LET'S COMMUNICATE
Agriculture Communication Newsletter
December 2007, No. 144

Contents

Professional and Outreach Blog Hosting Now Available
Web Design Tips: Fonts and Colors
PowerPoint Design Tip #5: High Contrast Improves Legibility
Write the Right Word
Publications Update from the Distribution Center

Professional and Outreach Blog Hosting Now Available

We've received several questions about blogs and blogging recently. Here is some information to help answer some of those questions. Additional information can be found at http://miv.ext.nodak.edu:8080/wiki/. Click on the Blog Information link.

First, what is a blog? Others can do a better job of answering this question than I can, so here are a couple of pages you should see:

- http://blog.aafromaa.com/2007/12/what-is-blog.html
- http://www.commoncraft.com/blogs  (3-minute video)

What should I blog about? See:

- http://blog.johndorner.com/2007/12/do-you-blog-or-why-blog.html
- http://www.joe.org/joe/2004june/comm1.shtml

Also, see the lists of example blogs on our Blog Information page.

How do I get started?

http://connect.extension.iastate.edu/p21991326/  (30-minute eXtension video)

Where should I set up my blog? First, a couple of definitions:

*   professional blog: your primary audience is colleagues
*   outreach blog: your primary audience is customers/clients

For professional blogs, eXtension and other land-grant universities mostly use one of the Web sites that offers free blog accounts. Some universities provide space for professional blogs of their employees.

The most well-known blog sites are http://www.blogger.com/ , http://www.wordpress.com/ and http://www.livejournal.com/ .

Many outreach blogs are hosted on servers running at their university. This is probably done for the same reason that other Web sites are hosted at the university - consistency of look and feel, marketing of the university, etc.

At NDSU, Ag Communication provides blog site hosting for both professional and outreach blogs. We recommend that you use Ag Communication's blog application for outreach blogs for ease of compliance with Web policies and guidelines. You can see several 4-H blogs hosted on our blog application at http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/roller/.

Roger Egeberg, (701) 231-7382, roger.egeberg@ndsu.edu

Web Design Tips: Fonts and Colors

Back on the consistency wagon... pick one or two, and stick to them.

Fonts are tricky. You might want your information highway billboard to match the one you have on the interstate, but you can't control the user's browser settings. The only way to guarantee the font looks the way you want is to create an image of it. Reserve this option for titles and logos to create consistency with your printed materials - but use your alt tags! When it comes to the content and navigation, use a sans-serif font that is readable.

Color is information. Use it where it has meaning and is appropriate. Just keep content text simple -- black or very dark type on a white background.

David Haasser, (701) 231-8620, david.haasser@ndsu.edu

PowerPoint Design Tip #5: High Contrast Improves Legibility

Highly saturated colors provide the most contrast and the easiest reading.

*   Use dark-colored backgrounds with white text for projected visuals
*   When you have a light background, use black text for the highest contrast and easy readability.
*    Avoid using red and green together. Ten percent of the male population and 5 percent of the female population are red/green color blind and    can't easily see the difference between the two.
*   For variety, change the background color when you introduce something you haven't yet talked about.

If at all possible, test your presentation on the equipment you will be using. You may need to make adjustments for different media.

Deb Tanner, (701) 231-7891, deb.tanner@ndsu.edu , and John Grindahl, (701) 231-7898, john.grindahl@ndsu.edu

Write the Right Word

Whether you compare something to or with something else does make a difference. Use "compared to" when you intend to indicate that two or more items are similar. The speaker compared her work for women´s rights to Susan B. Anthony´s campaign for women´s suffrage. Use "compared with" when illustrating the difference between two or more things or people. North Dakota producers harvested 1.03 million acres of sunflowers in 2007, compared with 860,000 acres in 2006. Words that indicate directionality also have been giving writers trouble lately. Do not add an "s" to words such as "backward," "forward" or "toward." They drove the tractor toward the wheat field. The field day crowd moved forward to hear the speaker when the public address system quit working.

Publications Update from the Distribution Center

The following new or revised publications are now available from the Distribution Center. See http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/. Custom Farm Work Rates on N.D. Farms, 2007, by N.D. Farming Regions (EC499 Revised) by Dwight Aakre

Done in cooperation with the USDA N.D. Ag Statistics Service, NDSU Extension Service and N.D. Ag Experiment Station, this publication summarizes 2007 survey data for custom operators. It includes the number of reports, range in rates, most frequently reported rate and average rate for each operation, the data summarized for the state as a whole and by four farming regions. These rates are published as a guide for establishing rates for custom work, comparing ownership or leasing costs for custom work, and for settling accounts when two or more people swap work.

Conservation Tillage Seeding Equipment (AE1351) by John Nowatzki, Roger Ashley and Vern Hofman Conservation tillage helps minimize soil disturbance, maintain previous crop residue on or near the soil surface and reduce the number of field operations. This color publication addresses the basic criteria for effective seeders, designs and issues in conservation planting, plus features photos of emerging crops and equipment used in this tillage process.

Grasses for the Northern Plains: Growth Patterns, Forage Characteristics and Wildlife Values Volume 1 - Cool-season (R1323) by Kevin Sedivec, Dwight Tober, Wayne Duckwitz, David Dewald and Jeffrey Printz Done in cooperation with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, this 89-page color book is a guide to help with proper selection of species and variety when choosing grass seeding mixture. It summarizes growth patterns; forage characteristics, including nutritional value and herbage production; plant performance characteristics, including seedling and plant vigor, weed competition, stand density, stand rating, plant height, disease and seed production, and much more.

Manure Sampling for Nutrient Management Planning (NM1259 Reprinted) by Ron Wiederholt and Teresa Dvorak Manure nutrient values depend on many factors, including animal type, size, diet, bedding, weather, and manure handling and storage systems. This publication addresses the "how to's" in sampling.

These annual updates are now available:

*   2008 North Dakota Field Crop Fungicide Guide (PP622)
*   2007 Canola Variety Trials (A1124)
*   N.D. Soybean Performance Testing 2007 (A843)
*   N.D. Hybrid Corn Performance Results 2007 (A793)

Sharon Lane, (701) 231-7883, sharon.lane@ndsu.edu

Let's Communicate
Past issues and topics from Let's Communicate are at www.ag.ndsu.edu/agcomm/letscomm/letscomm.htm. If you have questions or comments, or would like to submit information or make a suggestion for Let's Communicate, please contact me.

LET'S COMMUNICATE

If you have questions or comments, or would like to submit information or make a suggestion, contact:

Agriculture Communication
Attn: Becky Koch
7 Morrill Hall
Phone: 231-7875
FAX: 231-7044
e-mail: bkoch@ndsuext.nodak.edu

Go to Let's Communicate Index