The authors really seemed to stress the importance of chapter 10, which really made me examine it closely, because the authors are usually so laid back. But with his chapter, they seemed serious and down to business. GIF files seem to be the most popular because they can be viewed on all computers, compressed, and can create animations. It was interesting to learn about GIF and JPEG files because those are the ones I use most often. I never really thought about them before. The section on image maps was interesting because I see those all the time, but I never knew what they were called. I automatically thought back to that Melanie Griffith website that we visited in class. Her home page was an image map.
At first glance, Sherry Turkle’s website portrays her as a professional career woman. Her entire website is about her job, career, what she does for a living, and all the accomplishments she’s achieved. Her second page lists everything that she has written and or published: books, reports, chapters, articles, notes, lectures, papers, affiliations, accomplishments, and other professional activities. Her final page is about her interviews and profiles. To me, her identity is a very professional one. I also get almost a conceited feeling of identity from her page. Everything on this page revolves around her accomplishments, it’s almost as if she is bragging about all that she has done. I don’t get a personal sense of identity from her at all. We know nothing else about her. Every single page has the same layout, text, and a picture of Sherry Turkle. She seems very guarded.
The identity I got from Robin Willilams’ website was a very approachable, conversational one. She seemed like a genuine person from the quote at the top describing her to her personal website to her books. Her identity seemed very real and true. She is not afraid of who she is and letting people know who she is. She’s very willing to share herself with anyone who cares to look at her page.
The typography website was interesting because before this, I had no idea what typography was. The part that interested me the most was learning that alignment, line length, white space, typeface, type size, and case were all part of typography because I never really associated them with anything; I just knew they were there. It was interesting to learn what they did and how they worked.
Mar 12, 2008
Typography and Chapter 10
Typography is the balance and interplay of letterforms on the page, a verbal and visual equation that helps the reader understand the form and absorb the substance of the page content. It plays a two part role, verbal and visual. Though headlines are just headlines, they server some importance. The main on is so that both human readers and automated search engines can look at a document and easily determine its information structure. CSS sheets are Cascading Style Sheets. The provide control over the exact visual style of headers and other text on the page. Good typography depends on certain things, such as legibility, alignment, surprising enough the kind of computer one has. Repeating patterns established throughout the pages help the reader establish the location and organization of your information and increases the legibility. Alignment, define the reading area of a page by separating the main text from the surround text. Lastly, depending on whether you have a MAC or Windows affects the font sizes. On windows web browsers the text display will look 2 to 3 times points larger than on a MAC. For example a 12 font size on a windows will look like a 14-16 font size on a MAC.
Chapter 10 was very informative. I never actually knew the difference between the file formats. I always just saved things as what would come up. Also I agree that when you open a website and it takes to long to load it is just annoying and you don’t want to wait. I usually just skip ahead and find a new one, which in many cases probably isn’t good because if I waited for it to load it could be an amazing site with lots of good information. The anti-aliasing thing was very interesting to me. I have noticed before images not always being clear on a site but just thought maybe it was my computer or a bad picture. I did not know there was an actual reason and name for it. Later I learned that it is good for large display type, but it is not good for small type sizes. Anything small than 10 points wouldn’t work because it reduces it too much that one could probably not even read it.
After reading the Typography piece it brought to my attention color bind people. I completely forgot that without seeing the colors a page may look like nothing of importance. I really enjoy colors and like to use them whenever possible but like in the article you have to show another way to emphasis what the color means because not everyone can see the color. Also sometimes colors do not always show up the same on different computers. Another thing that was interesting was that the font sizes are different between MAC’s and windows. I have always used windows so I would not even know how to use a MAC but I did not think they would be different in font size.
Chapter 10 was very informative. I never actually knew the difference between the file formats. I always just saved things as what would come up. Also I agree that when you open a website and it takes to long to load it is just annoying and you don’t want to wait. I usually just skip ahead and find a new one, which in many cases probably isn’t good because if I waited for it to load it could be an amazing site with lots of good information. The anti-aliasing thing was very interesting to me. I have noticed before images not always being clear on a site but just thought maybe it was my computer or a bad picture. I did not know there was an actual reason and name for it. Later I learned that it is good for large display type, but it is not good for small type sizes. Anything small than 10 points wouldn’t work because it reduces it too much that one could probably not even read it.
After reading the Typography piece it brought to my attention color bind people. I completely forgot that without seeing the colors a page may look like nothing of importance. I really enjoy colors and like to use them whenever possible but like in the article you have to show another way to emphasis what the color means because not everyone can see the color. Also sometimes colors do not always show up the same on different computers. Another thing that was interesting was that the font sizes are different between MAC’s and windows. I have always used windows so I would not even know how to use a MAC but I did not think they would be different in font size.
