You searched the categories for: 'interactive',
Google Gets Social
Monday, 08 December, 2008 - 04:16
Google seems to have gotten a nice new social facelift, allowing users to rate/rank their personal search results (much like digg) and to provide comments on them, pretty interesting! I wonder how many terabytes of data and bandwidth that's gonna cost em! < img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/JustAnotherDeveloper/~4/478989394" height="1" width="1"/ >
Google Gets Social
Monday, 08 December, 2008 - 04:16
Google seems to have gotten a nice new social facelift, allowing users to rate/rank their personal search results (much like digg) and to provide comments on them, pretty interesting! I wonder how many terabytes of data and bandwidth that's gonna cost em! < img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~r/JustAnotherDeveloper/~4/YZnbe95Ynzw" height="1" width="1"/ >
Google Gets Social
Monday, 08 December, 2008 - 04:16
Google seems to have gotten a nice new social facelift, allowing users to rate/rank their personal search results (much like digg) and to provide comments on them, pretty interesting! I wonder how many terabytes of data and bandwidth that's gonna cost em!
Google Gets Social
Monday, 08 December, 2008 - 04:16
Google seems to have gotten a nice new social facelift, allowing users to rate/rank their personal search results (much like digg) and to provide comments on them, pretty interesting! I wonder how many terabytes of data and bandwidth that & #8217;s gonna cost em! < img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/JustAnotherDeveloper/~4/UVAXPpYw6d8" height="1" width="1"/ >
Online Mediation
Monday, 08 December, 2008 - 03:32
A decision by a number of UK internet providers to block a Wikipedia page showing an image of a naked girl has angered users of the popular site.
BBC NEWS & #124; UK & #124; Wikipedia child image censored
This just hit my RSS reader in flock. It's quite interesting to know that ISP's are actually blocking websites based [...] < img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/JustAnotherDeveloper/~4/478989395" height="1" width="1"/ >
Online Mediation
Monday, 08 December, 2008 - 03:32
A decision by a number of UK internet providers to block a Wikipedia page showing an image of a naked girl has angered users of the popular site.
BBC NEWS & #124; UK & #124; Wikipedia child image censored
This just hit my RSS reader in flock. It's quite interesting to know that ISP's are actually blocking websites based [...] < img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~r/JustAnotherDeveloper/~4/FT4mFfHII4s" height="1" width="1"/ >
Online Mediation
Monday, 08 December, 2008 - 03:32
A decision by a number of UK internet providers to block a Wikipedia page showing an image of a naked girl has angered users of the popular site.
BBC NEWS | UK | Wikipedia child image censored
This just hit my RSS reader in flock. It's quite interesting to know that ISP's are actually blocking websites based [...]
Final Major - Naming & Narrative
Monday, 03 November, 2008 - 19:44
I’ve hit something of a road bump. Given the fact that the success of this initiative is largely dependent on how it’s received I’ve been wanting to get the ‘name’ sorted soon. The name isn’t totally restricted to but should really hint at the aim of the project or somehow atleast be related to the [...]
An element of the divine comedy
Thursday, 23 October, 2008 - 14:20
I’m currently reading up on a book called “Dystopian Fiction East and West: Universe of terror and trial” which I’m really enjoying at the moment to be honest. The chapter I’m on starts by detailing the contents of Plato’s “Republic” and the vision of a perfect society where “law and reason” reign and the poets [...]
Final Major - Resources
Wednesday, 22 October, 2008 - 15:35
Some stuff I’ve found on the web relating to my final major in a round about sort of way..
The Youth Friendly Guide
Links Between Prostitution and Sex Trafficking
Melissa Farley Article
The Word of Mouth
Just for reference you know!
Final Major - Case Studies 3/3
Wednesday, 22 October, 2008 - 15:23
Dylan
The way I was exposed to this product was a simple flash video. They had taken the iconic video for ?Subterranean Homesick Blues? and with a little editing on Dylan?s placards advertising this new album got across quite a simple but quite an infectious message. They linked the Dylan brand with the chance to get [...]
Final Major - Case Studies 2/3
Wednesday, 22 October, 2008 - 15:14
Nine Inch Nails- Year Zero
Year Zero is two things a) an Alternative Reality Game about ?the end of the world? with repeated references to ?the future of things? and the United States Military and b) it?s a new Album released by the band Nine Inch Nails. The frontman Trent Reznor insists the [...]
Final Major - Viral Case Studies 1/3
Wednesday, 22 October, 2008 - 15:02
Deadly Viper Character Assassins
The Deadly Viper Character Assassins is an infectious brand created by the non-profit organisation ethur to promote their most recent initiative targeted at people in leadership positions aiming at talking and raising awareness of the reality?s of things like grace and integrity. It was promoted heavily through networking and has [...]
Final Major - Thoughts on engaging an audience..
Wednesday, 22 October, 2008 - 14:50
What do I want to engage people in?
I want to engage people in learning to rethink how we approach our relationships with people, especially sexual relationships with issues like prostitution and people trafficking and their implications in mind. I want us to rethink what are the conditions which create prostitution and people trafficking and [...]
Apathy is boring..
Wednesday, 22 October, 2008 - 09:13
Is a website I heard of.. forgot about and kinda stumbled on again. It’s a canadian website which looks at trying to get young canadians involved in voting (non-partisan) it states that most Canadian youth feel disempowered and distanced from what is going on in politics.
Whatever you feel about it, I’ve been looking at some [...]
Dissertation Thoughts
Tuesday, 21 October, 2008 - 17:24
Joe one of my lecturers, and my dissertation tutor actually put the idea out that perhaps we should try using a blog to put our dissertation ideas out there to help us formulate them.. and i guess see what other people comment on if they do too.. so here goes some rambling i’d made earlier..
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[...]
Final Major Project- What makes an effective viral?
Wednesday, 15 October, 2008 - 16:08
This is a brief look at what makes a good piece of viral media. Viral media is something which after it’s creation is then placed or baited on particular sites or means which enable it to be passed from one consumer to the next.. ie; e-mail chains or youtube videos. Youtube videos are perhaps the [...]
Defining
Sunday, 24 August, 2008 - 23:46
I’ve been thinking quite a lot recently inbetween commuting and what ever else I tend to get upto. Mostly about how someone starts or struggles with grasping.. what it means to be human? to be alive? I’ve had the situation stuck in my head of a human from birth brought up in a completely neutral [...]
A united design nation
Wednesday, 20 August, 2008 - 08:36
Good morning campers,
I’ve spent a few days reading design news and yesterday morning I read a very interesting article by the guys over at Eighty One.
The article asked questions of the new and ‘questionable’ design start-ups that are springing up from everywhere. It does seem that because any tom, dick or hillary can get a [...]
Studio structures
Thursday, 14 August, 2008 - 13:54
With my career goal to set up a successful design studio, I have always been very interested in the structure of current design outfits.
Last summer, I worked as a designer for 6 weeks at a small agency to gain some work experience. They were made up of 2 full time designers and 2 full time [...]
Do I need to make the choice?
Thursday, 14 August, 2008 - 09:55
Following on from my designer or developer post, a nice and friendly reader posted a very nice article for me to have a look at.
It’s by the guys at 37Signals and is worth a read. Designers who develop have more power
Reading this post gave me a bit of a spring in my step. Maybe I [...]
A chance to ?Flex? my muscles
Tuesday, 12 August, 2008 - 18:10
Hi guys,
I’m really sorry about the awful pun for a title but I’ve done it now, it’s too late. The awful pun does however, relate to my recent activity at work. I’ve been set the task to build a flex app for Proton cars as they prepare a launch of a new car of theirs.
I’ve [...]
