Putting the Sans in Comic Sans

Last year, I attempted writing a novel for NaNoWriMo. Boy, did I fail at that. My writing style is still very horrendous and very... me, and my story had no real ending. I found part of this story on my flash drive not too long ago. The more I looked at it, the more I realized how bad it was and how I was pretty much only writing it because I needed somewhere to vent my frustrations about a specific occurrence in my life at the time.*

I found this dumb little excerpt I'd written from that story. While my feelings about the stuff I had going on at the time have definitely changed, it seems my (still very uninformed) views on typography and web/graphic design seem to stay the same.

I was always more of a Facebook person myself, but I noticed how much you learn about people by looking through their MySpace profiles. See, the thing is you can tell a lot about a person simply by looking at their layout. For example, a person with a red backgound, bold green text in Comic Sans, sparkly flashing images, and unaligned tables is likely to be young, immature, and probably stupid. On the other hand, a person with a dark blue background, white tables, dark ten-point Verdana text, and images that aren’t too distracting is likely to be organized, mature, and more stable than others.

Yup. I'd still say the same today. Except, I probably wouldn't be interested in anyone who still uses MySpace to begin with. Ha.

*Translation: I was a whiny girl complaining about a stupid boy.

Twitter: Applications and Websites

(Note: I wrote this back in December and never posted it. Some of the information might be outdated.)

I've noticed a lot of people have been asking what the benefits are of using a Twitter application on your desktop instead of just twittering* on the website itself. Have no fear, reinix is here! I'll tell you from personal experience the pros and cons of using Twitter.com versus desktop applications, as well as other websites.

First off, let me explain what each of them is. Twitter.com is the original website where you can post your updates, as well as reading others. A Twitter application is one which you can install on your desktop and not have to open a browser to use (e.g. TweetDeck, Seesmic, Thwirl). I'm not sure what to name the next, but there are also other websites in which you can use Twitter instead of logging in through twitter.com (e.g. Seesmic Web, Brizzly).

Twitter.com
Pros - It's really simple to use. You just log in and then you're free to read tweets and easily post your own by typing your update in the text box at the top. On the left-hand side bar you have your basic services that twitter has to offer: @replies, direct messages, retweets, lists, trending topics, and of course the handy dandy search bar. Pretty straightforward. You just click one and it lets you see whatever it is you clicked. It's also pretty cool that if you leave the homepage window open (after you have signed in), the the tweet feed always refreshes itself when someone posts an update.
Cons - If you have a lot of followers or follow a lot of users, clicking through each thing can get annoying. Some people may gave enough followers sending them @replies and retweeting them that they can easily miss tweets from people they actually talk to. The thing about the internet today is that people want to see everything in an instant, without having to click through links.

Desktop Applications for Twitter
Pros - They only require a just a one-time install, and you can set them up to open when you turn on your computer. The bigger ones, like TweetDeck and Seesmic, pretty much have the potential to do everything you could possibly want to do on Twitter. They're organized in columns that let you see everything (your timeline, @replies, and direct messages) at once. You can even integrate your Twitter lists into separate columns so you're able to read only updates from certain groups of people. And of course, it gives you the option to send @replies, retweet posts, send direct messages, add tweets to your favorites, and the rest of the basic functions of Twitter.
Cons - Twitter has a limit in the amount of times you can request information for them. At the moment, the limit is 150 times per hour. Because of this, those who follow a lot of people or browse through the app a lot to look through profiles and whatnot often exceed their rate limit. This means that once you have reached 150 requests, you have to wait 'til the hour is over in order to receive updates on time.

Websites Integrated With Twitter
Pros - You don't have to install software, and they are accessible anywhere with an internet connection. Customizable layouts.
Cons - Just like desktop apps, there are limits to the API. Sometimes services try to avoid it by only showing you a few tweets. It gets annoying.

Smartphone Applications
Err... right now I'm stuck with a simple messaging phone on which I can only use Twitter Mobile. If/when I get a better phone, I'll do a review on my favorite apps or whatever. There's a lot to choose from, especially for iPhone users.

*When I say "twittering," I mean using Twitter in general to read and post updates (and/or lurk people you are interested in ;]). I am aware that the term for posting updates is "tweeting." I will use it when it applies.

I can expand more on all of this, but I decided to just give you guys the basics. If you have any questions feel free to ask in the comments below :)

The Importance of Feedback

Remember April 30, when I said I'd post a blog regularly every five days? Obviously, I failed in that regard. I realized how hard it is to actually find time to blog and topics to blog about. Especially last month, since I was attempting vlogging every day, and had a bunch of exams and assignments for whatever reason. I also realized the other day that YouTube takes up a lot of my time. Despite the fact that I hardly post videos on my personal channel, I make at least two videos a week; one for WTVlog, and one for reinixtonks.

