A New Design for a New Era

Arnis Gross | 

Much has happened since the last major redesign of the Latvians Online website back in March 2004. Facebook was only one month old, Twitter wasn’t conceived until 2 years later and the mobile Web only took off when the first iPhone appeared in 2007. Today we live in an Internet world dominated by social networks and accessed by an increasing proportion of mobile devices including tablet computers. The Internet is appearing everywhere – on desktops, phones, tablets, watches, glasses and even cars. The Internet speed has also increased hundredfold.

In response to your feedback from the survey late last year we set about redesigning the website to focus on what Latvians Online does best – produce quality content on topics ranging from news, politics, language, education, music, sports, food, culture, travel, history, traditions, technology, events – in both English and Latvian. The goal was to display this content in an easy-to-use, easy-to-navigate and easy-to-search environment and that could also easily adapt to new and emerging technologies.

With the ever-changing landscape of devices, browsers, screen sizes and orientations Responsive Web Design was employed to create a flexible, fluid and adaptive website. This means that a mobile user gets a totally different user experience to someone who is sitting at the desktop or laptop computer. To see the Responsive design in action slowly shrink the browser window and watch how the page automatically rearranges the page elements moving from desktop to tablet to mobile screen sizes. Or simply open our website from your mobile device using the same Web address and enjoy the experience.

We are embracing the latest Web technologies including HTML 5, CSS3, JavaScript and AJAX which not only supports the new Responsive Web Design, but also provides a better and cleaner user interface with visual cues, animated menus and a powerful search facility. If you need to print an article, a printer-friendly version will be created for you automatically. If you want to share an article with others, click on either the Facebook or Twitter icon. If you need to search for a particular article, enter the keyword or author and the website will quickly return results from the database of over 2500 articles.

Ten years ago when more than half of the Internet connections were dialup we had to design Web pages with optimized, small-size graphics in order for the page to appear reasonably quickly in the Web browser. Now that most users are enjoying broadband Internet speeds the new design employs screen-filling high-resolution graphics that look stunning on the new Retina technology screens. Advertisers are no longer restricted to certain banner sizes and can create compelling and interactive marketing messages at just about any size.

The new content management system provides more flexibility and features to prepare us for the technologies of tomorrow. We can run the website from our iPhone or iPad, authors can directly submit their articles for approval and publishing and sections of the website can be easily adapted for either the English or Latvian languages. Using the Application Programming Interface and Web services you will be able to create your own Latvian magazine (for a great example of how this works open up @latviansonline from the Flipboard App), develop a customized iPhone or Android App or even push content to your future iWatch or in-car entertainment system.

We hope you enjoy the new-look Latvians Online website.

Survey: Have you learned to make Latvian jewelry outside Latvia?

Latvians Online | 

This survey is for all who have made Latvian jewelry at any point during their Latvian education outside Latvia.

The purpose of this survey is to collect and compile data about the influence of Latvian jewelry-making on exiled/diaspora Latvians. Your responses will become the basis for a paper we will present at the World Federation of Free Latvians Culture Fund conference “Latvia Outside Latvia: Culture, History, Emigration and National Identity” this Fall in Rīga.

We also ask you to help further by distributing this survey by sharing it in your social media and e-mail networks and to submit supplementary materials (photos, memories, etc.) by sending them to ozols3x9-andris@yahoo.com. Thank you!

Click here for the survey in English or here for the survey in Latvian.
Lilita Spuris and Andris Rūtiņš

A Latvian school class dating back to the late 1960s in Australia. Photo courtesy of an anonymous Latvian Australian.

Survey: What do you think of your Latvian schooling?

Daina Grosa | 

Did you go to Latvian school, happy to meet up with friends, eat pīrāgi and smalkmaizītes and dance the polka together? Or did you go under pressure because you wanted to play sports with your local school friends? Do you think attending school was of any benefit to you later in life? Here is your chance to express your views – anonymously – about the Latvian school system as it was set up when you attended.

A survey has been created by Daina Gross as part of a study of the attitudes of previous generations to their Latvian schooling that will be presented at a conference titled “Latvia Outside Latvia: Culture, History, Emigration and National Identity” organized by the World Federation of Free Latvians (PBLA) which will take place in Riga this October.

The purpose of the survey is to get feedback from Latvians worldwide on their time spent at Latvian school on Saturdays or Sundays back in the 1950s through to the 1990s. Insights into the views of the previous generations will provide valuable information on how to move forward and provide a better quality “Latvian” education to those hundreds of Latvian children who currently live outside Latvia and attend Latvian schools on weekends.

The survey is meant for those Latvians who lived outside Latvia during the trimda years and attended extra-curricular Latvian Saturday/Sunday school. Those who were born and raised outside Latvia, and now live in Latvia are welcome to complete the survey as well.

Survey participants are also encouraged to follow up with an interview at a later date – via email – if they feel they would like to share their views further on a particular aspect of their Latvian schooling.

Click here to complete the survey.

Thank you to all survey participants in advance – your views are valuable to the next generation of Latvians!

Daina Gross is editor of Latvians Online. An Australian-Latvian she is also a migration researcher at the University of Latvia, PhD from the University of Sussex, formerly a member of the board of the World Federation of Free Latvians, author and translator/ editor/ proofreader from Latvian into English of an eclectic mix of publications of different genres.