Google Sites: The Best Way to View BirdTrax Gadgets

My favorite way to view a collage of personal BirdTrax gadgets is using Google Sites.

To begin, go to:
sites.google.com

1. Create a new site. Simply click "create". You can fiddle around with style all you like, but I just selected "blank template". Once you finish up on that page, you should have a new website.
2. Edit your page. Click on the pencil in the upper right area of the page.
3. Add a BirdTrax gadget. In the upper left menu bar, hover over "insert" and then click on "more gadgets...". Click on "add gadget by URL" and enter the following URL:
   
   https://storage.googleapis.com/accubirder/birdtrax.xml
   
4. Customize your gadget. Type in your settings as you so desire, and when you click OK, you'll have inserted your first BirdTrax gadget into the site.

The rest of the sites.google.com features are fairly self-explanatory. You can change your privacy settings -- by default the site is public.

Here's a sample site for you to check out:

BirdTrax Demo Dashboard

Update Your BirdTrax Embed Code

If BirdTrax is embedded on your website, it may disappear on November 1 -- You need to follow the simple instructions in this post to keep it running!!!

On November 1, iGoogle will be retired. The BirdTrax gadget is hosted on an iGoogle directory, so it may no longer be available from the current URL. But no worries, BirdTrax is now hosted on Google Code, so here's what you need to do:

Update your gadget embed code. It should look something like this:

<script src="//www.gmodules.com/ig/ifr?url=http://hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/101708404408406792358/BirdTrax.xml&amp;up_latlng=42.461381%2C%20-76.50454&amp;up_radius=15&amp;up_daysBack=30&amp;up_locName=Ithaca%2C%20NY&amp;up_districtName=&amp;up_State=Hawaii&amp;up_countryCode=US&amp;up_defaultMode=area&amp;up_defaultview=sightings&amp;up_spuhs=0&amp;up_picture=1&amp;up_hideNavMenu=1&amp;up_showhide=2&amp;up_hide2=european%20starling%2C%20house%20sparrow%2C%20rock%20pigeon&amp;synd=open&amp;w=375&amp;h=450&amp;title=BirdTrax&amp;border=%23ffffff%7C3px%2C1px+solid+%23999999&amp;output=js"></script>

You need to update the script source and its URL attribute from:

//www.gmodules.com/ig/ifr?url=http://hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/101708404408406792358/BirdTrax.xml

to:

https://t5653i60o7fjia2l6tulcflglc5fn3q0-a-sites-opensocial.googleusercontent.com/gadgets/ifr?url=http://tseep.com/birdtrax.xml

If you make this simple replacement, your gadget will perform equally well (and perhaps load even faster) than before.

BirdTrax is now hosted on Google Code, a reliable and fast server which is capable of managing the steady stream of code requests from the thousands of websites which use BirdTrax.

If you are unsure how to do this, you can use the BirdTrax Website Embedder Code Generator (the output has been updated). Using the code from this tool will do the same thing as is described above, and will keep your gadget working after November 1.

I apologize for this inconvenience. Please let me know if you have any issues!

eBird Checklist Map

Yesterday I threw some code together that generates a map of all eBird checklists submitted in my area.

I haven't had time to perfect the idea yet, and I may add a few more features. In the meantime, here's how you can do this too:

Map your eBird History!

Here's an awesome new map of personal eBird checklist submissions over time from Brian Sullivan:

http://geocommons.com/maps/252746


Thanks to Jared Fischer for the idea and development work!

Here's how to do this:

BirdTrax Website Embedder

Here's a simple tool to help you embed BirdTrax on your website. Fill in the information below, then click "Get Code!" to copy the code you need to paste on your website to place the gadget. If you encounter any issues, please comment or email me.

Make your own LifeMap from your eBird Data

In about 10-20 minutes, depending on your proficiency with technology, you can put together a map showing your worldwide travel routes based on your eBird data. This is awesome for travelogues, date error detection in data cleanup, and quite frankly, it's cause for a good sense of personal satisfaction.

My eBird Record of 2 Weeks in Europe

Tutorial: Embed eBird Rarities Data on your Website

If you're a web-developer, programmer, website owner, or blogger, you may wish to embed eBird Data on your website. What are the advantages?

• Fast download time, much faster than a Google Gadget
• Flexible design, so you can customize it so it blends into your website
• You can write your code in JavaScript, an easy-to-learn and easy-to-use programming language

In this post I'll walk you through a code designed to display recent rarities in your area. All you need is a little tech-savviness, a website, and an hour or two.

Goal:
Using eBird APIs, a set of XML databases containing recent bird observations, we'll output the latest rarities in a region and give it a little formatting. In the end, your result should look something like this:

Embed Google Maps in eBird Checklist Comments!

View Checklist:  S10505942

How often haven't you bawled over a listserv post when you couldn't describe the location of the bird you saw? Finally you decided to just send everybody a set of latitude-longitude coordinates. Even then, to make sense of those numbers, your readers had to go plug them into Google Maps.

But technology is better than that. Just embed that Google Map into your eBird comment! Why not? It's easy, fast, and beautiful!

I've built an automated code generator below which spits out an image code you can copy into your eBird comments. You can now have a Google Map embedded in your checklists comments in less than 1 minute. It will look just like the checklist on the right.

Introducing BirdTrax

Finally the exciting Checklist Lists have arrived! Check it out live and embed it on your website. This BirdTrax gadget marks an important turn in the accessibility of eBird data to birding websites.
     BirdTrax is intended to overtake the old eBird Recent Sightings Gadget, though it is released separately. New in this release is the checklist functionality, and the ability to view sightings, rarities, and checklists for your county and state in addition to just the circular area surrounding a point.

Visit the BirdTrax Page for Information

So, swap your web gadgets today and take advantage of the latest features!

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Embed on Website

Photos in eBird Comments!

Today I just realized that I can incorporate HTML into my eBird comments! This enables me to format text, insert line breaks, and even display photos using references to other websites! Here is an example checklist:

http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S6827507

I used a photo I uploaded to the internet (my blog), and used the HTML tag to display it in the species comments! This is the code I typed into the comments box:

<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4E-jQYwbwPfwo0ui5h_0Mab57TeUvni0YPcLYHt8XwNpumKBgfRfB441kFN_66SElieLymMuM2MYuk7WAptDaHwdzDW1ehLHrlIcYYV9bZdKCs-k-r9yrirphtlmRoU-dYjPetltcIDL4/s400/Male+and+Female+-+2.JPG" style="width:200px;height:150px;" />

To learn how to use HTML (it's very easy), go to W3Schools HTML tutorials.

Example eBird Checklist