I took a snapshot of my contribution to Wikipedia just in case it is taken down. I chose to revise and add more information about my native popular dish–Pho. There has been much debate on what constitutes this main dish and the styles that it may vary from location. Since my mom is from North Vietnam and my father is from the South, I was educated on the differences of Pho according to regions.

What I contributed was small but precise. I just explained the differences in meat-based Pho broth and chicken-based Pho broth including the differences in side dishes when going to a Korean owned Pho restaurant. Chicken-based Pho broth takes a much shorter time to cook compared to the meat-based since the meat-based broth has to soak in. Since I live close to Koreatown, I also see the differences in taste and cultural activity. Koreans like their Pho much more spicy. Almost 95% of Pho restaurants in California use thin noodles for their Pho because it is a Southern style everyone adopted to. Near the end of the “Styles of pho” section, I edited the detail that egg noodles and fat rice noodles are usually used in Northern Vietnam.

| View | Upload your own

I feel I have reached my full-circle goal of this course in that I have found a tool that would have helped me tremendously with this upper division technology course. There wasn’t much I could explain visually about this application but just the basics.

On the first information slide is just the background information about the application. There wasn’t much background, only on who created it and how many versions they’ve came out with. They also have a blog connected to the Scribefire.com site to talk about updates. This is an add-on from Firefox so most of the background is about Firefox.

The following slides are just my own commentary on why this application is good for what we’ve learned throughout the class. The discussion continues to why it helps my practice and how it is a very convenient tool for this class if they released the application earlier.

On the next few slides, I go on to explain the process of using the application in the first few seatings. For example, when stumbling on a page, how to instantly start blogging without leaving the page. There are also modes of saving the content and continuing later or simply just publishing the post directly on your blog. I then proceed to talk about the more detailed tools that can be useful to blogging practices. Such tools are being acquainted with the social bookmarking techniques we learned in class and sharing it with other people or just simply bookmarking technques using ScribeFire.

I end the slide with some commentary on how it could be a useful tool for people in the class to continue writing their blogs and how I’m sure Christopher Finke will work to make this application even more better than it already is.

| View | Upload your own

I don’t have that much of a short attention span, but I’m positive I don’t have much of a long attention span. This slide created for JISC Next Generation Environments Conference, 2008, is a short and sweet presentation that gets the idea across. The powerpoint isn’t too text heavy or too picture heavy. On each slide there is no more than a sentence to really reflect the the message. With the message, there is no more than one picture to represent the message or add humor to the message.

What I’ve notice by browsing all the slides is that most of these major companies have high resolution images for their powerpoints which makes everything visually pleasing. What I’ve also noticed is that with most of the slides, they also create light opacity text boxes to write their texts. This technique makes text easier to read when it is accompanied by an image. This slide has all of these elements, thus making it easy to follow and making it an attention grabber.

What struck most of my interest with this powerpoint is that the message it correlated with this course. This course has really put technology as an important aspect in my life. The powerpoint reflects on how important it is to try and adapt the the changes in new technology. The slides help keep a positive light on technology and to encourage adaptation of technology in ones life. Afterall, the subtitle of the powerpoint says “Institutional & Individual Responses to Emerging Technologies” The message is important and clearly conveyed across 21 slides. I give this powerpoint a triple thumbs up.

The purpose of most Mozilla Firefox add-on’s is to make things easy and functional for most non tech-savvy individuals. The ScribeFire add-on is as easy as their other applications. The best thing about using this add-on is that I don’t have to register for any account or subscription–it is a simple add and download.

To get started, visit ScribeFire.com and simply click on download now. Once the download is complete, a little yellow paper icon will appear on the bottom left corner of the browser. Click the icon and you will see the application pop-up onto your browser. Like I mentioned, there is no registration process. However, when first using this application, you have to put in the information of your blog (username, password and blog site). This will locate all the information from your blog and load it into the ScribeFire application.

Once everything is loaded, the beauty of ScribFire will appear. On the right tabs, you will see the list of your entries including other useful tools. On the main screen on the right of the tabs, is the area where you can blog. Just like Firefox, this application works as tabs, which makes it convenient to save notes and entries you wish to write about when you’re browsing.

