first project info entry

Today I found some good information. Overtraining is a little known about problem that can occur in people who think they are doing good for their body by working out constantly. Many people think that working out 7 days a week working the same muscles over and over again will help them be in better shape, when in fact they are doing more harm than good. The only way muscles can get stronger is by receiving adequate rest. Therefore, one must not workout the same muscles every day. Common symptoms of overtraining are fatigue, loss of appetite, irregular sleeping patterns, and twitchy muscles. It also can cause depression, irritability, and other mood swings. Ways to stop overtraining are too simply stop training for a period of time, depending on the amount of time you have been doing it. Sometimes it takes multiple weeks of rest to get back to an ideal body state. During this time it is recommended that you come up with a different workout plan that will not cause overtraining. You can do alternate, lighter forms of exercise during this period if you feel like you need to do some kind of exercise. It is important to remember that your body needs to rest just as much as it needs to be worked out. Make sure you are not overtraining, because it will do you no good.

politics and 2.0

I have not worked on my project today, other than browse some websites for information about working out. Today is a busy day, but in my political comm class we talked about the effects of Web 2.0 in political advertising today. It was an interesting discussion about how Web 2.0 is a new medium that has become popular in the last 4 years. Our teacher talked about how independent bloggers, such as Drudgereport, have a lot of influence because a lot of people read them and even the big news organizations pick up stories from these bloggers. (Side note: I am now noticing my Microsoft Word 2003 underlines “blog” and “bloggers” for spell check every time I type it. Shows how much things have changed in a short amount of time). The teacher told us that we couldn’t trust these sources always because everyone can do it an so on. Interestingly, generally most of the class agreed that Web 2.0 is good for politics because it allows more points of view to get out there and allows for more information with different angles. I also agree that more information is good and it is good to have freedom of speech come through in this medium.

class April 8

So as we are here in class, I am looking over my recently created Pbwiki. Actually, it is more accurate of me to say I am looking over what is to become my Pbwiki. I am staring at the front page which proudly proclaims “yes, this is a real wiki!” That’s good to know. Then it challenges me to create pages and fill it up. So I decided to test it by creating two test pages. So now I have three pages including the front page, but none of them are linked. I am frustrated because this isn’t looking like Wikipedia, which is what I think of when I think about a wiki. I am trying to figure out through the help buttons how to connect all of this but I don’t see it right now. So I just actually found how to link the pages thanks to another wiki user who answered the question in the help pages. The next challenge for me will be to start adding my information and creating the pages that are real. I think I will feel better once that occurs.

starting up

So I finally started up my wiki using Pbwiki.com. I chose to name my wiki “gettinginshape”. So I started playing around and looking at stuff on it and am a little overwhelmed at first. It is starting to hit me that this is all on me to create my very own page that has to be accurate, informative, and look professional. I want to see what other people in this class are going to be doing so I can compare my ideas with theirs. I am also thinking that this is going to be fun as well, since I do get to create this thing. Pbwiki wants people to pay for upgrades and stuff, but there is no way I’m paying for anything. I wonder what the biggest difference between there free version and all of there pay for versions is? After playing around with the pages I see that it is easy to edit and easy to make a new page. I think my challenges will be learning how to make links and stuff.

april 3

Today during our class time I have continued to play around with Wikipedia, looking at different stuff on there and looking at how it all is connected. I looked at some of the wiki’s that our classmates posted of examples they like to get an idea of what mine should look like. I looked at the Seinfeld Wiki, and immediately felt a sense of discouragement because of the amount of info they have and the in depth knowledge of these Seinfeld fans. Then I realized that this is several thousand people working on this wiki and mine will only be me. I also looked at the textbook wiki site, the top ten site, and the music site. I was telling someone about this class today and everything its about and they said that they thought it sounded really useful. He said that his computer major does a lot of stuff with Web 2.0 and that he has thought it would be the next big thing for several years. He also went on to claim a bunch of stuff about how he knew everything about it and how he was an expert blah, blah , blah. I don’t know if I believe everything this guy says, so I will have to quiz him and see if he has ever made a wiki. I doubt it.

Sonic 2.0

Today for my project I was looking around at some workout information, and I came across a lot of interesting websites and info. It is good to know there will be lots of stuff that I will be able to use for my wiki. I haven’t done much other than that for it, so I will tell you about a funny thing that I saw relating to our class. I saw a Sonic commercial where the husband and wife are in the car, and the man orders a Sonic drink and adds “2.0” to the end of it. The wife says “did you just say you wanted a (insert drink) 2.0?” The guy says “yeah, I don’t know what it means, but some guy at work always talks about 2.0 and he’s always getting raises and stuff so it must be good”. I just thought this was funny and interesting since it relates to our class. It shows how everyone is paying attention to web 2.0, even our advertisers are recognizing its importance.

browsing for a wiki site

Today during our class time I started looking around for a wiki site that I could use for hosting my project. The first site I came about is called wetpaint.com. It seems like it is convienent and easy to use. It claims to have over 800,000 wikis created on it, and the process to make one seems easy. Another site that came up was PBwiki.com. This one seems to also be easy to use, but it confuses me when it says wiki’s are free to set up but a premium plan costs $10 a month. I obviously am not going to pay for anything, so I don’t know about this site. Another good site was wikispaces.com, which is easy and convienient like the others. So I guess I will probably use one of these websites for my creation of a wiki. I guess I still have questions about it, like how much information does this project require? How much needs to be on these wikis? What are some good examples to look at?