A Semester in cyberspace...

Hard to believe assessment 2 is actually upon us, it felt like only yesterday I was on class being marked on the first assessment, but I guess thats because it was at the start of this term as apposed to the end of last term. I have to say if there's one thing I'm glad to have learnt more than anything in this subject its how handy html is. I mean I know its been around for a while but I can't stop using links in everything I put on the net now, I don't know why I find it so cool. This isn't to say that I haven't stunbled accross anything else cool, but for me learning basic html was a standout.

The first thing one might notice about my blog is how its changed, oh yes I went to work on it, and I think it looks quite good. The light blue and white colour scheme is something I've been cooking up for a while as I'm big fan of these too colours together. Ofocurse being the monkey house I had to refer back to my theme so I layed an image of cartoon monkeys onto the background. A few adjustments here and there and overall I'm pretty happy with the look and layout of my blog however I'm sure it will evolve in future. One thing I've concentrated on throghout the semester on my blog is to make the posts as colourful as possible, by way of pictures and how they complement the text. A colourful picture can enhance the reader's appreciation of a post as apposed to one with just text. Its also important to incorporate the picture into the text. Some posts the picture was wedged between the text such as here and in others it was amongst the text such as here. I think consistency is an important thing in blogs so I tried to keep a similar format for each post that I made, the most obvious being my top ten film list. Every entry had its postion, name and year released as the post title followed by a picture, then the text, then a video link. I tried to give each entry atleast three paragraphs, any less wouldn't have been substantial enough and any more would've of turned away the casual reader. Even if all reader's looked at were the pictures and maybe the video links at least the post has attracted some attention, if they'd read the actual text in the post then that would be a bonus.

Regretably I didn't get to spend as much time on my flicr as I would have liked but during the term I got to put up some good snapshots dealing with website aesthetics, not only did this introduce me to the some cool sites thanks to technorati's top 100 but it also taught me a thing or two about what makes a web site look good. I'm still yet to find this thing which I assume is another account I would have to sign up for. I think the site that I most wish my blog looked like is this one. This semester has been all about community and interactivity with other peoples web identitys and probably the best interativity that I had with others was sharing pictures with Flickr. It was just so cool to be able to find pictures that others had shared from say a concert which you were at also and compare their photos to yours. I found flickr accounts of very gifted photographers and some photos I even favourited such as this one. Organisation is very important in Flickr as the vistor wants to be able to navigate through what they are most interested with the greatest of ease and this is where sets comes in handy. Unfortuntely the free version of Flickr only lets you have three sets but it was fun while it lasted I guess. Labelling sets with short, concise titles as well as giving a good background information on what the set is all about does't hurt either. Here's my favourite set that I made this semester. Flickr has opened out a whole new world in image browsing for me especially for band photography, I will continue to upload many more photos of my own as well as scour Flickr for as many other gems as I can.

Del.ici.ous is something I never saw the point of, I mean saving bookmarks is what my firefox browser is for right? Well yes but the whole point of del.ici.ous is to share your bookmarks with others, once I worked this out I acknowledged Del.ici.ous as being a very helpful tool for internet browsing. Whenver I came across a link that I thought someone else might like I saved it for them and quite often I would have links saved for me. Sometimes you'll come accross somoenes whos saved you a really popular site that only a person living under a rock wouldn't of heard about (can you believe people bookmark google?) but most of the time I stumble across interesting and helpful sites which I never even knew existed. I've been lost for hours on going from one bookmark to another. Bundles also make things a whole lot easy as I found out the hard way, you see I didn't start bundling my tags until quite late in the game so it took quite some time to categorise all my links into several helpful headings. I'm going to work more with delicious in the future as I don't think I've quite taken full advantage of its abilities just yet.

I can't see myself simply walking away from the online community I've created this semester, not only would it only render all the work I have done this year useless but it would prevent me from getting the most out of the internet. Which has a LOT to offer, thats for damm sure.

They came, they saw, they never came back...

Its been roughly 2 weeks since I joined up to sitemeter after my last visiter counter failed to impress. The results that I've been getting back have been a lot more detailed than I could of imagine. For example, apparentely the average time people spend on my blog is just 1 minute and fifty five seconds. Thats an incredibly short amount of time considering the amount of time I've spent tweaking this baby. I doubt 2 minutes isn't even long enough to read even one of my posts, but I guess it goes to show do people do a lot of quick skimming on the web and they're not always going to stop and have a good look around if there's nothing that grabs their attention straight away.
I've had a tolal of 25 visits with a further 70 page views and an average of 2 visits per day. Pretty dissapointing I reckon, but when you take into account I had 114 visitors before I joined up to sitemeter I really don't seem like such a loser. Granted my last counter was a little dodge but whos gonna figure that out? Unless ofcourse they read this post....

