Straight out of my Desire Drive

Our Website

http://raws.adc.rmit.edu.au/~s3305076/Webpage/Hello.html

Could’ve be presented better but I took a third of the content/research tasks, and still had to do all the programming and webpage design, especially linking it up and debugging.

Doing up the credits and references page now, and I’ll be able to submit it on time.

Blog Summary Post

12th January – Review of blog in its current state

This post was an attempt by me to ensure that the presentation of my blog communicated what I wanted it to, because the presentation communicates a first impression. This first impression is crucial, because it creates the context by which the audience interprets your content in.

13th January – Recall: Linear and Database Ways of Communication

This post was a post where I establish an academic authority to my writing and draw on out of course knowledge to improve the work of my assignment for the course.

23rd January – Wordle and meta data

A short post where I link an image to my blog, but I also bring in the experience I had, how I resolved it, and established a degree of knowledge of coding, by talking about how I fixed it by closing tags.

30th Jaunary – Website Ideas

A brief post explaning my creative direction for my hypertext essay.

30th January – The Importance of Saving Drafts

This blog post was probably where my posts stopped being so formal, and took on a more personal tone. It’s definitely away from the original image I had for my blog, but possibly closer to how people normally use their blogs.

31st Jaunary – About Me

I finally get started updating my blog Pages, which helps because if a user does not know a clear idea of what my blog is about, the About Me is usually the best way to get a feel of the writer. My About Me also establishes my authority in the subjects I discuss, and the Contact Me Page, allows me to be contactable for projects.

6th February – Worldometer

Whilst we have learnt about hyperlinking very early on, I am very pleased with this post. I take an in-class experience, relate it to out of class knowledge and hyperlink to use the database function of communication to bring about tangential learning to the audience.

8th February – Websites and the Internet, Private Spaces in Public Spaces

A well written piece on a current topic, with an educated view, backed by references, and more tangential learning.

10th February – Friendship and Professionalism

Written on personal experience, in regards to a professional viewpoint, mixed with a personal viewpoint. I reinforce and justify my actions, and thus, my blog becomes a method of public relations to ensure my actions are not seen in the wrong light.

11th February – LOOK!!!
Definitely out of the usual style I write in, it takes on an extremely casual tone, designed to be humorous, then segues into a academic opinion meant to be thoughtful, more in line with my usual writing style.

Participation and Self-Assessment

If I’m too take a good look at myself, I need to compartmentalize the specific areas I will assess myself in.

Participation Criteria Evaluation (Reference here)

1) Proper Online Presentation of Information

I felt that majority of my posts have followed a writing style that is professional and succinct enough to get to the point before losing a reader’s interest, but still creative enough to have personality.

2) Basic HTML Design

I think my prior knowledge of C++ programming was a huge asset. It allowed me to use a premade theme, but make specific adjustments to cater to my preferences. I don’t think I’m capable of coding in CSS right off the bat, but I have enough knowledge of it to be able to read the code, and make adjustments where I need it to be, and in a professional setting, I can easily communicate as a graphic designer or team leader to my programmer, and that is definitely an asset if I were to enter the industry.

3) Designing for Purpose

My blog isn’t overly decorated, meaning the reader’s attention is directed to the text and buttons. Wording is clear and the buttons on the left side, meant to direct users to specific key areas of interest are good. Unfortunately, due to time constraints, I was not able to develop those pages, but the design structure is there.

4) Designing for Style

My blog might be simplistic in style, but I feel that the simplicity complements it. The appearance of a blog, communicates before the audience even reads a single line of text. Int hat communication, I have, in a aesthetically pleasing way, chosen a style that is both personal without being overly casual.

5) Discipline

I could have done better here, it wasn’t as regular as I’d like.

6) Expansion in ways of presentation

I feel I have adequately experimented with different writing styles, using imagery and hyperlinking.

Preparation for the end

So, I’m sitting in my last tutorial/lab for Network Media getting ready to submit my Participation blog post and my Reflection blog post and I’m thinking about what I’ve done over the course of this semester. I hate doing things like this, because the minute I write that post, the authenticity of the blog is damaged. I’d rather not write it, but I don’t want to fail.

