I started out with images from the creative commons, but I decided it’d be a shame not to take advantage of this project’s full potential. So, all three photos were taken by me and edited by me. (All three images are combined in the collage displayed middle-right.)
“No Parking: Never love a city too much to move.” (Image top-right)
This picture represents a few things. I haven’t been home in 10 years. Yes, I’ve walked through my door. Yes, I’ve walked through my mom’s door… and my dad’s door. I didn’t grow up at any of those places though. I never stayed one place too long after I turned 15-years old. I moved from apartment to apartment following opportunity and convenience. I’m an unattached free-spirit patiently awaiting the right time to come to be a settler again. I have this semester and one more. Then, my son and I can build a home where we’re supposed to be. Until then, no parking for me! This pic was actually taken behind my apt with the town of Richardson in the background. I’m only here until next August.
The Abstraction of Me, Myself, and I
“Separate Yourself: Stand-up for what you believe in!” (Image bottom-right)
I used five Herbal Essences products. (This isn’t the main point I want to get across, but I did want to say it… The idea behind the image just shows you how random I am as well.) These bottles of shampoo, conditioner, and spray gel each have a little catch-phrase or pun as the tag line. The featured personalities are “Tousle Me Softly”, “Color Me Happy”, and “Drama Clean”. I say “personalities” because they remind me of individuals in social cliques. I imagined “Tousle Me Softly” as a self-conscious kind of girl that needs affection to feel loved. “Color Me Happy” could possibly be the fake girl with the painted on smile that’s truly masking pain. “Drama Clean” is my type of girl. I think of it as “Drama Free”. I used to be extremely confrontational, and I always said “Drama follows me everywhere.. ugh!” This past year has taught me that it was the life I was living, not just “drama” picking on me. The most amazing skills I’ve ever learned are to be slow to anger and slow to speak. I stopped taking offense to people’s attitudes, and I realized I feel better when I take their anger with a grain of salt. It never pays to fall prey to the anger of the world, such as gossiping, coveting, lying, etc. I would advise everyone to be “Drama Clean”!
“Lifesaver: I won’t let you down.” (Image left)
I am always there for people. Sometimes, my A.D.D. gets in the way, and I don’t notice when someone needs help. If they ask though… my answer is always yes. I just can’t say no unless I, physically, cannot make it happen. This is also a character trait I lacked for years. I only cared about myself and/or my significant other. Over the years, God humbled me. Occasionally, I feel like Jim Carrey in “Liar Liar” in the sense that I have no control over how far I’ll go to help someone! Even if I wanted to say no and move on with my day, I am overwhelmed by empathy. Once I think about the situation from their perspective, I’m all aboard for “Operation Save Someone’s Day”.
Collectively, the bright colors of the photos directly relate to me being a colorful and bold individual! This was too much fun.
We were told to find a digital artwork to review for one of my Emerging Media classes. I didn’t know where to begin. I thought about using one of my own. I decided against that since the “artwork” I digitally render is better off being described as lacking something artistic. I thougth about using my friend A.J.s artwork since it is extremely legit. Then, I decided to browse online. I came across this digital artwork called Warhol Soup.
“Warhol” is Andy Warhol. He is one of my favorite artists. In the late 1950s, the period for which he is most known, he spent his time making Pop Art. Pop art could also be defined as popular art. It is art that contains aspects or trademarks that are recognizable and mainstream. Comic strips and movie stars are two common forms of pop art. Every day items and objects that are popular in the commercial industry are also made into Pop Art. One of Warhol’s artworks was “Campbells Soup Cans“.
The Digital Artwork I found, is a Warhol Tribute from a digital artist who goes by “Funkwood” online. I found the image on digitalart.org, but it was also entered in a photomanipulation contest. It won first place. I have a tremendous amount of respect for this artist, because of how much work this took. I can not even begin to imagine all the steps, time, effort, and detail it took to make this digital work.
• Slide show
§ Print the images and post them around campus!
○ Explaining what cholera is
○ symptoms
○ Countries effected
○ What people look on it – the emotional pull
○ Comparison of US water & waste treatment vs a third world country
○ Whats needed – money
§ Prevention and what can stop it now ie “ze cure”
• Have passionate people read off a script about the outbreak and how we can combat it TODAY!
