aNyThInG and eVeRyThInG

Dreamweaver Tutorial 1

2006-12-08T10:47:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday evening I attended the Dreamweaver 1 tutorial presented at College Library.

Having already learned a lot about Dreamweaver through English 201 much of the class was repeat. It was helpful to relearn it since it had been awhile since we talked about the processes in English.

There were quite a few new things that they presented as well. This was especially helpful because I had not started my final webpage yet and it gave me some new ideas.

One of the major new things we learned was the CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) way of designing webpages. Dreamweaver has only a few ways to modify text and images, but with CSS it allows you to choose from so many more options. It is a great tool to use.

The other thing I remember learning was the way to make links to other webpages open up in a new browser. This is helpful so that those who come to view your webpage do not get lost in other sites and never find their way back to yours. Your browser will always be open in its own window and any links from your webpage to elsewhere will open up in a new window.

Overall I thought the class was very helpful, and I can imagine not knowing anything about Dreamweaver and coming away from that class fairly knowledgeable and able to make your own, basic webpage.

Christmas

2006-12-04T16:27:00.000-08:00

Christmas is here! I don’t know about everyone else, but I have already gotten all of my shopping done. With enough money left over to buy myself a new purse, which I was in great need of. The purse I have had now for probably 8 years looks like it could be my little sisters’.

Every time I would write a check for something and the cashier would ask to see a driver’s license I would set my purse up on the counter and receive a questioning look. "Are you sure you even have a driver’s license because that purse looks like it belongs with a 12 year old" is probably what they were thinking.

Ok well anyways, back to my original topic, CHRISTMAS! It is my favorite time of year. My roommate and I have a fake tree up in our apartment, yes it is fake I was not going to clean that mess up. Then we also have these cute little Santa and Mrs. Claus figurines that hold a candle and sway back and forth when you plug them in. If that doesn’t say it, we are very festive.

Now all that needs to happen is for this semester to be over. I think an early Christmas present from the University to me should be all A’s on my finals. That’s not too much to ask……..right? I'll ask for all of you too, don't worry.

What College English Is Not

2006-12-04T16:10:00.000-08:00

Jeff Rice explains in his paper appropriately titled What Should College English Be?, exactly what he thinks college English courses should, or do, accomplish.

I think that what it does not do is allow for creativity. Professors have a certain idea of what papers should look like and students either conform to that or the professor may look poorly upon that student’s paper. We discussed this thoroughly in class and everyone seemed to hold the same opinion. There are the few professors out there who love to see creativity and a student’s exploration of a new idea.

Many aspects of student’s papers are restricted. The structure, the content, and even the length are all laid out for them. If a student strays from any of these requirements their grade will reflect that in a negative way. Even if a student has a great idea, perhaps a little off subject, the professor will, most likely, grade it poorly and then revise his/her criteria for the next years’ students.

I think it was Sara who pointed out in class that we, as students, do look for these criteria though. We are lost without it. So it does go a little both ways. If we are not told how to write a paper, then we do not even know where to begin. We go running to the professor and ask him/her what they want. This, however, is a direct result of the idea of grades that goes along with being a student. If grades were not applied to our writing, which would obviously defeat the purpose of college as whole, there would be no reason to worry about what the professor required. We could be creative and come up with our own ideas.

Since there are grades because it does go along with the whole being-a-student thing, we do want to know how to write papers and hopefully when we are out of a college environment we will be able to come up with our own ideas. There’s no one to run to for paper criteria in the real world.

The Wonder that is TiVo

2006-11-27T20:50:00.000-08:00

The one thing that confused me about Chapter 6 of Steven Johnson's Emergence was the TiVo example. We never really got to touch on that in class.
He questions whether the ability of an audience to manipulate the program could ever be carried over to television. He goes on to say that TiVo is one of the new systems out there that allows this to happen.
How does TiVo allow the audience to change the television program? All TiVo does is allow you to pause a program so you can leave and come back. Then it begins to record so you can watch what you missed when it was paused. This is not changing the program, the show still goes on as it would have without the pause. The action is still all the same.
I see how his computer game examples work. SimCity is so complex that the system feeds off of the input it receives from the players. This example follows right along with what he is saying, but the TiVo example just does not seem to fit.

Negative vs Positive Feedback

2006-11-22T07:11:00.000-08:00

I am really glad that we discussed the positive and negative feedback in class. I know I was very confused as to how the temperature-in-a-room example related to the internet or any other situations for that reason.

