Today was our last session of the work shop. Fransesco and I just finished the last bits and pieces of. Wendy was again a great helping hand. On the whole the web page is a success. All the features and links are working. Fransesco did a great job and I am glad that at the end I was able to contribute more to the project. However, evaluating the group project I argue that it would have been better if every indivual had his or her own part. The others did their part very well since they were able to work individually and attended the meetings to discuss development. It was rather difficult to work on the web site with francesco together because he had all the data on his laptop and it was just difficult to work together. In the workshops I did not know what to do because he did most of the things. I am not complaining because he did a very great job. What I also realized is that I am more familiar by working with the code and not with icons. As we did the gallery, we had problems in connecting the web gallery with the template of our web site. I believed that we are not able to connect it by clicking icons rather we had add the code of the web site in our template code. In fact, we have tried to copy the code and add it to the template code but it was still not working. As a result I emailed Wendy and asked her for help. We had to do the gallery in Tuesday workshop session together and it is finally working.
In conclusion I did enjoy the course and although I should have contributed more to the group project, I think that I have tought myself the basics in Dreamweaver and Flash.

Wednesday meeting

Francesco, Christy and I have met today after lessons. Francesco showed me the web site and explained that there are problems on the web site which have to be resolved. The problem, which he cannot resolve, is that certain sites do not have the same colour as the others. The programmes do not let him change the colours and he does not know why. I am going to do also some research on this and maybe I can give him advice.
Christy finished editing the pictures but mentioned that I might have problems with one or two images. I am trying to change the format of the gallery I do not want to have the pictures on the left hand site I want them to be placed in the middle of the page.

Doing the gallery!

Finally I am doing the gallery for the web site. My task is to do the gallery which is pretty simple. Wendy has showed me how to do it. For the gallery I am using Macromedia Dreamweaver and Fireworks. Starting with saveing the pictures in a folder where I can find them easily. From there, I have to open Dreamweaver and click on 'site' followed by a click on 'manage site'. Then another window is opening and I have to click on 'new' and 'site'. After click on 'site' another window is opening which is called 'site definition on unnamed site'. From there I have to click on next until I get the request from where the pictures are taking from. Clicking on the folder symbol I can choose where the pictures are coming from. Click on 'next' and on the request how to connect it to which network server and click on 'None' and then finishing it off by clicking 'Done'. Firework transforms all the pictures into the website and automatically and provides it with links to view the previous, next and home pictures.
I had no problems doing my test gallery but not with the pictures Christy has given me. The format was wrong and they did not look nice in the gallery. Tomorrow after lesson we have planned to meet again and to change the format of the images.



Last Friday we have taken a few pictures of our group. I think they are quiet cute :-)

This week I am unable to write much about my personal evaluation regarding this week improvement. The day before I was in hospital and I am still recovering from the side effects from the Antibiotics I have taken over the last week. Fransesco is not very happy with me and so am I. I wished I could say that I have done more for the project but I did not. I also believe there was a lack of communication. However, I have tried to communicate and always emphasized my willingness to learn and to contribute to the project.
Maybe I can use this week to write about the blog. In my personal opinion the blogger site is not as good as I expected it to be. It is difficult to use and does not have the features which the msn blog offers. For instance, I am unable to add a personal music list and I cannot create a gallery. The pictures are listed directly on the blog but there are only three options how to place them. The msn blog on the other hand, offers various versions on how to place images. One can either create a gallery or can place them directly in the blog. A nice feature is that the images are changing automatically on the msn blog but not on blogger.
On the whole, I believe that the msn blog has a better layout and functions. However, at university we have problems in opening the site at all times. Hence, I had no other options then creating a new blog!

week 7

So far, I have improved using Dreamweaver but I have still problems in using Flash. The problem I had with Dreamweaver was simply that I have used frames and it made it complicated. It was confusing for me to link all separate parts with each other. Wendy explained to me that I should not use Frames and that I should try using header and links only!
The group project is going fine. All the group members are doing their work. Francesco is very industrious. However, I hoped to take more part in web design and it is difficult contributing work while he did most of the work himself. The web site layout is very nice and well organized. The hands of the 'The Vitruvian Man' will be linked to the various sites. However I believe that I have not contributed productiveness to the project besides of practicing Dreamweaver and Flash.

Sickness is slowing down my contribution for the project down...

The last weeks I was struggling with a very bad flu and unfortunately my uni work had to suffer from it the most. However, I have contiunued my research on my personal project. As I have published last week information about Martinique and its culture and history I also want to publish photos which I have taken during my stay.
So far I have collected information about Martinique and divided it into certain section. It was difficult to find information because all the tour guides and internet sides are providing the same information and using the same words. However, I enjoyed reading about the culture and music.

Our group project is going very well so far. The girls are very well organized and Francesco is doing lots of work for the web site. I wished I would have more impact. The communication is going fine between the writing team and the images. Unfortunately I am still doing not much for the web site and Fransesco seems to be in control. It is good to see that he is enjoying the web site but now I realise what Wendy has mentioned at the beginning of the course that it is difficult to do the web site together and that it is a rather individual task. He seems to have far more knowledge compared to me which is for the group a big bonous!!!!I am still struggling with flash.

Today I am using again www.w3schools.com . I realised that I still do not really know how to use dream weaver. I have never studied HTML and I believe it would be a benefit if I can gain more knowledge about HTML. I will see how things are going with my first web site. So far I created my website where I put different Menus to open various pages. Well, I had no difficulties in the first place but now it seems like I cannot connect things together. My problem is that I have forgotten how to open the different frames and connect them with each other. Maybe Wendy can help me on Tuesday.
Our group project is going fine so far. All the members are doing their parts. We have to meet up and discuss improvements together.