Final blog post!

This will be my last post on this blog, so I'm going to take the opportunity to link to the website I built for the class: ginacole.net.

Speaking of that, here is a video someone made about the importance of putting your name on your portfolio website (instead of making up a title for it):

The programs
I already knew several of the programs we used -- InDesign, Photoshop, Audacity -- but had never used Dreamweaver or GoDaddy before. I'm so glad I know how to make and post a working website now! It will be awesome to have a website to direct potential freelance clients (and potential full-time employers) to.

Although I didn't feel like I learned many new tricks in InDesign (that program and I became best friends during my time editing The Western Front), I enjoyed improving on the others. I used Adobe Audition at KUGS-FM more than I used Audacity, so it was great to get more familiar with that program because I don't have Audition on my home computer. Also, I have only edited photos in Photoshop, so I'm glad I learned more about the various effects and layers and how to make things look a certain way.

Blogging
I have a blog of my own, but I'm not great about updating it on a regular basis. When I kept a blog of my time living in Italy, I wasn't all that faithful to it, either (too busy enjoying Italy!). One of the things I plan to do now that I'm graduating and have more time on my hands is to update my blog on a more regular basis. I always liked writing blogs for the Front; it will be fun to devote myself to my own brand instead.

In that vein, I started watching a YouTube series about building a successful blog. His focus is on making money, but I would be content to just get some readers. He says something interesting in the third part of the series: decide how many hours a week you want to spend blogging. Simple, right? But I always thought of blogging in terms of posts, not hours spent. Maybe if I think of it in terms of "OK, I'm going to spend this much time focusing on my blog," I will get more consistent results.
Ignore his hair visor (seriously, how much gel and hairspray did that take?) and watch:

This was a great class. The individual website and the podcast were my favorite assignments, but I enjoyed the group website and the class activities a ton as well. Thanks for everything, Jason!

Tuning out is better when you can plan for it

With a class full of communication technology students, we're probably going to get a lot of communication-technology junkies. It certainly doesn't seem like a representative sample of college students as a whole.


I failed right off the bat Thursday, in part because I forgot about it, so I decided to give it another go on Friday (today). I have to say, I found myself having to make a lot of exceptions...

Alarm clock: I have to be able to wake up for class! But I used an old flip phone that doesn't make calls or send texts; it's essentially just a digital clock now, and it has an alarm function. I don't own a working analog alarm clock.

Email: I allowed myself to check email periodically because I have to check it for work. It's not like the example student who missed texts about picking up shifts. In journalism, you don't get your hours in advance. I'm a photo stringer for The Bellingham Herald and I usually get my assignments on Thursdays or Fridays. I have to read them in a timely manner and get a hold of the picture editor if I have questions. This time, it's a good thing I did because he gave me a tricky assignment and it turned out to be at the same time as the other assignment he gave me. What if I hadn't seen that and pointed it out?

Phone: I had to call someone to set something up for a photo assignment Saturday morning. I just got the assignment and it wouldn't have worked to call him the morning of the shoot.
Also, I took a call from my mother. Again, I don't think this is the same thing as the reading discussed; I don't have helicopter parents at all. My mom lives in Minnesota and I see her about once a year for maybe a week total. We usually talk on the phone once a week or so, but it's been a while longer than that and I hadn't been able to pick up the last time she called. She's been sick and I wanted to see how she was doing. I'm pretty protective of my mom. I would have made other family members wait, but I didn't even question whether to make an exception for her.

Homework: I needed to finish an assignment for a class in which I built a site about a topic (something the professor is trying out in lieu of making us write papers, design posters or give presentations). Like work, schoolwork is a legitimate allowance.


As a news junkie, I found the hardest part of this assignment was not checking the news. I don't really agree with the assignment's distinction between magazines/newspapers and books, though. Why can I read a book but not a newspaper? Aren't they both forms of communication technology, each new at some point in history? Keeping up with the news is a huge part of my life, not just as a citizen but because I'm a journalist. Not being allowed to check it was frustrating. I did read two articles -- one by the Washington Post and one by The Western Front -- before I decided it was probably a stretch to make an exception for reading the news. But I'll definitely be catching up tomorrow.


I have gone without communication technology for more than a day before, on camping trips and the like. It's really nice. But I find it much easier to go four days without technology during a scheduled vacation than to randomly go one weekday without it when I haven't had a chance to tell everyone (my editor, for example) that I'll be incommunicado. I'll turn off my radio for a day and keep my earbuds out on the way to campus. Fine. But I'd rather shut everything off and curl up with a book when I know I'm not missing anything. When you plan ahead, you can go much more all-out with your tune-out, and it becomes much more effective.

Online website builders

Lately, our class has been focusing on a project in which groups of four people make websites to serve the Western Washington University community. Instead of using Dreamweaver, like we are for our individual websites, we used online website builders such as Wix and Weebly.

