Summery Update

In second term we focused on:

-Templates and CSS (cascading style sheets)

-FTP (File Transfer Protocol)

-RSS (Really Simple Syndication)

-Counters

-Technorati and PING (Packet Internet Groper)

-IWeb

Throughout the weeks I made a blog and a web page. I couldn’t believe I could, but I have learnt a lot on Blogging and page making and where it focuses its association to the web.

CSS is either written in HTML or a similar language. Know this contains elements such as the layout, colors, and fonts. . This makes your document look attractive and appealing to who may ever stumble upon it, it is also quick to use and well organized. In my case I find this very hard to use just because I find that the ‘codes’ are a dilemma, don’t get me wrong it is organized, but if you make a mistake it will stuff-up your whole web design.

FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. It copies files from a website. Plus it can be used for "downloading" files from other servers and used to send files from one computer straight to another… very beneficial and much more easy to use.

Counters… it is all to do with ‘fun and games’, but is a good indication on the number of visitors you have had to your site. These counters can count up or down, depending on your favorites. Counters are often presented similar to a digital clock.

Then we covered RSS. These are used to publish frequent updates such as blogs. RSS document consists of full text, metadata such as announcing dates and authorship.

PING and Technorati, PING is an acronym for ‘Packet Internet Groper’, this is a computer program that forwards data packets to check the quality of a link or verify the connection of a machine to the Internet. Technorati on the other hand lets you search for other people’s blogs and allows others to search for yours. Techorati has this idea called ‘Ranking’ where you try gaining authority from your blog through links to other blogs or sites.

In iWeb we formed our own website. iWeb is a effortless piece of software which allows you to alter settings with the chosen layouts and insert links and pictures and more pages to your site this here is fun and enjoyable peace of work but it is only used on the Mac sucked in PC users lol.

and here is my link to my web page

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Technorati

This week we signed up for the popular blog ranking search engine Technorati. Technorati lets you search for other peoples blogs and allows others to search for yours. My blog has been recognised by Technorati and can be added into other people’s favourites. Technorati gives each of its pages a ranking against each other. To increase your ranking and gain authority your blog must include links to other blogs and/or sites. Although I have multiple links to other peoples blogs I am still yet to gain authority. Hmmmm.
I have found out that the best way to increase your Technorati authority is to write things that are interesting to other bloggers so that they link to you. So if you make your blog stand-out against the rest, then your ranking and authority will increase as more and more people choose to follow and link to it. But my guess is a blog of what we do in class each week is not all that interesting so my authority is most probably going to remain unregistered. Damn.

RSS & Counters

Counters, like the name suggests, counts. They count the number of visitors you have had to your page. These counters can count up or down, depending on your preferences. There are many different counters available, some free and some that you can buy. These are a good form of market research to see if webpage’s are working or not.
Another method for web analysis is; web server log-file analysis, or through the use of page-tagging. The first stores information in regard to the pages that are visited and builds data with regards to the popularity of the website. Page-tagging on the other-hand uses JavaScript on each page to notify a third-party server when a page is rendered by a web browser

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is web feed formats used to publish frequent updates such as blogs, news headlines, audio and videos. RSS allows subscribed followers to receive update with no need to search the web and particular pages themselves. Google Reader is capable of RSS feeds online or offline. It monitors fellow users and keeps track of all updates. It can be accessed offline through Google Gears, a browser extension that lets online applications work offline. Updates can also be received through a mobile i.e. iPhone users.

FTP

FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. It sends files from computers which builds a website. Plus it can be used for "downloading" files from other servers and used to send files from one computer straight to another.

FTP has its risks and is known to be unsafe and dangerous because a password or user name must always be entered for the transfer and always be recognized, which can also be used to determine the passwords of individual users.

Templates and CSS

I the thing I discovered when I changed it to no style is that it made the whole thing vanish. It had no backgrounds, no templates or formal layouts, it was dull.

Ok CSS, well some good advantages of using CSS is that it reduces file-sizes, has a less load time, faster updates and increased browser compatibility.

I found out that when you change a template it is attached to a document it could significantly have an effect on how the document looks…AWESOME!! But a crappy thing is you cannot change with Template files is that it may limit users from saving changes with the original file name. So yeah I think I’d encouraged people to save the file with a new name as if it were a new file.

When webpage making you must consider the important issue of accessibility so people can access pages to different browsers lacking any difficulty especially people with disabilities.

update on CSS.

In the html coding on my blog, i changed the colour and font of my header and added my own groovy face as the background image and have it so when you scroll down the page, my face stays where it is.

MPI Summary

In MPI class my understanding of the World Wide Web has elevated extensively. Throughout the weeks I have expanded my knowledge and discovered the various features the WWW had to offer. With Google for instance, we started to find out how it worked, and more importantly the extreme extent of its usage. I now know how websites are made, stored and created. I have learn't how to make a Blog, and how to view and upload images to Flickr. Also through the use of Delicious I have become more aware of avenues available for more efficient browsing on the Internet.

Prior to this class I only knew Google for its search engine features, but I have since found that Google can provide document, maps, and email capabilities.
MPI has also helped develop my understanding of the creation and dynamics of websites, such that I now understand that sites exist as a code stored in a directory, and the specific site details such as font and colour information is represented through a ‘markup language’.

I have also come to understand how Blogs bring people together to communicate through there own personal site. Thus I have learned that blogs can be designed and customised freely, from background to little cool gadgets (I have fish as my gadget it is so interesting) to colour, fonts and templates. I made 6 posts on my blog (you may be interested in this one ).
I also commented on other people’s Blogs; Becky's and Bernard’s . I found them interesting and found the use of comments helpful in maintaining communication. Some interesting comments that i found on blogspot are found here and here .

I have also learned the image sharing capabilities of Flickr, a site where you find almost any image you can look for, which you or other people can put up. You can tag and comment on other people’s pictures. Here are some of my pictures in Flickr. I have uploaded 10 of my images, have a look if you wish. I came across some images which I liked and made my favourites, they are located here, here and here. The tags i used are dragon, fantasy, tablet, pixie, drawing, etc click here.

Delicious is a bookmark website. It is an excellent way to collect other websites by using their URL. The site allows users to create an account which then stores their favourite websites, creating an efficient browsing resource. I have 36 bookmarked pages. (for my favourite bookmarked sites in Delicious - click here, here and here .) These pages are of interest to me because I enjoy gaming and other nerd-like activities.