Andrew’s Blog

…That’s the Bibliography.

Oh… and the Gallery is now (sorta…) working.

Yep. If you continue reading past my first Essay comparing Web 1.0 to Web 2.0, you’ll find my second essay concerning the data we give online companies, what they use it for and how safe it is.

That is all.

I’ve finished my first of the two essays we have to write. I’m still working on the second one.

To check it out-Simply click on the Essay button in the menu in the header.

And be sure to keep your mouse hovering over the top of those hyperlinks.

I’m a little confused about my gallery. While it seems to refuse to allow me to link it to a certain page, it will at least upload images in WordPress and show you the thumbnails. However, if I click on them and try and look at the bigger picture, I see… Nothing. Just an empty pop-up. At least the pop up is working. And the fact I can upload photos/pictures is a big step up.

Anyway, I’ve been playing with the Noughts and Crosses php tool that Mez introduced in class. You can check it out on her blog or since you’re already here-You can check it out here.

I tried uploading the php into WordPress but it didn’t like it. At all. But I’ve been playing around with it. Check it out! (By the way, that hyperlink didn’t QUITE work how I would like it to, but the fact it works is something.)

I have no knowledge of php tools. But I knew what to change to make the poor thing act with a little more personalty. I’ve gone with a cross between Ming the Mericless and Bender from Futurama.

Here’s what I did-This is what the old code said.

if(turn == Computer_Letter())
document.tic_tac_toe.message.value = ‘My turn (’ + Computer_Letter() + ‘)’;
else
document.tic_tac_toe.message.value = ‘Your turn (’ + Player_Letter() + ‘)’;

Here’s what my version says:

if(turn == Computer_Letter())
document.tic_tac_toe.message.value = ‘Go Me (’ + Computer_Letter() + ‘)’;
else
document.tic_tac_toe.message.value = ‘Human! (’ + Player_Letter() + ‘)’;

And for changes-Here’s the victory messages in the boring version.

if(win(tic_tac_toe, Computer_Letter()))
{
document.tic_tac_toe.message.value = ‘I win’;
}

if(win(tic_tac_toe, Player_Letter()))
{
document.tic_tac_toe.message.value = ‘you win’;
}

if(tied(tic_tac_toe))
{
document.tic_tac_toe.message.value = ‘we tied’;
}
}

And my “Personality” version

if(win(tic_tac_toe, Computer_Letter()))
{
document.tic_tac_toe.message.value = ‘CPU FTW!’;
}

if(win(tic_tac_toe, Player_Letter()))
{
document.tic_tac_toe.message.value = ‘Curses!’;
}

if(tied(tic_tac_toe))
{
document.tic_tac_toe.message.value = ‘In Hamony?’;
}
}

By the way-”FTW” means “For the Win”… I don’t know what happened to “I win!” or “Victory is Mine!” FTW just seems to be in vogue now.

And I’ll admit my Tie game message is a little random.

As a final touch, I changed the text on the New Game Button.

<td colspan=”3″><input type=”button” value=”new game”
onclick=”new_game();
play();” /></td>

“NEW GAME?” My logic is If you change it to how you see fit, you might as well.

<td colspan=”3″><input type=”button” value=”ReNew!”
onclick=”new_game();
play();” /></td>

There we go. The only thing I couldn’t see how to change (Which I really REALLY wanted to.) was to change the Os and Xs into Ps and Qs. (Geddit?) But alas, there were too many “index” tags in the file, so I couldn’t focus enough to find it. Oh well.

And that’s my research in the php tools. Fun huh?

I’ve learnt that I need to add a media player to my blog and I found out from Mez that Anarchy Medua Player would be the easiest option… I uploaded onto the server without issue, but I couldn’t quite work out how it worked. So Mez showed me by posting this webcast about Web 2.0 onto my Blog.

Podcast

I’m also trying to add a Gallery and some PHP stuff. So far, I haven’t looked at PHP. As for a gallery, I tried something called NextGEN Gallery, (And I apoglise for everything I say at this point that may be seen as uncooth, because I am a little angry) which looked really nice. However, every time I tried to do anything with it (Such as-say-Add a picture, or make a link to the gallery) I got a message saying “ERROR!” so I quickly got angry with it and deleted it. So I’m still looking for a gallery to use.

I need to start looking for Web 2.0 information for the essays. While Mez’s blog is one of the best places to look, I’ve done the odd research myself.

• Internet Alphabet which points out some web stuff… I only found by typing Web 2.0 into YouTube.
• A blog entry on Who own what in Web 2.0
• A Video about Web. 2.0. A Rather upbeat one.

I’ll leave it at that. If you type Web 2.0 into YouTube or Google you get many examples of what IS web 2.0. Here is a list of some of the applications that I have used (Or at least-dabbled in) that are Web 2.0

• Facebook
• Wikipedia
• Flickr
• del.icio.us
• Bebo
• MySpace
• …..and ermm…. Second Life.

