Color and texture

The more I read The Principles of Beautiful Web Design, the more I like it. It seems to have a lot of information that is interesting in and of itself, not just the way it relates to web design. The chapter on color is particularly interesting. I liked learning about color psychology and the color wheels. I had heard about such things before, but didn't really understand them. (The Blogger site right here is a good example of color contrast between orange and blue, no less!) Same, with the next chapter on texture, and its discussion of shapes, patterns and light and shadow, all important things to keep in mind when designing anything.

Unfortunately, this text is still limited to what it can offer a web designer. Its content is helpful only when you start the design process, it won't show you how to begin. For that, you'll a technical manual like Creating a Web Site or Learning Web Design. I plan to keep all these texts and use them as I dabble in web design in the future.

Review

I've been looking back over the texts from the class, Creating a Website: the Missing Manual and The Principles of Beautiful Web Design to try and compare them and how they present similar material. In all, I'd say that Principles focuses more the visual elements of web design (how things look in your website), and The Missing Manual focuses on the mechanical aspects.

The first chapter in Principles, "Layout and Design", talks about how to make a web page look aesthetically pleasing by the arrangement of features on the web page. It even references the the Golden Ratio, used by painters and sculptors for centuries, to achieve this end. I thought this was a nice touch. The Missing Manual discusses some of the same things in Chapter 9, such as liquid- versus fixed width formats (or proportionate vs. fixed width, as this text puts it) and columns in web pages, but it talks more about the tags needed to adjust the height and width in tables and other technical issues.

I think this technical aspect is what makes this text somewhat hard to follow. Don't get wrong, I have learned a lot from this book, the chapter on tags was especially helpful when I was first designing my web page, but the dry content makes it difficult to stay focused on reading it.

Speaking of my web page, I'm almost finished. I've decided to add an extra page combining information about me and my commentary to my website and a footer with copyright and contact information. It shouldn't be too hard to get this done by Monday.

Endroad

Well, I've done everything I needed to for my website and it looks about the way I had envisioned it. I just need to add a commentary page before I hand it in. I don't what else, if anything I should add to it. Perhaps there will be suggestions at the meeting tonight.

I've at some of the websites on Blackboard. Some of these advanced topics I'm already familiar with from taking Instructional Media last semester, like mp3 files. I created a short commentary as an mp3 using Audacity. Flash programs I am somewhat familiar with(I have used the Flash player to play videos from the Internet), and scripts are a bit new to me. I shouldn't surprised that there are search engines that can search for both Flash and script file online, there's a site for practically everything out there now!

Participation

I've also come to realize that I may have faltered in this regard in the class. I haven't been posting to the class discussion unless I need help with something. I've never really like discussion boards, so I've been reluctant to use them even in school. I hope I don't end up getting point taken off for this.

I am beginning to think that I misunderstood the purpose of this blog as well. I was thinking I needed to blog about the progress of my web project. I didn't think to blog about the weekly assignments as well.

I have keeping up with them as much as I can. This week, for example, I visited ReadWriteWeb.com, an interesting site with all sorts of information about the world of web devices. I liked their description of the "Internet of Things", which I hadn't heard of before. It's where web apps are being applied to common objects like cars and TV.

I'll keep trying to stay abreast of the assignments in this class, though it's becoming increasingly challenging, with everything else I have to do before the semester ends.

The adventure continues

I'm now realizing just how much I still have to do on my site before I hand it in. I guess that's what'll happen if you leave something alone too long.

It's just seems to be minor things, like including the "alt" tags, copyright information, or even just proof reading my pages. However, this is all moot until I can get Dreamweaver back. My trial subscription to it expired and I am loath to buy it for a hundred dollars or more.

All this may have to wait a little longer anyway. I'll going to need most this coming week to work on my COMPS exam. I am however looking forward to the class meeting on Wednesday, it'll be nice to get some feedback on my work.

My webpage- complete?

I have finally gotten my website looking the way I want to. I have all the text, graphic, color and links that are required for the project. I think it looks pretty good for a first attempt at web design, and considering what I was trying to do with it.

