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Technical Enhancements

Feb. 25, 2010

New features allow readers to interact more with FoodProcessing.com

Please accept my apologies. I've been an extremely busy web editor these days and haven't had time to write my column. Like a good little web geek, I've been busy experimenting with the latest and greatest technologies for FoodProcessing.com.

Scan this image with your smart phone to be taken to the Ingredient Supplier Wiki

As the editor for our website, it's my job to make sure you have a good web experience. Each day, I'm usually scouting out, testing or employing some enhancement to the magazine that will make for a smooth and worthwhile transition from print to web. I'm very pro-efficiency and I want to make sure each and every food processor reading these words can access our resources quickly and easily.

In the cool tools department, I think I may have found Nirvana this month. I'm excited to reveal two new tools you can use to interact with FoodProcessing.com:

Supplier Guide Wikis. You may recall that FoodProcessing.com had published web lists of the equipment and ingredient supplier guides you see in each issue of the magazine. We decided in early 2010 to kick it up a notch and have since turned those lists into wikis that can be edited by our community members. We have two supplier wikis: one for equipment (http://community.foodprocessing.com/equipment-suppliers) and one for ingredients (http://community.foodprocessing.com/ingredient-suppliers). As previously mentioned, community members – those that have registered on our site to use the interactive features – are able to edit either one or both wikis. Instructions for editing the wikis are available through a video link found on each page.

Scan this image with your smart phone to be taken to the Equipment Supplier Wiki

Scan Codes. Let's say you're reading this magazine in a break room or somewhere not near your computer. (editorial note: This column originally appeared in a print magazine. Suffice it to say, you're reading this electronically. You can still point and click at the screen however) Let's also say you have a smart phone (one that does more than just text or send and receive calls). If you have scanning software loaded on your phone, you can scan either one of the codes and instantly be taken to the wiki page you scanned. Isn't that cool? Of course, to use this enhancement you need to be using the aforementioned smart phone and you'll need to have some sort of optical scanning app available on your phone, but those are just small technicalities, right?

If you begin seeing more code boxes appearing in the magazine in the coming months, don't fret. We're testing out the scanable codes so that we can bring you the most information in the best, most efficient way possible.