Based on what I got from the definitions of the two, it seems like the internet would be both negative and positive feedback. Some websites can be changed directly and some cannot. For instance, Wikipedia would be positive feedback. Everyone keeps adding and adding, and it keeps growing and growing. Blogs are also sites where they just keep growing by positive feedback.

There are, however, some sites that don't change no matter what. They are there and they just stay the same and do not change, or if they do change it is not based on other opinions, or feedback.

Lost in Translation

2006-11-13T11:37:00.000-08:00

Marc Auge's piece about NonPlaces vs Places is perfect for analyzing the movie Lost in Translation. Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson make a connection in Tokyo, where both of them feel lost and alone.

Before they meet and make their connection, they both are in what Auge would classify as a nonplace. Even with all the people around them and all the activities going on, they feel alone. They do not understand the language or the customs, and the city is so large that it would be easy to blend in and feel lost.

Charlotte (Johansson) even feels alone when she is with her own husband and his friends. This is mainly because her husband's friends are what I would nicely classify as unintelligent. Bob (Murray) is an actor that is there to film a commercial and a game show, both of which are also rather stupid. While he is in Tokyo he gets frequent phone calls, faxes, and mailings from his wife back at home. Their conversations also seem very nonplace-like.

Once they meet, it is as if they create a place out of this nonplace they are both trapped in. It is at least more of a place than it was before. They have found someone they can talk with and discuss their problems with.

In the end, they both seem to have benefited from their interactions in Tokyo. They both seem much more comfortable with going their separate ways, back to their very nonplace lives.

Lost in the World of Auge

2006-11-05T18:20:00.000-08:00

I thought Auge’s piece was rather difficult to follow. Maybe it was his intention to make a connection to the hard-to-navigate hotel he mentions in his piece "From Places to Non-Places".

I liked how the classes’ discussion went because it really cleared up a lot of the difficulties I encountered while reading. I really do think that our world is becoming more and more of a non-place, like Jordan suggested.

While listening to the discussion go back and forth in class I was thinking about how it would actually be possible to live your life without ever leaving your house if you wanted. You can work out of your house, have groceries delivered, rent movies, buy clothes, etc, etc. all over the web! It is really crazy if you think about it.

I thought Auge’s definitions of place and non-place were what confused me most. We touched on them a little in class, but I am still rather lost. He says that a place is "…relational, historical, and concerned with identity" and a non-place is none of those things. So is he saying that any historical landmark is not a place? I have always thought of everywhere as a place. My apartment is a place, state’s are places, parks are places, etc, etc. If it depends from person to person and situation to situation, which I think Auge believes, then it is too controversial for a place and a non-place to ever really be defined. It would always be different for everyone.

Conclusion…..I don’t like Auge :) I would find it fun to visit that hotel though, as long as I had a guide so as not to get lost!

Ebay Selling

2006-10-31T08:28:00.000-08:00

Has anyone ever sold anything on Ebay? I just created my Seller’s Profile and am now trying to sell some items on Ebay. Let’s just say, it’s not as easy as it sounds.

I have had my items on there for 4 days now and I have had no bids. One of the items is a brand new $40 pair of headphones, which I am starting at $5.00! I have a picture and a description of the item.

Does anybody have any tips for selling items on Ebay? Or does anybody need a pair of headphones or the Freakonomics book for a class? J If you do, you should just go on Ebay and bid on my items!

Private and Web Do Not Go Together

2006-10-31T08:10:00.000-08:00

So after reading William J. Mitchell’s City of Bits, I was left with a question. He mentioned how you are able to put very private things on the internet and then encode it so that only you are able to get into it. Now my question is why would you want to do that?

If you are the only one who will access it, then why would you want to even risk putting something private on the web. The only thing I can think of, that even I do, is online banking. This, however, is not something that you put on the web it is something you sign up for through your bank. So the bank encodes it for you and then you and the bank can see it. What else is there that would be private to you and also something to be put on the web?

The other thing is that no matter how well you encode something, there are always the I-have-nothing-better-to-do-with-my-time people who will figure it out. There is nothing that would be private to me that I would even want to risk putting on the web.

A Little More About MUDs Since They are Just That Exciting

2006-10-25T11:48:00.000-07:00

So I realized it’s a good thing I remembered so much about MUDs for my day as the discussion moderator. Who knew that would ever come in handy?

