Students have a choice to execute affiliate programs or banner ads on their project website.  Both are not required, just one. Extra marks will be given to those who choose to do both.

Affiliate Program

An affiliate program will be considered satisfactorily executed if the student has actually signed up and implemented an affiliate program on their site. I can easily tell if you’ve just stuck an advertisement on your site, rather than implementing a true program. Simply sticking an ad on your site that is not part of an affiliate program does not fulfill the requirement.

Banner Ad

The purpose of adding this option is because some have chosen website concepts that are not conducive to the advertising of competing websites or other distracting information. If you choose to do the banner ad option, there are some requirements that you must follow:

• You must design and implement ads in three (3) standard size formats.
• The design must be attractive in appearance, appropriate for the site and audience,  and well written.
• You must integrate the ads in your site layout.
• For extra grades, you should find another site willing to display your ad.

Note: Class 3 for Tues morning, section 7187 will be this week, Tues, Sept 15. For section 2288, Monday evening class, please be prepared for Mon, Sept 21.

So here are the instructions for this week’s class.  There are 4 important tasks you must accomplish before our next class (April 20/21).

1. Set up a WordPress blog on your project site, and select/implement a WordPress Theme. See the instructions on a separate post. (This doesn’t need to exist as part of your final project.)
2. Post a comment on an earlier blogpost I created  titled “Post Affiliate Programs You Find Here“. List at least 2 affiliate programs you are planning to use on your site, or ones that you found interesting. Describe how each works.
3. Download the quiz questions, and study for the test. Email me or post comments if you have any questions. I won’t give you the answers to the questions, but I will point you in the direction to find the answers. Perhaps your fellow classmates can help you figure it out with their comments
4. Build your class project site. When we return to classes after Spring Break, everyone is expected to have their site built. I will be teaching you things that will build upon a completed site.

Have a great break!

Layout of Article (you choose from the web).
The assignment should be a full article, with pictures, and captions. You should be creative with your design and layout. I expect you to have chosen the article by next class, and begun the design process.  Photoshop/Illustrator files appropriate during this phase.

Feel free to post questions here, or email me.

The Kionic Award for Most Promising New Web Designer, Fall 2008 goes to Rebeca Collazo.

http://www.rcollazo.com

The Kionic Award for Best Web Site, Fall 2008 goes to Yin Sham.

http://www.donsham.com/tak/index.php

UPDATE: 4/6/09— As part of the hybrid class, ADV3650 Spring 2009 students must post a comment listing and describing 2 affiliate programs they found and considered for their project site. Tell us how each works, the registration process, and the commission structure for the affiliate program.

• concept
• interface design, usability, and consistency of the brand
• type, layout, style, detail
• clean code
• skills learned in the course as they are implement on the site
• content development
• search engine optimization (SEO)
• traffic and analytics
• implementation of an affiliate program

1. Your topic will require quite a bit of content development. If you have spent time in the past writing or researching a topic, it is a good place to start.  We will be spending some time learning how to write content that is appropriate for readers of the web.
   What topics do you spend a lot of time talking to your friends about? Are there things that you talk about regularly, that inspire you, make your angry, or things you think about when you have time to yourself?
   Is there something personal, that you know through personal experience, that you can talk easily about? Think about your upbringing, your current responsibilities, past relationships, jobs. What gives you enjoyment, what are you willing to spend money on, complain and moan about, wish you had more time for, wish you did not have to do so much.
2. Every night, write down three possible topics, even if they are lame. And put them aside.
3. Spend some time on the internet and search for things that pop into your head.  Everything that you could imagine exists on there. Those sites will lead to other sites. Remember to make notes, and bookmark ones that interest you based on their design, or subject matter.
4. Take a notepad, and spend some time jotting down all the things that you do in a day, a week, a month, and year. You should be familiar with your topic, so it should be something that you think about often, and that you won’t be required to do very much research on.
5. Go out for a walk alone, speak to friends about this challenge, visit a museum, library, bookstore, write a letter to a friend and drop it in the mail.
6. Think about the things that define you as a person. Ask your friends and family what they think defines you as a person.

Remember, a good site is something that you have spent some time thinking about, and determining that you can easily write, design, and code. It will be quite a bit of work to get it right, so be sure that you give the topic a worthy amount of contemplation. It will pay off at the end of the course, and you will have something you can be proud of, to show to your friends, family, prospective employers.

The pics are from when we went down to our dog’s breeder to choose her and bring her back to NYC. The breeder is Pacific Hounds in Bridgewater, TX (north of Fort Worth) they mostly have harriers and beagles though they also have some foxhounds (both American and English) as well as a considerable number of bloodhounds which they run under their other business name HHP Bloodhounds.

First the gallery feature built into WordPress 2.6…

Notice that when you click on the images you’re taken to another page that just has a larger version of the image on it, and then when you click on the larger image you get the full size image.

Now lets try a nicer option from HuddleTogether.com (which is based on Script.aculo.us, follow the Huddle Together link for full instructions and downloads).

Be prepared at the next class, to present your site, and talk about it from the perspective of your design approach, how you built the site, and the technology challenges that you have encountered while building the site. Students will get into groups of 3-4, and present to that group. The students will write an assessment of each other’s projects, and these assessments will be handed in at the end of the class. This is an opportunity to see other student’s accomplishments. You should ask one another how to approach problems you may be having.

Midterms grades are being determined this week. For all the students who still have homework outstanding, please email me your homework by Friday, Oct 24.

The homework assignments to date, are as follows:

1. Written concept for website with affiliate program, register a domain name, sign up for hosting service.
2. 3 logo designs, 3 interface designs (look-and-feel) for site.
3. Site map, 3 pages of written copy for site, with keywords pulled out into a list. Choose and finish one final design.
4. Build and publish live 3 pages from site, including the main navigation. Site pages should be linked. Each page should have content filled in, and each page should have a different title.
5. Exercise: create one page using CSS learned in class. Must choose 2 from:
   inline style, embedded style, linked style. Must choose 2 from child selector, sibling selector, class selector, contextual class selector, grouped rule. And 1 ID. Please email the homework as a link to a live page.

If you have any questions, please email me, and put “question” in the subject line.

Feel free to post questions here, in the comments section.  However, if your question is related to homework due for the next class, please email me instead.