I was legitimately surprised when a few people noticed I hadn't posted a thing since April. I didn't think anyone actually came on here. The lack of comments makes me think no one does. There's something about comments that actually motivates people to put up more content. Sure, anyone can know how many hits their pages get by just looking through the statistics, but they don't really know people stuck around and read what they had to say. And even if people with websites had crazy stalker stats that told them how long others stayed on a page, they don't know what these others thought of the page.

Don't underestimate the importance of feedback, kids. (Okay, this is the first and last time I refer to my readers as "kids." It seems condescending. Also, I'm only 19 years old. Who am I to call others "kids"?) Feedback has a huge influence on how webmasters run their sites and how companies improve their products. There's no way to know people don't like their content (or products) if they don't tell them.

Getting no feedback can be good and bad. On one hand, it tells you that you don't suck enough for others to tell you that you do. On the other, it means people don't like your work enough to tell you they do. It's pretty bittersweet. And while many don't like it when others tell them what to do, the opposite goes for communities on the internet. Those involved in online communities make a lot of their projects for their audiences, not themselves. How are they supposed to know what to give the audiences if they don't tell them? I guess that's one of the things I love about New Media and Web 2.0. (Is that redundant? New Media AND Web 2.0? Nowadays, they seem to be one in the same.) They put a lot of emphasis on feedback, communication, and community building. This really does help websites and communities flourish and become successful.

So next time you visit a site you like or watch a video that makes you laugh, don't be afraid to tell the people that made it how much you enjoy their work. It encourages them to publish more and better content.

Hello, internet.

Now that I have a domain name, I feel I need to update this thing regularly. Successful bloggers have a specific audience and write regularly on one specific topic. You've got your mommy bloggers, your bookworms, your foodies, and then those who blog about whatever their current obsession is. People tend to take one aspect of their life and focus their blog/website on that. Personally, I have no idea what to sell myself as. I'm just Reyna. Just Reyna. I'm usually either at school or at home, in front of a computer screen. Not the most exciting person in the world.

Since I can't stick to just one part of me and write about it, I guess I'll be using this as a personal blog for now. Y'know, the type where I talk about... well, myself. Just as I've been doing for ages. Since my last two posts were on the 20th and the 25th, and this one is on the 30th, I figure I'll start regularly posting on here every five days. Well, not every FIVE days. But every day that is a multiple of five. Yes? No? How does that sound? Who even reads my blogs? Unless I'm bored (or close friends with a person), I tend to have a TL;DR attitude when it comes to other peoples' blog posts.

ANYWAY. ENOUGH NEGATIVE NANCYNESS.

Let me tell you about this blog/page/site/whatever-you-wanna-call-it. On the sidebar, I recently added links to other social networking sites I am part of. Feel free to follow/add/stalk me on those. Under the header, there are links to other pages that are also part of this site. One of them is "East LA Creepers" and the other is "Twitterms." There's an explanation of each on both pages, so I won't summarize them for you here. I'll add some more pages as I feel I need them. For now, that is all the navigation potential on here.

I feel I've wasted enough of your time for today. Look out for my next post on April 5th. It'll most likely be about Doctor Who because the new season will have begun one or two days prior.

How old is Harry Potter, really?

Yes, I know there are inconsistencies in the series, but this is the generally accepted conclusion within the Harry Potter fandom as to the time frame in which the series takes place.

Background music: "Back to School" by Harry and the Potters

Are you master of your domain?

I just had to make a Seinfeld reference.

I finally bought ReynaVilla.com! I'd been wanting to buy my own personal domain since I was about twelve years old. I remember all when I would create/edit/upload stuff to GarfieldPercussion.com and GarfieldIndependent.org, wishing I had my own little place on the internet, since I pretty much spent all my free time on it. I'm not popular AT ALL on the web, but I figured that I kinda owed this to myself.

