My domain name is officially registered and I am so excited!

The next step is stop personalizing my website with WordPress.  This course is pushing me out of my comfort zone and I actually don’t mind it. I’m not a big fan on courses that involve using using the computer, simply because I am not a tech savvy person. However I can’t wait to start personalizing my website and to see how it all comes out. I’ll let you all know how it turns out on my next post!

 

 

I thought establishing the website was a fun task, but customizing the website was even more exciting! Dare I say it was oddly satisfying.

I definitely could not customize the site without following along with the professor’s tutorial. With his guidance, I was able to customize my website and I cannot wait to continue doing so.

Here is what I did so far:

After following the tutorial, one of the first things I did was create an icon for the website. (I used a picture of myself.) The next thing I did was change the theme of the website from light to dark. With every device and app I use, I change the theme to ‘dark mode’ because it is more visually appealing to me. So for that reason, I wanted my website to follow suit- and I don’t mean to toot my own horn, but I think it looks amazing. Upon completion, I changed the name of the website and tagline from its default names to “Straight Talk with Kysa” and “Everything gets discussed here!”

The next thing I did was change the featured images for each page. With the twenty-seventeen theme, the featured images were ‘cafe-themed’  and that did not seem appropriate for my page. So, for now, I thought it was best for me to use serene images. I signed up for pixabay.com and found images that I thought would be appropriate- for now at least.

Next, I changed the default messages that were left under the ‘home’ and ‘about’ pages. I have not yet customized a message for the ‘homepage section’ and ‘contact’ pages.

After completing this, I customized the footer of the website. I first removed the default address and office hours and I added my social media accounts. I also included a description under the “about this site” section. The final change I made to the footer was removing the ‘Yelp’ and ‘Facebook’ icons due to the fact that I do not have accounts for either platform.

I kept the Twitter, Instagram, and email icons and added hyperlinks. So, if clicked on, the user will be directed to my accounts.

The final thing I did was add a post to the ‘blog’ page. I used one of the videos that I had already recorded- I just really wanted there to be some form of content on the site. Next week, I will post the second episode and I guess I have to start filming more so that I never run out of content.

So these are all my customizations so far. I know there is still so much more to be done but I felt quite accomplished after looking at everything I did.

If you want to see the changes I made to the site personally, you can just head over there. I am looking forward to customizing the site more in the future.

Feedback on what I’ve done so far will be accepted!

I’m really excited to start on my website. In my last post I stated that it was my first time but I have done something similar to this before. I have made a website at least 2 times before. But I always get excited every time I do this. I like the experience. I like to create. The first time I created a website was in computer science in high school using coding. That was very difficult actually but I enjoyed it because I got to learn something new.

Following the video that was posted it was a pretty easy process. At first I was a little confused then because I did not remember what to do then it  went and watched the videos for steps and it went pretty Smoove.

The next step is to get started on my design. Figure out what I am going to talk about. I have a couple of topics or ideas in mind. I don’t know if I’m going to focus on one topic or a couple.

After doing weeks of blog posts and even thinking up our own domain names (my website url: paperpig.net), we were finally given the opportunity to actually start up our very own websites! Because I wanted to make my website a personal design portfolio, I wanted the homepage to give off creative vibes, so I uploaded some of my favorite artwork as the background. Unfortunately, because I do not own this image, I will have to update it in the future, but I’ll most likely try to recreate something similar to create the same warm effect.

The very first thing I did after uploading a background image was creating the site’s identity. For the site’s title, I named it Paper Pig, and the tagline is Design Portfolio for Isaac Moon to briefly describe the core focus of my website. I also had a little fun and uploaded a silly logo to accompany my site title in the Google Chrome tabs.

Also, I managed to make my first blog post on my OWN website! I’m so happy with the capabilities of reclaim hosting.