My brother was really into MUDding in high school and so were his friends. He tried to get me to play a couple times and I sat down and had him explain a lot of how it worked to me. Since I did not remember most of the “gaming” terms and how it works and everyone was asking questions about it, I called up my brother and had him go through a lot of it again.

So right away at the beginning you open up a black screen and type in the code for the MUD. It’s kind of like a URL, but not really. For one of the MUDs, Carrionfields, it was #ses 3 carrionfields.org 9999. There are other MUDs, for instance Aardwolf, that have different URLs. So, then once you login a picture would come up and it would ask you for your character name. If the game didn’t recognize your name at first, if you were a new player, then it would ask you a series of questions about what race, sex, etc you wanted your character to be.

Once you are in the game you move around by going west, south, east, north, up, down. You have to type these words in, and actually you can just type in the first letter. S if you want to go south, and so on.

The point of the game is to kill things to gain experience and gain levels. So when you first start out you are in the Academy, which is the area for beginners. You walk through it and it teaches you about all the movements and characters. Once you get through there it allows you to get equipment for your character and kill some very easy targets. Let me just point out that no one is supposed to die in the Academy, and when he was teaching me how to play, I did. I don’t think he ever stopped laughing at me, and let’s just say that’s when I quit playing.

So when you kill things you get experience. It tells you at the end: The creature has died and you receive 150 experience points, abbreviated exp. Each level you have to get more and more exp to get to the next level. For your first level it might only be 2000 exp. Once you get that from killing creatures, it will advise you that you have progressed to level 2. There are different areas you can walk to. There's an orphanage, and the elven forest, and different towns. Different areas have different creatures, some harder than others.

This is what you do. The whole time. Once you get to…umm…..level 10 (I think) you can then begin to kill other players in the game. This is called a “PK” for Player Kill. Then you can take their equipment and use it as your own and basically just feel superior. Once you reach level 51 you are done. You can no longer level but can continue to kill other players.

Advertisements: How Much Do They Help?

2006-10-16T19:40:00.000-07:00

So, I have always wondered if advertisements and slogans really do help. They probably help a little bit, especially for new products that no one has ever seen before but for products that have been in existence for a long time, how much does it really help?

Would people just stop buying Sprite or Pepsi or Nike if they stopped making ads? I doubt it. People buy it because their product is good. Maybe initially it, when they were new companies, it helped to get the craze started.

The other side to this is, when it comes to crappy products, no amount of advertisements can help it. I’m not sure that any advertisements could help sell a product like Head On. In fact, they have advertisements (the most annoying one I have ever seen) and I think it actually hurts their product. It gets people talking, but not buying.

I think, in the end, it mostly depends on the product you’re selling. You have to have a good product in order for an advertisement to have any effect at all. Once you make a name for yourself, you’re all set.

Coolhunting

2006-10-15T17:43:00.000-07:00

Malcolm Gladwell's "The Coolhunt" describes two women, Basie and Dee Dee, who look for cool. It is strange to me that this can really be a profession because there are so many aspects that go into being cool.

Obviously, the coolhunters themselves have to be cool. This, however, brings up the issue of "What exactly is cool?" How can there be one definition of cool? So many people have so many different ideas about what they think is cool. Anything that anyone does or wears must be cool to them or they wouldn't do it...so who really is cool?

I think that celebrities are cool, not because we always like what they wear or do, but because they are famous. We see them on tv, they get to do really "cool" things that we....or maybe just me....wish we had the talents to do. I wish I could sing on a stage in front of thousands of people or be in a movie as the main character...or as any character for that matter. Since we want to do the things they do, we start to act like them and dress like them. This way, at least in part, we are somewhat the same.

Fashion Epidemics

2006-10-08T18:54:00.000-07:00

So I think what stuck out to me most from our readings, is that if you fold a piece of paper 50 times it would reach all the way to the sun! First of all…Who knew? Second and thirdly of all…Is that for real? and How would anyone know that? I just thought that was a pretty unbelievable concept.

At the end of the Introduction to the "Tipping Point", I liked the question that was posed. Why is it that some trends become epidemics and others do not? Do we all have a part in deciding whether a trend becomes worldwide? or is it only certain people?

