products:

Dropbox

• Drive size
  • Initial drive size is 2GB, with an additional 500MB for every referral up to 18GB
• Cost
  • 2-18GB - Free
  • 50GB - $9.99/month, $99.99/year
  • 100GB - $19.99/month, $199/year
• Platforms:
  • PC: Windows XP and Windows 7
  • Linux
  • Mac
  • iPhone/iPad apps
  • Android for tablets and Smart Phones
  • Blackberry
• Extras
  • Retrievable file history for 30 days:  deleted files remain on the Dropbox server for easy recovery
  • Detailed logs of file changes (additions, deletions, changes)
  • Selective syncing of individual files
  • Add-on support, including e-mail to Dropbox, auto transfer to other cloud-based drives, and web hosting

 

Google Drive

• Drive Size
  • Initial size of 5GB; no incentive program
• Cost
  • 5GB  - Free
  • 25GB - $2.50/month, $30 / year
  • 100GB - $5/month, $60/yeay
• Platforms
  • PC: Windows XP and Windows 7 (no real standalone client used)
  • Mac
  • Android Tablets (possibly Smartphones as well)
• Extras
  • 10GB upload limit  with web-based interface (2GB for competing products)
  • Editing of more types of documents possible (AUTO CAD, Photoshop formats)
  • Integration with Google Apps/Docs tools (collaboration, etc.)

Sky Drive

• Drive Size
  • Initial drive size is 7GB; however new users can get 25GB for a limited time
• Cost
  • 7/25GB - Free
  • Additional 20GB - $10/year
  • Additional 50GB - $25/year
  • Additional 100GB - $50/year
• Platforms
  • PC: Windows 7 only (no XP support)
  • Mac
  • iPhone/iPad apps
  • Windows Phone
• Extras
  • Several apps are available that integrate SkyDrive with MS OneNote, Outlook, and files from a smart phone.
  • MS Office documents can be edited within SkyDrive without any loss of formatting

Guest Post - easy clickin'

Guest Post by Jean Anderson
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What are these you ask? The technical term is “clicker.” What, you don’t believe me? Okay, I give in. The real name of this gadget varies from “wireless presenter” to “presentation remote” to “wireless laser presentation remote.” If you do a quick Google search for “powerpoint remote control” you’ll find many different remotes.

They all do the same basic thing - they allow a presenter to venture away from their laptop. The remote connects wirelessly to the USB piece of the device that’s plugged into the laptop. This allows the presenter to use a couple of buttons on the remote to advance their slides, dim the screen, and use a laser pointer (if it’s included on the device).

Remotes such as the ones in the picture can be found at most any office supply store or online and range in price from $10 to $50.

Thanks to Amanda S. at Middleton for the topic suggestion!

Print Multiple Firefox Tabs as a Single PDF Document

When I find useful documentation online, I like to print the web page as a PDF so that I will always have a copy available.  Sometimes I'll find useful documentation from several sources online.  Instead of printing each webpage separately, I'd rather print all the sources as a single PDF.  I find it easier to manage.  The Print Pages to PDF Firefox add-on allows you to print multiple open tabs in Firefox to a single PDF document. 

After you have installed the add-on, you will notice Print Pages to PDF appears in your Firefox Tools menu.  This is where you can change defaults like margin size, headers and footers and it's where you'll click to actually print the PDF files.  I think the add-on is definitely worth a try as it beats copying pages to a Word document then printing to PDF.

Edit photos with MS Office Picture Manager

Did you know that you may have photo editing software hidden away on your PC? I'm not talking about Microsoft Paint. I mean Microsoft Office Picture Manager!

Where can you find it? MS Office Picture Manager has been bundled with the Microsoft Office suite since Office 2003. On most* PCs with MS Office, you can find it by going to Start > Microsoft Office > Microsoft Office Tools > Microsoft Office Picture Manager.

You can also start using it by clicking on your image in Windows Explorer and then selecting File > Open With > Microsoft Office Picture Manager, like so:

What is it used for? Basic changes and corrections to photos, like:

• Brightness and contrast
• Color
• Crop
• Rotate and flip
• Red-eye removal
• Resize

Why would you choose MS Office Picture Manager instead of MS Paint? MS Paint doesn't have options specifically for correcting photos (like red-eye removal), and on Windows XP its crop/resize capabilities don't make it easy to get photos sized to pixel-precise dimensions. MS Office Picture Manager does better with these tasks.

Where can you get help using MS Office Picture Manager? Support for MS Office Picture Manager.

When will you know you need a higher-powered tool for editing images?

• You want more control over colors and corrections.
• You want to combine your photos with text, color, and other images and edit each component as a separate "layer."
• You want to be able to save your work and come back later to edit the "layers" of photo, text, color, and other images.

* On SCLS-supported patron PCs that have MS Office, MS Office Picture Manager is not in the Start menu and you will need to use the "Open With" technique to start using it.