End of a Long Period of Time
Well, it's finally done. The last assignment of the last semester of the last year in university. Another book closed on this shelf; not many more to go before I move on to the next bookstore.
It wasn't an easy one either - we had to build a website for 'Online Journalism'...with only one tutorial on Google sites and one on basic HtML. Because all the lectures were mostly spent rehashing stuff we'd already learnt before in Journalism 1 and 2.
Seriously? Next time, either double the HtML classes - heck, we could almost drop the journalism all together! - or stop expecting us to perform miracles with the few bricks you toss in our direction. I understand that it's an Online Journalism class and that we do have to learn some tricks on website editing and building, but dude, when you teach us nothing but journalism and design principles in class and set tutorials that don't really help? Stop expecting us to build a super-duper-amazing website for you to pick apart.
FYI, tutorial-wise - Dreamweaver class? No one has the program to use and we don't get access to the Mac lab. HtML class? Simple tags won't build a website on itself - we need more than one class on this. Class on how to sign up for Flickr, Picasa and Photoshop Online? That's just stupid. Waste of a good one-and-a-half hours. Thank goodness for a decent tutor though who managed to stretch the Google Sites class to cover the bare necessities.
Google Sites however, had a problem on its own - any adjustments made to the website on the site itself will almost always cause the webpage to run in other browsers due to the tags used. In the end, in order to make it functional on Internet Explorer, Firefox and Google Chrome in both 1024 x 768 and 1280 x800 resolution, I had to code the home page manually (so much for using Google Sites, I guess). Took me a couple of 5-o-clock mornings, a lot of headaches and around 5 rounds of recoding to suit Mr J's high standards and news-style format, but I'm pretty proud of how it turned out in the end (and how flexible it is! ♥ Seriously, test it in any resolution and browser - it should remain relatively the same with no tables running.) Also learnt more HtML through this; I can probably code tables in my sleep now, though I do hope the dreams about actually coding in my sleep will stop soon.
Can't claim all the coding credit though - my other groupmates coded the other pages, from the article pages to the multimedia page (which Dy single-handedly handled). It's much, much easier editing code to become fluid than actually coding it, so thank you, guys. Thanks too for constantly helping me test out the site in various resolutions in different browsers and providing constant feedback. ♥♥♥ I know I can be quite the snapping turtle at times and can be hard to deal with - you know y'all are awesome.
After all that ranting (and that IS quite a bit of ranting), here's our actual assignment site: HELPL4H. I'm really happy with how this site turned out in the end - did I mention I have amazing groupmates? Yes? Well, it never hurts to say it again - I have amazing groupmates.
It's a shame we didn't get enough time to present this properly though. Figures that Mr. J would give us an assignment we'd slave over only to give us a tiny snatch of time to present it. Honestly, covering the website walkthrough alone takes fifteen minutes and you still want us to talk about the applied theories and introduce the site in general (purpose, logo, color scheme, etc.) and handle a QnA session? In ten minutes? And you plan to mark us on this? Heck, at one point, he even mentioned not having to cover all the content in the site - are you planning to penalize us on the walkthrough front then? How do you expect us to meet your marking criteria if you don't allot enough time for the presentation?
Our group, being one of the earlier groups, managed to use fifteen minutes - I know one group rushed and took only around five. You were the one who said that in the future, we might have to do website presentations like this. I hate to break it to you but not only are we not professional web designers, but I'd like to think that companies don't actually cut down on the presentation time that abruptly.
Geez, I know you don't want to come back for the afternoon session to continue the presentations - none of us do - but c'mon, even our normal lectures take 3 hours. The one time those three hours will actually be useful, and you decide to cut it down to two? Honestly, I'll be the first to admit that my respect for you is almost non-existent. And that's putting it lightly.
*takes deep breath*
Lots of ranting in this post, I realize, but give a girl 13 weeks to build all this up and it's bound to have to overflow somewhere.
Today ended on a high note though - the bunch of us, plus Sal and Jo and Vinu and gang went to Midvalley after uni to watch 'How to Train Your Dragon' in 3D. It was totally worth the RM17 we paid - gorgeous animation, good soundtrack and enjoyable (if predictable) characters. The plot is nothing deep and profound, but it definitely maxes the 'feel-good-warm-fuzzies' factor, something very welcome after the past couple of days (and nights). I'm thinking I just might get this DVD when it is released and the OST while I'm at it. And Toothless reminds me of the Cheshire Cat, but eh, that's just kind of random.
The Italiannies lunch was also awesome - thanks, yuncyn! Got myself a Breadou phonestrap (at last!) to celebrate the end of assignments, came home and slept for four hours before waking back up to type this post.
