3 Web blog posts
SEMI-PERMANENT
May 18, 2009 at 4:45 am
Categories
(Computer tech, Semi-Permanent, Typography, illustrations, photoshop)
Tags
(Daniela Federici, Design, Gears of War 2, Graphic Design, Magazine, Photographer, Scott Dadich, Semi-Permanent, Six Feet Under, The Invasion, Timba Smits, Vernon Wilbert, Wired, Wooden Toy) ·
Anthony Pascoe
March 16, 2009 at 3:02 am
Category
Tags
(Anthony Pascoe, Buffy, charactures, illustrations, Sarah Michelle Gellar)
Ghost in the Machine – Awesome illustartor!!
March 27, 2009 at 12:22 am
Category
Tags
(bob dylan, ghost in the machine, illustrator, marilyn monroe, tape)
I’m going to assume that my top post was only so large due to the fact it was my assignment, and it would have been the panel looking at my work. I have had a few hits and a couple of comments for my blog, majority of people I don’t know, so that is a nice achievement. I obviously haven’t received as much traffic as a lot of other blogs, but I’m happy with that. At first, I created this blog for my Networked Media class, but now I am glad that I was subjected to such a thing. This blog will continue on with me after this class has passed me. I find myself writing for me, and not necessarilyfor my viewers, though it is nice to have people following you and the work you do an are interested in. I’m not sure as to why I haven’t been greatly followed. It could be because I’m not interested in the same things other people are, or that I’m not tagging my posts correctly. Either way, I am happy with he response I have gotten so far, and hope in the future it increases.
WORDPRESS.COM 23 views
About 16 views
SEMI-PERMANENT 9 views
CSS TYPOGRAPHY 6 views
Photoshop 4 views
Getting Excited 3 views
ABC 3D Book 3 views
Top Searches
wired, daniela federici – behind the scenes, pop out book how to, semi permanent make up+blogspot, Журнал wired
Most Active
SEMI-PERMANENT 2 views
halle berry coloured 2 views
craig-coloured 1 views
cat 1 views
charcoal image i drew last week 1 views
Busiest day: 19 — Tuesday, April 14, 2009
I chose the 3 blog posts above because I spent a lot of time and effort into them, and I have demonstrated a personal effect to the posts, along with the necessities such as linking back to the images and information you were talking about etc. I wanted something that was personal and subjective to me and the way I learn and develop my skills. I decided against choosing any of the posts written about the lectures because I couldn’t find that personal touch. As I have written about the lectures, I know I have an understanding of the topics – or at least an understanding in partial parts of the lectures.
There is so much out there on the web and the webs technology, and programs etc that I think one great post would be a very difficult thing to do, unless you were extremely knowlegable on the subject. Sometimes durig the lectures I found myself getting lost, but I would be able to pick myself up again throughout the rest of the lecture. If I didn’t understand something, I googled it, or wikkied it, and got a better understanding of what it was that I missed.
I have enjoyed the networked media production class, and am grateful I chose this class for my elective. I wanted to choose something that would hep me in the field of Graphic Design, and so far, all of the courses I have chosen have helped me in that area.
MY Maps – Sunday!
MY MAPS - SUNDAY
ABC 3D Book
I was shopping in Electric Shadows Bookshop a few weeks ago and I came across this awesome book. ABC 3D by Marion Bataille.
You Tube have a short video on the book itself, you should check it out here!
For one of my graphic design courses this semester I was working on a promotional package piece… which was something made out of paper in 3D form that a customer or consumer would be entertained by and want to keep coming back to that company. My company was Aldi, and I was focusig on strawberry recipes. I was searching Electric Shadows for some inspiration, and came across this book as I was walking out the door. I bought the book, not necesorily thinking it would be helpful to my assignment, but it was a cool book – so why not hey?
As I looked through it when I got to my car, I thought some of these pop-outsmight work with my strawberries…. there’s no harm in trying, right! And that is exactly what I did!
Here are some pics of the awesome book….
So in the end, I did draw inspiration from this spectacular book!! I used something similar to the B, creating a cake recipe where the strawberries pop out of the top of the cake when you open the card.
SEMI-PERMANENT
I went to Semi Permanent when it came to sydney this year in April and it was such an eye opening experience. There were so many inspiring people giving speeches – letting us delve into their work and understand how and why they are the people they are today.
There were a huge amount of people at this function, many of whom have different disciplines to each other – some intertwining with multiple disciplines, while others are interested in the one field.I knew a few people who went to the lectures, however if you didn’t have a mobile phone with you – good luck at finding your friends. Here is proof of only a dample example of the majority of people who attended this spectacular event.
monstrosity of people
I enjoyed both days immensely. One of my favourite speakers was the very first guest speaker… who was very nervous at first, but got so comfortable within the hour of his speech that he ended up running overtime. The genius is
Timba Smits!