Form and Content

I will now attempt to tackle the subject of form and content in a blog, whilst both are of equal importance, form is something that can significantly improve a blog even if the content is of a low quality. Aesthetics is a word being thrown around a lot in class at the moment and my interpretation of this word is the level at which the item is pleasing to the human eye. Crusing around the net I discovered that one site defined the word aesthetics as something with an artistically beautiful or pleasing appearance. This definition matches pretty well with my own definition of the word and aesthetics is something which I constantly strive for on my own blogger.

In my opinion a blog or website is less likely to be viewed if it is unnatractive on first appearance. A web site for the band MUSE is one which consistently catches my eye due to its innovative design and straight away this raises the appeal of the band despite whether the person visiting the page has heard any of their material. Its font and colours complement each other perfectly and the way in which the page loads immediately catches the eye in an ultra smooth fashion. I'm a big fan of simplicity in web pages, if a page looks good without having an abundance of information then its gone a long way to impressing me. A good example of this can be made by comparing the google and yahoo pages. Both are similar websites content wise but yahoo is far more cluttered looking than google, causing much confusion when attempting to perform a simple search. For this reason I think Google not only looks better but its simplicity wins me over.

Some also importatant factors in web design are the legibility of the content: it is important to ensure the background colour is picked to enable to viewer to read the text with the greatest of ease. Another factor is the bandwidth of the user visiting the page: A page that has too much different types of media that takes a while to load is going to infuriate someone using a lower bandwidth and thus detract them from visiting the page again. Media on the net is different from print media becuase its interative, in a book you turn to a specfic page to find what your after using the index, on the net you simply click on the link that relates to what you want to see and you are taken there almost straight away. This interactive quality highlights the importance of easy navigation in a website, a user must be able to find what they are after with the aid of headings and sub-headings.

At the end of the day a good web site is something that is not only nice to look at but offers you things that print media can't. It reminds you why we use the internet.

Crazy Techo Talk

What exactly is a feed? I used to see these crazy symbols at the bottom of web pages talking about rss feeds and all this kind of business and I chose to ignore them, now I see how they can greatly enhance your appreciation of the net.

XML or Extensible Markup language is a part of this whole thing becuase its yet another aspect of web use that I haven't known anything about until now. It seems to me as though its a more intelligent version of html, which for a while now has been the code of choice when surfing the information super highway. Although I'm still attempting to get my head around the whole XML thing and it does seem a little complex for my small brain I do think that it would be a useful tool in the ongoing construction of my online community. RSS or Rich Site Sumary is a feed service which I started using on my blogger just before Assignment 1. Its the perfect way of retrieving the latest content from a huge number of sources automatically and with zero effort.

As well as using RSS to automatically show my Delicious bookmarks on my blog I am now using it with the aid of Google Reader. As a requirement of the subject we had to subscribe to either Google Reader or Bloglines and the reason behind my choice is simple. If I had signed up with Bloglines I would of had to create yet another account where as with Google Reader I am automatically given a Google Reader account as soon as I gained a google identity. Another reason for my choice was because google reader looked like it would be so much more simple to use over bloglines and I'm an idiot, I want things to be as simple as possible.

Now the quest begins to see just what I can do with these new tools and how they can enhance my web tasks.

Assessment #1: the journey so far...

So here we are at the first assessing stage of MPI104, man am I sick of writing that subject code as a tag for pretty much everything this past term or so. Adding tags isn't the only thing I've been doing in this class so far...

Starting with good ol' Flickr which to begin with I was a bit skeptical about. I mean I immediately assumed that it would have a large amount of crap on it but what I realised was that thats what the whole internet is, a bunch of crap. The way you find the good stuff is by sorting through all the crap, and with effort comes rewards. So far I've uploaded three sets of photos, not as much as I would of liked but I've discovered that I really like flickr, especially after I'd added myself to a few groups and got my contact lists beefed up. I commented on a few pictures and even selected a few favourites while cruising around through the immense library of photos that can be found. In terms of my own photos I tried to limit them down to only things that would be interesting to others, that is, even if they knew nothing about me or my friends they might still be able to get a kick out of the images. I gave them all titles and descriptions and all that jazz and forwarded a few to the MPI104 group as well as a few others. Here's my favourite set of pics after I discovered the amazing face morpher.

