Bennett VS. Boyd

I don't know if it's my own pessimistic nature, but I agreed with Danah Boyd. Boyd was honest in her opinion and to a certain extent right about people and their laziness. I am in fact one of those lazy people and that is a big problem that Boyd talks about.

A couple of times I agreed with Boyd when she said, that young people aren't using SNses to their advantage " It is this lack of motivation that we need to understand and address to improve our democracy and our government." I believe in what she says, but it's hard to change people's minds. People only do things when they want, not when others tell them to. 

I like how she uses the internet to prove her point to get young people interested in civic responsibility. People are all about self interest and flattery, why not use that to create a social networking site, "but social network sites certainly provide a platform for attention-seeking people to do their thing. 

With Boyd I have mixed feelings. I agree with him sometimes and disagree on others issues. Right away I agreed with his opinion of the younger generation being less interested in joining a political party. But, he is just wrong in saying young people don't vote. If you look at the last two elections, the youth vote was higher than it had been in previous presidential elections. There is a reason for young people turning out to vote. Young people and myself included feel like they can relate to the current president in his views. He has done a lot for education that matters to me and hundreds of thousands of college students all over the country. 

Overall, Bennett's tone was much better that Boyd's. It seemed like Bennettt had more solutions instead of placing blame on someone. Bennett is more realistic, "Learning to become an effective citizen does not happen automatically." 

I like the way Bennett writes and there is a flow to his writing. I find myself relating to him more, especially after my group worked on spruz.com to stop animal cruelty. "The bottom line is that digital natives largely do not participate in civic affairs out of a sense of duty or obligation but a sense of personal fulfillment." This quote is very true for me anyways. Honesty, I did not care about this project when it was first assigned, but at the end of the experience,you feel that you've made a contribution and a worthy one at that. 

Reflections on Social Networking

It's been a long process with using spruz.com for our social networking cause. Our cause is stopping animal cruelty. A very popular and worthy cause that can reach everyone. Our group has tried to play on viewers emotions. Playing on people's pathos is smart with a cause like this.

 It's sad to think animals are being treated so unfairly. Our group has done a good job of showing just how awful people can be mistreating animals. We also had interesting blog posts and discussion entries by all of our members. I would say, our group all cares about dogs and the well-being of dogs, but we tried to mix the posts and discussions up. Our posts and discussion threads was about puppy mills, cruelty in farming, elephant poaching, and cosmetics and household chemical testing on animals.

Overall, minus the bugs, working with spruz.com on this social networking project was fun and felt good to make a difference.

Reflections on Wikitravel

I have to say this was one of my favorite projects. It always helps when your interested in something and I think that is clear to anyone who reads my page.

I provided a lot of information that most tourists wouldn't receive. The key to any good vacation to a new spot is ask questions. You want to know where the locals go, because if they go, you know the food is good.

Also it's Maine. You can't go wrong with seafood. there is always plenty to do and see on the East Atlantic coast.

After reviewing my comments on this project, I went back and made some revisions. My sleep section sounded to much like an advertisement or phone book listing, which Wikitravel does not want. This is the time to be creative and write about lived experiences.

So I added a comment under each sleep option I offered. Trying to let people know what they can expect if they choose a particular hotel. I think this could be helpful. Its not fun when you wake up at 2am and people are loud outside your window. It's good to give potential tourists expectations near specific locations.

Reflections on Website Redesign

It is obvious that the new web page my group designed is far better than the original. All it took was a few simple design changes. Grouping like items together and lack of any organization was one of Matunuck Surf Shop's problems. By putting necessary information in the same area creates proximity. Contrast was another huge issue for the original site. The site was too immature and did not work with the site. So by adding some contrasting colors like orange and blue made a world of difference.

Knowing Your Audience While Blogging

It's important to know your audience and who you might be talking to while writing a blog. All  bloggers must know what they are talking about. This goes to their credibility. To introduce yourself to people reading your blog, it is good to have a detailed about me page. This about me page is like a snapshot. It lets the people reading the blog know who you are and why your blogging to begin with.

Next, bloggers should provide a type of mission statement. A sentence or two describing what this blog is about. This description let's potential readers know what the blog is going to be about, before even reading a single post.

The saga of Spruz.com continues

Oh spruz.com how you infuriate me. Why is it, that something goes wrong right before an assignment is due. For example, a student computer crashes in the middle of working on a 10 page research paper, not having access to online journals or not having access to spruz 48 hours before your final project is due. For the heck of it and because I was so desperate because I saved no work I did on spruz. I signed up for a $5 plan and voila spruz.com started to work. I don't see spruz.com becoming a successful site anytime soon, with all these problems they've been having. Soon enough this project will be over and will never have to interact with spruz.com ever again. Now I promise I'm done ranting. Goodbye.

Looking at sites I frequent for Web design

Sites I visit:

Vans.com http://www.vans.com/

                Has a lot going on, very busy. May not need all that information. Provides a lot of interaction for potential visitors. Good color scheme of red, black and white.

Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/

                Amanzon.com is pretty user friendly, very bright and easy to navigate. I like their color scheme of orange and blue. These colors are contrasting colors and work nicely against the black font titles and white background.

Todayshow.com http://www.today.com/

                Todayshow.com  provides viewers with plenty of information. If you can’t watch on a tv. Today has all their segments online available to watch or in case you missed something or would like to re-watch something like a recipe. Having a website can be better because you can print information out.

IMDB.com http://www.imdb.com/

                Has just the right amount of tabs, not to busy. Has multiple functions. Imdb provides updated top news, TV news , movie news, and celebrity news.