Timba is a very down to earth kind of guy, wants you to be involved as much as you can – is a nitty gritty perfectionist with absolutely awesome talent! He’s not afraid to share what he is thinking, or what he has accomplished. However, he did mention that he doesn’t like showing off his work while he is still working on it – something I can completely understand. Timba is extremely dedicated to his work – infact he spent days creating his own type for his own magazine called “Wooden Toy”. The type was in the shape of branches, which took many hours to produce just one letter. I was fascinated! I had an image, however the website isn’t working at the moment, so it has discontinued below (I should have saved the image to my computer – my bad)
WoodenToy Type
Timba went through stories of how he got to where he is today – which in my opinion is very successful. He has commented on spending many long nights in front of the computer, sometimes not sleeping for days. Something inwhich takes dedication on its own, for a one time thing – let alone doing it on multiple occassions. He even went into detail telling us about the time that his studio got broken into, he showed us an image of his fridge and how all of the coke cans had dissappeared overnight, while the flvoured water still sat in exactly the same position – something which wouldn’t keep them awake to finish their deadlines. Timba tried to get us involved in his life through him telling his stories and vocalising it the way he did. He wasn’t afraid to swaer – and oddly enough, when he did swear, it was in the appropriate places and never failed to make people laugh.
All of his work is inspirational, everything down to the last page of his magazine. I purchased his recent magazine while I was at Semi=Permanent – even though I had never heard of him. His work was so inspirational that I needed to take something home with me that could inspire me with hopefully something that looked so astounding like his works.
Out of the many artists, designers, illustrators etc I found Timba one of the greatest. He would be up in the top 3, probably my second favourite, possibly first. It was a pretty close call… Everyone had so much to offer us, but I was able to link myself to Timba – understand where he was coming from – take things away from his speech that I could use in my works in the future. He taught me to take things from an image and use them in the text as a graphical element, such as the texture of someones skin, or the fabric from their clothing, and incorporate it into the type or as a backdrop or a small image on the page somewhere. The way he does it comes so naturally to him, although I believe it would have taken him years to master the knowledge he currently has today.
The other three people I really enjoyed listening to, having their wisdom shone down onto me was Daniela Federici, Vernon Wilbert, and Scott Dadich.
Daniela Federici
is a photographer who first started out in melbourne at a small newspaper firm and ended up at vogue, and within two years had moved to New York for better and much brighter things. She showed us her photographic images – whom she has worked with many famous people such as Angelina Jolie, Delta Goodrem, Anna Nicole Smith, Brad Pitt, Celine Dion, Ryan Phillipe and the list goes on and on. Such work includes these images below:
Daniela’s images are strong, her life has been so impressive, and I am thrilled, honoured and intriegued that I got the chance to listen to her speak, listen to her views, listen to her life story and how she bacme to be the person she is, the person she aspired to be!
Vernon Wilbert
also gave a very inspirational speech.
Vernon Wilbert has created the introduction to ‘Six Feet Under’ , along with the introduction to the film ‘The Invasion’.Vernon had me intrigued as soon as I heard he had worke don the fil ‘The Invasion’ because I had only watched the movie the night before. It was so strange, I have the largest movie collection at home, and i decided to watch a film that someone in the lectures had an impact on. I took it as a sign – a sign that I knew he was such an inspiration – an awesome human being!
Vernon created the commercial for “gears of war 2″. For me, this isn’t something I would generally be interested in, but somehow I found myself compelled to his story telling. What I found interesting when I got home from the lectures was that my brothers had his game – something I wouldn’t have noticed without his help… and now I am going to take much more care in what I see – for I think I was loosing out on so much with not realising the briliance of the creation of the game.
I feel sorry that I wasn’t familiar with his work, but i’ve made a pact with myself to follow his work. To open my mind up to things I wouldn’t normally look into.
Going to Semi-permanent was one of the greatest things I have done in my graphic design course, and I’m so grateful I got the chance to do so.
Scott Dadich
is the last person I’m going to talk about, and most likely will be brief.
Scott Dadich owns his own magazine also, titled ‘Wired’. It is an excellent magazine, not only focusing on design and artistic creations, but also has things involving the world and what its up to. One issue of ‘Wired’ even had the chef Martha Stewart – in which she baked a massive sized Wii cake… Scott said it tasted delicious!! hehehe
Scott has created his ouwn typeface which took hiom over a year to design. He originally created a typeface and then realised someone else had already created it. This happened to him twice. Now he has his own typeface, with a magnitude of different settings such as spaces, height, kerning etc. Something which would take a long while to do, a lot of patience, brains and good will 
All in all, I highly encourage you to go to semi permanent if you have the opportunity!! It is
AWESOME!!!