To start an entry, click on the icon to the top left corner as shown below. Here you will see the tab shown below with a title as “blank” to rename this, simply click on title field of the entry and name it. After naming this, you can simply start writing your entry in the field below.

The best thing that makes ScribeFire unique is that you can drag text and pictures into your entry field. There is no need to click from tab to tab or using copy and paste, the application reads the pictures and text immediately. If you want to save and continue writing later, you can just Save as Note and it will be saved on your tool bar on the right. If you want to publish this, you can simply click Publish blog name

ScribeFire will save your entries in the Notes section for you to be able to work with after. There is also the Posts tab in which you can view all the posts you’ve posted on your blog. Depending on your action, ScribeFire will save that action in their organized Entries tab.

The simple part of the entry process is done, to add more sass to your blog, ScribeFire provides a wide variety of tools to make your blogging experience easier such as a YouTube button and Flikr button to directly link you to embed images and videos. What makes this even better is that if you are logged on to your Blog site, ScribeFire automatically installs a toolbar on top of your browser to add Flikr, YouTube, Upload an Image, add a link and/or add a quote automatically.

Beyond the entry tools, there are tools in which you can share your entries or store them for later reference. The Save as Note button is a quick way to save your entries, but ScribeFire also has the option of bookmarking the page through del.icio.us as shown here. You can also share the entries with other services such as Facebook, Fark and Newsvine. This makes blogging more convenient and organized so you can’t lose the information you want to write about. Through ScribeFire, you can mark tags, notes and descriptions for your entry on del.icio.us instantaneously. On the Pagetools tab, you can find information about the website you’re looking at. Here they will give you the basic information about the site and what Technorati can provide for the website.

Overall, ScribeFire makes blogging an experience that is community based. Everything is convenient and like most bloggers, ScribeFire is connected all other social bookmarking sites that can help you promote your blog along with sharing it with your network.

Wendy Lam’s Nitrolicious.com

Kitsunenoir.com — Bobby S.

Hello Art World and Beyond!

Motorola crosses with the Academy Awards, H&M merges with Cavalli, Vans with Varvatos, Fossil watches with Gehry. Welcome to the world of “x”–the world of crossing effects in art and commerce. In this blog, I will be talking about how brand names are now collaborating with artists and/or other brands to be able to gain more revenue for their company. There is also the emergence of high-end and street fashion that has been popping up in daily conversations. This trend has becoming very popular with major companies and I’m here to inform and talk about the latest scoop. The purpose is to update as frequently as possible (as the trends may die) and to find what’s new and what everyone is talking about let alone contextualize how it might effect the political, social and most importantly, economic climate.

One major sneaker company Vans, has collaborations with artists like Iron Maiden and Converse with John Varvatos, etc. Others merge with electronics like the iPhone with AT&T. However, there are often times other brands don’t collaborate solely for revenue, but to gain a certain status as a company. LG with Prada and D&G with Motorola exemplifies how a necessary object becomes a superficial object. There will be much mentioning on clothing brands, architecture, graphic artists, photographers and many other art mediums that I consider art (music, film, etc.) Many of my sources will be coming from a wide array of sites:

Hypebeast
This site usually has updates about the urban and streetwear culture.

Kitsunenoir
One of my favorite sites about art, design, and culture with a more sophisticated splash.

Notcot
This site has more updates on electronic collaboration and higher end fashion.

Nitro:licious
Fashion for the female eye.

My blog will be discussing why a certain company chose a particular artist to represent them and how it may be effecting culture and/or other competitors. I hope you all enjoy the following posts and consider the moving effects of a companies’ emergence into the art world.

X’s over O’s

B.N.

