Google Calendar

Managing time is a must-do when your life is busy or chaotic, but what about the not so busy? It’s also important to keep track of important dates and happenings even if you’re not always on the go, especially if they don’t come as often – you may forget! Google Calendar is a handy calendar application that is available to those who create a Google account. It is an interactive agenda that showcases many neat features, which set it apart from any paper agenda that one could have. Google Calendar is a useful, professional, and efficient digital media artifact that can be used by many people who lead a variety of lifestyles.

What makes Google Calendar a digital media artifact? Google calendar is a digital media artifact because it was created with and used within the computer. The calendar is kept on Google’s servers, accessible from any compatible device. Since Google Calendar is used within this technology, it qualifies as a digital media artifact (Manovich 19).

 The interface is very straightforward, making it simple to use and easy to learn. The layout of Google Calendar is changeable, depending on how the user wishes to view it. There is a navigation bar located above the main calendar that allows you to change the view of your calendar to day, week, month, two weeks, or agenda. There is also a sidebar on the left that allows for quick calendar navigation, event creation, calendar sharing, and the ability to select which calendars will be visible. Calendar sharing is useful because when a calendar is shared with you, it gives you the ability to see what that person has planned. With this, you can view others’ calendars and overlay them with your own, depending on which are selected at the time. This allows you to check for possible conflicts in time or allows you to see when the best available time for another person is.

Another of its features is the ability to send event invites to other Gmail users, allowing instant and organized feedback on who will or will not be attending certain meetings, events, etc. Within the events, the organizer can choose to add more details such as a location and a description of the event and the responder can send short messages along with their response. Google Calendar releases the Christmas spirit within us all. Yes, that is true.

The calendar is based out of and was created by the Google Incorporation in April of 2006. It was intended for the use of the public to organize and create events in users’ lives in a more efficient manner. Today, Google Calendar is used just for that – an easy way to manage one’s time and events occurring throughout their days, weeks, months, and years. Personally, I use Google Calendar to keep track of my classes and meetings, as well as manage my time for studying and social purposes. These are precisely the reasons that it was created, and I use it for its intended use. I cannot think of a way to use Google Calendar that would be in a way that it was not intended to be used. While writing this post, I received an email from my professor about the Spanish conversation hour that will be taking place this week. It was effortless for me to add an event to my calendar, now easily visible to me in a time/day grid that also shows my other obligations.

Google Calendar is meant for those who have access to the to the interwebz and who have a need for organization of their schedules and particularly those who already have Google accounts. Such as me and wedding planners and flower shops and doctors and any appointment based profession and students especially students and professors it is nice to arrange meetings of student organizations through Google Calendar. However, it does not reach the entirety of its target audience, as there are many people who have Google accounts but do not use Google Calendar.

            A disadvantage of Google Calendar is that you cannot carry your calendar with you if you do not have a device that is compatible to do so. Another disadvantage is that your calendar is only accessible by internet access. If you need to access your calendar and you cannot connect to the internet, then you are fresh out of luck. But these are downsides that come with most, if not all, digital media.

Overall, Google Calendar is an exceptional digital media artifact. If Indiana Jones were searching for digital media artifacts rather than historical, Google Calendar would be his best find yet. 

Calendario de Google ROUGH DRAFT

Google Calendar is a handy application that is available to those who sign up for a Google account. It is an interactive agenda that showcases many neat features, which set it apart from any paper agenda that one could have. The interface is very straightforward, making it simple to use and easy to learn.  One of its features is the ability to send event invites to other Gmail users, allowing instant and organized feedback on who will or will not be attending certain meetings, events, etc. Within the events, the organizer can choose to add more details such as a location and a description of the event and the responder can send short messages along with their response.

The calendar is based out of and was created by the Google Incorporation in April of 2006. It was intended for the use of the public to organize and create events in users’ lives in a more efficient manner. Today, Google Calendar is used just for that – an easy way to manage one’s time and events occurring throughout their days, weeks, months, and years. Personally, I use Google Calendar to keep track of my classes and meetings, as well as manage my time for studying and social purposes. These are precisely the reasons that it was created, and I use it for its intended use. I cannot think of a way to use Google Calendar that would be in a way that it was not intended to be used. While writing this post, I received an email from my professor about the Spanish conversation hour that will be taking place this week. It was effortless for me to add an event to my calendar, now easily visible to me in a time/day grid that also shows my other obligations.

I love Google Calendar because of its convenience and user-friendliness. It makes things super easy to change to exactly what you want. Prior to Google Calendar I used iCal to stay organized, but it is inferior to Google Calendar in my eyes. Google Calendar has the ability to go wherever you go.

Google Calendar is a digital media artifact that is used by many people. Google Calendar releases the Christmas spirit within us all. Yes that is true. Feels right. The layout of Google Calendar looooooooks like a calendar

There is a sidebar that allows quick calendar navigation, event creation and the ability to select which calendars will be visible. Along with your own calendar you can also view others’ calendars and overlay them over your own, depending on which are selected. This allows you to check for possible conflicts in time or allows you to see when the best available time for another person is. There is also a navigation bar located above the calendar that allows you to change the view of your calendar from day to week, month, two weeks, or agenda.

Google Calendar is meant for those who have access to the to the interwebz and who have a need for organization of their schedules and particularly those who already have Google accounts. SUCH AS ME and wedding planners and flower shops and doctors and any appointment based profession and students especially students and professors it is nice to arrange meetings of student organizations through Google Calendar. This does not reach the entirety of its target audience, as there are many people who have Google accounts but do not use Google Calendar.

