Wednesday, May 16, 2007

OMG I AM #45 ON GOOGLE FOR STIUQXELA!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOOHOO I am excited..I mean it's not #1, or #2 even...but I'm ranked higher than a good amount of people - cool!

I think I am procrastinating?

I'm good at that. ;-)
Anyway, I just added a list of links to my favorite pages on the
<----------------------------------------- Left side of my blog!
Check it outtttttttt if you want!
Alright, really study time now.
Bye!
So I just linked Mike Meschisen, his roommate Chris, & Cynthia's blogs to my page in hopes to get a last burst of google juice in this STIUQXELA challenge! The results will be announced today around noon, and although I have no chance of winning right now, I would at least like to be towards the top! That would be nice. And I am really glad we did this challenge - I think it was a really cool idea of Professor Brown to demonstrate real applications of the concepts he was trying to teach us throughout the course. Also, a little competitive spirit is always nice - it basically makes people work and they don't even realize they are doing it!
OKKKK but the only thing I am not a happy camper about is that it says in a post on Mike's page that his roommate set it up so that Cynthia would win?! Is this true?! I hope not..not fair! (Even though I obviously was not the one who would have won haha). Anyway, it's also awesome that Professor Brown is donating $500 in honor of the winner of this challenge - what a good cause!
Anyway, it's time to go study more for the final (ah!)...hope it's not too hard.
And of course, just for kicks one last time . . .
STIUQXELA
STIUQXELA
STIUQXELA
STIUQXELA
STIUQXELA
STIUQXELA
STIUQXELA!

Wednesday, May 9, 2007

*NeW aDDitions*

Don't you like the new picture I just added to this page?? I do! I have to admit, Andrea's pretty flower picture on her blog homepage gave me the idea. Go team F! And actually, to relate to class (as usual), I found this picture of the letter "S" (for Sharon, in case you didn't make the connection haha) on Google's image search! Just another source of proof that yes in fact, Google is taking over the world. But on a serious note, it is obvious that Google does provide a lot of very useful tools in addition to its traditional search function.
That's all for now, time to work on 2 projects. But I am having trouble moving around the page elements when I try & customize my page. WHYYY???! It's so frustrating, but I think it may be because I am on my laptop. And also, FYI for anyone with a Mac that may be reading this - if you use Safari as your internet browser, Mac's do not have the posting function to create links within posts. I had not realized until now because I have been doing a lot of my posting & computer work in the computer lab (not using a Mac), but Lauren had pointed this out to me a while ago & I just remembered now that I am on my own laptop. Anyway, that's all. Except for:
stiuqxela!!!!!!!! stiuqxela, stiuqxela, stiuqxela, stiuqxela, stiuqxela...trying to do this with HTML!

I forgot to say that I also added links to my teammates blog on the left side of my own page. And also, I think I am going to link MIke Meschisen's blog to my own because a) We are partners for a project in another class & b) Maybe that can help me with the STIUQXELA challenge since it's his roommate that is #1!! We shall see!

Google's AdSense

I just added Google AdSense to my blog! It wasn't too hard. Wonder if I will make any money?? Hmmm...anyway, I will fool around with it later to change some colors & stuff maybe. Now, time for class!
Oh, and stiuqxela!

10pm update: I just messed around with the customization option of AdSense & I think I like the black background best. I can't decide. But I did change the text color of the template they offered to orange. I like it better - I think it looks good when compared with all the colors on my page. Also, it's cool how AdSense gives you a link with "What colors are my best options..." something along those lines & then links you to Google's AdSense page which explains different options for colors of AdSense on your page. It's pretty cool because some people that are trying to make a lot of money off AdSense want these recommendations & want to increase the likelihood that people will click on their ads. Goooo google! OK & I also just realized that I can link things while using my Mac, but I have to do HTML to do that, & you know what, I am going to give it a try, especially after the fact that we reviewed HTML in class today...how perfect, it relates so well!

Wednesday, May 2, 2007

God Bless Virginia Tech

Well it has certainly been a while since my last post (Internet trouble, etc.), but on the good side, I have lots of things that I have wanted to write about over the past couple weeks!
On a heavy note, I wanted to acknowledge the awful tragedy that occurred on the Virginia Tech campus not too long ago. So many unnecessary deaths, unprompted violence..it's baffling. Being a college student, I really can't even get my mind around the enormity of this event. I mean our parents send us off to college, warning us not to drink too much, to party too hard - always walk with a friend especially at night...and then this happens?! In the 'protected' environment of a school building classroom?? My heart certainly goes out to all VT students, faculty, & staff, and even more so to the victims, and their friends and families.
This incident of course sparked a series of "What If's?" and prompted analysis on many other college campuses, including UD. Students here are now being asked to post their cellphone numbers online so that we can be on the list to receieve group text messages in the event of an emergency. Strangely enough, the horror at VT also led to some discussion related to the topics I have been studying in my classes, including this class as well as my English class. In ENGL312 (Written communication in business), we were scheduled to discuss Crisis Communication right around the time of the shootings. Oddly enough, the incident fit right into our curriculum & actually sparked a lot of coversation that relates to topics in this course (477). Basically, there was a lot of finger pointing and lots of debate over how the events of the crisis were communicated to the students and staff at VT while all of this was occuring and beyond. Basically, VT did not necessarily do the best job informing the campus of the first shooting (because they did it through e-mail over 2 hours after it occurred). The campus was not locked down & then the second part of this massacre happened.
All of these happenings forced VT & many other colleges & universities throughout the nation (including UD) to look at their emergency communication plan, rightfully so. And all if this comes down to the question: what is the best way to communicate in the event of a crisis? And that answer has changed over the years, which many campuses including VT had failed to acknowledge. Relating to our couse, social media & forms of communication have changed & the best way to communicate with a campus in the event of an emergency has been determined to be mass text messaging and blogging.
If nothing else, we can see that courses such as this (Info Tech in Marketing) are very important to add to our course curriculum because the world IS changing. VT actually started asking students to update their facebook accounts to let people know that they were ok. And UD is now asking all students to post their cellphone number online so that we can be a part of the audience to receive a mass text message if that becomes necessary. It is unfortunate that it took an event like this to make us change our ways, but perhaps lives will be saved down the line in learning from this catastrophic event.

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

STIUQXELA Challenge

So before I get into discussing this new challenge we have been working on in BUAD477, let me just document the fact that I just worked a little bit on the layout of my blog page. I just managed the 'untouchable' left side of my blog by adding to it the list of links of required blogs for this course. Check it out! Now people that may visit my page randomly & see what I am blogging about can also jump to the Diva Marketing Blog or Adwords with just a click!
So now onto the challenge. Professor Brown has a hypothesis (which has already been proving true). He made up the word "stiuqxela" that had no search results on the Internet before this experiment began. Then, the BUAD477 classes were assigned to blog this word as much as possible, but when blogging, link it to www.packers.com, the official website for the Greenbay Packers. Anyway, besides the fact that Professor Brown just happens to be a big Packer's fan, this experiment served another purpose. Alex hypothesized that blogging stiuqxela on our individual blogs, while linking it to the Packers' website would lead not only our blogs, but also the Packers website to appear in search engine searches for the word stiuqxela. And so far is has done both of these things in Google! Hopefully if I blog it enough, my blog will show up in this search!
Now - 2 things learned about Professor Brown through this experiment
1) He is a Packers fan
2) You can find out #2 by decoding stiuqxela (hint: think backwards!)

We'll see how this challenge plays out...game on!