I know I'm going to need to give it a once over before I present it, but I'm not sure what, if anything, else I add to it. I'll have to look over the project directions again, but for all intents and purposes, I'd say that my project is finished.

Current status

I know. I haven't been writing in this blog as much as maybe I should be. I am finding it difficult to keep working on webpage on a regular basis. I work on it a little at a time, then leave it alone for a while. I know there's nothing wrong with that, but I don't want to fall behind on it either.

The good news though is that I'm close to having it the way I had envisioned it. I just need to format the last page on it and insert the hyperlinks to my reading blogs. (I want to put them in the images on those pages, but I haven't figured out yet how to do that.) I also wonder if I can somehow embed the blogs directly into my website. I'll just have to keep trying and see what happens.

(Some) Progress

As the saying goes, inch by inch, everything's a cinch. I have finally made some good process on my website: I have successfully created and upload additional webpages to my web space! Unfortunately, it's a bittersweet victory. Though I've linked these pages to my homepage, some of the links aren't working properly. One of them, for my blog about Alice in Wonderland, shuts itself down after loading its page, and the one that leads to my Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde blog won't load at all. I've made sure that the links are all in place and that everything that needs to be uploaded is there. I can't figure out what has gone wrong, or why some links are working while others aren't. Hopefully someone from my class or Dr. Simon will be able to help me out with this problem.

On the up side again, I have started my Alice in Wonderland blog. I originally came up with this idea for a blog because I was wanting to read this book, as well as others, and this gives me an excuse to do so while continuing my studies.

I made the blog using Blogger, same as with this one. The idea is to link it to the correct page on my website somehow, though I'm wondering if there is a way to transcribe the blog post directly to the webpage.

Status

Building a webpage is harder than I thought! I've just been concentrating on my site's homepage while I try to figure out how upload my page to the web. I can't seem to upload no matter what i try, even with help from my classmates. I'll have to talk to my teacher to figure out what I'm doing wrong.

On the plus, I have started to add things to my webpage, like a title and some images, though the images aren't showing up in the preview. I'll have to work on this further. As I start learning about layout this week, hopefully I'll be able to add a background and the other pages for my blogs.

Speaking of blogs, I know need to keep at this one as well. I'll try to add two or three new entries a week, to keep a better track of my progress.

Hopefully, I'll get caught up this week.

Websites (mine and others')

I have reviewed the websites from Blackboard for this week's lesson on web statistics. This is an important function on the Internet because Internet usage figures will often influence everything else that happens online. My favorite site was the Internet Traffic Report (catchy name). Internet connection times may be the most important statistic to gather on the Internet since it almost shows the relative "health" of Internet connections around the world and shows where improvements might need to be made. I also liked that this website's information is presented in a straightforward manner that even I can understand.

As for my own web project, I have a better idea now of what I would like to do. I will do a blog of my reading activities, as I said before, but I will read more than one book over the course of the semester and keep a blog for each one simultaneously. This will give me the multiples pages for my website that I need. I still need to start designing and publishing a web page, which I haven't had time to do yet. I hope to get that done this week, I don't want to fall behind.

Web design project

Well, it's been almost a week of brainstorming, but I believe that I have a rough idea of what I would like to do for my website project for this class. It would be a combination blog and topical page about literature. I recently began my own personal program of reading classic works of the English language that I have in my peronal library, and I'll blog about my progress working through those books. I'll try to read one books each week and blog accordingly. It's just an idea so far, and I'll let you know what happens. Now, I need to find a software program and start building my webpage.

New class

Hello again. I've decided to use this same blog from Preparing Instructional Media for my new Web Design class. This class promises to expand on the subjects introduced in Instructional Media, particularly web page design. I haven't had a chance yet to really peruse the materials in this class, but as I do so, I will keep you all updated on my progess in this blog. For anyone interested in this class, though, please start here and disregard the preceding entries. Thank you.