Overall, I’m very happy with the beginnings of my new website. Even though there are many things that still need to be done, I can’t wait to learn more about developing our sites over the next few weeks! I’m overjoyed that I’ve finally hopped onto the Web Designer/Developer train.

Honestly, it was a little confusing at first, but then I watched the lecture’s recording and followed the steps as the professor was telling in the class. Finding my name gives me a hard time because the name I chose “Iqsa” was already taken, so I thought of some other names but none of them was working. I was just scrolling down on Instagram saw one makeup page name “killermonsta” so I tried and it worked. Otherwise the whole process was pretty simple and class recording really makes it easy.

 

The first ssingment I did in the Ds 106 Website is called “Apocalypse-terms of service” this assingment seemed pretty fun because I honestly never read terms of service, I feel like im not the only one who just ignores the terms of service, they might be interesting or not but is not like a lot of people find out about those.

so what I came up with was:

Terms of service

BY SIGNING BELOW YOU AGREE TO THE FOLLOWING TERMS AND CONDITION:

1-Anything is legal if you are to save yourself.                                                               2-If you see something you need you take it, no matter where is it or who has it.                                                                                                                                             3- All your bellongings must be protected by you, only you are responsible if your stuff gets stolen or destroyed.                                                                                  4-You can not steal from the person writing this terms and conditions.       5-you can not kill or hurt the person writing the terms and conditions either.                                                                                                                                          and most importantly:                                                                                                              -You choose me as supreme ruler of every living thing(not in an evil way, lol) and no you do not have a choice.

Have fun during the apocalypse!

So this was basically all I came up with, I got out of ideas in the middle of the assingment since I dont read Terms and conditions on anything so it got a little weird at the end but since no one reads terms and conditions I just feel like is ok to put that there.

 

Creating my website!

Yay me! I created my website!

So I really anticipated the fact that the domain name I choose may not be available and I must admit it was giving me a little bit of anxiety lol.

But alas! My first option was a hit!

My official website is aniqueryan.com

Ohh Yea!

The process after that was pretty simple and straight forward thanks to the instructions of professor Seslow.

The next step would be to customize my website and I’m pretty hyped about that idea.

My PostThe first assignment I will attempt to do is called “Places Of Peace” from the DS 106 website. Click Here for a deeper look into the assignment, also on the bottom there’s an image of how the assignment looks.

I used this to place my images into a collage , Heres what I got

The collage illustrate four images that brings me peace, The one on the top left hand corner is my boyfriend. He is literally my peace , he knows to how to calm me down when I am mad or comfort me when I am sad and he’s always there no matter what. On the right hand corner is money, making money is what brings me peace and prosperity and keeps me from being depressed. The image on the bottom left hand corner is food, something about food just makes me feel so peaceful and calm. Especially that first bite of food when it taste so delicious, it just an unforgettable feeling. last but not least is Islam, the word islam already signifies and aims for a peaceful society and I just feel so pure and connected with Allah.

The documentary The Internet’s own Boy: The story of Aaron Swartz was very interesting, this is my first time hearing about Aaron Swartz and about the brilliant things that he was apart of. He was an amazing person who accomplished a lot in his short life.

Aaron Swartz questioned the systems that the government has put in place, mostly the education system and the justice system. He believed that these systems were rigged and he worked to shed light on the injustice of it all.

There is a segment in the documentary where Aarron’s brother reads a section of one of his blogs entitled Guerrilla Open Access Manifesto. In this blog Aaron speaks of the injustice that occurs when information that was intended to be free is locked up by big corporations that intend to profit from them.

This bewildered me, I’ve been apart of this system as a student especially since I’m a Biology minor. I’ve worked on a Biology article that has been published but I’ve never really looked at the bigger picture as to the whole schematics of how my work would be accessed or who controls it because I merely did it as an assignment for my class. Now that I’ve take everything into consideration, I can’t help but feel take advantage of to a degree. This makes me appreciate what Aaron Swartz have done and I’m saddened by his shorten life and the failed system that brought that to being.

