Becki05's Blog

My overall thoughts of the module…

becki05 — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 04:14:25 +0000

i known since before i started media production that i wanted to focus on filming and editing. That’s why at first i was a bit reluctant to the thought of designing web artefacts are i thought that there was no need. I was very wrong to think this as although i think it probably wont help me, it is still a useful skill to know. i have also learnt a lot on the background on web designing and the developement that its gone through such as web 1.0 to web 2.0 as iv experienced the changes growing up with accessibility to the internet. Af first I was aprehensive about what kind of coursework we were expected to produce as I had never used these applications before…

Final Artefact!

becki05 — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 16:32:02 +0000

In the surgery I had with Mez, I asked her how I would get my final artefact onto my weblog. She said the only way was to set up a GeoCities account.
I really wanted to put my artefact onto my blog so that I could show other bloggers (Web 2.0!) my website and they could view it and comment on it. I signed up to GeoCities (which is part of yahoo) and I uploaded my website onto that. My Website
unfortunately, the pictures aren’t showing when you open the website and neither is the slideshow. I don’t know why this is and I can’t seem to get them to work. But you can see the general frame of my website and you can see how I have designed it. The links also work so you can see what links I have made between the pages

week 7: Flash, creating our slideshows!

becki05 — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 16:22:46 +0000

In this workshop we were doing more work on our slideshows. I was pleased that we were having another workshop on it as I had only just learnt using Flash therefore I wasn’t experienced with it and another workshop would mean I would understand more. In this workshop I deleted the slideshow I had started in the previous workshop as I didn’t like it. I made another box and added buttons. I then imported all of my images. (Once again its hard to explain what I did when I haven’t got Flash infront of me to demonstrate.) There was some type of application where you can upload all the images to create a slideshow and we did that but I couldnt get my buttons to work. Mez figured out that I had clicked on the wrong command and fixed it for me. It is important when playing back the slideshow that it doesn’t just run through the slideshow all at once, which is what they are set at default to do. You have to use the command buttons to tell the slideshow that it must stop . I found it quite difficult as I wasn’t used to this kind of application and everything was all very new and real to me but I thought mez and nick were very good at teaching it in a way that explains it to people who look at things differently. With my slideshow complete the last thing I needed to do was put it onto my website. Due in for the 20th of March

week 6: Intro to Flash CS3….

becki05 — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 16:13:10 +0000

I found this workshop very challenging because (just like dreamweaver) Flash was very new to me and I had never used anything like it before.
We spent most of the workshop creating an animation, which i thought was a lot of fun!! However it was very difficult and I couldn’t understand it straight away. The bar at the top had a lot of different boxes (like a timeline) and these tiny boxes had a black dot in them when you import something onto the page. After quite a bit of practice I got used to reading the timeline and what the different symbols meant so i was a little bit better at it. At first we just made a simple box shape, learnt how to add colour, and then made it move from one corner of the page to the other. It took me a while to figure out how this happened but Nick helped me on it and explained that its all to do with the timeline and you have to create it by telling it how you want it to move and what speed by using it on that. It’s hard to explain without it in front of me to demonstrate……
We then had time on our own just experimenting with it and creating our own moving images. I created a stick man and I was trying to get him to lift his arm but I didn’t quite get it right to that it moved slowly and I must of pressed the wrong button because when Nick came over to help he showed me what I had done and managed to fix it. I thought it was really interesting!
We only had a bit of time at the end of the workshop for our slideshows, which i was a bit gutted about because it was the most important bit we needed to know, I only managed to create the box and the background colour because I couldn’t understand what else was happening because it went quite quickly but were going to do more on it in the next workshop.

More Dreamweaver!

becki05 — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 15:59:53 +0000

In this workshop we continued with Dreamweaver. We were making our website more complex by adding in tables and linking different things such as pictures and words to different pages and also inserting hyperlinks. I found the workshop very interesting as it showed me how to make a table which I didn’t know how to before and also how to create hyperlinks. The table was more difficult as you needed to get the measurements right for the pictures to fit within it but after Mez had gone through it I understood how to do it. There are various tutorials that can be found on google also which can help you on various dreamweaver applications that are hard to understand. I created a table on page 2 and I chose approx 3 of the pictures and I put them in the left hand column and had the text in the middle column and the number of people surveyed in the right hand column. I thought it would be good to create a link in each of the text columns on the issue that the photo was about and to then link them to websites that can help students deal with these issues. For example, for the smoking image I included a link to the nhs smokefree page. These demonstrate that I know how to use hyperlinks to other webpages and that they can be included anywhere on your webpage. I also created a hyperlink to my Flickr account on the 3rd page so that you can see the images in their original size

week 5 – Surveillance and privacy in the networking world

becki05 — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 09:28:41 +0000

One problem that has arisen from social networking is the accessibility of your personal information and various information about yourself. People can link things to your site and (unless you choose for your blog page to be private) ANYONE can access your page.

