We Have Moved!
Hey all, just letting you know that the wdimblog has moved to it’s own domain at: http://www.wdimpdx.com. Come visit us there!
I have plans to integrate alternative signins and new pages so you don’t have to make a new wordpress account to comment and discuss what is happening in the blog posts.
Hope to see you there!
-Marilyn
No longer a “Touchy” Subject: WDIM Touchscreen is all systems GO!
Which "world" do you belong in?
Those of you on campus this past Wednesday may have noticed a glowing light outside room 216. Was it the brightness of Chappy’s smile?? A shimmering glint off Griff’s forehead? Nay- it was the TOUCHSCREEN! Up and running and fully operational!
The epic saga of the WDIM Touchscreen began long long ago, in a computer lab not-so-far away. It was built by the blood, sweat and tears of many students and the headaches of Dan Chapman and Bill Siebold (who battled with the AIPD tech ‘forces that be.’) Needless to say it was the lone Flash developer Earl Swigert (a.k.a. Flash Master Swiggy,) who was given the final task of eliminating the remaining Flash bugs. As I approached the screen I was stricken with fear of the dreaded “Error” pop up, but after some serious user testing by myself and Taylor Eke (pawing the screen like cats, rapid-clicking, admiring lightning-bolt fingers,) the touchscreen appears to be bug-free and runs great!
So here is where my role comes in. I get to tackle the job of uploading your beloved work samples to this beauty! In the past students were asked to submit thumbnails and descriptions for midterms and final projects, the intent being to add them to the touchcreen and also cement AIPD’s accreditation (providing proof we actually produce work in our department.) The only problem with those touchscreen “guidelines” was that a.) they were kind of a pain in the butt, and b.) not everyone *wanted* to submit work for the touchscreen (i.e. maybe it wasn’t the greatest work sample.) Well it is a new term now, so let me give you the key facts you need to know about the touchscreen in a segment I’ll call “the Touchscreen and YOU.”
The Touchscreen and YOU!
1.) All students will need to submit project assets as determined by their instructor. This means taking some screenshots, cropping them to specific sizes, writing two-line project summaries and checking some boxes. There are new guidelines for what to submit; it will NOT be the same requirements as in the past.
2.) I will come to your class to explain what the guidelines are! It will be clear. It will be easy. It won’t be a big deal. You will be able to ask questions.
3.) Submitting project assets will be MANDATORY, but you will not be signing your life away. All students will have to submit the project assets for the sake of department accreditation, but this does NOT GUARANTEE your work will be put on the touchscreen. If you create an awesome project that the department wants to display on the touchscreen, you will be contacted and asked if you consent to your work being shown. If you don’t want it up there for whatever reason no problem, it’s your call.
4.) YOU WANT YOUR WORK ON THE TOUCHSCREEN! The projects on there have a lot of eyes looking at them- having your work on display is great self promotion to other students, faculty, administrators and working professionals that pass through our school. The whole point of learning design and development is that your work will be displayed publicly on the web, so why wouldn’t you share it on the touchscreen? Not every project submitted will go on there but if you are proud of what you accomplished there’s a good chance it will. Consenting to have your work displayed is a smart move on all fronts.
I hope this post has cleared up some of your burning questions about the Touchsceen- now let’s get some new work on there so we can lightning-bolt tap to our hearts delight!
-Allyson Dutko
codeNinjas! (Formerly The Internet Explorers)
Hello everyone! I hope you all had a great first week back.
There’s a few new updates in the world of WDIM so listen up!
You may have all heard the rumor that there was a WDIM Club starting up and you were right! It was dubbed The Internet Explorers but that inside joke fizzled far too quickly and we have instead opted to be called codeNinjas. Ninjas are a little bit more awesome, and since we -are- pretty sneaky anyway, always hiding, appearing only when we want to be seen, we figured this would be an epic name.
Our goal is to provide WDIM students with support, networking opportunities and ways to brush up on their skillz. We believe that since social media is such a great part of online, why not emphasize this by creating a place where creative minds, developers and designers alike, can meet and make friends, connections and flourish. But how do I join, you may be asking yourself? (At least I hope you are!) Well, there are a few ways!
The first way is to join the Google Group. If you would like to be in the loop, drop an email to codeninjas01@gmail.com with your name and email.
Secondly, if you want to be kept up to date with events (because we will be having some awesome events in the future) you can join the facebook group codeNinjas which will be updated on a regular basis with events, happenings and meet-ups.
