Boy am I sick of social networking sites. I thought going away to college provided me with the opportunity to leave all the people from my hometown behind and start to meet some new and interesting people instead. Now, in this age of social networking, not only can I not escape these douchbags, but they know everything about me! They know where I went last night, because some dumb broad snapped 1000 pictures and posted them already. They know who I'm talking to, the inside jokes that I have with my REAL friends, and everything else in between. A huge part of me wants to rid myself of Facebook and all of the other online bullshit that's a complete invasion of my privacy. But I can't do it. Why? Because it's an enormous part of society. No Facebook is comparable to no cell phone, no debit card, no driver's license... NO IDENTITY. So that's out of question.
But getting to the article here, I liked how they broke everything down. Every definition and explanation they gave was extremely detailed, and although it became tough to decipher everything with one read-through, when you picked out key sentences and read them over again, there was some great information there. I even learned a bunch of SNSs (ooh, how trendy) I'd never even heard of before. When you take a look at the history of it all (mostly from the Mainstream MySpace section to the part about the emergence of Facebook), it's extremely interesting at how this whole phenomenon caught fire. These networks caught on so fast that it's difficult to document off the top of your head all the changes that took place. Facebook went from uppity Harvard pricks to college students to high school kids to now my freakin mom and all her sisters stalk all my pictures. How awesome is it when your Mom knows that you're going on a drunken bus trip to Providence before you're even sure you are? Good joke, it sucks. Thanks pop culture.
My only question: What's next? The landscape of these social networking sites is so fast-changing that it's tough to say. As they say in the 'Future Research' section, the discussion is ongoing and extremely difficult to quantify. All I know is that eventually it's going to get to a point where I'm gonna lose my mind. When I kick the addiction, I'll let you know.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Issues & Causes
I'm not your typical kid when it comes to opinions, viewpoints, etc. By reading some of my comments and blog posts, you may have noticed that by now. Either way, when it comes to listing issues that concern me, just know that these probably aren't going to be common answers. A lot of 'popular' causes that pop up (abortion, animal rights, Liberals vs. Republicans), in my opinion, are just ways for people to bitch about nothing. Some people live in a fantasy world, and when you hear them talk about these 'causes', it's quite evident. Did Michael Vick deserve two years in prison? I sure don't think so. But doggies are so cute!
This is not meant to undermine or disparage the upcoming project (I actually think it's gonna be fun to do), it's just my two cents on these common activist causes. So without further ado, my picks:
1.) Fatherless Homes -- Do you know how much more likely it is that a kid (boys mostly) will grow up to be a fuck up if his dad is not a part of his life? I've seen so many examples of this, and it bothers the hell out of me.
2.) Reverse Racism -- Due to the fact that white people are continuously playing catch-up with black people, some of the ways blacks blatantly discriminate against US go completely unnoticed. Trust me, I played high school basketball in northern New Jersey for 4 years -- you should hear some of the things East Orange fans would say to us when we walked into their gym. But hey, slavery/civil rights/Rodney King/affirmative action gives them the right! Yeah right, what the fuck did I have to do with any of that?
3.) Corruption -- The rich fucking people over to get that much richer. Bernie Madoff. Enron. Local governments. Judges with lifetime tenure. The whole thing is just sleazy, incredibly unethical, and it'll never stop.
4.) Age Discrimination -- Prime example: The town of Narragansett, Rhode Island. Not only do 19-22 year olds keep the entire town's economy afloat during the fall and winter months, but they feel the need to create bogus laws to squeeze every remaining dime out of us that they can. And what are we gonna do about it? Nothing, because I'm 21. So that gives them the right to fuck me over. Makes perfect sense.
5.) Unemployment -- Everybody should have the opportunity to earn a living and support themselves. Not everyone has the drive to sustain it, but they should at least be given a chance. Hey Rhode Island, if your unemployment rate is so high, why don't you start turning some of your gas stations into full service? I know Steve my alcoholic neighbor wouldn't mind pumping gas all day for $9 an hour.
This is not meant to undermine or disparage the upcoming project (I actually think it's gonna be fun to do), it's just my two cents on these common activist causes. So without further ado, my picks:
1.) Fatherless Homes -- Do you know how much more likely it is that a kid (boys mostly) will grow up to be a fuck up if his dad is not a part of his life? I've seen so many examples of this, and it bothers the hell out of me.
2.) Reverse Racism -- Due to the fact that white people are continuously playing catch-up with black people, some of the ways blacks blatantly discriminate against US go completely unnoticed. Trust me, I played high school basketball in northern New Jersey for 4 years -- you should hear some of the things East Orange fans would say to us when we walked into their gym. But hey, slavery/civil rights/Rodney King/affirmative action gives them the right! Yeah right, what the fuck did I have to do with any of that?
