Making Friends
Interesting question from the Symposum organizers this morning with regard to number of countries registered for the upcoming Sea Turtle Symposium, and number of new countries. Quite interesting answer as well...
January 27, 2009
May 11, 2007
Widgets
Would you like to add dynamic sea turtle content to your site?
I just happened across an old post (from 2004!) where I promised to make little widgets available that would allow other web site owners to easily add dynamic sea turtle content from seaturtle.org to their own site.
At the time I had created a small javascript image library widget. I've just updated it so that it is user configureable. Simply copy the code below and add it to your own web page and you will get a browser with the latest uploads to the seaturtle.org Image Library.
<script type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript"> <!-- //set to desired width of photo widget var slidewidth=130 //set to desired height of photo widget var slideheight=150 //set to desired background color of photo widget var slidebgcolor='#CCFFCC' //set to desired delay between image rotations (in milliseconds) var slidedelay=6000 //--> </script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.seaturtle.org/jslib/imagelib.js"> </script>
Which will look something like this:
Stay tuned, more to come...
May 07, 2007
seaturtle.org Labs
Are you interested in knowing what kind of tools and resources are under development?
Check out seaturtle.org Labs
You will find a number of projects, big and small, that I am working on for inclusion in seaturtle.org. Have a look and contribute by providing feedback.
But you have to be geeky enough to be reading this blog in the first place :)
May 05, 2007
Have a surplus PC? Send it to SEATURTLE.ORG...
SEATURTLE.ORG is completely developed and runs on Apple hardware. I find this to be a highly efficient and cost effective way to work. Mostly because of the Unix underpinnings of OS X, which gives me access to a huge world of free and powerful software.
However, since going solo with SEATURTLE.ORG I no longer have access to Windows boxes, and since Micro$oft no longer develops Internet Exploder for the Mac, I have no way of testing pages, tools and resources in IE. Since most people on the internet are (unfortunately) using IE, this presents a bit of a problem with some of the new advanced features that I am trying to develop (Come on, people! Please switch to Firefox!). Perhaps the most difficult aspect of all of the things I do is coding around all of the idiosyncrasies in IE. Just try searching for "idiosyncrasy internet explorer" on Google for a sample of what I am talking about.
If you or your organization has a surplus Windoze box (preferably a laptop for space considerations), and more importantly, can spare a licensed copy of Micro$oft Windows XP, it would go a long way toward supporting development of resources on SEATURTLE.ORG, and help me ensure that everything functions properly for all users. We don't need much, just something powerful enough to run the latest versions of Internet Exploder.
April 19, 2007
TWiSTing again?
OK, so maybe TWiST (This Week in Sea Turtles) is not an appropriate name for our semi-occasional podcast. Particularly given the fact that we have not produced a new episode in about a year!
But never fear faithful listeners, we have heard your near silent cries. We will TWiST again! In fact we have been trying to coordinate a time all week. So far tonight seems the most likely candidate, but it will be a miracle if everyone actually ends up being available at the same time; if I don't screw up the audio; or something else doesn't get in the way. But we will try.
Given that, we'd like to hear from YOU!
- Do you have a comment to make on a past discussion?
- Would you like to suggest a topic for future discussion or a special guest?
- Do you have any questions?
Give us your feedback! Post a comment on the TWiST site or send a message to twist at seaturtle.org.
November 04, 2005
Sounds like...
Cool! I just realized that the database server I use has a "sounds like" function that allows you to match terms that sound alike, not just exact matches. I have implemented this in the sea turtle glossary. The upshot is that the glossary can now match search terms that you enter even if you mispell them (to a point 
).
Give it a try: bathemetry
Now I just need to figure out where else this feature might come in handy...
February 26, 2005
SEATURTLE.ORG receives first web award
The Jury of the Zurich Animal Protection Society has awarded SEATURTLE.ORG it's exclusive "Tiger Award" for Excellence in Animal Site Design. SEATURTLE.ORG was found to be "of outstanding quality for international pet lovers truly covering their informational needs".
Believe it or not, this is the first award that SEATURTLE.ORG has received. At least that I know of. OK, maybe it's not that hard to believe :)
Thanks to the Zurich Animal Protection Society for this recognition!