My group made a site called WWU 21+ aimed at Western students who are at least 21 years old and want to get better at navigating Bellingham's nightlife. We used Weebly, which I found incredibly easy to navigate. I was sick on the day my group first set up the website, but it was bare when I came in -- just tabs on a sparse home page -- so I don't feel like I missed a whole lot. I logged in and started editing my page (Safety) without anyone showing me how. I made sections and columns with headers, body text, bullets, links, etc., just by playing around with it. Weebly is that easy.

To be fair, it helped that I had all my information already. I put it all into a Microsoft Word document and could organize it there in a way that made sense before I had to come up with a layout in Weebly.

I tried out another online website builder, webs.com -- admittedly because it had the simplest name. (Try sounding professional telling someone to go to "[yourwebsite].weebly.com." What in the world is "weebly"? Is it an adjective that describes that '80s toy? "My website wobbles, but it won't fall down!")

I found webs.com disappointing. I tried to start building a website to post my JOUR 340: History of U.S. Journalism project on, thinking it would be a great alternative to WordPress and Blogger. While the theme (one of hundreds!) was neat, it allowed for little to no customization. It's basically a fill-in-the-blank-space site. I'm sure if I played with it a little more, it would make more sense, but Weebly was more intuitive for me as far as customization, adding elements and changing layout.

The other annoyance with webs.com is the ads. Free Weebly sites do not have ads; free Webs sites do. Webs suggests insists at every turn that users upgrade to a "pro" account -- which costs a few dollars a month for a little upgrade from the basics (including your own domain), and $5-10/month if you don't want ads on your site. I'm sure this is related to my first frustration -- pro accounts are likely much more customizable. I'm not going to pay to find out.

Online website builders are ideal for people who lack the Dreamweaver skills -- or the money -- to build a website from scratch and host it on a custom domain. They look great, and they're easy to set up and edit. Professionals might want to spring for the domain, if only to remove the ".weebly" from the URL and the "Build a Free Wesbite!" button from the pages. But I would suggest shopping around for the best one. As I learned, not all online website builders are created equal.

Here are a few videos that might expand your knowledge about online website builders and how to use them.

This video compares Weebly with Jimdo, the other super-simple online website builder. Jimdo looks interesting, so maybe I'll try that out, too.

Just as Google is trying to take over all other aspects of people's Web use (does anyone else use Google+?) This video discusses Google Sites, which was not mentioned in this blog prompt but looks pretty cool. It has a lot of space for content and is apparently just as easy to use as Weebly is. The downside is that for some reason, Google Sites don't talk to Blogger (even though Blogger is a Google product), so those sites can't host Blogger-based blogs. The video is a little long, but worth a watch if you're thinking about using Google Sites or are considering whether it's better than another online website builder.

Podcasts

While trying to improve my skills at and knowledge of podcasting, I found a great list on Mashable (they're awesome about lists) of seven tips for launching a successful podcast:

1. Choose a topic you're passionate about.
2. Brand your podcast.
3. Choose a format and structure.
4. Plan your content.
5. Record, broadcast and edit your podcast.
6. Grow your audience.
7. Monetize your podcast.

The second tip caught my eye the most, so I interviewed someone I used to work with at 89.3 KUGS-FM, Jeff Emtman, who is now starting his own podcast with our fellow former KUGS reporter Bethany Denton. They're still trying to choose a name, so he told me what they were considering and asked me what it evoked in my head -- interesting question. Their favorite title right now is "The Road to Hell," as in "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." He wanted to know whether my mind completed the phrase (it did, but not at first). One of his concerns about the title and brand (tip 2) was actually related to growing an audience and monetizing it (tips 6 and 7): he hopes to be able to contribute some of their stories to other shows, such as RadioLab or This American Life, to gain exposure and make some money. It all ties in together!

This video shows the bare basics of creating a podcast in Audacity. Try to ignore the narrator's boring voice!

We're using Audacity to edit our podcasts in class. I have used Audacity before, but I used Audition at KUGS and liked it better. Oh, well; Audacity is awesome for a free program, and I can't afford to buy Audition for my personal laptop. I miss some of Audition's more advanced controls, but Audacity gets the job done just fine.

I only used music beds the old-fashioned way at KUGS -- recording the music into the editing program, usually played from a CD. Because I always reported the news, I never used sound effects or downloaded clips before; only real, authentic sound (anything else would be a violation of my ethics as a journalist). It will be fun to see if we can work some sound effects into our entertaining podcast, which is about Twitter vocabulary. Expect some tweeting noises, of course!

C.R.A.P. on the Web

Robin Williams (no, not the actor and comedian -- the design genius) lays out four basic principles of good design: contrast, repetition, alignment, proximity (C.R.A.P.). While these principles can also apply to print, my COMM 350 class is looking at how they work wonders on a Web page.