Wendy Lam’s Nitrolicious.com

Don’t be fooled by the playful name, nitrolicious.com is a site filled with the most up-to-date and sophisticated articles about fashion, culture, art, and entertainment. The writer for this blog, Wendy Lam, has been noted in Paris Vogue and Monday Magazine in Hong Kong. During Fall, Spring, or Summer RTW (Ready-to-Wear) or Fashion week, her postings are explosive including the months of January when companies begin to announce their campaign launches. Like many art and culture enthusiasts, Wendy Lam, aka retrogurl, lives in New York and bases her post around the New York/Manhattan area. However, her posts are not limited to the New York scene, but include metropolitan cities also. Her best posts are usually her thorough explanations of Target and their emergence with other higher end brands. One example is her Converse x Target collaboration:

Converse for Target

Iconic eyelet grommets and half-moon details adorn pieces in the collection, calling attention to the brand’s signature style and vintage vibe. Varsity jackets, knit jersey tanks and fitted Henleys cater to the easygoing tomboy while A-line tunics and lace-trim camisoles in flirty fabrics and subdued shades appeal to the style-conscious woman. For summer, mixing the shine of silk with matte jersey fabrics on everyday pieces creates exciting ways to dress up a weary wardrobe.

Her descriptions are well planned, using a wealth of vocabulary to explain details of the subject matter. She also puts the subjects in context of season, then proceeds to discuss fabric, design, etc. Even though my blog won’t be exclusively mentioning fashion, Lam supplies me with great up-to-date and detailed postings of her subjects that I would like to model my blog after. She also gives helpful links from her posts for me to be able to research more about the subject if I like. Also, she links to other related articles in her blog that might interest the viewer. In her most recent Stella McCartney for Adidas post, she adds multiple links at the bottom of the post that take the reader to her previous posts that mention Stella McCartney’s collaborations with clothing items for Adidas.

I believe she writes academically and professionally, considering the vocabulary she uses. Even though Lam may use blog slang like “more pics after the jump,” she still maintains a professional writing structure as if she were writing for a published magazine. She set sets a great example for bloggers to write professionally and accurately about their subject. Her great background knowledge and context of subjects makes her a credible person to reference.

Another example of her detailed post is:

Michael Jordan Air Jordan XX3

In this reading she discusses the new Air Jordan XX3’s. This item has been an ongoing collaboration with Nike and Michael Jordan and has elevated it’s status from a regular shoe, to a collectible over the past decade. Lam discusses the special features of the shoe, it’s context, a detailed description and how Nike took part of this collaboration. This is very helpful because it provides me with a structure I would like to follow for my blog. Some people may not take certain fashion collaboration or other artists collaborations serious, but her writing style and etiquette proves that it should be taken seriously. This extensive posts also displays her great blog etiquette in research to gain more credibility.

One thing I am not particularly fond of is her layout of advertisements. This makes me wonder if she writes solely about her interests or through advertisements. The layout gets confusing because there are too many links that lead to too many different pages. I think it’s a great way to organize her material, but I feel it could also be condensed to become easier to browse. At first glance, it looks like an overdone Myspace page with too many vibrant colors and distractions.

Lam also structures her most important posts much like a journalist. I believe she receives press releases from public relation companies and works her posts through the information given to her. Her audience are much the same as people who read the magazines of Vogue and other fashion magazines. Visually, the site appeals mostly toward woman, and to my knowledge would most likely interest a crowd that lives in New York City. However, I find this helpful because I find New York as the capital of commerce that is more frequently updated with art and fashion than Los Angeles. Being a native of New York, she enriches her posts with a lot of urban culture influence like sneakers and street wear brands. Lam doesn’t limit herself to only high fashion posts, but shows her well-rounded character by covering haute couture and street wear products that wouldn’t otherwise be juxtaposed in other exclusively high-fashion blogs or street wear blogs.

Her style of writing and subjects is the direction I would like to model my blog. Her writing is sophisticate yet personal to the audience. In her posts, she writes objectively about the subject, then highlights her thoughts and comments about the subject she is discussing. The difference between her blog and mine is that I would like to cover more underground artists emerging with bigger brands. Lam covers mostly women’s street wear and high fashion, but I will be covering electronics, architecture and design news. My focus would be more in the art world and seeing the development in that realm.

 Kitunenoir.com — Bobby S.

