bob the website builder

Having a website to show a portfolio, contact information, and even just a picture of yourself can go a long way in self-promotion. Having a personal website can make someone appear far more professional than if they were to not have one. While a personal website is not a necessity for self-promotion, it can be used as a valuable tool to leverage yourself and your work beyond a physical portfolio or resume. Having a website allows for your work to also be more accessible, and easier for others to learn about a person and what they do.
    The website will be used for showing a portfolio, showing videos that cannot be shown in a physical portfolio, and possibly be edited to include other social media accounts.
    When talking about social media and website building, a personal website serves as an easy location to find all of someone’s social media platforms. The website may serve as a location to navigate from, but the social media projects completed in class act as an extension of the website. These platforms provide a place for different opinions and information to be shared apart from the website.
    When tying in social media projects and the website, a few things needed to be kept in mind. The first being that social media is linked to your website. Social media is an extension of the initial website and should be placed on the website for anyone that might want to find someone on these platforms. The second thing that is necessary when lining social media on a website is making sure there is some sense of professionalism across all these platforms. The third important thing to tie in social media and a personal website would be to make sure there are no spelling or grammatical issues that might reduce your credibility across platforms.
    If this blog post inspires you to begin designing a website, know in advance that it is not that easy. Using code is very sensitive and things can go awry with a project very quickly if you are not careful. On extra character can ruin the code, as what happened many times when coding and designing the personal website. Dreamweaver is a pretty intuitive program, however, and once you get the hang of it is not the worst thing in the world. Coding is a very tedious process but would be a very valuable tool to have in the future. The opportunity to learn some of the basics of writing code was very valuable, even though it was also frustrating at times.
    The best part about learning how to code is being able to personalize and alter the code to look however someone might see fit. This allows for practical use of creative expression and can show some of a persons’ personality through the design of the site. Learning a more detailed code to be able to further perfect the aesthetic of the site is something that the website could benefit from.
    Overall, website coding is not as daunting as it might sound and can be a valuable tool in the professional setting.

Let's make a video

The Politics of being a commuter student both appeared in Daily Commute and in the creation of the video. 

The struggles of struggling became an even larger struggle throughout the project. Discussing and putting into video a daily commuter students’ woe was not very difficult. With a group made up of all commuters, the topic fit quite nicely. They dealt with these issues every day they made the commute to Buffalo State. The real struggle began to appear in the execution of the actual project. 

Video can be a far better communication tool when trying to portray a multi-faceted idea. The depth within a photograph can only go so far. A video can show much more with the images, the sounds, the changes in scenery and the changes in the subjects. While the video topic covered was not very deep, it could cover more bases than a photograph might be able to. Different parts and views of a “Daily Commute” can better be shown. From bed, to highway, to gas station, to the classroom, there was no real way to effectively communicate all of the expressions and emotions in just a photograph or writing piece.

While shooting, there was a lot of fun and a lot of failure. In an attempt to be serious in filming, very little emotion appeared in the clips. Through further trial and error, there was a consensus that the more dramatic the video appeared, the more sense it made. So, through a lot of re-filming the video began to take shape into a real thing that made sense.  From the point of getting the final clips onward, the editing process went very smoothly. The video edit happened fairly quickly but the group was thrown a few curveballs when people stopped showing up to help. Parts began to make less sense as a result, which resulted in it being a little bit less refined than it probably could have been. The final product still got the job done but wasn’t perfect by any means. 

That might be one of the editors being overly critical and involved, but emotions ran high throughout the process. As the third dysfunctional project of the semester, she was growing weary at the thought of another poor grade as a result of others lacking work ethic and communication skills.

Apart from a few dysfunctional moments, members united together and prevailed through conflict. The groups video was filmed partly as a team and partly as individuals, which led to the ultimate success of the project. If the project needed to be filmed entirely together it most likely would have not came together. The members of the project had very conflicting schedules which would have made it nearly impossible to pull off any more group footage. 

