Bloggy McBlog

Yeah thanks a lot Josh, now I have Nada Surf stuck in my head. Most underrated band EVER.

But I digress.

Making my essay into a presentation for the web hasn't been all that hard. In fact, it's been rather fun! I've quite enjoyed working on my comic strips and taking photos of my friends. While each individual page takes me a hour plus to make up, it's been worth it for the results and laughs that I've recieved from my peers and classmates.

Making the actual site is fairly simple for me, as I've used Dreamweaver before. I feel bad for a lot of my classmates who have to deal with the Kean firewalls and ridiculous security settings. Seriously, it is absolutely insane. Frontpage is the worst.

The change that came in placing my essay on the web was, well, placing my actual ESSAY in the site.

I was originally planning to just have the comic strips and the photos handle my content, but I realized that trying to fit an 8+ page paper into a bunch of little voice bubbles simply was not going to work. So I added pages on in addition to the strips, so that the comic is basically a summary of what's going on in the essay.

*whew* I hope I have all my comics done by Tuesday! I still have a lot more work to do! Eek!

(note: the posting made previous to this one was saved in my "draft" folder. despite my claims to knowing exactly what i'm doing, i certainly messed up my blog! doh!)

Unfortunately I was not in class on Tuesday, but according to WebCT, we discussed visual rhetorics in relationship to web design.

When it comes to visual rhetoric involving the internet, specifically pages displayed there on, it is incredibly important for the page to look appealing and easy to navigate for the person viewing it.

For example, this little blog displays all the info on the right for the user. It's easy to find, the links are colorful and change when the user moves their mouse over them, which is appealing to the eye and, for lack of a better word, fun. While my blog is incredibly plain when it comes to visuals, I believe that is part of it's charm. It's simple and not colorful to the point where it takes away from my content.

If you take a blog like Danielle's for example, she incorporates color and images into the layout, the arrows, the pinks and magentas, and it is all balanced to allow for a comfortable read in a high spirited and pretty enviornment. Same could easily be said for Ryan's with his old paper layout.

I suppose I'm rather fortunate to have something of a backround in web design, handling my photography site and all. I hope that my skills in Dreamweaver will prove useful for further assignments involving web / text / visual rhetorics.

Rheingold delivered the biggest culture shock I've ever had in his essay Smart Mobs: The Power Of Many.

I suppose the idea of a mob being able to assemble via text messages and mobile phones isn't really all that far fetched an idea, but I never even considered the idea that it would happen! And it did! In 2001, residents of the Phillippines toppled their president's reign by communicating via text messages. Unbelievable.

I recall a few weeks ago when my friends were sending around FWDs (forwards) of messages along the lines of "don't buy gas today! let's boycott the gas industry!" and blah blah blah. I of course laughed to myself. Not just because I get to walk to school everyday (the perks of living five blocks away from campus) and not spend gasoline, but because this was such a ridiculous idea! Forwarding text messages? How could that POSSIBLY do anything?

And now I read this essay.

Wow.

Rheingold also goes on to talk about how videophones could one day allow any casual cell phone user to become their own reporter. Recording short video clips and sending them to friends, family, coworkers... showing them what's happening. Possibly catching a car accident, or God forbid a bombing, on their cell phone? I mean, I'd be the first to call someone absolutely insane for standing there and holding their phone up and recording whatever was going on, rather then trying to help out. But I guess that's just me.

It's a shame that this essay came out when it did, because now we have the technology known as Bluetooth. Something I still can't fully understand, as I don't have it, but from what my friends say, it is amazing.

I was walking around in Hoboken with one of my guy friends, and he whipped out his Bluetooth enabled cell phone, and began LOOKING FOR GIRLS on it.

I was confused. Girls?

Apparently you can look up other people using similiar technology and talk to them via text messages thanks to the Bluetooth.

I suppose this opens up a whole new way of flirting and meeting people... but isn't it extremely pathetic? I mean come on. Walk up and say hello. Chicken.

My eBay Member Profile

Figured that was the best way to start off this little blog. I've been using eBay for almost four years. It's probably my favorite thing ever, next to my iBook and nephew Jordan, both of which I'm torn between who I like more. I mean, my iBook doesn't poop, but then again, it doesn't give me high fives either.

Anyway.

In the essay "What Am I Bid", I found the concepts of social literacies to be an interesting idea, especially because I never considered it before. I've recieved one negative feedback on my eBay account and it drove me wild!

One literacy involves comments. It's amazing how a conglomerate of comments from an array of multiple users can form an image of the seller. This is easily transferable to what we experience in real life. One's opinion on a store, a person, a teacher... occasionally it can be foolishly based totally on one or two opinions. However when MANY people say the same thing, it allows a person to form a more solid opinion on the person and their dependability.