The term “kitsune” comes from the Japanese language referring to a fox that possess a wealth in knowledge and wisdom. As for “noir” it always possess an artistic connotation. Put these two together, the title “Kitsunenoir” personifies the character of this blog. Bobby S.’s blog contains a nice layout, simple and clean format, personalize yet professional writing, and no obnoxious advertisements. His posts are detailed and simple to follow for anyone who stumbles on his page. Bobby makes clear and concise posts about his subjects and explains his subjects thoroughly so anyone could understand– not just any art and culture enthusiast. Most of his posts pertain to visual design by well-known and unknown artists but are not limited to product design and entertainment.

Like Andrew Sullivan, Bobby S. has short entries in which you could sense his style and brevity. The short posts show his very casual personality and art enthusiasm but also keeping his writing professional. He also adds humor occasionally to display his interest in a certain product release or art piece. An example of this is through his USB-stylist Friends with You post.

In the beginning of the post, he introduces the collaboration of Mimobots with Friends With You! and then expresses how he thinks how this might not be useful to him. However, I like how he is sarcastic with his diction and phrases because it provides his blog with a personal voice,

“Sure they’re cute, but personally I don’t need to carry around a tiny action figure friend to keep my files on…But I’ve been in love with Friends With You forever it feels like, so I’d be much more inclined to buy one.”

He interrupts his sentences with “personally” and “feels like” to really personalize his posts.

In another post about China’s “Water Cube”, his layout of pictures are pleasing to the eye. He formats with a big picture on the top of the canvas, and fills the bottom with detailed pictures on the bottom. All his images are well touched and formatted. The layout is very clean and proportional, which makes it more pleasing to the eye. Like his other posts, he states the facts in the first paragraph. He introduces the who, what, when, why, and how of the post. He immediately follows the introductory paragraph with his opinion and own knowledge:

I think the soap bubble structure looks really great, but like article states, the bubbles need some scrubbing to get all of the construction grit and grime off it before it’ll shine…I just hope that they get the rest of the grounds in shape before August, because in the pictures above, it looks kind of gray and scary. Hopefully the next few months will give them all the time they need.

His sentences are short, dynamic, and to the point; something I’ve wanted to develop as a writer. Bobby S. also avoids using “I” too much in his blog and doesn’t start off many sentences with “I”. This shows his writing style to be creative and also personifying his character.

Since Bobby S. is from Los Angeles, he also incorporates his life into his posts. Many of them are about certain art or advertisements he comes across or stores he finds appealing to his blog. This keeps the blog at a personal level and creates a sense of identity for the art in L.A. An example of this is in his entry “Affinity Pursuit Bike”One thing admirable about this post is that he is very honest about his knowledge of bikes. Bobby doesn’t try too hard to act like he knows anything about bikes, but he inputs his knowledge about the design. This really depicts his complete persona: living in a L.A. and a great appreciator of good, clean design.

Continuing with the clean layout and structure, I also admire that he doesn’t link his entry to too many things. I’ve read blogs before in which the blogger links to almost everything they mention, and it starts to bother me after awhile because I feel like there is too much information. Like I said before, the layout of the site makes it easy to read and maneuver. His blogroll, which he labels “Daily Sites”, on the side has always been helpful and easy to use. It’s always convenient when bloggers put links that open a new window, rather than having the link pop up on the same window. The neutral colors really have a good ease on my eyes including the nice touch of purple on the blog headings and comments. Compared to nitrolicious blog, the colors are much more professional. One small thing I always found aesthetically pleasing is that he has a fixed background when you scroll through posts, this makes it easier to look through. Bobby S. also recently added tabs with “About, Contact, Advertise, RSS and search” that wasn’t there before. This makes it easy for any reader to find out what his blog is about before they get into the readings.

Ultimately, Kitsunenoir is a blog that contains knowledgeable content and aesthetically pleasing layouts that are very presentable to the art and culture enthusiast. His character and personalized post make the blog luminous amongst the many blogs I’ve cruised through.

The best part about ScribeFire is the fact that I’m writing this entry while simultaneously having the ScribeFire page opened on my browser.
Forget the crazy clicking and trying to figure out all the tabs I’m going through browsing — ScribeFire lives right on my browser so I don’t have to click back and forth through tabs. I no longer have to copy and paste my entries, I can just select and drop (this is the same for images too!)

