Hansen's is now closed for the season. We will reopen next summer.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Reduced Fall hours
After taking a little time off due to Hurricane Gustav, Hansen's has reopened with reduced hours for the Fall.
The current hours are Wednesday-Saturday from 1pm-7pm.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Online Exhibit Receiving Attention
Today an article came out in the Times-Picayune called Hansen's Sno-Blog.
Last week, the Blog of New Orleans (part of the Gambit) made a post about the website and online exhibit.
Friday, August 8, 2008
Poster session
Yesterday was the Capstone Poster session for the iSchool. We each had 90 seconds to present our project and had to make a poster to go with it. I think that the session went very well. I was really happy with how my poster turned out. After watching a few people play with the website, I have a couple of minor changes to make this weekend, which I hope will help with usability.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Online Exhibit Live
I am very excited to announce that the Sno-Bliz Online Exhibit is now live. The Online Exhibit is a a collection of Hansen's Sno-Bliz memorabilia, including photographs, signs, articles, and video.
You can also check out and comment on some of our photographs on our Flickr account and our videos on YouTube.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
So Close
I am so close to launching the Online Exhibit I can almost taste it. As of right now, all of the pages on the site look and behave the way I want them to. I just have a few technical details to work out and some text to polish.
Uploading items to the exhibit is going well. I'm figuring out some pretty cool tricks that I can do with OpenCollection.
I've also run ABBY Fine Reader 8 (an OCR program) on many of the articles and other documents and created PDFs (with mostly clean OCR) for many of them which I'm including in the Exhibit.
If all goes well, I plan to launch the Online Exhibit on Tuesday.
I also decided to simplify my cataloging. I realized that it did not make sense to separate letters from paper documents, so I folded them into the paper documents category. I've updated my Naming Schema to reflect this.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Hansen's Tee-Shirts
Hansen's Sno-Bliz Tee-Shirts are back. Printed by local tee-shirt company Dirty Cost, they feature the Hansen's logo (now with triple fleurs-des-lis flag) on a yellow background.
Can't make it to Hansen's this summer? You can buy the tee-shirts online through Dirty Coast's Online Store.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Online Exhibit Preparation Update
I have now gotten both OpenCollection and OpenCollectionAccess (a nice front end for OpenCollection) working on the site. I figured out how to add metadata elements, including Dublin Core. I also figured out lots of other things about how to organize stuff in OpenCollection, which I hope will add ease of browse and functionality to the Online Exhibit.
I also started working on changing the look of OpenCollectionAccess to what I want the Online Exhibit to look like, with some help from my friend Jesse. My friend Maggie pointed out that I need to make sure that the Online Exhibit is obviously a different place than the main site. I think that one of the ways to do this (other than my plan for a top nav and a different break in space for the nav) is to make the roll-over color for images different. The idea is that the color will be the roll over color for "Online Exhibit" on the main site and the "Main Site" link on the Online Exhibit will be blue. I'm thinking about going with a green, since so much of OCA already uses a green color and green is a good sno-ball color. So, the final product will probably look something like this (but I think the green will be darker):
I've uploaded and catalogued about 20 images so far. I even re-purposed one of the OC fields to link to a Flickr image of the object, and only show up on display if I've uploaded the image to Flickr. And I figured out how to make Flickr link back to the Online Exhibit. I'm really excited about this as I hope people will use either Flickr or email to let us know more about the pictures that we know almost nothing about.
As of right now, everything is locked up because I don't want people seeing an unfinished product. I hope to be able to launch everything in a week to a week and a half.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Main site live
I am happy to announce that the entirety of the main Hansen's Sno-Bliz website has gone live. On it you can now find hours, directions, a list of flavors, and a brief history of the snoball stand.
The Online Exhibit is not live yet, but will be coming in the next few weeks.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
OpenCollection
After almost a week of trying to figure out everything that needed to be done to start running OpenCollection on SnoBliz.com, it is finally working. Now I can get to the fun part - uploading and cataloging everything that I digitized last month and setting up the Online Exhibit to look just how I want it to. I'm really excited about this. I currently have the directory hidden, but as soon as I get it where I want it, I'll make it public.
