Those pesky fire alarms

Argh does any one else have those fire alarms that tend to go off at a drop of a hat. Today the alarms went off twice and both times there was no smoke in the air. What is going on? To makes matters worse when one decides to go crazy the others kick in, and there are 5 in the house, one in everybody’s room. I know that fire alarms are necessary and save lives and are one of the best things invented, but after all these false alarms what are we going to do when there is a real fire? Just sit in our room and hope the alarm stops when fire and smoke fill the house, then we get burnt to death. I know this sounds like a morbid post and I sound cynical about these but after awhile of these loud ear-piercing alarms screaming just above your ear it does get tiring. What was ironic was that we had security come round last night to check if our alarms were functioning and I think its been proven over the last couple of days as they have been going off at the drop of a hat. So in came security and set them off and we had to listen to the chilling sound once again for no smoke again. Even though I have ranted about these pesky fire alarms I am grateful we have them because our stove and oven is gas tops and I know how easily fires can start because I have put my spaghetti on fire as it has dipped into the burning flame. Wait don’t all flames burn? Yeah so my spaghetti was on fire and the fire alarms went off, so they did there job. And by the way in case your wondering, no I did not burn the house down I doused in just in time.

Technorati

When I first signed up to Technorati a couple of months ago I had no idea what this was. However upon research I have discovered it is not only a search engine for other peoples blogs, which many believe is similar to google in other aspects but Technorati offer much more. Technorati is capable of allowing the user to save favourites blogs and to get an update of your favourite blog entries. Technorati is a good ego booster if you have a high ranking and it is fun to compete with friends over your rank and authority. My authority is 9, this means that my blog has been linked 9 times by other people. My rank is pretty good and I have one of the highest out of my friends, 565 314. The rank is a measurement of your blog popularity, with 1 being the highest 565 314 seems far away but in comparison to the rest of the class its pretty close to the elusive number 1.

Form versus Content

Form versus content is the big question this week. What's more important when creating a website or blog, how it looks or what's in it. The form of the website catches the viewers eyes and makes the viewer read the page. However to keep the viewers attention the content needs to be interesting or newsworthy. Reading about someone’s day, from when they woke up, went to work, came home and then went to be would not keep the reader interested and therefore would leave the website. Aesthetic is a common phrase that tends to be used in the artist world. Art usually needs to be aesthetically pleasing to be successful.

When thinking of an aesthetically pleasing website that I constantly go to I think of my bookmarks, these pages are marked for content rather than form. Therefore finding a website I go to for form rather than content is harder that I originally thought. Therefore my initial thought of placing an importance of content over form is questioned. For a page to be successful in my eyes there needs to be easy access to relevant links, easy to read and have the right amount of information needed. I like my web pages being ordered. Information overload is one of the aspects I hate on a web page, I don’t want to read lines and lines of pages to find out something I could have read in 2 sentences.

I use the internet to search for information and stay in contact with friends and family. Therefore when researching an assignment or simply a release date for a movie or dvd I find a search engine on the website is the best way to find the appropriate material. Sites that fail to have a search engine frustrate me as I can never find the material I need quickly and therefore I end up searching another website. I often shop a Big W for they have the cheapest dvd’s but using the internet to find prices and availability is impossible. For a start they have no search, there links are hard to find and there is very little order to there website. However JB Hi-Fi is another cheap dvd retailer and there website is more user friendly. I am able to find the dvd I am after with a simply search, the price and the availability. Therefore I now will choose JB Hi-Fi over Big W when shopping simply because the internet has allowed me to know what’s in store.

An important factors of web design is the legibility of the content. The correct colour combination ensures legibility. Orange writing on a red background is near impossible to read, it is important for the designer to use colours that the viewers could read with the greatest ease. The speed of the page is also an important factor, a page which is slow to load will frustrate viewers and consequently will stop viewers from revisiting the site. These factors along with form and content are important to keep in mind when designing and constructing a successful web page. This is why I use the internet every day and will continue to do for a very long time.

XML and RSS

XML stands for Extensible Markup Language. XML is designed to describe data and to focus on what data is. At first i thougt it was the same as HTML but the difference is that XML is designed to describe date and to focus on what data is wheras HTML was designed to display data and to focus on how data looks. I am still trying to understand the difference between these two and there functions but i hope as time passes i will be able to use it more effectively as the term progresses. some othere details i discovered about XML is that tags are not predefined and the user (myself) must define their own tags. XML also uses a Document Type Definition (TDT) or an XML Schema to describe the data. This DTD or XML Schema is designed to be self-descriptive. i know sounds confusing with all those letters but we will figure them all out. just you watch with this space.

