The Last Blog and Talking About ZOOM!

Last but not least me and Grace have to get a zoom effect- Like Google map- on our doggy web site. Grace has been trying to come up with some ideas but none of them are really good enough. So we sat together and we had a look at other doggy websites and we found a few different ideas. We originally were going to have an image of different breeds of dogs and make people guess the different types of dogs. The public could zoom in on the image to make their decision. We both liked the idea but I think we agreed unanimously that there was a better idea out there! We found the right idea on Flicker.com. A man had posted a large collection of images of cute little doggies and they looked so cool in a big collage! I thought we could use it in our famous dogs section. We searched for many famous dogs such as Scooby doo, the Churchill dog and the likes to lassie. We put them in a big collage and then we put in some dogs that are unknown to the public- Well I mean dogs that aren’t famous. So basically we had a mixed collage of famous and not famous dogs and the people who looked at our site can zoom in and out and decide what dogs are famous! A very good idea that ties in with our whole web page!

Getting everythig put together!And loosing things..

Myself and Grace have been thinking about names for our page. We thought of obvious ones like “dogs” and “dogs are fun”, but we settled on “Love Your Dog”. We think that it states the obvious and people will know what they are getting. It really is an obvious title.. not over all original but it was one that was similar to others but not copying any other…as far as we could see. Grace researched some other websites to make sure that nobody had the same name as us or the same information all in one page! Success I think!
While I have been working on getting the buttons and slicing in order.. And boy it was hard! I only went and lost it then because I saved it as a html file! Gggrrrr….so I’ll have to do it all over again! Maybe Peter might help me find the file again. I am beginning to panic a little bit because we only have a few days to get everything ready to hand up. I’m sure we will get it done but it is a really hard assignment. I got loads of pictures of my doggies to put on our page, they are all so cute and I found it so hard to pick just a few! I found loads more on google images…Oh the cute little doggies! Grace is trying to find information in cruelty to animals she said she is finding it quite difficult! The whole project is really hard. There is so much in it and sometimes we don’t even know if we should be doing it!!! I liked the other assignments that we did for media authoring that we did but this one is proving to be really tough and sometimes I feel that we are working in the dark. There is a lot in it. Roll on when all assignments are done!

Grace and I are making a doggy page...

For our multimedia authoring class, we were asked to make a website. We chose a website about dogs, as unfortunately my dog passes away recently. We thought about what type of background we wold be able to make ourselves, and decided to go with the design od dalmation spots. We wanted to use paw prints as the buttons on our navigation pane, after Grace had seen it on another website.

We tried it, but it didn't work because the writing didn't fit properly over the paw print. I looked in the custom shapes tool, and was lucky enough to find a bone shape. This was perfrect for our buttons. We sized them to fit the largest amount of text, and then copied the shape accordingly.
We were asked to use a gif animation, so we decided that a dog in the top corner with a wagging tail would be appropriate and not beyond our capibilities.

We looked up a few different webpages to see what was out there. And found a page that had a very similar set-up to what we were planning. It had bones for its buttons, but they weren't as fancy as ours, as we were adding effects to ours. The page was plain white, and was quite frankly boring. There was a lot of information to pile through, and it woouldn't have kept my attention for long, had I been looking for information on dogs. The website was "irishdogs.ie".
It did have a nice image on the top of the page however, of loads of dogs looking up.

This gave me the idea for our zoomify aspect of our page. I want to make a collage of loads of dogs, that people can zoom in on to have a better look. I also want to have some type of incentive in place to make people want to have a closer look. Not sure what yet though....

I'm Sorry.

I would like to apologise to my boyfriend, for my earlier post of 'Desperate Housewives, Desperate Times' where I portrayed him in an unkind manner, where he appeared as a chauvanistic pig, but he actually isn't. He will in fact make an equal amount of money as me in the future,possibly more. He is a legend, and is hung like a donkey. We are equals, ok!!!
I love him to bits. He's my rock really. Even if he is equally as stubborn as me. And that really is stubborn. He also has SERIOUSLY big hands, and big green sausage fingers.
I'm going to marry him.

