Take Charge!
26 Feb 2010 Leave a Comment
in Web Class
I really enjoyed spending the first part of my day today just diving into the internet for myself to see what I could discover. I spent quite a bit of time on youtube, watching videos that had to do with the internet. I took a look at some html and css tutorials. I also found this really amazing video called Download: The True Story of the Internet – People Power.
This video has 5 parts and was aired on the Discovery Channel. The host, John Heilemann, interviewed many of the founders of the big companies on the internet. It was very interesting to find out that most of them are college age, just like I am. These guys had no idea how their huge their sites would be and how much money they would be worth. They just started with an idea and ran with it. The founder and CEO of facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, said that he had no idea how huge facebook would grow. He just started out creating it to connect to some friends of his at his university. Then other students from other universities asked him to create a way for them to get on to facebook also. And it just exploded after that. After watching these series of videos, I was inspired to dream big and not just settle to be ordinary, but get out there and do something extraordinary.
Technology Research – Python
24 Feb 2010 Leave a Comment
in Web Class
Python is a high-level programming language. The philosophy of its design emphasizes code readability. Its standard library is very comprehensive and large. Python supports multiple programming paradigms, such as object oriented, imperative, and functional. Its automatic memory management is very similar to Perl, Ruby, Scheme, and Tcl. It is most used most often as a scripting language. The language has an open, community-based development model.
Python’s principal author, Guido van Rossum, created it in December of 1989 at CWI in the Netherlands. Because of his continuing central role in deciding the direction of the language, he has been giving the title of “Benevolent Dictator for Life” by the Python community. As a successor to the ABC programming language, Python was capable of exception handling and interfaing with the Amoeba operating system. Python 2.0 was released on October 16, 2000. The Python Software Foundation is responsible to maintain the “de facto” definition of the language in CPython, the reference implementation.
Python is growing rapidly. It is being used more and more. Some of the organizations that use Python are Google, Yahoo!, CERN, NASA, and ITA and YouTube. Most of the Sugar software for the One Laptop Per Child XO is written in Python.
Some other related technologies are other programming languages such as Pyrex, Boo, ECMAScript, Go, Groovy, and OCaml, whose designs and philosophies have been influenced by Python in some way.
There are no certifications for Python usage.
I believe that Python will become more and more popular as more organizations implement it into their websites.
I got my information from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python_%28programming_language%29
Home Page Design
10 Feb 2010 Leave a Comment
Home pages are the first thing that visitors see when they come to your site. It’s very important to grab their attention and keep it. There are some websites that have really poor home page design. For example, The Yukon Chamber of Commerce web site could use a lot of help with how their page looks. It looks very boxy and boring. At first glance, I couldn’t really tell what the site was about. There was a large picture of Oklahoma which I thought it might have something to do with Oklahoma. It also had dates on it which I took as a calendar.
One site that i came across that I like is maggietaylor.com. It is an art site and it is very obvious what its purpose is. It is to display the art that Maggie Taylor has made. It is very simple and easy to navigate through. I spent a little time going through the site and not once did I feel like i was lost.
Another site that I think had a good design is kalchmann.com. It uses flash to make a fun and interesting site. The home page shows pictures of the different fashion designs they have and a simple navigation bar is at the top for easy access. The background is always moving and looks very busy, but I think that it is ok because it adds to the feel of the site.
There were also a couple of sites that had horrible home page design. One of these sites is havenworks.com. There is way too much going on. There are too many colors and everywhere. It is extremely had to navigate through. It is obvious that the site is about political news, but I definitely wouldn’t trust it to tell me the truth. It is a gigantic mess!
Another site that unfortunately has a very poor design is yvettesbridalformal.com. One word to describe this site is random. Like the previous web site, it has way too much going on. Nothing is in order at all and forget about any kind of navigation. It also has some random music on it and I couldn’t find where to turn it off. I would definitely never purchase a dress from Yvette.
So if you are going to create a web site, please make sure you have a well designed home page. That way you can keep your visitors coming back and not scare them off.
Customer Service
09 Feb 2010 Leave a Comment
This month’s blog post is about Customer Service. Wikipedia defines customer service as “the provision of service to customers before, during, and after a purchase” ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer_service). If you own a business, it is very important that you have good customer service so that the people who buy your products or services will be satisfied with it, keep coming back, and might even recommend your business to their friends and family.
Unfortunately, most of us have had to deal with bad customer service. It is not a very happy thing to go through. We get frustrated because we don’t like the thing that we purchased and so we call or visit the business that we got it from, but they don’t seem like they are very willing to help us. It is important that customer service representatives try to help the customer all they can so that their company does not lose any business.
One experience I had with great customer service was with Apple. I was trying to make a picture slide show for my grandfather’s funeral on Apple’s iphoto and idvd and I just couldn’t seem to figure out how to do it. I called Apple’s customer service and was connected with a customer service representative very quickly. The lady seemed like she knew what she was talking about and that she was very interested in finding out what I needed to do for it to work. She stayed on the phone with me until the dvd was burned and even asked me what I was making the dvd for. I was then able to figure out how to fix the problem. I was very happy with Apple’s customer service and would recommend them to everyone.
So as you can see, when a customer of yours is having a problem with your product, you should go above and beyond for them so that they will be happy and purchase your products again.