And lastly, when we decide on a meeting time that generally works for everyone, you can also come to the meetings to meet us (we welcome new WDIM students!) and learn about what we’re doing.
This group is open to anyone in WDIM, or generally just interested in web design. You don’t have to have any experience to join us, so first term web design students are more than welcome to join.
Hi-yah!
WDIM Club: Calling all “Internet Explorers!” (What it is and why you should care!$$)
Battling with IE is not for the faint of heart.
Some of you may have noted a week or so ago that Dennis was looking for students interested in going to WebVisions at a reduced rate. How can this be accomplished? Easy, the student activity fees we all pay our first term at AI. Turns out the activity fees incoming students pay actually go somewhere, students can request funds for extracurricular projects or for student clubs. So who makes the decisions about who gets the money? We’ll that’s where STAC comes in. STAC receives proposals for funds and decides which groups/clubs/individuals are eligible for money. So how does this relate to WebVisons? Well, in order for the WDIM Department to request funds we need to form a student club for our department, or a “WDIM Club” per se. We already have Nancy Price as the WDIM STAC Representative, so now we just need a WDIM Club President, Treasurer, and to fill out the necessary paperwork to established ourselves as a *real* club.
I admit that student clubs really haven’t been my thing… well ever. In high school I was a loner who spent a lot of time in the darkroom, and at Willamette University I joined a sorority only to drop out several months later. It wasn’t until I started going to Brash Creative meetings a few weeks ago that I realized how much our department could benefit from a club. It was shocking to me how many students take time out of there busy schedules to participate in Brash, it was even more shocking that no WDIM students were members! In my opinion Brash does amazing work, I was also impressed with how organized and dedicated the team is when it comes to meeting with clients and cranking out work. Brash is in desperate need of web designers because basically all of their clients require websites. I was immediately on board and also recruited Michelle Henderson and Brianne Baker along with me.
I have talked with several web students regarding joining Brash but they are not able to attend meetings due to scheduling conflicts. Solution? We form a WDIM Club that meets weekly, we can take on work from Brash and help them out, and we can also accumulate some awesome portfolio pieces in the process. In addition, once we have an active club we can ask STAC for funds to attend WebVisions at a reduced rate. All in all a WDIM Club would be a positive thing, it can get us away from our computers for a bit to wreak havoc and partake in nerd mischief with our own kind. My only request is that the club be named something more funny and original than “WDIM Club.” Michelle and I led a name brainstorming session with some classmates on Thursday and the best one we came up with was “The Internet Explorers” (courtesy of our own Mr. Chappy, actually.) Runners up were “codeNinjas”, “pixelAssasins”, “Web Fusion” and a few others. The name is still in contention but we are open to suggestions… I will be sure to post when the first meeting will be, be sure to be there and be square. ; )
-Allyson
Fail blog?!? Hard lessons learned from running the “WDIM Blog”
When I started the WDIM WordPress blog several months ago my objective was clear: create a department blog that students and faculty will contribute to, where general web and department issues will be discussed. Easy enough right? First off let me say that I don’t claim to be blog-savvy in any way, when I started the wdim program one year ago I didn’t know much about blogs (or the ‘inter-webs’) for that matter. Like many wdim students the first blog I created was for Chappy’s WDIM101 class. Despite my utter ‘blog-norance’ (blog ignorance?) I figured the WDIM blog would be easy breezy and practically run itself. Umm turns out NOT SO!
However, trying to start up a blog and witnessing it fall flat has taught me some valuable lessons about blog running that I might not have learned otherwise. No matter how many articles your read about how to run a successful blog I think the best way to learn is to create your own and have it essentially… well… fail. Sometimes you just have to eat it to learn what works and what doesn’t. Just to be clear I have no intention of abandoning our withering blog, I really want to revive it and make it, dare I say, interesting to read! Now that the ‘blog-issance’ (blog-renaissance?) has officially begun I thought I would share with you all some lessons I’ve learned thus far since starting this project.
Lesson 1: “That there Blog ain’t gonna write itself!”