Web 2.0
Web 2.0 is the newest version of the internet, having taken on a high interest in 1996.The term was first used by Dale Dougherty and Craig Cline and shortly after became notable after the O’Reilly Media Web 2.0 conference in 2004.
Check out this website on Web 2.0!
WORDPRESS.COM
Take an existing website that includes significant user transactions. Diagram the site’s information flow, with particular attention given to user management – login, passwords and preferences. Critique the way the site handles that flow: how could it be improved? Compare the site’s approaches with alternatives used by similar sites and explore why they might have made the decisions they did.
WORDPRESS.com
I have chosen WORDPRESS.COM as the page I will be critiquing on its information flow.
WordPress.com has a lot of pages insides pages, with a lot of subheadings. All of the pages get opened in the same window, so if you need to look at a few subheadings, there aren’t a lot of windows opened at the bottom of your page. The majority of pages link back to the home page (except for the “Wordpress for ipod” page. The page doesn’t have a link back to the wordpress home page, which I found unusual.)
WordPress has a lot of information on their site, and in some cases there are a few ways to get to that information – for example: on the home page, there is a tab for Blog, and a section in the first column about the blog as well, giving you two variations of how to get to that page.
The process to sign up is very straight forward and easy to understand. It only takes a few minutes to sign up, and there is even a strength password protector – stating whether or not it would be easy to hack into your account. This is a great idea, and would make people think otherwise about the passwords they are entering.
The site has a neat flow to it, having things in categories which then in turn have sub-categories if needed. For a site that has a lot of information, it could be confusing if you were a first time viewer, but once you have been on the site for a few minutes, the feel of the site becomes familiar and distinguishable. The amount of words on the home page can be daunting – I was confused and hesitant about using this site to begin with, but that was due to the fact that I was unsure of how a blog worked. I didn’t understand that words, script, typography etc had so much meaning to this site – but now that I understand that, the site doesn’t seem wordy at all.
The layout has a clean look to it. There are three columns which are clearly labelled and have extra links to click on to enter further.
You can find information on one thing just by one quick movement of clicking the tag in the tags column.
The most popular blogs are right in front of you, so generally you might find something that interests you as soon as you log into the site.
You can bring other webpages into your blog as widgets, such as twitter.
HOME PAGE – (index page)
There are 6 tabs at the top to indicate where you might need to go.
Home, Signup, Features, Blog, Our story, Advanced
• The header has the WordPress logo and type on the left-hand side, and if you click on it, you are directly taken to the same index page, but the curser is not in the username section to encourage the viewer to either signup or sign in. • There is a search field on the right-hand side to search for blogs throughout the wordpress.com site.
• There is a border underneath the header telling you to “Express yourself. Start a blog” and “sign up now!” The “sign up now” button is clearly visible, which also gives you options to see the free features in the block surrounding the sign up button. The block tells you what wordpress entails as a free blog space, and gives you the option to sign up today on that page instead of having to go back to the home page.
• WordPress tells you how many bloggers there are, how many posts have been made, and how many words that were written today – which I found quite interesting.
• The index page is broken up into 3 columns.
First column
• Section for Username and password
• You have the option to click ‘Remember me’ if you want your username and password remembered on the computer you are on.
• ‘Lost your password?’ link.
• ‘From our blog’ – Has info from wordpress’ blog – There is also a tab at the top to get to it also, so they are making sure you look at the page.
Second column
• ‘Hawt Post’ and ‘Hot community posts’– Random blogs that are very popular.
• ‘Hot VIP posts’ –Blog of the day highlights the most popular content on wordpress.com – If you click on the arrow, you are taken to the page that has multiple posts that people have visited the most. There are subheadings on this page also –
1. Top blogs, The most popular wordpress.com blogs are ranked here according to a special formula
2. Top posts The most popular wordpress.com posts are ranked here according to a special formula
3. Growing blogs – gained the most popularity recently
4. Archives – Archives for each month on top posts, top blogs and growing blogs.
5. About. – How blog of the day works
“We count up the visitors to all public blogs and posts in a rolling 24-hour period. No personally identifiable information is stored. Several times throughout the day, we summarize all of this data in different ways to produce lists of blogs and posts that might be interesting.
BOTD does not use numbers shown on the Blog Stats page of your Dashboard. Some page views are excluded for various reasons. We use proprietary formulae to calculate the popularity of a site.”
If you click on either the ‘Hawt post’, the ‘Hot VIP Posts’ or the ‘Hot Community Posts’, you are taken to the subheadings page.”