Okay moving on the the RSS. RSS or Rich Site Summary is a format for sydicating news and the content of news-like sites, including Wires, personal weblogs and news-orientated community sites. However RSS is not just for news, that's right. Pretty much anything that can be broken down into discrete items can be syndicated via RSS: for example the "recent changes" page of a wikipedia and the revision history of a book. Once information about each item is in RSS format, an RSS-aware program can check the feed for changes and react to the changes in an appropriate way. Wow that sounds complicated but i suppose i see RSS as a link page thats allows anyone to view the latest updates of any page. It's pretty handy and it really means the reader can be lazier. I'm loving that. My first contact with an RSS feed was through my delicious page but you can view it on crazy comet blog. check it out.

Okay the next step of this week was to subscribe to either Google Reader or Bloglines. A tough choice i must admit as i had no idea as to what they were or what magic they did. Upon researching i found using Google reader was easier as i already had an account in google, gmail account. Google reader also looked more user friendly therefore it got bonus points in my eyes.

Sandy

The year so far

As the assessment is coming up I thought I might write about past term. When we first received our subject outline I thought the subject would be tiresome and I wouldn’t really enjoy it. Now my opinions have changed.

I have created a blog before for a tv class a couple of years ago. I thought I knew most things about blogger, but I have learnt how little I did know. Previously I hadn’t even touch the ‘customize’ button and played with the format and settings. I generally just typed my blog and posted it. One of the things I’m really glad I learnt was the html and the links to another page. Previously I would have just done the standard URL address but now I know the code to create the specific link and I’m lovin’ it. One of the hardest part for me was writing the actual blog, well writing something worthwhile and interesting. I tended to write about whatever happened to me recently or what I have just seen and liked, such as Robin Hood, The departed and some YouTube videos. There was really no order to my post just whatever pops into my head. Uploading a picture to my post made the blogs more interesting I felt and gave them character. It also allows other to get a visual understanding of my blog, for a picture tells a thousand words. I have also signed up for Technorati and placed a counter at the bottom of my page so I am able to view how many people have visited my blog. I have found creating a blog enjoyable and now I am pleased to have a greater understanding of blogger.

Delicious was one difficult for me in terms of posting interesting bookmarks. I usually only use about 5 or so websites, mainly Sydney Morning Herald and mycsu. I joined the network with the people in the workshop class and tried to save bookmarks that I liked and others might enjoy. Tagging the bookmarks where easier than I expected and I like having my computer ordered so bundling tags was ideal for me. I posted my flickr and blogger bookmark on delicious so others could have easy access to my site. Delicious was handy on a personal note so I could save all my favourites and it was just a click away to going to their site.

Flickr was the final stage in our assessment, all I had to do was upload pictures to the net. Simply. Well it wasn’t as easy as I thought. I realised that I don’t really have interesting photos to upload, my photos usually contain me and my friends nights out. I suppose there not that interesting to others but my friends. I have uploaded three groups: friends, swans and altered pictures. Flickr allowed me to comment on other people photos and I liked looking through there photos. Heaps more interesting than mine, such as bands and concerts. I wish I went to concerts then I could upload them I didn’t want to rip them off the net, so I was left with just pictures of me.

So that’s pretty much what I’ve been doing in MPI104 this year. I have to say I have enjoyed doing this just for the fact that I have leant some basic techniques of creating a web page. Hooray.

Robin Hood

The story of Robin Hood has been told many times, some directors have made a parody of the robin hood stories, Robin Hood Men in Tights. The BBC produced a 13 part Robin Hood airing on Sunday 7:30 ABC. Robin Hood is well scripted and acted. Robin Hood is based around Robin (Jonas Armstrong) who returns home from war in the Holy Land with a changed view on fairness and the value of human life. Robin stands up to the new corrupt sheriff and goes into hiding in the forest. It is in the forest he meets Little John and his gang and together they form their army to take on the Sheriff. Robin Hood is really well produced with good camera work and tight editing. This is one of the best shows I have seen in recent years, dare I say it better than Scrubs Everyone should watch it, it’s only got 10 episodes left so get moving.

More Funny sports

Soccer hilarities. First shot shows how soft soccer players really are and how terrible actors they are