Codecademy Completed!

I have officially finished my course on Codecademy! Just in time for the end of the semester! In saying that, though, I think I still have a long way to go! Much more practice is needed! But still, very proud 🙂

With this in mind, and as the semester and this project come to an end (in an official, assessable capacity), I want to take the time to draw some conclusions about this experience.

In a lot of ways this process was nothing like I thought it would be. For one, I didn’t expect to be able to understand a lot of what I did, as quickly as I did. I really expected it to be much harder to make sense of. But it’s all very logically, and it clicks really easily.

However, I think I did underestimate how much practice it would need. Not that I expected to be a master-coder after only a few months, but I didn’t realise just how much there was to learn, and I realise now that I need to be much more consistent with the learning if I’m going to improve.

Throughout this process I’ve had a lot of different opinions from people telling me the best ways to learn. But from actually doing it, what I’ve realised is that there really is no one best way; it’s really down to you and your personal preference. I tried a few different things when it came to learning to code, but I really found Codecademy was the best way for me personally. But that might not be the same for everyone! The point is, no one should feel pressured to do something a certain way. Do what works for you!

I think the major take-out for me was that it’s really not as scary as you think it’s going to be. Yeah, it’s not easy, but it’s not crazy difficult either! Once you start, it all just starts clicking, and you realise you can do it!

Even though this project has come to an end for DIGC202, I will definitely be continuing my coding! It’s actually been really fun and I feel pretty proud of what I’ve achieved. If you remember what I said in my first post, I wanted to try and build my own WordPress theme, which I didn’t quite get around to. So I’d love to keep it going and who knows, maybe even get qualified!

Hope you’ve enjoyed following along with what I’ve done so far, and I hope it’s helped inspire some of you to give it a go, too! 🙂

Molly

Learning More About CSS and Getting Confused

So I’m going along very nicely with my CSS skills, however it’s starting to get a bit tricky.

I’ve learnt a few new things about CSS over the last few days, one being branching.

Branching is basically how all your HTML elements “branch out” like a tree – a family tree, as Codecademy explains it:

This means you have to be careful how you style each element, because you might just want one certain paragraph to be a certain colour, you have to make sure you enter it right to avoid styling the whole “branch” that it is a part of.

Something else I have been learning about are classes and IDs. Classes are for when “you have a bunch of elements that should all receive the same styling. Rather than applying the same rules to several selectors, you can simply apply the same class to all those HTML elements, then define the styling for that class in the CSS tab” (from Codecademy). IDs, on the other hand, are for when you want a specific, unique styling for one specific element.

I’ve also learnt a lot about margins, padding, borders and so on, which basically controls where each individual element goes on the page.

It’s a lot to take in. It sounds really simple but what’s making it complicated is that there are soooo many things to remember. There are also multiple ways of doing the same thing, so it can be hard to work out what the best way is for what you are doing.

Anyway, I’m nearly done the course, so hopefully I can get my head around it!

Molly

Making Things Pretty with CSS

So I’ve got the basics of HTML down and I’ve been practising away (I would like to say that’s why I haven’t posted about my project over the last two weeks, but that would be a lie – I’ve just been really slack). But anyway, I’m back in action now and starting to learn CSS!

CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets, and it’s basically a much easier way to make things pretty. So rather than me having to type the code in HTML over and over and over again for different sections of the code, I can just link it to a CSS file! It makes it easier to make mass changes to a HTML file, and it also makes it easier to make things nicer in general. That’s why HTML and CSS usually go hand in hand.

The syntax of CSS is a little different from HTML. It uses a selector (so, the part of the HTML you want to style), a property (what you want to change about that selector e.g. the colour) and a value (what color you want to change it to).

So, for example, if I have five paragraphs that I want to be purple, rather than typing <p style=”color:purple” **text** </p> five times over, I would just do this in CSS:

p  {

color:purple;

}

…and all my paragraphs would be purple! Much easier, as long as I make sure I link the files properly. In this example, “p” is the selector, “color” is the property, and “purple” is the value. Simple! (The one super-annoying thing about this is that it’s all American spelling. So remember, no U in color!)

I’ve also practiced making borders, backgrounds, and even fancy buttons like you often see linking to social media! Yeah, that’s how advanced I am. I am kidding, I’ve just started this, and it looks like it gets pretty detailed from here. This is the lesson I’m up to:

:S :S :S Wish me luck.