“We count up the visitors to all public blogs and posts in a rolling 24-hour period. No personally identifiable information is stored. Several times throughout the day, we summarize all of this data in different ways to produce lists of blogs and posts that might be interesting.
BOTD does not use numbers shown on the Blog Stats page of your Dashboard. Some page views are excluded for various reasons. We use proprietary formulae to calculate the popularity of a site.”
If you click on either the ‘Hawt post’, the ‘Hot VIP Posts’ or the ‘Hot Community Posts’, you are taken to the subheadings page.”
Third column
• ‘Right Now in Tags’ – Tags that are most popular
• Buttons for ‘WordPress for iphone’ and ‘wordpress.tv – your visual guide’
‘Wordpress for iphone’ is the only iphone app that let’s you write posts, upload photos, edit pages, and manage comments on your blog from your iphone or ipod touch. This is another page with 6 tabs at the top of the page. Download, Development, Blog, Screenshots, FAQ, Forums.
1. Download – Connects to the itunes store, opens itunes on your computer.
2. Development – WordPress for iphone is an open source project, which means anyone can play a part in its development. Gives you details on the development – headings are: Source code, Getting involved, Roadmap, and credits.
3. Blog – Newest versions to be uploaded, bugs that may in the new versions – blogs that are involving the iphone and its updates.
4. Screenshots – Examples of the application of wordpress on the iphone.
5. FAQ – Frequently asked questions regarding wordpress on the iphone.
6. Forums – Forums to discuss anything to do with wordpress on the iphone. You need to be logged in to make a post.
There’s a link at the bottom on the right-hand site which takes you to the itunes site to download the application or get information – The same as in the download tab.
There is no link to get to the wordpress home page however!
‘wordpress.tv – your visual guide’ is your visual resource for all things wordpress. This is another page with 5 tabs at the top of the page. Home, WordCampTV, How-To, Blog and Contact.
1. Home – A selection of the most popular videos – Latest videos, latest wordCamp videos, and popular videos. You can scroll down to the one’s you are interested in, and can click directly on them to view it. This is a quick way to find something that you might be looking for.
2. WordCampTV – You browse by category by: Audio, Behind the scenes, highlights, interview, presentation video or slides. You can click on those categories to check out more, or you can search by entering your own information for a more specific search in the search field – by entering the location, year and type.
3. How – To – Help and tutorials for beginner and expert alike. – Again here, you can browse by category or look at the featured videos.
4. Blog – A blog by the wordpress.tv crew on what is happening now, or what might be happening in the future – basically anything they feel they need to share about the site.
5. Contact – To contact wordpress.tv if for recommending a wordpress-related video, requesting a tutorial or giving some feedback. You must include your name and email address, and website is optional.
There is a link at the bottom of all the wordpress.tv pages which you can click on if need be…
Blog at wordpress.com, Contact Us, Dev Blog.
The footer at the bottom has extra links to click on as shown below.
The home page gives you a lot of information, but it is set out so the information isn’t given to you all at once. You get the basic knowledge of what the site is about on the home page, but as you delve into the site, you learn a lot more. The sub-headings and sub-category help this process by not overpowering the viewer and giving them too much information at once.
Sign Up
FREE SIGNUP
• You need an email address to become a member of wordpress.com. You will then get your own wordpress address such as you.wordpress.com.
A selection of over 60 customizable designs ranging from professional to crazy and fun for the blog – which can be switched anytime throughout your blogging experience.
3 gigabytes of file storage
Your blog can be public to the world or private for just your friends.
Premium features completely optional
Integrated stats system – up to the minute stats on how many ppl are visiting your blog, where they are coming from and which search engines are sending ppl to your blog. Integrated stats system is also available as a “plug-in”
Continuously saves your posts so you don’t lose anything.
The tags you add to you post are sent out to the public in their tag system.
WordPress uses akismet – a spam deterrent. Blocks spammers from leaving comments on your blog.
Contact support and forum 24 hours If you already have a blog and wnt to move it over to wordpress you can import your content from Blogger, LiveJournal, Movable Type, TypePad, or an existing WordPress blog.
WordPress is in over 50 languages
You can have as many blogs as you want
Sidebar widgets for Flickr, del.icio.us, Meebo, and more. You can add “widgets” to your sidebar and rearrange them without touching any HTML code or messing up your blog. Just drag and drop the sidebar widgets around, and instantly you can have fun stuff in your sidebar. We’re adding new widgets all the time based on your feedback and requests.
An email gets sent to you email address. you have to go to your email address and click on the link to activate your account.
If the email doesn’t go through directly, (it should arrive within 30 minutes) you can fill out details. Your name, last name, and something about yourself for your viewers to read.