3.) Corruption -- The rich fucking people over to get that much richer. Bernie Madoff. Enron. Local governments. Judges with lifetime tenure. The whole thing is just sleazy, incredibly unethical, and it'll never stop.
4.) Age Discrimination -- Prime example: The town of Narragansett, Rhode Island. Not only do 19-22 year olds keep the entire town's economy afloat during the fall and winter months, but they feel the need to create bogus laws to squeeze every remaining dime out of us that they can. And what are we gonna do about it? Nothing, because I'm 21. So that gives them the right to fuck me over. Makes perfect sense.
5.) Unemployment -- Everybody should have the opportunity to earn a living and support themselves. Not everyone has the drive to sustain it, but they should at least be given a chance. Hey Rhode Island, if your unemployment rate is so high, why don't you start turning some of your gas stations into full service? I know Steve my alcoholic neighbor wouldn't mind pumping gas all day for $9 an hour.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
I Learned Something Today
So the project's done. The URI Surf Club website has been dissected, criticized, trashed and brought back to life in a matter of two weeks. It was a long and trying journey. Students who had never met one another had to come together on a number of ideas and work to achieve the goal of a more improved website. So what's the moral of the story here?
It ain't that hard to make a good website.
I think what we've learned here is that effective site-making, while there is a lot of technicality to it that takes a hell of a long time to learn, is theoretically simple. You need varying sizes of text to effectively emphasize things. You need your color scheme to be aesthetically pleasing and clear. You need a menu that's easy to find and access. And you need to simplify your organizational hierarchy as much as you can. Images, videos, anything else that enhances the site -- that all depends on the subject and the creator. It varies. We're not talking about being spectacular. We're talking about being EFFECTIVE. And sticking to those main points will most likely assure that a site will come off as effective.
Now if the URI Surf Club is halfway intelligent, they'd take a few pointers from our project. But based on their current website design, and the fact that they're surfers, they probably won't do anything to improve it. Goddamn kids...
It ain't that hard to make a good website.
I think what we've learned here is that effective site-making, while there is a lot of technicality to it that takes a hell of a long time to learn, is theoretically simple. You need varying sizes of text to effectively emphasize things. You need your color scheme to be aesthetically pleasing and clear. You need a menu that's easy to find and access. And you need to simplify your organizational hierarchy as much as you can. Images, videos, anything else that enhances the site -- that all depends on the subject and the creator. It varies. We're not talking about being spectacular. We're talking about being EFFECTIVE. And sticking to those main points will most likely assure that a site will come off as effective.
Now if the URI Surf Club is halfway intelligent, they'd take a few pointers from our project. But based on their current website design, and the fact that they're surfers, they probably won't do anything to improve it. Goddamn kids...
Jazzin' Up a Site Map
So back when it was a class assignment to do your own site map, I took a glance at what everybody had brought in -- just to compare them to mine, see if I'd done the right thing, ya know. And much to my surprise, my shitty little sketch with arrows and scribbles everywhere turned out to be pretty nice by comparison. Everyone's looked a little sloppy, to be frank. So once I was assigned to do that for my group, I immediately decided that I was going to have to differentiate mine from the chicken scratch that everyone else was probably gonna hand in.
When I was a senior in high school, I dropped my 1st period advanced biology class so that I could take freshmen word processing instead. Why? Cuz fuck it, that's why. I wasn't gonna waste my time studying about cells and plants during my last year of HS when I could just smoke pot before school and race a bunch of 14 year olds in WPM every morning. I even convinced my two best friends to switch in with me. It was awesome -- we must have looked like such scumbags, but we ran that class.
But the point of this story is that I actually benefited greatly from taking word processing as a senior. I learned so many different little tools and tricks for Microsoft Word that I've been using all the time in college. I'm a friggin master when it comes to Word. I can format that shit like no other. So when it comes to drawing and putting symbols and creating something like a site map on the computer, it really comes easy to me. It looks SO much neater and more professional. Anytime a situation presents itself in which I can gain a leg up by using all the different Word features to impress a teacher, I jump on it. This was one of those situations.
When I was a senior in high school, I dropped my 1st period advanced biology class so that I could take freshmen word processing instead. Why? Cuz fuck it, that's why. I wasn't gonna waste my time studying about cells and plants during my last year of HS when I could just smoke pot before school and race a bunch of 14 year olds in WPM every morning. I even convinced my two best friends to switch in with me. It was awesome -- we must have looked like such scumbags, but we ran that class.
