happenings

Techbio take two

2005-08-10T10:27:00.000-04:00

So here's an update on where I stand with technology since my last techbio. I still see it being a huge chunk of my life. However, I have noticed that in the evening's I have tried to steer spending time on my computer either surfing the web or talking to friends through aim. After dinner I usually try to force myself to read a book until I decide that it's time to pass out. To be honest with you I have read a lot since I have been here and it baffles me because I am now wondering what I use to do with all my time at home since I usually end my day at 5 and still end up cooking dinner. Well, I suppose we will find that out next week when i'm back at home and working once again.

As far as how much my knowledge of technology has advanced is that I have learned my way around dreamweaver, which I wasn't to familiar with to start out. So that I'm proud of. One down of this experience is that I thought that I would have finished the base of my site last week. I never expected to still be working on editing it this week. So in reality I feel I am at the same point with technology as I was coming it.

I'm really excited to see where technology will go in the future and also excited to see the type of technology that I will be working with when I arrive in England.

Site is up!

2005-08-09T01:21:00.000-04:00

Hey everyone thought that I should do a status report and let ya all know that my website is up and working for the most part. A few things that i would like to change but I'm not going to worry about that now. The only links that work are the project, resume, and contact for right now. I haven't written anything for the other two yet. I haven't really come up with something that I like. I was thinking about making the home page an about me page and instead of the about me page do like and up to date thing about current projects that I'm working on semi like a blog but not. Let me know if you have any suggestions. Also the site is just My Site

Domain happiness!

2005-08-04T11:19:00.000-04:00

Ok guys so I decided to go with siteground. And they weren't that badly priced. So once I figure out how to get some of the stuff that I have been working on I will let you know so see what you think.

Domains

2005-08-03T15:54:00.000-04:00

Well you guys gave me a lot to think about and I'm mostly researching today about web domains and I didn't even think about googling ones that support dreamweaver...sometimes the smallest details are the one you over look...oh well. I plan on checking out everyone's suggestions and I appreciate them all. I did find a domain that supports dreamweaver and seems to be a good one but I was wondering if anybody has heard of it... www.siteground.com ...I hope to pick a domain today so that I don't have to to stress about and I can just work out the website which is slowly coming along.

Web portfolio

2005-08-02T19:24:00.000-04:00

So yeah I suck at this blogging unless Bryan wouldn't remind us about it. I also figured I should write something before randomly passing out for the evening. So here's the deal. I'm not to good with dreamweaver...actually we really don't like each other at time nor does photoshop. So the real change right now is to figure what I want my website to look like and make dreamweaver do it. Which will hopefully help when I get the book that I ordered about dreamweaver, so yeah. I have my template done for the mail website but I would still like this amazing opening page that links to the main site. I also haven't figured out what to do with the "home" page. I finally found some web portfolios but they were rather lame to say the least. I figured if I need to do an online portfolio why not show my skills even more and make this something that I'm proud of and people look at it and be like wow that's awesome instead of oh yeah another one to get information from. Also I need to wow my prof's in England so that I can get into my classes. Speaking of which they really suck at returning email..even worse then I though bc I haven't gotten any feedback on suggestions about what I should include. I have like an about me page and basically the same thing that I use to apply to ASTP but this time around it looks a lot better. I thought about making the main page some type of artwork. maybe using photoshop or illustrator and combine some things and then I still need to figure out what to do with flash. I want the flash animation to be the main "first" page you get to...I suppose it would be considered the index and then another "main" page once you entered that with links linking to different pages. So if anybody has cool suggestions to do in dreamweaver or even something for flash let me know. I was thinking about making the flash thing about 10-30 secs long (10 seems to short and 30 seems to long) but i want it to be a tease of some sort and to move fast. So if that helps at all I would appreciate any suggestions anybody has. Mostly the next few days I'm going to be working on creating the website itself and linking stuff and writing some stuff. I also need to look into getting a domain or webspace. I would like a domain so if anybody has any info that they would like to share that would be great. I was talking to my bro about it the other day but he sorta lacks at the returning phone calls bc he said he would look into some things. Well thats about where I am now. All suggestions welcome