Life? Yep, currently good. :)
It wasn't an easy one either - we had to build a website for 'Online Journalism'...with only one tutorial on Google sites and one on basic HtML. Because all the lectures were mostly spent rehashing stuff we'd already learnt before in Journalism 1 and 2.
Seriously? Next time, either double the HtML classes - heck, we could almost drop the journalism all together! - or stop expecting us to perform miracles with the few bricks you toss in our direction. I understand that it's an Online Journalism class and that we do have to learn some tricks on website editing and building, but dude, when you teach us nothing but journalism and design principles in class and set tutorials that don't really help? Stop expecting us to build a super-duper-amazing website for you to pick apart.
FYI, tutorial-wise - Dreamweaver class? No one has the program to use and we don't get access to the Mac lab. HtML class? Simple tags won't build a website on itself - we need more than one class on this. Class on how to sign up for Flickr, Picasa and Photoshop Online? That's just stupid. Waste of a good one-and-a-half hours. Thank goodness for a decent tutor though who managed to stretch the Google Sites class to cover the bare necessities.
Google Sites however, had a problem on its own - any adjustments made to the website on the site itself will almost always cause the webpage to run in other browsers due to the tags used. In the end, in order to make it functional on Internet Explorer, Firefox and Google Chrome in both 1024 x 768 and 1280 x800 resolution, I had to code the home page manually (so much for using Google Sites, I guess). Took me a couple of 5-o-clock mornings, a lot of headaches and around 5 rounds of recoding to suit Mr J's high standards and news-style format, but I'm pretty proud of how it turned out in the end (and how flexible it is! ♥ Seriously, test it in any resolution and browser - it should remain relatively the same with no tables running.) Also learnt more HtML through this; I can probably code tables in my sleep now, though I do hope the dreams about actually coding in my sleep will stop soon.
Can't claim all the coding credit though - my other groupmates coded the other pages, from the article pages to the multimedia page (which Dy single-handedly handled). It's much, much easier editing code to become fluid than actually coding it, so thank you, guys. Thanks too for constantly helping me test out the site in various resolutions in different browsers and providing constant feedback. ♥♥♥ I know I can be quite the snapping turtle at times and can be hard to deal with - you know y'all are awesome.
After all that ranting (and that IS quite a bit of ranting), here's our actual assignment site: HELPL4H. I'm really happy with how this site turned out in the end - did I mention I have amazing groupmates? Yes? Well, it never hurts to say it again - I have amazing groupmates.
It's a shame we didn't get enough time to present this properly though. Figures that Mr. J would give us an assignment we'd slave over only to give us a tiny snatch of time to present it. Honestly, covering the website walkthrough alone takes fifteen minutes and you still want us to talk about the applied theories and introduce the site in general (purpose, logo, color scheme, etc.) and handle a QnA session? In ten minutes? And you plan to mark us on this? Heck, at one point, he even mentioned not having to cover all the content in the site - are you planning to penalize us on the walkthrough front then? How do you expect us to meet your marking criteria if you don't allot enough time for the presentation?
Our group, being one of the earlier groups, managed to use fifteen minutes - I know one group rushed and took only around five. You were the one who said that in the future, we might have to do website presentations like this. I hate to break it to you but not only are we not professional web designers, but I'd like to think that companies don't actually cut down on the presentation time that abruptly.
Geez, I know you don't want to come back for the afternoon session to continue the presentations - none of us do - but c'mon, even our normal lectures take 3 hours. The one time those three hours will actually be useful, and you decide to cut it down to two? Honestly, I'll be the first to admit that my respect for you is almost non-existent. And that's putting it lightly.
*takes deep breath*
Lots of ranting in this post, I realize, but give a girl 13 weeks to build all this up and it's bound to have to overflow somewhere.
Today ended on a high note though - the bunch of us, plus Sal and Jo and Vinu and gang went to Midvalley after uni to watch 'How to Train Your Dragon' in 3D. It was totally worth the RM17 we paid - gorgeous animation, good soundtrack and enjoyable (if predictable) characters. The plot is nothing deep and profound, but it definitely maxes the 'feel-good-warm-fuzzies' factor, something very welcome after the past couple of days (and nights). I'm thinking I just might get this DVD when it is released and the OST while I'm at it. And Toothless reminds me of the Cheshire Cat, but eh, that's just kind of random.
The Italiannies lunch was also awesome - thanks, yuncyn! Got myself a Breadou phonestrap (at last!) to celebrate the end of assignments, came home and slept for four hours before waking back up to type this post.
Life? Yep, currently good. :)