First, my Flash Portfolio:
View the portfolio here.
A word of caution: a couple of the videos contain sound, so put your computer on mute if you don't want to hear them.
In this assignment, I had to create a web portfolio that showcased some of the various projects that I created in my Advanced Flash class. For the portfolio, not only did we have to pick out some of our various projects and create a webpage setting for them, but we had to make improvements of our choosing before putting them in the portfolio.
Most of the work that I did in my Advanced Flash class involved coding in Actionscript 3.0, which is a language similar to Javascript. The graphics on the stage are only a very small part of what's involved with making a Flash file. Most of the time spent making my Flash files was spent writing hundreds of lines of code (the music player had around 900) to tell the Flash movie how to function and what to do under various circumstances. This might sound tedious, but actually I think it's really fun and it's very gratifying to be able to create an entire program that operates under directions entirely created by me. And yes, this movie did come up during one of our Advanced Flash lectures:
What is Flash?
Flash is a plugin on your web browser that allows animated and interactive content to be placed on the page. For instance, Youtube videos are flash plugins. Flash used to be used for anything flashy or exciting that you might see on a webpage, such as a moving menu, etc.. However, with the creation of new technologies such as the HTML5 Canvas and it's lack of support on many mobile devices (flash can not be used on ipads and iphones), it is being used less for small things on websites or for entire websites, and more for intensive applications on one section of a webpage, such as online games, music players, video players, and photo galleries. The program used to create Flash files, Adobe Flash Professional, can also be used to create standalone software for desktop computers and mobile apps for phones and tablets.
Second, my Dreamweaver Project:
View the website at www.laurenkjonescello.com.
For this project, I had to create a website using the Adobe Dreamweaver software. The website I created is a site to showcase my skills as an electric cellist. I've been working on this one for a couple months and I've had a lot of fun with it. I even created a custom 404 Error page (The page that shows if you click on a link that doesn't exist. To see it, click here) and an RSS feed.
What is an RSS feed? (I'm feeling very informative today lol)
An RSS feed is a way for a website to syndicate it's content. For instance, if you have ten different websites you like to read on a weekly basis to get the news, you could subscribe to their RSS feeds and then see all of their articles in one place. Then you can quickly sift through which ones you want to read and decide whether or not you'd like to click the link on the article and read the whole thing on their site. This is really nice when you don't want to remember a bunch of web addresses or clutter your browser with lots of bookmarks. If a site produces an RSS feed, they will have a symbol on their site that looks something like this:
usually somewhere near their social media buttons. If you click on this symbol, it will usually take you to their RSS feed. All you need to do to subscribe is copy the web address of this RSS feed, search for it using your feed reader (I currently use Feedly) and then add the feed when your reader gives you the option. This really has nothing to do with the main theme of my post, but Adobe Max was this week. It's an event where Adobe, the makers of software such as Photoshop, Flash, Dreamweaver, InDesign, and Illustrator, discuss their newest upcoming products. This clip is from one of the keynote addresses. I thought it was particularly cool because they introduce some new designing hardware they're developing such as a drawing pen that stores your personal drawing preferences and files from device to device and an entire workstation mean for the magazine industry workflow. It's some pretty cool stuff and worth the watch! By the way, this video is embedded in this blog using Flash ;) .
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