One day I got an inching to see what I could find out about some of my favorite cartoons. So I turned to the Word Wide Web. Where else to find information on old cartoons?I found two sites that were about the same cartoon yet they were very different. So what made me chose the one over the other? Eye-catching graphics, readable text, and downloads, are the elements that sold me on Robotech.Simplenet.com over Robotechgames.com.

The first things I look at on a web site are the pictures and graphics. Because I am a visual person, the pictures and graphics are what determines if the site is worth my looking into it. For example, on the home page of Robotech.Simplenet.com there are two pictures that stand out and grab my attention right away. The first one is a headshot of the Valkyrie, Roy Fokker’s Veritech Fighter. The next picture is another headshot of a character in Robotech Armor. Some other eye-catching graphics are two scrolling text boxes. The first box announces important site events. The other informs the viewer about new updates to the site. The Robotechgames.com site, however, has no such picture or graphics. All it has is text: nothing to attract the viewer into further exploration of the site.

While text alone may not be extremely interesting, it is another important element of a website. To be understood, text must be readable. The background color is the first component of text readability. the Robotech.Simplenet.com site’s background color draws you into the text and does not detract from it. It accomplishes this by using two colors. The outer border of the page is blue. The middle is black with subtle blue lines running through it in a crisscross pattern. This background causes the text to stand out. Next comes the color of the text itself, gold on the black background. The golden words are soft on the eyes of the viewer, and easy to read. The whole page uses basically the same size font, which makes reading pleasant. The last element of text readability is the amount of text per page. On this page the text is written in the short and to-the-point statements. This makes it easy to know the purpose of the page.

The use of text on the Robotechgames.com page differs greatly from the Robotech.Simplenet.com page. Robotechgames.com has a plain black background, which causes a problem. More than half the text is written in white. White on black is a sharp contrast that tires the viewer’s eyes. Another thing that irritates is the variation on the font size of the text. It switches from small to large bold lettering. On top of that, the small print is seven paragraphs of really useless information. And the useless information is written in white on a hard to read black background.

Once the website has snagged my interest, I look for stuff I can download from the site to my computer. This bugs my wife, but is the area that can make or break a site. Here Robotech.Simplenet.com excels. The site has many different things to download. It has games, fonts, sound files, background images, and many more interesting tidbits of Robotech lore.

But the Robotechgames.com site stinks! Oh, they promise full-scale games for free, yet when I got to their download page, there was nothing but text describing the games. Under each description is a line of text that states, “No downloads yet.” What a letdown! After all they say they are doing, they have nothing to show for it except words on a page.

All in all, the Robotech.Simplenet.com site presents its information in a pleasing and entertaining manner. And it beats out Robotechgames.com in graphics, text readability, and downloads. I recommend Robotech.Simplenet.com to anyone who wishes to learn more about ROBOTECH.

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This was a paper that I wrote for a English class at collage. It was a Comparison and Contrast assignment. I did not have any dates on the paper itself but the attached print outs of the web sites had the date of 04/13/2000.  I will try to post more of my papers as I find them, and I might work on writing some new ones if I can find the time to.

Will I was working a updating my website but clicked on a button that stopped me from moving forward. But it was bound to happen sooner or later. Upgrades are good right?

I keep thinking that I should write more here and in the future I hopefully will. Just need to figure out what to write about. That may be the hard part. Plus I am not a very good writer. The English language is difficult at time for me to correctly form my ideas in. I will have to do something about that. May read more books. I like to read. I am finally reading Brandon Sanderson’s new book “The Way of the Kings”. I will have to write more when I finish it.

So yesterday was Gareth’s third birthday. He spent most of the day running around driving me crazy just like a three year old should. Maybe some day he will grow out of the stinky grouchy leave messes all over the house boy.

More birthday pictures

I tried to make butterscotch pudding tonight. One bite and it all went down the garbage disposal. I am not sure what made it bad. I used the same recipe that I use for chocolate or vanilla pudding. I guess what I used as butterscotch flavoring really did not work. Mette had bought a bottle of Italian Soda flavoring that was butterscotch and it did not add the correct flavoring to the pudding.  I will have to look for a better butterscotch flavoring for the next time.

So I went out for a bike ride today it was a nice ride until the second to last turn before I got home. Then me bike thought it would be a good idea to slide out from under me as I was making the turn. Down I went luckily there where no cars coming so I did not get squashed, just banged and scraped up a little. And my front tire is now totally flat. So I don’t know if it blew out and that is what caused the bike slide out from under me.  Now my left leg and shoulder are scraped up and aching. Hopefully I will be able to ware pants tomorrow. I guess this is what comes with the fun of being out on my bike. I need to get out riding more now that the weather has finally turned nice.

by: Ethan Warnick

Here is Ethan’s first color comic that he did all by himself. The topic of the comic is courage.

A few weeks back Gareth did something to our camera and it stopped working. Will today we finally got a new one. It is a Nikon CoolPix S630. So far it is a nice little camera. And the pictures are nice. Here is an example of one.

This is Gareth fast asleep in the middle of the hall. That is where he was when I got home from Tae Kwon Do. No nap today wiped him out before dinner.

Here I sit in the kitchen of my own home and daydream about when I was younger. No worries beyond what I needed/wanted to do right then in the moment. I remember not wanting to take a nap on Sunday afternoon and so we (me and my brothers) would build forts in the living room with the rocking chairs, couch cushions, and all the blanks that we could find. You know I remember building the forts and taking them down after mom and dad woke up, but what we did in them I don’t remember much.

Then I remember as a teenager I looked forward to that Sunday afternoon nap. It was a chance to do nothing but sleep in the middle of the day for 3 or 4 hours at a time. Then I remember spending all evening sitting in the den playing what ever computer game we had at the time. The games I played the most where the Dragon Lance games Champions of Krynn and Death Knights of Krynn.

Now sit in my own home and just try to relax. I am thankful that I can do that. I don’t know how my parents ever trusted me and my brothers to leave up alone while they took a nap. I am almost sacred to think of the condition the house would be in if I left my four kids alone for a hour or so.

OK that is enough rambling for today.

Ok so now I have published my first public web site. GFBlends is now up and live.

Still needs some work. I am not happy with how the footer is currently set up. But I have not had the time to sit and work out a better solution.  I really want to make the footers dynamic and fit to the content that is on each page.

Oh well. And I need to get better pictures of the building and the process floor. I might have to wait until Rachel comes home for a visit then she can take some pictures with her good camera.