Web Design

The Internet has become the hub where ideas gain traction, information is stored, and economies are bolstered. The Internet has afforded anyone with a connection with the opportunity to be something more. But what is the process of creating the content necessary to be recognized as original and different? Creating a fully operational website that displays the accomplishments of ones-self is a great way to showcase work and skill all in the same arena.

Being able to understand social media is a skill that most positions require in many job fields today. Being able to generate engagement and visibility on a consistent basis for a company definitely adds to one’s skillset. By creating a network of personal understanding of social media through a personally coded and produced website, anyone in a professional setting will be able to see that this individual understands the need for ergonomics, creativity, and professionalism in today’s job market.

By working on projects throughout this semester, many aspects of social media production were explored, but not through a personal lens. The projects were sustained by using an objective point of view to maintain professionalism and to mitigate personal spin. By implementing all of the work produced through the semester, a portfolio could be curated through the final project of coding a website that showcases all of the accomplishments not only in the course but overall as a college student. When the final products were all tied together to form a vibrant, cohesive display of work and creativity, a virtual portfolio was formed to be used in a professional setting.

The process of web design is not an easy one. Think about learning a new language. The need to know exactly what specific words mean and also know exactly where they need to be placed. Once the language is learned, there is a precise location for each word to form a sentence (or sequence) to give the language meaning and function. The only difference between learning code and Spanish is that code doesn’t work unless it is perfectly placed sequentially as a sequence. Luckily, there is a lot of pre-made code out there that can be used as a template. But the vast majority of web design platforms are overly intuitive today. Anyone with a 5th-grade reading level can jump on google and create a website. Learning the basics of code is key to understanding how websites work. The best program that gives the user insight into how to produce their own code while also maintaining a level of intuition and user-friendliness is Adobe Dreamweaver. The ability to see the HTML and CSS source codes while having the visuals split on-screen was huge to see how a website comes to fruition. In terms of design, coding a website gives the user unlimited customizability and blows the door open for creativity. This is where skill and creativity go hand in hand to produce something that has professional value and can be used for the future.

Catch me at Cannes

Making a movie is a thrilling yet daunting experience and is not for the faint of heart. From beginning to end, first take to final cut, the effort that is required was not preconceived. When the final product is finished and the video can be watched in its entirety, there is a feeling of satisfaction. But the efforts and struggles cannot be discounted, even for a short video project such as this.

The Issues

Complications will present themselves right off the bat. Whether it be lack of equipment or poor lighting, the challenges seem to make themselves present at the worst times. For instance, a self-shot is being filmed and little to no lighting is present. This causes an underexposed shot that lacks color and vibrance and may cause the subject to be unrecognizable. Lighting is key to a good shot. With good lighting to saturate the colors and balance the scene the viewer will see these differences whether they realize it or not. Issues with shooting seem to most often have to with equipment. Using a phone is good, but most phone and mobile cameras shoot in resolutions higher than 2,000 pixels nowadays, this leads to problems during the editing stages. Not including sound or a voiceover allows the elimination of dialogue and makes the editing process much easier. As most microphones built into phones and video cameras do not have the capabilities of professional lavalier or boom microphones, the sound quality typically comes out noisy and grainy. Without sound to deal with, usually music is the way to go to add depth to a video. As for the editing stage, this is where the magic happens, but it is also where the majority of problems occur. Depending on the resolution of the video, transcribing the files may be necessary unless the computer can handle the file size at a reasonable speed. Once the files are ready for editing, knowledge of the software is all but necessary. Premiere Pro is quite intuitive and allows the user to ask for help and direction when looking for a specific effect. If an effect cannot be found, a simple Google search or a video on YouTube will usually provide instruction. A lack of knowledge with the software will definitely limit the success and depth of the video production process, and lead to a lack-luster final product. But if the research is done, the versatility of most software will allow for a range of effects to take place to add depth to a video. The most influential issue present in a video production task would be transporting files for editing or exporting. Due to the massive file sizes of higher resolution videos, it can be almost impossible to move files around if the computer holding them doesn’t have the space or processing power.

