Wordle!

Wordle: Hillsong - Mighty to Save Lyrics

This is my first attempt at using Wordle. I think it's simply AMAZING. I will be using this to make ads for youth events at my church!




Here is a YouTube video of Hillsong performing "Mighty to Save."

Response to "On Lionel Kearns"

I am confused about On Lionel Kearns.

It was a...unique site experience. I have never encountered a site like this. It’s minimalist and only uses text/letters/numbers, but the text is designed. The welcome page text is designed similar to an arrow or something of the sort. I am not sure how I feel about the design. It’s a little destabilizing because I expect the typical navigation bar I am used to seeing on most sites. This usually contains homepage with a site map of some sort. Even with the arrows, I wasn’t sure how to navigate efficiently back and forth on this site. 

I am not sure if this is because of the site coding/layout or my computer, but it kept crashing. I wonder….

Response to "Visualizing English"

In “Visualizing English: Recognizing the Hybrid, Literacy of Visual and Verbal Authorship on the Web” Craig Stroupe presents the issue of the effects hypertext and the visual nature of the web has on “traditional” or standard English rhetoric. I appreciate Stroupe’s clear narration of the “mulling over” process he went through to illustrate both sides of the issue. His breakdown of both sides of the argument for and against the digitalization of English and rhetoric was, I think, effective and thoroughly researched.

In the article, Stroupe quotes an interesting line from Elizabeth Castro’s Netscape manual: “The beauty—and peril—of the World Wide Web is that everyone can publish their own information quickly and easily. As such, the Web is the fastest growing area in the computer world today. Each month thousands of news pages are added, by huge companies and private citizens alike” (612).  

 

I absolutely agree with this statement and think it is still relevant in 2010. Managing content is one of the major challenges faced by content designers/developers/managers. There’s just so much out there. This is probably why traditional English scholars are hesitant to embrace the Web. Traditional written text has to go through “qualified peers” or gatekeepers for validation in order to be published in journals on and offline. This process acts as a form of check and balance and maintains the exclusivity of what is deemed as good rhetoric. The Web completely shatters this. Any old “John Doe” can publish on the web whether or not it is factual, well researched, and subjective.

 

What about (“unskilled”) bloggers being hired by reputable news papers because of their web publication?  They may not know the “conventions” of rhetoric, but qualified journalists and editors are validating their skill and ability by hiring them and giving them a more prominent place on the web to display their discourse. Without the Web and applications like blogs this may never have been possible. Still, bloggers face a fight from “purists” and are not being compensated like traditional journalists. See one article I found about this issue here for further details. 

 

Design is an issue in composition but it is not the real. As we discussed in class, everything is designed. A research paper is designed; it’s just at a different end of the design spectrum. The issue is acceptance of web/hypertext discourse; it’s about classism (as Camille stated). It’s about maintaining the status quo and controlling who is able to a convey message.  It will never change because of the prejudice of the “conventionalizing reader.” Still, a case can be made for conventionalism. To become “unconventional” you must have some knowledge of what is conventional.  (Perhaps?)

Challenging Myself...

So I took Prof. Peele's challenge to heart and started fiddling with my blog design and layout using the new Template Design feature offered by blogger. I have to say it was "super cool" to add some new things that I would never think of adding to my blog typically.

For instance, I added the 5 blogs that I follow with brief excerpts of their most recent posts. I think this is amazing from a consumer and advertising perspective. As a consumer, I can share my interests with people by showing the blogs I subscribe to and as an advertiser (if I were to monetize my blog and have ads) I could get more "organic" traffic to my blog if someone else were to show my blog on their blog!

Another feature I added was the Youtube video feed. I chose to only add the basic "top viewed" videos (because I like to know what "the world wide web" is viewing) but I plan on creating another more personal blog and including the the guitar, sewing and comedy video series I like watching in my free time.

I think I may become an avid blogger soon because I plan on writing a book but documenting it via blogger. It would me cool to align my emotions with videos or articles or images online. 