Filming the individual clips was very fun for the group, and far less difficult than initially thought. The opportunity to test the group members acting abilities was fun and showed some hidden talents. This was the best part of watching other groups videos as well. A large part of the video’s success was the acting involved.

As the project was completed, the exporting of the video became yet another issue. The group learned the importance of keeping their folders and clips organized. Never again will they not rename a clip or create duplicates of a file. Adobe Premiere is a great and intuitive software, but the sourcing of the video is very confusing to a new user. If anything from using this software could be taken away, this would be it. 

The last and final problems with this cursed project happened when trying to transport it from the computer to the thumb drive. The file would not move and was too large for the thumb drive. After moving some files to the trash, they thought they had finally done it, and a weight had been lifted from their backs. But the file had not completely transferred and only played the first 20 seconds or so before pausing and leaving the team feel defeated. Luckily, they were given another opportunity to try it one more time, but the video once again proved very difficult. 

This video project was fun and complicated but made doable in the allotted time. The group came to the realization of just how much effort goes into 180 seconds. This was a great learning experience and gave a perfect introduction to what might go into a video used on YouTube or other social media platforms

Deets on Tweets

Twitter has made great waves as a social media platform, a public service announcement forum, and marketing channel. While its creation was to provide a social network, it has been very effective in providing value beyond that. As the third largest social media, Twitter has great reach and power to connect people all around the world.

Twitter has proven its worth more than once in the past 13 years since it was made in 2006. When Houston residents sought help from hurricane Harvey, and Egyptian citizens live tweeted details of an ongoing revolution, Twitter was there as a news outline and hotline. Despite the fact that there are other potential sources that could be used to put out information, Twitter’s micro-blogging format forces people to put out concise pieces of information. This means the message is easily digestible and very shareable. While this gives a perfect opportunity for organizations to market themselves, events like these show that the platform has potential beyond a networking site.

Twitter can be used in a multitude of ways. It has opportunities as a journalistic, political, and organizational tool, where you can alert the public of ongoing events and happenings. Using hashtags provides a way to put all of these micro-blogs all in one place. In events where the general public is experiencing something together, you can read peoples first responses and reactions easily and quickly. The only problem with this is that there is no real way to filter out any tweets that might be exaggerated or straight up false. We have seen this first-hand in the Boston Marathon Bombings, where some of the tweets that journalists were publishing on bigger news platforms turned out to be falsified. This is not to discount the opportunity that is there on the other side of the story, but fact checking tweets of the journalistic variety is necessary to assure we are educating ourselves and not consuming false information. As a political tool, officials are able to better interact with their following and have a closer relationship with their publics. Sometimes too close even, in the many instances where President Trump publicizes his rants and general discontent. The same is true with organizations and businesses. A greater sense of community is available on twitter, where brands can quickly interact with their customers in 140 characters or less. 

The potential reach Twitter has, whether through a journalistic perspective, a political perspective, or an organizational perspective- is undeniable. Here are three times Twitter has proved its worth in the last year.

1.    1. Popeyes

Popeyes release of their chicken sandwich wasn’t just received well- it resulted in selling out just days after releasing. All this hype over a chicken sandwich proved just how valuable word of mouth marketing on Twitter could be. The feud that commenced across various fast-food chains had everyone trying out Popeyes just so they could see what the hype was all about.

2.#MeToo

This hashtag, aimed to expose and discuss sexual harassment, has been used over 19 million times on Twitter alone. Its clear this really sparked an important conversation since it went viral at the end of 2018. 

3. Greta Thunberg

This 16-year-old climate change activist Greta Thunberg gained major attention from public officials and celebrities alike when a video of her advocating environmental awareness went viral on Twitter in October. She received responses from President Trump, Kim Kardashian, and millions of others. As a result, she gained over 7 million followers and even more reach with her inspiring message. 

