Monday, May 20, 2013

Technology Is Hard- A Final Post

Hi, members of Team Technology-Inept! This is my final blog posting. 

(To my professor, I apologize for the hour.)

To everyone else- I was told something really smart on our last day of classes. I was told, "in life there are three inevitable things- death, taxes, and technical difficulties." And can I tell you, technical difficulties happened to me today! To the extreme! My computer will certainly be taking a visit to the Apple store tomorrow so it can be saved. EVERY SINGLE TIME I attempted to use the internet longer than a few seconds, it shut itself down. Which is obviously problematic when you're attempting to upload the finishing touches onto your website, which is meant to be all about technology. BLARGH!

But me and my Team Technology-Inept self figured it out. And you know what they say- better late than never, right? 

So this post is really about wrapping it up, and I think the best way for me to do that is to share with you some of the fantastic websites of my classmates so you can check us out, and also to talk about all the stuff I learned. 

Without further ado, my three favorite websites!

1) Spencer's Website
The reason I like Spencer's website is twofold- I love his images page, and I also love his music page. The image on his page is just really freaking awesome, so naturally that's the reason I like that. I would have never guessed that was a mushroom! The music page is cool mostly because you can actually hear Spencer playing! He's a wonderful trombone player, and I just think it's really bold and cool to put your own music up. It sounds silly, but it's hard, people! It's hard to put yourself out there! 

2) Juan's Website
The reason- his concrete music composition is AMAZING! I would NEVER have guessed in a thousand years that all of those sounds he included in his piece are all from the same 37 second clip of a garbage truck. I am amazed, and impressed, and the next time I write a play about an alien invasion, I will most certainly be using this piece in my design. Please go check out the page right now! PS, while you're there, visit his movies page! That's also incredible!

3) Colin's Website
If you thought I wouldn't get down with some sweet bluegrass, you were sorely mistaken. If you head over to Colin's music page, you'll here the dulcet sounds of a finger picking genius, Brian Sutton. I'm jamming to it right now. I also find his homepage deeply entertaining, and who doesn't like emus? Colin also created a phenomenal concrete music piece; it's a glorious piece of percussion that once began life as a heater in a a school stairwell. Crazy, right!?

Clearly there are things to love about all of my classmates' websites, so feel free to visit them all! 

And of course, mine!

The things I learned. Goodness. I learned so much.

This sounds sappy, yet true. I'm an honest person, and I'm not the kind to go on and on about a teacher just because. Let me tell you, though, how much I learned. I still consider myself a member of Team Technology-Inept, for sure. There's a lot of stuff that I don't know how to do. But yesterday, I was working on my own personal website, and I was amazed at how much I was able to improve just based on the simple things we learned in class. (Okay some of them were HARD, not simple!) I don't think I learned an immense volume of things, but what I was able to do with the few things I learned is crazy. Check out my website if you don't believe me. That thing was hard to put together, and frustrating as all get out, and I am beyond proud of all of the work that I did. I can firmly say that everything on that website, I put there from scratch, when before there was only a blank white page. I feel confident in working with a bunch of different programs (confident that I won't completely ruin everything and that I'll eventually create what I wanted to). And this is a huge deal. Anyone else who is a member of Team Technology-Inept, you know what I mean. You know what it's like to be confused on Facebook. So the fact that I made a website?

BOOM.

Technology is Hard- The iMovie Edition

So yes.

iMovie. The most exciting way to make movies on a Mac with zero experience and lots of drive.
And lots of time on your hands.

I mean really. A lot of time.

Have I mentioned that making ANYTHING in iMovie is DEEPLY time consuming?

As a proud member of Team Technology-Inept, I will admit that I have tackled iMovie more than once. Usually this tackling occurs when I realize I have to send in some film footage of me doing anything, usually for some fitness certification. (I'm looking at you, willPower&grace.) So I blunder my way into iMovie, ready for a quick, 10 minute process that becomes 3 hours of soul sucking my life away.

It's not ideal.

So when I discovered we were to create an iMovie for this class, I nearly cried. At least one single, solitary tear came out. And I felt really, deeply broken on the inside.

So this is my rant about iMovie.
First- what's with the thumbnails, people? EVERY TIME I open iMovie it has to make thumbnails of all of my pictures, which takes FOREVER and a day, and by the time it's finished doing that, I've lost all of my will to live, let alone any kind of desire to make any kind of video.

Second- BLARGH! That's just the sound that I make whenever iMovie closes for no reason.

Third- Finalizing the video. Again, it takes hours. Should a 3 minute video take 35 minutes to finalize? Apparently. Apparently.

Fourth- Transitions. Now I don't mind a lovely fade in every once in a while, but the mere presence of all of those transition possibilities guilts me into thinking that I have to transition between each one of my photos. And if you want to see this guilt in action, I'd be happy to show you. Just check out my website, here!

Finally- it takes iMovie forever to open, it takes it forever to move photos. Maybe this is really a notification that my computer should be cleaned out because it shouldn't take forever to do anything, but for reals I spent 3 hours on this movie page, when it shouldn't have taken that long. And if it should, then I don't like making movies that much. So there.

Disclaimer: I will say that this member of Team Technology-Inept was able to do a whole bunch of things that she never believed she could do, and therefore iMovie must be particularly user friendly. I'm NOT going to assume that I actually know anything about technology. That's silly.

Technology Is Hard- But Apparently Not Making Final Presentations

So normally I'd be talking to you about how much technology is super hard, because it is. And I've got a rant about iMovie coming your way. But this post is more like kuddos to all of my friends in my Technology Resources class. Because they were all awesome!

Everyone created these fantastic final presentations that involved filming icebreakers and playing games, composing original music and uploading the scores for download, creating multimedia theatrical experiences, filming their own versions of popular tv shows, and my group- we created a vlog/photodiary of NYC.

And everyone did such a great job!

I remember in the beginning of the semester, a whole bunch of us raised our hands and accepted our lot on Team Technology-Inept. And yet we made these fantastic things!!!!

Props, people. Props.