            A disadvantage of Google Calendar is that you cannot carry your calendar with you if you do not have a device that is compatible to do so. Another disadvantage is that your calendar is only accessible by internet access. If you need to access your calendar and you cannot connect to the internet, then you are fresh out of luck.

Overall, Google Calendar is an exceptional digital media artifact. If Indiana Jones was searching for digital media artifacts rather than historical, Google Calendar would be his best find yet.

Raw Egg = School Bell

"The Medium is the Massage" starts out on page one by bidding you a good morning, with a picture of a raw egg on a plate which stood out to me very much. Except I thought the raw egg and the plate were an old school bell. oops. The rest of this book made about as much sense as how I could get those two images confused with one another. Not very much sense. McLuhan was trying to convey a message, not through the message that he was conveying but through the medium of which it was being conveyed. Yes! And that is what this book was about. I think I just figured it out... maybe.

The idea of the medium being the message is what you normally hear about, but McLuhan took his own view on it and changed "message" to "massage". Why! I believe it's because with all of the media that is around us as we go on with our lives, the medium of which messages are conveyed to us make us feel comfortable, even when the messages being conveyed within those comfortable (massaging?) mediums would not normally be "comfortable" messages. Yep, that is definitely what I was supposed to take out from this crazy little book. Thank you for helping me figure it out.

Is This Real Life?

The idea of real being nonexistent intrigues me. I have always questioned the concepts of what is real and what is imaginary, or what is not real. Baudrillard's article Simulacra and Simulations contemplates many issues related to this topic.

Baudrillard talks about if one who simulates being sick and how they produce some of those symptoms within them self, at what point does that simulation turn into reality and they actually become sick? This is a tricky question, which is precisely why Baudrillard has included it in this article. I feel that the ideas found in this article are beyond those of which many, including myself to be honest, can understand and fully grasp... but Disneyland, on the other hand, I can relate to.

In the article, Baudrillard says, "Disneyland is presented as imaginary in order to make us believe that the rest is real..." and then talks of how Disneyland is thought to be an "imaginary" place for the child in us all, while all the adults remain in the "real" world. It has always been a pet peeve of mine when people use the term "real world" as if such a thing exists. The major culprit of these "real world" sayings have been teachers throughout my life saying things like, "You will need to know this for when you get out into the real world." I never understood. Am I living in a fake world right now? Is none of this real? You mean my whole education is being given to me in a world that is non-existent. Everything that we know is real. Everything that we know is also not real. Everything that we don't know is also real, and everything that we don't know is also not real. There is no concrete realness or not-realness in the world. 

The section titled "Strategy of the Real" talks about the mixtures of real and simulation, simulation turning into real, and so on. This is comparable, in my mind at least, to the movie Inception and the idea of being stuck in limbo. There is confusion between what is real and what is simulated. If a person decides to simulate a hold-up on their own, giving no notice to those in charge, then officers will assume that the hold-up is real and take real actions. This is where confusion begins to occur between real and simulation. It is always assumed that things are real, when things are happening people don't take the time to think, "oh, this might be a simulation." The simulation of the hold-up would turn into total realness due to the response from others.

I hope the thoughts I am trying to convey are understandable... they make sense to me.

Also, Baudrillard uses a lot of colons. : : : : : : : 

"Always Already New"

"... The internet is wrong about its own history." as said in the reading Always Already New. This sentence makes me happy, as it brings to mind how often people question the reliability of things read/seen on the internet, and now I am reading about the internet being unsure of itself.

H-Bot sounds quite interesting. The way it was set-up user friendly where you would ask it a question as if it was a human would make it feel different than searching for information using Google or Yahoo. Sort of like how many older people use search engines; typing in an entire question rather than keywords. I especially like that it was created for use of students so that they would not need to memorize dates of when things happened or people lived, rather they could focus on the more important aspects of what people really cared about.

New Media Be What?

When I first started reading this chapter, it answered one of the questions I've had for a while about digital media... what is it? Now I know. It's a lot of stuff. Soon after that question was answered I had a new question, what in the world is daguerrotype? It's a reproduction process that was invented by Louis Daguerre (whatever that means). Google images tells me that it's those old ovular images that you see of famous people, good enough for me! The vocabulary in this reading is really keeping me sidetracked; the metaphor of the development of modern media and the development of computers as trajectories has got me thinking of cannons being fired off in a war, with daguerrotype photos as proof.

Back on track with focusing on what I'm reading, I find it very fascinating to learn about the development of procedures such as film. As they speak of the 20 second shorts in Kinetoscope parlors, and the progress that is made as films become longer and longer I am forced to remember a specific time in my life related to progress. "Now approaching Walt Disney's Carrousel of Progress." These words have been etched in my brain since my last trip to Disney World, repeated over and over by the tour train/ride that passed by above us numerous times. Reading this chapter reminds me of Walt Disney's Carrousel of Progress and how over time the family's home became more and more technologically advanced. That day we became stuck inside that carrousel, watching the last act about four times through before being made to evacuate the ride.

I like the idea of new media having discrete representation, in comparison to language. Also automation... how neat is that?! Programs automatically correcting photos that you scan onto the computer, generating landscapes and other crazily life-like scenes, that's pretty neat! Reading about all this new media makes me realize how amazing it truly is. "Beginning in the 1970s, computers were often used to generate poetry and fiction." (Manovich, pg. 33) It seems strange to me having computers create poetry and fiction when humans are the ones who have the creative minds, but I guess computers are becoming more like humans as technology advances.

New media be astounding.

Welcome!

I'm Olive. This is my blog. I enjoy flying kites and rollerblading.
Bare feet beats bear feet! (No shoes are the best shoes)