First, a rundown of C.R.A.P.:

• Contrast: Make different things look different than each other. Make dominant elements stand out while muting the lesser elements (basically convey their importance in the way you display them). This makes your website look more dynamic and guides the audience through the content by telling them what to look at.
• I'm doing this on my personal website, ginacole.net, by through my use of three main colors: gunmetal, cream and rose. I took the latter from a photo of an actual rose that dominates the home page. Because the site is about me, my name is the same color as the rose. The other text is cream on the gunmetal background and vice versa.
• I'm also using contrasting type to convey importance. My name is the biggest thing on my home page; it, my title and my navigation buttons are all in the same bold sans serif typeface, Gautami. I put the required sentence at the bottom of the page in a serif typeface, Garamond, so it wouldn't stand out as much to my general audience, but put a rose-colored asterisk next to it so Jason could find it more easily. I also may keep that asterisk as a consistent design element. Read on...
• Repetition: Design elements should be consistent throughout the interface. This creates unity.
• I'll use the same two typefaces and three colors throughout.
• I may also repeat the double lines on the menu bar and the rose-colored asterisk.
• Alignment: Things should line up to create a visual flow. You should be guiding your audience's eyes over the page and visually connecting the elements.
• The "View > Rulers" function on Photoshop has been my lifesaver here. I never knew Photoshop had rulers, but I always used to use them in InDesign to line things up and make them look clean.
• Proximity: Group related elements together and separate unrelated ones; this makes navigating your website and reading your content easier.
• I lined all my page links together into a navigation bar.
• I might need to use subheads in my written content, which will help group topics together.

Some other helpful hints on Web layout and design:

• Jason Beaird explains on SitePoint the design process, what good design is and how to implement it.
• "Users should be pleased by the design but drawn to the content," Beaird says. I hope to make this the case on my site by not using loud, garish color schemes and taking advantage of what the rose photo offers as a background. It makes for a pleasing home page, and I can cover it with an opaque-ish rectangle of content on the other pages, leaving just the top part exposed to look pretty while keeping the focus on the content in the center. I'd been struggling with how to present content on the other pages, but I think this rectangle design will do it. It will help fulfill another of Beaird's recommendations: "Users should recognize each page as belonging to the site." My only concern about this is the link to a PDF of my resume, which matched my initial site design but has a different color scheme than the site does now. I might need to redesign my resume yet again!
• Read more of Jason Beaird's "Principles of Beautiful Web Design" here:  http://www.sitepoint.com/principles-beautiful-web-design/
• On Inspect Element, a Web design and development blog, Tom Kenny explains layout in part one of a four-part series.
• The first thing Kenny talks about is white space. This doesn't necessarily have to be white; it just means the blank space between elements on a page. It harkens back to Williams' principle of proximity -- when you group things together, you naturally end up with white space between them (if you're doing it right!). Letting elements "breathe" calls more attention to each of them. I'll try to keep this in mind as I work on fitting all my content into an admittedly small space.
• Read more of Tom Kenny's four-part series "The Principles of Good Web Design" here:  http://inspectelement.com/articles/the-principles-of-good-web-design-part-1-layout/
• Brandon Jones of Tuts Plus' Web Design site explains the "F-layout."
• Eye-tracking studies have shown users scan a Web page in a particular way, so layouts that mimic that pattern are successful. For example, Jones points out that users look at the top left of a page first -- probably because that's how we read. I'm glad I put my name and title in the top left of my site!
• Users then scan the top of the site from left to right, then down the left side. This is probably why most navigation bars are horizontal across the top or vertical down the left. While I don't have a horizontal navigation bar, I'm hoping the fact that eyes land at the top right before moving on downward helps me out.
• Read more about this layout and why it works in Brandon Jones' article "Understanding the F-Layout in Web Design":  http://webdesign.tutsplus.com/articles/design-theory/understanding-the-f-layout-in-web-design/

That's all for now. I hope this post gave you some idea of what makes effective Web design and layout. Researching for it definitely gave me some things to think about -- and good ideas -- for my own site!

Introduction

To begin the blog, here is a little bit about me. You can find some of this information in my Blogger profile, but my first assignment for COMM 350 requires me to include it in my first post.

My name is Gina Cole. I am a senior at Western Washington University. I graduate March 17, 2012, with a double major in journalism and communication, as well as a minor in psychology.

I created this particular blog (I seem to accumulate them, thanks to my majors and my interest in writing) for COMM 350: Emerging Communication Technologies. As I mentioned above, this post is my first assignment for the class. We'll follow each other's blogs all quarter.

Because I am a news junkie and am interested in politics, and this is an evening class, I'm going nuts trying not to check the Iowa Republican caucus results every five seconds. Last I checked (during a lull in the class -- don't worry!), Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney were tied at the top, with Ron Paul just a few votes behind. So, in the spirit of that, here's a video about the caucuses.