Blog #4

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CSS

CSS is a Cascading Style Sheet. As we all have learned in class it is what creates the beauty of our html. We have learned that it can control things such as typography, backgrounds and overall layout. Information was obtained at Wikipedia.

We will also be utilizing a lot of the semantic structure that we are creating now to give structure to our CSS. For instance, we will use the <div> and <span> tags to identify or class our semantic structure so that a style can be applied to it. This helps to save time because it can be applied throughout your entire document, which could be several pages.

Here is a photo of my future coffee mug (before applying the style sheet of course).

Tid Bits

• Photos must be on the web in order for you to create a link for the image(s).


• Style is one of the tags we will use when we get into CSS.


• Practice is a great tool for beginning web designers. I am learning that the more I try to insert a new tag or character the easier it is to remember.


• Quote to live by "You can't regret what you have done, only what you have haven't."

Useful Web Sites

• Throughout my posting process I am constantly researching and coming across many links that are helpful and even some that are not. However, I always learn something about the web in general. Lesson #1: You are gonna get what you click for. This week during my research for CSS image files I came across This Site. Now at first glance it seems to be a help site for beginners but the further I inquired the more I found it to be a kind of a mish mosh of sorts. On the upside they did provide some links to other CSS style sites that are quite interesting and provide even more links to other helpful sites. I have learned that it is pretty much never ending. As a matter of fact I just went to check this last site link and it is now totally revamped with all new info and images. I will still leave it for you to check out.


• Two that I liked (out of the 6 they initially provided) are CSS Beauty because they have other useful links and info, and CSS Leak because they had links to other freebie sites that may be useful.

In Other Graphic Design News

I came across a site that will create a cartoon of your self image. Just visit My web face. I thought this could be a fun and entertaining project for kids or entertaining friends and family. The picture below is an example of what I envision the finished product would be; for this little lady anyways.

Another site that could be extremely useful in your job search as a designer is coroflot. This site is worldwide and allows you to search for jobs and post your portfolio. There are several different design careers to choose from and a great collection of portfolio examples for each avenue. I completed the initial sign up and it was free. I've posted a picture of their upcoming convention flyer. Be sure to check it out!

Blog #3

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I don't know about you guys but all of the acronyms that are being thrown our way get a little jumbled in my head. I thought that I would research a couple of them to familiarize myself but I found myself just trying to make sure I could figure out the blog post and our homework. On my quest for knowledge I came across a lot of information, definitions and useful websites that I will share with you. First things first, some computer terms that I wanted to understand a little better and then a few web sites I found useful and interesting.

RSS and FTP

RSS is referred to as Rich Site Summary or sometimes Really Simple Syndication. It is a group of "web feed" formats that are utilized to display continuously changing sites such as news and blogs. There are different readers that enable the data to be displayed. FTP is a common protocol used to trade and alter files over an IP computer network. As I think was mentioned in class it is built on a client and server relationship foundation. It also utilizes different control and data connections.
All of the above information was obtained at Wikipedia.

I've included a photo of the RSS icon D.J.ing at the club.

Technological Terms

Semantics

Signify with a mark or symbol a meaning. The meaning can vary from program to program.

Parse

Is the process of analyzing text.

Syntax

Is just a set of rules that governs the behavior of computer programming.

Network Protocol

Is basically the rules that govern the syntax, semantics, and synchronization of communication.

All of the above information was obtained at Wikipedia

Useful Web Sites

• Throughout my posting process I came across several issues. One of which was trying to get my web site links to work. Although I am sure it was a misplaced something or other I finally figured it out after visiting W3C MarkUp Guide.
  


• Also after reviewing our first assignment, I found that I did not remember what DOCTYPE was so I researched that too. I found out that this is a declaration that you make at the very beginning of your HTML document (even before the <html> tag). It tells the browser what markup language you are speaking. There is an awesome website that explains this and also provides the different declarations for all different (X)HTML versions. It also provides a ton of HTML tags with their definition and usage. This site address isDOCTYPE and TAGS.


• Another aspect of the assignment that I was not to comfortable with was validation of our document. Soooooo, I looked that up too. I found a little info in chapter 10 of our book and then visited the free website mentioned. The website for free validation of your markup is W3C Free Validator. Of course if you just want to get info or join the W3C, World Wide Web Consortium, you can visit their site which is W3C-weet!

In Other Graphic Design News

My brother sent me an email with a link to
Typography: Amazing Alphabet Recreations. I thought that all of the alphabets were extremely inventive and shows how much typography can play into everyday life. I hope you enjoy it! If you want to visit my brother's Graphic Design Web site just go to ipoxstudios.com or just do a google search. I may be biased but I think is is pretty darn awesome! This is one of his creations that was posted on PSDTUTS.

Blog #2

This week I was looking up some more information on v-card, or vcf files, and came across a cool website that lets you search all the different file extensions that everyone uses. The website is www.fileinfo.com/extension/vcf. You can browse through all the different extensions for image files, video, text, and font files just to name a few. I thought this was helpful and interesting because (1)It shows the vastness of the digital realm as it relates to design and other industries and (2)If you don't know what an extension is or forget one, you can quickly look it up.

I was researching on my blackberry at the time and also found another site that is available for searches however I did not like the way it laid out on my blackberry screen (I also did not like the font used). That web site's address is www.filext.com/file-extension/vcf. I think that if this second website somehow changed the code so that it would show the search section on the sidebar first (like the other one without scrolling) and then the tabs at the top below that it would be more appealing on my phone.

I was also going to research boot camp software when I found a website that provides reports on gadgets and gear. They also have a tech news feed that reports the latest breaking stories on technologies. The website is www.bootcamp.com and if you want to go straight to the news just add the file name which is technewsfeed.jsp (full address is http://www.bootcamp.com/technewsfeed.jsp) By the way, the extension .jsp stands for Java Server Page (for more info visit the FileInfo site listed above.)

What I did find about the Boot Camp software was that it is a utility that Mac owners can use to install Windows XP or Vista on their Mac. You can devote a certain percentage of your hard drive to Windows and the rest to Mac in whatever ratio you think necessary. I think this could be useful to create spreadsheets or letters for the business side of graphic design. I did read that the Microsoft side of the drive could get a virus so an antivirus program would be required. If you would like to read more please visit the following sites: http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20060406/apple-boot-camp-macs/ or wikipedia.com