Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Monday, November 9, 2009
review citeria
In order to give my audience a well rounded perspective into why or why not my camera is right for them I need to establish a set of well defined criteria. The three main criteria are price, features and quality. My audience needs to know how much the camera costs and the price of camera's of the same price or with similar features so that they can decide if they are getting the right bang for their buck. The audience also needs to know about the features that the camera offers such as zoom, face detections, color filters, and other functions that make a camera useful for different styles of photography so that consumers can determine if this camera is right for the pictures they will be taking. The quality of the camera includes how well the camera is built, the quality of the lens, and the picture quality of the LCD screen. Consumers want to be sure that the camera they are purchasing is well built and sturdy so that they won't have to worry about it breaking if it accidentally gets bumped or dropped or if a rambunctious child gets a hold of it. Lens quality helps to determine how well defined and focused a picture is so comparing this to similar cameras can give insight into what can be expected from the camera. The LCD screen is also important because if the image is not sharp enough it is hard to determine whether a picture will look good or not once it is printed.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
audience analysis
The audience for my review is anyone looking to buy a new digital camera. They can be young or old, male or female, just anyone who is interested in buying a new camera. They will want to know about the quality of the camera. They need to know the resolution of the pictures and video it takes and how sturdily the camera is built. They will also want to know what features the camera comes with such as video, photo editing, style features, and many other features that come with many of today's digital cameras. This is important because many people are looking for a camera to serve a certain purpose and want to be sure that it has all of the features they need and that they're not spending money on features that they don't really want. Since the younger generation is more adept at using technology they probably wouldn't care much about user friendliness because they could probably figure out how to use the camera without ever reading the instruction manual. Older consumers on the other hand have a harder time adapting to the technologies that the younger generation has grown up with and want a camera that is easy and simple to use. Another factor that many consumers consider is the price of the camera, they want to know how much the camera costs, how much cameras with similar functions cost, and what feats a more expensive camera would have. This knowledge can allow them to make an informed decision on whether or not the camera is the right value for them or if they want to buy a camera with less features but costs less, or buy a camera with more features but costs more. Some consumers also worry about the quality of the lens and the amount of zoom that the camera is capable of. The lens is an extremely important aspect of a digital camera, even if a camera is capable of taking pictures in a certain clarity it can only be as detailed as the image it can gather through the lens, while this does not really matter to most people who do not need that much detail professional photographers need to know how clear of a picture they can get with a camera. The amount of zoom a camera has is also very important, since many people like to take pictures outdoors they need to have a camera that can take quality pictures up close as well as being capable of focusing on an object at a distance. It is also important to clarify the difference between optical and digital zoom, optical zoom is an adjustment of the lens to focus on an object more clearly and digital zoom is basically just focusing on a smaller portion of the picture and blowing it up. My audience needs all of this information in order to make an accurate, well informed decision on whether or not this camera is right for them.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Monday, October 26, 2009
commentary
SGA Elections:
The Battle for the Misinformed Vote
As most students at UCF know the elections were recently held for the SGA senate. At first glance it seemed like a pretty good setup, all of the voting was done through the UCF website using student accounts to prevent fraudulent voting. I assumed that this meant that everyone would have the opportunity to vote at their own leisure once they felt they had received sufficient information to make a well thought out decision. Unfortunately, I was wrong. As soon as the elections had begun the campus was swarmed with tents representing the UNITE and Building A More Functional SGA (BAMF) parties. These two groups then set about hounding students to no end. On more than one occasion I was running late to class and had to stop to tell not one but two people that I simply did not have the time to vote at the moment, it didn’t make me late to class but it was an annoyance that I was glad to be rid of once the elections were over.
