Familyradio's Weblog

5 sites

familyradio — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 18:47:05 +0000

this is a playlist i made on playlist.com. it really comes in handy for when i work, or just sharing with people with any similar tastes

Reviews of the previously mentioned sites:

I use many sites for music mainly, that offer many fun features and information. The web has definitely opened many avenues for me personally to my passion, music. The majority of music I’m interested receives little or no airtime on the radio or television, and is from other areas of the country and world, so these sites help bring the music to me.

playlist.com – users create an account and compile links to mp3 files. These songs are NOT downloaded, just a collection of links which can be organized in an infinite amount of playlists that hold 100 links each and is really pretty easy to use. The site has also started adding features of social networking to their site which is really exciting but dissappointing at the same time. Information about how to post your own song links to the site is still a little shady and difficult. Not many users take advantage of the blogging, or befriending, and finding other users with similar tastes is hard because featured playlists are judged only by popularity rather than common artists or songs. Their is a lot of potential I feel like with some of these new networking features, but it just hasn’t caught on really yet.
dublab.com – next up on the list is one of my favorite sites for music. It is an online radio station with videos, music and all kinds of podcasts and links to affiliated sites. What makes this particular radio station cool is its reputation, not only with people but mainly among the artists. Its a well respected internet radio site with a huge collection of personal live performances from bands all over the country, and some from outside the country, done just for dublab. I kinda pride myself on keeping my ears open for unheard talent, but these people have new artists performing almost daily, and a majority are people i’ve never heard of. The design and appearance and overall feel of the website is really hip and cool as well. For a large amount of information, dublab has done a good job of not letting the site become clustered like nme.com and at the same time doesn’t have an unending well of links just to get to what you want. Its a very good model for what i would like to incorporate into my own sites and projects in web design. If theres one thing i wish the site had more of, it would be user control, but again, its damn near a perfect online radio station as far as I can tell.
amazon.com – A famous website that I spend quite a bit of time on. I have purchased items on amazon but what I find it most useful for is the customer community and relating the searches to other products you “might find interesting”, because in fact, a lot of times i do find the other items interesting. Reviews are helpful as far as insite to what the music offers, but as with other things this runs a risk of people who have no clue what they’re talking about reviewing items, or people who buy into hype and declare every piece of music “classic” because it has the slightest bit of creativity. Listmania and “So you’d like to” lists offer a lot of outside suggestion, if you like that sorta thing, from other people who like the same items you do. So regardless of what you think about amazon as a website, it does offer a little bit deeper insight to what you’re buying as far as music, books, movies, as compared to a place like best buy, barnes and noble, virgin megastore etc. *To make my point* – About 80% of my playlist comes from artists i found on Amazon and Myspace i.e. Sam Sparro, Grandmaster Flash (the track, not the man), Can, Budos Band…
Myspace.com – I am a my space whore…guilty. not to stalk girls safely from the comfort of my own room, or see how many people i can get to comment on my pictures, or post idiotic bulletins about my last text message, my last kiss, or what item is next to me mind you, but to explore the musician network across the world. Myspace, I will unashamedly admit, has made my life a little bit better. Birds of a feather flock together and i suppose its no different with musicians. I’m not sure anymore how i survived before my space when it comes to music. The personalized page of an artist says more about them than a 20 page spin magazine article, and brings you 20 times closer. I enjoy reading the blogs, influences and affiliates, and looking at uploaded images that bands use to represent themselves. Myspace can be childish, but it can still be awesome, and if you don’t think so, you probably just don’t have anyway to apply it to your life. Just this week i went to a concert in Denton: Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti and I loved it, but I don’t think i would have ever known had it not been for them posting it on their myspace page. Tour info is coming more and more from myspace for me than anywhere else including the observer like in the past. Nobody is going to take more interest in the promotion and posting of tour info of a band than the band itself. Add a couple of bands that you want to keep tabs on to your friends list and you will know release dates, concert dates and other additional information before any newspaper. Myspace’s friend updates make it possible.
NME.com – Last and not least, NME. It’s a british magazine actually, but they keep the site updated when it comes to new info, sound clips, interviews and news. the organization of info though, to me, seems a bit out of control, you can find articles and interviews with almost any artist, but some posts may be up to 2 years old or more and theres just no way of knowing sometimes how current what you’re reading is. Informing site however

Semantic

familyradio — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 20:33:09 +0000

This article was pretty in depth, not about how to create semantic web per se, but about its purpose and how it will change the web completely for the better. The internet as it is now, is designed to find key words and display them effectively, thats about it. The context in which the information is being used, or the need for the information and how the user intends on using it is something just a little to complex and deep for the internet and computers right now. The semantic web is designing in a way that more effectively places information into categories that link information together that helps computers to “comprehend” what users are searching for and sort through the info quicker.

