Done!

It feels so good to be done with our project!


After many long hours and much hard work, the application is now working on Facebook. We used AppJet as our server and primary text editor with the following languages:
HTML: the backbone of our program
FBML: facebook mark-up language for already existing tags
Javascript: for functions (pages within canvas page, information in the profile box)
CSS: to style

Resources:
Facebook Developers Wiki
AppJet Docs
Google searches
TA
classmates

New idea!

So yesterday when we had our meeting in CSB 115, we started out trying to figure out how to hack into facebook so that we could change the colors and style of individual facebook pages. After looking at AppJet.com and the Facebook developers page, we decided that we could think of a project that would be more suitable for Facebook's regulations. We brainstormed a couple ideas, including games and weather reports, but finally decided on our new application.

In my first year of college, my roommate would collect Snapple bottle caps for the fun facts found on the bottom of the Snapple top. She would tape them up to the wall, and if she found one that she thought was funny or appropriate for me, she would give them to me to tape onto my side of the wall. This was our inspiration for our application, TopsBottom.

It will show fun facts, such as "a Goldfish's attention span is 3 seconds", on an icon similar to Snapple's glass bottle lids. The user will be able to select which factoid he/she wants to give to his/her friends or keep to display on his/her own profile. The idea is similar to other facebook applications, such as the gifts or bumper stickers. I'm excited :)

The start of Spice Market

This week my group met up on Wednesday for our first official meeting. After some talk throughout the previous class periods, we decided to work with Facebook and make an application that would allow the user to change his/her Facebook colors and styles. This seemed usable to the average college student, and something that we would be interested in having. We did a little more brainstorming and planned out a tentative schedule for the rest of the quarter. It was reassuring to discover that the other two girls on my team had similar goals and work habits as myself, which should hopefully make our final project run much more smoothly.

We presented our project to the class on Thursday, only to get a reality check from the class feedback that the project might not be as easy or plausible as we anticipated due to the complexity and legalities of the Facebook language. Though slightly discouraged, we agreed to still attempt working with our original idea, understanding that it might not be exactly what we had hoped for but looking at it as a learning experience.

Firebug=lifesaver

i would be even more lost than i already was on figuring out javascript without firebug. firebug made it a lot easier for me to identify my mistakes. after writing so much code, it can be easy to not see your own mistakes. firebug is a new set of eyes who knows how to fix the problem. firebug is my new friend and my lifesaver.

firebug made it especially helpful to work with another person.. it made it easier for us to both understand where and what the problem was in the coding. one of my classmates was getting frustrated with her javascript code, so she sent it over to me and told me which line that firebug told her was wrong. this made it easier for us to narrow down the problem to a specific line, and take it apart til we got it right!

i'm tired now after finally completing and sending in such an exhasting, yet rewarding, assignment. i'm going to call it a night.

Assignment 2:CSS

I really enjoyed using CSS for my website. It made much more sense to change the formatting with one universal style sheet instead of having to go through each individual HTML document to repeatedly change the same style alterations. Plus, the way CSS is written seems much more basic and easy to understand than the codes for HTML.

IDs such as ul id="Navigation" are used when there is only one occurence on a page. However, I would want to use CSS classes such as ul class= "Navigation" when there are one or more occurences per page.

Week 1

This first week of Cogs 121 was a nice introduction to the course. The Tuesday lecture was informative and reassuring for me, especially since I do not have much programming experience and was afraid that it would affect my learning experience. After reviewing some history of the internet, I concluded the take home message of that lecture to be that technology is continually changing and it is not any specific programming language that is crucial to learn, but more importantly it is to be aware of the rapid evolution of technology and to understand how to approach it.

The thursday lecture more focused on the "calculation model of computation" metaphor and paradigm, which i becoming a less viable metaphor in recent times with newer technologies, such as the world wide web. Now, the new model is computation as interaction, with the utilization of the modern G.U.I. (event driven programming, widgets, & interactor tree). The lecture capped off with some background history of Tim Berners Lee and his creation, the internet, and other people that influenced him.

Since then, I have started my website that is due on Thursday. I downloaded firefox and firebug, and went through a couple of the tutorials on HTML. Since I am not confident in programming, it took me a while to get started. I'm finally getting the hang of it.. and my project is a work in progress. I'm doing a website for my sorority, which makes it even more fun for me.

I also have tentative group partners for the final project, and I am still brainstorming for what we could use for our content.

testing 1,2,3..

just testing out my NEW BLOG for cogs 121! :D