Month 5: Principles of Production Process

Hey, I'm already at the end of another month. It's hard to believe since time has been flying by so fast. I've been thinking about doing some YouTube videos to go along with my blog. I'll put up a poll so you guys can help me decide. So basically, it's a lot of PDF's that I've done, as well as a newsletter.

Lab 3: Project Requirements, Information Architecture, and Presentation
In this lab (and for homework) we had to produce three documents. The first document was the Project Requirements, detailing what requirements were needed for the redesign project. These requirements were used to create a sitemap and wireframes for four pages of the new site. (Unfortunately, I chose a blog site, so I ended up doing over one hundred pages for the sitemap while my colleagues only ended up doing five or six pages. Still, it gave me some great experience in the subject.) Finally, we did a presentation (created a PowerPoint Document and stood up in front of the class, etc.) as if we were talking to the client about how we were going to redesign the site. The teachers gave us a lot of great information on how we should talk to the client, and also things that we shouldn't do. Below I've provided my Project Requirements and my Information Architecture documents. The PowerPoint slides are layered. Perhaps I'll make a video to show how the presentation was supposed to look. Anyhow, the site requirements document is not listed. It's basically the same thing as my Project Proposal except with different information.

Wire Frame

Site Map

Lab 4: Branded Documentation and the Email Template
This lab was incredibly fun. We were given a guided template in Photoshop where we had creative freedom to design a newsletter for ourselves and our company. I did the email template with ease. I ran into a problem, however, with my branded documentation. One of these documents required a signature, and you wouldn't be able to sign on the current template I had. So I redesigned my documentation and I liked the overall look and feel more. (This inspired the design of my email template.) So you can see the redesign in the following document. This is how all of my files will look from this point forward.

Invoice

Lab 5: Slice and Dice
Once the design was finished, we had to slice it. I went above and beyond. I sliced my template and made it function. I also custom-wrote my code, and uploaded it to the web. It doesn't work in a browser, however, and I speculate that's because of the JavaScript. I plan to redo the buttons as CSS and continue my testing. It's also mostly images right now. I'm going to see how I can do this with CSS instead. Click here to view the template online.

Lab 6: Marketing Plan
I finished the marketing plan, but I forgot to turn it in. I'm avoiding opening the document because you can see it hasn't been opened since the 20th. This could prove to be extremely useful so that the teacher will let me turn it in again. So please bear with me. It'll be uploaded later today.

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Grades: Networks and Server Structures

Hey everyone! Sorry that I haven't been posting very much lately. I've been continuously working on school work. A little more than a week ago we finally got our grades back from NSS. Despite that 77 on the Midterm, I still pulled through with an "A" which I'm proud of. That class is extremely information intensive, though it gets much easier at the end. I believe that the beginning of NSS throws you off, and you're presented with so much information, you're not sure what to study. You try studying all of it, and then somehow, only the insignificant information sticks. It's quite frustrating. At the beginning of the class, he'll tell you to study every night. I'll agree with this little bit of advice: Study every night, like the test is tomorrow. Know all the information and continue to study it. You'll want to lock yourself up in your room and study all month if you want to pull through this class with an A+. Still, at least I got an A! :)

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Month 5: Principles of Production Process

Today is my third class in Principles of Production Process. I haven't been able to post much since my boyfriend was admitted to the hospital. He's okay now, so I'm taking the time to update my blog.

So far in this class, they talk about the Production Process and the documents and planning that are required in each. So far, we've worked on branding who we are and discovering a make-shift client project. Luckily for me, I get the practice of actually working for a client. My boyfriend has started a new website: www.gamereview.tv I've been steadily working towards developing his website, and this class is giving me a great starting point. I believe we work up to getting the site's wireframe finished, so that will give me a great place to start in regards to developing his website.

In the past two labs, we have developed our logos, created a branded template and have created a Project Proposal, or the Communications Brief. I've branded myself, or my website, "Creative Zeus" naming it after my dog. Below, I've attached a Project Proposal PDF, which has all three of them available for viewing.

Project Proposal

Lab 1: Branding
In this lab, we basically created sketches of our logo. I feel like mine turned out better than most, only because I've already put several months of thought into the name, what the logo would be, and how I'd like to represent myself. By the end of the class, I had an idea of what I wanted. At home, however, I revised it to what I'm showing you now.

Due by the next lab, however, our "homework" was to create a landscape and portrait template. This is the same template used for the Project Proposal Document. We also needed to pick out a website to redesign. This is where I chose my boyfriend's website, since it has a very basic template.

Lab 2: Project Proposal and Audience Profiles
In this lab, we focused time on creating our logos in Illustrator. I already had mine done in a simple vector black and white format. The three files we had to turn in were a black and white vector, a two-color vector, and a full color vector.

For homework, we were to work on our Project Proposal and Audience Profiles. My Project Proposal was a 14-page description of many aspects of the project. I included real research, graphs and facts supporting my analysis. It's legitimate work that could be used in a real-life situation.

The Audience Profiles were very simple. We basically had to create a profile of a character, or person, that fit the demographic that our "client" is trying to target. You had to have two profiles, a primary and secondary demographic. There's really not much to it. I didn't think it was worth putting up, but I will if people would like for me to.

That pretty much sums up everything we've done to this point. We have our first quiz today, multiple choice based on the Lecture Slides and chapters one, three and ten of our book. And that covers pretty much everything. Enjoy!

