Finally, I’ve reached the end of my 315CMC multimedia journey…and what a journey its been!!! 182 tags, 84 Posts, 49 Screen Shots, 7 Categories, 3 Yahoo Pipe RSS Feeds, 3 Videos, 2 Google Maps, 2 Essays, 1 PHP Random Quote Page and a fully stocked NextGen Flash Gallery, not to mention countless hours downloading, installing, uploading, troubleshooting, blogging, editing, photoshopping…I could go on and on!

But the end has finally arrived, and I have to confess that I am actually feeling rather emotional, as without sounding like an absolute drama queen, I feel like I’ve really grown as the module reaches its dramatic conclusion. Even I cannot believe that I have managed to learn, understand and get working some of the widgets, plugins, theme changes I’ve managed to get working on my site, which has really given me a massive sense of achievement and in all honestly this module is been the biggest learning curve I’ve been on in my entire 3 years at uni - I feel like I’ve progressed massively from the computer illiterate fool I was at the start, which is something that I’m really chuffed with.

Just to recap I’ve categorised all my posts and blogging activity in the following way, so that whoever is marking my work will know instantly what sort of things I’ve been blogging about, if they don’t fancy trawlling through the masses of posts I’ve written. The Categories are as follows:

• Dreamweaver CSS and PHP: All blog post activity regarding changes to Dreamweaver, CSS and PHP.
• General: Any posts, changes and additions that doesn’t fall into the other categories
• Google Map: All posts regarding my encounters with the Google Maps Application - Including the working maps
• Pocket Wellies: A cheeky couple of posts about final project
• Themes, Widgets and Plugins: Self Explanitry Posts about new themes, plugins, widgets I’ve added/deactivated
• Uncategorized: I put every post in this category so that my blog displays as a full running  commentary
• Videos and Stuff: This category contains all of the videos, links other multimedia I’ve embedded in my site

These categories can be found in my sidebar. In addition to this There is a navigation bar at the top of my site which allows the user to easily browse my site. Below is a brief description of what the viewer will find by browsing through the site:

• Welcome To My World: Static Home Page
• About Me: Profile/Bio about my work, career ambitions, interests etc
• My Blog: All of my blog posts are displayed here in chronological order, with the most recent being displayed at the top
• Gallery: NextGen Flash Gallery which displays many examples of my photography, graphic Design etc.
• Essay 1: Response to essay question 2, complete with interactive bibliography
• Essay 2: Response to essay question 4, complete with interactive bibliography
• Random Quote PHP: A page which displays a random quote everytime its reloaded (to evidence PHP skills)

I know what I’ve just written is probably stating the obvious but I just thought I’d spell out exactly how my site works/functions etc so that it makes life easier for whoever is marking it. I think that there isn’t much left to say now except I’ve found this module of great benefit, a huge learning experience, and also one which I can take a great deal of knowledge and a massive sense of achievement from. I’ve learned the full extent of the power of Web 2.0 and social media and networking, which will no doubt stand me in good stead upon graduation. I believe that my site is proof that through sheer hard work and persisatance there is no limit as to what can be achieved. I personally speak from experience on that - if you had told me 10 weeks ago that I would have created a site that included my own edited PHP code, large amounts of amended CSS, extensive use of an FTP file manager, not to mention the installation of some very complicated plugins and widgets on my own remote site - I would probably have hyperventilated from laughing so much.

Its time for me to sign off now. This may be the end of this module but by no means is this an end to my new found interest in all things multimedia. I’m sure I will be able to take some of my newly gained knowledge and apply it to whatever it is I end up doing after graduation, whether this be advertising, marketing or pr. Web 2.0 and the doors it opens through social media and networking is big businees and extremely powerful, and the knowledge I have gained from this module will set me up nicely for what is out there when I leave sunny Coventry next month.

Thats all folks…

My oh My, I’ve actually managed to edit and embed some PHP code which generates a random quote onto my site, an absolute miracle, and something I would never have thought possible a few weeks ago! The tic tac toe game did not work as for some reason wordpress automatically edited and rewrote parts of the correct code, which made it display incorrectly. Therefore I found some PHP code which, if it works correctly will display a random quote on a seperate page within my site, with a new quote displaying everytime the page is refreshed.