This makes blogging much less laborious and much faster to communicate ideas and thoughts. The application directly links to my Wordpress account and lists all the entries I have to be able to edit. If you have more than one blog, it could load multiple blogs also! Just like Zotero, another Mozilla add-on, there is an icon at the bottom right of my browser. If I ever stumble upon something striking or interesting and have the urge to write about it, I simply click the icon and create a new entry or a note. I can also simply press F8 (fn+F8 for Mac users) if I want to start a new post or note. This entry will then save as a draft or note for me to get back to later.

Other features include the same tools that edublogs use for their entries. This makes formatting easy for me and adding visuals more convenient. They even have a YouTube and Flikr tool icon!

The application also has other icons that Edublogs doesn’t have like wrapping texts for pictures. I could wrap justified left or justified right to make my blog aesthetically wonderful.

This is great for my discipline because I read a variety of blog articles daily and I don’t have the patience to put in the energy to load up my edublogs site. It always bothered me to flip back and forth to make reference to topics, but having the ScribeFire icon on the bottom corner makes it more available. Ironically, I found this application through reading the Kitsunenoir blogsite. Keeping up with blogging is hard–let alone the art and culture field I am interested in. I need to writing about the subjects immediately before they die out. If I communicate the art and culture news faster, my blog will gain more authority and more popularity. Having this application is wonderful for my practice because it increases the amount of posts on my blogsite.

Every time I venture into the Web 2.0 world, I find more and more ways to shortcut my habits to make things less complicated. I can accomplish much more and find application to contain all the good content I find. The best of this all is making visual representation easier. ScribFire helps me exemplify my enthusiasm for the content I find by providing a vehicle for me to present my enthusiasm. Being that I am also a person with short attention span, I am easily distracted by links and pictures. ScribeFire also has tabbed editing for different post topics so I can open multiple posts or notes at the same time. There are also ways for me to share my posts through del.icio.us and other social bookmarking sites.

The only negative thing about this application is that it doesn’t live on the web and cannot be saved and opened from any computer. However, if you start the draft on your blogs website, ScribeFire will pick it up and permanently save it on the web application the next time you install the add-on on a different computer. If someone were to start a blog post from the application, the post won’t be able to live on the web, only on your personal computer.

The website seems to indicate that the application was produced around July 2007 by creater Christopher Finke. ScribeFire1.4.1 was released with different options than the 2.0 I am using now. As time progressed, 1.4.2 – 1.4.8 was released, reaching 2.0 yesterday. Looking at the blog for the site, they seem to progressive effectively to improve the program. They rely on user feedback which creates a brighter future for this application.

So I changed my mind, maybe Searchme is good for just simple searches, but the BAAGZ application is where the fun and organization comes in. I’m a major fan of Pageflakes, because it’s a great way to organize updates and RSS feeds. As I mentioned before, I’m a very visual learner and thus makig BAAGZ one of my favorite applications.

The application allows me to manage and organize my web content in a very personal and aesthetically pleasing way. The agenda of the program is to be able to:

BAAGZ is designed to allow you to discover content on the Web and organize it through customized, visual bookmarks. More important, BAAGZ fosters a collaborative environment where you can connect with others on the Web who share similar interests – whether it be hobbies, travel, music or news –and enhance this content with new ideas, in effect contributing to the expansion of the Web.

The application came out Fall 2007 from the French Web and enterprise search company Exalead has worked from Private Beta to Public Beta over the year. (newsleak.infotoday.com) It claims to be ‘the first service to bring together semantic search and social networking in a powerful, yet simple, consumer-friendly experience.’ This is another social networking site made for people and ran by people. I personally use it as a private tool because the user base is small. Like Pageflakes, I am able to make things public of private. The search bar is what makes it unique and available to bookmark easily through one click.

What makes it different from other applications is that you can place your favorite Youtube videos and play it on one of your bags. It’s easy to organize your interests like News, Fitness and Art. Another favorite part of the application is that every time I copy a link into a bag, it takes a screen capture of the website.