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Month 4: Networks and Server Structures

This month has been incredibly information intensive all throughout. When the teacher says, "Study the information you just learned every night," he really does mean it. I live with my boyfriend, and he has two Cisco degrees for networking, so I had an advantage there. The class dabbled into the OSI model, cryptography, binary conversion, subnetting and a whole lot more. The first test is the hardest. I haven't been able to keep my blog updated for the fact that I've been using all of my free time to study. But the first test is forty questions. There is a multitude of information, and it's extremely hard what to decipher is the key information. Because most of it is really important. Labs allow you to focus mostly on Terminal, Mac's Operating System, equivalent to Window's "Configuration." So I suppose I'll pick up where I left off.


Lab 5: Subnetting

For this class we were basically handed out a worksheet with an example on how to subnet and then were given four problems to complete. My suggestion to you is the you should learn how to subnet if you want an extra five points on the final.

Lab 6: SSH

In this lab we established a Secure Shell Handler between Full Sail's server and our computers. Again, really easy stuff.

Lab 7: Designing a Network

I wasn't here for this lab, I had a doctor's appointment on this particular day, but you had to design a functioning network. I used a private VPN to connect the Denver, CO Network and the New York HQ Network. I think I did a pretty decent job.



Lab 8: Deploying a Lamp Server

This class we installed a virtual Operating System and worked within Linux to create a LAMP Server (Linux Apache MySQL and PHP/Python/Perl). For whatever reason, it wasn't working properly for any of the students when we tried to connect via the browser. I'm not sure what was wrong, but we finished the assignment eventually.

Lab 9: Cisco

In Lab 9 we pretty much sat down and began to work on a Cisco chapter. It walked us through some of the basic principles of Networking. At the end, we took a test and had to send a screen shot of the results to our professor.



The Tests

Throughout the month we had two written exams, a midterm and a final, and on practical which was done in terminal. On the midterm, I ended up getting a 77%. You really do need to be careful on these midterms. The questions can get really tricky. For example...

The internet is a...
A) Packet switched network
B) LAN
C) MAN
D) Non Packet switched network

The thing that threw me off was that it was drilled into my head that the internet is a WAN, the biggest wide area network there is. It IS a packet switching network, but the singular form threw me off. Because I just thought it was a bunch of network"S" when really, it is a network of networks. So you really need to be sure when it comes to answering these questions.

Also, there are fill in the blank and True or False sections. You really, really need to know your stuff.

The second test, the Final, isn't so bad. It's pretty obvious that you need to know Protocols and the OSI model. Other than that, there are a few things here and there you'll want to study about, like VPN's, etc. but that'll make up about 10% of the whole test. Also. You NEED TO KNOW WHO INVENTED THE WORLD WIDE WEB. It is Tim Burners-Lee. Make sure you know that for both tests. On the final, if you didn't know that, you automatically missed two questions.

Anyhow, after you take the final, you get a break and then you come back for the Practical. The teacher gives you a packet of information that you can use for the practical, which really made it stupid easy. I was the first one finished. Basically, he gives you a compressed file. You need to upload the file to the server, decompress the file, and then organize the files correctly. You'll need to change the permissions of some files, move files, rename files, make directories, and a few other things. Once you're finished, you'll be able to connect to the server via your browser and you can double check your work with the images that he supplies for you. It's pretty easy as long as you know your stuff.

All in all, this is Networks and Server Structures. Buckle down. It's a looong ride. At least the teacher looks is funny.

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Month 4: Networks and Server Structures

Lab 4: Subnetworks

Today was a bit rough. We learned how to Subnet. I'm not going to get into that, but it is probably the hardest thing we've had to learn this month, though with practice it gets easier. Basically for lab, we were given a Network Address and Class, and told we needed X amount of Subnetworks and X amount of Hosts per network. For that, we needed to find the Subnet ID's (up to a certain number), the Broadcast Address for those IDs and then the Range. So a lot of math was involved and you can't use your calculator. All in all it was a fun challenge, and now that I'm done, I'm leaving! So, I'll update you next time (after we have our Midterm).

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Grades: Art History

Got our grades back from Art History earlier than usual. I really worked hard throughout the month, so I'm pleased with my 98 A+. Hopefully posting my work and showing the grades helps you to get an understanding of what it takes to pass these classes and were you should be as far as skill level when you come into the program.

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Month 4: Networks and Server Structures

Lab 3: Searching Google

Lab three was fairly simple. We were taught how to use Google 'correctly.' Basically, we searched in formats like this:

Charles would like to buy a Cannon EOS 20D for under $500.00. He spends some time searching:

[canon]
[canon eos]
[canon eos $300..$500]
[canon eos $300..$500 site:ebay.com]
[canon eos $300..$500 site:ebay.com -450d -"eos 7"]
[canon eos 20d $300..$500 site:ebay.com OR site:amazon.com -450d -"eos 7"]

There were several questions like that on a sheet that we had to fill out. It was fairly simple.

Lab 4: Compressing and Addressing

This lab was also fairly simple. We worked in terminal and learned how to compress files, zip them, unzip them, and we even learned how to create .dmg files. You pay attention to the byte, kilobyte and megabyte information and report that on the worksheet they give you. The second part of that lab is more or less about finding the Network Address, the Broadcasting Address, the number of host bits, etc. Then there was a final section where it was matching a computer (in a diagram) to a description. Overall it was fairly easy.

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