Monday, 04 August, 2008 - 09:29
Been awhile since i posted here last. I’ve been working for a company called Attic Media Ltd. up in Islington which has been a great experience. I was going to start a placement elsewhere after doing so to see what other companies in the industry are like but the one I was heading to has [...]
Work Experience - Final
Throughout my work experience I have managed to successfully carry out tasks and complete them. Especially In the last tree weeks, which have not been posted has effectively more challenging. In these weeks I have progressed to taking on bigger clients and complying with tighter deadlines.
Some examples of work I have been doing; Emporium, Forres [...]
Work Experience - Day 14
More information came through regarding BJ Mailing, of which had to be put up on the website. This was no stress as the website was finally finished as a shell for additional text material. There is still more to be installed.
Work progressed with the FSM splat flash banner. worked with navigation methods and imagery.
[...]
Work Experience - Day 13
Today I developed this idea of splats and worked with some imagery in relation to the client.
Client - FSM
I also had an insight to another project that was about to start for a magazine called hifi plus
HifiPlus
Work Experience - Day 7
Wednesday, 11 June, 2008 - 09:58
Again developing the website for BJ overlooking contact page and embedded images. I felt that the images can be more pleasing on the eye and relate to the design of the page.
Image of Web Page
I also developed the other task of designing the CD facials.
Work experience - Day 6
Wednesday, 11 June, 2008 - 09:57
Day 6 consisted mainly developing BJ?s site and awaiting more write up content to be done for embedding. I also started to work on another project which consisted of designing six CD facials to be put on the web. these CDs will be later interactive as buttons which will produce a menu of songs corresponding [...]
Work Experience - Day 5
Wednesday, 11 June, 2008 - 09:44
Today Ive been finishing the headers and getting a favicon element for the site.
Work Experience - Day 4
Wednesday, 11 June, 2008 - 09:42
Again, working on the website in the morning but mid day, me and dave set off to the business park where BJ Mailing was situated. we took in excess of 300 pictures of surrounding and objects in relation to the business. these pictures where to be used in the site. I spent the afternoon filtering [...]
Work Experience - Day 3
Wednesday, 11 June, 2008 - 09:40
Still working on the BJ Mailing web site I managed to learn a few more techniques of a outsourced web designer, Steve. he helped my style sheets and gave me a better insight to html code. I was also introduced to shutterstock, an online library full of photos.
Well?..
Tuesday, 10 June, 2008 - 22:08
After realising I haven’t posted up a lot in my Blog, but instead kept a visual diary I thought I’d better update this so the world know’s how it’s going (and for some personal development reasons…..you interactive media lot no what i mean! gay…)
Overall my first year at Bournemouth Uni has been a success! Spot [...]
Degree Thoughts
Part of my course is the insistence that we find a spree of work out there in the big bad world over the summer. I started sending off my CV quite early and made a portfolio site to put something out there, I applied to a lot of companies and chased up a few of [...]
4 Weeks Left
Thursday, 28 February, 2008 - 17:14
Now that we’ve hit another milestone and nearing the deadline for our game, I am starting to be unsure about the quantity of work that is produced. I wonder if there will be enough allocated time to complete the bible, sound effects, site and critical analysis.
4 Weeks Left Everybody!
[...]
Flix
Wednesday, 27 February, 2008 - 00:31
The Simple Minds Presents
Link to the Picture
Flix, the musical adventure is on its way!
The game so far has had numerous tests and is available to play at its current state. The testing process and the game welcomes any feedback via this blog entry. We plan to have finished the game by the 27th March [...]
find 815
Wednesday, 13 February, 2008 - 10:27
Just when you think that Lost couldn't get any more confusing, they go and introduce new characters with potential ghost-talking abilities and multiple future-past-present-future flashforwardback things. Oh, and the bones of a polar bear wearing a Dharma collar in the Tunusian desert. Brilliant.
There's all sorts of mental, overly complex theories out there but all I want to know is - what is the monster?! When Locke asked Ben that very question in episode 2 of the new series, I almost thought we'd get an answer. But no. That'd be too easy. Actually, there's tonnes of things that still need answering but I won't dwell on those; instead, I'll rejoice in the revelation of how the plane wreckage was found in the ocean. They touched upon on it in the show with some news footage, but for the full story take a look at Find 815 (or if you've not got the time to unravel the events yourself, click here for an overview). It's another nice accompaniment to the main tv series which answers a few things but also creates even more mysteries. Worth a look if you're a fan of the show 
The extent to which the makers of Lost go in order to support/add to the story never ceases to amaze me. The amount of work they put into things like The Lost Experience is uber-impressive and while there's a part of me that just wishes they would concentrate on answering things within the show, I definitely appreciate the extra legwork that goes into creating the whole 'Lost-universe'. Cross-platform immersive narrative-ness at it's best.
hyper island - interactive art director
Thursday, 07 February, 2008 - 13:18
if only i could re-do my education
Knowledge Machines - Denise.E.Murray
Monday, 21 January, 2008 - 00:44
For my latest assignment posted of “Cemp” I have decided to read and review the book “Knowledge Machines” by Denise.E.Murray.
The book is about the social language in the technological society of today. So far the book weighs up the advantages against the disadvantages of the social behavior of technology. The book uncovers real life examples [...]
Cemp!!!!!!
Sunday, 16 December, 2007 - 22:25
I know I’m late with one of my online assignments but I have tried to login to this “Cemp” that is possibly as easy as “MyBu”. Just Sayin!
I will try again in the new year as I’m away for Christmas. Can anyone suggest why the login details that they’ve sent me doesn’t work?
Link for non mainstream media
Wednesday, 05 December, 2007 - 08:49
This is my non-mainstream media example.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDblCj6byD0
INTERNEEEEEEET!
Tuesday, 13 November, 2007 - 22:38
Fucking finally. Our unilet internet connection has arrived! Took what….. 7 weeks?
Anyway, its been a while since ive posted a blog! Ive been using photoshop and illustrator a fair bit, learnt quite a lot and ive come up with some pretty cool images which im happy with!
Im working on 2 others… ones pretty ambitious though, [...]
Minor/Major project
Monday, 12 November, 2007 - 15:07
My idea is basically to design a clubbing calender widget - tailored to the individual clubber.
The widget will require the user to input their email address, along with their name.
They will then be asked to choose the following:
Favourite DJ’s
Favourite Venues
Places they visit
Favourite brands/festivals
Favourite genres of music (All dance orientated of course… NO BANDS!)
The user will [...]
Update and stuff
Wednesday, 31 October, 2007 - 16:10
So we got asked to join Second Life last week,
Here is my character:
I have to say it really sucks I went on it for about 15 minutes & went to some sort of dancing competition- someone gave me $8 & now I keep getting e-mails from some sort of club I apparentley joined ARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHH annoying.
I [...]
1 a day, keeps the?? work load away?.
Tuesday, 23 October, 2007 - 13:02
oooo yeah!
one day project. is what it says it is, you have a project which in our case was to make an image relating to nature and technology and we had a day to complete it. We were also given smaller sub-headings like elements which is the one that i chose.
i chose the route of global warming since the elements of our plant our dramatically changing etc.
hopefully uploaded it.
gotta dash as im the 3rd year studio and a class are walking in!
t-ra
Authorship Unit
Saturday, 20 October, 2007 - 13:25
So the brief for my first unit is one on the topic of Authorship.
What is an Author? Foucault might ask you.. How do we know an author? We can’t know what went on in someones head at the time of producing a text so why bother? We can take what we want from it then. [...]
Year 2 - Enter the PHP
Friday, 19 October, 2007 - 00:49
So, here beginith the lessons.
Year 2 of BAIMP has begun, and we are now in the opening stretch of the first project, a collaboratively authored community based website. Well not so much collaboratively authored, but certainly the content will be collaborative since it is meant to be the input of the aforementioned community.