Molly

Trying to Decide Whether IoT is Cool or Creepy

It is quite scary to think about where the Internet of Things (IoT) is taking us, and I had a lot of conflicting thoughts this week. I decided to create this infographic that looks at both sides of the coin, to get us all thinking a bit about some of its positive opportunities as well as potentially negative consequences.

IoT can definitely provide us with convenience and connectivity. As we saw in the lecture, you could potentially connect your whole house so that it would use the data it collects to more or less wait on you hand and foot. There’s also the potential for things like traffic optimisation, where smart cars and smart traffic infrastructure can talk to each other. On that note, this could also increase safety. Another safety factor here could be parents being able to know their children’s whereabouts.

But when it comes to the Internet, often when there is increased opportunity there is also increased risk. One of the biggest here is security and privacy. What happens when these devices that are constantly collected our data get hacked? Hackers can do a lot with a little info, and it’s scarily easy for them to do, as shown in this post from The Globe And Mail:

“As one group of researchers found out, a hack known as “man in the middle” on a Samsung Smart Refrigerator would allow an attacker to read your e-mail, maybe reset your password and then potentially steal your identity.”

And it’s not even just hackers – we don’t know who within that tech company can see our data and what they can potentially do with it. The other factor here is that this data is being constantly, relentlessly collected and stored. How do you feel about that? I can see the convenience side of your house being able to predict your movements, and it’s kind of cool, but it’s also a bit creepy. I can’t help but think “I, Robot”-style takeover…

There’s also the sociological side of things. It raises a lot of questions about how this changes how we look at physical objects, and likewise how we look at being human. It completely changes the notion of privacy as well. In the near future we may have a society where privacy is virtually non-existent.

As the above quote from Julian Bleecker implies, and as Ted said in the lecture, how will we start to think of objects when they start producing and sharing information online more actively than humans? When your t-shirt tweets more than you?

What are your thoughts? Do you lean more towards pros or cons? And how do you feel about the idea of objects taken on human qualities like communication?

Exploring the Darknet (Not Literally)

This week we touched on the concept of the “Darknet” and I thought I’d do a little more investigation into what this actual is and how it works.

Firstly, there is often confusion about the difference between the Deep Web and the Darknet. The Deep Web “refers to all parts of the Internet which cannot be indexed by search engines, and so can’t be found through Google” etc. The Darknet, however, is more niche and hidden; it’s a part of the Deep Web that is deliberately anonymous and where a lot of the …unsavoury Internet activity takes place.

(source: http://cryptorials.io/how-to-access-the-deep-web-or-darknet-a-beginners-guide/)

The Darknet is accessed using what’s known as an “onion network”. Unsurprisingly and somewhat ironically, the concept of the onion network was originally developed by the US military, referred to as The Onion Router or ToR (“onion” due to the fact that you have to peel back many layers to reveal the identities of users – get it?) Something like ToR bounces communications between many different computers which hides your identity and location. A lot of people think it’s really difficult to access the Darknet, but apparently it’s as easy as installing software onto your computer, like a different browser. Once you’re in, you can search using hidden directories like The Hidden Wiki (which I cannot link to, for obvious reasons!)

As we all know, the Darknet is home to some questionable behaviour. You can buy anything from drugs to stolen credit card details to hacking services, and much more. An infamous example of this is the Silk Road Trading Post, which reportedly saw $1.2 billion worth of sales before it’s downfall and subsequent shutdown by the FBI (which, for the record, didn’t last long. Silk Road 2.0 was soon up and running. Even though this has also faced similar busts, it just goes to show that when it comes to crime, when one falls, more will take its place).

Silk Road Mainpage (before it’s downfall) (source: pcworld.com)

So there’s no doubt that the Darknet is home to a lot of anonymous criminals, however what I found really interesting in researching this is that it’s not all about criminal activity. Many people use the Darknet to hold political conversations, post personal opinions and generally chat anonymously. According to the Wall Street Journal:

“The majority of activity on the dark net is benign. Personal blogs, news sites allowing whistleblowers to share documents and communicate anonymously, discussion forums, religious sites, and even radio stations can be found.”

This post on Hubpages also provides this sentiment on the Darknet:

“The Darknet is also popular amongst journalists and bloggers, especially those living in countries where censorship and political imprisonment are commonplace. Online anonymity allows these people, as well as whistleblowers and information-leakers, to communicate with sources and publish information freely without fearing retribution.”