Useful Articles on Design and the like

familyradio — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 02:18:06 +0000

A very exciting and important avenue of the web platform for me is the mobile device issue. It is something that will definitely play a key role in web design in the future and it will be, for us, in our class now, something that we will be facing on a daily basis I believe after graduating. Apple introduced it really, but the surface has barely been scratched. This is an article i found pertaining to that particuar topic – Moving to the Mobile Web
I found an article entitled The 10 Commandments of Web Design written by someone at Business Week magazine. For me, I am a complete beginner at web design and all of my ideas on the subject are from the outside looking in rather than from the inside out as far as design goes. But it was a basic and simple article with these 10 points:

Don’t abuse the use of Flash in creating web sites

- Flash bogs down the user and when overdone, tends to be a bit confusing.

Don’t cover up or sacrifice content for advertisement

- Simple advertisements that don’t intrude on the navigation or make it difficult for users to find content are the best. pestering ads have more negative than good effect on the website.

Don’t clutter information

- Structure is essential to creating effective sites. Amazon is great about this.

Don’t overuse visual trends

- This article cited Apple’s websites use of reflective images that look like glass reflections as being trendy. Not that Apple copied it but the fact that so many other sites are using the same designs puts Apple (or any other website with the same designs) in a position of looking pre-packaged and well…trendy?

Don’t use trendy names either

- Flickr, Meebo, and other site names to that effect have been found guilty by Business Week of being trendy, relying on a kind of a “name recipe” that while catchy, will most likely sound outdated in a couple years.

Don’t underestimate typography

- Simple typefaces have not only proven to be the most efficient types for web design, but also keep a modern, stylish look.

Give users a beneficial experience

- This ties into the rich user experience that we learned about in Fundamentals. People want to be completely informed at your site, in effective and interesting ways.

Make the site fit into the social nature of the web

- Web 2.0 is the platform we are designing for…for now. And by its nature, it is a social platform that connects people and empowers the user. Make the best use of this concept that you can in order to be a good designer.

Learn from other cites’ success

- Applications like facebook, wikipedia, and youtube are household names already and are a big part of peoples lives today. Icorporating those sites to work with your site would be a wise idea, or at least don’t be shy to borrow some concepts from successful sites. They work, and they will already be familiar to the users.

Place nothing above the content

- “All that jelly and no toast – Denzel Washington (Training Day)… No amount of Flash animation or css can rescue a site that doesn’t have the content to draw users and keep them coming back. period.

HTML/CSS

familyradio — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 15:33:29 +0000

I have had absolutely no experience using html, creating websites or anything close to what these tutorials were about, which puts me at a pretty big disadvantage I feel, to the rest of the class. That being said though, I’m not the least bit overwhelmed or discouraged by it. For someone like me The htmldog website showed all the basic things to start and made it easy to understand. I plan on learning from it to start my scripting learning process. HTML is the organization of the page and it’s important to do this correctly and in a way that users can find what they need, easily. A poorly put together website is so frustrating, and we’ve all been on one. Being able to use coding to post music and videos where I want them on a page is essential to me, as well as being able to allow feedback from outside parties is something I would be interested to know. The networking and connectivity of the cite though is what is essential. First and foremost, I think users must be able to navigate through your page fluidly.

Getting gtd.. done

familyradio — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 00:26:18 +0000

This concept is not especially unlike the other self improvement writings I’ve been introduced to. But, GTD can be effective. The thing almost all these type of concepts have in common is not that they introduce some new, incredibly efficient way of handling tasks, but that they make you more aware of what it is you already know in the back of your head. I guess how well it reminds you, and how well it breaks down the solution, determines how good the concept is. Even here at AI, Mr. Coronado’s class helps me with becoming more aware of the need to organize myself. Regardless of who said what, GTD or Mr. Coronado, or whoever writes the next big self help seller, I have found that, for me, it is the best bet just to write down in some way either digitally or on paper, what things you need to accomplish, what you’re thoughts and feelings are. If you do this, however, you still have a bunch of ideas listed, which is well….idealistic. They MUST be broken down even further to a simple group of about 2 or 3 actions. And I agree with GTD that it is not just tidious, and minute to start small and make the actions simple. As with Mr. Coronado’s class, all my personal, financial, and future goals needed to be “broken down” in his words to more simple concepts

On a need to know basis

familyradio — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 21:26:29 +0000

There are some things about using the web that i would greatly like to learn, sooner than later even. To start, although i’m not sure there is a beginning or end to the web, RSS feeds and subscriptions fascinate me and seem to be relatively new features of the internet that are, to me, a must in order to stay updated and weed out the old from the new on the internet. Without such a tool as RSS, that would be exhausting to do, and in fact, a person who has gradually stopped checking up on your site or blog and is on the verge of forgetting you ever existed in cyberspace, will remember you when that new info pops up for viewing. Another plus for RSS. Secondly, broadcasting or “podcasting” and “vodcasting”, Are an absolute treat and anything concerning them : how to find them, create them, download them, share them, and all possible uses for them are my business and interest. There is much more I want to learn but this will do for now…signing off, familyradio.

