Difference between Safari and Firefox

I viewed the website I made in dreamweaver on Survivor (http://mywebspace.quinnipiac.edu/jmgrado/survivor_home.html) in Safari and Firefox. I found minor differences, but even though they're minor they can throw off any website. In safari, everything was laid out as I wanted it to be, except for some unexplainable white space on a page. In firefox, the menu and the bottom of the site were a few pixels away from where i wanted them to be. I find this as a problem because what is a client uses firefox? The designer could have made a great website that looks fantastic in Safari, but in firefox it could look unorganized and ugly. Another thing, is that a blue box appears around the button in firefox, whereas in safari, there is none.

Way to show my work

http://activeden.net/item/true-3d-flip-book-with-cms-as3-01/105276

http://activeden.net/item/blades-xml-banner-rotator/132841

I do really like these two ways to show my work for this past semester. In the first, the advantage is being able to show SWF files in individual pages, but I think that the banner rotator would be good as the single way to show my work. Unfortunately, there is no way to show all of the links at once; one would have to keep clicking to get to an assignment that they want to see.

Surrender Control and Remediation

Surrender: http://mywebspace.quinnipiac.edu/jmgrado/surrendercontrol.html

Remediation: http://mywebspace.quinnipiac.edu/jmgrado/survivor_home.html

Jakob Nielsen’s Eyetracking Research

In his research, Jakob Nielsen found that people tend to read in an F formation, which probably means they tend to be drawn to bullet points and they read articles with bullet point tendencies. I looked at two websites, Engadget and Vectortuts, and examined their home pages. I found that Edgadget writes they’re whole article for each on the home page, some sites make you click another link to finish reading the story, but Engadget doesn’t, which is nice. They seem to try and keep stories that are short, short. Also, when they are able to, they list facts in bullet points (note: this isn’t a habit for them though). Vectortuts is a website dedicated for Illustrator tutorials (a VERY handy website). For each article, they give you a short overview of what will be learned, and then a click will get you to the full tutorial. For these tutorials, they are numbered which is always great. A Third website is eHow.com, and their articles are concise, to the point, and most importantly, bulleted with numbers. It is very easy to read, and I think it is a great website. I would definitely take Nielsen’s research into consideration. Now knowing people tend to be drawn to reading as if everything is bulleted is great knowledge to have. I believe it can help me in anything that has typography.

Immediacy and Hypermediacy in Media

Immediacy: This is when a user is so in to a movie, news report, or video game, that the separation between reality and the media is dissolved. This reminds me of video games that play online. These games have the ability to advertise in the game. So when you’re shooting other players, you might be hiding behind a billboard for Mountain Dew. You’re so immersed into the game, it’ll remind you of being in the real world, and you forget you’re being advertised to in a video game. Another example is a Alternate Reality Game, also known as ARG. This is created by video games or movie studios to promote their product. What they usually do is release items and websites that mesh with their product, and make it seem like it exist in the real world. With the film Cloverfield, the movie put out document, images, and fake MySpaces, on the internet for the audiences to immerse themselves into, making everything seem real.

Hypermediacy: This is when a person is immersed into two different medias at the same time, like watching the news and reading about different news on some website. At first I wasn’t sure about the name for this, but then it became clear that the hyper part of it can remind you of the hyper in ADHD. Ones attention can not be held by just one form of media. An example of this is me. I know that I’ll find myself watching tv while also going on my Mobile Safari on my iphone. I don’t think theres anything wrong with that, unless my mom is trying to get my attention. I feel as though this is the way society is headed.



Remediation: I found that the definition of this in media is the act of finding one medium in another. So I would assume this is like reading book about a movie or vice versa. An example of this is Fight Club. The film remediates the plot and themes found in the book, which is the original form of the narrative.

Writer’s Block

Writer’s Block (http://lot23.com/play/writersblock/) is interactive flash story with little instructions and is very simple. To go through the story, simply click this little square box. Keep clicking it and the story progresses. Honestly, I am not sure why it was called writers block. It is about this white box that becomes a menu for something, but the narrator is designing it during the story. I thought the concept was for narrative was interesting though; the way the story is told through design. The ending confuses me too. The last screen is the menu saying “Ihavenothingtosay” (seen in the picture).

MindsEye

On bornmagazine.com, I found Mindseye (http://www.bornmagazine.org/projects/look/), and it’s one of the most fantastic animations I've ever seen. The story is on the same level as well. It takes a poem, and adds the animations necessary to bring it to life. I wish I knew what program was used to make it. Flash? Probably. I actually bookmarked it, just so I can go back in the future to be inspired by it. I thought everything in the movie, I.e., color, motion, speed, and design, helped the poem become organic. My favorite part of the whole film is the part with the birds. I loved the bird becoming thousands of birds and flying away. If I find out how this was created, I feel like that could help me more on the path of becoming this good.