Quite what I’m going to do still eludes me at the moment, but that is not yet of prime importance, since I still don’t know enough php and mySQL to actually make anything anyways. This is important though, PHP and mySQL databases are the bigguns in the interactive media world. I suspect almost every job I do if and when i graduate will involve php and mySQL in some way shape or form. Flash is all good and pretty, but its the database rooted websites that make money and create communities, without which any website is doomed to fail.
In the Web 2.0 world, people expect to be able to comment, to sign up and talk about things, to add their own media to their favourite websites. Pretty much every web phenomonen includes a php based community based interactive side to it, even if its just a comments system.
Most people immediately think of facebook, myspace and youtube when they think of community based websites, but pretty much every website of interest I can think of has community building in some part.
I wish we had more demonstrations to get our heads round this, the real meat and potatoes of interactive media. God forbid they sack one of our demonstrators, as it is we’ve only got 2 who are already spread over some 150 odd imp students spread over 3 years.
The U8
Thursday, 18 October, 2007 - 09:25
Well it’s year two and we have this brief to make some sort of social utility.. thing to do with collaborative authorship.. ie; something like face book? The years been pretty good so far but this brief has had more to it than ones I’ve looked at in my first year which is turning out to be quite interesting, for me at least.
A Guy I know at my local Church works for a group called the U8 which is a student organization which pitches and carries out research to do with the global situations from a third world perspective. It’s global and has people from quite different backgrounds, but they’re all students.. the only way they can contact each other in a big way is via the net.. which has been the inspiration for what I’m doing my brief on. I mean in short this is why I wanted to do IMP.. I’m the sort of person who can’t spend long in front of a screen, but I realize the importance that the internet and interactivity have on the global environment.
The other side is this guy wants me to manage content on the existing U8 website.. which is fair enough but it’s all done via open source on the back end which I’m having to learn. On top of everything else I’m a bit worried it’s going to eat a little too much time? I might be working on some other stuff with my friend Espen (The u8 Guy) in the future which will probably involve more Open Source.. but it’s really the thing I need to sit down and dedicate some time to.. and I’m finding that hard. I’m one of the leaders of the Christian Union at Uni and when I’m not working on Uni stuff I’m probably on something like to do with the CU and I don’t want to compromise either of those.. but I’m finding I don’t even have time to just sit down and play guitar for a bit, read or just go mess with mates..
Maybe it will get easier as I get my head round it but it’s a double edged sword. I really like the idea of the U8 and what it can do but I always used to tell myself I would work to live not live to work. It’s still early days yet so it will probably will just smooth over but it is a bit of a shock to some degree because it’s all established itself in a something like a few weeks? I’ve only been on this properly for a few days now too.. hah.
Maybe this is a learning curve? I don’t know where it will lead me though, it’s going to be interesting.
1 Day Assignment
Wednesday, 17 October, 2007 - 12:50
Right, so the other day we were set our first 1 day assignment. The brief was to create one image, with the overarching theme of nature and technology, illustrating one of 5 words:
Depth, Element, Revolution, Encounter or Journey.
At first I was pretty stuck with this and didnt know what to do, I found the 5 words fairly obscure, and couldnt think of a way to link both nature and technology to one of them. In the end though, I thought of an idea and went with it and I am pretty happy with the outcome:
Ive used photoshop in the past, but mainly for very basic image editing like cropping, resizing, adjusting colours etc, so I was pleased with some of the effects I managed to make work with this one.
To be honest I dont think the assignment helped me that much with ideas for the Images unit, but it certainly began to help build my skills with photoshop, which I really want to improve in this unit.
First assignment
Saturday, 13 October, 2007 - 15:21
Stealing Internet is fun! Not nearly as fun as having a connection that decides to disconnect and reconnect every 30 FUCKING seconds. When they hell are they sorting out our unilet Internet connections?!
Anyway that’s not really what I’m posting about.
Today I’ve started properly thinking about our first assignment: to create 5 images based around the theme of nature and technology. We have been asked to keep a “visual diary”, an idea which I personally adore. It seems like a fantastic way of being creative and arty and letting my imagination flow on paper rather than through a computer, something I have only very recently started to do, but I love it. So I have started that, only done 1 page so far but that is mainly due to my lack of magazines or a printer… I think I’m going to start looking around the Internet for some images to print out in the libary, as magazines are so god damn expensive (looking in the student union shop the other day, Flash magazine - £7).
Right, so ideas. I have already come up with a few. I like the idea of having a running theme, I think having 5 random images that are in no way related would really lessen the impact of whatever I choose to do, so at the moment I am thinking about a theme. First 2 things that popped into my head 30 seconds after being given the brief were:
Elements
Seasons
These both certainly deal with the nature side of things but I will need to think harder if I want to incorporate the theme of Technology into them. Another problem: There are 4 elements and 4 seasons. I need 5 images.
So I started to think today, after doing a page of my Vdiary; what do I love? Music. I have so many ideas right now. Modern popular music clearly revolves around technology, but how can I implement nature? Recently I have been REALLY getting into abstract vector art. Not creating it, but after discovering deviantart.com, Ive wasted so many hours looking through pages of some of the awesome pieces posted on there. Let me show you an example:
If you are at all interested, check out some of my favourites, thats the stuff I’m talking about.
All I can think of now is guitars being strummed and plants, leaves, vines erupting from them, drums being hit and water cascading from them, birds and butterflies flying out of microphones…
Shit i need to learn to work photoshop properly.
transmediale.07: Podcast 4: IPE interview Arthur Kroker
Tuesday, 06 February, 2007 - 00:38
Arthur Kroker agreed to speak to us about some of the themes raised in his Keynote at transmediale.07. Kroker is Co-Editor of CTheory, which Le Monde dubbed 'one of the three leading intellectual electronic reviews in the world'. CBC describes Kroker as 'Jack Kerouac meets cyberpunk'.
Hear a podcast of our interview with Kroker...Direct download>
You may also like to listen to the audio recording of Kroker's Keynote 'Born Again Ideology'...Click here to listen>
Kroker's lecture is named after his forthcoming book, Born Again Ideology. An online version of the book is now available on CTheory.net...Click here to read>
To view and listen to IPE's other videos and podcasts of transmediale.07...Click here>
IPE RESEARCH & PRODUCTION TEAM:
CLAUDIA VIEIRA; JOE FLINTHAM; JAMES JORDAN; MARK SHUFFLEBOTTOM
We'd like to thank Andreas Broeckmann, Artistic Director, Transmediale.07 for allowing us to video podcast from the festival directly.
Transmediale Interactive Art - Podcast 2
Saturday, 03 February, 2007 - 01:42
Our second podcast from Transmediale.07 in Berlin. Even though it's late at night and its been an action-packed day, we've recorded our thoughts on three of the pieces of interactive art we encountered in the exhibition hall.
Taken, David Rokeby
Death Before Disco, Herwig Weiser
Random Screen, Aram Bartholl
The previous three entries also have some video and descriptions of the pieces we discuss if you want visual stimulation to reinforce the delights of the commentary from Mark, James, Claudia and Joe.
tranmediale.07: Unfinish!: Random Screen
Saturday, 03 February, 2007 - 01:39
Random Screen
Aram Bartholl [de]
'Random Screen' is a mechanical, thermodynamic screen working without electricity. Conventional tea candles illuminate and generate the changes on the 5x5 pixel screen.
View our video of 'Random Screen'...View>
Hear us chat about 'Random Screen' and two other exhibits we saw today at Unfinish!...More>
View our photos of 'Random Screen'...
