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…

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:

I moved the side bar to the left of my page using CSS in the theme editor to align the side bar left, just to see what it would look like. However I did not the side bar on the left - it didn’t feel very functional and looked a bit odd, so I moved it back, again by changing the CSS back to its original state so that it is aligned right again. Here is a screen shot of my site with the side bar moved to the left hand side of the page:

I still was not happy with the background image I had previously designed - I thought it could be better, look slicker. I therefore spent some time designing a new background image to upload to my site. After much deliberation I decided to design a binary code theme, in keeping with the ultra modern, new media feel I have be trying incorporate throughout my site. An inverted image of a piece of work I had previously worked on looked amiturish and does not fit with the look I have been trying to create. After I had designed and produced my new background image I uploaded it to my site using my ftp file manager in dreamweaver, and added it to my site by going into the stylesheet on the dashboard and writing the relevant code. I think this background image design looks alot slicker than the old image. Please find below screen shots of both my old and new background image designs so you can make your own mind up:

Old Background Design:

New Background Design:

I changed the post header colour to red, and main body text to white in order to give my site a consistant colour scheme which matches the new banner and background image I have created. Again, in order to do this, I found the required code for red and white from http://html-color-codes.com/ and replaced the previous existing code that I had entered.

The site is really starting to have a consistant theme running all the way through it now, mostly due to configuring the CSS and adding the various plugins etc. There may just be hope for multimedia rejects like myself yet!!

I have changed the page links at the top of the page from orange to white, changing to red when scrolled over, using CSS, so that the text colour matches the new banner I have created thus giving the top part of the top part of the blog a more professional look.

I wasn’t happy with the blue body colour, it was too dark, and blended in to much with the background black, so therefore I found the code needed to create a yellowey-geen colour and changed it to that in the style sheet. I think this looks alot better and makes the text stand out and alot easier to read. I also changed the colour of the page links at the top right hand corner of my blog, just because I can!

I’m really making these adjustments and adding the various plugins as the blog is now really starting to look and feel like my own now.

In order to personalise my blog a little more, I have removed the “This blog is proudly powered by Wordpress and themed by Mukka Mu” and replaced it with “Craig’s blog, get yourself involved”. I want this site to be totally my own, without and sneeky wordpress advertising or accreditation, which is why I changed it.

I then took the changing of CSS to the next level and made drastic changes to the background of my blog. Firstly I removed the original, rather plain background images. I then created a new image in photoshop that I wanted to replace it with. Once I had finished making the picture  I then saved it to the images folder in my wordpress document, which then automatically shows in my dreamweaver.

Once this showed in dreamweaver I then uploaded it to the server. Then I went into the Style Sheets folder in wordpress and added the image to the background in the body section of the style sheet. The end result is a new picture showing in the background of my blog. This is starting to show an understanding of how CSS actually works.

I have made a few bigger changes to my blog using CSS. In order to do this I went into my styles sheets in the theme editor. I then changed the text body colour to blue using a really helpful website that lists CSS colour codes. The web address for this is http://html-color-codes.com/ . I then went to the body section and deleted the original code for the original text colour and replaced it with the new colour code.