Once I actually found the time in my busy college schedule, I approached one of these tents with the hopes of learning what each party stood for. I was sadly disappointed when the representative gave me a two minute rehearsed speech about how his party would bring more funding to my college while working to fight increases in tuition and then handed me a list of all the candidates up for election. I then decided to check out the other party’s tent and was treated to hearing a nearly identical speech and a different list of names. Feeling that I had not received an adequate amount of knowledge to make a well informed decision I elected to do some more research on my own to see where each party stands. After finding each party’s facebook page I learned that there really isn’t that much difference between their platforms. Both parties support several key points such as organization funding, making UCF more environmentally friendly, a more lenient student conduct policy safe rides home from bars, and a more student friendly SGA.
Well since they agree on all of those issues what do they disagree on? There were only a few differences between the two parties’ platforms, the UNITE party also promised to improve parking, prepare students with flu vaccinations, improve parking ticket appeal process, and support the universal knights program. The BAMF party also supports more free printing, increased safety on campus, and bridging the gap between the Rosen college and the main campus. All in all the only points they don’t seem to agree on are probably just the ones the other party forgot about. There is however one big difference between the two parties, the BAMF party is newly formed this year and has no current senate member from its list of 37 candidates while the returning UNITE party hosts 26 incumbent members running for re-election out of its 49 candidates. Appropriately the BAMF members argue that they want to bring change to the SGA and UNITE members claim to have more experience and be more qualified for the position.
One major issue that I feel was not addressed well was the lack of information on individual candidates, they were all just names on a piece of party and apparently had the same point of view as everyone else in their party. The high number of candidate also eclipsed those running as independents, of the 107 students running 21 were not members of the UNITE or BAMF parties and I did not hear anything about them. I would prefer to know who I am voting for not what party they belong to, especially when the two main parties seem to be so close to one another.
I also saw that several of the party run voting tents were also giving away pizza and cookies claiming it as an incentive to get people to vote in the elections not for their particular party. The only problem is that it is difficult to take a piece of pizza or a cookie from someone and then vote against them, so I believe that more than a few people voted based on which party had the better snacks.
In the end I decided to vote for the UNITE party because they have been involved in the running of campus already and I like UCF a lot the way it is right now and if they do what they have promised it will only improve UCF. But I just can’t shake this feeling that is I would have just randomly clicked on any name it really wouldn’t have made a difference. If all the members of both parties truly believe everything that the party claims then there truly is no difference between any of them and its just like picking names out of a hat. While I may have done research to determine who to vote for many students didn’t, they only voted to get the party member to leave them alone or get a free slice of pizza. This means that a large number of the voters didn’t know who they were voting for, I don’t know about you but I trust the votes of 100 well informed voters than the votes 1000 people just doing it to get it out of the way. Perhaps the next time the SGA elections come around all of the voting can be done at the student union with one voting center run by an impartial third party. This would allow for members of the UNITE and BAMF parties as well as third party candidates to express their platforms to the voters without pressuring them to vote for their respective party at a party-run voting center.
The Battle for the Misinformed Vote
As most students at UCF know the elections were recently held for the SGA senate. At first glance it seemed like a pretty good setup, all of the voting was done through the UCF website using student accounts to prevent fraudulent voting. I assumed that this meant that everyone would have the opportunity to vote at their own leisure once they felt they had received sufficient information to make a well thought out decision. Unfortunately, I was wrong. As soon as the elections had begun the campus was swarmed with tents representing the UNITE and Building A More Functional SGA (BAMF) parties. These two groups then set about hounding students to no end. On more than one occasion I was running late to class and had to stop to tell not one but two people that I simply did not have the time to vote at the moment, it didn’t make me late to class but it was an annoyance that I was glad to be rid of once the elections were over.
Once I actually found the time in my busy college schedule, I approached one of these tents with the hopes of learning what each party stood for. I was sadly disappointed when the representative gave me a two minute rehearsed speech about how his party would bring more funding to my college while working to fight increases in tuition and then handed me a list of all the candidates up for election. I then decided to check out the other party’s tent and was treated to hearing a nearly identical speech and a different list of names. Feeling that I had not received an adequate amount of knowledge to make a well informed decision I elected to do some more research on my own to see where each party stands. After finding each party’s facebook page I learned that there really isn’t that much difference between their platforms. Both parties support several key points such as organization funding, making UCF more environmentally friendly, a more lenient student conduct policy safe rides home from bars, and a more student friendly SGA.