View a slideshow of a selection of photos from the festival....View>
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tranmediale.07: Unfinish!: Death Before Disko
Saturday, 03 February, 2007 - 01:33
Death Before Disko
Herwig Weiser [at]
Herwig built a machine which confronts us with its technical elements in a particularly clear and alienating way. 'Death Before Disko' uses an online data stream from space observation and translates it into simple yet spectacular sound and light events.
View our video of 'Death Before Disko'...View>
Hear us chat about 'Death Before Disko' and two other exhibits we saw today at Unfinish!...More>
View our photos of 'Death Before Disko'...
View a slideshow of a selection of photos from the festival....View>
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transmediale.07 Unfinish Taken
Saturday, 03 February, 2007 - 01:24
Taken
David Rokeby [ca]
'Taken' is an interactive video installation which allows for readings and interpretations of the activities in the gallery space with the help of surveillance cameras.
View our video of 'Taken'...View>
Hear us chat about 'Taken' and two other exhibits we saw today at Unfinish!...More>
View our photos of 'Taken'...
View a slideshow of a selection of photos from the festival....View>
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We have arrived!
Friday, 02 February, 2007 - 09:50
We arrived in Berlin late afternoon Thursday and decided to go to the aiff.tiff interactive sound and visuals exhibition at M13, in East Berlin.
For the enhanced iTunes podcast...Go To>
WE ARE PODCASTING TRANSMEDIALE.07
Saturday, 27 January, 2007 - 02:05
As many of you couldn't join us at Transmediale art & digital culture festival in Berlin this year, we thought we'd bring the festival to you...
We have created videos and podcasts for you of all the interesting and bizarre things we experienced at Transmediale.07. "The 20th Transmediale festival again explores how art and society are changing under the influence of media and technologies which become more and more dominant in our everyday lives" (Intro, transmediale.07).
>We attended the festival as part of our teaching and research activities in IPE (Research Centre in Interactivity, Personalization & Experience). Beyond being fun, these podcasts are free to use as teaching and research resources for all of you interested in what's happening at the cutting-edge of interactive and digital media.
VIEW OUR PODCASTS:
PODCAST 1: We have arrived!
AUDIO: Arthur Kroker: Born Again Ideology - Keynote
VIDEO: David Rokeby - Taken
VIDEO: Herwig Weiser - Death Before Disco
VIDEO: Aram Bartholl - Random Screen
PODCAST 2: Interactive installations
AUDIO: Jan-Peter Sonntag - Borders and the Infinite
AUDIO: Orhan Esen & AbdouMaliq Simone - Unfinished Cities
VIDEO: Herman Asselberghs - Proof of Life
VIDEO: Moon Na - Against God By Water Pistol
VIDEO: Roman Kirschner - Roots
PODCAST 3: Interactive installation and keynotes
PODCAST 4: IPE interview Arthur Kroker
VIDEO: Technocalyps: Frank Theys Interview
View a slideshow of a selection of photos from the festival....View>
VIEW THE FESTIVAL PROGRAMME... more>
Highlights from the festival we'll be checking out include:
- unfinish! exhibition, dedicated to "open-ended artistic approaches to technology";
- film & video screenings, ranging from "feature-length documentaries to a number of compilation programmes with short artistic video works";
- audio-visual live performances, involving artistic and musical experiments reflecting this year's topic unfinish! "Diverse methods of production are being interwoven and combined";
- unfinish! conference, dealing with "the phenomenon of finiteness in art, science, architecture, computer science and politics"; and...
- ...the after-hours club transmediale CTM, presenting "outstanding international productions in electronic music and audiovisual performance", as well as some inebriated fun (...we hope).
HERE ARE A COUPLE OF OTHER EXHIBITS FOR YOU...
Tim Shore (UK) - Cabinet
transmediale.07 - video
nomination for transmediale Award
Seiko Mikami (Japan) - Desire of Codes
transmediale.07 - installation
courtesy: all images are for press use and copyright of transmediale.07
IPE RESEARCH & PRODUCTION TEAM:
CLAUDIA VIEIRA; JOE FLINTHAM; JAMES JORDAN; MARK SHUFFLEBOTTOM
We'd like to thank Andreas Broeckmann, Artistic Director, Transmediale.07 for allowing us to video podcast from the festival directly.
Jack.
Wednesday, 06 December, 2006 - 22:51
Today I had a planning meeting with my group which lasted, probably, at least three hours… I don’t feel, personally, that the time was all used properly (we spent a lot of time sitting around), but we made good progression and I think we all have a pretty clear idea of what our final product will be.
I bounced ideas off my mate reznik (of earworm) over MSN to start with, trying to come up with a suitable fairytale to modernise and adjust to fit the idea I’d had for an interactive narrative system. Then, I saw Emma next to me was looking at Jack and the Beanstalk on Wikipedia and things clicked into place in my mind… my very own eureka, if you will!
I’ll explain in a minute, but this perfectly fit the concept I had going around in my head, albeit with a slightly different reasoning behind switching perspectives. This is the kind of thing I had before:
(N = neutral, G = good, B = bad)
What I had originally thought of was giving the user the option to follow a good, bad or neutral aura to the next stage in the story - sticking with the good aura gives you a perspective identifying with the hero in the story; sticking with the bad aura gives you a perspective identifying with the villain in the story; and choosing anything in between gives you a variety of perspectives of the story. That diagram up there goes from left-to-right, so you can see how the possibilities increase at every step; the problem with this is that by the time you get to, say, the 20th frame, you have 20 possibilities, and thus 20 pages to publish - and that’s for that frame only! You also have 19, 18, 17… to do for the ones before that… pain in the arse, right?
Jack is traditionally perceived to be the “hero” in the story as his adventures are the focal point of the original story - but through the eyes of, say, the giant (or even the giant’s wife), he is nothing but a petty thief, a nuisance to them. Jack isn’t a clear-cut hero, nor is the giant a clear-cut villain; their roles in the story change depending on the narrative perspective. So, I can narrow down the possible threads to four characters - Jack, Jack’s mother, the giant and the giant’s wife. This is easiest to demonstrate with a perspectives timeline coinciding with events in the story (the example below is rudimentary; we will plan and storyboard this properly next week).
Characters can share perspectives if necessary, and the user can switch between perspectives where it is appropriate for the narrative - in a similar way to that shown above, in the previous image, except in a guided manner rather than completely open. The most obvious benefit of limiting the possible frames at each event to 4 is that it’s less work, but by using the perspectives of multiple characters instead of a simple “good/bad/neutral” aura, we can express the POV of each character without having to pigeonhole them into a character type.
The actual product itself has yet to be properly defined… I wonder if everyone in the group has a slightly different idea of what they expect to be producing. I’m fairly confident that I and Corin are on the same kind of track in regards to how we want the final overall product to work (and I personally have a pretty good idea of the visual style I’m after) but I don’t think we really gave Michael, Emma or Laura much of a chance to give their input in this respect, so we’ll get down to that at the start of the next meeting, or at least make sure everyone is happy with what we’ve planned so far.
I intend to storyboard these perspectives in a graphical timeline manner this weekend so we can get straight to business in regards to planning which graphics to switch out for other elements (video/audio/animation) and what linkage to implement - we came up with some pretty good ideas for changing perspectives in the middle of the story, but I don’t want to spill the beans on those just yet, in case a) we never implement it, and b) in case someone nicks our ideas. I’m all for mutual inspiration but I remain wary of the blatant stealing of ideas and/or graphical concepts.
So… a productive day. And, everything I said about group work in aRSUM, I now take back. We all still have some way to go to work more effectively as a team, but we’re definitely on track, as long as I don’t piss anyone off! I do still feel it is somewhat restricting having to consult the rest of the group whenever I have an idea instead of just writing it down quickly and then going ahead and producing what I had imagined, but on my own I would probably never have thought of some of the ideas we bounced off each other today, so that’s one good thing to be said for group work…
Hood.