 First of all I pasted the code into a dreamweaver document, and placed the document into the wordpress root site. I then opened the newly created document in dreamwaver and copied the relevent generated code on my new page I’ve created on my site (titled Random Quote PHP). I then went back into the PHP document and edited the defaulted code so it displays the quotes I wanted. There was originally only room for 6 quotes so I extended it so that my site will display any one from 15 random quotes. Here is a screenshot of the edited PHP code in the dreamweaver document I’ve created:

Once I had finished editing the PHP document so it contains the content I want I then uploaded it to my site using the FTP file manager. Then I went into the dashboard and pasted the code onto my newly created page entitled “Random Quote PHP”, after I turned on the html text editor. I then added a brief intro on the page, explaining what the PHP does, and also added some simple html so the quote displays exactly as I want it to - in bold and centrally alligned.

Finally I hit the save button and finally I now have successfully written and added some fully working PHP to my site - an amazing achievement considering I even found writing posts a challenge at the start of the module. Result!!!

Just a quick post to let you know I have finished amending my response to essay question 2 (comparing Web 1.0 to Web 2.0), in accordance with Mez’s recommendations. I’ve added a bit about the technological developments of AJAX and tagging to the essay. My response to question 2 is now posted up online, and can be accessed by clicking on the Essay 1 link in the navigation bar at the top of my site.

Have a read and let me know what you think. Thats both essays amended and finalized now, what a relief. The finishing line is now fastly approaching woop woop!!

In order to achieve a higher grade I created a page which I could try and incorporate some PHP code into my site. I copied the code from http://www.codango.com/php/fnc/content/?tree=phpin/codesnips/fungames&id=7388110 as recommended by Mez. As I have installed Exec PHP, so in theory it should work fine. I turned off the visual text editor. so that it would work properly (in theory). However when I copied the code into my page and hit publish, it didn’t display properly, and quite frankly looked ugly. Here is a screen shot of how the Tic Tac Toe game displayed:

As you can see, the page did not display correctly so I am unsure whether to remove it. I also tried copying and pasting differernt generated PHP codes to see if it was a problem just with the tic tac toe code but none of them worked. I may try to get this working over the next week or so depending of time constraints. Meanwhile click here to view the tic tac toe PHP game fully working on an external page that I created. I know its not working exactly how intended but its a good start.

I went into the CSS and amended the text body colour to white, with the sidebar header changed to red, so that It completely matches both the main body and navigation bar colour schemes, and also my amazing new Tag cloud. I think this matching colour scheme looks alot better than the previous light blue text colour from the original theme design, which looked a bit out of place after all my alterations and adjustments.

Here is screen shots of the side bar colour scheme both before and after so you can see the difference:

Old Sidebar Colour Scheme:

New Side Bar Colour Scheme:

Harrahhh! I’ve managed to get my flash tag cloud working absolutely perfectly, exactly how I want it. Of course the required action was blindingly simple. All I needed to do is install the Exec PHP plugin on m site using the FTP filemanager in dreamweaver.

Once I did that, the code that the WP Cumulus instructions tells you in insert then becomes fully active PHP (providing it is typed when the profile is set to html text editor). After the Exec PHP plugin had been activated and the code copied, I then went into presentation, then widgets, then I dragged another text widget into the sidebar where I wanted my spectacular new tag cloud to display. Then I went into the configuration and pasted the required PHP code into the relevant box. Finally all that was required was to go into the options and adjust the dimensions of the tag cloud so that it fits perfectly in the side bar.

Then Bob’s your uncle and I now have this amazing looking new flash tag cloud. I removed the old, static tag cloud as this is definately a poor relation of my stylish new WP Cumulous. Cheers Yiannis!

I’ve noticed that when the SMS message widget is activated the footer message does not show. I like having the footer message displaying as it makes my site look professional - more professional than a widget that will hardly get used and in all honesty looks a bit odd. Below is a screen shot of the SMS Widget when in the side bar. The image also shows that the footer message is not displaying as it should:

Therefore I deactivated the widget in favour of having footer message - for the time being anyway. I am going to ask Mez on Friday for some advice on how to get my flash tag cloud and random youtube video plugins activated and working as they should. Once these have been added I think my site will be just about complete, to a standard I am happy with. It’s starting to feel like there is light at the end of the tunnel…

Whilst writing my essay I found an interesting article/report type thing by a guy called Douglas Gantenbein of Microsoft, in which he discusses the marketing powers of social media and Web 2.0. It may prove useful if you are interested in a career in web based marketing upon graduation. Here is a link which takes you directly to the article:

http://www.microsoft.com/midsizebusiness/web-v2-marketing-for-businesses.mspx

As promised I have re-drafted the my response to essay question 4, in which I’ve tried to incorporate the amendments and content recommended by Mez at the start of the week. It is posted on the page entitled Essay 2. Have a look