Well since they agree on all of those issues what do they disagree on? There were only a few differences between the two parties’ platforms, the UNITE party also promised to improve parking, prepare students with flu vaccinations, improve parking ticket appeal process, and support the universal knights program. The BAMF party also supports more free printing, increased safety on campus, and bridging the gap between the Rosen college and the main campus. All in all the only points they don’t seem to agree on are probably just the ones the other party forgot about. There is however one big difference between the two parties, the BAMF party is newly formed this year and has no current senate member from its list of 37 candidates while the returning UNITE party hosts 26 incumbent members running for re-election out of its 49 candidates. Appropriately the BAMF members argue that they want to bring change to the SGA and UNITE members claim to have more experience and be more qualified for the position.
One major issue that I feel was not addressed well was the lack of information on individual candidates, they were all just names on a piece of party and apparently had the same point of view as everyone else in their party. The high number of candidate also eclipsed those running as independents, of the 107 students running 21 were not members of the UNITE or BAMF parties and I did not hear anything about them. I would prefer to know who I am voting for not what party they belong to, especially when the two main parties seem to be so close to one another.
I also saw that several of the party run voting tents were also giving away pizza and cookies claiming it as an incentive to get people to vote in the elections not for their particular party. The only problem is that it is difficult to take a piece of pizza or a cookie from someone and then vote against them, so I believe that more than a few people voted based on which party had the better snacks.
In the end I decided to vote for the UNITE party because they have been involved in the running of campus already and I like UCF a lot the way it is right now and if they do what they have promised it will only improve UCF. But I just can’t shake this feeling that is I would have just randomly clicked on any name it really wouldn’t have made a difference. If all the members of both parties truly believe everything that the party claims then there truly is no difference between any of them and its just like picking names out of a hat. While I may have done research to determine who to vote for many students didn’t, they only voted to get the party member to leave them alone or get a free slice of pizza. This means that a large number of the voters didn’t know who they were voting for, I don’t know about you but I trust the votes of 100 well informed voters than the votes 1000 people just doing it to get it out of the way. Perhaps the next time the SGA elections come around all of the voting can be done at the student union with one voting center run by an impartial third party. This would allow for members of the UNITE and BAMF parties as well as third party candidates to express their platforms to the voters without pressuring them to vote for their respective party at a party-run voting center.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
commentary first draft
Everyone knows that voting is important, it allows people to voice their opinions and play an active role in the political system. When most people think of voting they think of standing in line some Tuesday in November and putting their ballot in the box. Voting for the SGA elections at UCF is entirely different, all of the voting is done through the UCF website and voting goes on for an entire week. One would assume that they could vote at their leisure in the comfort of their apartment or computer lab, but one would be wrong. For the whole week of elections there is not a single building that can be accessed without having to either inform the representatives that you have already voted or that you simply do not have time right now. When you actual do have the time to vote the information you are given about those up for elections is very scarce, everyone will work to bring more money to your department for funding and scholarships and fight increases in tuition costs. How they plan to do this it is unclear, but that’s the information you get along with a list of party members running for office.
It seems that the strategy for gaining votes has devolved from giving students well organized information about individual platforms to telling everyone what they want to hear. While each party promises that they will bring more money to each department and fight increases in tuition they are not very clear on how they intend to accomplish this. Somehow everyone will receive more support in their college and yet no one will have to pay more money. I don’t think that the party representatives give college students enough credit, if we are smart enough to get into to college we are certainly smart enough to figure out that the money has to come from somewhere.