Websites and the Internet, Private Spaces in Public Spaces

Whilst the Internet may be considered a public space, not owned by any government, we must remember that we access the internet through websites, which are stored on servers, which have a physical location, and are thus subject to the law of the land. The first thing one must look at are the laws of the country, whether it explicitly defends or controls speech and communication. These are things that the website owners have no control of.

Next, we must look at the website’s terms and conditions. The website exists in a server that is owned by the owners, and are thus, private spaces. It is a major misconception by people that websites exist on a purely public space. As owners of the server, they set their house rules as long as it does not conflict with the laws of the country were their servers exist.

The best analogy, would be to look as the Internet as a neighborhood in a country, albeit with each country having a neighborhood called ‘Internet’. Then look at websites as privately owned houses. Some houses are more open to visitors coming in and speaking out, but in the end, we still have to play by the law and house rules, lest we get kicked out.

Extra Credits Episodes to Watch:

http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/sopa-pipa
http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/anonymous
http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/free-speech
http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/piracy

Reflection on Participation, Round 2

My goals: Here

Previous reflection: Here

1) I don’t think I’m having any trouble with the way I present my information. I think I’m just very good at writing professionally.

2) I think I’ve gotten a really good grasp of this, especially since I’ve taken charge of programming our hypertext essay website.

3) In terms of my blog’s design, I feel that it presents a professional image though I have neglected updating the pages on the sides. I should work on it.

4) I like my blog’s style, so I think this has been pretty successful, though I should note that it was not made from scratch. However, at least I’ve looked into picking a style carefully.

5) I have been so behind on updating my blog. I should have a minimum of 42 posts (including Annotated Bibliography)  but only had 38 as of the start of this week. This will be my 40th. I’ve been busy with all my projects, but I should’ve at least used my blog to post my updates on my projects.

6) Expansion in ways of presentations… I’ve definitely used more media. So I think it has been a success for me.

Wordle and meta data

II put the most recent 5 blog posts into Wordle to generate meta-data.

This is the result:

I attempted to copy the HTML coding they gave me directly, which was:

<a href="http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/4710720/Wordle_Meta"
          title="Wordle: Wordle Meta"><img
          src="http://www.wordle.net/thumb/wrdl/4710720/Wordle_Meta"
          alt="Wordle: Wordle Meta"
          style="padding:4px;border:1px solid #ddd"></a>

However, when put into the HTML coder on Wordpress, it ended up pretty garbled. Had to try closing some of the coding using ‘<’ and ‘>’ to fix it.

Reflection on Participation

With reference to this.

1) Doing it alright so far.

2) This is admittedly been rather slow for me, I might have bit off more than I can chew and now I feel behind. Gotta catch up in this area.

3) After much consideration, I think I’ll go for a more casual purpose, and use the blog has a place to throw out ideas, rather than to write proper articles.

4) I tried, but I felt it wasn’t very professional, I’ve gotten a new theme and will edit it over the following weeks.

5) Discipline-wise, I’ve been pretty regular but I recently fell sick (I’m still sick and in class by the way) so I think a little drop in the quality of my posts are excusable.

6) Yeah… Haven’t really tried putting up anything other than writing.

My first webpage

http://raws.adc.rmit.edu.au/~s3305076/Webpage/Start.html

We’ve had a hands on attempt at making links, and I’ve done my own independent research to learn how to add in a background and change font sizes ad colours.

I still need to try making lists by myself.

I still need to look into adding comments into my coding.

I need to look into my blog stats.

Images and positioning through HTML

To add images to your site, you need to add them to the server.

Through Cyberduck, if I want images to be available for use, so that I can actually use them on the blog, I go to public_html -> blog2 -> wp-content -> themes -> default -> images.

Once the image is in there, you can place your image into the blog by looking for; url(’images/Background.bmp’) in the Stylesheet in your theme editor.

The space between the quotations is where you link the file directory address of your image.

Positioning wise, you simple add commands, like ‘center’, ‘top’, ‘bottom’, and ‘background-fixed’ to position your images.