Monday, 04 December, 2006 - 12:53
So, I and my group (that’s Corin, Laura and Michael - Emma was sadly absent from the day’s proceedings as her alarm clock went to bed) got to work on this Red Riding Hood min-project-thing. It turned out pretty good, I think.
There should be a description in clever words on Corin’s blog explaining the intentions behind our work… yeah, there it is. Check this out! (Slightly changed to fit.)
Here the image shows little red riding hood in bed with the wolf. Coupled with the story (here linked from above) we see that a major part of the narrative is contained within this scene.
We have identified which elements of the image are most important to the story and turned them into ?hot spots?. When the user ?rolls over? these ?hot spots? the piece of narrative and/or dialogue relevant to that element is displayed in a comic book style.
Yep. Good stuff. So, here’s that Flash thing we made, based on that:
http://work.aneuri.net/baimp1_redridinghood/
For what it?s worth.
Thursday, 30 November, 2006 - 11:26
I had a look at Keith Mason’s contextual analysis and decided to upload my own to supplement the imagesproject work I have online, even if the essay was only ever intended for the eyes of the lecture. Looking back at it, damn, that was one informal essay, and so little research too compared to Keith’s, but I guess it’s okay to share it now.
My contextual analysis for public consumption
Comments not necessary, but appreciated.
btw, currently listening to Dopesmoker by Sleep. So damn awesome.
Cut by nearly a dozen minutes, the track eventually surfaced in ?99 to some critical acclaim as “Jerusalem.” But now, sounding like a hung-over Thor awakening from a three-century bender, the original hour-plus “Dopesmoker” returns to stake its claim as the heaviest, if minimally expansive metal dirge of them all, with founder/vocalist Al Cisneros’s massive bass drone and tortured growl making for a hypnotic, if harrowing, listening experience.
Go torrent it, at least… it’s 63 minutes and 31 seconds of the heaviest metal ever. It’s really great. Good to put on when you know you’re going to be coding for an hour.
aRSUM.
Monday, 27 November, 2006 - 16:59
I’ve just had over a week off the uni timetable. It’s been such a great week. Mulling about the house all day every day would normally be deathly dull, but when you have an amazing new girlfriend to chat to (albeit online/via text), every idle minute is experienced, rather than wasted. My outlook on life in general is just so madly positive now, and I’m seeing her for real next weekend… but I shan’t bore you with that. Isn’t it funny how everyone listens when you have something negative to say about someone, or some sort of scandalous information, yet nobody could care less when you’re truly happy?
Anyway, it seems I’m back to work. We have a new project to start work on RIGHT THIS MINUTE, CHUMPS. Reading the module brief now, as I somehow clean forgot about and missed the Production Principles lecture this afternoon, this stood out.
Choose a well-known fairy or folk story as the basis for an interactive narrative, which you will develop, script, design and produce.
That’s good. Actually, that’s great. That’s really brilliant. I don’t have to write a script or anything! Fantastic! All I have to do is make something considered, and pretty, and I’m sorted. No problem. BUT WAIT.
This project is designed to extend your experience into a larger project that involves learning new software, adding a wider range of media, and also working in groups.
Pardon?
“working in groups”
“working in groups”
“WORKING IN GROUPS”
God, no. You have to be shitting me. Group work? I hate group work. I hate it with an unshakeable intensity that causes earthquakes. I’m that serious. Missed deadlines, poor communication, ego face-offs; those all contribute to my hatred of group work, but the killer, for me, is indecisiveness. When you get a group of very different people together, you’re going to have people that have ideas, people that have bad ideas and people that have no ideas at all. So far, I’ve always ended up working in groups of people that fall into the latter two categories; I’ve always demanded when working with these people that I be the sole director-producer of any group project because I’m the only one that’s not utterly incompetent.
And yes, that’s the ego face-off bit. I have a huge ego. I love it when people tell me how great I am (mainly because they’re stating fact, of course… I like factual discussion). I make an effort in my work and I like to be recognised for it. Hey, look, there’s Aneurin! That guy that made the really cool thing! Let’s go say hi! Yes. It’s happened before. I won’t lie, I’m hardly the perfect group worker… that’s why I’ve always been a bit of a lone ranger. If people disagree with me, fuck ‘em, at least I don’t actually have to work with them, yeah?
Well, I do now. I only hope for the sake of everyone in my group - that’s myself, Laura, Patrick, Emma and Corin - that we can work together comfortably and agree on stuff. Because, to be frank, if our final product turns out to be a huge pile of arse, I’m going to break stuff. I’ll be ANGRY. You know? I have unreasonably high standards for my own work, so I’m going to be applying them to yours as well.
Pardon me if I sound a bit of a dictator here. I’m only after assurance. If I can trust you to come up with the goods, I’m happy to work with you… I’ve been burned too many times by idiots that have no idea how to follow up their promises with results, so if you’re one of those types, you’re going to have to sort it out, cos I’m not going to be the one not doing my fair share of the work.
Right… rant mode, off. I had to get that off my chest. Hopefully now you can understand why I hate group work. You’ll probably have guessed by now that the best thing to do is just tell me everything I do is brilliant. That would be lovely. BUT NO. You have ideas too! Feel free to debate, I’ll join in… but when we have to present our idea in like two hours short of merely a week to the entire course, I’d like to clarify what exactly we’re going to be doing, like, ASAP. That would be lovely. Say tomorrow? We’ll sort it out in the seminar. Appoint a director and a producer and the other three of us can be teaboys. Most excellent.
(That was a joke, btw.)
Not really sure there’s anything else I can add to this blog entry, so I’m going to have to end in, erm, in an open manner. Comments appreciated and normally responded to, as usual.
Smug.
Thursday, 16 November, 2006 - 21:43
I finished my essay. And, if I say so myself, I think it’s a bit good. I’m almost certainly going to be docked marks for the colloquialisms and informal manner of the piece, but I don’t really care for those marks as long as I’m able to express my ideas and research properly. Which I think I am.
It’s funny, though, that I’m supposed to write academically in a media course, or at least work towards developing a more formal writing style for my third-year dissertation… if this was biology or medicine or, erm, or rocket surgery, then I could understand, but media? Media’s not about nerds in coats, media’s about cool people like me.
Being so closely related to English, the language used in it should surely reflect cultural developments? If the word “blog” can so quickly become common usage in the English language, why is there a problem with writing in the manner in which I choose, if I am still able to put across my points effectively and concisely?
Anyway, I was about to upload my essay as a PDF, then reconsidered; would this constitute a breach of the academic property regulations? Or some other fancy name? Would I be pulled up for providing material that could enable other students to cheat? I don’t know… but better safe than sorry. So, you’ll have to take my word on this one; my essay is a bit good. Sorry, darlings.
So, I’m handing it in tomorrow morning at some point in the 10am-12pm submissions office open time, then I’m off home for a week… this “reading week” is a great invention. I’ll get round to finishing Wild Arms 4 (review copy), do some website work, then go out with my old school chums next Friday and get unreasonably drunk and maybe a bit stoned and spend all of Saturday watching Balamory because I don’t have enough brain cells left to comprehend anything smarter than PC Plum. Cheers…
Four images.
Monday, 06 November, 2006 - 19:42
My four images for the Images unit are now completed, I think. I’ve put them online as well.
http://work.aneuri.net/baimp1_imagesproj/
(PS. I’m not sure if I’ve posted this already, but here’s my main portfolio link.)
Comments on either would be appreciated…
Presentation.
Tuesday, 31 October, 2006 - 17:24
I have updated my creative diary, as anyone in Group A (that turned up for the presentation, anyway) will now know. The link again is:
I have now added my Land images to it, and my short essay explaining it, so feel free to browse.