Delicious, for me, was a bit of a waste as I could never find cool enough websites to bookmark and if I did I'd find that many others had got in before me. I didn't see the point of adding common sites that any idiot could find, i wanted ones that were hard to find and would be useful to people. I joined up to a network with almost all my workshop class and saved bookmarks for others whom I thought would enjoy them. I made sure to bookmark all my actual blog posts on my delicious as a quick way for people to find them. Tags were also used extensively, I made sure to bundle them and also subscribe to a couple which were of interest to me. I also chucked my flickr and blogger bookmarks up on there to make sure everyone would have a look if they wanted. Getting the RSS feed up onto my blog was a bit tricky but in the end it was pretty straightforward, I just wasn't looking in the right places. I hope to spend a lot more time on delicious, the webs a big place and I'm sure there's some cool stuff out there waiting for me to discover and tag.

Now to blogger which is where I, like most people I'm guessing, spent most of my time. I did 17 posts in total and the whole html thing is actually really fun and I can't believe I haven't done it in blogs before now as they really do add to the depth of them. I also put plenty of pictures in my posts as they helped brighten things up a bit. A little way through I decided to do a top 10 film list and as part of each entry I put a you tube player window into the post showcasing a scene from the chosen film. I'm glad I did the top 10 thing because it related back to my strongest interest and let me explain my reasoning behind each entry. In case you were wondering here's what ended up at number one. I worked a bit on my profile and found a nice little pic to put as my display image. I chucked a bunch of links to other blogs, mostly proddies ones, down the sidebar and created a list as a page element detailing the fictional rules from the movie Fight Club. I signed up to Technorati and added their stuff to the sidebar as well as a little counter at the bottom of the page. I played around with templates/fonts/colours to get the exact look I wanted and I made an effort to see as many other peoples blogs and comment on them as possible. Overall I tried to be as interesting as possible with my blog, I do hope some people bothered to check it out.

So there it is. Everything that I can think of at this point in time that I accomplished these past couple of months in MPI104. I'm not afraid to say that I've actually learnt some things during the process also...

1. Fight Club (1999)

This is one hell of a film. Fight Club is a violent, trippy, brutal and stylishly cool film that came out of nowhere and has stayed in the cult movie mindset ever since. There's no doubt in my mind that out of all the films in this list I've seen it the most and strangely its the one that I can watch above all other movies and never get sick of it. It's almost hard to explain after being so in love with this film for so long to actually explain the reasons behind its placement in this list. I saw it after Se7en so I kind of had high expectations from director David Fincher but whilst Fight Club was nothing like what I'd expected it still totally blew my mind and was better than I ever could of imagined.

I bought the film after discovering that buying R rated films when you're under the age of 18 was an achievable feat in high school due to the local Target's inability to really care. This was 2003 and I'd been trying to see the film for years, I was so desperate in fact that I went out and bought the DVD even though my friend had already got me a copy off E-bay. I simply couldn't wait that long to see this movie I'd heard so much about. It wasn't successful on release and was naturally criticised by many critics due to its supposed excessive violence. It eventually gained a large and loyal following on its video release as all great films do and went on to be a classic.

David Fincher manages to pull off some of the sleekest camera work you'll ever see and this aspect alone is worth watching Fight Club. Thankfully however it's got plenty of substance as we follow the less than sane character simply credited as Jack. Edward Norton is perfect in this role and its a travesty that he didn't receive some form of recognition by the academy for his work. Brad Pitt has had some good roles, he's also had his fair share of average ones, his Tyler Durden is undoubtedly his most memorable character.

Fight Club is so absorbing and the story is told in such a different and exciting manner that its always hard to stop watching the film once you've started. From its innovative opening credits, its atmospheric and utterly cool soundtrack performed by the Dust Brothers to its ultra-smart dialogue, Fight Club is a blast from start to finish. Number 1 by a long way in my book.

Here's a scene from Fight Club...

2. Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)

Ferris Bueller was my hero during high school, as he was for many others especially during the 80s era in which the film is so obviously set. I was never that rebellious during my high school years, and how could I have been when my dad was the school truancy officer? I could only ever dream of coming close to what Ferris does by wagging a day of school, borrowing his best friends ferrari, screwing over the villainous Mr. Rooney and somehow not getting caught. Ferris Bueller was an icon for his generation becuase he did what everyone wanted to do but knew they never could, and damn did he do it in style.

I found the film very entertaining from the first time I saw it and although many of the clever jokes would have gone over my head when I was 14 years old, the fun nature of the film sucked me right in. It's fair to say that Matthew Broderick was typecast following this film but there's no denying that Ferris Bueller will always be his most memorable role. The cheeky manner in which he delivers Ferris' monologues to camera are wonderfully handled and this playful manner is carried through the entire film ensuring that it becomes utterly impossible not to love Ferris.

It must be said that Ferris Bueller is also greatly enhanced by the skillful direction of John Hughes, a legend of this genre during the 80s, who never came close to matching the dizzying heights of this mini teen masterpiece. Hughes showcases a precise use of the camera and a wonderfully written script with extremely well defined, memoralbe characters. This lifts the quality of the film to a level above all other teen comedies and whilst you won't see it in many other top tens, I consistently watch it and find it to be supremely enjoyable on each viewing. Make no mistake, Ferris Bueller's Day Off is a perfect film, both of its genre and in general...

