Anger Management

Everybody has problems with Anger sometimes. Some more than others. I luckily am not one of those people. I myself don’t get angry unless it’s something really really bad. I’m just a fairly passive person. But still at times even I get angry.

When people get really angry they are generally not safe to be around. Some people get violent. Those certain people need to be taught a thing or too in anger management. If not for the welfare of others then for the welfare of themselves.

There are many ways to manage anger and stress. Some less healthy than others. I know a few people who find smoking and drinking ways to calm down. Which of course is not the best idea considering smoking isn’t good for you and drinking tends to make YOU feel better maybe but it often causes you to be more harmful to others.

The best way I can seem is to stop and think. Take deep breaths and think logically about the situation at hand. Think to yourself is it worth putting up this much of a fuss over? Is it worth the consequences that might follow? Most of the time when I think that I usually realize that it’s not as big a deal as i’m making it out to be. And I always follow by the rule No Regrets. If you think you may regret what happens after you do something then don’t do it! If you’ll regret it then it’s not worth it.

I myself have realized over the years that I don’t get angry not just because I don’t like confrontation but because I feel like it’s more energy than it is worth. It takes much more energy and causes way more stress to hate someone rather then be friends with them or ignore them. Anger just causes you to be stressed out and in return just makes you more prone to anger issues.

I just feel like if everyone where to just stop wasting energy on what other people are doing/not doing/doing wrong then less people would have anger issues. But alas that is not how the world works. There will always be people getting angry at other people and worrying about yelling at other people for what they are doing rather than worry about things that actually matter. Hopefully someday people will realize that being angry does not help any situation. Until then I hide in my corner and avoid the angry people. ^_^

Well I hope I did this blog right. It’s my first one over the monthly topics in WDD. Hopefully you enjoyed it!

PLUR

Kit <3

Take Charge with Gaia Online!

So I have to admit that I was nervous about this assignment. When an assignment basically tells me to do whatever I want I tend to go astray. But I finally got on track!

For my day of finding my passion I designed my profile for a website I have called Gaia! I’ve wanted to design my own for a long time now and now that I know how too I thought I would give it a try! Here it is!

It went fairly well. I couldn’t do all I want to do because I don’t know how to do it at all but I figure I’ll learn eventually learn it and can change my profile. I did learn how to make transparency’s! I looked around online a bunch and found some tutorials on using CSS for making boxes transparent. The only problem was I didn’t know how to keep the images and font in the boxes not transparent. Especially the images I didn’t want to be transparent but I couldn’t find anything online to keep that from happening without making the boxes in Photoshop and I wanted to do it entirely out of CSS. If anyone knows how to do this leave a comment and it would be greatly appreciated.

Tutorials I found

CSS Image Opacity / Transparency
Web Design Tips: Use CSS to Adjust Opacity

Technology Research

• What is the Technology?

960 Framework is technology used to put together your web sites layout using a series of grids. It’s based on a width of 960 pixels. You can use it with 12 column or 16 column layout.

• Who developed it? When? Why?

Nathan Smith Developed 960 Framework in spring 2007. He first took interest in grid design after reading articles by Khoi Vinh and Mark Boulton. He decided that mostly websites are comprised of boxy shapes.

• What groups were/are responsible for managing it?

Nathan Smith manages it himself with the help of his best friend attorney, Michael Montgomery.

• Explain its growth or diminishment.

Some people don’t agree with the use of 960 Framework at all. People often feel like frameworks are for people who don’t know how to use code. That it is a waste of time. Others though that have given it a try seem to really like it.  As more people decide to give it a try it is steadily growing in popularity.

• What are related technologies?

Blueprint

.net Framework

YUI Grids

YAML

Elastic

Golden Grid

CSScaffold

• Are there certifications for its use? If so, what? Where and how can one acquire them?

There are no certifications for 960 Framework

• Predict the future for the technology

I predict that in the future that 960 Framework. And all framework software will get bigger and bigger. Compared to the past technology, now days things are invented and upgraded in order to make things easier and faster. It only makes since that that will hold true for Web Design as well. And Framework software is used for just that.

Sources

Nathan Spring-Sonspring.com    http://sonspring.com/journal/960-grid-system

Nettuts+ 960 Framework-    http://net.tutsplus.com/videos/screencasts/a-detailed-look-at-the-960-css-framework/

960.gs    http://960.gs/

Websites: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

So I did a Five-Second test on the Home Page of limebarb.com. Limebarb is a professional cosplay group and i figured I would do there’s because someday me and my friends want to do the same kind of thing they are doing. (along side my design business of course) Anyway here’s what I think about limebarb’s website!

The page is kind of cluttered and a little difficult to read at first, but the most important section (cosplay commissions) is at the top and probably one of the first things the user will see which is good because that’s what they want to look at usually. They have a “take a tour” option which is kinda nice for new comers because they can get a quick slide show of Barb’s work. But I would kind of like to see a place for a gallery where you could go through at your own pace and view pictures of their work, maybe even with pictures of the characters they are based on for those who are not well versed in Anime. It is important that the costumes look well made, but it’s also important they look ACCURATE, and the user shouldn’t have to google the characters to see if they are.

