Tamely’s Weblog

What Up!

While I decide what to do with this blog, since the class I used this for is over, I thought I’d link it to some of my other stuff.

This is the final project  for this class. ( Don’t use Mozilla Fire Fox to open it)Click here.

This is just random things that I do and my interests. Click here.

That’s it for now. I guess

So.. I’ve looked at the calender for April and I have assigned my self when I want to be done with a project and when it is technically due. I think this will help me insure that I meet my deadlines and keep me from procrastinating. I didn’t put a lot about site content because i’ve done the content I just need to put in the pictures and pdf documents once the center sends it to me.

April 16 & 17 Get everything on line and work out any bugs

April 20 Peer and Client review

April 21 Start on Reflective material

April 23 Remind client about informal client report

April 24 Go over rough draft of reflective material

April 25 Client report due

April 27 Reflective material due as an attach. on Oncourse

Well firstly I would like to discuss how I have spent the last two entire days working almost exclusively on my web site for the charity. I realize part of it is my fault because sent some pictures to me late and I should have not put them on the site. Secondly, I finished the site last night but i figured out that it was loading too slow because i had many pictures. it was so cute but it slows down the load time and it deters people from staying on the site. Third, i have found out that if i open my site on my usual browser mozilla firefox - it shifts my site to the right therefore i need to open it on Internet explorer. Fourth, item i have learned is that Front Page and shared borders is a mess to work with. I would like to learn css but it is a little late for that now and i guess it could be a summer project for me. that’s it ! now to take out some pictures so my peers can evaluate and give me feedback.

The making of my non-profit website has been such a rewarding but challenging experience. I began as a novice that didn’t quite understand tags, tables or cells and finished knowing how to edit and alter their properties. In this piece I will explain my experiences and justifications of why I chose certain formats.

Once I finished the site I was very proud of myself and felt that I gave the best effort I could. The one thing that I would change is to set formal deadlines for the center to submit materials to me. They sent me three batches of pictures two days before I was to post the site for peer reviews. I included Alt-text for those with disabilities and I started with them being very descriptive but as I was pressed for time I began to use gender with one other descriptive word. The one regret I have is that I do not know style sheets because I think maybe the code wouldn’t be so bulky.

I have made a lot of progress in this class. Especially the look of my beginning site and the final project. It is so different and you can tell that I’ve started not fearing the software. I am more confident in positioning images and I’m not as frustrated as I was after the first one. Finding the right image still takes me a long time, I used the center’s own photos and that helped a lot.

I can honestly say that I started strong with posts but it has subsided a bit. I think much of it is that I don’t know what i’m doing. This kind of hinders me from evaluating someone’s post because I feel insecure about the subject of the week. I think that the forums as a whole have helped me because they give me a different perspective than my own. I like that our group is combined with group 3 because that adds to the likelihood of aiding each other.

Personally, in the forums I try to at least let people know, “Hey, I’m still here, but I don’t know how to evaluate your stuff!” I have taken on re-reading our assignments and consulting other materials, so I am feeling more confident about this class.

Well, I’ve had a few challenges. Firstly, my client has began sending me their newsletter (previous). The first problem I had was that they sent it in two different pdf files. It took forever for me to find a way to combine them into one document. I did a search and I found quite a few programs that I could attach one pdf to the other. That took days, but YES ! I finally did it. But another problem is that the files are so BIG ! I’m thinking of having them send it to me zipped and that may make it easier to send to me.

On a good note, I finally get CSS ! The bad thing is I have already laid out the formats on my pages . I still may try to make them into CSS instead of the tags . We will see!

It started rock but things are going better with the site. Unlike my first project, I’m not only using on-line tutorials but also consulting books. I’m getting better with the layout, but now that I’ve got that, I’ve newly discovered Cascading Style Sheets. I’m considering redoing the site with them, but I’m afraid I might screw things up. It’s been a little difficult with obtaining some aspects of the site. I’m waiting on getting the pictures and it’s a little hard where I’m going to put them. I don’t want to wait until the last minute, but as of yet, I haven’t received any. It took some time to find a background for free, but eventually I’ve found the right one.

The strategy I used to make persona for my organization’s website was to first think of the main audience. Since this is a small not for profit, I know that they are really dependent on donors and different foundations sending funds. Firstly, I thought about someone who would be in the funds dept. I thought about the questions that they would ask like: Why should I give to this charity? What services do they provide? Is there a need for those services? I think that this is important considering because there are many worthy charities and I would want the one I represent to stand above the others.

The second persona is of a person who likes to do charity work. This could be someone or a group of people that may not be able to send large sums of money but they could help by donating their time and/or skills and by donating crayons, paper and other supplies that a child and youth center would need.

My schema for this site is to have the information in a very simple layout that is really easy to navigate. The main prominent pages will stem from the “About Us” tab. This is where the information on the background of the center and why others would like to support it. This is important because a future donor foundation wants to know; who is this center that wants to receive our funds. The time spent on making a great ‘about us’ section is a good way of impressing donors by leaving a great impression on the minds of viewers. Under that tab is where the information on how to contact the center and find out how dedicated they are for the cause. The how to support them is another prominent area in that if someone wants to make a donation it can be done in a simple easy way. This area acknowledges the other ways of supporting them by buying needed supplies or volunteering. The programs and photo gallery will be their own page and reinforce the persuasive giving that we want the site to provoke. The ‘programs’ and ‘photo gallery’ pages are going to be very informative and a bit cheesy because smiling faces of youth are very hard to say no to. We want, that, after seeing the kids and youth in the center there is little doubt that they would not want to support them.