Photoshop Coolness

2005-07-27T23:31:00.000-04:00

So after Bret gave us our assignment today I thought about something that would be freaken out of this world to learn in photoshop that I don't know. I know that at one point I was able to do some pretty cool borders but I'm a little out of practice. So as our assignment I started to look around on the web for some cool borders to learn...especially new one dealing with CS2.
So I'm attaching the link to where I'm finding this stuff so if any of you want to look at it and find some other things I hope it helps!
Alright so I found a sight teaching you how to great a soft glowing edge which is pretty cool. Here are the steps.
1. Open a photo.
2. Convert the background to a layer by double clicking on it. (Give it a name if you wish.)
3. Select the Elliptical Marquee tool.
4. Drag a marquee selection around the area of the photo you want to keep.
5. Click the "Add layer mask" button at the bottom of the layers palette
6. Click on the layer mask thumbnail in the layers palette.
7. Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and make sure the Preview option is checked.
8. Adjust the radius until you are happy with the amount of fade and click OK.
9. Add a layer under the photo and fill it with the desired background.

I'm going to try to post the link to the site but if it doesn't work I'm sorry. I can't seem to get it working right now. I will try to remember to come back and edit it later so that it works.

Photoshop Tutorials

Hope you enjoy!

Updated Project

2005-07-27T16:46:00.000-04:00

So I have created some images using photoshop at the beginning of the summer hoping that I would actually have a new website up by now. However due to time I haven't gotten very far and would actually like to do it over again. I'm not use to using photoshop for designing other then when I had to use it in certain courses. I mostly use it to correct images. I have always loved art and love to paint and draw so I wanted to use that skill with the website and to help design it. I want the site to have an artsy look to it and something that is very creative. However, in the past I have had some trouble coming up with some good ideas. I see some things in my mind but when I try to create them, especially on the computer, I get frustrated.

I have been thinking about the different links to create and the type of information that I would put onto the site but I think that I still need to recap and do some research as to what a graduate school would want and even get in contact with my advisor in England to see what he would suggest that I put up so that my prof's can see that I actually know what I'm doing and will accept me into the video program which is my main purpose for studying abroad. So I tell myself everyday that I am going to do this and it has been several months and never got around to it. So I suppose what I'm trying to state is that tonight's goal is to sit down and do some much needed emailing to know what I should put up and do some researching for designs and information that I should put up.

As for the flash animation I am thinking of piecing parts of the website together in order to make it...sorta like hey look at this amazing preview and then hit an enter button. So I suppose you could even call it a teaser ;) Then again I'm still need to learn flash which I know I will put off till that last minute because that's how I roll. I will hopefully at least get the rest of the site done and the animation started. The only downer is that I didn't bring up some of my projects that I wanted to stick on the site so I will have to do that at home and I refuse to ask my mom to look for them and send them up. However I do have some videos that I have done that I could put up and some people at work who I can contact about putting the other's on the server back home so that I can access them. I'm sure I will figure something out without stressing to much at the same time.

The other thing that has me worried about is dreamweaver. I know how to use it for the most part but I believe that the image in my mind which is hard to explain will be easy to create seeing how I don't know how to use the software to it's advantage. Then again I may not use dreamweaver. Hum so many possibilities! Well thats about it not now. I'm sure I will think about something later...and I will try to blog about it...but I seem to be rather bad at this whole blogging thing. I'm not one to write down my thoughts very much I tend to like to talk out loud and scare peoples :)

Projects

2005-07-25T01:01:00.000-04:00

Well I am not really sure what I am going to do. I wouldn't mind doing something with flash even though I don't know a lot about it but I am use to doing video and I enjoy it and how it has an affect on people. I have also been interested in 3D animation for awhile now and after the session thought about possibly doing an animation or an environment and then adding video to it. I haven't quite yet decided really. I would also like to do something with Middlebury itself and do sorta like a documentary with the town possibly interview some people and get some footage around the area. How the town has changed over the year and what people find most interesting about it. Possibly interview some tourist as well to see what brings them here.

I am mostly leaning towards video but that may change though. I am pretty good with Final Cut and know the basics along with some advance things and have a wonderful book to help me so I might look into that and how I can do some advance type work to make an amazing short-film.

