Maxbroderick's Blog

How to write plain english

maxbroderick — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 06:39:29 +0000

in to days blog task we have been asked to discuss the topic “how to write in plain English”. What is plain English you ask? well your asking the wrong person because i have no idea so i did as Lian said and googled it and this is what i discovered.

First let’s say what plain English isn’t and destroy some of the myths about it

Plain English is English written to be understood. It is written in a manner appropriate to the range of reading skill and knowledge of its audience. It is writing where there is no confusion about meaning, is free of cliché and unnecessary jargon and is presented in a way that builds understanding. Good Plain English writing has the characteristic that it communicates to an audience that is unfamiliar with the in-house language and knowledge of the writer.

thanks for reading

Joe Dowman

Accesskey Attribute

maxbroderick — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 03:29:48 +0000

Hi all in this blog Lian has asked us to discuss accesskey’s which is basically a user friendly feature that helps the handicapped people of society find their way around the web and many websites.

Accesskeys are used in a site or a web browsers to jump instantly from page to page via a key board which can be useful because its quick and simple and very easy to get the hang of, and is a good edition to accessability especially if you can not uses a mouse

Glossary

maxbroderick — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 01:56:32 +0000

HTTP – (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) is the set of rules for transferring files (text, graphic images, sound, video, and other multimedia files) on the World Wide Web.
Head – In information technology, header refers to certain data placed at the beginning of a block of data or a website being stored or transmitted.
Body – The body of a document contains the document’s content. The content may be presented by a user agent in a variety of ways. For example, for visual browsers, you can think of the body as a canvas where the content appears: text, images, colors, graphics, etc.
DOCTYPE - The doctype declaration refers to a Document Type Definition (DTD). The DTD specifies the rules for the markup language, so that the browsers can render the content correctly.
CSS - This lets designers and users can create style sheets that define how different elements, such as headers and links, appear. These style sheets can then be applied to any Web page.
WWW - A system of Internet servers that support specially formatted documents. The documents are formatted in a markup language called HTML (HyperText Markup Language) that supports links to other documents
Domain Name – A name that identifies one or more IP addresses. For example, the domain name microsoft.com represents about a dozen IP addresses. Domain names are used in URLs to identify particular Web pages
Website Accessibility – Web accessibility is making your website and any othat web site accessable for the group of the public that are handicaped
The following html tags
- 1. - – list item
  2. FTP – Short for File Transfer Protocol, the protocol for exchanging files over the Internet. FTP works in the same way as HTTP for transferring Web pages from a server to a user’s browser
  3. URL – Abbreviation of Uniform Resource Locator, the global address of documents and other resources on the World Wide Web.
  4. FireWall – A firewall is considered a first line of defense in protecting private information. A FireWall is a system designed to prevent unauthorized access to or from a private network. Firewalls can be implemented in both hardware and software.
  5. blockquote – The blockquote element is to define a block quotation within a group of text on a webpage
  6. anchor – A key feature of the web is the ability to connect or hyperlink resources, including webpages, media files (images, video, etc.) and programs.
  7. definition list - A definition list is not a list of single items. It is a list of items (terms), with a description of each item (term).
  8. div - When you build a Web page, it is made up of various parts of the page. These parts are usually obvious parts of the design, like the navigation, header, and body of a page. Each of these sections on a Web page is a logical division.
  9. aspx – ASPX is a file extension that was created by microsof called ASP.NET, This is a web application framework developed to allow programmers to build dynamic web sites, web applications and web services.
  10. .php – php is a scripting language originally designed for producing dynamic web pages. It has evolved to include a command line interface capability and can be used in standalone graphical applications.
  11. open source software – open source refers to a program in which the source code is available to the general public for use and/or modification from its original design free of charge, i.e., open. Open source code is typically created as a collaborative effort in which programmers improve upon the code and share the changes within the community
  12. proprietary software – Refers to any software that has restrictions on its code or any mdification done to it unlike open source software proprietary software may also be called closed source software
  13. .gif file format – stands for graphics interchange format, a bit-mapped graphics file format used by the World Wide Web, A gif supports colour and varuous resolutions but is limited to 256 colours. Gifs are more effective for scanned images such as illistrations compared to colour photos
  14. .jpg file format – jpg is short for Joint Photographic Experts Group, A jpg is a compresion technequie for colour image that reduces the images roughly to 5% of their normal size although some deatials of the imgae are lost in the compresion

1969

maxbroderick — Wed, 27 May 2009 23:17:48 +0000

Todays blog entrie is on 1969 and we have been asked to reseach the movies, music tec of the time period and also the main political events durring this time 2.

Music

Movies

The Wild Bunch
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Easy Rider

Global Politics

first inauguration of Richard Nixon
Opposition to the Vietnam War grows in the United States as Americans learn about the secret bombing of Cambodia and the atrocities committed last year at My Lai.
Kenyan political leader Tom Mboya, 38, is gunned down in a Nairobi street July 5, initiating clashes between his Luo tribesmen and Jomo Kenyatta’s Kikuya tribe.

New Zealand Politics

The Vietnam War was New Zealand’s longest and most controversial overseas military experience. Although this country’s troop commitment and casualties were modest, the conflict aroused widespread protest and condemnation. And for those who fought in Vietnam, it was a tough homecoming.
Keeping sport and politics separate was becoming increasingly difficult. In July 1969 HART (Halt All Racist Tours) was founded by Auckland University students with the specific aim of opposing sporting contact with South Africa.
United States Vice-President Spiro Agnew’s visit to New Zealand sparked violent confrontations between anti-war demonstrators and police outside his hotel.