Podcastin’!!!!!

familyradio — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 04:17:43 +0000

.....I LOVE the concept of podcasting! Especially where I’m coming from with my own ideas for internet use and web design. Podcasting is the perfect tool for mass spread of music. In particular, Stones Throw, a record label based out of California has my favorite podcasts, and to all in the class interested in new progressive music, they have a new podcast coming out by artist Baron Zen. But anywho, the rss feeds and subscriptions are what seemed to be the most important factors in podcasting, which are all to do with distribution and audience. The recording and uploading of content seem to be a very simple easy part of the broadcast. I have only taken the music approach to podcasting so far, but with the ever changing field of web-design, podcasting could be an excellent way to stay on top of current info as soon as its available. That would be something I would be interested in covering in the class this semester. And podcasting as a form of teaching in general is exciting. Having every word and second of a class lecture available to review at any time would be a great tool for me personally, and that was the most important idea I came out of the article with that I hadn’t given much consideration to before

How to be heard

familyradio — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 05:51:10 +0000

………The article was fairly straightforward on the dos and don’ts of internet blogging. BUT, being heard has a large part to do with having something important or valuable to say I think, which I understand is not the main point of the article, but not to be overlooked by someone who reall wants to increase their audience. Some of the more important notes I took from the paper were the ones about citing other sources and writers in your own blog as a way of being found. This, in hindsight made perfect sense, but honestly had not even entered my mind until I read it. Also, the part about color schemes was a topic of interest to me because my own blog is a black background which was a negative according to Stephen Downes in his article. Not that I have any intention of making this blog site anything more than a way to communicate with our class, but it came into play with my own ideas. A friend of mine has actually been working on an idea to write a book completely dedicated to stoner culture, a “Stoner Bible”, which he wanted to include many different areas of interest to weed smokers everywhere. Useful law information and personal police encounters, music/ movies/ artworks that stoners would love, growing diagrams and tips, and odd, useless, trivia that stoners adore. After reading the article by Stephen Downes, I suggested that i think he’d be best to turn his idea into a blog instead of a book for many obvious reasons: contributions from MANY potheads, updates, and a way to spread info to people for free and without leaving the house ( a MUST for most stoners). hahaha…This may seem completely off topic to what “How to be Heard” was about but actually its just a possible real life application of the article that may be helpful to my buddy so he can “be heard.”

spots I learned from

familyradio — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 03:01:50 +0000

Just a few of the sites that helped me gain some insight into the whole PLE deal :

1. http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/programmes/elearningpedagogy/iowpersonaltoolspdf.pdf

that one is pretty standard

2. http://www.technorati.com/tag/Personal%20Learning%20Environments - this was like a collection of helpful sites/ videos, blogs etc.

3. http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/en/Personal_learning_environment - helpful diagrams and such.

PLE’s

familyradio — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 19:14:36 +0000

This article seemed to be about something simple, yet the writer kept mentioning how unsure the meaning of the topic was. That was confusing me as I read, but the more I read, the more it made sense, because the whole article was confusing me. I definitely missed the message by reading it. Learning about learning is awkward to me, and the main issue i connected with was bringing technology into the workplace, which, not only provides another great method to teach employees and let them learn all the facets of the job, but increases productivity and quality of the work at the same time. This was something I understood clearly because I’ve had experience first hand with this technique. In my construction job, the company gave us palm pilots and blackberry’s to keep updated and in close contact over far distances. Everyday we could synchronize or palm pilots and new information and pictures about any product were there for us to learn and share with buyers. They also allowed us to take photographs of completed jobs and email them instantly, with a sign-off by the owners. The blackberry was used for direct communication and problem solving throughout the entire company. Problems that other people ran into on the job and how they handled it were e-mailed for our whole intranet to read. This was great for me being able to learn on site and on my own, and I got the impression that this is something Mr. Atwell was talking about when he said new methods of learning based on the user’s needs?? The article, overall, didn’t make much of a connection with me. Not because what was being stated was not valuable, useful imformation, but because I was able to make the connection of how it is used. I blame it on my own personal learning environment. If anyone could help shed new light on a different outlook to make it more clear to me… by all means. PEACE.