October 27

SQL (Structured Query Language) is a programming language associated with databases. It breaks up into two sublanguages. DDL is used to create and destroy databases and the data within them. DML is used to manipulate and edit existing data. A DBMS can hold and allow an administrator to control several independent databases. There are different tables within a database.

A database is a collection of records or data stored in a computer. The data is organized according to some sort of model.

Filemaker, as I understand it, is a program used to work with databases. Until recently, each table was saved as a seperate file, although several tables can now be saved to a single document. I think it allows the user to drag information and drop it wherever you need it to be, rather than just typing commands.

October 20

Well, I went to Wikipedia to read up about web servers. I generally got the gist of how it works, but I feel like because the Internet is put together by techies who know how these things work a lot of information can be way too complicated for a novice like myself. So I went to youtube where at least if it was complicated, I'd have some visual that might help me understand it. I found this video that's from a Harvard extension school.

I had a lot of trouble finding something that told me what web server applications actually were instead of the different kinds. I ended up reading about APIs, though I'm not sure if that's what I needed to know. What I can gather is that a web server application formulates specific information based on user input, rather than just taking the user to a pre-formulated page (I hope that makes sense).

FTP was equally if not more complicated. It's a protocol, like HTTP. It's used for transferring data between computers. Apparently, you can also use it to hack usernames and passwords. I found a lot about the different FTP clients. I assume that anytime I download something off the Internet I'm using FTP.

DNS translates hostnames into IP addresses. The address I read from right to left in order to find the website. So when I type in the address of my blog (ktlawton.blogbspot.com) it looks for "com" first, which subdivides into "blogspot" which subdivides into "ktlawton1642." So it works from the general (com) to the specific (ktlawton1642). It's difficult to understand that in most cases "www" is the most specific just because it appears before almost everything and in a lot of cases typing in example.com will bring you to the same place as www.example.com.

CHMOD has to do with permissions. I guess this is what is used when you have to register for a site before you can use it. For instance when looking for custom content for the Sims you encounter a lot of "paysites" where you have to donate money to the site before you can access certain files. This was actually pretty easy to understand thanks to this website http://catcode.com/teachmod/index.html.

I'm still very much a novice and a lot of this is still Greek to me, but I think I'm started to get a better grasp on it.

October 6

Alas, one of the things that did not translate from my Dreamweaver 4 book was divs. I couldn't even find it in the book. I ended up going back to youtube to find a tutorial. I ended up using this one:

I've looked at other dreamweaver tutorials made by the same person before. I think he makes it easy to understand for the most part. It's especially helpful to me because I can see where he's finding all the tools in the program whereas if I use a book I sort of have to figure out where everything is for myself.

I decided to try to copy the Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab homepage for class (http://www.blackphoenixalchemylab.com/). I used only divs to make the website. Thanks to the tutorial I watched, I found it pretty easy for the most part. I did have some problems, though. When I got up to the main text on the page, I didn't know how to make it in one box that would wrap around the main image, so I ended up making two separate divs, one to the right of the image and one underneath.

I also did not know how to use a custom font as they did on the left nav bar, so I just stuck with a default font. I was afraid if I tried using a different font I would end up with something that can't be seen on all browsers.

On the BPAL website, when you hover over the text in the left nav bar, it changes from gray to black. I also did not know how to replicate this.

For the most part, I think I managed to replicate the site pretty well.

EDIT:

I posted comments on the blogs of Valerie, Ivana, and Brandon.

Sept 29

After a crazy week or so I finally found some time to get to the computer lab with my Dreamweaver 4 for Dummies book and try to translate it to CS3. So far the translation's been pretty easy.

I tried to change the page size, but I can't tell if it actually changed anything.

Then I learned how to put the date and time on a page. I don't know if I'd ever use that on a web page... I guess I just don't see the point on anything other than a blog maybe. Well, I guess you could put "last update: [date]" on your page if you wanted to.

In order to play with text I put a simple nav. bar on top (Home About Us Contact Us Blog Shopping Cart Wishlist). I didn't want to change the format because we were talking about how people make things headers that really aren't headers and they shouldn't do that. I don't really understand why, to be honest. Anyhow, I didn't want to mess with that, so I just played with font, colour, size, and alignment, which might be just as bad, but I don't really know. I made the nav bar text into it's own style.

I played with the page properties. I added a background image. That was terrible. I couldn't read any of the text. I did find an image that wasn't as bad. I kept it for the time being, but I probably wouldn't use one on my own site.

I'm kind of curious to know what a tracing image is and how it works.

I made a table and filled it with images and it looked pretty good in dreamweaver, but as soon as I tried to preview it, it said only the image names where the picture should have been. I tried saving the page to my i-pod (in lieu of a thumb-drive), where the images were saved, but then it couldn't find my page. But it's too late for me to go crazy over it. It's getting late. I'll see if I can get it to work tomorrow, or I'll just start fresh since it was really just an experiment today anyway.

September 22 - Paper Prototyping

Paper prototyping is a simple and cost effective way to test human-computer interfaces. The design would be put on pieces of paper that could easily be arranged and rearranged as needed. Test users would be able to interact with a paper design, with the pieces being rearranged by a second person. Thus the test user can provide feedback and major changes can be made before a single line of code is written.

I think I have a pretty good grasp of how paper-prototyping works. It's straight-forward enough. I did want to see how it was done, exactly, so I found some stuff on youtube and that helped. Seeing it done definately gives you a better sense of how it can help in the design process.

I was surprised that Jakob Nielsen said that paper-prototyping isn't used very often. I suppose I could see some people thinking it would be a waste of time and just plunging right into the code. It just seems like paper prototyping could save so much time and frustration in the long run, that it would be worth it. Granted, I've never written a sinle line of code, but I can imagine that crumpling upa piece of paper and sketching out a new design would be a lot less frustrating than having to rewrite lines and lines of code.

