Before and after the break…

Well, after our final presentations on Wednesday (4/29), I realized that all this time I had my website at a really distorted width/height dimension that made it look…well, fat. Too fat to see in one screen. I also realized that my laptop was at a lower resolution than it should have been, which explained why everything looked fine on my laptop, but then looked bloated on everything else! Moral of the story…work on your website/blog from another computer from time to time!

Anyway, now that I have my website fixed, I was able to get it all to fit within the width of one screen, but still have to scroll up and down to get to the bottom.

Which got me to thinking…how important is it for a website to display all of its information in one screen? Does having to scroll down (or to the right) hurt a website’s “userfriendliness”? I’ve noticed that some websites out there, like the New York Philharmonic have everything in one “area” that does not include any scrolling down to see other parts of the page. On the other hand, sites like the Los Angeles Philharmonic definitely need to be scrolled down to see the whole thing. Granted, they do include the most important links and information at the top, but I still wonder how much potential information is missed when people have to scroll down.

This reminds me of my days as a Journalism graduate student at NYU’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (what a semester that was). I remember learning in class about some kind of statistic regarding newspaper/magazine layout that stated, “you lose 50% of your readers ‘at the break’”–meaning, if you have to split your article up between different pages, or worse, different sections of the newspaper or magazine, you lose a lot of readers at the article break. I wonder if this kind of mindset applies to websites too.

I do admit that it is a pain sometimes to have to scroll…it’s much nicer when everything fits in one page, scroll-free. Hmmm…guess I have a lot more work to do on my website….

AAARRRRRGHHHHHH (and some other cool stuff)

That does it. I’m getting a new laptop.

Although it’s been the most wonderful computer I’ve owned in my life, my G4 PowerBook is proving time and time again to be incapable of handling running Adobe CS 3 without some major malfunction. (“What is your major malfunction?!?!?”)

I thought I could get by without the amount of space and memory on my computer, but this is one crash/freeze-up too many that I’ve experienced in the last few weeks, which makes doing any work on this computer near impossible. And don’t even get me started on trying to work Dreamweaver and Flash at the same time. That’s an “unexpected shut down” death screen just waiting to happen.

OK, ranting is done. One of the coolest things I’ve learned from Chianan in the last few weeks is the simple concept of using tables to create so many cool looking websites. Once he showed us how tables operate, it was actually quite easy (and even fun) to revisit some of my favorite websites and try and figure out what kind of table layout was used. Here are some of my favorites:

The Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) Well this has always been one of my favorite sites to visit anyway…now knowing that there is a table involved makes it that much cooler to view! And the flash site on the Color Chart is still there…check it out while you still can!

Los Angeles Philharmonic and Walt Disney Concert Hall In my opinion, the hottest and best-sounding American orchestra out there today. I’ve always loved Esa-Pekka Salonen as both composer and conductor, and now having Gustavo Dudamel on board is another major coup. This site only enhances the “hipness” factor of this group…compare the interactive, bold, and user-friendly nature of their website to the Boston Symphony Orchestra, for example, and whoa! It’s really interesting to see how the website is such an important, essential element in reflecting and portraying an organization’s image across to the everyday surfer/listener.  Just by looking at these two orchestras’ wildly different homepages (and surfing around both sites), you get a definite sense that these two ensembles see themselves in totally different ways.

B.R. Guest Restaurants A lot of my favorite restaurants in New York can be accessed through this website. Major kudos to the really cool image viewer and the lounge-ish soundtrack.

Class Websites

After seeing the websites of my classmates, two things are clear: 1) I have a long way to go to catch up with any of them and 2) We have some very clever and creative people in my class! It’s interesting to see how people’s personalities and moods can come out through their own websites in ways that might not be so evident just by seeing/hearing them in class.

I think Sunmin’s website was a standout for me for a couple of reasons. The website has a very clean, organized appearance and seems very well unified, in both “feel” and in appearance. I also really enjoyed looking at each of her assignments, she seems to have so much ability and know-how with using Flash! Even the little things stand out, such as the “Loading” screen that she uses for her Action Script assignment. I can’t remember if she actually made that herself or found it somewhere…but either way, it’s quite impressive.

Of course, everyone in the class has some very impressive features on their sites, and I can’t wait to see where the class goes from here.

On another note, here is an impressive website from a friend and former Teachers College classmate..some really impressive Flash features here that I would love to incorporate into my own website!