If you want to sign up for multiple accounts using the same email address, there is a button to do so underneath after you have logged in. You can log in the new blog just created with the original password, or you have the option to change it.
If you want to sign up using the same email address, you cannot sign up the same way you signed up for the original account because it will say that email address is being used. You must use the button underneath “Register another blog”.
To sign up
• Create a username (only letters and numbers are allowed)
• Password
• Confirm password
• Email address
• Read agreement and accept terms of service
• Choose between getting a blog or just a username.
• NEXT
• Blog domain (example.wordpress.com)
• Blog title
• Language (There are over 60 different languages to choose from)
• Privacy – click “I would like my blog to appear in search engines like Google and Technorati, and in public listings around WordPress.com.”
Logging into wordpress.com
You enter your username and password into the field on the left-hand side.
You have the option for the computer to remember you.
If you choose for the computer to remember you, when you enter in your username, your password will automatically be added, so all you have to do is click LOG IN.
Multiple blogs
• To register for another blog is easy. Once you are logged in, there is a button underneath your username – Register another blog. You click on the link, type in another username, the language you prefer to type in, and if you want the blog public or private and it is now created. You can log in with your original password.
• When you log in, your dashboard has the names of all of your blogs in it, instead of just your main blog.
Logging out of wordpress.com
• To log out, you need to be in your dashboard and the logout button is on the top right-hand side.
• You have the choice to log back into your blog on the left-hand side in the header
• You can enter yours or another’s username and password and log in
Links at the bottom
• You have the option to get a free wordpress account
• Lost your password?
• Click on the logo to go back to the index page.
Features
The features tab goes through the features of wordpress.com
PREMIUM FEATURES
• Customise css code – personal touch – $15/year using the sandbox theme to create an entire new design.
• Get your own identity – domain name example.com for $15 per year, and mapping an existing domain name is $10 per year.
• Extra storage – 5 GB for $20/year, 15 GB for $50/year or 25 GB for $90/year.
• Ad-free. Logged out viewers see ads on occasion on your blog, so if you would prefer your viewers don’t see ads, pay $30/year.
• Unlimited users – $30/year
• Gifts – spend money on your friends who have wordpress and let them spend the money on the premium advantages.
So even though wordpress.com is a free blogging site to use, there are still a few things that can catch you out in which you might have to pay for. All in all, I believe this to be a fair trade. You are getting the basic service for free, as opposed to some services, and it is optional to purchase the items stated above – whereas if you were to pay for a blogging site, you have to choose how much limit space you would like, and the bandwidth etc.
Blog
Blog is where the wordpress staff blog their information. Currently there are blogs on twitter and P2: The New Prologue. This tab isn’t the only place to find these blogs. As mentioned earlier, they are placed in the first column on the home page also, so the viewer can easily access the page.
There is also a search field in which you can search something specifically – by a blog or the archives date. There are also tags on this page as well to help you with your searches.
Support
• This tab is where you would go for knowledge on how to use the wordpress.com website. There are some popular questions on the left-hand side for easy access, otherwise you can type what you are wanting to know into the search field on the top right-hand corner.
• There are ten topics to choose from if you wanted to sort through your questions by topic.
• The topics are on the page twice, once down the right-hand side column and a larger view with sub categories in the main centre.
Our Story
Our story fills you in on WordPress.com and the functions the site entails.
Advanced
Advanced Services
We’ve got some things that might be of interest to our more advanced users:
• WordPress.com premium features — Paid upgrades for your WordPress.com blog.
• WordPress.com VIP hosting — Host your high traffic or commercial blog on the WordPress.com infrastructure.
• WordPress.org — Run your own WordPress installation (more info on WordPress.com vs WordPress.org).
• translate.wordpress.com — Help translate WordPress.com for international users.
• m.wordpress.com — Access your blog(s) from your mobile phone or PDA.
• Site stats — In the interest of transparency we share some relevant internal statistics about the site.
• WordPress.com Firehose — A real-time, XMPP based stream of newly published WordPress.com posts and comments.
When logged in and posting on your blog
• When you are logged in, your blog(s) is on the left-hand side when on the home page.
• You can upload an image as your profile image if you wish such as the black and white image below.
• Below is an example of what the dashboard might look like. There are many links on the left-hand side to help you with posting a blog, or maintaining your dashboard the way you would like.
• If you click on ‘Posts’ you are taken to a page that has all of your published posts. (If you haven’t published a post yet, there is an option to ‘Add New’.) You have the choice to edit them here if you need to.
