Questions

Computers and software have enabled indiviuals to become one-person operations with an internet connection and a laptop. The same is true with website design; anyone with a computer can create a website. Is this a good thing?
Being able to create a website can be a wonderful thing. Understanding what goes with the creation needs to be understood as well. You need to remember that the creation part is not the only part. Keeping the site updated and making sure your information is correct is an important factor to creating a website.

What are some of the advantages to creating your own website rather than hiring a professional? What are some of the drawbacks.
Creating your own website can save you lots of money. You will have the ability to change your website with updates. Drawbacks to designing your site is time. You need to acquire the skills and then use them correctly. There are plenty of sites you can go to for help, but there again this is more time.

What is the difference between Usability and Accessibility with regards to web design and why are they both important.
Accessibility refers to how easy it is for a user to access your site. You want your website to be user friendly to any age or skill level. Usability means how easy it is to use your website, how easy it is to navigate your site.
Usability and Accessibility are key factors when creating a website. You always want people to be able to find your site and use it with ease.

Chapters 3 and 4

Chapter 3 was a review of what web pages are, and different tips to creating your web page. It discussed how to use color, the changing of font size, creating layers and color and how to format the text on your page. This chapter also discussed how to create links, add graphics and how to use tables in your design. How to create email links and anchors. Anchors will take you somewhere else on the same page. Using frames in a web page can be confusing and annoying for visitors of your site, as well as Frames are not always recommended.
Chapter 4 discussed the creating of a web page. The importance of creating your design, organizing your files, as well as making sure that your graphic files have the proper extension when saved so you can tell which are the graphics when you go to use them. It discussed what a server is, the cost the could be involved with hosting a site. Explanation of what domain names are and how to get your own domain name.
Diigo articles: The first article was basically a review of things we covered in class. The one article that was something new for me was meta tags. Meta tags are specific descriptions and key words used for your page so other people can find your site. Web Design Basics used examples of how web designers and non-professional designers should write their web page. Understanding how to create pages to help users to successfully enjoy their page.

Evaluating Websites

Using the different criteria suggested to use in our readings, I chose to evaluated the web-site www.boyertownmuseum.org. When I entered the page I could easily find the information I was looking for. The initial page had a lot of information about upcoming events, how to contact the museum and different links that they offered about the museum as well as sponsors for their site. With all this information, it was neatly organized and very easy to read and navigate. When I clicked on several of the links it would take you to the information but the page would still have the links at the top of the page you were on. This made it very easy to navigate to other pages they had.

The second web site I evaluated was, www.bestedsites.com. This was an educational website. The first thing I saw were books bouncing all over the page. The bouncing books distracted me from looking at other links they provided. Getting past the bouncing books I clicked on a math link. This page also had moving objects. There was a lot of colors to the page which made it hard to read. There were more links to math games and videos and sites that took you age specific math learning.

Both websites I evaluated had the designers name at the bottom of the page. The font was so tiny you could not read it. The creator's name was also in a font color that when it was placed on the dark backgound it blended it.

Evaluating these sites I understand the importance of having a simple clean front page. I am hoping to design a site that explains the joys of being a grandmother.

What's Your Style: Organizing Information for the Web

This article discusses the information you will need to consider for your webpage to be organized and usable. You don't want to have a page that is hard to navigate. Using the inverted pyramid method structures content from general to specific. Keeping things simple so visitors can navigate to information that they are looking for. The article suggests using hierarchy, keeping information in chunks instead of lengthy articles. The importance of writing for the web vs. printing. Using pertinent information on your face page with links that will lead to the information they are looking for.

Chapters 7&8

Great information in these two chapters. By starting with a workspace of 800 x 600 you can create an outline of the information you want to include in your webpage. It doesn't need to be perfect or complete, but start with something simple. This gives you visualization. After creating an outline of how you want your page to work, decide on the personality of the page, fun, business, technical, etc. When including links on your page, use an index so the person using your page will know where they might what to link to for additional information.

Classmate Polls

Well, I voted on all the polls. They seemed to be questions that pertain to our daily lives, except Christian's poll.....I had no idea that there was an answer for the Woodchuck!!!!

Web Ready Image

Question: Many people take a digital picture and then attach it to an email, add it to a blog or upload to their personal web space without making any changes. Is this a good idea?

1.) Save your photo as a JPEG, GIF or PNG.

2.) Change your resolution to 72 or 96 ppi.

3.) Compress the size of your image .

4.) Make changes to your image such as cropping.

5.) Now save your image. It should be ready for the web.

Chapters 9, 10 & 12

Chapter's 9 & 10 as well as several articles I read on line, explain how to prepare a picture for a web page. You need to know web safe colors and remembering that monitor resolution is different for all computers. Knowing this will help in chosing your image, text and colors for you web page. Knowing the different file formats, GIF, JPEG or PNG and when to use them. The file size of images is important, the larger the file size the longer it takes for the image to appear on the browser page. Image maps I thought were rather interesting, it is used often on web pages .

Chapter 12 discusses choosing the appropriate stye font. Fonts can be proportional or monospaced. Readability and legibility must always be considered.

Image Size and Resolution

I read several articles on image sizing, ppi vs. dpi and resolution.

Trying to remember that PPI refers to screen resolution and DPI refers to print resolution. Article states that these two get misused a lot.

It is 2:00 AM and my eyes can't read anymore. I will have to continue this later!!

Good Night....or should I say Good Morning??