There are two types of surveillance : (terms made by Steve Mann)

Sousveillance- Is the recording of an activity via webcam or other visual/audio device and then streamed and uploaded onto the internet.
Inverse Surveillance- “watchful vigilance from underneath” and a form of surveillance inquiry or legal protection involving the recording, monitoring, study, or analysis of surveillance systems, proponents of surveillance, and possibly also recordings of authority figures and their actions. Inverse surveillance is typically an activity undertaken by those who are generally the subject of surveillance.

Questions to consider:

Do you think about the identifiable trail that you leave whilst using networks? No I don’t always think. I use Facebook to keep in touch with friends so upload pictures and videos to share with my friends and to talk to them and for fun. You don’t think that anyone other than them would be viewing these things that you post and upload and therefore you feel you can really let your personality out without thinking that other people (possibly potential employers) would be browsing your site. I keep my facebook private so that only people i have confirmed as friends can look at my page and I have to approve them being able to see my page.
Do you worry about being tracked by your online activity? I don’t think my online activity is very bad or even interesting as i only really use the internet for facebook to talk to my friends, to check my email, to watch something on bbc iplayer, or when doing uni work so therefore I don’t know why anyone would find interest in tracking what I do on the internet. But obviously they are able to track people who do illegal things on the internet, such as paedophiles, so if you are in a situation where you do inappropriate things on the internet or browse inappropriate pages then yes I think you would worry as people are more likely to track you.
Do you worry about being tracked in the real world? As I said before, I don’t do anything particularly interesting or unusual on the internet for anyone to have the need to track me and I only use the internet for various different things. And there are millions of internet users and millions of people in the world so for people to take the time to track me is unlikely. Also i think people have to be careful who they disclose their personal details to and make sure that they are kept private. For example, credit card details. There is an icon on the bottom of the page that lets you know if the site is secure and not dodgy so you know that it is safe to disclose your details to them.
What information do you place online? I place pictures and videos on my facebook page of me and my friends. Just so we can share pictures between ourselves of different nights out and various other things we do together. I haven’t posted a lot of things online and I’ve only posted one uni video on youtube.
how do you feel about social advertising and use of data which identifies you? Im very angry at this as I feel that it doesn’t protect you against fraudsters on teh internet. Your information should be kept private unless you state otherwise and this should not be compromised.My identity is my business and that of people close to me I dont want it shared around the internet to people I dont know or for people to track me. If i feel that this kind of thing is happening then I will shut down and delete my page immediately as its not worth the worry.
How do you feel about the issue of employers searching for information on you on the internet or on networking sites? I think this is wrong because people should be able to social network how they like without employees spying on them. People act differently with their friends and on nights out than they would in an interview room or at work so therefore they shouldn’t be judged on how they are on the networking sites. With more higher up jobs I think it might be a little more acceptable as people have to have a higher look on things and be more sensible about how they seperate their private life to other people.

Second Artefact

becki05 — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 08:57:18 +0000

I wasn’t sure what was expected for the second artefact. I had created a very simple html of a sample page with various pictures of monkeys just to test it out. We had started creating our website for our slideshow pictures so I wasn’t sure whether this was the artefact they wanted to see from us. As this wasn’t finished I handed in the monkey sample page to demonstrate that I am learning to use dreamweaver and that I have picked up the basics.

week 4 – History of the internet

becki05 — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 09:03:29 +0000

In this lecture we looked at how the internet has advanced and the changes it has gone through. (one of the major changes being from web 1.0 to web 2.0.)
One article in 1995 that I found particularly interesting was We the Media by Dan Gilmor.
In this he talks about his first experience with web 1.0 and some of the first ever weblogs.
“Winer’s company was a leader in a move that brought back to life the promise, too long unmet, that Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the Web, had wanted from the start. Berners-Lee envisioned a read/write Web. But what had emerged in the 1990s was an essentially read-only Web on which you needed an account with an ISP (Internet service provider) to host your web site, special tools, and/or HTML expertise to create a decent site.”
This is an example of web 1.0 in which you have to own a special account to be able to host a website whereas now in web 2.0 you can use applications such as Facebook and myspace (or wordpress! …like im doing now) to create your own blogging site which can link with other similar topics or people all around the world. Therefore allowing anyone to become a website creator and a media producer.
I particularly like the video by michael Wesch who studies anthropology.
This video shows demonstrates very clearly and effectively how the web has changed to web 2.0 and its effects. I particularly like this video as it also reflects upon the ethical side of everyone being able to control the media and it is particularly simple so that anyone can begin to understand. It really helped me understand!

second Dreamweaver workshop

becki05 — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 08:53:33 +0000

In this workshop we did more work with CSS and html. I was beginning to pick it up a bit more and starting to understand how to use CSS. I realised that you can easily access the CSS panel in the top right hand corner so I mainly used this to change the CSS. I realised that you can use CSS to change the background settings and various other settings on the page. (using the body icon)
Even though there was still various aspects of it I still didn’t fully understand I was beginning to pick up the basics pretty well.