• With blogging, there is so much you could do on your blogging site. The simple things are: Posting, adding media, linking, creating pages, commenting on people’s blogs, and polling. These are the subheadings in the dashboard. o Posting – You write text and post the text into your blog.
o Adding media – adding images or video to your blog.
o Linking – Linking text to a website or image.
o Creating pages – You can have as many pages as you like, one is automatically given to you title ‘About’.
o Comments – You can comment on other people’s blogs or they can do the same for you.
o Polling – To use polls in WordPress, you will need an account with the sister product, PollDaddy.com.
The information flow on wordpress.com
The website wordpress.com has a repetitive flow, so it is easy for the viewer to become accustomed to the site. There is a lot of information that needs to be understood before using this particular blogging service; however I believe the site has handled its information flow very well. The tabs and sub-tabs are a great idea, breaking down the information into six different categories. If you can’t find what you are looking for or have a question that needs answering, there is of course a support tab for any queries. WordPress has a lot of functions you can use to build your blog into something fantastic, and it’s a matter of using trial and error to see how the results shows up. Of course there are definitions on what can be done, but to truly achieve what you want out of your blog, you should play around with the functions and see where you get.
I think it would be extremely hard to hack into someone’s account, due to the password protector. This is a very honest thing wordpress.com has done. They want the protection of their clients as much as the clients want it.
WordPress.com uses multiple tabs in different areas on the page if they are an important link and the creators want the viewers to read them (or they are very popular, so it makes sense to have a few links to be able to get to the site). This is also very clever, and not too overpowering. It doesn’t feel like they have placed the links everywhere on the page – forcing you to go there. They usually have one in the main tabs heading, and a link in the main page also. All in all, I think the website has an easily compatible information flow, and could be understood by many.
Things that could be improved on:
Email addresses – When joining wordpress.com, it is said you can have as many blogs as you like. On the home page, after you have logged in, there is a link underneath your details ‘Register another blog’. If you want to register another blog and use the same email address, you have to sign up by clicking on this button instead of using the original way and clicking on the Sign Up button. I only found this out by trying to create another blogging account with the same email address – using the sign up field, but being denied access due to the same email as my original blog. This should be stated more clearly, as I created a new email address thinking I couldn’t create another blog with the same email address.
Main home page – Clicking on the button link to ‘Wordpress for iphone’ takes you to their page, but there is no way of getting back to the original home page of wordpress.com.
‘Wordpress.tv’ is similar, but does have a link at the bottom of the page to blog at wordpress.com. The link isn’t very noticeable. It took me a while to realise there was a way back to the wordpress.com website without having to type the site in again.
The wordpress.com button on the left-hand side which usually takes you home, is now the home button for those individual site – WordPress for iphone’ and ‘Wordpress.tv’. These sites should either open in a different window, or have a link to get back to the original home site.
Alternatives used by similar sites:
I have looked at a few other blogging sites, such as Tumblr, Livejournal, Pixelpost, Typepad and twitter.
With all of the sites, the login is the same – very basic – entering your email address or username, along with your password. However there are a few differences in the preferences that one can change for the layout of their blog.
Tumblr – The preferences on tumblr were quite simple to fit in with the elegance of the site.
• Email address
• Password
• Editor – edit posts using ‘rich text’, ‘plain text/HTML’, ‘markdown’ = choose one
• (Choose yes/no) Dashboard – show full size photos o Show notifications on dashboard
• (Choose yes/no) Twitter – configure
• Login – email address and password
o With wordpress you have an API key which is stated in your personal profile that you don’t share – it’s just like a password. This gives the site just that little bit more safety.
o Other than this, the preferences for your profile are very similar.
Pixelpost – Free signup with 20GB storage. Once you have reached the limit, you have to pay to continue using the blog. Something you don’t have to worry about when you are signed up to wordpress.com.
Livejournal – you have to pay for livejournal – a downfall compared to wordpress.
Typepad – is a paid service however doesn’t have ads. The minimum is $4.95 per month with a bandwidth of 2 GB and storage limit of 100 MB. There are different prices you can pay; the maximum is $89.95 per month with 40 GB of bandwidth and unlimited storage.
Twitter – is a different type of blogging service, only related to one question “what are you doing?” This question is restricted to 140 characters, but it is a way to keep in contact with the world – and can be a great way to get information out there!
Signing up is easy once again, which seems to be a running theme with these sites. To create an account, you enter your name, a username, a password and your email address. If the username has already been used, the site will tell you to choose another one – so it is unique. The password also has the same thing as wordpress.com where it tells you if your password is weak or strong.
WordPress and twitter have the same stages of becoming a member and addressing the world with knowledge. They both use the strength protector which is fantastic! However twitter goes one step further and uses a security tag when joining – you have to type in the words above to be able to log in. WordPress doesn’t do this.
The two sites are similar again where they can narrow down their search by what they want to look for, as in wordpress you look at tags, and in twitter you can do the same thing also.