Reflections

This course in Instructional Media has been, to quote The Lord of the Rings, a real eye-opener for me. As I’ve said elsewhere, I have been slow to really embrace the technological advances of the information age. This class allowed me to sample a wide range of online apps that I never would have sought out on my own. I have been introduced to many new, useful tools that I never even heard of before, and many that I have heard of, but wasn’t very familiar with.
The five modules that the course was divided into were simple enough to follow, especially the presentation module. I’ve used PowerPoint many times before now to create slideshows and even poster boards, so I was already pretty familiar with the program. One new feature that I discovered this time around was the ability to create hyperlinks in a presentation to materials online. This is a very useful tool to have when you want to convey information to others. It also came in great handy for my presentation. I am looking to perhaps become a children’s librarian, and I hit upon the idea of creating a tool to help middle school readers find books they might enjoy. The hyperlinks I created on the book lists in my presentation will enable children to find more information not only about those books, but also help them discover similar titles they may enjoy as well.
The communication module was a bit more complex. The 23 Things project seems a good way to introduce newcomers (such as myself) to the many and varied online applications available. Some of them, like Flickr and Youtube, are fairly well known enough that even I have used them. Others, such as NetLibrary, RSS feeds, Zoho and Del.ici.ous, I had no previous experience with and was pleasantly surprised by them. One of my favorite discoveries was the generators, places where you can just have fun by having the websites spit out random ideas for you on just about subject you can imagine. The only thing I didn’t really like in this module was having to blog about my activities. It just seemed like a hassle to think of something interesting to write every time I did something new online.
The podcast module was something very new to me. I was familiar with podcasts, but I had never really bothered to listen to any before, let alone create one myself. Once you had the software to create and convert a podcast, like Audacity, the task becomes fairly straightforward. It was obtaining the software in the first place that became challenging, since some of the links on Blackboard didn’t always work, or the software itself didn’t work. But the podcast itself was fun to record and combine with music, once I got the hang of the program. This is what did for my commentary track: I recorded my own voice speaking and ran it alongside the Brian Henke guitar piece that I had selected, to create a mood of introspection for the piece.
The publication module was also a fairly simple one, once I figured out what to do with it. Microsoft Publisher is a program not unlike PowerPoint, in that you can create information pieces in different formats on both. But Publisher is geared more toward the actual publication of items in printed form than PowerPoint is. The bookmarks that I created were meant to relate to my PowerPoint presentation about children’s books, as a means of pointing children to that presentation and then on to more information about the books described there. The book cover was more just a simple idea pertaining to a potential book that I might write one day. That was roughly how I envisioned that book might appear. I tried to make both into PDF documents, but for some reason, the book cover wouldn’t do so. I had to make it an HTML document instead.
The final module, webpage design, has been most difficult for me, mostly because by the time I got around to this one, I had little time left to figure out how to do it. Nor did I have a real clear idea about what I wanted to create a website about. I just stuck with the idea in the practice piece of creating a portfolio of my work in the other modules. Uploading these materials and publishing in all on web has been challenging at best. I’m still not sure I fully understand all the concepts introduced in this module. Hopefully I’ll learn more when I take Web Design for Libraries
In spite of all the fantastic technologies I’ve encountered throughout this course, (many of which I’m sure I’ll use again at some point) part of me is still reluctant to become a part of the online community, such as it is. One reason is that I want to keep my private life as private as I can, and that’s not easy to do online. Another is that I don’t want to become one of those people who spent more time in the virtual world than in the real world, a state that I’m afraid the whole world may be headed toward. However, as I’ve said before, if this is the direction of society going in, then we may as well embrace it, while remembering that there is a world outside of the Internet too.

23+1

It occurs to me that, in spite of all the various web apps on the list of 23 things, there's one simple one that has been overlooked: e-reading. It seems like reading e-texts have become as common as reading print. But with old and new texts continually becoming digitzed, it bears asking how much we want to read electronically.

There are already a number of sites, including online libraries, where you can read whole books entirely in electronic format. One interesting such site that I've discovered is from a publisher called Forgotten Books (www.forgottenbooks.com). It's a compilation or old, classical volumes, from many different subjects, that have been digitized for a new millenium. (Personally, I think it's ironic that classic tomes, which have been in print for so long, should become electronic.) They are also available in print from the publisher, but the e-texts themselves are free.

For an activity, browse this collection and select a title, on any topic, that you think sounds interesting and start reading it online. After a week or so, see how reading a book-length work online appeals to you and blog about your feelings.