○ Speakers playing the thing in public places
• Post on youtube, twitter, facebook, fffound/tumblr
• Stick stickers everywhere that seek action now
So, Apple announced they had an oh-so-exciting announcement to make today. Twitter feeds were buzzing with what the news could be. Yesterday, Reuter’s announced that the high-profile addition was probably going to be the Beatles. This has been a rumor before, but no one was trying to deny the rumor this time. Apple CEO, Steve Jobs promised this would be a day we would never forget. I think he should’ve just promised that to fellow Beatle’s fans.
So, when Apple did announce it was the Beatles, all I saw on my Twitter feed was disapointment. I have to say myself that all the Beatles fans I know do not know how to work an iPod, iPhone, or iTunes.
This will definitely benefit Apple and bring in revenue. I just do not think Steve Jobs should have hyped it up as much as he did. He should have kept in mind that he is a die-hard fan while the majority of iTunes users may not be. I won’t be purchasing any of the new Beatles incentives or music.
I called my dad and asked him what he thought of this. He said the exact same thing I had read in an article titled Beatles’ iTunes Debut: 11 Reactions to Apple’s Announcement. The Beatles music loses its “special something” when you take away the cover art.
The one thing I do give apple props for is the creative hints. There were four clocks by the announcement showing the hands displaying the time of the release in four different timezones. This is similar to the Help! album by the Beatles. The members of the band are on the cover with their arms out mimicking clocks. The other hint was that “tomorrow is just another day” like Paul McCartney’s song “Another Day”.
I’ve been browsing through the Flickr Creative Commons for an hour now looking for the perfect picture for this post. I came across a picture that I used to have as a background on my phone. Underneath the picture, it said “Feel free to use this and edit it. Please just give me credit.” Then, I tried to right-click to save it and it said “some rights reserved”. So, after a few steps I figured out how to get a Flickr Creative Commons picture in a blog post.
I wanted to use a few of her photos that were in the same genre as the one I previously had as my iPhone background. It was a hand that had “love” written on it in about 10 different languages. Then, as I was browsing through the artist’s work, I saw this picture. It reminds me of when my son was a baby. He had the fattest little feet. I used to snap pictures of them everytime he was sleeping. They never looked as artistic as this photograph though. It says “simple” to me: the simple things in life. I tickle his toes, act like I’m going to nibble on his toes, and do “This little piggy goes to Market”. He eats it up giggling like crazy. Just the other day my mom called to tell me a story about my son. Apparently, she was going to tickle his feet and he abruptly told her, “NOPE! Those are momma’s toes!” I love his toes. This Flickr Creative Commons photo captures that love and innocence of a baby’s feet.
The complications are that it is protected. I could not simply save the picture to my computer and then upload it to my WordPress. I had to give Flickr my blog information so they could insert it.
Creative Commons is opening up the world of sharing. Now, people can specify the rules for their photos. My particular choice is Tinytoes by D. Sharon Pruitt. She allows people to share and edit her photos as long as you give her credit for the original work.
One of my professors raised the question, “What would you do if all of your files were lost?” I would cry like this little girl.
I am the type of person that is built on memories. I live for the Kodak moments and the “Oh my gosh! Do you remember when we used to jam this song?!” moments. My laptop contains all these files. This also means my laptop is my life. I would literally be completely distraught if it crashed. My personal laptop contains over 4000 pictures. That is only a collection of pictures from the last year. My older laptop, which had over 5000 songs and 8000 pictures had some technical problems last October. It died during a homework assignment and I thought I lost everything. I finally got it to turn back on, amd I started uploading all my files to my Sony Vaio Memory Center, which is online storage. You upload everything from one computer and then, download it on the next. I was so excited that it was as simple of registering and clicking the “transfer” button. Then, my laptop crashed again during the transfer. I say “crashed”. It was just a problem with the power port. The hardrive is still okay and I can retrieve these files when I want to. Yes, that means I have gone a year without attempting to retrieve them. I had actually forgotten about it until this assignment.