Jason Gaines–awesome trumpet player and cool guy

Whoa!!!

Check out this Flash site at MOMA! Awesome. I want to check out this exhibit now.

http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/2008/colorchart/

Human nature=human errors=bad for HTML code!

While working feverishly to catch up on my Flash assignments, I’m struck by how exacting and precise the nature of entering HTML code can be.  One extra space here, a missed letter there–and your website or Flash project or whatever it is goes completely down the drain.  It seems to me that so much of my time is spent going back and finding out where my single error occured that threw the entire website into disarray.

It’s amazing just how much of this stuff relies on being just right with your coding…so much relies on the absence of human error!  While I realize how important it is for to learn about HTML coding and the language, I’m really looking forward to getting to work with Dreamweaver and seeing just what is possible.

Back to work!  I hope to get more of my Flash assignments done this week!

Fun with Flash

With the week off from work (hooray for MidWinter Break!!!), I’m using the days off to get caught up in class.  I find myself at a distinctive disadvantage from the class, as many members of this class took Dr. Gilbert’s Technological Trends class just last semester.  Me?  I took the course back in 2002 (gulp).  If there’s one things about computers and technology that everyone should know, it’s that 6 years is literally several lifetimes worth of development, concepts, ideas, and advancements.  I remember the really basic websites we made for class back in 2002 and compare them to the work that the NYU students are doing now, and the difference is quite staggering.

That being said, having taken this class so long ago only makes me more aware now of how browing the Internet is a totally new experience.  It seems that every Website nowadays features animation, flash, video, more “interactive”media features…at the risk of sounding like an “old timer”, I still remember that such features were more the rarity than the norm, back in 2002.  I guess one doesn’t notice such things….unless they do happen to visit an “old” website and realize just how far the Internet experience has come.

As I struggle to work on and complete my Flash projects, I am amazed to see what is out there in terms of animation.  One thing I’ve noticed is that many universities and even high schools are really taking advantage of Flash-type animation and interactive media features to make the “visit” as memorable as possible.  The LaGuardia High School website, for example  ( http://www.laguardiahs.org/ ) has a cool animated introduction which really suits the school.  NYU’s website ( www.nyu.edu) has a Video Spotlight section that allows visitors to get a deeper impression of the school.

My own school where I teach, New Explorations into Science, Technology and Math, or NEST+m for short, does not have quite as memorable a website ( http://www.nestmk12.net/index2.html ), which is unfortunately because our school has so much to display and offer!  I hope that my experiences with Flash will help me in possibly upgrading our Website and make it more memorable to those who visit, especially prospective students.

It’s a small World after all…

My reaction to watching the assigned videos was a sense of amazement at how much information can really be literally at our fingertips. Both “Hokusai’s Waterfall” and “Mobile Life Story” centered around a main theme: the remarkable advances in communication that are entirely possible. Although I found some “visions” of the future with a bit more incredulity than others (is it really safe to let a car drive itself?), I was nonetheless intrigued by the thought of having so much information–for example, the “mobile camera home tutor” is something I’d want for myself as a teacher! I’m almost scared to think that my job could be taken over by such technology.

Of course, the one concern I would have about all this technology is–could all of this really be affordable to the average citizen? Not to assume anything, but each family depicted in the video appeared to be of a certain upper-class bracket. I wonder such technology as depicted by the video could be made affordable to everyone.

In any case, the Mobile Life Story video was definitely enjoyable…and having the all-Debussy soundtrack didn’t hurt either!

As for the other videos…all I can say is for someone with “no musical experience”, as he claimed, he certainly had a good sense of rhythm to make videos as musically intricate and precise at that one!

Well, if you are reading this, thanks for being patient with me as I gradually continue to update this. More to come soon, I promise!

Testing! (and Comparing Browsers).

Wow…this is completely new to me, and I’m really excited to start. Anyway, besides testing, I’m using this first post to partially complete the first assignment… as of right now, I only know and have used 4 Web Browsers to comment on them with any familiarity…Internet Explorer, Netscape, Safari, and Firefox.

As a not-too-recent Mac “convert”, I can’t say enough nice things about Safari as a browser. When I owned a PC, using IE or Netscape would inevitably become a game of “stop the pop-up”, and I have found that using Safari has been basically pop-up free.

However for whatever reason I find that Firefox tends to just work “faster” for reasons that I (yet) can’t explain.

I’m going to stop here and just get comfortable with the process of posting things…so obviously there will be more to come really soon.

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