Blog #23

Yes, I know I haven't done 23 blogs, but I have reached the end of the 23 things project, so the title is symbolic of that.

I must say that this project has opened my eyes to the possibilties of the World Wide Web. There were many online apps that I had never even heard of before, like Rollyo and LibraryThing. And other I had heard of, but didn't really understand, like Flickr and RSS feeds. My favorites are the feeds and the generator programs (especially the ones at Seventh Sanctum). The number ways to utilize these apps may truly be endless and I will continue to explore them as time allows.

There is, however, at least one website that I plan never to use: Twitter. This just strikes me as the dumbest idea ever. Why would I want to know, or even care about, what a complete stranger is doing at any given time? For that matter, why would I want to let others what I am doing? I want to keep my private life private. That's partly why I've been resistant to the online world for a while, the more we let in the online community into our lives, the more of ourselves we give back.

I also feel that the sheer amount of information on the Internet is itself overwhelming. Being inundated by so much information can make it hard to know what to think about things or to determine which sources are the most reliable. I guess I just don't want to become one of those people that are plugged in 24/7 and don't take the time to do anything else.

But, as I've said before, if this is the direction our world is going in, there's no sense in crying about it. We can embrace the cyber age if we learn to use these tools wisely, and not let them use us!

Podcasts and Netlibrary

These are the two online apps that I've looked at today. I'm already familiar with podcasts, though I've never really taken the time to listen to one. I guess I've always though they were too time-consuming to bother with. But I subscribed to a podcast from Gateworld (www.gateworld.net), a website dedicated to one of my favorite TV shows, Stargate SG-1. It was a lively broadcast, and the speakers had many interesting things to say. I may listen to more of this podcast, and maybe others, though I don't know what other kinds to look for.

I also took the time to browse Netlibrary. This could be one of the largest online libraries in the world, with 200,000 items in its collection. It functions very much like a regular library catalog, but the difference is you can download items directly from it. It has a very comprehensive collection, from classics like Sherlock Holmes and Tom Sawyer to works of philosophy to modern fiction titles. An online library like this could very much compete with a physical library, which may be what ends up happening if these continue to catch on.

Youtube

I discovered Youtube a long time ago and I use it all the time to watch videos. You can find pretty much anything on Youtube, even entire television episodes, even though this is copyright infringement and Youtube tries to delete such videos whenever they pop up. My favorite show to watch on here is Whose Line is it Anyway? I keep a dozen episodes of it in a playlist, as well as other funny clips from there.

In addition, I have favorited a number of other clips that I thought were just plain cool. The latest one is titled "the Evolution of Dance", which you can see here:

Zoho and Lulu

I was surprised to find Zoho, a free online word processor. I had thought that such programs were only available as software. Just goes to show how much I don't yet know about the online world! But Zoho works just as well as Microsoft Word and other such programs. I tried it out by writing out a blurb from my favorite author.

I also discovered Lulu, an online self-publishing service. I had known about such sites before, but this was the first one I really looked at. It has a large of books that the authors published themselves as paperback using Lulu. It's an intrguing idea for an aspiring author like myself.

Wikis

I have used Wikipedia many times before, so I was familiar with wikis when I started this activity. It's because of the fact that anyone can edit the information in a wiki that the information in such sites is often called into question. Nonetheless, wiki have become a ubiquitous tool in the online community as a means of sharing information.

Libraries especially have embraced the conpcet of wikis, whether by creating one for their own library, using them to contribute useful information about librarianship, or creating a book review wiki for users. Wikis indeed have many potential uses, provided the information they hold comes from the right people.

Technorati and Library 2.0

Technorati (clever name, that) seems to work along the same lines as Del.ici.ous, in that it provides a directory of tags, only here they're for blogs specifically, instead of entire websites. My blog is not on there, as far as I can tell, and I don't really feel a need to add it.

Library 2.0 is largely becoming an institution unto itself. Given the continual march of technology in our society, this is hardly surprising. Online tools are continuously helping libraries enhance their services for users, even to the point of creating an entire virtual environment for the exchange of information and ideas.

