Looking Back Over the Emerging Technologies Class:

Technology Change Agent:

As I harken back to my third blog, Change Agent, for this class, I am asked to evaluate myself as a change agent for emerging technologies. I do see myself as a change agent in the field of technology because I love to learn new things and then talk about what I know.  I’m quite enthusiastic when I have good information to share. The research and writing-blogging aspect of this Emerging Technologies class has been my favorite part of the assignments.

Joomla Event Calendar Modules:

Joomla 1.6 does not have a built-in event calendar module so you have to find one to install. Joomla.org has a list of available event calendars. Since my group is working with version 1.6 and we are students, we are limited to choosing Non-Commercial modules that also have a 1.6 Native version of the module. There is really only one choice, GCalendar, But I will mention all four here.

Joomla Contact Form Modules:

Every website needs a contact form and a Joomla CMS website is no exception. Joomla does have an existing built-in feature to create a contact form but there are other options as well. Associated Content has an informative article on how to work with contact forms in Joomla. The article is a descriptive tutorial on how to add, delete, edit, and unpublish a contact form. Joomla.org is the source to find as many as 39 contact form modules to choose from to plugin/addon to the Joomla website.

Since I am part of a group that is using Joomla version 1.6, the number of available choices is reduced to 13. Of those, 7 are commercial and 5 are free. Of those 5, 3 contact form modules are rated at 4.5 stars, 1 is rated at 4 stars and the last one has no stars. I have chosen to look at the three modules rated at 4.5 stars: Fox Contact Form, Rapid Contact, and Flexi Contact.

CMS Templates: Download or Design?

This paragraph is an addendum to this blog. After class, I have decided that it is necessary to learn to template whether you start from scratch or modify a template. You can't modify a structure if you don't understand how to operate in the CMS. It will most likely be easier to start from scratch because you can make the template the way you have designed it and not have to eliminate unnecessary aspects of a template that is already created.

Original Blog

On a continuing note from my last blog, I ultimately decided to join the group of students working with Joomla because it is considered friendlier for designers. Now the question is set before us as to whether we should download a fully designed template for our website redesign project or to design a template ourselves.

I am working in a group of four people and we will come to any final decisions as a group. For us, time is short and we are starting at the beginning of our learning curve. It is therefore my opinion that we should find a template that is closest to our wireframe design layout and then tweak that template to suit our needs.

The Best CMS

The best Content Management System (CMS) is the one that most fits your needs in the moment. For me at this time, I’m a digital media student who has experience with XHTML/CSS and the two CMSs that I previously blogged about. I consider myself a beginner with limited time in which to learn a system to complete a class project.

Given my need for a small learning curve, ease of use, and established structure; the CMS system that I most want to learn is WordPress. There are others that I also want to learn and I am interested enough to go learn them when school is no longer my highest priority or if one of those CMSs, in turn, becomes a class assignment.

In this blog, I will discuss several CMSs and what’s important to me as a web designer.

CMS Ratings: CMSimple vs. WebsiteBaker

On a five star rating, I give WebsiteBaker 4.5 stars and I give CMSimple 2 stars.

I and my classmates have been learning about and using the two Content Management Systems (CMS) CMSimple and WebsiteBaker for the last several weeks. I have been so focused on learning html and css for the past year that I found creating templates for a CMS difficult at first. The new mindset takes some getting used to. In this blog I compare my experiences with the two CMSs.

A CMS Introduction for Designers and Businesses:

A Content Management System (CMS) is a web application that is used to create and edit HTML content in a way that can be easily managed by people who don’t know anything about web design, programming or code. Templates can be chosen from a pile of free offerings or designed specifically for the website appearance and then the content can be regularly updated by anyone the website administrator allows. I think it’s important for designers and businesses to know about CMSs and continue to stay abreast of new products and applications. It’s good to know which ones are more stable than others and what features to look for when choosing the right CMS for a client.

The 3 Best CSS Resources Every Designer Should Know

CSS Resources

There are many good resources for learning CSS best practices and cool things to do to the presentation of a web site. I based my choices on the depth of content and quantity of references to further information. I like to see code examples that I can use and change as needed. I also like video tutorials and images as well. Here are my top three picks.

1. http://htmldog.com/
2. http://sixrevisions.com/css/30_css_techniques_examples/
3. http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/css/35-websites-to-teach-you-how-to-use-css-effectively/

Facebook Technical Report For Designers

What is Facebook?

Facebook is a social-networking site, a social media tool that has a great variety of options, settings, and applications that every web designer should learn and remain current so that they can customize a Facebook Page for their clients in a way that will grow their business. Facebook is more than a personal communication center; it’s also a way for fans to follow their favorite businesses and other marketable icons when used properly. Web designers need to know about Facebook because there are over 500 million active users who interact with as many people as they wish and are able to write posts everywhere, “like blog comments on steroids;” 3 Reasons Facebook Trumps Twitter for Business.

I think the wave of the future is for every business to have a Facebook Page to supplement their business website and other social media tools.

Change Agent

Do I See Myself as a Change Agent?

In general terms, I do see myself as a Change Agent because I ask a lot of questions and am interested in listening to people's stories. I have taken quite a few Cultural Anthropology courses in college and am always interested in why people do what they do.

When I was a teenager, I watched my mother go into a company, interview all of its administrative employees and write several procedures manuals for their positions. In some cases, the workflow was changed based on her recommendations. She even hired me to help her with the filing.

Although I can be rather pessimistic at times, I strive to maintain a positive attitude. I think about many possible scenarios and look to other people for sides of the story that perhaps I missed. In the Myers-Briggs Career Personality & Leadership Tests, I scored so close to the middle in all categories that a Human Resources Specialist described me as truly being able to understand all points-of-view.

With further professional training, I think that my natural skills could be honed to develop the Change Agent characteristics in any position I hold or even as a viable career choise in and of itself.

What is a Change Agent?

A Change Agent is a professional systems' integrator who has the skills to motivate groups of people into changing their workflow behaviors for the benefit of the entire organization.

Blogging For Business - Why Blog!

Imagine your business blog reaching a potential audience of over 260 million readers.

No, really, it's better to target the areas of that audience that want what you have to sell, but I'll get to that later. Let's start with statistics.

How Many are There?

WordPress alone reports over 260 million people worldwide visiting one or more of their blogs every month. WordPress also states that as of December 2010, they are hosting 16 million blogs.

Blogger by Google is also increasing in size and probably so are the numerous other blog hosting services available. This comparison chart shows the increase of blogs produced in WordPress and Blogger up to the year 2010. I found this image at techie-buzz.com.



Comparison of 3 Blogging Tools

Out of three blogging tools that I researched, I chose to use blogger.com also known as blogspot.com.

My name is Lisa and I am a student in the Digital Media Technology program at AB Tech.  This is the first blog I've ever written and it is devoted to a class on emerging technologies.

This post is about my research into three blog hosting companies: blog.com, wordpress.com, and blogger.com (also known as blogspot.com).