Twitter has the same preferences when you are logged in – just the same as wordpress. Although when you type about yourself, you are only restricted 160 characters, whereas in wordpress you can can as much or as little about yourself as you would like.
Conclusion
WordPress – I actually like the way wordpress is set out, and the functions you are able to use. There aren’t any new exciting things used in different sites that wordpress doesn’t use or at least touch on. WordPress.com has done a fantastic job at keeping up with the times, entertaining the public and giving them what they want.
There are some traps that you can get into with wordpress, such as wanting to customise the layout of your layout, but then finding out you have to pay to do so. After researching other blogging sites, I find this is fair and in its right to do so. There are a few blogging sites that you have to pay for just to blog on, so it is only fair that you pay to customise your layout – it’s just a bonus that you don’t have to pay to blog.
The benefits of paying for a blog is to have no ads at the top of the page, so if that doesn’t bother you, I would suggest WordPress.com. Obviously it depends on what it is that you are looking for in a blogging site, but to me, wordpress is a very good example of a great blogging site. I think WordPress has made the decisions they have to be different (such as not having to pay to use the site), which I believe has led to their popularity. A lot of the blogging sites are very similar, but have their own character and each site differentiates what you want in a blogging site.
You have to shop around before you settle down, because each site might seem similar, but there might be one difference which will turn your head. There is a vast variety of people that use wordpress. The layout can be very decorative – which for me was my ultimate decision maker. (I was looking at tumblr due to the easiness of the design, but discovered it was a little too clean for what I wanted.)
By not having to pay to use this blogging service is a great idea, and having add-ons that people might be interested in purchasing is an even better idea. This way, the customer gets what they want to an extent, and if they want to delve deeper, they have the choice to – it’s not automatically decided for you. This is giving the customer what they want… with extras if they so need. GREAT IDEA!
All in all, I actually don’t think there is much to be changed in wordpress.com – the only improvements I would make would be to add a home page link on the iphone page.
U124204 Cassadra King Networked Media Friday 930-1130
For the assignment, I chose to delve into the first project – take an existing website and critique the information flow. I chose this assignment because it is something I have never done before, or actually never even thought of doing. I wanted to try something new and learn something different. I focused on the blogging website, wordpress.com. I thought this site might be a great site to critique, due to its many tabs and sub-tabs – there would be a lot to go through. By going through the information flow, it has helped me understand the website at a much deeper level, which will hopefully benefit my blog.
Firstly, I clicked on each tab and distinguished where the tab led to, and what the content on the page was about. This was a very lengthy process due to the amount of content on the website. By doing this, I got an understanding of the sites information flow, and how the site was put together to help viewers understand what and where things were.
While I was doing this, I was becoming accustomed to the site, and understanding how a blogging service works and the benefits of using wordpress.com.
Once I had searched through each link, I took the time to understand the functions and useability wordpress.com had to offer. I thought about why I would choose wordpress.com as a blogging site as opposed to any other site such as typepad.com, tumblr.com, twitter.com etc. To me, wordpress.com had a user-friendly system such as tumblr.com; however tumblr.com was too straight forward for what I was looking for. Then there was typepad.com which looked like a great site to use, however you had to pay to even use your initial blog, which led me back to wordpress.com. Meanwhile twitter was sitting back in the ranks, but down-falled for a blogging site as you could only use 140 characters – restricting the information you send out.
So by doing research on other blogging services, I have narrowed down to where I am comfortable at being, which was with wordpress.com. The proof is above (for me) as to why I would choose wordpress.com. Although the choice may be very different for someone else wanting a variety of other things. It all depends on what you want out of a blogging service. I was also taken by wordpress.com due to its creative illustrative design of blog themes. There is a very large range of different designs, beginning from classic and ending in funky, fun and out there!
WordPress.com’s information flow is strong and effective, and gets the point across very easily. Their login and preferences are very similar to every other blogging site – the basics of email address and password. WordPress does have the added security with the password protector; however twitter also has an added protector. I think one protector is enough though, otherwise the blogger is going to get annoyed at having to do too many things – after-all, signup is meant to be simple.
So the process I went through was pretty simple. Learn about the site and how the information flow works, and compare the site to others and discuss what improvements might need to be made. I personally don’t think wordpress.com needs to make many alterations. I only had one thought – which was to add a home page to one of the pages that doesn’t have it – in which isn’t a very large change. So, in conclusion, wordpress.com has a very beneficial information flow – easy to manoeuvre, understand and become accustomed to. They have handled the site very well, intricately placing the tabs in their desired places, and making each possible click of the mouse an effortless motion for the blogger.