Now as for the two site’s with successful home pages, for the first one I chose http://www.myspace.com.  One of the main things I like about the Myspace home page, and myspace in general is that you can personalize it. You can make it show your personality and describe who you are. Also the layout is very nice on the home page. A greeting at the top, all navigation you would need is at the top, easy to find, but also placed into sections throughout the entire page. They put the status update right on top upfront so that it’s easiest to get to because that’s what most people do on MySpace, the app’s are clearly posted on the right and any alerts on the left. And under your own status is everyone elses so it’s easy to see how your friends are doing.  Probably the only thing I would change is the fact that when you click on your mail button it doesn’t just take you to your mail, it takes you to any notifications you may have. sometimes all i want to look at is my messages, not my app invites and such like that.

For the other successful website I choose http://www.cosplay.com. This website is devoted entirely to cosplayers and cosplay photographers. Their home page is very well laid out. Sign in right up top, search bar right up top, and the first thing that catches your eye is the photo’s of cosplayers in the middle, the showcase one’s on top do a good job of pulling people in, with the best work on top i feel like future coplayers will see it and become inspired to be that good! and that’s what we do! Then the other cosplyers under that, along with new members and such to help keep the community going. All the navigation buttons are clearly listed at the top, easy to follow.  possibly my favorite part is that only cosplay add’s can be found here. I know that doesn’t have much to do with the website itself but i know i hate going to a website and seeing an add that has nothing to do with what i’m doing. I was watching a video on YouTube about the PS3 game Left 4 Dead (a zombie killing game for those who don’t know) and all over the page and in the beginning of the video there where add’s for maschera! That just make’s no sence.  anyway, back to cosplay.com. There’s always been one thing that does bug me about cosplay.com’s homepage. There is no way to access YOUR account directly from the home page. You can log on but you have to go to the marketplace, or forums, or cosplayers tabs to get to your account which is a little annoying. It’s just to difficult to find your profile.

Now as for Unsuccessful websites, i had some difficulty finding them because when I’m surfing the internet if I click on a site and it’s confusing or hard to navigate through I just pass over it. I don’t really give it a chance at all. I’m the visitor web designers fear I suppose. But I did some searching and found a pretty bad one. http://www.bermuda-triangle.org/ I’m guessing this is the official website for the Bermuda triangle. The website is filled with information about the lost ships, theories, history all that kind of stuff. It could be a really cool website. Unfortunately the home page is a mess. There’s just so much stuff on it you can barely see everything. The links to other parts of the site are oddly placed and difficult to read because there are images behind them. The first thing you see when you get on the site is a transparent map of the united states on top of what is supposed to be a globe with north america on it. It’s really just a giant image mess. And if you scroll down the bottom section is information about the Bermuda triangle that would be interesting but the images on it are so many and so large that it’s difficult to read the content. All in all this website just doesn’t seem very well thought out.  I would definitely take out most of the pictures and shrink whats left if i where re-making this site. I would move the links where they are more easily read and noticed.

Next we have by far the worst website out there. It’s actually kind of ridiculous that someone made this. http://www.frnz.de/ this isn’t an english website but that doesn’t give it an excuse to look the way it does. The home page, first of all, takes a while to load. Way more than a webpage should. But when it finally loads you realize why it’s so slow. The navigation bar is comprised of animations that are links, the background on almost every page is an animation, the text is huge and on the home page all the text is on top of each other! I think maybe part of it IS the background! Then there’s text everywhere on top of each other on top of the background, there’s a link half on the border, half on the background so that you can’t even see the beginning of it.  The text is all different colors and not really formated at all. I have to say though that at least the “home” button is obvious. Although a bit of an eye sore. This website would just need to be completely redone it seems. The background should be a normal UN-MOVING background, without text in it. The navigation bar shouldn’t really be pictures let alone animations, and the text needs to follow some kind of color scheme and have a format. I kind of wonder if this website is actually supposed to be a joke. I hope so.

Well I guess that’s it! Hope everyone enjoyed it!

-kit

Taking Stock

• What are your web design goals? To become a professional web designer? To make  personal web sites only?

I hope to be able to do web design professionally. I got big into Graphic Design the last couple years and figured with internet only getting bigger I might as well learn Web Design as well! I want to own my own business someday as a graphic and web designer for small businesses and personal clients and such!

• Which aspects of web design interest you the most?

I’ve always been really interested in learning the language. HTML and CSS and all that. I’ve always liked codes. and i’ve always liked making things. How cool would it be to learn a code that makes things!!

• What current skills do you have that will be useful in creating web pages?

Well the last year and a half I spent in a Graphic Communications class which is basically Graphic Design for those who don’t know that.  And it seems Graphic Design, although very different, has alot to do with Web Design. I think it’ll help to already know a bunch of the design principles and stuff like that so i don’t have to worry about learning that stuff as much. I can concentrate on everything else!

• Which skills will you need to brush up on?

Well really other than the visual aspect of it I don’t know a thing about Web design. So pretty much i need to “brush up” (completely learn) everything.  I don’t know any coding or how to use the tools and such at all.

• Which hardware and software tools do you already have for web design?

I did have an iMac that would have worked nicely for hardware but due to my bad luck since the new year I lost it. But I will be getting another computer (Mac or PC i don’t know) I do however have the entire Adobe CS4 Master Collection. So i’m pretty much set on software I think.

• Which tools do you need to buy? Which tools would you like to buy eventually?

I need to buy a new computer. And any non-Adobe CS4 software that i might need i’ll hopefully get eventually as well.