While this may sound like a tempting prospect, I can't help but wonder if, as we become absorbed in the virtual world, that we end up losing touch with the actual world around us. I still find simple pleasure in the act opening a book. Digital archives offer an abundance of storage space and classification functions, but it still seems cold and impersonal compared to printed materials. Maybe I'm just old-fashioned, but I will miss physical books if we end up going completely digital.

Del.ici.ous?

I hope I spelled that right. Yes, this is the newest web app I've sampled of late. It seems like a simple enough function, from what I've seen of. It's a little like a search engines, were the tags act as search terms. I haven't tried it yet myself, so I'm not sure how the actual tagging part works, but it shouldn't be that difficult, if the rest of the site is any indication.

Generators, Library Thing and Rollyo

The generators I have looked at seem designed for no purpose other than to spit out random responses when prompted. but that doesn't make them any less fun! The one I liked the most is called Seventh Sanctum (www.seventhsanctum.com), which gives out random items for science fiction and fantasy, under a variety of categories, like races, characters, magic, technology and many other things. Since I've been wanting to write science fiction and fantasy myself, this could be an invaluable tool.

Library Thing is an intriguing idea, to be able to connect with people through books. It's also a good source for keeping track of the books you've read or haven't read, for future reference.

Rollyo is also an interesting concept. To be able to put your favorite online resources together into one saves you the trouble of keeping them in your favorites. The searchroll that I put together is for science fiction and fantasy books, including Amazon.com and a couple of databases on the subject that I have come across. Not much, I know but it's the best I could do on short notice!

RSS feeds

My latest foray into the cyberworld is with RSS feeds. I registered with Bloglines.com and had it automatically subscribe me to various feeds based on my preferences. I now have about 25 different feeds about world news, movies, literature, libraries, even a few comic blogs. (This may be too many feeds to manage, perhaps I should par it down a bit.)

The more I explore this communication module, the more online features I find myself using that I never have used before. By the end of this class, I'll be as connected as everyone else in my generation!

Flickr apps

Hi. Sorry I haven't posted in a while. Sometimes it's hard to remember that I even have this blog!

Anyway, I am blogging about the different apps that have been created for Flickr, most of which seem to use a name derivative of the missing letter approach that Flickr itself uses.

Of the sites that I looked at, the most useful one, I think, is moo.com, where you can turn your Flickr photos into cards: business cards, greeting cards, etc. That's a good way to print out any pictures that you like.

The least useful site to me is Montagr, where you upload a photo, and it creates a montage of images to produce a (blurry) reproduction of the original. I'm not sure what purpose this serves, other than it's simply fun.

On a related note, I discovered another beautiful photo on Flickr titled "Dawn of Creation." Just search under that name, and it's the first result. Plus, it links you to other similar picture for your perusal. I may have to start using this site more regularly, you never know what you're going to find there!

Flickr

I finally got on Flickr today. I haven't created an account or anything, just browsing the photos, and there are a lot! You can find pictures of pretty much anything can can imagine on here; I guess you could say that Flickr does for photos what Youtube does for videos: provide an online forum for anyone to share anything.

The highlight of my perusal today was searching for images from Busch Gardens where I work, and I found this photo taken by a nature photogragher of Bolingo, the baby gorilla born at the park a few years ago, possibly there only one of him on this site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nature_shots/3211041325/

There's a lot to be found on Flickr. Happy browsing!

7 1/2 habits of lifelong learners

The 23 things list suggested blogging about the habits among the 7 1/2 habits are the easiest and the hardest for you.

I would have to say, and I imagine that many will agree with me, that the easiest habit to maintain is the last one: play. Playing is always easy and fun to do, although sometimes it can distract one from the learning that he needs to do, if you know what I mean.

The hardest habit, for me anyway, is number seven, teach/mentor others. I don't know as I have the patience or enough knowledge to be much of a teacher of anything. Maybe I'm not giving myself enough credit, I don't know.

What do you think?

First blog

Well, this is my very first online blog. I have never done this sort of thing before, therefore I really don't know what to do with it, so bear with me. I will post to this blog as I am able, though I doubt my posts will be of much interest. Comments are welcome, but please be nice about it! Thank you.