So while the Darknet has gotten a pretty bad wrap, it’s actually not all bad. There is a whole other side of it which links into some of the main themes we have been talking about: cyberlibertarianism, freedom of speech, freedom of information, and so on. Many of its users argue that it is there to fulfil the true purpose of the Internet. However no matter what you choose to do on the Darknet, experts warn it’s always important to be careful. Because everyone is anonymous, you never know what you might be clicking on or who you are talking to. And it’s also still watched heavily by government agencies. I’m actually a bit worried that I’m going to get picked up for Googling “silk road” too many times… Moral of the story: don’t paint all Darknet users with the same brush, but still be wary!

I’m too scared to go on the Darknet because I feel like this would happen to me

The Price of Protection?

Can we trust our governments anymore?

Governments often claim to collect our information for the sake of protection. They can collect metadata about phone calls, text messages, Internet use, emails etc. Not the actual content, but data about the communications, so things like length of calls. This is said to be a way to prevent terrorism, but there are many conflicting statements about whether this actually works. With that in mind, the concept of hacktivism is really important.

A hacktivist is someone who uses computer technology/the Internet as a means of protest. The thing that has been the most valuable about hacktivists like Snowden is that they opened our eyes about what governments are keeping from us. It has raised many concerns about what the government can do with your information, who can access it, and what’s next.

The NSA leaks showed that we don’t know exactly what governments can collect on us and what they could use it for. Of course, it’s different in every country and that was in the US, but Australia is about to introduce its now infamous metadata laws, so it’s impacting us, too.

My biggest worry is what happens next? First it’s just to protect us from terrorism, but what will the next thing be? How do we know the government isn’t using our information for other things? The Australian government has recently been trying to crack down on Internet piracy – would they start using our data to figure out who’s a pirate?

It sounds very conspiratorial, but hey, we really don’t know! People like Edward Snowden have proven to us that we don’t always know exactly what our governments are doing.

Anyway, what are your thoughts? Are you worried about data collection by governments, or do you think it’s a fair price to pay for protection? Do you think hacktivists like Snowden are doing the right thing?

Update: I Thought The Internet Hated Me But It Turned Out It Was My Macbook

I’ve been practising writing my own code outside of the safe haven that is Codecademy, a.k.a. making shit up and typing into a notepad just to see what I really have learned (and what I can remember). However for some reason the text editor I was using on my Mac did not want to play nice with me and I could not get it to actually run my code on my browser. I was getting really frustrated because I thought I had done something wrong and could not figure out what (and I have a feeling this will not be the first time I will feel this way). Anyway, turns out it was just a really awful text editor.

Luckily, my trusty boyfriend recommended Brackets to me. Brackets is a text editor designed specifically for HTML coding. Once you’ve written your code, you can click the Live Preview button to test it. It’s pretty handy and is making this process much easier!

Now that I have this working, I need to go back to practising because I have broken something in my code and I need to work out how to fix it…

…Things were going so well!

I Finally Started Learning HTML And It’s Going Pretty Great!

So the whole point of this project was so I could learn to program, and last week I finally had the time to sit down and start doing it. And it’s actually pretty cool!

After researching the billion different programming languages, I decided that HTML and CSS would be the best way to go for my purposes.

HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language, which is what’s used to create webpages. It’s like the bones of any webpage, and CSS, or Cascading Style Sheets, is what’s used to make it pretty.

There are heaps of different ways to learn; some people suggest tweaking and playing around with a website and working out the code. But this didn’t seem right for me, as I don’t usually learn well that way, so I’ve been using codecademy.com. It’s a step-by-step process which explains what you’re doing as you’re doing it, and fills you in on all the terminology, too (and it’s also free). Here’s how it looks:

I’ve learned a lot so far, and I’ve only really scratched the surface. Some of what I’ve learned includes:

• Structuring HTML. So bodies, headings, paragraphs etc.
• Create different kinds of headings
• Add in images and links
• Change the style of text, like the colour, font, size, alignment etc.(see what I did there?! I programmed that!)
• Make lists and tables
• And I’ve even practiced making my own webpage/social media page!

So far I’m feeling good about it. It’s a lot to remember but it’s all pretty logical. Every time you “open” a line of code, so something like <title>, you “close” it when you’re done: </title> And so far, most of the abbreviations are pretty logical too e.g. <ol> for ordered list, and, you guessed it, <ul> for unordered list.

Where it does start to get confusing is where you have multiple tags nesting within each other. Oh, look at me go with my programming jargon. A tag is this thing: < >, and “nesting” is when you’d have tags within tags, so something like:

If you’ve ever seen code and wondered why there is so much indentation, that’s why. It gets really confusing without it. And the above is a really basic example. When I got to tables with photos inside, I started to get a bit scared. Also, lists within lists are a lot more difficult than they sound. That looks something like this:

Trying to remember what goes where and all the right abbreviations, it hurts your brain a little. The key will be thinking logically, which, weirdly, is harder than I thought it would be!