Scanning Tips

The important concept is to remember that you need to decide what size image you wish to achieve. The importance of determining scanning resolution is to create a certain image size. How large is the area to be scanned and how large do you want the final image to be.

It is important to remember that images and screens are diminished in pixels, video systems show pixels directly...one for one. One thing to remember when choosing an image size is that everyone will see it differently because monitors vary.

Resolution Information

When I clicked on the Resolution Information link:
www.pictureline.com this is what was posted.

We’re sorry, the page you’re looking for can not be found.
If you typed the URL directly, please make sure the spelling is correct.
If you clicked on a link to get here, we must have moved the content.Please try our store search box above to search for an item.
If you are not sure how you got here, go back to the previous page try one of the links below.

How Scanners Work

Scanners come in several different types. The one most commonly used is a flatbed scanner because it is most versatile and most common. Most scanners have a single pass method and split the image into three smaller versions. Each smaller version passes through a color filter (either RGB) and onto a discrete section of the CCD array. There are two kinds of array technology, CIS and CCD. The CCD array gives a better quality image. The CIS array is less expensive but does not provide the same quality.

Scanners vary in resolution and sharpness. Interpolation is a process that scanning software uses to increase the resolution of an image by creating extra pixels between the ones actually scanned.

The USB image transfer is a combination of good speed and ease of use. A computer needs a software called a driver to communicate with the scanner. A common language is TWAIN (Technology Without An Interesting Name), which most scanners understand. The TWAIN driver acts as interpreter between an application that supports the TWAIN standard. An example would be PhotoShop.

Image resolution, size and compression

Resolution refers to the sharpness and clarity of an image. When saving your pictures you want to decide what you will use them for. Usually you will be printing them or sending them in emails. To keep good resolution of your pictures you will need to decide on what size to save them, usually 200-300 pixels high might work. You would reduce your file size by compressing the image. When you have higher compression of your image it might be come pixelated. Formats such as BMP or TIF files do not compress the image. Using JPG compression you can keep the physical size of image, but reduce disk space by not sacrificing the quality.

Resolution also plays a part in your monitor. The larger the monitor the larger your screen resolution will be.

Poll Correction

I just checked my poll and it seems that Google has corrected the problem. I am good to go!!

Following Blogs

I have signed up to follow every classmates blog.

Creating a Poll

Tried to create a poll on my website and was confronted with a message that read "Google Error...went onto the help section and this is what I found.

Many users are reporting that poll gadgets are failing to render, displaying a 'Not Found' message. We're investigating the issue and will post a reply as soon as we have more information to share.Thanks for your patience. — latest update on Wednesday, June 16, 2010

I will continue to check back for updates and post a poll when the problem is fixed.

Blog Background

1. Chose background from "hotbliggityblog.com.
2. Copied the contents of the text area beneath the image I chose.
3. Set the template of my blog to Minima. To change my template I had to click on edit HTML and at the bottom of the page I clicked on old templates. I then chose layout and picked which Minima template I wanted. Clicked Save.
4. Went back to the edit screen and clicked on the HTML/JavaScript gadget edit. In the box that appeared I pasted the information that I had copied for the background in the "Content text area", gave it a title and clicked Save!

Oh yeah!!

diigo.com

Ms. Mislevy......I cannot access your diigo account. I have tried clicking on the link of from Moodle and typing the address in the search bar. I can't get in. What do I do. Is anyone else having this problem? I am worried about not having my homework complete.

Nancy

Chapter 6 & pp 186-192: Chapter 6 helps me look at web pages differently. I can see when web pages are too busy or unattractive, but now I understand why. The alignment of the information on the page, the CRAP (as we discussed in class) that makes a page good or bad. Web pages can have a lot of information on them without being distracting. Having clean clear visual effects was discussed a lot, and I understand why. I can relate to getting on websites and when they were to busy or difficult to read.....click off I went to another site. Designing for web printing seems to be a little stricter with what you have to work with. You have smaller space to include the most important information you want to convey. Newspapers, pamplets, business cards are good examples of print design.

Graphic Definitions.......this section was defining the differences between file formats. Using JPEG or GIF, different files as bitmapped or raster and when to use them. For me this is definetly something I will need to read again.

Chapters 5&6 plus pages 186-192

Chapter 5: Using the web is a huge advantage over traditional print (pamplets, posters etc). Time and cost is a huge factor. You can include more information, have more people view your information on a webpage vs. paper. Being able to update your webpage with practically no cost is the way to go of course. Being able to create websites with movies, sound and animation. Convenience is of course a key element. You can obtain information about anything, anywhere. You can stay in contact with family, friends, businesses around the world. The main thing I obtained from chapter 5 is, convenience...convenience...convenience. I have to admit that even though it is easier to obtain information on the web, I still find my self trying to adjust to the fact that I don't always have it in my hands to read like a book. Generation issue....I guess.

First Homework Blog

I am not exactly sure how or what I am supposed to post, but here it goes. After reading the first two chapters of our assignment I realized that I knew some of the things they discussed. I knew the jargon, URL and ISP, etc., but didn't know what they stood for. But as the book states, this will not help me search the web better. Realizing what the words mean does however help me understand what someone is talking about or asking me about when I call the I/S help desk at work. One thing I thought was very interesting was finding out that when you search the web, most search engines have directories. How cool, hopefully this will help with my future searches. Well, back to reading!! Will post again.

First Post

This is my first post