For this Twitter project, I chose to follow Barack Obama, Rihanna and The NFL’s accounts. While I love Barack Obama and Rihanna and follow them on my personal twitter, I have not once thought about following the NFL. I know nothing about football and wouldn’t want their tweets distracting me from the memes. Rihanna and Obama have great twitter followings and oniline presence, so I was excited to have to reply to them on their accounts. While it was more difficult than expected to say what I wanted to say in the character limit, less is sometimes more. Twitter is such a weird place where politicians, celebrates and normal people can have a conversation and exchange information. It really did change the way that we receive news and information. In this day and age, no one seems to have the attention span or the time to read more than 140 characters. While writing blog posts has its time and place, writing out thoughtful tweets has more opportunity in my opinion. Twitter has been around a long time, and it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon.

How about them wikiHows?

Communicating a step by step guide to a slightly more general topic like How to Shop Sustainable Clothing requires more thought than a cut and dry step by step guide. There is an in-between point of over-explaining and making too long of an article, and making an article far too vague for anyone to follow. Discussing something with so many possibilities makes it a little more difficult to give a step by step guide. In writing How to Shop Sustainable Clothing personal experience was a large inspiration. Sustainable fashion has become a “trend” per se in the best possible way. Something that good for the environment, but with a kind of complicated and ambiguous Writing a wikiHow may not be the most enthralling thing you can possibly do, but it is an interesting thing to experience nonetheless. Communicating clear and concise instructions to an audience is far more difficult of a task than you may initially think.
From the name, it sounded like something that could use a step by step guide on a platform like wikiHow. From the beginning to the end, wikiHow steps require very intentional wording. The steps must be clear, they must be ordered correctly and you cant let your grammar or spelling issues get in the way of what you’re trying to say. It is interesting to think that there are people who make wikiHows like it is their job. The intricacies of a wikiHow article went far beyond any expectations. While writing a wikiHow may not be an extremely difficult task, it takes a lot of time and thought beyond critical thinking. Referencing the article How to Write a New Article on wikiHow is a great way to learn about the platform within the platform. This article discusses the small details of writing a wikiHow that really helps the writer to analyze each step being written.
In discussing sustainable fashion, the term in itself isn’t found on wikiHow. Neither are its related names, like eco-friendly clothing, ethical clothing or green clothing. There seemed to be an empty space on wikiHow, while the term Sustainable Fashion is littered throughout other search engines. Writing more of a guide than a step by step instruction was more effective in communicating all the possibilities of reaching the end goal, shopping sustainably.
If getting into sustainable clothing was something you considered, but were you were ultimately overwhelmed with the long wordy articles and blog posts on it and went on to continue your online shopping endeavors, this wikiHow aims to fill all your needs for a one-stop-shop all about sustainable fashion.

Another way that helped to form an outline for the wikiHow was discussing what sustainable fashion meant to others. If this is a topic that you have previous experience with, then your steps for shopping sustainable fashion might already be clear, while on the other hand if you have never heard those two words placed together before you might first want to spend some time researching the topic before you go on to follow any of the steps. With writing the wikiHow it is important to be as objective as possible and realize you could be exposing someone to this topic for the first time ever. Writing as if that is the case makes for a clearer and easier to follow the how-to guide. Without assumptions of anyone's knowledge, there is a small possibility of boring the reader but in general, the audience comes to wikiHow for a simple guide. The over-explanations are more helpful than anything and in discussing sustainable fashion, it is clear that many people are unclear on what that quite is exactly.
After posting How to Shop Sustainable Fashion and it undergoing review, new insight on the article from the admins showed that maybe the steps were not quite as elaborate as they maybe could have been. Maybe focusing on an individual part of the article at a time would have helped to make the article better suited for the admin's liking.  For example, when the article references researching sustainable fashion as a step, the step could include subsets of how to go about researching sustainable fashion.
Ultimately,  writing a wikiHow is a tedious experience. From the planning involved to the wrath of the admins, there is a lot more that goes into a wikiHow than seen on the surface, or webpage rather. Hours of time, thought and even research goes into every wikiHow page, whether it is created by a professional or a student like this one. Making a wikiHow may not be something you consider doing every day or ever even, but it is an extremely educational experience that will make you grow to appreciate the platform far more.

