Design Tutorial
The design tutorial was very informative. I enjoyed learning about font familyes and getting an overview on fonts. That is one subject that I have never really understood. It's good to know you can actually find a font family.
Remediation and the Self
The Remediated Self and the Virtual Self can best be described in terms of cinema versus theater. The remediated self is controlled by the medium and forced to observe what it is shown. In the same way directors choose how to frame a shot or focus on specific elements of a scene. In the theater a person is free to focus his attention on whatever aspect of the play he chooses. The main character may be giving an important monologue, but anyone in the audience can choose to look at details of the set or someone moving slightly in the background. The virtual self is more in control of what to experience. The networked self is a combination of being influenced by hypermediate and transparent forces. Sometimes multiple forms are necessary to achieve the desired effect. It is because some forms of medium may be necessary to help the person get to a point where they can become remediated into their new environment.
Wodtke One
This book is great! I have really enjoyed the clear concise rules and tips for web design in this book so far. It uses clear examples that are easy to understand without being extremely wordy. She actually uses some of the practices she is talking about in being concise and simple, unlike B&G who thought it necessary to make their book an sleep aid. The first 6 rules on the book were incredibly helpful. This book makes you think exactly how a user on the website would and explains how best to help them navigate. HUGE HELP!!
fonts
an online font tutorial...
http://www.htmlcodetutorial.com/character_famsupp_194.html
Advantages of Hypermediacy over Transparency
While transparency would seem preferable to Hypermediacy in some cases, the hypermediacy of certain websites and computing methods helps to make them more useful. Many websites, such as online dictionaries, prefer to differentiate from their print counterparts. When there are links connecting all of the different articles or defenitions or entries on a site there is more connected feeling. Noticing the medium is ok because the new medium is making the content easier to access. Project Gutenberg, on the other hand, takes away all of the extras and allows the content to stand alone. The texts are simply recreated for the sake of reading them as the original. There are not links and pictures and interactive elements all of the page, the page is created to resemble the print version it came from in order to give a genuine representation. Ubiquitous computing is a way of taking virtual reality and turning it upside-down. Instead of immersing the person in a new world, ubiquitous computer creates a world of medium for the person to be fully aware of and use. Examples of this include the way the robots and vehicles we send to Mars are controlled from the remote location on Earth or how a smart classroom can provide multiple mediums to help students learn as opposed to the old forms of lecture and note taking. Both hypermediacy and transparency can be beneficial at times. Being aware of the medium is sometimes necessary to help use it.
From Computer Games to Virtual Reality, combined into Mediated Spaces
Video games put people into the lives of others for the purpose of entertainment. Not everyone can play professional football or fight in World War II or kill aliens on another planet, but through video games anyone can take on that new persona. In the same way the cinema puts people into a new world, video games do the same while giving the audience some form of control. I'm not holding a football in my hand, I'm holding a controller connected to a console, but the media of video game technology puts me in the game as the quarterback. Photography has advanced in similar fashions, as digital photographic technology has become more widespread. Photos are now expected to be of better quality and lighting because computer software allows for editing. This editing software also allows manipulations to be made to the photos that take away from the realism of the original photograph. Any picture seen today must be looked at carefully because it is almost impossible to be able to prove the authenticity of both photos and videos. While there are both pros and cons to this advanced photographic technology, it seems the pros outweigh the cons. This technology has opened the door for a new medium of digital art in which art and engineering combine to create a new way of presenting art in the abstract and the fantasy. All of these elements combine in mediated spaces such as theme parks. The ultimate goal of theme parks, such as Disney and Sea World, is to immerse people in the theme so much that they reach a level of immediacy where they feel as if they are part of the fantasy world created. Digital Art surrounds the park to flood you with the manufactured setting. Virtual Reality and Video Games help to put you into the action and some rides even combine moving cars with video screens to take the roller coaster out of a typical park setting and put it underwater or in outerspace. The ultimate goal is to throw so much of the theme through so many types of media at the people in the park that they feel as if they were in another world...
What to use?
I think the main themes that will work with our CSF website from B&G would be fluency throughout the site. Users will need to view a site that is easily navigable and is the same throughout the design. Our website's main form will also need to be appealing to a broad audience. Remediation concepts will be useful in the design of a website that appeals to the internet savy viewer as well as an older generation who may not understand internet usage completely. Targeting college students while be easily understood by everybody will be hard, but I do believe B&G concepts will help.
Conclusion
"Remediation" has definitley helped me understand design in many different facets. Seeing all the different ways the media has been remediated and also seeing examples throughout the book, proves this concept. B&G seem to be right on the money. In the conclusion the book talks about how much digital media has changed Western Civilization and even our culture. In the last 5 to 10 years digital animation has come far enough to complete change colleges, businesses, and advertising. We see new examples of digital media progressing every day on TV commercials all the way to new websites. I did enjoy how one major point for B&G was to show a connection to the past and how most media has come full circle many times. Overall B&G did help with the understading of this topic.