February 15, 2005
Financial Transparency
I just sent e-mails to all the people that contributed to the various SEATURTLE.ORG programs during 2004 to remind them that they could deduct their contribution from their taxes (sorry, US residents only). Adding up the numbers for the year got me thinking that it might be nice to share these numbers with the public in the interest of transparency. As a public charity SEATURTLE.ORG is required to make certain financial information available upon request, but no one has ever really requested it.
(please note that these are back-of-the-napkin figures for 2004, nothing is final until the accountant and the bookkeeper have submitted their reports for the year)
So, in 2004 SEATURTLE.ORG received 572 individual contributions for a total of $42,076. This total has not been corrected for about $2000 in fees related to credit card processing. The bulk of these contributions came in the form of adoptions of satellite tracked animals (427 adoptions for $18,710). Next are contributions to the Marine Turtle Newsletter (92 contributions for $16,595). This includes some large institutional "grants", but one $15,000 grant from NOAA to help cover print and distributions costs is not included in this total. The 92 individual contributions are very nice, but a bit disappointing given that the MTN is currently distributed to over 1500 people around the world. That means more than 1400 subscribers are not contributing (or fewer than 100 people are footing the bill for everyone else).
We launched a new African Sea Turtle Fund Drive in the late fall that generated $876 from 12 individuals during 2004. That particular effort has unfortunately taken a back seat to the more immediate needs of the Tsunami Fund. The Tsunami Fund started right at the end of the year and had brought in just $1075 when the year ended, $1000 of which is from SEATURTLE.ORG, which makes accounting a bit tricky. Three donations were received for the Marine Turtle Research Group's Darwin Project for a total of $1750.
That leaves 35 individual contributions for SEATURTLE.ORG totaling $3070, to help cover operating expenses. That's obviously not a lot of money, so a couple of years ago I started charging conferences a small fee for using the iConferences service that handles online conference registration (e.g. online registration for the Annual Sea Turtle Symposium and other conferences). It's hard to say right now how much this brought in during 2004 because registration for these events wrap around the fiscal year, but it was probably somewhere around $10,000.
So how does your money get spent?
You obviously want to know that your money is well spent and I do my best to make sure it is. There are almost no overhead expenses, no salaries, no insurance, no benefits, so as much money as possible is spent on programs and new resources. The only expenses that could be considered overhead are the obvious needs for good internet connections and computer equipment.
I'll work my way down the list...
Satellite tracking adoptions. Right off the top, half of all tracking adoptions are sent to the individual tracking projects. In 2004 that was over $9,000, a small amount of which was donated back to SEATURTLE.ORG. About 5% vanishes in credit card fees and another 7.5% goes to postage and material costs for the adoption packets. The remainder goes in to the SEATURTLE.ORG tracking fund. Last year we were able to use this fund to help purchase 10 satellite tags for a project in Cape Verde.
Marine Turtle Newsletter. It costs between $25,000 and $30,000 for printing and mailing the MTN. We actually brought in about $10K more than we spent for the MTN this year, so we are hoping to begin paying a small stipend to one of the MTN editors, who expends a huge amount of time and effort in putting together each issue.
Fund Drives. Money raised during both the African Sea Turtle Fund and the Tsunami Fund are specifically ear-marked for those purposes. The African Sea Turtle Fund will fund a research and conservation grants program for African sea turtles. The Tsunami Fund will help rebuild research and conservation programs affected by the December tsunami in the Indian Ocean and SE Asia. Funds raised for the MTRG's Darwin Project are also specially ear-marked for that project.
That leaves about $13,000+ for operating expenses and equipment. This includes things like accounting (~$1,100), public relations and outreach (~$2000), computer and internet expenses (~$2500), merchant account/credit card fees (~$5,500), phone (~$2,000) and travel to meetings (~$1,700).
Our accountant tells me that we came out $740 ahead during 2004. And that's that.
January 27, 2005
Giveaways
Each year there is a "thing" that is given away as part of registration for the sea turtle symposium. This year it was a very nice PadFolio. SEATURTLE.ORG also donated the name badge lanyards which double as sunglass/eyeglass holders (ie croakies). So don't throw them away!!!!
I'm looking forward to seeing great pictures from all over the world, of SEATURTLE.ORG croakies securely holding the sunglasses of brave sea turtlers in place.
Upload them to the image library and maybe Matthew will create a category for pictures of SEATURTLE.ORG swag in action.
