June 14th

today was basically a wrap up day for my team mate and i. we have finished everything and spent most of the time looking over our site for turning it in next week. i feel confident that our final site will be a success and our client will enjoy it. our templates work well and we wished that we had them sooner.. but we learned more by doing it this way. this week has been pretty chill and gave my team mate and i more than enough time to finish our site.

June 13th

Today we finished up our templates for our website. I was finally able to give information on how to do something in the program. The template exercise was easy and it is a great way to be able to add more information to a site without having to create a layout for each new page. We also finished up our website today! We formatted some things differently so that they will match international standards so that viewers of our clients page will be able to understand the site. We are pleased with our site and we feel our client will be as well. I finished reading the webstyle guide chapters for this week and chapter 6 which focuses on our clients page reinforced and gave us information to change some of the things we had on our site. I had never read through our section before on the web but reading from the webstyle guide book I can see our topic clearer.

June 12th

Today working on templates was fairly easy. We made template pages for our client so that if they ever need to add or change info it can be done easily. We fixed the problems that were suggested during the critique and learned how to make a jump menu. I was actually quite helpful today since I completed the template exercises i knew how to make the template and apply it to our work which was good bc my teammate wasn't worried about reading and chapter exercises. Its been a few short weeks but i feel like i have learned a lot about dreamweaver and creating web pages.

June 11th

The critique didn't go as bad as I would have thought. Before we went over the site as a class Paul and I discussed some of the points that were mentioned to change. We were pleased to here we didn't have much improvement and I am looking forward to seeing the changes implemented. I was pleased to hear that our color schemes are working well because that is something I worked on.. yay. Learning templates was neat... its so easy to just make a model and use it for everything.. our site would have been extremely simple had we done this a few weeks ago. but oh well now i know how to do it both ways. Today was good because we got to see the different takes on the web sites our peers are making; and how they are interpreting the wants and needs of our client and its sites visitors.

June 7th

Its the end of the week.. and my team mate and I accomplished a whole lot, especially today. We redesigned our clients logo and finally figured out with some help why our site wasn't loading to the cluster account. the video on photoshop and the shortcuts really helped me today. i learned some great ways to do some of the most common tasks with the push of a few buttons. anything that makes the program easier is great. Our clients site is pretty much finished and we are pleased with our accomplishments.. we changed a lot around from the beginning but it looks much better. Having this week to work on our own time gave me time to explore the programs and learn a lot about photoshop and dreamweaver from my team mate.

June 6th...

Our client's site is coming along. We worked today on story boards and are finished except for having errors uploading to the webpage through secure shell. Today i was basically here to help guide desing and color schemes.. since its what i know best. I feel that our client will be pleased with the site we are making and that others will enjoy it as well. Since we were making our headers and footers for our page we worked more in photoshop than anything.. i'm still learning to navigate the program but its getting easier. today was pretty easy.. havign our own time to work on assignments is great becasuse I work almost every day and would have no time outside of class.

June 5th...

today my participation wasn't what i'd liked it to have been. i focused on working with dreamweaver while my teammate worked in photoshop. after we completed the dreamweaver exercise we worked on changing our clients site.. with hopes to improve appearance and usablitiy. My teammate showed me how to create buttons in photoshop and even though we had a few issues we were able to resolve them. today was good becuase we got to focus on our site and learning about the tables in chapter 9.. or at least i thought it went well. i feel like the more we work on our page the less i learn because my teammate speeds through everything, copying and pasting and i'm like slow down.. but he isn't the type to really follow directions he just wants the site finished. i don't think he prefers working with a novice. anyway tomorrow will be better because we will finish our story boards and our site design will be partially finished. we have come a long way in a short time and i hope the work that we have done pleases our client and those who visit the site. and i finally figured out why my posts were publishing at an extremely early time... yay.

June 4th

I've started reading more site desing info from our client and didn't know that there were so many dfferent styles to use when desiging a certain site... from entertainment, to education, or business.. it seems like there is a different style for each topic. The site my partner and i had planned to design for our client is quickly changing.. we will be taking out some of the graphics to focus mainly on the text.. we wished we could be a bit more creative but we want to make what the client wants. In class dreamweaver taught me some things i didn't know yet, but i did get frustrated when i had to delete my work to do the same exercise in a different way. I lack patience and like to get things done right away and the easiest way possible... i've made progress navigating the software and its features but i just want to get through the book without doing the same thing in 3 different ways.. i know its done that way to show the alternatives but i don't like that so much. i also learned today that my teammate is kinda all over the place and i am all about structure, as we were going through the exercises he just wanted to look at pictures and go by example whereas i wanted to read all the steps to make sure i got it right.. i know he knows what he is doing but i'm learning and he just wanted to get it over with... overall today was a succeess but i hope that our clash in styles doesn't effect our outcome of our projects.

May 31st

the end of a short but long week.. today in class working on photoshop was a good change from working in the dreamweaver software.. we created an amazing logo image for our client..i'm sure our client and viewers will be pleased. I learned a lot today in photoshop about images, painting, opacity, etc..I find that I am learning a lot in a short period of time and I didn't think that i would catch on as quickly but am happy that I am becoming more proficient with the programs; then i don't feel as if my partner is doing everything becuase now i know a little bit and how to manuever through the program... my teammate definitely knows what he is doing and showed me how to create images i would have never learned reading the book.. he has a variety of websites that he found that shows you how to make a variety of graphics.. it was cool to see the final product that i created with his help. What I learned this week from both software programs is going to be beneficial in the weeks to come when finalizing design and publishing the site for everyone to see.