Mar 11, 2008
my avatar
OK, so I just figured out how to upload my avatar. This did not take me as long as I orginally thought it would. I was going to spend my time picking out clothes and stuff like that, however, the avatars that truely represented me had premade outfits, and I could not change them. Therefore, I picked the one I thought most represented my style. I also put the background in so as to allow others to identify that I like science fiction. I picked the hair, glasses, and jeweraly according to what I normally wear. I had fun doing this. And I feel it went well with the articles we read.
Assignment for Thursday
Constructing Identity
All the people listed below are authors of pieces we have read for class or authors I have mentioned in class. Choose two authors and explore their web sites.
Pay particular attention to how they construct, represent, and assert identity on their sites, paying specific attention to how they visually construct their identities (e.g., through graphics and photographs, with the use of particular colors or font faces).
Be ready to share the sites and to talk about the visual identity-construction work the author(s) have done.
Jessica Helfand (Screen)
http://www.jhwd.com/
Julian Dibbell (My Tiny Life)
http://www.juliandibbell.com/
Sherry Turkle (Who am We?)
http://www.mit.edu/~sturkle/
Lisa Nakamura (Race In/For Cyberspace)
http://www.lisanakamura.net/
George Landow (What's a Critic to Do?)
http://www.landow.com/
Robin Williams (NonDesigners Web Book)
http://www.ratz.com/
Jean Baudrillard (Simulations)
http://www.egs.edu/faculty/baudrillard.html
http://vv.arts.ucla.edu/projects/current.php
March 11, 2008
Mariann Daniel
Electronic Word
I think the most interesting thing about the essay “Who Am We” is the differences between the expectations for computers from when they first came out to now. Before, as the author states, all that was expected of a computer was to be one huge calculator. Now, the author states, children especially expect a computer to be almost like a brain. The problem is that children see all the things a computer does and all the different programs and they assume that a computer can think—they believe a computer to have intelligence even if it does not half blood. This is untrue, it is the programmer who gives a computer its life and one that can take it away. In a sense the computer is still just a calculater with larger more complicated calculations. I think it is interesting to believe that the computer has intelligence when humans are the ones putting all the intelligence into it.
In the beginning of the essay the author stated that there are many of her on-line and then proceeded to list them all. Within her essay, an interviewed subject expressed this same type of belief, stating that he can be many different people at once and indulge each one of his different personality traits by having one corresponding life on-line. This is an interesting expression of what life is to people in this day and age. It also is interesting that people who have these lives on-line think that their real lives are too narrow. An interesting contrast to how some of the human population think of on-line gamers or people to spend too much time from there life on-line to begin with.
Yet as Nakamura’s essay states, “This utopian vision of cyberspace as a promoter of a radically democratic form of discourse should not be underestimated.” Identity is a key aspect to most gaming sites. As a member creating a new character, one must give a description about one’s self. This type of identification allows people to express the different aspects of their personalities. All in all, the on-line societies, even with no thought, are as real to some people as real life is to the rest of the human population.
Electronic Word
I think the most interesting thing about the essay “Who Am We” is the differences between the expectations for computers from when they first came out to now. Before, as the author states, all that was expected of a computer was to be one huge calculator. Now, the author states, children especially expect a computer to be almost like a brain. The problem is that children see all the things a computer does and all the different programs and they assume that a computer can think—they believe a computer to have intelligence even if it does not half blood. This is untrue, it is the programmer who gives a computer its life and one that can take it away. In a sense the computer is still just a calculater with larger more complicated calculations. I think it is interesting to believe that the computer has intelligence when humans are the ones putting all the intelligence into it.
In the beginning of the essay the author stated that there are many of her on-line and then proceeded to list them all. Within her essay, an interviewed subject expressed this same type of belief, stating that he can be many different people at once and indulge each one of his different personality traits by having one corresponding life on-line. This is an interesting expression of what life is to people in this day and age. It also is interesting that people who have these lives on-line think that their real lives are too narrow. An interesting contrast to how some of the human population think of on-line gamers or people to spend too much time from there life on-line to begin with.
Yet as Nakamura’s essay states, “This utopian vision of cyberspace as a promoter of a radically democratic form of discourse should not be underestimated.” Identity is a key aspect to most gaming sites. As a member creating a new character, one must give a description about one’s self. This type of identification allows people to express the different aspects of their personalities. All in all, the on-line societies, even with no thought, are as real to some people as real life is to the rest of the human population.
Articles/Avatar
The Nakamura article, which dealt with identity on the internet, was fairly straight-forward, and for the most part just affirmed many things I have come to accept as part of the internet. She discussed how the internet can function as a buffer between real life and the online communities where users of particular groups are asked to represent themselves through gender and self description, but little other than that. Additionally , she points out, users can and often do intentionally misrepresent themselves in a form of what she calls “cross dressing.” She also discusses race and how this classification is less defined in online communities where gender and physical description is often asked for without the mention of race or ethnicity. I found this article to be pretty interesting because it identified some of the things I have come across when playing games or surfing around online. I didn’t really think there was as much research and thought being devoted to online representations of self, and I think this article did a good job of taking a closer look at this.
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