Potential wikiHow posts

1. How to Load Film in a Canon AE-1 Program

Here you can find an easy step by step guide on how to load film into your Canon AE-1 program film camera. This can be a daunting task to start but can be simply broken down in this article to avoid any mishaps with your precious film.

Things You Will Need:

Canon AE-1 Camera

A new roll of 35mm Film

 Steps:

Roll back the current roll of film if there is one

Open the back

Place the film in the feed

Pull out the roll

Click the film into place 

Close the back of the camera 

Take test shots until it reaches 1

Shoot!

Shooting film can be confusing at times but is great fun. Now that you can load your Canon AE-1 program enjoy your pictures!

2. How to do Deer costume makeup

Being a reindeer or deer for Halloween or another dress up event can be very affordable and easy with makeup and a few items.

Things You Will Need:

​Brown Face paint

​White Face Paint

​Black Face Paint

​1 large makeup Brush

​1 small makeup brush

​A makeup sponge

A cup of water

Paper towels 

After beginning to write this wikihow I care to the conclusion that explaining this would be extremely difficult without video and would ultimately involve far too many steps to turn out well. Each step involves a lot of blending and is very much up to the persons discretion and there is not much you can say in a step by step guide to explain that. 

3. How to Buy Sustainable Clothing

Purchasing eco friendly and sustainably produced clothing can be great for the environment but it can also be a confusing subject. With this guide becoming more eco friendly with the clothes you wear can be far easier. 

Things you need: a small budget and time 

Figure out why you want to shop sustainably 

Find out what clothing items you are looking for 

Don’t overbuy clothes

Take care of the items you already own

Find green brands online

Use websites like thred up and Poshmark to buy second hand 

Consider thrift shopping

Learn how to tailor clothes 

Swap clothes with friends 

Shopping sustainably can be a rewarding experience and it doesn’t have to be expensive. Textile waste is a large polluter in our environment, and every step we make to better the environment adds up! 

Not So Social Media

Dating back to the stone age, 2010, 13-year-old Elise joined Facebook on her iPod Touch, not to the knowledge of either of her parents. It was a different world back then, mostly populated with teenagers and college students- there were no grandparents and no great grandparents and the newsfeed wasn’t overrun with advertisements and fake news articles. Since those days, there has been a drastic transition in the way social media is used. It is no longer just a way to share your life, your food and your cat pictures with your friends on the internet. Every major social media network now has the capabilities to be used as major business platform. Not to say that there still aren’t great social opportunities on these networks, because there are. How else would you know what that girl you sat next to in your sophomore year English class is doing with their life?  

While there are negative possibilities and connotations related to social media, we can’t go onward without addressing the positives as well. During past natural disasters, people in distress have utilized social media to alert their friends and family of their location, and spread word of just how bad storms are to the rest of the Internet and population. While that is the case again with the wrath of Hurricane Dorian hitting Florida and the Carolinas sometime this week, other people on Twitter address the location of Trump during this trying time, where they found him playing golf during his tweet hiatus. There lies one of the beauties of social media, the undeniable transparency it allows the general population. It seems as if every week another person is “canceled” or receiving backlash about something someone found about them on the web. While this gives people accountability about what they post online and do in public settings, it’s hard to decide if it’s right to ruin someone’s career over a tweet from 2011. 

In the future, who knows what social media can and will become. There will probably be new platforms that take over once Twitter and Instagram become over run with grandparents just like Facebook. One thing that probably won’t change is the way business is done through these networks. Brands have just gotten better and better at targeted marketing and that probably won’t change at anytime soon. If any change were to occur, niches would narrow more and more, demographics would be targeted better and business tactics would more tactful. The downfall of social media is nowhere in sight. For many people and younger generation social media takes up hours in a day. So does that mean it’s a bad thing that it’s becoming very business oriented? Many people have a career is based entirely on the Internet and on social media. Some people earn millions by “influencing” others- writing blog posts, making YouTube videos-the list goes on and on. Just like that’s something we could’ve never imagine ten years ago, we can’t quite imagine what the future holds.