Carving up the world
Carving up the world – so to say – is cutting up nature at the joints. There is no right or wrong way to carve up the world, however nature does have things that you can unambiguiously carve things out of.
There are structures to carve up the world -
Thinking
Dividing
Patterns
There are different ways of doing things… for example, each culture has distinctive ways for what they wear – men, kids, girls, boys. Some have a cultural obligation to wear certain attire, while girls would dress differently to boys due to their sex.
Another example is recipes. What makes it tasty? What makes it Thai or Chinese? They all have different attributes that makes each individual dish and culture unique to their own desire.
Music: Scales, rhythm, melodies, coices of instruments, what counts as folk music? The list just goes on and on. There is so much choice, so much you could get out of music – the choices are endless.
Interfaces: Cars, gears, steering wheel etc
All conventions do things!!
The internet does lack in things, things yo need to take account of.
The net
- comes with space and time
- Doesn’t have distance – interactivity is very different in the online space than in the physical space.
- Duplicity – A file is easy compared to the real world (physical objects.)
Limitations provide context – when you don’t have limitations, you’re decontexulasied.
Design Patterns
Patterns are the way things are designed.
- A book opens with a verticle spine
- open book
- the title is on the front cover
- The title and author are on the spine
- contents
- page numbering
- book index
Design patterns are made real!
You have to understand we have design patterns!
Design patterns have yet to emerge, but it is also great to experiment and play around with things that aren’t the normal. However, sometimes conventions are worth following!
MASHUP and API and WEB 2.0
MASHUP
“In web development, a mashup is a Web application that combines data from one or more sources into a single integrated tool. The term Mashup implies easy, fast integration, frequently done by access to open APIs and data sources to produce results that were not the original reason for producing the raw source data. An example of a mashup is the use of cartographic data from Google Maps to add location information to real estate data, thereby creating a new and distinct Web service that was not originally provided by either source. “
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mashup_(web_application_hybrid)
“Web 2.0 has brought us a flock of APIs and the wonderful new concept of a Web mashup. Thanks to apps like Google Maps, del.icio.us and Flickr, we have started to think a lot about remixing the web.
When two services are put together, it is likely that something interesting will emerge. However, not all possible combinations of services are actually useful. To bring order to the often chaotic world of Mashups, John Musser created a site called ProgrammableWeb that tracks mashups and APIs. John’s site forms the basis of much of this post. So let’s head over there to find out what the big trends are in mashups and APIs today… “
Popular Mashups
Ghost in the Machine – Awesome illustartor!!
Ghost in the Machine Series: Bob Dylan, cassette on canvas, 2009
GHOST IN THE MACHINE
has an account on Flickr, and his current set of images that I have been looking at are famous artists being illustrated from a tape deck.
“In this series I showcase a number of portraits of musicians made out of recycled cassette tape with original cassette. Also included are portraits made from old film and reels.”
‘Iri5‘ has a fantastic show of his unique work. I am extremely fascinated by his dedication to a series, and the depth he goes into in his images. He has also illustrated Marylin Monroe with a film reel, and is looking into illustrating Audrey Hepburn but is waiting to find the right reel for the illustration. Audrey Hepburn is one of my idols, so I can’t wait to see what he comes up with – but by judging his work here, I think it will be absolutely awesome!! He has however made a portrait of Audrey Hepburn made from recycled 16mm film, which is beautiful.
I think I will be following Iri5 from now on. I have had a look through his other images, and they are so interesting. He has an image of a woman with an umbrella, with the background becoming her. It is extremely effective and interesting… and something that he generally is – unique!
Woman with Umbrella, chopped
“I took those jigsaw pieces and placed them over the painting (actually a page from a used book). I put the lightest pieces over the lightest areas, and proceeded in order until I had placed the darkest pieces over the darkest parts. It took me about a week to get all the pieces cut out. I then re-assembled the painting, so you could see the basic outlines of the pieces. I ended up using about 90% of the painting, which I thought was incredible. This was my first project of this kind.”
The beauty in “Ghost in the Machine” is so inspirational. There is somuch dedication, hard work and heart and soul put into these creations.The way to tell is just by looking at his work. If you scroll through his “Ghost in a Machine” set reel on Flickr, you should most likely come to the same conclussion as myself – if not for the same reasons as me, I think you will havesome form of a reaction – which is what anyone wants in this world, right?
Here in this Van Morrison creation, Iri5 is demonstrating his unique work of networking. Iri5 has used old nespaper clippings of Van Morrisons career, and cassette tape, and the tape itself forming the outline of Morrisons body. His creative mind makes beautiful imagery that should be viewed by all eyes!
Iri5 is so inspirational. He owns his own technique… he has a lot of imagination, passion and determination. I think he’s awesome!
