Comments on My Classmates' Pages

I really like Sean's photo page. I like the filters he chose because they take such a popular image (the Statue of Liberty) and distort it in all kinds of ways. I also really like the purple background, although it makes the black writing a little hard to read. Maybe white would be a better color for the text.

I also like Kelly's movie. She chose a scrapbook theme that fits well with her photos from her trip to Paris. I have a little trouble reading the small text on her site. Maybe it could be a little bigger.

Finally, I think Norah has a great homepage. It looks very professional with the choice of colors, image and all her links in a table.

Safari vs. Firefox, Part II

As I put the finishing touches on my assignments for this course, I consistently notice that Safari gives me fewer problems than Firefox. The same page will look very different in each browser, but always the way I want it to look in Safari.

For example, the screenshots in my Music Concrete assignment look okay in Safari, but they don't have the right dimensions in Firefox. In Firefox, there are extra pixels of height beyond the borders of the image, but in Safari, it's cropped just right. Also in Firefox, the audio files have a white box behind them that looks unprofessional. There's probably a way to fix this, but I'm not sure how.

My boyfriend is a programmer, and he says that one of the biggest headaches of his work is making sure the code he writes looks good in Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7, etc. I wonder if sometime in the near future there will be a more universal code that all browsers recognize, down to the small details.

Safari vs. Firefox

I have been happily using Firefox for several years, and my only complaint was that the icon to close each tab was way over on the right side of the screen, not on each individual tab.

Then, while testing some of my code for this class, I got frustrated because my changes weren't showing up in Firefox. I opened the same page in Safari and right away saw my new and improved site. I'm not sure if the extra time it took for me to switch to Safari was necessary for whatever needs to happen between changing the html and seeing the change online, but I was sold. I've been using Safari ever since. I especially like the Top Sites feature where you can see miniature screen shots of your favorite websites all at once and click on the one you want to go to. And to top it all off, the icon to close each tab in Safari is right where I need it: on the tab itself.

I also enjoyed this related article.

Practice Makes...Almost Perfect

I am finally starting to get the hang of the web development skills we are learning in class, basic though they are. What used to take me half an hour of trial and error now takes me a few short steps. For a while, I was confused about the location of files in the public_html folder on my desktop, on Files 2.0 and in JEdit, but I understand now how they all work together.

Just to give a quick example: Earlier today, I wanted to see what my code looked like, so I uploaded it to Files 2.0 and opened the page. Later, I realized that instead of waiting to upload it on Files 2.0, I can just open the .html file from my desktop folder and the page will automatically open in a new window. It's a much faster way to check my work.

Little things like that are starting to make my work a lot easier. Most of all, I really admire the work of professional web developers who can do much more complicated and elegant coding than my basic scrawl. I have a newfound appreciation for user-friendly, aesthetically pleasing websites!

Blackboard Critique

As much as I love the way Blackboard makes it possible for teachers and students to communicate more effectively and "go green," it is not very user friendly. I like the way students can post papers, download reading assignments, send email to classmates and participate in discussion threads. However, the administrator (usually the professor) must set up certain privileges in order for these functions to work, and sometimes professors don't bother, or don't know how.

For me, the side bar is confusing. I usually have to click on a few items (Course Documents, Course Information, Assignments, etc.) before I can find what I'm looking for. Professors should be able to label their own side bars, so that the items are more relevant to each individual class, and therefore easier to navigate.

Group Presentation Ideas

We all expressed an interest in photography, so we're going to make either a website or a slideshow/movie called A DAY IN THE LIFE. Each of us will choose one day to take 10-15 pictures throughout the day, of places we go, people we see, the mundane and the profound. Then, we'll collect all of our photos and present them creatively, but we're not quite sure how yet.

Professor Yen said there was a group a few semesters ago who did a photo project that looked at graffiti around the city. Maybe we could focus on something more specific like that.

Welcome to my blog!

I started this blog as an assignment for my Tech Resources class. The title comes from a song by Crosby, Stills and Nash. In the song Suite: Judy Blue Eyes, they sing:

Chestnut brown canary
Ruby-throated sparrow
Sing a song
Don't be long
Thrill me to the marrow