When visiting this website, we recommend you use the free Firefox web browser. You will also need the free Macromedia Flash Player to experience this site's interactive map and the free Apple Quicktime to view this site's film clips.

You will need the free Macromedia Flash Player to experience this site's interactive Storymap. If your story does not appear on the map right away, you may need to refresh your browser window (using the reload button in your browser's top navigation bar) or empty your browser's cache. If you are using Firefox to browse the web, you can either hold the control key and click the reload button (for PC users) or hold the command/apple, shift, and "r" keys (for Apple users). For more information about emptying your browser's cache, visit this helpful page. If your story doesn't appear on the Storymap after you've emptied your cache, this may be a result of server delays. Wait a while, and if it still doesn't appear, let us know.

Since this website is still in its early stages, you may experience technical glitches that we have not yet diagnosed. Please help us to make this site better by describing your difficulties in our contact form. If you know PHP and are interested in volunteering to build the functionality of this collaborative project, please let us know.

If you are using the free Firefox browser, formatting buttons will appear above the story form that allow you to include HTML tags for formatting text and adding media to your story. Some of the buttons work as toggles: the first time you click them, they open the tag (for example, <strong>), and the next time you click them, they close the tag (</strong>). Everything between these open and closed tags will have the formatting you desire (in this example, everything inside the tags would be bold). The buttons for "link" "image" "audio" and "video" insert a single tag with no close-tag-- they open entry boxes that ask for the URLs needed. The following table indicates the function of each quicktag button. If you are using a browser that does not support quicktag buttons, you can still enter the HTML tags by hand in order to format your story.

Quicktag Button	Meaning	HTML Inserted
b	bold	<strong>
i	italic	<em>
ul	underline	<u>
<ul>	unordered list	<ul>
<ol>	ordered list	<ol>
</li>	list item	<li>
link	link tag (if you link to another story in The Organic City, ensure that your link will work on both the main and mobile sites by stating a relevant link as the URL without http://, such as "../../author-name/story-title/")	<a href="(URL)">(link text)</a>
image	image tag, no toggle	<img src="(source of image)" alt="(alternate text)">
audio	embed mp3 audio files into your post, no toggle (more below)	[audio:(URL source of audio file)]
video	embed video into your post, including any FLV or Quicktime MOV, as well as videos hosted by YouTube and Google, no toggle (more below)	[gv data="(URL source of video file)"][/gv]
<lookup>	[link to answers.com]	NA
Close Tags	close all open tags	See notes below

The "Close all open tags" Quicktag button (labeled "Close Tags") will add all required close tags at once, and in the right order. So if you have inserted <li><em><strong><u>some text, just click "Close Tags" and you will get </u></strong></em></li>.

As described above, you can embed MP3 audio and MOV, FLV, YouTube and Google video files into your posts using the relevant quicktag buttons. In addition to embedding media using these tools, you can also make your media accessible for the mobile experience by following the instructions below.

To ensure that your MP3 audio media can be downloaded to a Pocket PC via The Organic City's mobile website, please add a direct link to your audio file's URL and state the file's size as follows:
<div style="font-size:10px"><a href="URL">Download MP3 File</a> (File Size)</div>

To ensure that your video media can be downloaded to a Pocket PC via The Organic City's mobile website, convert your video file to AVI format , add a direct link to the file's URL, and state the file's size as follows:
<div style="font-size:10px"><a href="URL">Download AVI File</a> (File Size)</div>

To ensure that your video media can be downloaded to an iPod via the Story Tour section, convert your video file to M4V format, add a direct link to the file's URL, and state the file's size as follows:
<div style="font-size:10px"><a href="URL">Download M4V File</a> (File Size)</div>

Podcasting allows users to subscribe to audio and video programs online. Podcasted media can then be experienced on iPods and other handheld media players. We are using this technology so that users can download selected story tours to their mobile devices and experience these stories while physically exploring downtown Oakland.

To download a story tour, go through the simple three-step process to select a tour in the story tours section. Next, click on the tour's "RSS" button to open the tour's "RSS feed". Select and copy the feed's URL (the website address).

Now you can go to a podcast program of your choice (such as iTunes) to subscribe to the tour's podcast and download the tour's media files to your computer. From our site, you can link directly to the Apple iTunes Store (you must have the most recent version of iTunes installed on your computer). Once iTunes is open, open the "Advanced" menu and select "Subscribe to Podcast." Then paste the URL for the tour's feed (as copied in the instructions above) to download the tour's tracks to your iTunes library. Also, be sure to print your selected tour's map.

Next, transfer the downloaded media files to your mobile media player. Audio files can be put on an mp3 player such as an Apple iPod, and video files can be put on a portable video player like a Video iPod, a Sony PSP, or even a laptop. Then, take your mobile media player and printed map with you as you explore the city.

For detailed information about using Apple's iPod, visit Apple's iPod Tutorial web page.