Remediation...
"Self"
One thing that really stuck out to me in the this part of the book, that I think most of us really ignore, or think little of is concept of Freedom of the Virtual Self! I dont think we realize it because it is already expected from us as viewers!! The media is under the viewers control in an operational sense, meaning they expect to be able to navigate and explore any type of media within a click of a button, and in the easiest method possible! As creaters of the the website it is our job to make the website as managable and easiest controlled for our audience because its not only what looks good, but because it is what is expected. When I think of making this possible, I think about links, scrolls, flash, photos, etc. This is what we will be working with to ensure the freedom of our audience's virual self! I think we want our audiences to compare where they are at that given time and moment to where they could be within our websites, making them want that control and giving them that urgency (empathy, pathos).
A small idea that I wanted to touch was networked self, and how it is constantly changing and adapting to any given environment. We want our networked self to be able to focus on multiple things at a time. This should be something created within our websites. But there shouldnt be a pull for attention, but there should be a balance and breakdown of equality between the things inside the website. I thinks thats where the ideas of pop-ups and the need for certain things to come up in new, seperate windows.
Question???
I dont know if I quite Understand the concept or Identification of "MUD's"....
remediation part III - self
People of all ages use digital media and the internet on a regular basis. The modern mediated self has some drawbacks. People often at differently in an online enviornment and change how others percieve them. Everyone benefits more from personal face-to-face interaction than computer mediated interaction over the internet. B & G discuss this with relation to wo types of the remediated self, one who is submerged in virtual reality and one who is acting in a virtual community. Also, graphically enhanced celebrities and others on the internet and other media give false perceptions. I think this book shows the extent of media effecting society but I dont think it effects people that much. The six degrees of freedom offer more visual perceptions to users thus enhancing their expierence and making them play a game, for example, longer. Virtual reality includes both cartesian and anit-cartisian principles to succeed in the transparency for the user. The user now participates in the remediation, sometimes not even knowing it. This is complete success of the videogame programer. Overall, I enjoyed this book and the views it has on these main principles of digital media today. Now I understand why so many of my friends can play videogames all day and why I can sit in front of my computer shopping online or researching on the internet for hours when it doesnt seem that long.
Tutorials
This tutorial was a great way to start off. It made me feel a lot more comfortable with many aspects of the process. When I started to work with Dreamweaver I was overwhelmed and thought I'd never get anything accomplished. Knowing I can do something in Netscape is encouraging. Using tables has given me a new perspective on the organization of the site. Tables have never been a strength of mine but I understand them more and can visualize a site using them.
I learned a lot from researching and presenting the color design tutorial. I am now more aware of how to use color in the site and to adapt it to our audience. We also found some really great online tools, tutorials and resources I will probably end up using.
Color resources
Here's the site from today's color presentation.
http://www.wellstyled.com/tools/colorscheme2/index-en.htmlKeep in mind that in many graphics programs (photoshop etc.) you can use the eyedropper tool to "grab" a color.
Television Remediation
As the ongoing process of remediation works in the realm of television there are obstacles dealing with bringing film from the big screen to viewer's homes. Film developed into a bigger spectacle in its early days to differentiate itself from television (wider aspect ratios making the films more enjoyable on larger screens). Now television is attempting to bring the film experience back down to the small screen level. Surround sound systems and dvd players help recreate the cinematic experience, but there are still problems with formatting (i.e. aspect ratios). If a film is shown in widescreen format, like the theatrical version, then people are only using a portion of their tv screen to see the film. However, if a fullscreen version is shown then the director's version of the film is changed with pan and scans and cuts to format the film so it is compatible with tv. Both sides offer advantages and disadvantages, but the ultimate goal is to bring the theater experience home through the process of remediation...
Tutorial
I enjoyed the tutorial on netscape. It does make really excited about using dreamweaver and working on that in class. Your basic WYSIWYG programs can work really well and be great for just starrting out. Thanks for showing us!
Dreamweaver- I think we will be showing a barebones demonstration of dreamweaver, along with some easy html.
Netscape
After the tutorial and having a little time to tinker with Netscape (Thursday was my first experience Netscape) I feel like I have a good start to creating web pages. All of the readings we do can tell us about colors and spacing and things, but until I was able to do it on my own and experiment with different colors and where to put what I had no real understanding of the process. Now I feel like I have a background from the readings and discussions in class as well as some of the beginning skills of working with Netscape so that I will be more able to teach myself. After messing around with the few simple things we did I felt like I had a better understanding of the software and that I will be able to figure more and more things out on my own because the tutorial and readings laid the foundation.