Another part of Web 2.0 is news. Nowadays not only can we access the news a lot easily than we used to, but we have access to video and soundbites, as well the news being constantly updated.

Good news! As you should be able to tell, I have made many changes with my blog in terms of colour!

When I can-I am going to redo that header graphic. But the fact I have found out how to change it is a big improvement. The problem was that I can’t change the CSS within WordPress so I had to do it within DreamWeaver.

Anyway-Here’s what I have changed by playing around with the code and CSS files.

• The Page title now comes with a custom saying which shows up on every page related to my blog.
• The Header picture has changed.
• The tabs in the header which link to different pages have been made bigger and the colour has been changed.
• Blog Entry Titles have changed colour (As have the colour of the widget text and the colour of the text when you move your mouse on top of them. Also, the writing becomes bold when you hover over hyperlinks.
• Looking at indivual posts will list them as being writen by me… or “Jimmy the Cockney.” (I’ll admit, that is silly. But I thought since I could make the change. I’ve not been brave enough to mess with the timecodes though. It might get me in trouble.)
• Typing a word into the search that does not come up with any results leads to a custom “No result found” message.
• The Footer has been slightly edited too. (But the important copyright information remains.)

By the way-I know that header image looks a little crummy. (Do people still use that word?) There was an custom image there before, but it was in GIF format so I made the new image a GIF too, which may be why the new image doesn’t look so good. I’ll change it when I can.

Here be the changes made.

h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6
{
font-weight: normal;
letter-spacing: -1px;
text-transform: none;

This effected  the Menu at the top of the screen when I changed it to…

h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6
{
font-weight: bold;
letter-spacing: -1px;
text-transform: none;
}

I got the “Hover Over” text to change colour by making this…

img.floatTL
{
float: left;
margin-right: 1.5em;
margin-bottom: 1.5em;
margin-top: 0.5em;
}

a
{
color: #618024;
text-decoration: none;

Say this…

img.floatTL
{
float: left;
margin-right: 1.5em;
margin-bottom: 1.5em;
margin-top: 0.5em;
}

a
{
color: #0033CC;
text-decoration: none;

More Hover changes…

a:hover
{
color: #436500;
text-decoration: underline;

New Verison:

a:hover
{
color: #33CC00;
font-weight: bold;
text-decoration: underline;

The biggest issue was changing the picture at the top. Note all the …. lines.

#header
{
width:100%;
height:100px;
background: #618024 url(../../../../../nonzero-green/css/images/g1.gif) repeat-x;

To fix it (If you look at my old screenshots, It worked at one point! I’m not sure what ruined it.) this is what I changed, after uploading my own picture…

#header
{
width:100%;
height:100px;
background: #3333CC url(http://andrewschon.covuniblog.com/wp-content/themes/nonzero-green/css/images/hope.jpg) repeat-x;

And there we are. How I (finally) changed the look of the site.

The one issue I have had with this theme is that no matter how hard I looked within the theme editor, I could not find the code to change any of the colours on the site.

There was a reason for this. The code is telling the site to read an inderpendant CSS file. Which I have found within my Wordpress documents and I am now going to change. This is one of the last few thing I wanted to play with, Now I’ve figgured out Goggle Maps, Favicons and Widgets.

Once again, here is a screenshot of the site before I screw around with the code.

Thank You Mr Thomas Upton!!!

Just checking my Home Computer shows the strange not “piece of paper with an ‘e’ on them” but my weird Golden Circle Logo I made a few weeks ago.

So yeah, Google Map added, Favicon on the site. Site approved by class… possibly… Done quite well.
Forget your troubles get happy! We gonna chase all your cares away! Shout Hallelujah, get happy! Today is Glazed McGuffinss day!

I should leave this note on something… First, you win a brownie point if you can name the sadly obsure cartoon the song above comes from. (If I go without comments for a week, I’ll just post the answer.)

Also, here’s a video of two guys from Wales explaining what MySpace is.

Let’s see if this worked.

If So, this is my Googlemap.

Oh yeah!!!

This is Ellen Terry. Where I’ve spent the majorty of the last 3 years.

This proves that the below link works. The only thing I’m having trouble with now is my Favicon (Not to be confused with Famicom. Which is a Japanese NES. What a nerdy fact.) because I cannot see where I am meant to post the code that allows the action to work. In fact, one of the places I tried posting it made my site break. I had to bring up old code saved on the computer and replace it within WordPress to fix it.

Also, the one thing I should have been doing, but have not been doing, is be making use of the tags. So I’m going to try going over my old posts and added some tags to see what happens.

(More on the Favicon.) Mr. Thomas Upton has helped me with my Favicon. It hasn’t taken immient effect, so I’m going to give it time to see if its loaded up. If you are reading this, and the icon the HTTP address looks more like a strange green symbol in a gold circle and less like a piece of paper with an “e” in it, it worked.