I am convinced that there was a conspiracy against me. I have been playing war of the words on SPIN1038 for the last week. It's a word association game, where you have to say a word related to the last word. You start off being given a word and the challenger has to say a word, then the champion. It's really good, but you have to be really quick. If you're too slow, or you say a word that's unrelated, you get buzzed, by either Ryan or Tracey. I started playing last week on Thursday morning, when I text in. I won that day, and everyday........... Until today.
I won tickets to Sam Sparrow last Thursday, tickets to The mighty something on Friday, Tickets to Neil Delamare on Monday, and a CD on Tuesday and Wednesday morning. So with this winning streak, it appeared that I was clearing out all of the prizes. This morning, Thursday, they told us that we could not ask what the other person had said, if we didn't hear them. So it was pretty much tough luck if you miss what they said, and then you'd get buzzed out. So typically this morning, I was against someone who had a really bad line, and I couldn't hear them. Needless to say, it wasn't long before I was buzzed out. I an CONVINCED it was set up so that I lost so that I couldn't win any more of their prizes, seeing as they were running out of things to give me. I was the longest to hold onto the title, thus far.
But they cheated me, I'm telling you!! Evil!!

Organic or Paid-For??

In the battle of organic Vs. Paid-For Search Engine Listings, I am most definitely in favour of the organics. To appear anywhere near the first page of a Google results page, your website must have good content and be an endorsement of fairly good quality. I can’t imagine that a lot of people click on the paid-for listings. I know I never have, even before I knew they were paid for. I suppose it’s because you automatically look at the top left and centre of a webpage.
However there are some benefits to being on the paid-for listings, like being able to time when your advertisement will be shown on the first page. This way you can target exactly the people you want, at the most likely time to catch them online. Obviously this would take a lot of research to find out different groups peak times to search the web, but it’d probably be worth it.
Well except that people can just click on your advertisement and you have to pay money for it. I’m fairly sure that a lot of companies are aware of the ability to cost their competition money, and I’d say that a lot of people give in to this click fraud. It is evil people, fair is fair. Stop trying to cheat your way to the top. Like these people who have invisible text, - (oh yes I have studied JavaScript and xhtml, and I know all about your white text! And about the keywords in your alt tags!) -trying to get all the keywords in so their site will appear high up on the results page. Oh yes the shameless cheats and liars! Well guess what people; Google picks up on your lies. Google is such a cool search engine though, the way they can catch people out. There is a serious amount of monitoring done on it. And if you are caught being a shameless cheater, Google will knock you off their listings altogether. You will be wiped clean off, never to be found again.
So yes the question poses how to appear number one on Google??The answer is, With great difficulty, but trying to cheat Google is most definitely not the way lads. Definitely not! Get there on you own, with your good content, because people are 80% more likely to click on the organic listings than on the Paid-For Listings!

Sample Press Release.

I am studying Public Relations, and here is a sample news release i wrote for my writing class

News Release

For Immediate Release

Scott PR,
Grafton St.,

Dublin,

19th November 2008

Ray Dartley launches Positive Age Week

Irish radio DJ Ray Dartley launched Age Action Irelands’, Positive age week, in the Merion hotel yesterday. (18.11.2008)
Positive Age Week will run from Monday 8th until Sunday the 15th of December. The week is being launched to dispel the many negative perceptions that surround ageing and to transform attitudes.

Deputy chief executive of Age Action Ireland, Lorraine Dorgan, echoed these aims when she said “We need to celebrate the fact that we are living longer, that ageing is not a burden but an opportunity”. Dorgan would also like to “encourage as many people as possible around the country to take part in Positive Age Week”.

During the week, people are encouraged to organise parties that celebrate the elderly. Thay can be anything from a small gathering, to a street party. This week is an opportunity to raise much needed funds for the charity, as a nominated fund raiser at each party will accept donations from those attending.

Age Action Ireland is the national independent organisation on ageing and older people. It’s main aim is to improve the quality of life if older people, and to allow them to lead full and happy lives for as long as they wish to live in their own homes.

To register as a fundraiser for Positive Age Week, contact Lorraine Dorgan on 01 1234567 or visit http://www.ageaction.ie/

The attached photograoh included DJ Ray Dartly at the launch of Positive Age Week, at a small tea party, with pensioners, Maeve Reilly, John Murphy, and Mary O'Keefe, as they toast the new initiative.

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Contact:

Emma Scott

087 1234567

This is only a sample writing exercise, and is not a real news release!!