May 30th...

Today's class was a great opportunity to work with my team mate and get started on our website. We accomplished a lot this morning... our site is coming together and it looks great. We used a little bit of humor to spice it up a bit. I felt good that i could give advice about what our page should look like.. putting my aesthetic awarness to good use. I'm glad my team mate is familiar with dreamweaver because it would have taken me hours to do what he accomplished in like 10 minutes. I think our client will be pleased with the route we took when making our web site. We obvioulsy don't have everything worked out yet but we are well on our way. Today's class was more about makign the site for our client while adding to our knowledge of the dreamweaver program. I am catching on now that i have most of the basics down. I am looking forward to more work in photoshop this week because my teammate and i are going to import images we create from photoshop into our clients new site. Each day I am feeling more confident in my abilities to succeed in the class.

May 29th

Week two.. today started out well. Being able to explore the Dreamweaver software on my own gave me the opportunity to figure exactly what i was doing and what i was changing within a site. I feel a bit more competent working with the program. More good news.. my first journal was a success.. go me! I'm looking forward to becoming more hands on with dreamweaver so that I can make the new Web Style Guide site that my partner and i are designing a success. There is a lot that goes into making a site aesthetically pleasing for everyone, including those with disabilites. Being able to fulfill the clients needs is what is most important.

May 24th

I really enjoyed today's class. Photoshop is more interesting to me than the Dreamweaver software. I realized after I was reading the text last night that I had used the program before so I have some knowledge of the program. I like the idea that you can go in and alter images and create what you like in a variety of ways. I find that the program is similar to PAINT but way more advanced and gives you many options to work with. Photoshop will be helpful when creating the Webstyle Guide Website because it definitely needs more color and a bit more creativity than it has now. I love drawing and painting, working with color and patterns so this will be where i can shine and show my creative side for our project. However, I was a bit distracted during today's calss because the girl next to mewont stop typing emails and IMs.. I have some familiarity with the program but I'd like to hear what the professor is saying.. instead of the constant typing that i hear in my right ear... Photoshop will be a tool i can use in the near future when i design my Graduation portfolio and i'd like to be as proficient in it as possible. I have also learned that my teammate is quite artistic and hopefully we will be able to come up with some great images for our site. And I LOVE the STAR PAINT BRUSH!! favorite.

May 23rd

Starting to learn how to operate the Dreamweaver software. I liked doing the exercizes on my own; I learn better when I am actually doing the task. My teammate Paul is ahead of the game.. when I asked if he needed any help for our site map he said that it was done. The day before we did all the folders and pages we needed for our page.. he finished up with the linking. We had some difficulties with on page on our site and tried to relink it at least 10 times and we never got the problem straightened out. I think that I will be a more active teammate when we get to the design and style portion of the page. I am good with graphics, color schemes, and layouts and I feel like that will be my time to shine. I'm more aesthetics than computer skill; but i'm trying. I was slightly frustrated at myself this morning becasue I couldn't get one of the files to copy and then manage correctly... luckily I figured out what i was doing and caught up. What i've been reading in Dreamweaver and The Web Style Guide has been helping to understand the web, the software and the complexities of creating a website.

May 22nd...

So day two is over and I have learned more than I could have imagined. Today was the first day of actually working with my partner and I'm glad I'm working with him but nervous as well because I feel like I can't control anything... bc I am not as web familiar as my partner. This will be my first group/team project in NCC where I only had to work with one other person. Usually our groups our comprised of 5-6 ppl and this is definitely a change; hopefully for the better.
After reading the web styling guide chapters 1 & 2 I was consumed by all there was to know about web design, structure, production, and management. I have never analyzed what it takes to keep a website running. I could relate to the section I believe in chapter 1 which discussed page layout and aesthetic awareness... if i am new to a website I want it to be easily navigable and feel like i know what i am doing; I don't want it to take me hours to figure out where to go next. The web style guide is pretty straight forward, the chapters break down categories for web design and walks you through the steps with no big technical terms; they are clearly workign to keep it simple.
Today in class I felt bad for my team mate bc I feel so lost and unsure; but I dont' want him to think that I want him to do everything.. but until i become more familiar with the program I won't feel like much of an asset. Usually I feel like I have a lot to contribute - this time not so much. As summer session progresses I hope to be putting in 110% to making our final website a success.

May 21st

Wow the first day of class... I learned more than I expected to on the first day. I was able to take away a lot of information from the reading about formatting and the types of styles that can be used and after getting through the final chapters I wanted to start working. I have taken a few IT type classes before and have made a few web pages in my day but nothing as intense as I find this class. It was good that I got paired off with Paul who seems to know what he's doing. And Prof. Petro seems dedicated to teaching and helping us learn more about web design and multimedia; and how the web and software is constantly changing. I feel that I am in good hands. I think that after this semester I will be able to detect when something goes wrong with my myspace page and how to fix it; and that being more computer savvy will only help me in the long run. The class seems interesting and like it will be fun once we get started working on everything.