I'm So Over This

What do you say when a grand experiment ends? Do you thank the participants, do you make little awards and hand them out to people? King of the Comments, that kind of thing? Do you say you'll keep posting when you probably (definitely) won't?

Or do you say, boy, this was fun, wow, I hate dreamweaver, thanks, everybody, and see you on Facebook?

All I know is this wine is awesome and I had a great time.

Later, folks!

Girly...or delicious

So thanks to my cousin Jimmy I've been drinking a lot more cider recently. It's weird stuff, but it's growing on me. Best thing about it is it's so much lighter than beer, you can drink like thirty of them before you feel full. Downside is you do this in about fifteen minutes because the stuff tastes like dry soda, so you end up screaming things like "DO YOU THINK ALCOHOL'S A DRUG?!" at strangers trying to prove a point to your cousin (Jimmy did this last weekend). It's like our ritual to drink it now, though, and he keeps telling me cider has this huge history behind it, so next time you see that stupid little woodchuck fella on top of one of the taps at the bar give it a try.

Wine is about the same. We're drinking it watching It's Always Sunny right now, and it makes the whole affair seem that much more sophisticated.

Finals are OVER!

There's something so soothing about putting the last period on your last sentence of the last question of your last final, even if you know you're gonna fail it (or at least come so close to failing it doesn't really matter). It's twice as awesome when you're racing with your buddy to see who can finish the test first.

But seriously, I'm glad finals are done. All the buildup, the panic, the studying--major harshness that I'm sick of dealing with. I feel a lot smarter and a lot dumber at the same time.

down with dreamweaver

There has to be a better application out there for building websites. Dreamweaver is the worst. It is way too complex and is user-"unfriendly". I have been messing around with it for two weeks and I still can't figure it out. Does Microsoft have a website designer application? because if it does I would rather use that.

The thing that irks me the most about dreamweaver is how slow it is. When you re size anything, (i.e. image, text, borders) it takes a long time. It doesn't inconvenience me, it is just asinine.

The other thing I hate is how complicated it is to use. Why can you just add text boxes or images with the same ease as PowerPoint. It would cut my production time in half.

This has been a fun class but I won't miss dreamweaver.

Website Woes

So I am having a little bit of trouble with my website for HCI class. I have done all of the work up until this point, including the advanced wire frames, but I realized that my proposed idea is almost impossible to do. My elevator pitch is as follows: The website that I plan on designing is going to cater to the millions of participants in the commodity markets, but it will mostly concentrate on the commodities that are traded in Chicago.

This seemed like a great idea at the time, however I have come to the conclusion that a website like this would have to be updated on a intradaily basis. I am stuck. I have done a lot of work on the proposal, and I don't want to have to start all over. Anyone have any ideas?

The 2007 NL central champions!

So the cubs actually did it. They actually clinched the NL Central, after making me sweat all year. I would say that the worst part was getting swept by Florida when the Cubs only had three games left. But that is all behind us now.

It's playoff time ladies and Gentlemen, and the Cubs begin battle with the Arizona Diamondbacks this Wednesday. This would have been a good thing if I didn't have TWO midterms on Thursday. How am I suppose to watch the game if I have two midterms the next day? Maybe it's time to get my priorities in line.... It's not very often that the Cubs go to the playoffs, and midterms occur very frequently. The famous Cub's saying is "wait till next year", well as far as midterms are concerned, they can "wait till next quarter".

espn.com

look at all the content!

There is no other website on the Internet that I visit more than ESPN.com. Not only do I have my fantasy teams to check, but I also need up to the minute sports news. ESPN.com has recently added a customizable page to make my life a little easier.

The website is exploding with information. You can find stats to any player on any professional or college in the nation. You can find video highlights. You can find up to the minute score updates. You can find blogs, games, podcasts, web poles, etc. Simply put, ESPN.com has anything that a sports junkie could ask for. The only problem I have with it is....speed.

It takes forever to load every single page. It is maddening. Not to mention that I have an iPhone that is unable to load my favorite website. There has to be a way to simplify ESPN.com with out losing all of the important features, but how?

Go ahead, see for yourself.... http://espn.go.com/

social networking baggage

I remember when I first opened an account on facebook. I was apprehensive about it at first because I felt like people had access to my personal information. This is one of the reasons why myspace was not an option. Anyone in the world would be able to access my myspace page and check out my information. Facebook, on the other hand was limited to college students only... then to high school students... then college grads... then everyone! The one thing that was appealing to facebook initially has been changed. However, there still are privacy options that you can tinker with.

Last Thursday, my Multimedia and the World Wide Web teacher informed us that our identity can be stolen from little things such as our birth date. I have since removed my birthday from the site, and am contemplating closing my account. Is having a facebook account worth the risk of identity theft?

Social networks just might not be my thing.

My first blog.... ever

In order to write my first blog, I had to do a little research on the subject. I have never blogged, and I don't think i have ever read a blog. So I sent out emails to my friends and family and this is what they sent me:

http://niketalk.com/
This is more of a forum. My roommate reads this every single day in order to keep up on this Nike shoes news. Niketalk.com offers an array of different topics that members can post about. It apparently is quite hard to join.

This website is laid out quite simply so it is easy on the eye, especially for first time users. All of the useful links take up the majority of the page, so the user is not distracted by overwhelming advertisements. However, I will say that the first thing I noticed was an advertisement in the middle of the page.

http://chewonthatblog.com/
My cousin, James Smylie, is a hard time blogger. He loves blogging so much that he now gets paid to do it. He was lucky enough to get a job as a food critic on the website. I should also mention that James loves to eat food, so now he gets paid to do both.

This particular website has a little different layout than niketalk.com. When you click on the link, it brings you directly to postings. There are no advertisements in sight, which I like. Then to the right of the postings, there are some links to other pages on the site.