Also, today’s presentations seminar was good - I was impressed by some people’s work today. Patrick’s flower, in particular, was wickedsweet (even if he never got around to finishing it), and some of the creative diaries had some interesting thought processes going on (perhaps not as focused as my own, I thought, but obviously there were concepts there I’d not even considered as part of my own work). My faith in my peers has been restored today — thanks, everyone!
Knowing that our work is marked solely on our four final images and essay, I’m not sure if I should continue to work on my diary - I appreciate that it has helped me to develop my ideas so far, but it has only been really incidental in the production of my Land images - it was actually Joe’s lecture yesterday, about semiotics, that sparked that idea. I also need to make a start on that essay and my remaining three images, otherwise come three weeks from now I’ll have 12 hours left to write 1,500 words and create some inspired images as well.
It’s difficult to make the call, but I think I have generated enough momentum with my diary to move on to my essay and start justifying my work in longer paragraphs. I will still keep this blog updated when I come up with new ideas or have something to say, for the time being, but when I find the time, I’m going to be upgrading my plain HTML portfolio to one I can update via an admin interface - as soon as I’ve achieved that, this blog’s going down, punk. I appreciate my current readership but this blogging lark has got pretty boring pretty quickly when there aren’t many other people making a similar effort…
Focus 2.
Friday, 27 October, 2006 - 16:59
Here’s a huge list of Internet art, websites, projects and so on for inspiration. Thought I’d share it.
List / Book the links are referenced in
(Link courtesy of my dad.)
Focus, aka huge blog update.
Friday, 27 October, 2006 - 14:27
I’ve spent the last half-hour or so reading other people’s course blogs and I get the impression that a lot of people are dubious about the course’s requirements, so I think I’ll address this today.
The Images unit is not the most demanding project I’ve ever had, but it’s definitely been the most freeform. I quote, again, from an earlier post:
Images can only be produced through technology - even sketching on a pad involves tools and technologies, and requires the subjective act of interpretation by the creator of the image. As such, techniques and movements have arisen which seek to recreate a ?naturalistic? way of representing the visual world, in which the technological aspects of production seem to disappear.
Your images should try to explore these tensions; what techniques can be used to try to present a naturalistic image, and in what ways can you demonstrate the impact of technology on the production of images?
Even I will admit that this is a vague brief. But can you — assuming you’re reading my blog, I mean — not see the point of this exercise? It’s like… like a mind-expanding, first project deal. Seriously, would you rather start your course with a bit of theory and something you’re already comfortable doing (ie. sticking pictures into books - you’ve been doing this since you were 2), or be launched headfirst into a world of str_replace, mysql_fetch_array, $_POST?
Personally, I feel some people are expecting the wrong thing from the course - Interactive Media Production is as much about design as it is function. Good design is rooted in design theory, and design theory is rooted in culture, and subsequently philosophy. I’d be happy to start the course just tapping away on a computer, trying to INSERT * INTO the fucking database, but then I’d consider the course not all it’s cracked up to be if I’m not actually going to be learning anything (obviously it helps that I already have several years of XHML/PHP/CSS/AS/MySQL under my wing and I can appreciate that not everyone on the course will be at my level* but it’s sad to see so many people seemingly not making any kind of effort).
I’m not surprised that a lot of people are disillusioned by the course when they’re barely trying to make sense of it. Okay, I’ll admit the Creative Diary work is bloody boring, but I’m sure I’ve said it in an earlier blog entry - there’s no point in keeping such a diary if you don’t give it any context. Here’s mine, for instance, with context and a faint narrative (again, I’ve posted this before, but I feel the subject warrants re-posting of the URL):
http://www.aneuri.net/yada/creativediary/
I don’t claim that it’s any good, but I’ve tried to give it some direction and I feel that this has made it easier for me to continue working on it. And this is probably your problem, reader (assuming you’re on my course, I mean) — you want your teachers to give you a direction so you don’t have to think for yourself, when they are trying to do exactly the opposite - YOU have to think about it. YOU have to decide what you want out of your work. YOU have to develop and refine your own abilities.
If you’ve read all that and you fall into that group of people that don’t seem to understand the course, you’ll be thinking one of two things.
- My god, he’s right. He is so right.
- What a dick.
Either way, here are some links for inspiration - and all these are just the cream of the crop of the other student blogs.
Alasdair Scott - has already produced one of his images
James Ready - huge portfolio. Have a look around, there’s some really good stuff there
Keith Mason - is very good at writing very long essays
Hopefully some of these guys’ work might inspire your own.
* nearly forgot to address this point. I probably sound like a massive elitist right here, but I’m genuinely just being honest. I’ve not seen anyone else produce particularly astonishing work, though it IS early days. If this is really the best media course in the country, it should produce some geniuses eventually…
It?s alive!
Thursday, 19 October, 2006 - 16:32
I’ve uploaded my creative diary in website form for y’all to browse…
http://www.aneuri.net/yada/creativediary/
I’m following a narrative for each section, kinda like: starting at the least civilised point and gradually becoming more technological, more affected by humans. I think this rough narrative makes more sense and is easier to develop than a collection of random images and thoughts, a path which I’d find impossible to maneouvre because of all the meandering I’d likely do.
I’ve done only the first section so far, but I’ll update it as I complete each section (I already explained each section in the previous blog entry, refer to that if you have no idea what I’m talking about).
By the way, the reason my diary reads right-to-left is simply that I’m left handed. I also wanted to be different for the sake of being different. It does give me a good excuse to make a nice ‘next’ button though. :-)
Inspiration.
Wednesday, 18 October, 2006 - 02:03
Who would have thought a simple mind map would have given me so many ideas? It’s been months since I did one of these things, but I always make mine well bum, and I’ve been working all night using it as a basis.
(For those that don’t know; we all had to draw mind maps in this afternoon’s seminar. The theme was ‘nature and technology’ and while most people in my group, as far as I could see, used that as a central point, I split nature and technology into two separate bases. I originallly planned to make two separate mind maps and compare them, then I had the idea of simply placing them at opposite ends of my sheet of paper and creating links between the two via mind mapping - tenuous though those links may be.)
Anyway, the concept of my mind map was progression from nature to technology (or regression from technology to nature, depending on how you want to look at it). I decided to continue this theme in my creative diary and I’ve already done the first part.
First part, you say? Guess I’ll have to explain now… I split it up into four parts. They are:
- Land (1-1/2-1)
- Life (1-2/2-2)
- Human (1-3/2-3)
- Home (1-4/2-4)
(The 1- part is researching and analysis - the 2- part is developing my own ideas for the four images I will have to create.)
Rather than analysing and appreciating the image itself - the representation - I considered its content; what is it? Why do I like it? How does it make me feel? I have just completed the ‘Land’ section (1-1) and I’d scan in my pages except I’m not sure I’m allowed to share them… it’s also 2:48am and I don’t really feel like it. Anyway, I figured the latest ‘Land’ item would be the city; New York, whatever. The city. Skyscrapers, traffic and hotdogs. So what would be the complete opposite of that? Not the desert… the city is as barren as this is (busy with life but in itself lifeless). No, the exact opposite would be the rainforests I learnt about when I was nine; full to the treetops with all kinds of life, disorganised and completely devoid of unnatural development. I started off with this and worked gradually (in the sense of becoming more organised, more humanised) towards the city.
Point is, it could be completely arse, but I’m really powering along. All I need to do is apply the same logic to the other sections and I should have a creative diary ready for presentation in two weeks’ time… wahey. Or is it next week?
