Just a quick post to let you all know the new purpose for this blog and the tag cloud on the right hand side of the site. I originally set up this website for part of a final year multimedia blogging project whilst studying for my  degree in 2008. However, now that my student days are behind me, rather than letting all of my hard work go to waste, I am now using this space as a virtual portfolio on which to show my Photography, Advertising and Graphic Design work, along with my academic writing and blogging capabilities. Just click on the links above the banner to browse through my my site, where you will find a selection of visual and written work, including examples of photography, advertising, graphic design and two first class graded academic essays, both of which tackle Marketing and Advertising related subjects.You will notice that the ‘blog’ diary is more of a step by step guide which details exactly how I put this site together: a web design guide for beginners, from an absoulte 100% beginner. This was again produced for multimdia to meet the marking criteria, but I have included this on my online portfolio as not only does it hopefully display some of my less formal blogging abilities, some of you budding web designers may find it useful. To search for a particular subject in my blog, simply click on the required word in the rotating tag cloud on the right hand margin. Feel free to have a look around and I hope you find some of what I wrote in my blog helpful…

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 thought I would be brave and take my multimedia adventure to the next level, and install the snap previewer facility onto my blog. I signed up to an account on snap.com and generated the required code, but I did not have the faintest idea how where the code needs to be pasted in dreamweaver. I am afraid that I am now at a position where I will require Mez’s expertise during Friday’s lecture. I am pleased with the progress made this week and hopefully in the next few weeks I will be able to try some more complicated bits and pieces on my site. until Friday, thats all folks….