I think that each individual person on their own does not really hold a lot of strength in creating epidemics. It is when a group of people, like the children from the east side of New York, start something up that it has the potential to catch on rather quickly. There are certain people who hold more influential power than others, for instance celebrities. There are certain celebrities who, on their own, could start fashion epidemics. I mean it was the children from New York that started the Hush Puppy trend back up, but Pee Wee Herman came in and bought a pair, which was quite possibly the real reason that it began to spread so quickly.

I believe it to be unfair that celebrities hold so much more power on issues like this, but it is the way our society works. We have built them up on some sort of pedestal so we follow their trends. I'm not saying I don’t do it too, because actually just last week I bought this month’s issue of Cosmo and Vogue, which is chocked full of celebrity gossip and fashions. It’s great J !

One of the other last questions they posed was, can an epidemic be started purposefully? I believe that it can if you can get the right people to start it. Once again celebrities come to mind. That is why companies pay celebrities to appear in their advertisements. There are probably studies out there somewhere showing that the use of celebrities in ads just works better.

Kevin Bacon's Not the Only One With Six Degrees

2006-10-03T20:31:00.000-07:00

I’m putting Duncan Watts’ Six Degrees at the top of my list of readings for the semester so far. I found that I enjoyed it far better than some of the previous readings we have had. Maybe it is because I was able to understand it. :)

I really liked what seemed to be his major point. That the most simplistic of things, when interacting with each other, can become very complex and even chaotic. His examples of football crowds and stock market investors created the perfect picture of this.

He then begins discussing networks, and how they can also be very complex. He concludes that section by explaining how networks are to be understood. “The science of networks must become, in short, a manifestation of its own subject matter, a network of scientists collectively solving problems that cannot be solved by any single individual or even any single discipline.” To put it simply, only a network of scientists can take on the difficult task of understanding a network. It’s a big circle of networks. Only a network of this can understand a network of that and it continues.

The idea of the “six degrees of separation” was very interesting to me. I had heard of it before, but never had it broken down quite like Watts does it in this reading. To really think about the fact that there are only 6 people that separate me from someone halfway across the world is such an unbelievable concept. It got me thinking about all the people I know, and how it seems so unrealistic that in 6 steps it can connect to all different countries that I or people I know have never visited. It is almost so crazy, that it makes me want to believe it. It really got me thinking, which was probably Watts’ purpose in the first place, to make his readers think and at least consider these ideas.

Meg Hourihan on Weblogs

2006-09-25T20:00:00.000-07:00

Meg Hourihan’s article on weblogging was very interesting, I thought. As I was reading, however, it was unclear to me who she was writing this article for.

In class today, Suzy suggested that the article was directed towards the media. I agree with her, because it does seem like she was speaking to the media. It could not have been written for bloggers because the article is basically a description of what a blog is, which bloggers would obviously already know. She starts off by saying how there are articles about weblogs in the press everyday, but that most of the authors are not bloggers themselves. So I think she was describing blogs to these authors so that they may be more informed when they write their next article.

So I think her main purpose was to inform those that were uniformed, mainly the media, because she was tired of hearing about what they thought blogs were.

Do We Act Only Out of Self-Interest?

2006-09-21T21:13:00.000-07:00

This semester I am taking a philosophy course. It is such a fun class because it poses so many interesting questions.

One of the biggest issues that philosophers discuss is "Do people act only out of self-interest?" I love this issue because there really isn’t a way to prove it either way. It is one of the world’s great unanswerable questions. One has to make a decision based solely on opinion.

This is such an interesting concept that it was even brought up in a "Friends" episode. Joey presents the idea that everything you do is motivated by self-interested. Phoebe then takes up the challenge of finding an act that benefits her in no way. Throughout the entire episode she continually fails because even if it does not physical benefit her, she always feels good about helping someone else. So really, she does benefit, because she feels better.

It really is a difficult question to answer. You would think that donating to charity would be a selfless act, but you always feel really good about doing it. So can anyone really do a selfless act? The other example that would seem to end this argument is the soldier who throws herself on the grenade to save her comrades. You have to think; however, of the possible motives she had for doing this. The one reason could be just to save her comrades, but some of the other thoughts she has before doing this could be how heroic she’ll be and how she will go down in history. So again, it is all for personal benefits.

I’m not sure it is possible to do a selfless act. Maybe one does not intentionally perform an act just for their own self-interest, but subconsciously one is always acting out of their own interest.

How Can the Medium Be the Message?