A huge thanks to Jen and Thomas at drak.net, Seth at OpenCollection.org, and my really good friend Jesse Martinez. I couldn't have done this with out all of y'all.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Robbery at Hansen's
Hansen's was robbed last Friday at closing time. You can read details about it in the Times-Picayune article "Coldblooded character sticks up snowball stand". Everyone is fine, just a little shaken.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Sno-Bliz gets blogged
Here are some posts about Hansen's Sno-Bliz from the past two months or so:
In Praise of the Sno-Ball by Edward Branley
New Thing #86: Josiah's Own by Lauren Elizabeth
Picture Perfect...Summertime Fun by Tallulah
Southern Belly: Hansen's Sno Bliz in New Orleans by John T. Edge, posted by Ed Levine
NOLA Travelogue: Parasol’s and Hansen’s Sno-Bliz by Pontchartrain Pete
Taste of New Orleans by Thy Tran
Who Dat?! A Wedding in New Orleans… by Keri Doolittle
What A Weekend by Miss Dante'
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Scanning done
I finished scanning everything yesterday. I have the exact totals at my finger tips, but I ended up scanning on site 1 cup design, a few letters/short-stories/poems, several business documents (like business cards and gift certificates), about 70 photographs, and 5 articles from magazines or newspapers (one was 12 pages long). I also took a bunch of digital photography for the website and the fun of it. I wasn't able to take shots for a QTVR panorama because I didn't have a tripod. But I hope to be able to make one for them at some point in the future (if one doesn't get made for this project).
I finalized the main website design and am mostly done building the whole thing on a test server. I still need to get content from Ashley.
Also, I mocked up a look for the online exhibit part of the site. I like it and Ashley does too.
Friday, June 6, 2008
Two days of scanning
For some reason the scanner is tinting everything slightly red, although the amount of red tint seems to vary. I made sure that my monitor was well calibrated, but it still happens, so I'm pretty sure it's not my monitor. I'm getting good at color correcting for red.
The process generally goes like this: place photograph on scanner which already has the color bar on it (add the grey scale color bars to scanner if it is a black and white photo). From the Photoshop file menu open "Brother TWAIN", pre-scan the image, select the area to scan, wait for image to scan. Immediately save tiff version of image as preservation copy. Color correct photo using eyes and color bar, rotate image so that it is straight, crop down to just around image. Save as tiff access copy. Catalogue image as best as possible (including measurements of original photo).
I'm getting pretty fast at this. I scanned 26 photographs today (and I even took a break to have a Cream of Ice Cream snoball).
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Site design again
Version 6a
I changed the name of "archive" to "online exhibit" because FA2 pointed out that while archive is a trendy term, online exhibit is more accurate. I also decided to move the memorial page to a special page of the online exhibit, so we can easily use scanned pictures of Mary and Ernest Hansen. I also added a Contact page that will have more detailed information than what is in the footer. I decided that with these changes only one box was needed to contain them.
Furthermore, I changed the border from the little snoballs (which really wasn't working) to a rounded edged rectangular section border. I've decided that I am much happier with that than with the snoballs. I also changed the color of "Hansen's Sno-Bliz" to the same pink as the default nav color. It's subtle, but I like it.
Naming Schema for Hansen's Sno-Bliz Digitized Files
Basic naming schema
sb_xx9999_x.ext
sb = this is the code for all files to keep the set together.
xx = Two letter code to represent the original source*
9999 = number in which item was scanned. Numbering system is reset for each major type of item
x = type of digital file (preservation, access, derivative)**
*Working list of Two Letter Codes after preliminary assessment:
Code | Resource Type |
ar | Newspaper/Magazine Article |
au | Audio Recording |
cg | Collage of Photographs (scanned as one item) |
cp | Cup Image (Opaque or Transparency) | do | Paper documents (such as business cards and letters) |
dp | Digital photograph (photograph was born digital) |
ph | Photograph |
sg | Signs |
vd | Video Recording (either digitized or born digital) |
**Types of digital files
A minimum of three digital files will be created for each digitized item. The raw totally unedited file is considered the preservation file and will have a 'p' at the end of the file name. A raw slightly edited (eg., color corrected, color bars removed, straightened) version of the file is considered the access file and will have an 'a' at the end of the file name. Any further modifications to the file (eg., shrinking, change of ppi, change of size, change of file type) is considered a derivative file and will have a 'd' at the end of the file.
If an item has to be scanned in parts, then there will be a letter after each part of the preservation file. The access file should be one complete file of the full stitched together image.
If there are multiple versions of a derivative file, each version will have a letter after the code, da, db, etc. The collage of photographs, the intent is to place the whole image and then detailed images of each photo online. For this purpose, each single photo section will have a two digit number after the letter d, d01, d02, d03, etc. Numbers will move from top-to-bottom and left-to-right across the collage.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Digitizing
Now I'm in the Lab digitizing some video. Two of the videos contained the same content from the Food Network, but the other one was a home movie from the early 90s that someone took while waiting online for a snoball one day.