How did we work then?

The Fantastic Web!

maxbroderick — Wed, 27 May 2009 21:51:02 +0000

in this blog task we are to explore a list of tasks for things that can be done online now. and the make a wish list of thing that we want to be able to on the,

Shopping (Food, Clothing, Apliances etc..)
Gaming
Dateing
Entertainment (Videos, youtube)
Socialising
Comunicating (E-mail)
Listin to Music
learn (Do it your self manuals)
Identity Theft
Hacking
Plagerisim
Art (Veiw art work eg Mona Lisa, Create art)

My wish list of thing on the Web

Faster Broadband speed
Instantaneous shipping (as you buy your product is is instantly teleported to your house)
Virtual Classes so i can stay home for class

I know a very small wishlist.

Thanks for reading

Joe Dowman

The Blue Links!!!!

maxbroderick — Thu, 21 May 2009 03:29:53 +0000

This blog assignment is about the look of the website and how the links on a website would look like without the CSS (the CSS what gives the website the overall design look and feel)

We where told to search a site in google and look at it think if the links where blue how we would we view the website and would it be as attractive to us. So i looked up bungie.net which is a very visuall and critically designed site. Looking at the site with the blue links and the CSS removed from the links and personally it takes away from the overall design and makes it less appealing and in a world that is very visually influenced the design of the website is important because people are more likely to revisit the more visually attractive sites i know thats the way it is for me.

Thanks for reading

Joe Dowman

Internet Backbone

maxbroderick — Wed, 13 May 2009 21:51:45 +0000

Todays blog task set by lian is about the Internet Backbone and also the difference between proprietary and open source software

Firstly we where asked to look through the Internet to find a diagram of the “Internet Backbone” and so here is mine its from Navigator.com.

Secondly what is the difference between proprietary and open source software? The difference is that source software or open source software has its code open to the world this lets your organisation or customer who had purchased the software to view the source code to see how the software works or even extend the code. This means that proprietary source software code is colosed and can only be viewed by the manufacture this means that you would not be able to view the code to see how it works and if you want it extended it means that you would have to ask the manufacturer to do so for you.

Box Model

maxbroderick — Wed, 06 May 2009 23:25:16 +0000

Lian has given has yet another blog assignment and this one is about the CSS box model.

The CSS box model is basically how information or the content on web pages is positioned and presented. information also known as the element is put in to a area which is padding which is what holds the content in place then it is surrounded by a boarder the that is surrounded by the margin. a good example is the gift example

(ttp://ago.tanfa.co.uk/css/articles/css-box-model.htmlMargins)

When I said that all elements are in Boxes, I meant it.. here’s how a basic element would look if it weren’t invisible.

400px line for measurement

margin – 20px

border – 15px

padding – 20px

element – 290px

20px + 15px + 20px + 290px + 20px + 15px + 20px = 400px

Now to deconstruct the above:

Gift in The Box: The white area in the center is the heart of the element, it represents the priceless gift inside the box, I’m sending a 290px wide gift this year.
The Gift is Fragile!: The priceless gift inside the box is fragile, so makes sure it’s well padded. I chose to give it 20px of light pink padding.
Choose your Carton wisely….: The border represents the carton that you pack the gift in, in this instance I chose a 15px thick black carton
Get out of my space!: The margin represents the gift wrap. The thicker the wrapper the further away from the next box yours will be. So I have gone for nice violet coloured 20px thick wrap.
It all adds up.: So now your whole box is ready to go, but all those components add up. The element itself is 290px wide but with all the rest of the components added it becomes 400px wide, so your invisible box surrounding this whole element is 400px wide.

Internet Security Precautions.

maxbroderick — Wed, 06 May 2009 22:23:38 +0000

Our next blog assignment is Internet security, and everything safe about the Internet

The main things that people need is some sort of anti virus soft wear and a firewall. Firstly a fire wall is piece of hardware or software which protects a computer or network from attacks, intruders, hackers and viruses. With out a firewall a computer is left venerable it is the computers first line of defense against Hackers, Browser Hijackers and Trojans.

The second peace of equipment is anti virus softwear. Antivirus Software is mainly to prevent and remove computer viruses, including worms and trojan horses. Antivirus programs may also detect and remove adware, spyware, and other forms of malware some of the main Anitivirus Software used is Norton Security, Mcafee and AVG. Norton Security and Mcafee both cost to buy from the store and of the Internet where as AVG has a free version that is not complete but is strong enough for the home PC, but Norton, Mcafee and AVG full are used in the industry and with big corporations.

Search Engines…..Search!

maxbroderick — Wed, 06 May 2009 21:58:13 +0000

This blog topic is to research how we as web designers can help a search engine index our web pages,

Ways for you to help index your web pages are (according to the google webmaster guidelines)

Design and content guidelines

Have a clear hierarchy and text links
Have a clear site map that points to the main and important parts of your site
Have clear and page content
Think about the words used on your site (so they can be sourced in a search engine)
Try and use text rather than images that contain text
Check you have no broken links

Technical guidelines

It is suggested to use a text browser such as lynx to examine your site this is because search engine spiders veiw your site in the same way as lynx dose
Allow the search engine bots to crawl your site with out having to use session ID’s or arguments that track thir paths through your website.
Make sure your web server supports the If-Modified-Since HTTP header
Use of the robots.txt file on your web server
If you use a content managment system, make sure that your systemcan export your content so that spiders can crawl your site
Use robots.txt to prevent crawling of search results pages or other auto-generated pages that don’t add much value for users coming from search engines
Test your site to make sure that it appears correctly in different browsers

(This information was sourced from http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769)