Another literacy involving the rating system, is how they use colors and symbols, specifically stars. Their rating system involves a series of stars. Different colors for different levels of high rating. 10, 25, 50, 100, and so forth get different stars, a brighter appearance, and will allow users to trust them more.

The essay seriously lacked one REALLY important issue involving eBay, which really surprised me, considering the date that the essay was written. Paypal is the MUST HAVE accessory to having an eBay account, buying and selling. It allows you to send money electronically and communicate with the people you are dealing with. It's another form of online communication, just like eBay, and just as important.

Gah, come on people! Know your stuff!

:)

An interesting discovery that my group made while checking out the architecture of both Microsoft and Mozilla's websites, was how Microsoft linked exclusively to their product and sublet companies, while Mozilla linked just about all over creation.

Let's take a look at Mozilla's Thunderbird page. Still within the Mozilla website, this page links to sites that have given Mozilla's Thunderbird software awards. These same sites of course review products from many different companies. The page even links to Forbes and PC World. A user could easily click on one of these links and find another product, but the people at Mozilla don't seem too concerned about that.

Another unique thing about Mozilla is their forums, a fantastic open place where users can discuss absolutely anything, including other products.

If we visit Microsoft's support page, which is a term we have to use loosely, it just links to various FAQs and support files. No open discussion or talks here. The website also has absolutely no links to outside companies or products.

The way I see it, Microsoft's website is like a huge clubhouse with a "no girls allowed" sign on it, and underneath it in fine print it says "or anyone else for that matter". It's a map of a very small area, completely closed out and making the viewer oblivious to the world outside of the site.

However Firefox is like a YMCA. Everyone can come in and out! Hooray! It's a party. It's a map of the world, letting you explore anywhere you want.

"Futures made of virtual insanity
Now always seem, to be governed by this love we have
For useless, twisting of our new technology
Oh now there’s no sound for we all live underground"

Anyone who can guess the name of the artist who sings this song (no cheating and using google) gets 250 Totally Awesome Points. These Totally Awesome Points (or TAPs) can be exchanged for fabulous prizes at the end of class.*

Perhaps what interested me the most about Heim's article VR 101 was concerning Immersion. And what is that? "Immersion gives the feeling of plunging into another world". I found this fascinating because despite how much I hate on Harry Potter being mindless fluff (-100 TAPs if you own the books*), I'm an avid reader of Micheal Crichton's novels, one of which is called Disclosure.

In this novel, the lead character is working for a company that is designing a large virtual reality database where the user gets immersed in a filing room, where they can search for documents and such.

... yeah, pretty lame, but it's better then Hogwerts and Bumbledorfs or whatever those things are. But I digress.

I find it pretty unbelievable how immersion can vary depending on an individual's own personal psychology. Immersion doesn't just have to take place during a virtual reality experiment with large goggles and crazy gloves that look like that old Nintendo Power Glove. I could be at home with my surround sound, blasting the latest albums from Acceptance or Gratitude, and simply get lost in the music.

However, someone else could have the complete opposite effect, and would want to turn off the music and read some Harry Potter, and thus, lose points*.

And now, it's time to work on the essay! Goodnight!


*winners may or may not recieve actual prizes. totally awesome points (tm) are a registered trademark of eric smith inc, both of which are probably not real. negative side effects from points include nausea, abdominal pain, bad breath, temporary blindness, loss of memory, and a sudden desire to listen to bette middler and/or celine dion.

When it comes to Woolley's views on the world of Cyberspace, I think my group in the chat room and the class as a whole during lecture and discussion, really nailed it. Through class discussions based on our experiences in the chat room, during lecture, and class discussion itself, we seemed to really get the point across.

However, I don't recall anyone mentioning blogging, a method of cyberspace communication that we spent a majority of the class working on. Perhaps someone did talk about it and I was simply distracted by something shiny, as I do occasionally have the attention span of a raccoon (an adorable one, I might add). Be that as it may, I'm going to bring it up. Raccoon attention span or not.

Woolley, had he written his article in current times, would have been very interested in the concept of the blog. Blogging brings a completely different interactive element to the discussion of cyberspace. While a chatroom is online and requires your immediate response, a blog you can simply read at your leisure, like a newspaper. With newspapers that are in the physical world, you can reply to articles via Letters To The Editor, but with an individual's blog, your reply is immediate. Sent straight to the person. And probably appreciated a lot more then a Letter To The Editor is.

Because let's face it. We were all pretty excited to check out our comments during and after class. It's okay, you can be honest. I know I was. Same goes for myspace comments. Ah, sweet addictive myspace.

By the way, did anyone else notice that when you use Blogger's spellcheck, it tells you that "Blogger" and "Blog" are spelled wrong?

Silly Blogger.