Here's a scene from Ferris Bueller's Day Off...

3. Donnie Darko (2001)

Now this is one entry amongst my top ten that truly deserves cult film status. During the film's theatrical release it was barely noticed. Being an avid reader of the film geek magazine Empire, the five star review of Donnie Darko made me stand up and take notice. Unfortuntely living in a country town has many disadvantages, one of which being the inability to see any independent cinema and seeing as Donnie was on limited release for a very limited time I missed my opportunity to see it on the big screen. I was quite distraught. Satisfaction wouln't come until a couple of months down the track when to my great surprise I discovered the DVD on the shelves at the local Video Ezy.

Adjectives just don't cover how I felt after watching the film for the first time. I was frightened, bewildered, exhilerated....and very confused. So I did the only logical thing: I made a VHS dub before it had to be taken back to the video store. Over the next few weeks I would watch the film again and again, studying every scene to pieces and my appreciation for director Richard Kelly's sci-fi masterpiece only grew with time. As word spread, Donnie Darko, like the Shawshank Redemption before it, became a true cult classic thanks to home video and DVD.

There are many reasons why I love this film. When it first came along it was fresh and exciting, it felt like a throwback to the teen angst films of the 80s, the film is actually set during the 80s and Kelly portrays this beautiful, transporting us back to the era through way of music, costume and key political events of the time. As Donnie Darko, Jake Gyllenhaal gives us an angsty teen we can root for, he was such a great choice for the film which ended up catapulting him into the A-list, likewise for his talented sibling Maggie whom also plays his sister in the film.

The best thing about Donnie Darko is that it's so refreshingly weird. This, and the effortless combination of so many different film elements and you've got yourself one big, enthralling mind trip. It's equal parts funny, scary and sad and by the end you really feel like you've been a part of a compelety different kind of journey.

It is true that I may never be able to fully understand the film, however, the fact that the first time I saw it I had absoloutely no idea what was happening and yet was still taken in by it speaks volumes about the kind of unique experience this piece of independent cinema was. In my opinion the film is timeless and will continue to be discovered by people on DVD for years to come, it's always been this way for films of this nature. It is the greatest accolade a film can get to be remembered long after it's release as apposed to audiences flocking to it upon release and then have it dissapear into the void. Bombing at the box office was probably the best thing that could of happened to Donnie Darko.....did I mention it has the best bunny rabbit in film history?

Here's a scene from Donnie Darko...

4. Goodfellas (1990)

A film contained on many critics top 10 lists, Goodfellas is without a doubt my favourite gangster film and gives a truer account of the mafia life than The Godfather achieved. This isn't to say that the Godfather is a lesser film, on the contrary its a cinema classic, however Martin Scorsese's masterful work here conjures up so much more excitement for the audience.

As with most of his great films Scorsese casts Robert Deniro as one of his main characters, the two becoming more than simple muses but a true team whom through their collaborations create pure gold. Real life mobster Henry Hill's rise from childhood up through the ranks of the Italian family and his subsequent fall from grace are accounted here with style, humour and grace. It must also be said that actor Ray Liotta gives the performance of his career in the film and it's one the reasons Goodfellas dragged me in to begin with. This, along with the casting of Joe Pesci, represents an ensemble cast of lengendary actors that Scorsese is now able to create with great ease thanks to his high class reputation. It's interesting to note that, in this film and in many other classic gangster films like it, there are quite a few minor cast members present whom would later go on to be a part of the mafia television show The Sopranos.

Despite Goodfellas being almost two and a half hours long it never feels anywhere near that long due its rapid fire pace as if we skimming through images of Henry's life with his narration guiding us the whole way. It's the most entertaining film I've ever seen because of its pace and the energy of the voice over and I think any viewer would find it hard once they start watching the film to stop it at any point. It has just the right balance of dramatic and humourous moments of which there are many and once again like all Scorsese films we are not asked to sympathise with these criminals but to simply enjoy there company for the duration of the film and that we certainly do. Along the way we are given bursts of violence, drug deals, genre defining tracking shots, freeze frames and a cool soundtrack, all of which adds up to a true classic of the art form which has not only been talked about and often emulated since its release but will continue to do so for decades to come. Goodfellas almost made me wanna be a gangster, but then Scorsese's ending whacked that fantasy off the face of the earth.

Here's the classic tracking shot from Goodfellas...

Flickity Flick

Another week another account to add to my list and this time I'm going to remember the password. Flickr is an image sharing site and I've well and truly jumped on the wagon so please do check out my uploaded pics thus far.