But in saying that, I have a feeling I haven’t seen much yet. I feel like it’s probably going to get much harder. Definitely going to need some more practice. Wish me luck!

Molly

Coding VS Programming: Because Apparently, There is a Difference

Most people use the terms coding and programming interchangeably. To most “outsiders” to the computer world, the terms are synonymous. However, to those in the know, there is a very real difference.

Being a lowly non-techy, I was not aware of this. It wasn’t until I embarked on this project that I realised I may have been addressing the topic incorrectly. That’s why I think it’s important to distinguish between the two, just to make sure you know what I mean when I say “coding” as opposed to “programming”.

Coding is the actual writing of code. It’s the term for typing up the instructions for the computer to follow. A coder may know a programming language and understand how to write in it, but they may not necessarily know the logic behind what they are doing, or truly understand how to design a program.

Programming, on the other hand, is the more particular art of designing a computer program. It involves thinking big-picture about the design and logic of a program. It means planning, problem solving, paying attention to detail and really understanding what your code is going to be doing and how. Some may argue that this is the more professional term.

I’ll let Kiki Prottsman from the Huffington Post summarise:

‘With the influx of newly self-taught technophiles, the term “coders” began to gain momentum to describe those who could technically “create code,” but did not necessarily have the knowledge or grace of the traditionalists. It was said that they were “coding” versus truly “programming.”’

“…In recent years, the term “coding” has resurfaced as a much more playful and non-intimidating description of programming for beginners. On an informal level, it is used to convey the beginning steps of programming”

There are a few variations of this view around the Internet, but this seems to be the overall consensus. I don’t know, to me it all sounds a little elitist, like traditional programmers are just a bit annoyed that anyone can learn how to do it now (I’m probably going to get some angry programmers destroying my blog now – sorry guys! It’s just an opinion!) Does it matter what we call it if it gets the job done?

Molly

(Other source: http://workfunc.com/differences-between-programmers-and-coders/)

In Defence of So-Called “Slacktivism”

Online activism, also known as “clicktivism”, has attracted both criticism and praise as it has gained popularity. Clicktivism is “the use of the Internet as a tool for influencing public opinions or achieving political or social aims”. Critics tend to refer to it as “slacktivism”, which means it is “regarded as requiring little time or involvement”, which in many critics’ opinions, lessens its value.

Many critics argue that slacktivism means that we are never truly connected to a cause. We “like” or “share” something, then we take a step back from it. In her article, Robinson argues that this is “single handedly killing historical forms of activism — marching, public speaking, protests, physical petitions, and strikes.” She also argues that “we continuously absorb social justice messages, but we don’t take the time to act upon them.” There is also the argument that “likes don’t save lives” and that people only engage in online activism because it is “cool”.

I find these arguments to be quite close-minded. My meme looks at the idea that these views of online activism are outdated and based on the values of traditional media. The kind of activism we are seeing online is like nothing we have seen before, and it carries so much potential. Robinson’s idea that it is “killing” traditional forms of activism is totally untrue. A recent example of this is Amnesty International’s use of social media to encourage people to attend candlelight vigils regarding the Syrian refugee crisis, using #LightTheDark in collaboration with other organisations, which attracted tens of thousands of people around Australia. If anything, social media supports and encourages participation in traditional forms of protest. People are, more than ever, able to engage in social justice and show their support.

The argument that “likes don’t save lives” is true – however, it doesn’t mean that likes don’t do anything. “Likes” and “shares” contribute to awareness, which is half the battle when it comes to activism. You can’t have a social movement without awareness. Many of the people who like or share a post would either a) never have known about the cause or b) would have no way of participating in it without social media. Of course there are always going to be the people that only engage because they want to look “cool” – however it’s unfair to generalise and assume that this is always the case.

Online activism is such an incredible tool for spreading awareness about a cause and helping enact social change. One of the reasons it may face so much criticism is that many of those critics are part of the legacy media, used to more traditional forms of activism. With social media, we have no need to simply take what we read in the paper or see on the news and go with it. We have the ability to stand up and have our voices heard, much more than we ever did before. Activism has always been owned by the people, but traditional media used to have a much bigger influence. “Clicktivism” is growing, and maybe traditional media are threatened by it.

What do you guys think? Are you pro- or anti-clicktivism?