The key to any interesting blog is content. In many cases, content from the very users that read and enjoy the blog (ie. failblog.org) My goal with the widm blog was (*and still is*) to get as many students and faculty participating as humanly possible! The obstacle I’ve faced is that when you ask a stressed out student or teacher to write a blog entry their response is usually “uhh… I guess I could do that… maybe” as they make an awkward face that says “you’re really asking me to tack that on to my list of things to do? Hellz NO!” I also face a stigma in that people often think “wdim blog? Who reads that? Oh right, NO ONE.” Pretty brutal, I know. To overcome these obstacles I have decided to lead by example (by writing entries myself) and encourage people to twitter/facebook about their entries as soon as they are posted (something I will do from the wdim dept twitter/facebook account as well.) This blog will only be as good as the entries that we publish, reading and writing a blog post really isn’t so bad (at least just take my word for it!)
Lesson 2: Censorship Sucks : P
Initially I added students to the blog as “contributors,” which means that their posts would have to be approved by myself before being published. The reasoning? I didn’t want to be responsible for an angry anti-wdim department rant being published, you know, the kind of rant that would really upset Chappy and Bill (the guys that asked me start the blog in the first place.) The downside of censoring posts is that a.) there is no instant gratification ( “yay! I just published something!”) and b.) no one likes ‘big brother’ (a.k.a. myself) pre-judging their writing and decided if it is “appropriate enough.” After going to school at AI for a little over a year and getting to know countless wdim students, I have officially concluded my psychoanalysis. The determination? The average web student is generally kind and good-hearted in nature! Needless to say I have learned my lesson, and as of today anyone who wishes to write for the blog gets the title of “author” (a.k.a. YOU get to edit, publish, and delete your posts as you see fit- no approvals needed.) I was thinking the other day that the only time I hear about blogs on the news is when some crazy person writes something completely shocking and outrageous, so basically the more shocking your are the more hits your blog gets. I’m not necessarily encouraging crazy rants, but a little crazy never hurt anybody, did it? Hmm.
Lesson 3: The importance of the “real-time web” – delay is unacceptable!
Like I said before, when it comes to blog entry publishing and commenting, real-time results are absolutely necessary. Originally all blog posts and comments had to be approved by myself. I admit I was not always the most observant and speedy when it came to approving posts and comments, shameful and regrettable indeed. The logic of approving comments/posts makes sense, but realistically most people want the instant gratification of BAM! “comment posted,” or BAM! “entry posted.” Possibly what the little thing called Facebook is popular? So rest assured that I have modified all privacy settings, once you join the blog and become an author you can do want ever you want- post a big ugly picture, write a poem about PHP, really ‘go to town’ as they say. Just let me know you want to become and author and we will get it done!
Lesson 4: Ugly blog’s get NO LOVE
Yes- the blog theme is ugly. Awhile back the project management class began creating a custom blog theme that unfortunately was never realized; way way back a student offered to create a custom theme and I told him “thanks but the project management class already has dibs on that.” Argh. So here we are today, lame-blog theme and all! I did spend about an hour today trolling through wordpress themes and the current one is the best I could muster- please give me suggestions or better yet lets work on a custom theme! Like I said, ugly blogs get no love : (.
Lesson 5: It’s takes a whole village to raise a blog!
In conclusion the more wdim-ers that get involved with this blog the better it will be. I hope that the recently established “author” status will entice people to participate and that this blog can begin to function more like a facebook wall – open to quick posts, links, articles, and of course student and faculty opinion pieces like the one you are reading. Thanks for taking the time to read this post and remember- the blog-issance is NOW; WDIM Blog’s future is in your hands!
-Allyson Dutko
A Twitter party and a Church that serves beer? New Communicators events 10/29/09
coming@party
I went to two New Communicators events Thursday night and it made for interesting experience. The first event was called a coming@party; the premise was to get a bunch of people in a room and have them communicate with each other exclusively through twitter (after all, what says “party!” like a bunch of people silently twittering!) My twitter skills are severely lacking and I don’t have an internet enabled phone, so I brought a mini netbook in an effort to save face. All the participants added an #atparty hash tag to their tweets so it was easy to search and view the “conversations” happening in the room. For me the experience was pretty frustrating, it took me awhile to catch on and I was using the twitter interface, which needed constant page refreshing (every second or two a message would say “6 new tweets since your last post.” Ahh! TweetDeck was definitely the way to go for this experiment since it displays real time updates without the need to refresh. After awhile I was able to get a back and forth conversation going with one person, while other people were managing about four or five. The experience made me feel like a little kid on the playground, where all the big kids are throwing a ball back and forth and I’m jumping up and down saying “hey guys! Pass it to me!!” Thankfully it wasn’t too long before Chappy called “time,” and we were able to have a normal discussion as a group (although I noticed that some people didn’t want to stop twittering!) The synopsis of the group discussion was that in-person interaction is far richer and superior than digital interaction (at least when you are all sitting in the same room!) I brought up the point that, at least in my experience, quality goes down as people multitask, which probably explains why there are so many uninteresting tweets. Erin Kurtz, (the Art Director at Substance,) commented that people multi-task by nature, so a tweet can be a pretty accurate depiction of a person’s mental state. As someone with ADD who is rather horrible at multitasking I mentioned that I’d prefer it if people didn’t tweet and drive or talk on a phone as they order their coffee. Chappy brought up the point that when we spend so much time communicating digitally we end up thinking to ourselves, “wow, did I ever have interpersonal skills?” I reassured Chappy that no, he didn’t, and the event was over (kidding!) Overall the event was interesting and amusing; it was the kind of thing that people should try as a social experiment but not as a substitute for a real party with human interaction and verbal conversation.
