Post 4

About Group:

The group is going well, we had to get in front of the class Tuesday and show what we have on the website. I had a little time before hand to make some necessary changes so that the site looked better. Sadly when we got up there it hadn't loaded correctly so it showed the old format. Thankfully my friend updated it quickly and got everything working the way it was supposed to. We got some feedback on our site and it was good. We just need to make some minor changes and everything will be suitable for a respectable shoe website.
After the critique we worked separately on the site, and with some help I managed to figure out all my issues getting the checkout function to work properly. I am still irritated about the fact that the template limits what you can and can't add, but I am working around what I am given. As of right now I am pretty much done with my part of the website, just need to polish it up a bit. The company has upgraded our template so that we can keep working on it past the 20th of this month.
The only thing I don't like about my task is the fact that they are severely lacking in the accessory department. It's not that they don't have options, it's just that they keep sending pictures of socks when what we need is more variety. A site gets boring when all one can look at is socks. But I will persevere and make this site look as good as I possibly can.

Post 3

About Group:

The project is going alright, we have finally moved on to trying to work with squarespace. I must say working with squarespace has been a challenge. It would not let me add pictures to the page I was assigned, the shoe page. And the next day we got to work on it my files had been deleted so I had to start all over again. To make matters worse we only have 14 days to complete it using this template before the trial expires. Hopefully our client will extend that deadline to give us more time to work on it. So we worked on it on Thursday and I got two of my pages up and working, sort of. The images finally stay on pages I created but I cannot figure out how to click the images and make them take me to a separate page. It is a challenge, but one I am sure to figure out soon.

Post 2 The War of Art

About Book:

I am still on the first book, or part, of The War of Art and I just have to say I am getting tired of hearing the word "Resistance". It is in every other line and it honestly just means procrastination. In one chapter it compares "Resistance" to Jaws, Alien, and Terminator because "they can't be reasoned with". No, they can't be reasoned with, but they are also things that kill people. "Resistance" doesn't kill people, it just keeps you from doing things you need, or want, to do. I feel "Resistance" every day but I never let it stop me, I never fail to do my work. I might forget it sometimes, but I will never not do it because of "Resistance". I know that this book is good, but I am having a hard time enjoying the first book because of all the bad analogies.

About Group:

Also, I have changed teams on which I am working to build a site because one classmate dropped the class. As a result I have been added to another group, but luckily we are all getting along great. So the people we are doing the website for own Valley Sole, a shoe store, and they need the help improving their website so that it flows more naturally and has better content. Let me tell you a little about the site; their home page logo doesn't match the logo on their store or on any of the other pages on the website, the have a podcast page but only have one podcast posted, people can't order the shoes online but instead have to call the store so the store can order them from the company, and they have an about page that gives a lot more information than was required. My group has divided up the work for the project and we have gotten together and worked on the thumbnail sketches done for our site. I am working on the Shoes and Accessories pages for the site because their layout was confusing and didn't allow a customer to choose a size or a different color. As of right now I have created a mock-up of the site in Illustrator and posted in in our group to see what comments my group members have. 

Post 1 on The War of Art

The book has very short chapters and a lot of it makes sense. We - artists, writers, singers, songwriters, etc. - struggle to keep doing what we do. Sometimes you sit in front of your computer,  or canvas, and lose interest in what you are doing so you never complete that task. I suffer from procrastination, which is what I believe the author in this book calls "resistance". The book is easy to follow and not hard to understand, but having the author say "You know, Hitler wanted to be an artist. At eighteen he took his inheritance, seven hundred kronen, and moved to Vienna to live and study. He applied to the Academy of Fine Arts and later to the School of Architecture. Ever see one of his paintings? Neither have I. Resistance beat him. Call it overstatement but I’ll say it anyway: it was easier for Hitler to start World War II than it was for him to face a blank square of canvas" (pg 15) was a bit too much. Any artist has seen some of his paintings and though they aren't spectacular they weren't terrible. He got rejected and told that his work wasn't good. Resistance didn't "beat him", people killed his dream of becoming an artist. So for the author to say something to that extreme is an overstatement.

There will be an update on this book next week.

Real Post 1

  Hello again! I am back in action and will be writing about my experiences in my Senior Design management class instead of book and movie reviews. So let me explain a little about this college class.
  With a group of classmates we will be making a website for a company so we can learn what companies like and don't like. As a result we can get experience in both the Graphic Design aspect and the Web design part of our future. So far we have contacted our company to set up a meeting but unfortunately it was set for today (which was a snow day so classes were cancelled and the roads were icy) so it was cancelled. I was a pretty good group and hopefully we will be able to set up a meeting so we can start work on this website.
  I will be posting updates regularly as a mandatory thing and will keep you all up to date on out progress on the assignment and any other assignments that go on in class. I will also try to write some more book and movie stuff but my class schedule is hectic so no guarantees.