But the point of this story is that I actually benefited greatly from taking word processing as a senior. I learned so many different little tools and tricks for Microsoft Word that I've been using all the time in college. I'm a friggin master when it comes to Word. I can format that shit like no other. So when it comes to drawing and putting symbols and creating something like a site map on the computer, it really comes easy to me. It looks SO much neater and more professional. Anytime a situation presents itself in which I can gain a leg up by using all the different Word features to impress a teacher, I jump on it. This was one of those situations.
The Dynamics of a Group Project
So for our website redesign project, my group decided to completely split our tasks up (definitely the right decision). Everybody is responsible for their own thing, and based on my perception of my fellow group members' competencies, I'm not worried about a thing. Since this is approximately my 547th group project of the semester, I've grown accustomed to distrusting these random johns that I'm forced to work with. Maybe it's because I'm in the business school, where being a lazy piece of shit is apparently a requirement for admission. But in this case, I got paired up with some people that are really on the ball. Becca and Christine have really done a fabulous job with doing the major site redesign -- we collaborated on a plan, they communicated it, and they executed it very well. Matt talked about his skills in persuasive writing, and based on the proposal memo he brought into class on Wednesday, my man was right on about that. He did a great job. As for me? Well, since I was apparently able to grasp the concept of a site map, that became my responsibility. The feedback was good on what I prepared for Wednesday's peer review, so I'm gonna keep rolling with it. I trust that when our project is complete and handed in by Monday, it'll meet all the requirements and turn into a good grade. I just feel fortunate that this process of group work was tremendously less painful than most of my experiences. Was it the luck of the draw with my partners? Was it Sakai? Was it the layout of the project? Don't know, and quite frankly, don't care. As long as everyone has the same goal and can produce, it works out for everyone in the end.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Palmquist Talkin Websites, Woo!
This article was a very structured and very detailed overview of all that a website actually constitutes. I don't think they missed a beat here. The article was very well organized and easy to view -- which I liked, because in this case, they practiced what they preached. The author had said to do the same thing with your website.
I thought the section about navigation tools was particularly interesting and applicable. This is something that I as a website viewer don't often consciously notice, but when it's brought up, I realize that some of my favorite websites really suck at that. I'm all about side menus and quick links, and this article stresses the importance of those, which I like. Out of the organizations they talked about, I'm more a fan of the interlinked organization than the hierarchical organization, because I'd prefer one click and I'm there, rather than having to get into the right category to find the page I want.
I also love the design checklist at the end. I think it covers all the necessary bases for how a website should look, and I definitely plan on consulting that a number of times in this upcoming project.
I couldn't write an entire analysis without complaining though, so here's my only beef... I don't know when this article was written, and although it doesn't show too many signs of age, some of this information might be a little outdated in this current web landscape. Basically, with the emergence of blogs, social networks, streaming digital media, and all of the other crazy shit that's booming online these days, it's hard to apply each and every one of these guidelines today. I mean, who cites their sources nowadays? Is it really necessary to have contact information? Those are the negatives that stood out to me.
Moving on, I went through my bookmarks and found a couple of sites that are relevant to this discussion. A site that I think does an awesome job of navigation, design, organization, etc. is the almighty ESPN.com... There's a detailed, interactive menu on each page. There are links everywhere that point you to relevant information. Graphics, fonts, titles, subheadings -- all of that stuff stands out and is aesthetically pleasing. I know they are a mega website and a mega company with tons of employees maintaining that thing around the clock, but they do a damn good job.
A site that needs work is a smaller one that I frequent. It's a website about hip-hop that has sponsored links and a pretty large following. I wouldn't say it's a blog, though some people would. It's actually just a list full of links for users to illegally download songs. http://www.hotnewhiphop.com has a no nonsense title -- you know exactly what you're getting. But there is no menu, there are randomly placed graphics everywhere, the fonts are bland and small, and with so much content on one page, it's really difficult for certain things to stand out. This dipshit puts "HOTTTT" next to like 5 of the songs he posted every day, and most of them are far from "HOTTTT" -- in fact, they blow. I mean, the least he could do would be to archive his posts somehow. Maybe categorize the songs a little. Make the titles stand out. I don't know, something! With a domain name like that and ready access to free songs, his site definitely has a lot of potential, but that completely inadequate design just holds the whole thing back.