I am enjoying the lectures/seminars/tutorials here - particularly the tutorials, mainly because I got to pwn James at CSS today - but I do feel it’s a lot to absorb. If I were being specific, Mark’s 53-page presentation on Design Theory last Thursday was incredibly dense, and Cl?ia’s philosophy lecture yesterday just confused me a lot. It’s not that I feel I’m under any pressure - there seems to be remarkably little of that here, actually - but I can see myself actually not being able to ever comprehend some stuff on this course (mainly the philosophy). That’s a worrying thought; I’ve never willingly participated in anything I don’t fully understand. I don’t enjoy thinking in this much depth… that could hold me back in some aspects. I prefer to leave thinking to those “wacky” surrealists that manage to convince people that their art actually means something. Melting clocks? What the hell is that about? (I’d say “fuck” but I might get told off for that.)
It’s just gone 3:02am. I think I should probably get some sleep. Yeah…
Edit: I nearly forgot the random link for today. Earlier I revisited an old favourite, SuperBad. If you “get” it, brilliant. Otherwise, no problem. But seriously now, I’m off to bed.
Images.
Monday, 16 October, 2006 - 18:11
I’ve been thinking about this since Cl?ia’s lecture. Yesterday I was fretting about a basis for my images and the accompanying essay… now I think I have it.
“Can technology represent the real world without using a single natural image/source?”
The bits about surrealism and post-modernism went over my head because I’m not an arty-farty pretentious type, but I wondered how the real world would look if it was all technology and man-made materials. I think I will make that the basis of my work, although now I will need to figure out how to expand on this theme for the essay. I may need to discuss it with one of the tutors as well, just to make sure I’m not being silly. If only the tutors would comment on everyone’s blogs more often…
Design principles.
Monday, 16 October, 2006 - 16:53
OHMYGOD. That was a good lecture, but so much to take in… I just checked out the PDF I downloaded from the media2 “images” area and it’s 53 pages long. Crikey.
At least now I have tons of ideas for my creative diary and, after Cl?ia’s overly philosophical lecture, an idea for an image… I will need to write about it too, but I’ll make it first and then discuss it with Mik or something before I start writing about it. It could turn out to be completely arse, I don’t know yet.
Forest Grove
Wednesday, 31 May, 2006 - 19:48
This morning I discovered Forest Grove. I was supposed to be getting my haircut, but an hour-and-a-hooked-half later I was still exploring Forest Grove.
It uses such simple yet effective techniques to create an absorbing and immersive story-telling experience. Sometimes it reminded me of La Jetee, but at others it used innovative montage ideas I've never seen used before. It has elements of concrete poetry, minimalist animation, really effective sound effects, an original score, and, oh everything.
Not sure why I haven't seen this sooner since it was featured in last year's Sundance festival.
It's fab, so you should look at it, so I wrote this post.
Via We Make Money Not Art
Site launched
Wednesday, 24 May, 2006 - 10:36
Congratulation! Cheer up! Our site have been done finally!
Let's take a look: http://www.chineseinbournemouth.com/
W3C Validate
As i have finished my site, i went to W3C validator to check for my HTML and CSS. At the beginning there are some errors in the website. But i followed the instruction and correct all of them. Now our site is validated both in HTML and CSS. Yeah!!
Check out this: HTML validate , CSS validate .
User Testing
After several days' hard working, our project was almost done. I have finished all the pages, but due to the limit of time, i don't have enouth time to do the Chinese version at the moment. Hopefully i will finish it in the near future.
Today i asked my client and some of my friends to do some user testings. Here are some of their feedbacks:
My client Miss Wang:
Dear Mr.Zeng, I have visted your website designed for Chinese in Bournemouth and would like to give you some feedback as the following. Firstly, the contens have provide a wide range of useful information for freshmen in Bournemouth, especially the life section. It does help for a stranger because there is related information in practise such as accommodation,eating and transportation. Secondly,the navigation is clear for users. It presents a specific position for visitors. What is more, the validator is standardised according to W3C XHTML and CSS. The whole design is good and exhibits neccesary materials in the website. However, it will be more perfect if providing more local pictures inside each section.If possible,a forum to share experience in Bournemouth will be practical and direct for users.
From Hong:
Hi Kevin, I checked the web site. It is great and nice, also an informative Chinese web site in Bournemouth. I am a MAC user, So I will use Safari and Camino browser to view your web site. - The overall feel and look of Chinese in Bournemouth web site is very nice and easy to use. It brings out the feel. - It is also an informative web site. The screen design is simple and nice. ( Clear design 
- The overall navigation design is very clear and easy to navigate also. - And the number of steps to get to the information structure is easy which is very good and usability friendly. - Identifying the current location in the information is just right. - The loading speed is quick although you have quite few large images. Impressive! Frankly, the design is good, simple and easy to use. Best Regard, Hongy
PHP test
Cause we had had some PHP workshops this term, i could use them in our project, i put a message board and an uploading page in our site, letting our users contribute to our project, also we can have good feedback from them.
The PHP is really helpful, i am trying to use database for the content updating.
Check out these: Message board and Uploading page.
Userbility test
Thursday, 18 May, 2006 - 21:02
I went to see my client today to do the userbility test. We found out some problems:
1. The background image and some of the images are too big for size, so they were not loaded fast. I will cut down the image size more, although it will also cut down the quality.
2. Some of the images didn't show, leaving a blank table there. I forgot to put "Alt=xxx" for some of them, i will check later.
3. The content background image is a white color in PNG format, it is transparent, but what we saw in my client's computer was just white color. Still i don't know why.
4. Some fonts are now shown correctly, so it's better to put a font-family but not just one font for CSS rules.
5. Colors of fonts are not clear enough in my client's laptop, so i need to use some more sharp and clear link colors.
This userbility test was quite helpful for improving the site. Still more work should be done!
CSS achieved
As i mentioned before, basically we used CSS to achieve our site. We mostly use html instead of Flash or Java Script. After several days' working, i had finished most of the pages in CSS, we got templates, so what's next is putting more content. Looking forward to more achievement.
Can check out this: http://www.chineseinbournemouth.com/
Images and Copyright issues
As copyright issues are important part of the project management, we had considered about this through the working process. So we tried to use more original resources, espeacilly for images (cause we don't have videos and audios). My cilent gave me some pictures she had, (she took before) and i tried to take more shots during these days. So most of the images in our site are originally taken by us, otherwise we will indicate the source. As for the articles, we refered them from other sites, but we give clear indication of the source.
Navigation design
Wednesday, 10 May, 2006 - 19:11
Last time i showed my client about the interface design. We then talked about the navigation. It seemed that she didn't feel satisfied with the navigation, she said it was a bit confused. The navigation for first layer was fine, but the navigation for second layer was on the right side, it was not really clear there and limited the size of contect. So later on i improved the navigation, i put two navigation together on the top, users can easily navigate the site and get the part they wanted. Also the most important thing was: my client Miss Wang was happy with this .
Meeting with client 5 - collecting content
This time we talked about the website content mainly, she suggest me to get more material originally, however, due to the limit of time and working people (just myself), she was considering refering some information from some official Bournemouth website, and also we can get help from International Office of Bournemouth Uni. Moreover, she gave me some useful content of some parts of our project. Later on, i got a welcome guide from International Office, it was a really great book of welcoming freshman to Bournemouth. So, these two days, we had collect so much information about Bournemouth, in every aspect, which would be very helpful for the project in the future.
Homepage and subpage design
So far, i have designed homepage and some subpages roughly. Trying to get some feedback from my client.
PHP workshop
Thursday, 04 May, 2006 - 23:02
Today we had PHP workshop, we had learned how to make a message board/email feedback board, and how to let users upload files, with PHP. So later on i tried it on my server, upload.html did work but not mail.html, i am still checking the problems, i think these PHP things would be useful for our site.