                                      (not my work unfortunately)

Pawn Review

Title: Pawn

Author: Aimee Carter

Book: (The Blackcoat Rebellion , #1)

Pages: 343

Rating: 4/5

Sorry I've been away so long. School has been kicking my butt, but now that I'm out for Summer I've decided to catch up on some overdue reading. So this book wasn't the first book I read but I finally got to it and I must tell you that I actually enjoyed it. It was fun in a weird way.
Before I get too into the book let me explain a little bit about the ranking system. When kids turn 17 they are required to take a test to see where they will be placed. There are VII's but they are born into it and those are the people who run the country. Only 2% get a VI and they are treated well because they are an asset to society. IV and V's live well enough. But II's and III's are the people who clean up the sewers and are treated like scum in society. I's aren't even permitted to exist. So now that that has been explained on with the story.
Kitty is brilliant and she just took her test but unfortunately for her she can't read...so she got a III. Her boyfriend, Benjy, is set to take the test in a month which is why she decided to stay in D.C. instead of moving to Denver to muck around in the sewers. To do so though she must go with Tabs to sell her virginity and make the money to stay. So she gets bought...but by someone she lest expects...Prime Minister Daxton. He makes a deal to turn her into a VII but didn't tell her what she had to do until it was too late.
When she woke up she was Lila Hart, the Minister's niece who Daxton had killed. She may look like her but she has to learn to act like her as well else risk her life and Benjy's as well. If she fails they'll be sent to Elsewhere were the rich hunt them down like animals. anyone who does wrong, even a little bit, is sent there to be hunted. So she plays along with Lila's mother Celia, her fiancé Knox, her cousin Grayson, and her grandmother Augusta. But there is a lot more to the real Lila than anyone is willing to tell so it's up to Kitty to learn the truth and stay alive long enough to escape.
When Kitty learns of the Blackcoats and who leads them will she resist or will she joint their cause and fight the evil the raking system created? Will Benjy be killed for her actions? When she learns what she must do to survive...will she do it?
Yes, the synopsis was kind of vague but trust me the book is worth checking out. I'll let everyone know how the 2nd book goes once I get my hands on it.

About The Author

Aimée Carter was born and raised in Michigan, where she currently resides. She is the author of several series, including The Goddess Test series, The Blackcoat Rebellion series, and the Simon Thorn series.

Big Hero 6 Movie Review

 

Title: Big Hero 6

Year: 2014

Time: 1hr 45min

Rating: 5/5

I know how some cartoon movies are said to have all their best scenes in the previews. This isn't the case for this movie. The clips on the preview, albeit very funny, were nothing compared to the scenes in the movie. I absolutely love Baymax! "Hairy Baby!" Ohmygosh this has to be the best Marvel movie I've seen all year!
Hiro (Ryan Potter) is a genious 14 year old boy who botfights in San Fransokyo until his brother Tadashi (Daniel Henney) takes him to the labs at his college. He meets GoGo Tomago (Jamie Chung), Fred (T.J. Miller), Wasabi (Damon Wayans Jr.), Honey Lemon (Genesis Rodriguez), and Professpr Robert Callaghan (James Cromwell).There he also meets Baymax (Scott Adsit), his brother's project, and realizes that he could actually use his brain the way he had always wanted to. To get in he has to compete against the best and brightest in a competition to come up with the best design to be able to get into the school.
Hiro creates microbots and wins the competition but when he and his brother are alone the university catches fire and Tadashi goes inside to try and save his professor. The building explodes and Hiro looses his brother.
Lost in a depression he almost reverts back to botfighting until he realizes that Baymax was in his home and hadn't gotten destroyed in the fire. Baymax finds a microbot and follows it to a warehouse while Hiro tries to talk him into coming back home. They are attacked by a man in a Kabuki who is controlling Hiro's microbots and so the battle begins. He and his band of scientists must come together and become heroes. Using their new "powers" they go after the man and Baymax is turned into a thoughtless killing machine when Hiro finds out who the masked man really is and changes his programming.
Needless to say, the bad guy got away but Hiro is shown what he needed to see by Baymax when they are alone. Then he and his team go after the man in the Kabuki mask.
Will they defeat the man in the Kabuki mask? What is the villain really after? Does Baymax make it out of this battle alive?
I absolutely loved this movie and am so sorry it took me so long to write this review...especially since I went to see it the day it came out. School has been busy and work isn't helping me get any writing done. Oh well! Go see this movie! You will not regret it! Oh and stay until after the credits because Stan Lee comes into play! I didn't expect there to be anything at the end but I was so wrong.