January 04, 2005
Final Symposium Update
As of today we have 897 people registered for the upcoming sea turtle symposium in Savannah, Georgia. That is more people that have been "officially" registered for any prior symposium. And if onsite registration is similar to past years the final tally should be around 950.
The total includes representatives from 69 countries (give or take, depending on how you count territories). Here are the top 10:
UNITED STATES 606
MEXICO 26
COSTA RICA 24
UNITED KINGDOM 19
CANADA 16
JAPAN 11
AUSTRALIA 9
VENEZUELA 8
PORTUGAL 7
ITALY 7
For the complete list continue reading below...
December 12, 2004
Sea Turtle Content
Something I have been thinking about for some time is providing tools to deliver content for use on other websites. SEATURTLE.ORG has enough constantly updating dynamic content now that this seems like a useful resource. For example, imagine being able to put a news stream from SEATURTLE.ORG on your website, or the latest links from the links section, or the most recent MTN articles.
October 21, 2004
Symposium Update Update
By request an update of the numbers (another deadline has passed since I posted the last update)...
October 12, 2004
Symposium Update
The first deadline has passed and the extended deadline is only days away. So how are we doing?
May 12, 2004
Science
SEATURTLE.ORG's satellite tracking section was recently featured in Science Magazine. A nice little blurb letting folks know about the resource. You can read the bit here, but unfortunately you need to be a subscriber.
March 07, 2004
2004 Symposium Wrap-up
When all was said and done 842 people had registered for the 24th sea turtle symposium in Costa Rica. Some unknown number of those did not show up, and there were some unregistered local dignitaries and press in attendance, so the actual number is a bit amorphous.
November 30, 2003
Timber forgot something
Sara has now taken the lead in the race to the south. Timber appears to have stopped or doubled-back a bit. Perhaps she found a spot with some tasty treats?
November 27, 2003
I'm on a road to...
The four loggerhead turtles that were satellite tagged on Bald Head Island, North Carolina and are being tracked by the MTRG et al are on the move!
October 03, 2003
Once a month ain't bad...
Jeepers! I need to pick up the pace.
Too much web development and not enough blogging.
But they are cool toys though, aren't they?
August 16, 2003
Where will Samia go?
Samia, the loggerhead sea turtle, is on the move. She is being tracked as part of the Green and Loggerhead Turtles: Cayman Islands 2003 Project in SEATURTLE.ORG's Satellite Tracking section.
Do you know where she is going? Post your guesses in the comments section below!
June 29, 2003
Member sites now available
Oops, didn't even notice that the member sites weren't working. Forgot to configure it in the web server. Should all be working now so you can add new sites and edit your existing sites.
Server Update
As many of you have likely noticed I made the move to the new server last week. On Tuesday to be exact. I had forgotten that I was going out of town on an office retreat the next day, or I might have waited just in case there were any problems. C'est la vie. Only relatively minor issues arose, most I was expecting, and certainly nothing fatal.
The majority of problems have revolved around file permissions (the new web server runs as a different user than the old web server) and perl modules. Most of the dynamic content on the site is generated using perl scripts. You can add all kinds of extra functionality to perl through additional perl modules. Needless to say I use many, many extra perl modules (above and beyond the base perl installation) to make the fancy things on seaturtle.org happen. Unfortunately, I do a poor job of keeping track of which ones I am using so I mostly figure it out when some perl script breaks because it can't find a module it needs to operate.
Related to this are a few extra applications that make some of the tools work. GMT, the GD Graphics Library, and ImageMagick are the biggies, to help Maptool and the Image Library go. ImageMagick is by far the trickiest to get running, so Maptool and the Image Library weren't fully functional until Friday or so.
Also ImageMagick and GD have requisite perl modules to make them work with the perl scripts, so those had to be installed. There have been a scattering of other perl modules that I missed, a few to make this blog work. In fact, another suite of modules that I had to install just to write this update from my favorite blog app. If you come across any part of the site (or HerpDigest or the MTSG site for that matter) that give you script errors let me know so I can get them fixed.
As I mentioned before, file permissions have caused some slight problems. One was that page view counters, that are scattered about the site here and there, broke because the server no longer had permission to update the counter files. That's fixed. Another was that members couldn't update their sites, for the same reason. More specifically, they couldn't update existing files, but should have been able to create new one. Anyways, that's fixed too. If you come across any pages that give an error that says something about permission denied let me know so I can fix those too.