The Experience

Recording ones-self can give quite a bit of perspective. Depending on what the objective is, a person will find out a lot about how they react to being put on the spot. Discovering that maybe they aren’t the worst actor after all can be a good possibility. In this case, when Cody filmed an individual, self-portrait style video, he didn’t even know where to start. He had an entire folder of footage compiled of random clips that vaguely had to do with him. After reflecting on the concept of expressing himself in an abstract way, he came up with an idea that helped mold the direction he wanted to take. He enjoys humor but may not be the gut-busting comedian that is popular today. Drawing inspiration from memes and other funny short videos, he wanted to do something original that also displays parts of who he is. By implementing basketball, we can see a few different sides of what Cody is. The hardest part of making this video was getting the correct angles shot to make the flow of the video consistent. Having to change, shoot, and re-change into different attire seemed exhausting but necessary. The shots had to be on-point and the editing was next. Trying to edit one’s self to look as if they are having an actual physical interaction with one another is difficult. Cody needed himself to look as if he was actually there playing basketball against himself. Once the editing was complete, choosing and editing a soundtrack to play behind the video was the easiest task. Overall, the experience of editing a video of one’s self gave plenty of insight into how that person reacts to being on camera for themselves.

                                                                                                                                   

Twitter Today

Since the boom in the use of social media platforms over the last decade, the direction content shared on these platforms has shifted. With the steady decline of conventional news outlets such as newspapers and broadcast television, social media has picked up the slack regardless of how factual the “news” turns out to be. With new technology allowing mobile access to a variety of platforms anybody can view content from anywhere they get internet service. This concept of unlimited access ensures that people are constantly connected and bombarded with content within these platforms. Because of this seemingly unlimited access, the use of social media has shifted from a person-to-person dynamic to a business-to-person concept so that organizations can target their audiences around the clock. With the shift in marketing, it can be difficult to weed through feeds on platforms such as twitter and Instagram to get to the content that matters to the individual. This has caused an issue of over-stimulation as information is pouring from every direction from sources that have no outstanding credibility, in turn one cannot differentiate the truth from something that may be distorted or completely false. Social media has been flipped from a community networking tool to an environment where anyone can pedal any information, true or false, with almost no consequences.

Twitter has and currently is being used by a multitude of journalistic and political outlets. From local news stations to high-ranking political figures, twitter has been the platform of choice to deliver news and snippets of events happening around the world. From a localized view, the Buffalo NBC affiliate on channel 2, WGRZ, produces many headlines on twitter that will instantaneously reach viewers, as opposed to nightly news coverage where the hours old information is being handed off like it is currently happening. By receiving local and national news instantly, the engagement is much higher on a social media platform. Stories such a shooting that occurred minutes before the post was made or an announcement of a terrorist leader being pronounced dead, these stories are much more effective in short tweets as they are happening as opposed to a traditional news story being told several hours later. From individual accounts ran by political figures such as President Trump, one can see the same type of content being delivered but it may not be as credible or factual. In a series of tweets from late October 2019, President Trump ensured the deteriorating situation between Turkey and Syria was in fact safe and stable. He said that the Kurdish militia who we are currently allies with were not in danger and are much safer now that the U.S. has pulled out of the country. From credible sources such as journalistic fact-checking database www.politifact.com and Dan Dale from CNN, those statements have been proven false, as the Kurds have been pushed back and attacked by Turkish forces and are being treated as a terrorist threat just as ISIS is being recognized as. This is just one example of how twitter has been abused to convey false information with no consequences. Shifting to a marketing view, many organizations and companies use twitter to advertise their products, usually quite successfully. Specifically, a campaign ran by Calvin Klein where users were instructed to share photos of themselves wearing Calvin Klein attire and using the hashtag #inmycalvins to generate buzz about the company while also running a recognition contest. This type of engagement by an organization proved successful by Calvin Klein because of its incentive to offer a tangible reward for performing something simple on a social media platform. Other organizations use giveaways and collaborations to boost visibility and engagement with followers and potential customers.

