Keep Moving Forward

nr8gzr:

TROLOLOL!

Underoath "Paper Lung"

This is a highly anticipated video from my favorite band UnderOath. I guess they fit into the genre of rock/screamo. This song is entitled “Paper Lung”. It is from their current cd Disambiguation.

I thought it was weird to view this video because just to gain access to the flow player, you have to repost the video somewhere. Whether it be through facebook or twitter. It seems like more and more online promoting, forces users to spread the word before they can even access their sites. Kind of like telling someone to brag about how wonderful you are when you are standing right there.

The video is amazing regardless.

This was a rehearsed speech I presented in Anchorage in a conference called Weaving the Circle of Care.

I am an alumni of the foster care system. I have traveled and presented to many national conferences and presented in workshops in front of foster parents, social-workers, Court-appointed Special Advocates(CASA), judges, lawyers, and trainers. Events I have attended include the The National CASA Confernces and It’s My Life promoted by Casey Family Programs.

I was asked to give the keynote speech at this specific conference and entitled my speech “Delivering Hope”.

The movie Inception stole my heart in the summer of 2010. I used an audio track from the movie called “Time” directed by Hans Zimmer. I laid an audio track of me practicing the speech over that. While I was presenting the speech, I set my phone on a nearby table and recorded some of what was occurring in the room, which lead me to lay that last track which was the applause in this mixed track.

The speech was presented to mostly foster parents and social-workers. I was asked to encourage and motivate these people in their day to day, and I wanted to leave an impact in order to kick off the conference with some energy.

This isn’t the recording from the conference, but the idea is still there.

Enjoy!

Adele

Music sites are always set up the same. “Music-Video-Bio” tend to always be in the header. I was curious about the artist Adele. She has a soulful voice and I wanted to see if that was transferred to her site. I thought they would show more detail in fonts and maybe throw in some Flash, but the site is basically the same as the others. In the album cover for her ‘21’ album, they were able to capture the soulful feel that Adele has. They did that so well, in fact, that they made the album cover, the entire background of the site. I would have chosen colors that would compliment the album cover, rather than the entire album cover. If I would have designed this site, I would have thrown more stuff into flash and made some things exclusively for the site. I could have made brief clips of things that happened on the set of music videos. Sites tend to attract more activity if there is someone putting detail and thought into the site, rather then “just making a site”. Web developers should think about what a fan would want to see if they visited a music artist’s site.

coffee house

Photography lighting

For the critiquing of a website, I chose to research network television sites.

Networks always tell viewers to log onto their websites and sign up for promotions. I was curious as to how user friendly these sites were and if anything could be improved. I chose three main TV networks as follows: FOX, ABC, and CBS.

The lay-outs of each site were simple enough. They were all full of banners and clips from popular television series. They used the shows as promotions so much, that it almost turned into a brand. If you watched this show you were this brand.

Clicking on shows, I saw that it was very colorful and user friendly. Basically anything an avid viewer would want more of from their show, each website offered it. There were mostly pictures and clips, but I was curious about the behind the scenes looks and what the television characters did before they were on television. Maybe it was far-fetched to think I could find such things, I was nevertheless curious.

The network sites were basically like the television shows. All were chalked full of advertising and subtle messages. The sites were designed to pull people in. If the people watched the show, they may visit the site; and if the people visited the site they may visit the site later. Either way, people are either watching the show or browsing things about the show. The networks are good at what they do.

To me, I find this type of site distasteful. It isn’t classy and it is basically like a McDonald’s for the internet. It is basically saying, “Give people more junk advertising and subtle messages about changing their appearance and they will keep coming back for more”.

I like sites that show facts or have small promotions that you could choose to ignore if you wanted; rather than sites that all filled with bombarding audio and desperate cries for you to click on something.

My schedule was a mess last semester, making my classes a mess, making this class difficult for me. I am here now… again… Ready for greatness!

I do a lot of online shopping and sometimes I treat the internet like an ex-girlfriend, just give me my old stuff back and maybe I’ll catch up to you later on. There were many sites to choose, but I chose the Puma site because they deal with sports as well as apparel. The site is barely usable without images. With images disabled, it reminds me of old games that have no images but only give you textual updates on what is going on (“You found a bag of gold coins”. A rabbit ambushed you and stole your gold and cut your health in half” etc…). You are able to see the names of different categories, but not being able to see the images makes it a guessing game on what you may read about on the site. For example, “Puma Social” and “Project Pink” are two links that make you unsure of what you will read about if you click on them.