Coming to an end

My group has decided to create a website for Capital's baseball team. The website will welcome fans of Capital’s baseball team as well as individuals interested in playing college baseball at Capital University, and also this site welcomes recruits. A key initiative for the website is to enable individuals the ability to plan ahead a future athletic lifestyle with Capital’s baseball team. Furthermore, the website offers a helpful hand to recruits and allows them to observe Capital’s players that have developed possible major-league talent.

Before the homepage, our group will design a splash page. The splash page will display a slideshow of the team and the pictures provided portrays a sense of motivation and determination. As a spectator, individuals are going to want to know what kind of website they are about to enter.  Furthermore, we will design a hopepage that has a navigational bar to the side that offers several links for the baseball team's news, roster, schedule, statistics, the coaching staff, the team players, and directions.  We have yet to establish the colors of the layout; however, we are sure to include the color purple for representation of Capital University, and also we will be sure to include its' logo. In the end, we will provide a Usability test that will ensure the efficiency and overall usability of the newly established website.

Though the semester is running out of time,  I consider this project more relaxed than the personal website project. I feel that our group has the gist of using Dreamweaver which makes the project seem less stressful. I think we have used our time wisely and we should have a complete website designed by the deadline,  December 13th.

Time is Running out

The time has come... Thanksgiving AND the time in the semester when everything hits at once!

This time of year is combined with the best time and worse time... leaving it bittersweet.

Thanksgiving is by far my favorite holiday. There's no stress involved like Christmas.... buying presents (affording presents, ha) what to buy, who to buy for, which wrapping paper to use, or even what to write on a card. (If your in a relationship... times that by two) On the other hand, Thanksgiving involves my favorite thing in the whole word... Food =) Oh, its the simple things in life that really count. I've realized this as I've become older. I always look forward to going home, cooking and baking a feast with my Mom, and visiting with family and friends.

Well, this is a nice thought for a hot minute... until I snap back to reality and realize I have a 20 paged thesis paper due, a presentation about my thesis paper to prepare for, a 10 page critical theory paper due, another website project,and a final 250 pt. photoshop final to complete. Well, this should be fun. =) I really am looking forward to these assignments. I've come to realize that at the end of the day, you need something good like Thanksgiving to look forward to... it helps us move along and to balance us out mentally so we can complete stressful tasks.

Happy Thanksgiving =)

Progress

I’ve had an innovative, frustrating, yet exciting experience with Dreamweaver thus far. I have devoted several hours of hard work and creativity into my website the past few days, and I believe it is now safe to say that I am on the right path toward the accomplishment of my first website.

Initially, my main concern was where to even begin. I was not willing to settle for a common, monotonous structured site, so I practiced a bit with trial and error. I began my project by playing around with background color, observing different fonts, and attempting to collaborate my creative ability with Photoshop’s special features. Essentially, I discovered that the more I “played” with Dreamweaver and Photoshop, the more I was feeling not only satisfied but comfortable with the new software. It has come to my attention that constructing my website is not the hard part, but the extra hours to complete the assignment have turned into the enemy.   

As of now, I have the basic layout constructed. My homepage will be of an opened book. This opening feature not only highlights who I am- an English major and professional writer- but also welcomes the viewer into my website, or into the text of Sara Brown. Listed on the opened page of the book are the following categories: Home, About Sara, Resume, Portfolio, Daydreams, and Contact Sara. The About Sara page essentially describes who I am on a professional level. This page describes what I have to offer to potential employers and why I am a marketable, qualified candidate for certain employment opportunities. My resume page includes my objective, work experience, and education background. The Portfolio page includes links to view selected works I have completed throughout my college experience. Each link has a short sentence that sums up what to expect within each selected piece of work. Furthermore, my Daydreams page includes consistent entries of what’s on my mind, or important events that are going on in which I feel are important enough to be addressed. Lastly, I will provide a Contact page that basically offers ways to contact me- through email or facebook.

I am looking forward to seeing what other website projects have become.

Grammar

I think it's interesting that women graduates are supposed to be considered almnae. Personally, I never knew that, and I don't think many people do. We are surrounded by faculty, bulletins, facebook, and word of mouth that graduates are considered "almuni." I was taken back a bit by this, because I feel almost that I have been lied to. Being a woman, and about to be a graduate, knowing that "alumni" means men, I would want to call myself an "alumna." However, society may look at me like I may be an idiot-- but in reality society is beeing fooled. What do you think?

Bad communication at its finest.

I saw this video the other day of a candidate giving a speech for Stark County Treasurer in Ohio. It is very entertaining, and rather hard to take serious; however, it happens to be a great example of what NOT to do when speaking to the public. Share your thoughts!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMgyi57s-A4

Semiotics

Semiotics is concerned with how our mind perceives meaning about something. That "something" refers to a word, symbol, icon, gesture, or object. The concept of semiotics seems to enable underlying uncertainties because essentially, our minds are manipulative and we decipher different "things" to our individual accordance. Semiotics goes hand-in-hand with communication theory.
Today, Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter have become a primary tool for communication. This way of communicating is different than what it used to be of course; however, it has evolved and will continue to. Take Facebook for instance, we have become willing to share information about ourselves publicly- in essence, what you put online is not always secured to your privacy standards. In addition, we put ourselves out there through the internet to perhaps begin relationships- whether it’s befriending someone, or used for networking. When you share information about yourself, what you're thinking about something, how your day has been through the status box "what’s on your mind" do you think this is social interaction? I mean, when you befriend someone, you are giving them the opportunity to "get to know you a little better." Do you think facebook has become an alternative reality? Because in reality, you are not speaking to this person directly, but radio/micro waves are maintaining your communication. Today, it seems as though we have put trust into the internet and not so much each other.

Social Network War

As I was surfing the web the other day, I came across an interesting news article about Facebook, Skype, and Google. The head line read: Facebook and Skype link arms against Google. Apparently, Facebook and Skype are combing their features to create a stronger, more sufficient online coalition. By combining their features together, I think that the social networking world will be taken to the next level. By doing so, individuals will be able to video chat with friends of Facebook and make calls to friends through Facebook... in a more cost efficient way. This technique would make it even easier to communicate with people across the world. I think the partnership is an interesting approach for the growth of social networking. I'm wondering if they will create a new name for the partnership- or will they keep Facebook as Facebook and Skype as Skype. What are your thoughts about this partnership?

You can find the article at http://www.technewsworld.com/story/70929.html?wlc=1286207613