I am going to "master" Google Blogger before moving on to WordPress (although I have checked it out and it looks pretty cool as well). 

~Stace

Frida Kahlo's Birthday

 I discovered Frida Kahlo from my Mexican neighbor, Ofelia, who is now family. We have become close over the past 12 years. 

I didn't realize today is the anniversary of her birthday. 

Below is a brief bio about her life. There is also a movie about her staring Selma Heyak. Info about movie on IMDB 

Enjoy reading about her...

~Stace

Frida Kahlo (1907-1954), Mexican Painter.

From 1926 until her death, the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo created striking, often shocking, images that reflected her turbulent life. Kahlo was one of four daughters born to a Hungarian-Jewish father and a mother of Spanish and Mexican Indian descent, in the Mexico City suburb of Coyoacán. 

She did not originally plan to become an artist. A polio survivor, at 15 Kahlo entered the premedical program at the National Preparatory School in Mexico City. However, this training ended three years later when Kahlo was gravely hurt in a bus accident. She spent over a year in bed, recovering from fractures of her back, collarbone, and ribs, as well as a shattered pelvis and shoulder and foot injuries. Despite more than 30 subsequent operations, Kahlo spent the rest of her life in constant pain, finally succumbing to related complications at age 47. 

During her convalescence Kahlo had begun to paint with oils. Her pictures, mostly self-portraits and still lifes, were deliberately naive, filled with the bright colors and flattened forms of the Mexican folk art she loved. At 21, Kahlo fell in love with the Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, whose approach to art and politics suited her own. Although he was 20 years her senior, they were married in 1929; this stormy, passionate relationship survived infidelities, the pressures of Rivera's career, a divorce and remarriage, and Kahlo's poor health. The couple traveled to the United States and France, where Kahlo met luminaries from the worlds of art and politics; she had her first solo exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York City in 1938. Kahlo enjoyed considerable success during the 1940s, but her reputation soared posthumously, beginning in the 1980s with the publication of numerous books about her work by feminist art historians and others. In the last two decades an explosion of Kahlo-inspired films, plays, calendars, and jewelry has transformed the artist into a veritable cult figure.

Bio taken from here.

5 Blogs I Like

I am not super into blogging or reading blogs; however, I do have a few blogs that peak my interest. I actually only read three blogs consistently, but I decided to seek out two other blogs that would be of interest to me over the 4th of July weekend. These are the 5 Blogs I enjoy reading (and will read) whenever I have time to spare.


1) http://excelatwork.blogspot.com/


This blog is...practical. It's very straight forward. You can look up excel shortcuts, formulas, and any other "tips and tricks" about excel you may need. I used it constantly at work when I first started working with excel as media planner in advertising. I still visit this site when in an "excel bind."


2) http://valentinestudio123.blogspot.com/


This blog I discovered randomly. I don't remember, but I think I may have seen an ad about crafts and clicked on the link. I like crafts and I "aspire" to be "crafty." : ) She creates and sells all sorts of crafts from clocks to refrigerator magnets. I like it and glimpse it from time to time to be inspire to do some project when the spirit bids me. I haven't ever completed a project...


3) http://pbkbrenda.blogspot.com/  (aka: "Better Full than Empty")


This is a blog I read when I'm...bored, perhaps. She is a mother who talks about the most random things. Sometimes I gleam little words of wisdom from her blog. 


These are the new blogs I discovered over the weekend. I tried to find blogs about crafts and "homey" things. 


4) http://www.hostessblog.com/


This blog is all about parties. It’s not actually a craft site but it is filled with inspirational party ideas. It reminds me of this Martha Stewart magazine called Blue Print. I loved that magazine and then they canceled it because of lack of sales. This reminds me of it, somewhat. 


5) http://www.bakerella.com/


This blog is about baking. I tried baking once and I wasn't very...successful. The pound cake looked "right" but it didn't taste too right. I recently decided to revisit baking and this blog looks like a good way of breaking back into baking.  I also like the way the site looks. It's simple and clean.