Now that I think of it, my life since elementary school has been just a whole lot of web phases. As a kid, I felt sooo cool when I got my first hotmail address.Sometime in middle school my made my first little Harry Potter website, hosted on FreeWebs (which is now just webs.com), and spent an insane amount of time on Harry Potter fansites. It was also around ths time that I made a small site where I posted lame little graphics I made, most of which were icons/avatars. From there, I went on to LiveJournal and got a blog on there. Not much came from that, except a bunch of ranting and complaining. When my freshman year of high school arrived, I got a MySpace account. Ohh, how I'd spend heaps of time angling my photos appropriately (MySpace-appropriate; "the angles"), posting bulletins, commenting photos, and making my own layouts. Heck, I even made layouts for friends. It wasn't that hard to figure out how to alter them if you had prior knowledge of HTML and CSS. Two or three years after this, I got an account on Facebook. Oh, gosh. I would update my status on there like it was nobody's business. (Which, really... it was nobody's business. Whatever that means.)

Nowadays, my time online is spent on YouTube and Twitter. I use YouTube mostly as an alternative to blogging. If I'm not in the mood to blog, I usually just make a video and vise versa. I update my Twitter just a tad bit more than I used to update my Facebook during my late high school/early college days. There's just something about instant feedback that I absolutely love. Twitter is the perfect place for that. I consult my followers on there for almost everything. They're truly amazing. It's also fun to see everyone else's muses and rants.

That leads me to today. And I don't mean "today" as in "this era." I mean today. Literally. I bought ReynaVilla.com out of sheer online vanity. I'm hosting my blog on here for now, but who knows what I'll do with it in the future. That's what happens with most of the websites I'm on. I got my Facebook account during my junior year of high schoool, but didn't start using it for another year. Same thing with Twitter. I had the account, and didn't actually use it for a while. I get the feeling that ReynaVilla.com probably just will remain as a site where I post my blogs and link to other accounts, but I'm fine with that. I'm kinda tired of being [WebsiteName] dot com SLASH REINIX. I don't wanna be a slash. I just wanna be me. I also don't want my full name followed by dot com to be owned by anybody else. It's mine mine and only mine.

Oh, hey... I'm on yet another YouTube channel.

This one's a collab channel with three other people. It's called WTVlog. I'll be posting videos on there every Tuesday. This is my first video on there:

Oh, Alzheimer's. You're weird.

I'm only posting this so I can remember every detail of what happened just now, so I can tell my mom about it in the morning... or something like that.

I was sitting in front of my computer screen watching an episode of Doctor Who at around 12:30 am when my grandma walked in, looked at me, and asked why I was up so early. I told her that it wasn't early yet, and I hadn't gone to sleep. She walked back down the hallway and into her room, convincing me that she understood that she was awake at a different time than it really was. Understandable. It happens to everyone at one point or another.

However, she came back out from her room fully dressed five minutes after that. She sat down at the dining room table and set her purse down in front of her. I asked her why she was sitting there, and she told me she was waiting for my uncle to pick her up because he's supposed to get here at about 7:30am. I went on to tell her that there were still seven hours left 'til then and asked if she was gonna wait that long. She just looked at me, dumbfounded. I asked her if she knew what the current time was and she told me it was around seven. Once again, I told her it was past midnight. She didn't believe me. I told her to look out the window, and notice how there's not even a hint of sunlight shining through. She said nothing. I asked her what the time was. Again. She said it was around seven. Again. I asked her if she looked at the clock to check the time. She said she did, and that it was seven. Then I thought to myself Well, maybe her clock is wrong. I led her to her room so she could show me what clock she referenced for the time, and she pointed to it and said "See. It's 7." The clock actually said it was 12:50. I turned on the light so she could see it clearly and made her look at the clock closely, then she finally realized I was right. It was past midnight. It was not seven in the morning.

"Oh. In that case, I'm gonna put my purse away." This was all she said. She then went back into the dining room, picked up her purse, and took it back to her room. She hasn't been out since. (It's 1:05am right now, by the way.)

I find it so weird how that was her only reaction. If it were me, I would've laughed at the situation and said something about how it would've been embarrassing if I'd just gone on thinking it was morning. But, nope. She only said she should put her purse away. What would've happened had I not been here? Would she have sat there and waited seven hours for my uncle to pick her up? It's odd seeing her so... emotionless like that. But I guess that's just what happens when you're old and have Alzheimer's. You don't really care about anything anymore. The good, the bad, the funny, the silly, the scary. Well, maybe the scary. She still says she hears voices talking to her every now and then. For the most part, I can tell they're just her conscience. Though I do remember a particular day in which I'd asked what the voices told her, and it was some pretty malicious shit. I'm not sure what that was all about.

I hope I don't end up this way. If I do, then I hope I have a grandkid who's lame enough to stay up on a computer past midnight to tell me what I'm doing wrong.

Update: Oh! My friend Luis reminded me of this short film when he read my tweets about what happened. (Like usual, I tweeted a play-by-play as this all went down.) It's very... well, just watch it.