Client Meeting

1.) Your design and layout of your web pages - does it fit your drawing/plan?

2.) Your topic and research. What have you done in Class?

3.) Color, font and use of multimedia.

4.) Does it have 5 pages?

5.) The features of iWeb. What's working? Not working?

6.) Do you have an Emergency plan? Do you have a reference page?

7.) You must take screenshots of your... website, Delicious bookmarks and google documents.

Answers :

1.) Well, actually no. I made the plan really quickly and hoped that as I progress, i would make and modify my website along the way, which is exactly what i did. My original idea was to put 4 drop down menus on my homepage. Now when you look at it, it's kind of confusing an i really think i need to make it more simpler. The links that I have are like an album, with pictures in them, and they lead to my pages. I also have a background that i also think is way to confusing.

2.) My topic is on Climate Change, or Global Warming. I first did my research on it because I had no idea what climate change was, until I found out it was the same as Global warming. After I had all my information, i then proceeded to make my website using iWeb.

3.) I used the colors red and blue. Blue representing the cold, which then fades to red, which means that the Earth is getting warmer. Right now all my font is Comic Sans of Marker Felt. I thought i would do the major parts before going into detail. I want to use a font such as melting or evaporating. I also have photos but no videos. (Which i'll later explain.)

4.) Yes. My website currently has 5 pages. I am planning to do more since i have no reference page of emergency plan.

5.) I personally really enjoy using iWeb. It's easy to navigate and use all the features. Although, some aren't working properly. I have html codes everywhere on my website as you'll see in the pictures. The html snippet doesn't work either, so i can't upload videos or anything that requires html.

6.) No, i don't have an emergency plan or a reference page yet, but i will make one.

7.) Here are some screen shots of :

My Website: (Right Click, Open In New Tab)



Delicious:


Google Docs:

I was going to put my presentation on my Google Docs but it doesn't support keynote...and i have no idea why it didn't upload...

Good and Bad websites

I actually found a website which has good website layout examples. Here is that website.

Mini USA - Good Website (By the way, if there is a white band on top, click remove frame or something like that)

It all starts when the loading starts. Instead of a boring old loading bar, they have a colorful bar with a random fact on the top. The actual page has one huge picture. In the picture there is some animated text and some navigation buttons. On top of the picture there are some drop down style menus. A good reason for doing this is because it makes your page so much clearer and cleaner. There is also a search bar to the right. On the bottom there is only one ad which is good instead of those pages with billions and some more navigation buttons. The color scheme is also a black background with white text. It's really clear to read and understand. Plus it's also kind of calm.

The one good thing I really like about this page is that it's so clean. You don't even have to scroll down, everything is just there, available in either the drop down menu, the navigation buttons or the search bar.

2 Column Example - Bad Website

This page has no excitement. Basically it's just text, text and more text. The reader would just get bored reading this, sure it would tell him what he wants, but only from one perspective. When you read, you get information from one perspective, when you have images or other forms of multimedia, you get another perspective, that's why text and multimedia go best together. There is also another issue with this, the colors might just be a little to over but when you actually read it, it's not convenient. You have to scroll down to read one column, scroll back up and the scroll back down to read the second column. The navigation is OK. Basically, it doesn't take you to another page, it just scrolls down for you.

Natural Disasters

Hurricane Katrina

"Hurricane Katrina was the costliest hurricane as well as one of the five deadliest." It formed over the Bahamas on August 23rd 2005. It crossed Florida as a category 1 hurricane but then strengthened in the Gulf of Mexico. It made its second hit in south east Louisiana as a category 3 hurricane. It caused many deaths in Florida along with some floods but it caused severe damage from central Florida to Texas. New Orleans, Louisiana faced the most loos of life and property damage. The storm was estimated to have caused up to $89.6 billion of damage.

