Blog Writing – Summary

October 21st, 2011

These are my top ten blog entries in chronological order:

  1. How Thao Managed Learning HTML, posted on 20 July (week 1)
  2. “Oh, what am I gonna call my Internet company? All the good names are taken. Oh wait, I’ve got it! Flancrest Enterprises!”, posted on 6 August (week 3)
  3. Mmm…Memes., posted on 12 August (week 4)
  4. Bloody weird!, posted on 19 August (week 5)
  5. Fond memories of journals., posted on 29 August (midsemester break)
  6. Week 8 Lecture, posted on 13 September (week 8 )
  7. Online Lecture for Week 9 – Adrian Miles, posted on 19 September (week 9)
  8. Online Lecture for Week 11 – Hypertext Examples, posted on 2 October (week 11)
  9. Adopt-A-Blog: Doe Deere Blogazine, posted on 3 October (week 11)
  10. Etsy, posted on 14 October (week 12)

    The entries I have selected reflect my progress and engagement with this course; I particularly feel that the entry Fond memories of journals. sets the mood for my entire blog – although the course is important, all of the little fun discoveries I made along the way are as well. These discoveries included memes and quotes.

    One of my first entries, How Thao Managed Learning HTML, acted as a sort of introduction into what I know and how – however, it’s unnecessarily long-winded (it also doesn’t link anywhere, I’ve realised! Yikes). I believe that as the weeks went by, my analysis of topics improved e.g: in my Adopt-A-Blog entry (Adopt-A-Blog: Doe Deere Blogazine) where I discussed different facets of the blog. I have entries that are more stream-of-consciousness/exploratory as well as more straight to the point ones. I loved writing about things I’d learned from lectures!

    I wanted my blog to show variety, and began to use not only images I found online, but ones I’d made myself. I enjoyed relating my interests (e.g: The Simpsons, music etc) to the course material, and feel that my blending of formal and informal language has developed over the semester.

    Overall, I know my online persona has grown a lot through my blog.

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So Hypertext is finished…

October 21st, 2011

I am so thrilled with how it’s turned out!
It was a lot of fun to code, though occasionally frustrating.
In particular, I think that the use of animated GIFs and CSS rollovers have created the best effects in terms of conveying information in an interesting way.
Overall the page I’m happiest with is Wikipaedia, I think that it looks really cool and credible. I’m proud that the layout was all CSS too :) !

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Take This Lollipop

October 18th, 2011

Creeped out!

Today, my brother in law sent me the link to a website called ‘Take This Lollipop’. It describes itself as an “Interactive Live Action Facebook Connect experience”, and…well, I don’t want to spoil it, but it certainly makes you think about all of the information you inadvertently put out there using Facebook. I also thought it was a really interesting user experience; customised for the individual to ensure genuine freakiness. It’s spreading quite quickly – there are already articles on it if you Google ‘take this lollipop’. As well as this, the Facebook ‘Likes’ counter on the top left hand corner of the main page goes up every single time the page is refreshed. Pretty incredible.

Click here to access Take This Lollipop. Sorry in advance for the nightmares.

Brb, going to lock all my doors.

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Etsy

October 14th, 2011

My favourite Internet destination at the moment is online store Etsy. I think that the site does a great job of being aesthetically pleasing as well as super functional. As a sort of obsessive person (as noted in the blog post Pedantic) who likes some forms of neatness and colour schemes, I am in love with some of the things that Etsy does.

The homepage features a different assortment of items daily – ‘Handpicked items’ by an Etsy user. These items are from different sellers, but grouped based on colour/theme coordination. This is a cool way of opening up the site, allowing different sellers to gain exposure. It also presents a really appealing unity; proof that unique individuals of the Etsy community create things that can come together to form a cohesive whole.

One my favourite features of Etsy is not for exact pinpointing, the way the traditional search bar is, but is fun and full of links!

Shop By Color allows users to choose whatever colour they like, and have corresponding items appear. Absolutely anything on Etsy of that colour– posters, jewellery, clothes, soap. To add to the fun, you can even move/arrange/throw the items around!

This feature of Etsy really changed what I knew about the online shopping experience. It’s interesting, interactive and encourages wandering and discovery. :)

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CSS & centering & display

October 12th, 2011

CSS: centering things = awesome!