The only other issue is the mail system. I don't think there is anything wrong with it, it's just different from what I am used to. I've always just run a pop server, but the new server has an integrated pop and imap server (definitions here). I have to decide whether I want to switch it to just a pop server and keep on working as I have for eons, or change the way I work and start using imap. Decisions, decisions. My understanding is that imap is superior (depending on your needs), but NOAA has done such a poor job of implementing their imap-based mail system that I a wary of making the switch myself. They've basically tied themselves to a Netscape server, and try to discourage you from using mail clients other than Netscape. And Netscape 4.7 at that!!!!!! Which is several years out of date and extremely buggy. What idiots!
That's about it. I'll keep picking away at the problems as they turn up. You can help out by reporting any errors that you come across to me at webmaster@seaturtle.org.
June 15, 2003
Day One
...of a (well-deserved) vacation.
June 05, 2003
Minor Snafu
(*&^$#%(#
June 04, 2003
S.N.A.F.U.
Situation normal, all ****** up.
June 03, 2003
Wicked Fast
Woo-hoo!
June 02, 2003
Getting Closer
May 28, 2003
Server Colocation
I've been requesting quotes for the last couple of days from local service providers that can colocate seaturtle.org's new server.
April 18, 2003
Go Kemp's Go!
A recent Houston Chronicle article, among others, noted the first Kemp's ridley nest of the season in Texas. Considering that until recently there were no Kemp's nesting in Texas, this sort of news always gives me hope. There is the general joy and happiness because it is one of many signs that the Kemp's population is recovering. Donna Shaver has been doing a great job of keeping us all up-to-date on the recovery status of Kemp's ridley in Texas (MTN42, MTN70, MTN74, MTN75, MTN82).
March 10, 2003
Symposium Update
Online registration has closed and I am in the process of tallying the final numbers. As of now there are 349 people registered representing 73 countries. A small but diverse group. I am extremely excited about the opportunity to spend more quality time with fewer people. Countries with at least 5 people registered:
99 United States (US)
24 Australia (AU)
14 Mexico (MX)
12 India (IN)
12 Malaysia (MY)
11 Vietnam (VN)
11 Indonesia (ID)
10 Costa Rica (CR)
9 Spain (ES)
8 United Kingdom (GB)
8 Venezuela (VE)
8 Japan (JP)
7 Italy (IT)
6 Oman (OM)
5 France (FR)
5 Uruguay (UY)
5 Netherlands (NL)
5 Brazil (BR)
Of note were 35 cancellations from the US. Not sure if that's more because of the extra expense of getting there or fears related to current global events.
February 13, 2003
Top 5 Countries
Matthew asked what the top five countries were in terms of symposium registrants. I've also added the tallies from other countries in the region (I may have missed some in my cursory review and I was a bit free with the term "regional" with regard to some of the Pacific Islands).
130 United States (US) (14) 563 463
28 Australia (AU) (3) 12 11
17 Mexico (MX) 20 38
13 India (IN) 4 11
12 Costa Rica (CR) (1) 15 16
11 Malaysia (MY) 0 7
11 Indonesia (ID) 1 2
10 Vietnam (VN) 4 3
8 Japan (JP) 6 4
4 Palau (PW) 3 1
4 Bangladesh (BD) 0 12
3 Sri Lanka (LK) 0 4
1 Taiwan, Province of China (TW) 1 0
1 Samoa (WS) 0 0
1 New Zealand (NZ) 2 2
1 Korea, Republic of (KR) 1 1
1 Cambodia (KH) 0 0
1 American Samoa (AS) 0 0
The numbers in parentheses at the end indicate how many of registrants that have "unregistered". The additional numbers represent the 2002 and 2001 totals respectively.
February 12, 2003
Symposium Stats
I thought this might be a good place to post some occassional updates on how things are going for the symposium.
There are currently 374 people registered for the symposium representing 71 countries.
The amazing part is that there have been around 700 people registered at this time the last couple of years, but just about the same number of countries represented.
An interesting new issue this year is the number of cancellations. There are usually a couple each year, but there have been 21 so far this year.
A slightly disturbing stat is that only about 1/3 of the registrants have paid so far.
Let me know if there are any other numbers you would like to see.
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