Wednesday, October 8, 2003 Blogging, FTP, and Basic Imaging
Blogging—the tool
http://www.blogger.com

Set up a blog.
Keep track of:
Username:
Password:
Blogname & url:
Try blogging your notes today in class. Our discussions indicate there is confusion between the tool to blog and the way the tool is being used. We will have some readings from the Nieman Foundation about the growing role of blog, the publishing tool, in Journalism. Keep in mind that other blogging software allows you to get comments and additions to your blog from viewer/users. Writing interactively can be as silly as a chatroom, but it can also represent a new kind of narrative, one which grips readers’ interest.

FTP & our place in Cyberspace
Once you make a web page, how to put it onto the Internet so all the virtual world can see it? Well, like the way you saved your initial web pages to a location on your own computer (or on a storage medium of some kind) you logon (connect) to a computer called a “server”, locate your folder or directory on that server, establish your identity with a logon and password, and then you use the PROTOCOL of FTP or file transfer protocol, to upload (put) or download (get) files from where you are in time and space to your storage space on the server. Note that the server may be anywhere in the cyber universe.
Our server is called “nexus.colum.edu”
Our username (for everyone in class) is “reporter”
Our password is:
Your directory or folder in our website is called:

Our website for class will be found at:
http://nexus.colum.edu/class/online
"To upload your files".

When designing your pages, you have to name your main home page "index.html". As UNIX, the computer language we use, is cAsE-SeNSiTivE, please be sure not to name your file Index.html or INDEX.HTML.
If your Web page development program limits you to a 3 letter file extension, make sure to rename your index.htm file to index.html after you upload it. Use the rename command in your FTP program. You will notice that when you login(ftp) to your account that an index.html file already exist, just replace it with your own.

"How do I upload and what's FTP?"

FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is what you use to transfer files from your computer to your Web site, which resides on our machine. An FTP program will allow you to upload files. Uploading is the process of putting files from your machine onto another. (The process of getting files from another machine to yours is called downloading.) Most Macs and PC's in the Academic Computing department will have Fetch (Mac) or FTPworks (PC) ftp clients.
If you do not already have an ftp client, you can get an FTP program from:
Mac users: http://fetchsoftworks.com
PC users: http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/
(NOTE: When we start using Dreamweaver, the FTP client is built into that program.)
To upload your files, connect to the Internet and start your FTP program. It will require the following information:
Host: nexus.colum.edu <-- Where your documents are kept
Username: <-- Your username
Password: <4news> <-- password
Your workspace: your directory we set up today
Use your FTP program to connect to nexus.colum.edu. Once you've entered your username and password, you will be put into your personal or class directory on our ftp server. Now all you need to do is upload web documents using your FTP program. Since different programs have different procedures for uploading, I suggest you read the Help section (usually found by clicking on the "Help" menu option in the menu bar) to see the particular setup and operation of your program. Make sure you select "Raw Data" (Macintosh) or "Binary" (PC) when uploading data files such as pictures or sound files. When uploading text files such as HTML or imagemap (.map) files, you should
select the "Text-only" or "ASCII" setting.

NOTE: By using your ftp/web space you have agreed to certain Terms and Conditions and are bound by the limitations as set down by the Academic Computing department.

Images

Be sure you have a list of the free workshops offered by Academic Computing and by Interactive Multimedia and attend as many as you can.
Image basics for our class are a simplification of all the possibilities of imaging on a computer. There are many ways to accomplish imaging tasks, so use ones that you find work for you.
Where do you get images? You can capture images from digital cameras, digital video (frame captures), scanning in photos or drawings, or by downloading images from the Internet. All images for use on Internet must be in either .jpg or .gif format (note this is for still images.) The resolution of these images never needs to be greater than screen resolution, which is no more than about 92 dpi (dots per inch.)
When you capture an image, the first thing you do is size it for the webpage. Since a typical web page is 600 by 800 pixels, your images are sized accordingly.
Open photoshop
Open your image
Under the “Help” menu, click the resize command
Choose online
Set your image size
Finish and try the unsharp mask under the “Filter” menu
Use “Image” “Adjustments” tools as needed
Save for web…
Set up for 4 views
Text for .gif or .jpg
Save and keep track to where you saved the image, and what its extension is.

References and tutorial help at:our class site under the entries for 10/8/03