Avatar!

From the clothes to the hair and even the pose, I have to say that the avatar I constructed to resemble myself is quite accurate. I had a lot of fun making this avatar on meez.com, mainly because there are so many different looks and styles you can choose from. I visited all of the avatar sites suggested to me, but I found Meez to be way more entertaining, fun and accurate.

The process of making an avatar begins with choosing from a group of avatars and picking the one you think resembles you most, or which ever one you want to be seen as. Once you choose, you can't filter looks and styles in and out. By doing this, you choose which pieces of clothing you want the avatar to wear and shoes as well as any shoes and/or jewelry. Once you find all the clothing and accessories that you want your avatar to wear, you click SAVE... but there's a catch! On Meez.com, a new outfit is going to cost you. It won't cost you some real cash, but it will charge you some meez coins, so be frugal when picking out new attire.

Meez.com also allows you to not only shop by style, but also by music taste, sports, lifestyle, etc! For me, my avatar enjoys rock music, soccer, and New Years Eve - all of which I can buy the appropriate outfits for. But for now, I'll stick with the "Urban Chic" look until I earn a little more meez coins.

Week 1: Clear

The internet is some serious business, so everyone should abide by the unwritten laws of the internet, aka Netiquette. Netiquette (witty title, by the way) is just another word for common courtesy via cyberspace. Surfing the internet with caution and interacting with other people through it with civil attitudes makes the vast cyber world a lot less scary and a lot more enjoyable. It's crazy to think that the rules of netiquette have been around since even before the beginning of the world wide web, and they haven't changed! Times change, but the rules of common courtesy do not.
The main rules of netiquette can be found and explained perfectly on this page: http://www.albion.com/netiquette/corerules.html


One entity of Netiquette that I cannot stress enough is the proper usage of ALL CAPS. As much as we find it necessary to utilize the caps lock key to stress a certain point, it actually does come across as screaming through the computer screen. And then before you know it, the person on the other end thinks you're being rude and everything gets lost in translation, ultimately ending in miscommunication. If you really want to stress a word, italicize. It's just as effective and does not come off as yelling or being rude. Moreover, I think that typing in all caps makes some one come off as illiterate because I assume that they do not know when to capitalized letters.
Public Domain. http://www.bestbytepc.com/uploads/2/6/6/1/2661857/7237729_orig.jpg

Netiquette is definitely essential in completely understanding communication via internet, but not everyone knows it nor does everyone abide by it. However, just because others aren't savvy with their netiquette skills doesn't mean that you have to join them in their ignorance. You're always going to offend someone, even if you abide by the rules of netiquette. As historian and archaeologist Don Ritter once said, "No matter how well you know the rules of netiquette, you will eventually offend someone who doesn't." Which person would you rather be?

Public Doman: http://neonlibrarian.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/netiquette.jpg