Second life and podcasting.

Second life. Sounds like some kind of cool spy thing "just my second life no big deal." In reality it's a virtual world where you essentially live.  I would much rather spend my time in the real world, sure I may not be able to go on vacation or be stuck in town due to snow wishing I was somewhere warm, but jumping into a virtual world to do these kinds of things makes no sense to me.  Second life seems like a waste of time or somewhere to go if you don't want to go outside.  I'm sure it's cool if you get into, but I honestly see nothing enticing about spending my time in a virtual world when the real world is pretty grand.

Podcasting sounds fun, I much prefer the idea of vlogging instead though. The podcast is essentially just listening to someone speak, which while entertaining, lacks reaction and emotion.  In a vlog you can see how the person is reacting to what they are saying and to me that's more interesting.

Smaller Potatoes

• What's your experience with Myspace?  
• Myspace...oh the middle school days!  I used Myspace very minimally throughout middle and high school. I actually had to delete my first Myspace account due to my mother disliking that I had a "social media" presence as a 14 year old.  
• Any "cyberbullying" stories that you are aware of?
• There are the ever present stories in the news, but I have had personal experiences with cyberbullying.  Cyberbullying is a cheap way to make people feel bad, and people that use cyberbullying are, in my opinion, terrible people.  
• What's your take on the Lori Drew/Megan Meier story?  Especially the result?
• My thoughts on the this story are the Lori Drew is an incredibly horrible person who took advantage of a fragile youth.  She knew exactly the effect her words and actions would have on Megan and seems to have felt no remorse for what she had done, only that she got caught.  
• Describe your use of Digg.
• I have never used Digg....so my experience is non-existent. 
• Reddit?
• I do Reddit a bit, a lot of it is looking around at news and other information, or stupid pictures and memes. 

No second life or podcasting experience . 

Arcana Slideshow

Using my blog to test out the two drafts I have for a slideshow for Arcana.

Arcana First Final Draft
Arcana Second Final Draft

There isn't a huge difference between them, but the first has the artist name on the image, and the second has the artist name listed in the description

Imminent Internship!

As an English for New Media student I am a little scared about the ability to find and internship or even what my options are.  I'm not certain where to look or how to go about finding something that falls in the realms of my degree.  Recently I have started to think a little more about it.  With a new media degree I can do just about anything media related.  This includes, social media promotion, some public relations work, technical communication *depending on your minor or if you've taken classes related* There are so many options, the English aspect of the degree helps a lot too, you're able to apply for editing positions as well as certain journalistic opportunities.  I have found an awesome website to search for internships. Most of the opportunities are out of state, but sometimes getting away for a summer is a great option!  If you're looking for an internship give the website a look, maybe you'll find something awesome!

Arcana slideshow

Slideshow video i'm working on for a Publishing for New Media class, hopefully it works here!

Google Glass

Most likely no one else will find this video nearly as exciting as I do, but these are sweet!  I have been following the Google Glass project over the last few years and now that they are available for beta testing i'm incredibly excited!
Youtube is great for videos such as these and videos on how to do something as well as videos who's only intent is to make you laugh.

Tweet tweet Tweet

Have you ever gotten some app for your phone because someone tells you to, or gone to some website because some told you it was awesome? That's how it was for me and Twitter.  I saw no point in tweeting at first, and I still don't see a huge reason.  I have 217 tweets....I know people with millions of tweets, as you can tell I am not an avid user, but I follow so many different people that my twitter feed is always full.  Having something like Twitter that is so viral and easily accessible makes your life almost daunting, you're constantly checking and making sure you don't have new tweets, and when you follow a ton of people there is always something new. For me Twitter is something that I just look at and follow a few people mostly sites that have no relevance or just funny pictures. I have started following a few authors as well as a few individuals involved with new types of media. Twitter is fun and a great way to get involved and stay up today without having to read huge long posts or look through a million people.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. 
This is by far one of the best books I read over the last year.  While it's a young adult novel it's rather good and entertaining for most anyone.  Give it a watch!  

Dead or Alive?

I have used so many different kinds of hardware over the years. I've had five different laptops, a handful or two of digital cameras, cd players and mp3 players, smartphones, various video game systems and so many other hardware pieces. The better question now is which hardware's do I still use, and which ones do I use still (alive) and which ones have long since passed on (dead). 

Alive:

Smartphone - I'm a "gotta have the new thing junkie" I have a Samsung Galaxy S3. I absolutely love it. I have owned it now since September. 

Laptop - I have my fujitsu that I wish was a dead piece of hardware, but all around a great piece of hardware. 

Digital Cameras - I have two digital cameras both fairly high end point and shoots. I love them they take pictures quickly and produce quality prints. 

Xbox 360 - I love my Xbox, it's a great Netflix machine! That is the main use for my Xbox. 

N64 - I bet you thought these were dead! I play at least nightly just to have a retro throwback :)


Dead:

Oh wow, I have far too many "dead" pieces of hardware. Handfuls of digital cameras, several mp3 players and cd players, a couple different smartphones, all kinds of old cellphones (including my trusty Nokia!), several laptops, and misc. hardware that I'm forgetting. 

Media, Media, Media

Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, MSN Messenger, RockMelt, Pinterest, Imgfave, Imgur...etc. All of those are social media sites that I am a part of, yeah I know, it's a lot! Media has taken over a huge chunk of our lives and sometimes not for the better. At first I started with just Myspace and Facebook to keep in touch with friends suddenly the list grew. Online "socializing" is a great way for you to keep in touch, but I realized quickly after joining all these sites I do far more than keep in touch. I'm constantly taking quizzes, or liking pages, or looking up images and gifs, and not keeping in touch with friends.  While the internet and all the things on it are great and helpful for research and everything else the downside to it is, we lack face to face interaction and the ability to hold a decent conversation anymore.  Think back to the last conversation you had with someone, there is a 95% chance that you or that other person took out there phone during that conversation to either check a text, e-mail, or even facebook.  This completely distracts from conversation and prevents that intimacy of conversation.

Myspace and MSN Messenger were my first media adventures, both of them are dying fads but were pretty cool back in the day.  Myspace I mainly used to sift through music and post things to friends or bands.  MSN Messenger I used to keep in touch with friends from out of state as well as friends in town.

Facebook was my downfall. Oh the time I have wasted there, slowly killing brain cells.  At first it was an attempt to keep in touch with friends while we weren't sitting right next to each other all day...then it was for playing a game or two (FarmVille, Mafia Wars, and other such games) Then when I left for college it was for keeping in touch with friends that I wasn't going to see that often. Soon though it turned into sitting and staring at my news feed hoping for something entertaining to pop up.  Now my facebook kind of just sits open in the background with me checking occasionally to keep up with family in friends from out of town.

Pinterest, Imgfave, Imgur, and Twitter are some frivolous sites I visit and frequent just to look at new stuff and some DIY stuff as well.

RockMelt is a cool web browser that I do not currently use, but have in the past.  It links facebook, twitter, and other accounts straight into your browser and you can see the feeds from the accounts right in the browser itself, which is cool...until it updates a million times a second! (Ok so i'm really not that popular) RockMelt is invite only which is interesting and probably another reason it's not so well known.

I'm not saying media is bad, but I am saying that it has boiled over into far too many parts of our lives.

Well let's get started!

To be perfectly honest, I have no idea what I'm doing. Hopefully throughout this course I'll have some things to post here. Let the fun begin! :)