I thought the section about navigation tools was particularly interesting and applicable. This is something that I as a website viewer don't often consciously notice, but when it's brought up, I realize that some of my favorite websites really suck at that. I'm all about side menus and quick links, and this article stresses the importance of those, which I like. Out of the organizations they talked about, I'm more a fan of the interlinked organization than the hierarchical organization, because I'd prefer one click and I'm there, rather than having to get into the right category to find the page I want.
I also love the design checklist at the end. I think it covers all the necessary bases for how a website should look, and I definitely plan on consulting that a number of times in this upcoming project.
I couldn't write an entire analysis without complaining though, so here's my only beef... I don't know when this article was written, and although it doesn't show too many signs of age, some of this information might be a little outdated in this current web landscape. Basically, with the emergence of blogs, social networks, streaming digital media, and all of the other crazy shit that's booming online these days, it's hard to apply each and every one of these guidelines today. I mean, who cites their sources nowadays? Is it really necessary to have contact information? Those are the negatives that stood out to me.
Moving on, I went through my bookmarks and found a couple of sites that are relevant to this discussion. A site that I think does an awesome job of navigation, design, organization, etc. is the almighty ESPN.com... There's a detailed, interactive menu on each page. There are links everywhere that point you to relevant information. Graphics, fonts, titles, subheadings -- all of that stuff stands out and is aesthetically pleasing. I know they are a mega website and a mega company with tons of employees maintaining that thing around the clock, but they do a damn good job.
A site that needs work is a smaller one that I frequent. It's a website about hip-hop that has sponsored links and a pretty large following. I wouldn't say it's a blog, though some people would. It's actually just a list full of links for users to illegally download songs. http://www.hotnewhiphop.com has a no nonsense title -- you know exactly what you're getting. But there is no menu, there are randomly placed graphics everywhere, the fonts are bland and small, and with so much content on one page, it's really difficult for certain things to stand out. This dipshit puts "HOTTTT" next to like 5 of the songs he posted every day, and most of them are far from "HOTTTT" -- in fact, they blow. I mean, the least he could do would be to archive his posts somehow. Maybe categorize the songs a little. Make the titles stand out. I don't know, something! With a domain name like that and ready access to free songs, his site definitely has a lot of potential, but that completely inadequate design just holds the whole thing back.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
My Final Thoughts
I am just completely up in the air about the project I just submitted. I have no idea if I did the right thing. I'm not even sure as to what the fine details of the actual project were. All I know is that I used plenty of resources, tried to figure out the right directions, and put my best effort forward to describe my hometown to this site. I think it's a really good description, but the question lingers... is it what I was supposed to do?
A couple of things bother me about my article. First off, I wanted to add some pictures, because any article (about a small town especially) is really bland without those. Let's face it. Problem is, I could not FOR THE LIFE OF ME figure out how to successfully embed an image into the text. They even had a button at the top of the text box called 'embed image' and I still couldn't get it to work. I'm definitely pissed about that. It takes away from my article tremendously.
I got one peer review, and it was just a snotty, bitchy take on my article that was 10% done at the time. So that was of no help. I just felt rushed by this whole project in general. I'm not trying to complain, because everybody is in the same boat here, but I just felt like the directions were a bit unclear, and I really had no opportunity to seek help once I got to working. Should I have started editing and identified my problems earlier? Most definitely. But that's not how I do things. It's not what works for me. I didn't have the chance to put my full focus into this project until just this weekend due to other academic conflicts that had more pressing deadlines.
So with all of those whiny excuses out of the way, my final take on this project was that it was a shot in the dark. I did put a good amount of effort into it, but I felt like I was doing it blindly. And that could come back to cost me in the end, but hopefully not too harshly.
A couple of things bother me about my article. First off, I wanted to add some pictures, because any article (about a small town especially) is really bland without those. Let's face it. Problem is, I could not FOR THE LIFE OF ME figure out how to successfully embed an image into the text. They even had a button at the top of the text box called 'embed image' and I still couldn't get it to work. I'm definitely pissed about that. It takes away from my article tremendously.
I got one peer review, and it was just a snotty, bitchy take on my article that was 10% done at the time. So that was of no help. I just felt rushed by this whole project in general. I'm not trying to complain, because everybody is in the same boat here, but I just felt like the directions were a bit unclear, and I really had no opportunity to seek help once I got to working. Should I have started editing and identified my problems earlier? Most definitely. But that's not how I do things. It's not what works for me. I didn't have the chance to put my full focus into this project until just this weekend due to other academic conflicts that had more pressing deadlines.
So with all of those whiny excuses out of the way, my final take on this project was that it was a shot in the dark. I did put a good amount of effort into it, but I felt like I was doing it blindly. And that could come back to cost me in the end, but hopefully not too harshly.
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