The website that I have forged for the Eureka! Exhibition was one that showed my perseverance and devotion to my work of art. If not for my willingness to make mistakes and learn tips and tricks from Ted, my website would not be as magnificent as it is now.This process of web making has taught me many things about iWeb such as how to make buttons, copy rights, how to find and legally steal copyrighted images, set background images and overall everything on how to make a web page. When I first started this project I was in a state of being overwhelmed. It felt that this website project was like a black hole and I was on its fringes being sucked into the infinite void of cold black dimensional demise. But after getting the hang of things like how to enable images with hyperlink (click your button then the hyperlink button on the navigator and enable image as hyperlink type in URL) and thus transforming an ordinary electronic portrait into a secret window portrait wormhole to other sites. Similarly backgrounds are easy to set behind as well.
I have also learned that to set a background for a page is quite simple. To set a background you must use the navigator to enter the page tab, while in the page tab click the layout tab then on the bottom half of the layout page is background. Change background type it is currently on form the list to image fill or tinted image fill. Then a new windows should pop up asking for which image, select an image and booyaka! The background insertion is complete! But make be sure to know what images are legally usable and what is not!
One thing I took away from this project was that every image on the web is copyrighted. But like some kind of trash compactor that sifts through junk to categorize trash into different piles Creative Commons is around to help everyone find what images are usable to not infringe on copyright material. This website (creativecommons.com) helps people search for images from its search engine to hunt for images with an altered copyright on flickr, google, yahoo and other image holding sites. This means that electronic artists out there posted their works of art on the Internet for people to either alter and post-up with their permission stated by their malleable copyright, leaving those who use these images free from the shackles of fear from being sued.
My website containing these images within copyright boundaries, containing buttons and links to other sites with a stated bibliography has left me knowing that I did a great job with my time to do this website. I was able to show my website making skills through the use of what I learned in iWeb. But what helped me finish my work was my perseverance on finding usable images on the Internet. Going through Creative Commons, I was able to find awesome pictures for my website that I can alter and make some edits to. Yet, I was so elated with finding these pictures that I forgot to write everything down into a bibliography. Upon realizing my dilemma I had to backtrack to find the URL to the picture and I had to find the artist name. This took about two full days to complete, leaving me a bit shaken on whether or not I will be able to finish my website on time. But I manage to stay after school and finish my website.
By adding these images I believe my website shows the message of E=MC^2 being an awesome topic. I portray this by the fiery background that I used to symbolize energy with. I added Einstein’s pictures to a lot of my slides because he is the one who came up with the equation and since he has mass, he can represent the mass part of the equation. I would have put something to represent the speed of light, but that is impossible. The speed of light is too fast to see and unattainable for things with mass. As such it is not included but if you look hard enough at the buttons, they can resemble the speed of light. They symbolize the speed of light as being feint and difficult to attain. It remains a distant part of our future.
In my website the old pictures of Einstein give the website this flashback of when the time of the equation was created because a lot of the pictures that I used are black and white and show Einstein as this crazy haired guy. But the recent picture of Einstein in the form of graffiti on the fence shows that the equation is in much use today and that youth still remember the equation. This gives my website a contrast as the front page is red hot but the other pages are this dark old man pages. This work of art definitely is not the worst out there as it is interesting and easy to use. Out of 5, where 5 is the best, I would give this work of art a 4. The easy navigation of the website is obtainable by continually having buttons leading to each page. This allows people to jump to any page they want, except for the one they are on. Visually the website is not much to look at except for the front page. But I intentionally did this so that people can focus on what I made the website for, my research briefs, the video and basically the information about E=MC^2. I did not want people to be reading and then become pulled away from the informational part because of pretty images.
My hard-work and perseverance on this website is evident through the amount of time and effort on making the site. The mountains of finding bibliography work, setting and designing the page to look how I want it, fixing the backgrounds, finding images and setting the buttons were all major tasks for me. But despite all the struggles I am proud of my work and I especially like the front page because of the power symbols for each other buttons and the fiery background. I also like the thesis being different colors depending on what part of the background it is on. Although I like my website I know that it is far from what it can be. So, I would revise some of the pictures I used and put something else that represented E=MC^2, instead of Einstein. But other than that I would not like to stray too far from the original work because although there is more it can be, I like it just the way it is, simple. My work may be simple and not as nice as the other students who made much more handsome and fancier work but I am proud that it is simple and helps me focus more on the information aspect. I like the simplicity because it would help the reader to focus on the information that I am giving out, which is the sole reason why we made these websites.
The creation of my website has been quite a roller coaster journey of success and failures. But all in all I was able to ride it out and finish the creation of my website. Learning about how to make buttons and to search for usable images were difficult. But triumphing over these obstacles makes me feel competent in my abilities of designing digital sites. Undergoing this tough perilous journey made me realize that I do have what it takes to make a website and it is through this journey that I gained 15 electronic pointsthrough the use of iWeb.