Basic Facts :
Life Span : August 23 - 30 2005
Highest Winds : 280 km/h
Areas Affected :
. Bahamas, South Florida
. Cuba, Louisiana
. New Orleans
. Mississippi, Alabama, Florida
. Panhandle
. Most of east North America

2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake


This was actually an earthquake that was triggered off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. The earthquake had a magnitude of around 9.2 and was the second earthquake ever recorded. It had the longest duration of faulting and resulted in huge tsunami waves, each reaching up to about 100 feet. The earthquake was just unbelievable. It released about 1.1×10¹⁷ joules or 26.3 megatons of TNT. If you still don't get how much that is, here are some facts that'll give you some sence of how strong this earthquake is. It's equivalent to over 1502 times the Hiroshima atomic bomb, it caused earthquakes to as far as Alaska, it shortened the day by 2.68 microseconds, it made the earth wobble on its axis by 5-6 cm and it made the entire planet vibrate as much as 1 cm.

Look at and Review over websites listed below

Look at and Review over websites listed below. Answer questions in your blog what did you like about the website? Compare and contrast with another website. Features, buttons, colors, layout, multimedia.

International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
(Click to View)

I like a lot of things about this website. Lets start from the top. It first says the organization's name and gives some links to different languages. It has a search bar and a lot of links or navigation buttons on the side, they're conveniently organized by importance (I think) and are very easy to read. Because this website has a lot of important information, they had to organize it in a way so that you can get to what you want easily. The most important news is on the top with an image. Underneath the top story are some more stories, they are in a box with a different color. All the stories don't have masses of text under them, instead there is a cut section of the whole story. If you want to read it, you can click on the title.

How the internet is changing how natural disasters are covered

There is a bold title and a slogan right under it. This basically tells you what the page is gonna be about. It also gives you the last updated date so you know how recent this information it. All the information is on the right and everything else is on the left so you don't get confused. All the information is also in paragraphs and there are a lot of links in the text. There are videos as well as images on the website so you can also get a visual perspective too. Nothing is really over, the text and the multimedia are balanced.

Week 1-3 : Investigate

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  Why is communication so important during an emergency? - During an emergency or a natural disaster, there is bound to be a number of casualties. In order to save them, you have to get help immediately which you can get through various ways of communication. If you can't get hold of help in time, a vast number of people can die. Communication is also important if you want other people to know about the disaster. There can be an earthquake when no one in the world can know about it.
  
  What forms of communication have been used during recent disasters e.g Hurricane Katrina, the Tsunami? - One of the most obvious ways of commmunication they used was the television. Almost every news channel across the world was transmitting information about the disaster, and immediately the whole world was alerted. Another form of communication they used was radio, probably walkie-talkies to communicate within the disaster zone and mobile phones or ordinary phones to call for help.
  What essential information needs to be communicated during a disaster or emergency? - First of all you need to tell other people where the disaster is situated. It's essential that other people know where the place is other wise the help you would need would not be able to reach you. You might also want to explain how the people are injured. This might help in a helper's point of view because what if a guy is injured and the device you need to help him with you might have forgotten. You can also tell them an estimate of the number of casualties there are so that the helper's know what they are going to be up against.
  
  What information can be created before the emergency? What information needs to be communicated during the emergency? - The information created before the actual emergency, if right, can spare many people their lives. for example, if people aren't warned that there is going to be a tornado, they wont be prepared whereas if they were warned, they would flee from that area, sure their house would get destroyed but at least they're alive. The information that can be created before an emergency can be things like the current place and path of a 'hurricane' or 'tornado', how fast it's going, where it's going to hit, when it's going to hit and how severe it is. The information communicated during an emergency might be things like if they are ok so far or not, how many people they see injured and probably what the emergency is like and when it's going to end.
  
  What hardware and software is required to be able to communicate online? - Well you'll need both for communicating online. When people say I'm going to talk with you online, they usually think MSN or Yahoo, and yes they are ways that you can communicate online. You would need hardware like a laptop, computer or a mobile device that supports those messengers. You can also talk with Skype, on a laptop or computer. You can also use iChat on a laptop of computer and communicate with mobile phones either by calling them, texting them or video calling them. For all that you need the phone's OS.