In addition to the benefits one could gain from working with a test user, I would think that paper-prototyping would be a useful tool when working with clients. If you're designing a website or some other type of interface for someone who doesn't know anything about code, you could bring them a paper layout that they could arrange to their liking. In this way the client might feel that they had more of a hand in the design process and might then be happier with the end result.

September 15

1. http://www.pinupgirlclothing.com/

I don't wear a lot of mod/retro clothing, myself, but I do have a strange sort of fascination with the style. Pinup Girl Clothing is one of my favourite sites to browse, though I've never actually bought anything from there. As much as I like what they're selling, I'm not a big fan of the layout.

There's a lot of information on the bottom of the page which seems to me a little sloppy. The first big section of text under the pictures repeats the same information three times. I would condense it into a concise introduction. I would probably put that in place of the pictures up top, since those are the same as the left-hand menu, and thus unnecessary, I think. I see the value in having more of a visual, but I think you could have a short intro an pictures for a visual without there having to be a second menu.

One of my biggest qualms with the site was the left-hand menu, but I notice they have updated it. It used to have pictures and text. It didn't quite fit that way and I think the text-only format is a big improvement.

At the bottom of the home page they also have a set of links as well as a few paragraphs "about pinup girl clothing." I would put these on their own "links" and "about" pages.

When you actually get into the site and look at the page for a particular item (that journey is a bit confusing, but I'm not going to get into that), the set up for that page is a bit weird, I think. They give a good amount of information about the item, which is definitely a positive. They also give information about the model and styling in the photograph. This seems a bit superfluous, except when you consider that Pinup Girl Clothing also hosts events with their models. Thus, I think it's okay to give this information, but I just think it could all be arranged better.

Also, I'd try to make it look more tasteful and less trashy, because the vast majority of their clothes really aren't. Admittedly, some of their clothes are a bit trashy, but you get the sense from the page that that's all they sell, which really isn't the case.

2. http://www.ursulavernon.com/

I've been a huge fan of Ursula Vernon for years now, ever since I discovered her art on the internet. For a long time her only website was metalandmagic.com. But when Ursula found success as a children's author, she realized that she was not known for children's art and as such it might be a good idea to create a new kid-friendly website in case any young fans happened search her out on the internet. Thanks to a good friend, the site was up and running in only a week or two. This website which focuses more on her work as an author. I think it's well put together. It's to the point, and doesn't overwhelm the user with unnecessary information.

3. http://ll30sims.moonfruit.com/

I'm hopelessly addicted to The Sims 2. One of the things that I think is great about the game is the players ability to use custom content to make the game whatever you want it to be. I spend far too much time looking at the different things people create for the game. LL30 Sims is a relatively new site. It features some of the best Sim Creators on the internet right now and is continuing to grow and develop. I think the site is pretty well organized and aesthetically pleasing. My only real criticism for the site is the way they organize the downloadable content. Each creator has their own page, and on that page is a list of names of the sims you can download. There is no way to preview the link before you click it, though. So if you like one of the sims pictured on the creator's page, the only way you can find that sim is to go through the list one by one. When you click on a name, there's no link to go straight to the next name on the list, so if you're looking for something that you don't know the name of, you have to click a name wait for it to load (which takes a while for me), then hit the back button, wait for it to load, then go to the next name. It's just a bit time consuming, and I would probably try to do something to make it easier.

4. http://www.gocomics.com/

One of the things I miss about being home is getting to read the comic pages in the paper. Some newspaper websites allow you to look at comics online, but the ones I've used only allow you to see one at a time. Go Comics allows you to create a page with whatever comics you like. You can either view your comics one at a time, clicking "next" to move to the next one on your list. You can also view all your comics on one page if you're willing to pay. My complaints with the site are that it's slow-loading (though that likely has more to do with fordham's wireless than the site).

I do like that they give a good amount of information pertaining to each strip without it seeming overbearing. I like that they give you a product related to the strip, whether it be "Complete Chester Gould's Dick Tracy Volume Six" or a print of today's Foxtrot. I also like that they give a brief history of each strip. The comments are a big plus for me since I don't love comics so much as making fun of comics, plus it's another way for the user to interact with with the site, which I think is great.

I love feeds personally. Most of the sites I use I go to through the feeds, so I was excited when I saw that I could subscribe to a feed for each of my strips. But I was disappointed that I can't see the actual strip in the feed, and that I have to go back to the actual site and wait forever for it to load. I do understand that they need you to go to the site to click on the ads so they can get paid. But since the majority of strips are updated daily anyway, it doesn't seem very worth it to me... to have a feed (let alone multiple ones) seems a bit unnecessary when I only have to go back to the site anyway.

So aside from their lacking a few key strips (Pearls Before Swine, Get Fuzzy, Mary Worth) I'd say that it's a pretty good site for comic lovers, if only I had faster internet.

5. http://www.sockdreams.com/

A website dedicated to socks... and a few other things. The site isn't fancy by any means, but it doesn't look amateur. I think it's organized well and is easy to navigate. The menu doesn't take you into confusing sub-menus like Pinup Girl. When looking at a particular item, they give you a good amount of information, but it seems cohesive and doesn't feel unnecessary. In fact, I think I'd like Pinup Girl a lot better if it was organized like this.

I think the quick search is a good feature, it has a lot of choices. I suppose that hypothetically it could be argued that it limits the user in a way because they can't type in anything they want and if it's not on the list then they just have to do a manual search. But we're dealing with socks here, and they give you so many options already I can't imagine that ever being a real issue for anyone.