The Church of Social Media
The next event was The Church of Social Media, which was much livelier than the silent @party! The premise was to get a group of people together to share stories and sing the praises of social media (led by the faithful Dan Chapman himself.) The event started a little late, as guests enjoyed delicious beer and made pleasant conversation. Erik Knutson found a lovely image of a gothic cathedral for a digital projection background and it wasn’t long before everyone was happily buzzed and ready for some social media gospel. Chappy started out by telling the tale of a girl in Miami that he had amazing Facebook message chemistry with (“it was like we were making brain love!”) but sadly zero phone chemistry with. Later on the mic was passed to Bill Siebold, who told a story about a former classmate contacting him from his past, and how it brought him to the realization that he remembers very little from the seventies. The mic made its way around the room as attendees shared stories of job opportunities, reunions, love, and heartbreak fueled by the internet and social media outlets. I shared a story about reconnecting with my eighth grade teacher online, which resulted in a hilarious picture from my childhood and a phone call from a friend that I hadn’t heard from in months. Aipd students, faculty, and new faces alike all had interesting stories to tell, (it’s a shame it wasn’t captured on video because it would have made for some great public access programming or YouTube videos!) The underlying message of all the stories was that Facebook, e-mail, Skype, and other forms of social media bring people together in ways that were not possible before this technology existed. Let’s just say that “The Church of Social Media” isn’t getting smaller anytime soon; amen to that!
-Allyson Dutko
Top 10 Halloween Costumes for Web Designers!
Let’s face it – showing up to a Halloween party or event sans costume is just poor form. Spare your friends and family the disappointment and pull something together! Here are 10 awesomely nerdy ideas that should get the wheels turning:
10.) Mark Zukerberg, CEO and Founder of Facebook
If you are a scrawny redhead and filthy stinking rich this is the costume for you! Dress like a college student, update your status with your mobile device, and light fine Cuban cigars with $100 bills! Have one of your friends come as Tom from MySpace and take cheap shots at him all night… why not! You’re the king of the world!
9.) The Dorky Logo Guy from godaddy.com!
How did they come up with that logo anyway? Sport goofy carrot-top hair, green sunglasses, and wear a t-shirt that declares “master of my own domain!” People might be creeped out by you, but what would the Superbowl be without your iconic ads godaddy? Nobody puts godaddy in the corner!
8.) The Twitter Bird
Dress in blue, come with mobile device in hand and tweet the night away! Be sure to update everyone with breaking news, like when you are in line to use the bathroom or are wondering if anyone knows what your costume is. Just think, where would the world be today without all those sweet tweets? We can’t live without you twitter bird!
7.) CSS Sprite
You don’t need fairy dust to pull off CSS Magic with Sprites! How amazing would you look with wand in hand, masterfully shifting around hundreds of mini icons to avoid loading times? Your friends might not get it but I guarantee no one else will be sporting this costume – Tinkerbell will be sooo jealous…
6.) Mac OS X Leopard
If you are in need of a costume look no further than your favorite operating system! You will look so charming in a purple t-shirt with an “X” on it, leopard ears and tail, and a cute little nose and whiskers drawn on your face. If you are extra special you can even sport the illusive “Snow Leopard” look; how cool are you?!?