When I think of Aaron Swartz, I visualize him “going against the grain”. He didn’t give up in trying to change a system that he deemed unacceptable. He was a revolutionist in his own right. He brought about much change and he started a movement. Even in his death he is still encouraging change.

“He was the Internet’s own boy, and the old world killed him”.

Aaron Swartz went against the grain.

 

It’s time to pick a Domain name and as much as I’m excited about this, I’m equally anxious. I’m too indecisive when it comes to making decisions such as this.

What if I later hate the domain name I choose now?

What if I can’t create a domain name that I truly like?

Anywhoooo…..

Lets first talk about content. What would my website comprise of?

Well I’ve always wanted my very own website to showcase my creations and maybe someday sell them on thus website.

What creations you may ask?

I love to create on many artistic platforms; drawing, painting, crafts, photography. Currently I’m taking the Graphic design course and I’m in love.

Here is one of my favorite paintings that would mostly likely be shown on my website.

I would like my domain name to be my name so along the lines of;

aniqueryan

anique_ryan

However if that’s not possible then something such as;

aniquecreates

aniques_creations

 

For my second choice of the DS106 Assignment, I choose another Visual assignment.

This Combophoto assignment looked like it would be a bit amusing to complete and it was just that.

After brainstorming a few ideas I set out to acquire the two photos I would use to combine into one.

For my first choice; a bouquet of flowers.

And for my second choice; an ice-cream cone

After acquiring my two photos, I headed over to Photopea to edit and combine my photos.

I had to do a bit of cropping and resizing .Voila! 

Assignment complete!

It’s a bouquet of roses!…… It’s ice-cream!…… NO,It’s a bouquet of roses in an ice-cream cone!

 

 

 

I honestly feel like Reclaim Hosting set up is an easy set up just like others. My only issue that I’m still exporting and wondering if their is an easier way to figure out is uploading work to your server. After uploading it to a public server I should be able to have a functional URL with my domino name with the name of the assignment I uploaded to the sever. I never seem to get it 100% correct when uploading work.

This assignment first caught my eye because it is one that I have the skill to complete. It resembles one of the previous assignments for this class; Assignment 2: Gif reaction post, where we had to make a Gif reaction to how we feel about the class.

This is the second assignment that caught my eye. I’ve always wanted to learn how to edit pictures, well to be more specific, I’ve always wanted to become skilled in Photoshop. I found this assignment to be a bit challenging to complete. Nonetheless I did complete it, Yay!

First I went looking for my main picture, the back ground picture. I found this nice winter picture on Unsplash and then uploaded it onto Photopea.

After setting the scale of my picture so that it completly covers my work area I then set out to look for my “popstar”.

I then decided that I really don’t want a popstar. I thought that the use of a cartoon character would be much more amusing especially since there is a human in the picture that I choose.

After  brief brief contemplation, I decided that I would use a cartoon character that can be seen sunbathing as that would be the opposite of the wintery background.

I then uploaded my second picture onto Photopea and unfortunately it did not have a transparent background so I had to do some work. I must say that even thought I followed the steps that Professor Seslow showed in the recorded video it was still a bit challenging because I’m not versed in Photoshop.

After a bit of a struggle I was finally able to remove the white background from the second picture and was successfully able to complete the assignment as can be seen below.

The time has finally arrived! When I read reviews it did mention creation of your own site. And I must admit I have been patiently waiting for… light at the end of the tunnel 🙂

It’s all beginning to make sense, the assignments thus far has been preparing us to create a fun and interactive site. When I think about my domain name, the first thing comes to mind is RosepinC. It is a name that is very symbolic for me. I am a Breast cancer survivor and this name signifies my strength.

I overcame and rose beyond that was meant or could’ve killed me. The “pinc” stands for the type of cancer I have as most cancers are represented by colors, and I use the letter c instead of k for cancer.