Remediation...
Because I didnt really take anything with me from the readings as far as my website goes in particular, I think the best thing for me to relate to this response would be the intense facination of the media from the world. I think it's very interesting how every type of media, and especially the web and web designs, integrate and include parts of every other type of media. Each form of the media feeds off of eachother. I think that in the grand scheme of things, looking at it from my point of view and how I feel for the media, people will totally and completely come to forget about the newspaper or written journals when the same thing can be found on the web. This is something very important that I can take into coonsideration when developing any website. That, when it comes to someone getting what they expected from a newspaper, online, this should be excelled in and even taken further in being more then what they expected!! I donno, what do you think?
Respond to Netscape!
Before learning the ins and outs of Netscape navigator, I had already been aware of my strengths and weaknesses concering the process of developing a website and all. Now that I have learned Netscape I even more know what I am and am not good at, or what is easily accomplished for me and what I have yet to work on. First off, I do understand the capablities and options that I could in fact explore through Netscape. It definitely seems to be something that I will use outside of class and in my later years at Clemson. At this point I would be very effective in creating, maybe a barebones website. When I say barebones, I mean a web page including some good information, a color scheme that would be visually appealing and maybe a picture or two. To me, this seems like it would be a pretty good accomplishment, but I know that with some time and practice I may be able to come up with something a little bit less "Jacqua", and a little more technology driven and professional. This may sound like something a freshman would say, but I did find Netscape difficult to kind of make go completely my way. I have to admitt that I had to go back after class to kind of work out the difficulties and gliches that I ran into during class with Netscape and it probably took me much longer than it should have!! :) But I think Im off to a pretty good start...HOPEFULLY!!!
One question!! I was wonder how to manipulate the charts or whatever within the navigator when it comes to inserting pictures?? I never seem to be able to get it to look the way I want...
Remediation part 3
This section examines how television, the world wide web and elements of ubiquitous computing are all aspects of the remediated self. This section answered my previous question of the difference of television and film. We view film in a public space such as movie theaters annd we view television in a more personal space. Television acknowlages the mediation and has different styles for each genre of program. Styles of remediation include the windowed style seen on news broadcasting. Transparency is evident in dramas, soap operas, daytime talk shows and reality television. Hypermediacy is evident in news, sports, situation comedies and special events. The World Wide Web remediates everything. The variety of remediation can be respectful; an example is information that highlights other media and information without changing or distorting it. A webcam creates hypermediacy through transparency. It makes parts of the world available to anyone online. With these advances the question of censorship remains. Bolter and Grusim conclude that hypermediacy dominates the Internet. Ubiquitous computing examines the total surveillance of users. It is the opposite of virtual reality. We use this everyday with smart boards, tablet pc’s and PDA’s.
Media
The amount of hypermediacy in television, video games and movies astonishes me. I found the chapter about video games interesting because I don't understand how some of my friends can be so enthralled by them. The ability for the gamer to actively participate in the game is achieved through transparency and hypermediacy. One thing I didn't understand was the difference of hypermediacy in television and video games versus movies. Video game graphics are among the most sophisticated; they have successful perspective projection. The book says television and games acknowlege its own mediation. The book also notes that games seek the real; sometimes through hypermediacy and other times through transparency. I don't see how these are separated. I also don't understand how the acts of mediation are concealed in immediacy.
The section on violent and pornographic games was also very interesting. Some people feel these games create more violence and desensitizing the public to violent acts. But... Do these videogames provide a way to purge these violent or sexual urges. I think they could because the games are so realistic. Pornography also established the hierarchy of media in our society. Videotaping and "cybersex" are at the top. Computers with graphics are below. Books with pictures (magazines) are towards the bottom with written books and alphanumeric computers at the bottom. This is interesting to see how far we have some in technology and the effects it has on the viewers. It is crazy to think that there is a parallel between computer graphics of today and art from the impressionist and postimpressionist eras.
LJCC
I can't meet tomorrow during our usual lunch time, but I do have some stuff finished on that site map, so I will bring it by Becca's office sometime and try to explain what I have done...
LCC web map
Do you want to get together and go over the web map. I made one but I'm not sure if it goes into enough detail. I am free all day tomorrow. Thanks!
LJCC Site Map
I have the one from class Tuesday saved to my U: drive...I'll be in my office in Brackett tomorrow from the morning (9 or 10ish) until classtime. So...yeah if you want to come by with what you have, I can log into my U drive from my office computer and we can go from there. Come by whenever...i guess 1:00 again would probably be good?
See ya then!
Bec