5.) Mac Guy v. PC Guy
Not as original as a Sprite or Leopard but it could be funny. If you don’t fancy making yourself look like Justin Long (or that other dude,) you could always go with the “annoying iPhone person” look; pop in some ear buds, download some apps, ignore everyone at the party… (just don’t blame me if you are accidently mistaken for a “douche bag” instead of a “Mac Guy.”)
4.) Gateway in-a-box!
The “dick-in-a-box” costume is totally played out, but how about strapping one of those classic cow-print Gateway boxes to your crotch! You will definitely turn heads and raise eyebrows (but don’t be disappointed if no one wants to get into your box…)
3.) MySpace Guy or Girl
Admit it, you look way hotter on MySpace! Girls will look super cute wearing the MySpace logo on a baby tee, paired with a catholic schoolgirl outfit and a portable music player blasting the hottest JaMz! (silent profile pages are just so, “Facebook,” yech!) Guys can sport a t-shirt that is WAY too tight, a backwards hat, and maybe a beer bong (just in case someone has a camera.) Viva la MySpace baby!
2.) IE 6
Ah yes, the Satan of all browsers – what could be more appropriate for Halloween? Internet Explorer 6 is truly the supervillian of the web, taking perfectly good designs and mangling them past the point of recognition. Think of how IE 6 would take human form… maybe some devil horns, or a rude t-shirt exclaiming “your web standards mean NOTHING to me! Buahaha!” Something along those lines would be highly effective; web designers will run for their lives when they see you coming.
1.) Mozilla Firefox!
Who better to defeat the tyranny of IE 6 than Firefox – the hero of the web! Adorable fox ears, a fluffy tail and a little black nose drawn on your face would be precious. For bonus points bring along your lil’ sidekick Firebug and smiles and happiness will abound! : )
Happy Halloween!
-Allyson Dutko
WDIM Blog Makeover
Hi gang,
I’m excited to see this blog slowly coming to life!
As a project for Griffin’s Project Management for the Web class, myself, Terresa and Isaiah will be giving a little custom theme love to the Wdim blog. I hope giving the site a little more personality will inspire more of you to get involved, post, comment and generally use this space to develop a little more community within the Wdim ranks.
WDIM: The Missing Manual
Hi Everyone! I had a few thoughts about starting out in our program.
As this program progresses each student comes across a lion’s share of new web tools and techniques that each promise to add value to future projects. Maybe there are a few elementary tools and ideas that each WDIM student should embrace early. I’ve come up with a short list of things that I think we should have all been familiar with from the very beginning. This is by no means an exhaustive list. Please feel free to add more resources to this post with a comment.
- Facebook. Like it or not, you need it. Having a Facebook account will help you connect to the rest of us in the program. As a general rule, we’re a very social group. We want to meet more people in our major and Facebook helps us keep in touch. Get it right away.
- Twitter. It’s another way for you to not only connect with other WDIMers, but also to keep up on information of interest about the field. Still don’t get twitter? Check this out video made by local design house commoncraft.com http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddO9idmax0o
- Gmail. You need a gmail account. You’ll be sharing google docs in your upcoming classes and sampling other google offerings like Google Wave or Google Voice or many others.
- Dropbox. This awesome webware allows you to just drag files into a special folder on your home computer and then allows you to access them from a web interface when you’re logged in from a different computer, even at school. Go to Dropbox.com to get it. They give you 2GB of space to use and it’s free!
- Get some webspace and pick up a domain or two. These will definitely make your life easier later on. It’ll be good to have some space to experiment with. It could be an easy place to display some of your recent work to your friends or family. Ask around your classes to see who other people are using for hosting companies. I use Godaddy.com, but I know some people like 1&1. Domain names are pretty inexpensive and are potentially very valuable when it comes time to build your personal brand. You could get more than one and have them point to the same webspace.
- Project selection: WDIM can be an intense major. Because there is so much to try to learn in short periods of time, it can be tempting to chose easier class projects that take a little less time to complete. Why not keep your eventual goals in mind when you’re thinking about projects to create? As you progress through the program you may want to establish a personal website that can display some of your work or links to some of your work. This may help you pick up some freelance jobs that will in turn help you develop your skills as well as improve your financial situation. Newflash: You’re slowly building a collection of resources that you can reuse over and over. These could be eye-catching layouts, navigation bars, or snippets of code that will save you time later on.
Is there anyone that has some other advice or good resources to add? Please do? Disagree? Please comment!
~Joe Tedesco
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/houseofjoe Twitter: @HouseofJoe