There also only seem to be two real parties running for SGA election, the UNITE ticket which has 26 incumbent members and the newly formed Building a More Functional SGA (BAMF) ticket. These two parties have a total of 86 candidates (49 UNITE and 37 BAMF) out of the 107 running for senate. These two parties totally eclipse the other candidates running for election with tents set up throughout campus it is hard for the little man to be heard. Even with these two parties fighting for votes the only real way to tell the difference between them is the color of the shirts they wear, the UNITE party wears yellow and black which bears a striking resemblance to UCF’s black and gold colors, this is most likely an attempt to gain vote through school pride, telling voters to go with experience due to their high number of incumbents. The BAMF party on the other hand wears purple and voices change and reform to the SGA. The problem is most voters don’t know what experience they are going with or what they are reforming because no one really tells us, what was the SGA like last year? Who was a member? What did they vote on? How did they vote? These are all questions that would help voters to come to a well informed decision but the answers simply are not being given. Even some party representatives will admit that many students that are voting are simply doing so to get it over with, not to elect members they show support for.
The people running the voting tents have even started giving out food to encourage people to participate in the voting process, and while the voting system is setup so that voters can voter for anyone the choose it is hard not to side with the person that just gave you a slice of pizza or a donut. While these voting tents have increased voter turnout significantly it has also drastically increased the number of uninformed voters, if you ask me I would prefer ten well informed people casting their votes to a hundred people voting based on what t-shirt someone is wearing, or the snacks they got from the tent.
It seems that the strategy for gaining votes has devolved from giving students well organized information about individual platforms to telling everyone what they want to hear. While each party promises that they will bring more money to each department and fight increases in tuition they are not very clear on how they intend to accomplish this. Somehow everyone will receive more support in their college and yet no one will have to pay more money. I don’t think that the party representatives give college students enough credit, if we are smart enough to get into to college we are certainly smart enough to figure out that the money has to come from somewhere.
There also only seem to be two real parties running for SGA election, the UNITE ticket which has 26 incumbent members and the newly formed Building a More Functional SGA (BAMF) ticket. These two parties have a total of 86 candidates (49 UNITE and 37 BAMF) out of the 107 running for senate. These two parties totally eclipse the other candidates running for election with tents set up throughout campus it is hard for the little man to be heard. Even with these two parties fighting for votes the only real way to tell the difference between them is the color of the shirts they wear, the UNITE party wears yellow and black which bears a striking resemblance to UCF’s black and gold colors, this is most likely an attempt to gain vote through school pride, telling voters to go with experience due to their high number of incumbents. The BAMF party on the other hand wears purple and voices change and reform to the SGA. The problem is most voters don’t know what experience they are going with or what they are reforming because no one really tells us, what was the SGA like last year? Who was a member? What did they vote on? How did they vote? These are all questions that would help voters to come to a well informed decision but the answers simply are not being given. Even some party representatives will admit that many students that are voting are simply doing so to get it over with, not to elect members they show support for.
The people running the voting tents have even started giving out food to encourage people to participate in the voting process, and while the voting system is setup so that voters can voter for anyone the choose it is hard not to side with the person that just gave you a slice of pizza or a donut. While these voting tents have increased voter turnout significantly it has also drastically increased the number of uninformed voters, if you ask me I would prefer ten well informed people casting their votes to a hundred people voting based on what t-shirt someone is wearing, or the snacks they got from the tent.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Everyone knows that voting is important, it allows people to voice their opinions and play an active role in the political system. When most people think of voting they think of standing in line some Tuesday in November and putting their ballot in the box. Voting for the SGA elections at UCF is entirely different, all of the voting is done through the UCF website and voting goes on for an entire week. One would assume that they could vote at their leisure in the comfort of their apartment or computer lab, but one would be wrong. For the whole week of elections there is not a single building that can be accessed without having to either inform the representatives that you have already voted or that you simply do not have time right now. When you actually do have the time to vote the information you are given about those up for elections is very scarce, everyone will work to bring more money to your department for funding and scholarships and fight increases in tuition costs. How they plan to do this it is unclear, but that’s the information you get along with a list of party member running for office.
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