2006-09-17T20:30:00.000-07:00

After reading Marshall McLuhan’s "The Medium Is the Message"; I have come to realize that he is a little crazy.

His ideas are interesting to consider, but very hard to grasp the concept of. The first controversial issue that he presents is that the medium is the message. In a way that makes sense. When you see something on the television, you automatically know that it is more important than something you hear on the radio. So I suppose the message viewers get when they see something on TV is that it is important enough to be shown and not just heard. There are so many flaws with this theory, however, that it isn’t even believable.

First off, who sits at the TV thinking, "So why isn’t this on the radio instead? Someone must have thought it was really important!" No one does that, therefore, no one is getting this message that the medium is supposed to be. Also, there are things that are on television that are not important. For instance, reality shows and talk shows. They just cannot really be done on the radio or anywhere else so TV was sort of like a last resort.

There really are no stable arguments to back his theory up. McLuhan doesn’t really even back up his own theory. He gives some examples and quotes Shakespeare, (no idea how that ties into the whole thing by the way), but he never really comes out and says exactly what it is he’s trying to say.

Construction.....Why?

2006-09-14T21:48:00.000-07:00

I have decided to vent in this blog entry. I hate construction! Now you may be wondering how on earth I decided to write about this. The answer is because there are so many construction sites around right now and they manage to piss me off at least once a day. It also could be because I had no idea what to write about and a commercial with construction in it came on the television.

Everyone, at least anyone who has driven/ridden in a car, has had a frustrating encounter with construction. Detours, dust, traffic, slower speed limits, and a bunch of workers running around that you have to avoid hitting. Are there not already enough things on the road to watch out for? After running into about three of these construction sites you begin to wonder, "HOW CAN THEY HAVE THIS MANY THINGS THAT NEED TO BE WORKED ON!?"

Honestly, in my opinion, I seriously think they make it up. There are obviously roads that do need work, and then I am grateful to have it worked on (as long as I’m not driving on that road while it’s being done), and then there are the roads that seem to have absolutely nothing wrong with them. So I think they make up jobs to work on when they run out.

I don’t mean to offend anyone who works in construction or knows someone who does, and I honestly have no facts to back these assumptions up. However, it doesn’t make me hate it any less. I have now vented all I can about construction. If anyone does know how construction workers can honestly have that many things to work on, I would be very interested to know. Some of the roads seemed perfectly fine! If I find out that they do, in fact, work on roads that have real problems; then I maybe can appreciate it a little more…maybe.

Rhetoric: How Important Is It?

2006-09-10T09:00:00.000-07:00

I have just read the opening of James Herrick's "An Overview of Rhetoric".

Prior to reading this introduction, I had a very limited definition of the term rhetoric. I believed it to be the use of words and writing to present a persuasive argument. Herrick did present this as one of his uses for the word, but it was only a very small portion of his lengthy definition.

After this reading, I now believe rhetoric to be much more useful. Rhetorical discourse is used to persuade, but how does one become better at this than another? As Herrick points out, there is a long list of items that actually go into the persuasive effects of rhetoric.

First, one must adapt their arguments to their specified audience. Herrick had the perfect example to show this in the real world. He said that "Some politicians, for instance, apparently spend more time trying to figure out what their audiences want them to say than speaking from their own convictions." In order to present a strong case that is adapted to the audience, a rhetor must think about aspects such as argument, appeals, arrangement, and aesthetics.

Secondly, there are many social functions that rhetoric plays a part in. Herrick explains how it tests ideas, assists advocacy, distributes power, discovers facts, shapes knowledge, and even builds a community. Who knew rhetoric could do all that??

This piece that Herrick wrote is rhetoric in itself. He has persuaded me to come up with a brand new definition. Rhetoric is the use of symbols (language, words, gestures, etc.) that a rhetor uses to present arguments to communities (any group of people, not just based on location) in an organized and persuasive manner, in order to bring them together in agreement. It is a much more lengthy definition, but includes much more of what rhetoric actually does.

What's It All About?

2006-09-08T10:47:00.000-07:00

This being my first post, I thought I would introduce myself and my blog. My name is Brittany and I am a college student. Being in college means having homework assignments, this blog being one of them.

Some of my entries will be written based on assigned prompts, but I will also try to put in some entries of my own.

I do not quite know the outlook for my blog yet. I assume it will include anything and everything I am thinking or have an opinion about.

Hope it's enjoyable :)