In a world of digital technology, we get more impatient about pages loading and realizing it’s not what we’re looking for. Having been familiar with Avid computers, I always loved browsing the Internet with two desktop screens — it just makes things easier. What I’ve found that can closely resemble my fish eye browsing techniques is the Searchme tool.

What this search engine basically does is that it visually display the pages in our search. For example if I search “art toys” I could visually see the search results that come up without any non-office friendly surprises. Hence their slogan “You’ll know it, when you see it”. Like the iTunes album browser, the horizontal scroll bar helps browse through pages with miniature previews so I wouldn’t have to waste my time on clicking and closing or clicking and back tracking. What I search– I will see, there is no time wasted. This search engine makes what I’m looking for… literally, what I’m looking for.

Just like Google, I can search whatever I’m looking for under categories, which also makes it super convenient. But the little touch that makes it distinct is that if I start typing letters, the categories start to minimize themselves. The system guesses what you’re looking for and places them into prospective categories that will help narrow your search. This is a great tool for my research and field because because not only is it perfect for me because I’m a visual learner, but it enables me to see multiple internet pages at once to pick up the pace of searching items or news.

As we hit the early years of the 21st century, creative thinking and design start to become recycled, blended, regurgitated and influenced from past artists. Originality starts to become extremely rare as the creative field becomes more and more competitive and the ability to start your own business is a mouse click away. For example, Chris Benz line (shown above) is a great example of using 50s, 60s and 70s inspired trends to create a style of his own. In an article by Christine Barberich on Refinery29.com, her interview displays his thought process on how he came to create his first line–adding pictures, photos, and collection of items he finds in his spare time on a wall.

From this visual example of his inspirations, we can see that there are a lot of inspirations that spring from past trends and/or advertisements.

Looking at fashion, we begin to see the same recycled images we see in art. At times it is done well and at most times it is not. However, what is interesting about todays Fashion is that just because the price of a shirt is high, doesn’t mean that it is a high-fashion commodity. The birth of expensive streetwear is becoming very prominent in the fashion world. A simple Nike limited edition sneaker could cost just as much as a Versace dress made for Nicole Kidman. Street fashion has now become a growing economy-feeding culture next to the sophisticated fashion pioneers of haute couture.

I recently visited the RIF sneaker store in Little Tokyo and was in awe by the prices labeled on their limited edition shoes. These Air Jordan VII are going for $600 next to many other collectable Air Jordans in the store. This item next to the other 22 Michael Jordan shoe releases that come out every blue moon. You must be thinking $600 for shoes? Well, to parallel, I wouldn’t pay $600 for a Louis Vuitton bag either. However, this is a very common trend rapidly rising in our youth culture.

And as I read more blogs, I realize that there is a huge crossover with high-fashion designers with streetwear brands, high-fashion designers with big retailers like H&M, and corporate designers producing more personal independent lines to match the current street fashion buzz.

Take for example Kitsunenoirs Wallpaper project his graphic designs are very characteristic of his blog and show his personality and career path. In contrast, there is the blog “It’s Nice That” that has an overwhelming amount of photographers featured on their website. Though I don’t blame their creative eye, at times photography themes seem overdone. There are always obscure and desolate portraits of everyday life. There are some that I can come to appreciate, but at the same time they become generic. This also follows the same for the graphic designs, it is either too much or too generic.

As for the fashion blogs, I see an overload of the use of bright colors. The trends in clothing start to become an assortment of candy straight from the Sweet Factory. Since I’m such an earth tone/ neutral color lover, I find the bright colored tones and themes to be exhausting to my eye. Being an Art History major, I also see a lot of urban design frequent in many of the websites. I have a great appreciation for the type of art, but many of the times, I don’t see the conceptual themes relevant to the product collaborations. However, I understand there are collaborations of high end fashion and street fashion that are great juxtapositions.

There are many different types of regular items I see on blogs and it could be summarized by bright colors in graphic design, desolate images in photography and the cross of urban art in pop culture. I find these forms saturated but at the same time I could understand how it is easy for a wider audience to like.

X’s over O’s

B.