Am currently working on some code for our hypertext essay, making up a page that looks like a forum. Coding has been going smoothly just with the knowledge I already have, but there was this oooone annoying formatting thing I couldn’t get to work – I wanted to create a text area using CSS, and have the text aligned to the middle of the text area without using padding. That was a really confusing sentence. Errr.

The last section of the webpage linked above, called ‘Centering Vertically’, was so helpful! I went onto w3schools to find out more about display:table-cell, which has pretty much changed my life. Yep.

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Participation – The Thrilling Conclusion

October 11th, 2011

Link to my Participation category.

Link to an entry containing my most recent criteria.
(Criteria also listed below).

  1. Attending lectures and tutorials – Y
  2. Completing assignments to the best of my ability – Y
  3. Completing readings – Y
  4. Writing at least 3 or 4 blog entries per week – Y
  5. Looking at outside sources – Y
  6. Continue practicing various skills – Y

What do you think you have done well?
I think that I have worked well with my blog. My goal was to use my blog effectively as not only a tool for the course material, but as a sort of journal for anything I found interesting/inspiring from outside sources. I believe I have achieved my goal. I’ve put in a lot of effort, and my blog is a good representation of how I work, what I do and what I like. I’ve done a lot of entries and have been consistent with them.

What do you think you have learnt to do better?
I have definitely learnt a lot about blogging (using tags, categories etc), and creating/maintaining our own online identities. I’ve been trying to have variation in my blog in terms of post length, topics, language and media (e.g: images and videos). I’ve also built upon my HTML/CSS skills – there are some things that are really basic that I didn’t know about and didn’t realise…

What do you think you could have done better?
I wish that I had written about more blogs. I had a good time with the Adopt-A-Blog entry, but that was for a blog that I already knew and enjoyed. I think it would’ve been good for me to more actively seek out blogs and observe them/learn from them.
I’m always worried about not writing enough; but then I’m also worried about writing too much and going off track. Generally I think I could’ve been more concise in my blog.
I also think that I could’ve customised my blog layout, though I did just really like the cleanliness of this default one.

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Week 12 – Hypertext Essay Reflection

October 11th, 2011

What has been the easiest aspects of the hypertext essay task for you, in relation to previous skills and knowledge that you already had?
Most definitely coding and Photoshopping. I used to really love this stuff, but had to stop due to Year 12. I enjoy filling gaps in my knowledge (because I definitely don’t know everything!), remembering cool bits and pieces from the past, and…feeling useful sometimes… :)

What has been the most difficult aspects of this hypertext essay task?
Thinking of how to connect the content with the concept properly – this is the hard but rewarding part. Our parody of the web needs to fit with our research effectively, and enhance it! As well as this, there’s the eternal struggle – juggling other courses with this one. I want to sit down with the group and just make/code everything in one go, but unfortunately there are essays and other assignments all over the place!

What connections can you make between the hypertext essay task and the broader focus of the course on learning to read and write in the network, in regards to working in media/communication professions?

  • No matter what, our choices concerning the production of the hypertext essay will say something about us and the way we treat reading/writing/creating in the network. That’s not a bad thing :)
  • We get to translate our content to fit with our concept appropriately, thus working on our knowledge and skills in terms of different online ‘voices’.
  • Everything means something. In these areas (hypertext essay, Networked Media, media/communication professions in general), aesthetic qualities must be considered, purpose must be defined (what is the priority? Accessibility? Disorientation?), content must be adapted well (how long will these sentences be? What kind of audience are we aiming for?).
  • We are gaining new perspectives regarding user experience, linearity vs. non-linearity etc. Being able to see things from many points of view is important to the course and broader media/communication professions.

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Oh Captcha, you so silly.

October 9th, 2011

Awkwaaaaard!

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Throw away your troubles baby, dream a dream with me.

October 9th, 2011

~ Lazy River by Kevin Spacey, Brenda Blethyn and William Ullrich for Beyond The Sea (which deserves more than a 6.6/10 :( ♥)

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the quiet place

October 8th, 2011

Ssssshhhhhhhhh…

Click: Mmm, soothing.

For something that seems so relentlessly simple, the quiet place involves some very complex code. Hit View Source and check it out!

I think that this is really clever and is an awesome example of an experience. It has definitely inspired me, despite the fact that our hypertext essay revolves around Manovich and his ideas of density/spatial montage – aka the complete opposite! ;)

I’ll definitely be visiting it again sometime – hope you enjoyed it too! :)

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