But in the long run I don't know what to do and keep trying to run some ideas through my mind. I want to create an amazing new website as well seeing how my other one isn't very well put together so thats another thought and some how incorporating video and animation into that so thats another idea that I think I might run with.

Shapes of Medium

2005-07-19T11:27:00.000-04:00

After our session this morning we were asked to find a website and use the mediums that we learned this morning and compare them to a website of our choice. The website that I decided to use is new.bbc and picked an article that I am formular with and sorta out of the ord. A lot of you who are willing to take the time to read it I hope you enjoy. The article is about an event in Glouscestershire, the town over where I will be stayin in England next year, called cheese rolling. I almost had the honor of witnessesing this event last summer but ended up missing it because my group came home about two or three days before the event so hopefully I will be able to go next year.

Cheese Rolling

Shapers of Medium
- Technology Constraints and Possibilities
- Institutional Practices (tells you what you should do how long a movie should be)
- Cultural Circulation

The constraints of the article to me would eb the fact that you can't put everything up on the web or tell about people's personal experience which I feel is important. Even though I know an over view of what the article is about I would also like to have personal experience and to eventually one day witness the actual event.

The institualtional Practices would be the event itself and the rules that the "players" have to follow such as running after the cheese and the winner is allowed to keeep a cheese as their prize.

Cultural Circulation, hum this is an interesting one, because I'm guessing none of you have ever heard of cheese-rolling and may find it rather odd. So the Cultural in England is different then in America so I feel that that plays a part in the cultual circulation. I'm sure people here would look at you funny if you roll a large cheese down a hill and start running after it. They might think that you are on drugs or intoxicated by other substances. However, in England this is a major event and draws people in from all over. They actually weren't able to hold the event about 3 years ago because of the earthquake in Turkey because they call upon many of the medics to come to the event because believe it or not several people have died from getting hit with the large cheese. Try picturing that headline...Woman killed by 7 ft cheese rolling at so many mph.

Technobiography

2005-07-18T16:29:00.000-04:00

My name is Emilee Spokus and I'm from Juniata College in Huntingdon, PA. As for back as I can remember I have always had a computer even if it was for playing video games. I have been exposed to the internet since about 5th grade which is around 11 years now. So I suppose you can say I really haven't lived without the net. I am like most people addicted to spend most of my spare time on the web searching and reading news articles and talking to my friends on aim. When I was a senior in high school I was exposed to video and feel in love with it and decided that I would try to persue video work, however, my mother use to feel that my interest was just a hobby and not a career. But I think that I have finally proven her wrong. My first semester at Juniata I was part of the elementary education department and hated it along with Juniata at the time. After a few weeks I decided I wanted to transfer until I was introduced to the digital media program which I decided to try out before making the decission to transfer. I found that through the program I found what I wanted and stayed at Juniata which I am still there to this day. I was also offered a job working for what is now called the Digital Media Zone (DMZ). Over the past two years I have edited two major projects, a documentary on our local movie theatre and our theatre production that I had the honor of not only being the editor of the project but also the assistant director. In the next several weeks after I leave CET I will be heading to England for a year to further my education at the University of Gloucestershire in Cheltenham about 2 hours west of London. There I plan on taking courses that Juniata doesn't offer to help get me into a masters program in video work.

I am mostly interested in video but I am willing to learn new programs. I have also always loved photography and still enjoy developing my own film when time allows for it. However, in the mean time I just use my digital camera. I especially enjoy going on hikes and taking photographs. My first adventure to England was last summer on a digital photography course that Juniata offers to the students and feel in love with the university, which is the same one that I will be attending in a few weeks.

Until I leave for England and when I return back to Juniata I will be again working for the DMZ to finish up some last minute things and finish off a few projects. We recently finished a camp where I was named one of the producers to help at least two of our campers direct their own film. The majority of the films were about 10 minutes long and probably some of the best works that our campers have made in the past several years that the camp has been up and running. So over the past few years I have gotten more and more into digital media and video work and hope that through CET I will learn more about programs and I don't already know and come up with a good idea for my project, which currently I am not sure what I'm going to do.