With all this said, I should be more cautious of my file storage. I have been through the experience of technical problems and even had a computer crash completely. Yet, I do not have my current computer backed-up. Thinking about this made me want to do it. Since I have a Sony Vaio, My Memory Center was provided as an added bonus. It’s free and I still haven’t done it! That shows you how much I hate inconvenience. The sad thing is, the small inconvenience of transferring it all would say me a HUGE inconvenience of losing my life later!
I am going to start utilizing My Memory Center. Hopefully, Sony doesn’t go out of business and do away with access to this online storage. That brings up the point that no matter how much you secure your files, they are never really 100% secure.
So, I was watching the cartoon version of Tarzan yesterday with my two-year old. He’s extremely observant, so I am used to hearing him constantly point out things that I did not even notice. We all know Tarzan wears a loin-cloth. As Tarzan is swinging from the trees rescuing Jane, Korbin looks at me with his eyes squinted like he’s thinking hard. He said, “Tarzan is wearing underwear and flying through the air.” I said, “Yeah, baby he is.” Then, he said, “He sleeps in the jungle at night too. He better find more clothes or he’s going to be cold.” I just started laughing and thought my two-year just described, deduced, and speculated better than our class can.
No, but seriously. I was thinking how simple and obvious things are to children. We, as adults, sometimes complicate things more than they need to be complicated. In class, we did an exercise where we described our teacher’s shirt later to deduce and speculate. We went almost 20 minutes before we realized we had not said the shirt we were describing was short-sleeved or black.
So, what? I think it will help me to start out simplifying things when I am trying to come to a solution through a process. It would probably help many of us to do things this way. Everything looks brighter when you look at it through the simplicity of a child’s eye rather than polluted with outside factors we have experienced throughout life.
Initially, I went online looking for someone else’s opinion of the best website designs. I cannot say that I agree with any results I found though. The Reader’s Choice 2010 says Products For Good is the “Best Designed Product or Service Web Page”. It looks like every other government website I have ever seen. I do not know if it is the actualy design I dislike or the taste these websites have left in my mouth in the paste.
I went to another list of websites that Web Design from Scratch had picked to be the 10 Best Design Websites in the World. This list was outdated and did not appeal to me either.
So, here are a few of my favorites. Paradise Bakery has a simple, yet colorful website that I never mind going to. I am not just saying this because I manage one of these locations. It is actually an easy-to-navigate website that remains aesthetically pleasing. Another one I like is Nike.com because it is bold and uncluttered. Cai Guo-Qiang is an installation artist who has a fun and attractive website also. He uses flash media to catch your attention, but not too much of it. The website is interactive and sectioned-off well.
The main thing I look for in a website design is innovation. If it is white with cluttered lettering and columns touching, it is like too many other websites. Give it some color. Split different content off into sections or links, but not too many. Make it bold and dynamic to draw attention to the aspects that are more important to you!
The bigger picture is piracy. It is everywhere on the internet. It comes in the form of peer-to-peer file sharing that hasn’t been purchased. Also, torrents can be downloaded from pirating web sites to torrent programs on computers. the sale of counterfeit software is also software piracy.The point is that it’t stealing and it’s hard to prevent. It’s impossible to stop.
When I was about 18 years old, programs like Limewire, Morpheus, & Kazaa were on everyone of my friend’s computers. Back then, there wasn’t as much negative connotation tied to it yet. They had not started cracking down on the illegal aspect of it and pursuing people. Times have changed. Now, it is often you see charges being pressed on people for piracy.
Back in 2005, Los Angeles cops were investing internet piracy. They served a serach warrant on Jed Frederick Kobles house while he was in he midst of downloading Leisure Suit Larry for the Xbox. It turned out he was operating a site that allowed online theft of movies, tv shows, music, and games. He plead guilty for felony charges of grand theft and faced 3 years in prison. He apparently stole Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, National Treasure, A Beautiful Mind, Madonna music videos, and an episode of The Simpsons.
This is just one example. There are millions of people going down for something they see as simple transfer of media. Sometimes, they are just not looking at the bigger picture of how much income of which it is robbing the companies.