I still need to come up with a naming schema. I hope to figure one out before next week when I start scanning the photos at the store (good thing my color bars from Amazon.com came in yesterday).
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Prep-week update
This has been a busy first full week on this project. I spent most of it doing prep work so that once I get started, everything will run smoothly.
I have met with archivists from Loyola, Tulane, and Historic New Orleans to see if they are interested in the collection and if the collection would be a good fit. I hope to have the archivists from Loyola and HNO come look at what we have before making a recommendation to Ashley.
Ashley and I also met with a graphic designer to talk about logos, design, and branding. She's going to take a look at the website design, so I hope that she has some good suggestions for me soon.
I also spent a lot of time setting up things so that I can start really working on stuff. I helped Ashley purchase equipment both for the shop and for this project and then set it all up so that it works on both of our computers (we both use Macs, which makes everything really easy).
As part of testing some of the new equipment, I scanned my first photo for this project. This is a very young Ashley making a snoball with her grandmother Mary and father Jerry watching. The color is somewhat off. I ordered a set of color bars from Adorama.com, but they won't come in until next week. I may rescan the photo after they come in.
I am currently in the process of setting up the backend of the website. Furthermore, I started a Flickr account and a Hansen's Sno-Bliz Flickr Group, which already has a few members. I've added a widget to this blog to display random photos from the group.
I have also started thinking about metadata and file naming conventions for the online exhibit.
The next step is to start going through the collection and select fun things to digitize.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Capstone thoughts
For the online exhibit, I talked with Fac. Advisor the other day about a scope for the prototype and this is what we agreed on (all numbers are approximate:
- A variety of 50 images including (but not limited to)
- A few celebrity photos
- One or two transparencies of cup designs
- A few photos from Post-hurricanes
- Some from of the store itself
- Regular customers in the shop
- A few celebrity photos
- One or two oversized laminated collages
- 10 old newspaper articles
- A small sample of audio and visual material (amount depends on length)
- A few QuickTime VR shots (one of interior of store, maybe one of flavor bottle)
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Contacting Archives
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Nectar Cream Video
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Two more designs
Version 5a: Same breakup of nav as before, all on the left.
Version 5b: Nav on the left, second box broken up into two boxes.
After looking at both of these, I still think I like Version 4 better.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Final design?
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Environmental Scan
Snowcone stands:
- Plum Street Snoballs - not a very well done site.
- Brocatos - Really pulls in their color scheme nicely, but more about their mail-order business than the store
- Creole Creamery - Good site, wish it was centered instead of left aligned. I like that they have all the flavors listed. Address and hours at the bottom of site is nice. Also like the that the ice cream cones are aligned left and the words are aligned right, also wraps text which looks nice and is, in fact, very readable. Fun and young looking.
- Buttonwood Farm Ice Cream - Like that they have a calendar. Don't like that the side pictures take forever to load and that the navigation is not carried through from page to page. Looks more "businessy" than ice cream-ish
- Gifford's Ice Cream - Love the "old time" look for the logo and menu and site in general. Expanding menu...don't think I'll need it, but I like the way they break up the information about the business. Also have a section for press releases.
- Gray's Ice Cream - Very simple site. Map to stand.
Points to take away from all of this (and other thoughts)
- Make sure site conveys the nature of the business. Is too "businessy" right now. Make it more fun.
- Having a list of flavors is not only a good idea, it's industry standard for this type of site
- Calendar - either list constant hours somewhere or have a calendar. Look into embedding one from Google - makes it more dynamic/easy to update
- Links page or press-releases page for articles that are on the web already.
- Link to this blog?
- Change hours to hours & location and include a map (from Google maps?)
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Home page design version 3
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Archives
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Home page designs
Version 1.5a (large title and menu, delineations of space with straight black lines):
Version 1.5b (large title and menu, delineations of space with black lines, menus in a box):
Version 2.1 (small title and menu, delineations of space with straight black lines):
Version 2.2 (small title and menu, delineations of space with straight grey lines):
Version 2.3 (small title and menu, delineations of space with straight grey lines, lines are slightly thicker with a bit of shape to them):
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
First Post
I am going to be using this space to hash out ideas and give updates about the project. Hopefully, it will one day also be used to provide news about goings on at Hansen's, links to news articles about the business, interesting addtions to the archive, and the like.