Anybody who is anybody in today’s society that wants to increase their reputation strives to use some sort of platform in social media. Users on twitter have a wide range of demographics and anyone can find at least one account they are interested in. For example, if someone has a passion for photography and nature, they might consider following National Geographic for their content relating to both subjects, or if someone has an interest in franchise companies and they want to study their engagement tactics they can follow Taco Bell or Wendy’s. Or if someone is viewed as entertaining solely for their personality and the way they conduct themselves, for better or worse, someone can follow a controversial character such as Jefferee Star or Antonio Brown, who has recently been dubbed insane because of his twitter content.

Twitter has been described as “micro-blogging” because of its short character count restrictions that get lost in the vast sea of content. These restrictions force the user to be concise and witty to get their point across. Compared to traditional blogging, where the user can expand on any issue to any extent they please, Twitter has to be short and sweet while retaining the same or similar effectiveness of its content. Twitter is quite similar in many ways except for its need to be brief, and in today’s social environment brevity is key to generating engagement in the jungle of social media.

wikiHow and how to wiki

The wiki community has made a huge impact on how knowledge is shared today. Between Wikipedia and wikiHow, the vast amounts of experience and knowledge of hundreds of millions of individuals can be shared on a single platform. Through the user-based hub, wikiHow uses instructional articles compiled to create a database of “how-to” guides. These guides go through a review period by administrators that either approve or deny the publication of an article. Once the article is published the information is viewable for anyone and can be appreciated by those looking to complete that specific task.

When looking at the overall experience of sharing a piece of information among the already immense amount of information shared through today’s web, one could say the pressure to share something worthwhile will be at the forefront of the project. To find an idea that is worth sharing or expanding on is a daunting task. Having to search for an idea that has not been touched upon is the first step to communicating something worthwhile. Once the idea has been nailed down, the research comes next. Knowing everything about everything is impossible, though some believe they can achieve this feat. Performing proper research through the correlating channels is key to gathering the necessary information to complete this task. The key is using resources that can be cited properly in the article being created, such as journals or periodicals that contain data and scientifically proven theories.

In order to properly communicate an idea through this platform, the mediums of showing how a task can be completed need to be clearly displayed. Just using text to convey the necessary steps would not be enough. Visuals are the next piece of the project that need to be implemented. With photos to accompany each step of a task, the idea at hand gets a second medium to make everything clear for the reader. By using personally created content for images, many complications can be avoided. Images don’t have to be constrained to photos either, hand-drawn or even digitally rendered images can be used in a wikiHow article. The images also have to be within a specific size and resolution in order to be effectively included in the webpage.

Most wikiHow articles are crafted from personal experience. Using personal knowledge and experience to share on a platform such as this will add credibility and make the article easier to polish. The development of an article takes time and more effort to complete so the importance of personal experience is paramount when creating this guide. If a guide is being crafted but the author has no experience with the topic, then it would be highly recommended to perform the task a few times to gain a better perspective to properly write the article. Experience alone can sometimes write an article for the author, but the integration of experience and research will build a foundation that the author can build off of.

The toughest part of creating content in the wikiHow world is thinking up an idea that has not yet been covered, from the most obvious task to the most obtuse. Sometimes it doesn’t have to be a brand-new idea at all. Authors build off of one another’s work all the time in the form of edits as well as new articles that explore the options and variations of these tasks. When one user takes on the article of a new and innovative idea, it leaves room for others to chime in and help define the idea in a more concise way.

Another way the process of making a wikiHow article can be made more effectively can be through the process of collaboration and information sharing. When the perspectives of others can be attained, an author can get a better idea of what works for everyone or mostly everyone. By collaborating on an article with others, many missing parts and absent points are covered and do not slip through the cracks of the process. This process builds off of the premise of the last method mentioned in communicating through the article.

Ultimately, using resources and communicating the topic with others is a surefire way to hammer out a spot on wikiHow article. With the valuable input and varying perspectives, almost any task instructional can be chiseled down to concise and clear steps on how to complete it. Regardless of how difficult the deliberation of what should be written about, the end product is a contribution to the community and therefore has value.

https://www.wikihow.com/Not-Stay-Up-All-Night