Check it out:
http://www.chineseinbournemouth.com/mail.html
http://www.chineseinbournemouth.com/upload.html
Meeting with client 4
Thursday, 04 May, 2006 - 22:02
After last meeting with client, she complained about my design for the layout. So i tried to improve it, with the help of my designer. Today i showed the client my improved layout and explained more details of the subpages. She felt happy with this. I told her i will use CSS to create our site, following this layout. She said it was fine but just hurry up. Also she offered some content material to me. Then later on we talked about the accessibility, she felt quite clear about those features this time and felt happy to validate our site in the future.
Processing images
I came to see my designer today, i showed him my sketch of homepage image, which was made of the photos i took yesterday. Then he showed me how to use the colour and make them together. He improved one of the image as example, making it dark and seems like in the night. Also i found the arrangement of the words was a difficult job. I had learned a lot from the process. Thanks for Ding's help!
Getting material
Sunday, 30 April, 2006 - 20:46
Last meeting with my client we talked about some copyright issues, we couldn't write all the articles, so we will reference them from other sites. But we can take the pictures and create our own images. It's nice weather today, so i went to take some photos of Bournemouth, as the necessary material of our site.
Meet client 3
Friday, 28 April, 2006 - 19:32
Today i met my client, we talked about the content, considering the limit of my skills and time, we decided to cut down my work a bit, we won't do the forum part and message board. Also i showed her the flow chart(sketching) and basic layout of the site, she said the structure was fine but the designing was too simple, she asked me to improve the homepage design later to make it more colourful and impressive. I will show her another one the next time but won't change the structure much.
Got help from designer
Thursday, 27 April, 2006 - 21:38
As i am not good at designing, also Claudia suggested me find a media specialist to cooperate for the project. I had been looking for a more professional person on designing. Luckily, one of my friend introduced his friend who had done some design job before to me, so i might get help from him.
Today i got the chance to know him and talk to him. I explained my work and the whole project. When he was clear, he said he would like to help me, especially for processing the images. So when i finish my layout or the template of the site, i will ask him to improve the colours or images, or he will give me some suggestion for designing.
Thanks for your kind, Ding!
After?
Tuesday, 25 April, 2006 - 23:05
It was a rush term…
Professional Study and Research project…
Then
Issues and DAP
I was worried…
I was thinking of giving up
I was strugling
And
I was really involed…
Now they are there, waiting for verdict…
I looked outside the window
oh…
Tulip is here
Spring is here…
From DAP Group First Meeting
My Room After Printing Issues Booklet….
Photogallery online
Thursday, 20 April, 2006 - 08:02
The photogallery website is now officially online at
http://www.scherlmostagee.com
I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who contributed with their valuable input (be it during the conceptual development phase, planning, designing, production, and testing) which had helped me learn alot through this project. And a special thanks goes to my client for his [...]
Earlier sketches
Wednesday, 19 April, 2006 - 19:56
Ok I admit I am not a great drawer…that’s why I was a bit hesitant to put these sketches online, which I drew in my sketch book, early on during the visual design stage, but there is no escape …so that everyone will see it eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee….
Testing result,Site Launched
Wednesday, 19 April, 2006 - 07:56
Colour4u.net now launched after testing, still need more informatio to added in ,but looks Ok now:)
Here is one email from a tester:
|
|
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The problem he talks in his email has nothing to do with software. It is because we were having ASP test without noticing the testers so he had those difficulties with viewing some of the pages.
We later put a notice on the blog and also sent email to all testers.
Anyway ,thank you very much, everyone (who may even not see this blog), you have been really helpful!
We have problems withall dynamic pages that they can not be valedated by W3C. Jaco is working on it. Eventhought this doesn't influnce most of our users we still in tend to make it as accesible as posible!
User testing
Monday, 17 April, 2006 - 21:03
I made a test today. I had chosen a friend of mine who usually goes to have foreign
food.
There seemed to be no problem in my website, it's to easy to browse, I guess.
Anyway, he was happy with the site and didn't find it confusing.
Good luck for that.
About the music.
Monday, 17 April, 2006 - 19:35
Here is the link to the site of the band that inspired my music.
Howeve, there style is quite new(they mix thai music with jazz and stuff)
but I quite like the way Thai xylophone mix with western music.
My music can’t be Jazz though so I composd very easy cattchy cords( C Am Dm G7)
put Thai based melodies in ( pentatonic scale) in that then put the xylophone sound when
the cord change as a gimmick and giving it a hint of Thai feeling.
Giving a rythm s a bit hard, the drums sound is to heavy so I use the bell sound to resemble the
felling of going to a temple in Thailand instead of drums and gave it melodies (break down the chords)
to make it feels tender and sweeter.
Earlier tests
Monday, 17 April, 2006 - 18:33
Here are some earlier second round tests conducted to seeif the send functions on the E-card and Contact me pages are working….these were the end result of the test.
Wordpress down again
Monday, 17 April, 2006 - 18:30
Wordpress hasnt been doing well lately…..yesterday it was down …and this is not the first time…I just hope that they does loose my blog someday…so I will save try to save all my post and comments on this blog just as back-up. Any leads of how to do it?
Testing testing
Monday, 17 April, 2006 - 18:27
Site is finally complete. Just received client user test…and also tested the site remotely and I received positive feedback…except for few comments:
1-The signature of theVolker I had to change it to the right.
2-Demo page had to write somewhere that you need to download flash player because most of the users tested said that they needed [...]
The photo shooting.
Sunday, 16 April, 2006 - 11:26
This was last week me my photographer and the chef were discussing about the website's photo shooting
Being outside Thailand and also the limit budget, my photographer found it hard to get the lights.
However, with his experience he managed to make soft boxes that gave quite a good lighting from what we can afford to get.
We?ve got our own article for the site!!!
Saturday, 15 April, 2006 - 22:04
We now got our first contribution from Sandra Balk, a colourblind girl, Lubna's friend.
She wrote an article about her life with colourblindness which is lively and lovely. I would like put this as the first 'hignlight' in the site.
Thank you, Lubna!!! You have been really helpful to the site!
HTML Test finished ,now ASP Test
Saturday, 15 April, 2006 - 15:06
Thank you for those who give comments to the site. The HTML test is finished now.
Jaco and me are now doing ASP testing ,so there might be mistakes on the site.
Website validation, going live online for user testing
Saturday, 15 April, 2006 - 10:10
I validated all my pages on the website based on W3C validator and all the pages comply, except ofcourse the page which will include a video demo in it. The website is now online for my client to test it, navigate through it and final check the content.
Volker today I am uploading the video, [...]
FTP test OK!
Thursday, 13 April, 2006 - 10:43
FTP test ok!
Check out this:
http://www.chineseinbournemouth.com/images/ftptest.jpg
http://www.chineseinbournemouth.com/images/Bournemouth Uni.bmp
Back to basic
Thursday, 13 April, 2006 - 03:21
Using an image as a background can be a disaster, as my peers commented it's gonna be to big and take a long time for a page to be fully loaded. So I need to convince my client that if she wants more picture it can be put in Gallery link.
A rule of thumb in project management: Always Have a Plan B
Wednesday, 12 April, 2006 - 18:56
After two weeks, I received this email from the programmer who was supposed to help in with the ecard coding for my website. I thank God that I searched other options and didn’t depend on him. That’s why in any project you ALWAYS have to have a plan B (even better also make [...]
55 reasons to do XHTML/CSS
Wednesday, 12 April, 2006 - 17:03
Got to this site via Digg.com. A usefull reminder why we should do XHTML/CSS rather than tables for webdesign.
“In no particular order 55 reasons for me to do ?tableless? websites using valid XHTML for markup, CSS for layout and Flash sparingly, only as an ingredient. By tableless I mean avoiding tables (or a tagsoup of unnecessary divs substituting table trs and tds) for layout purposes and aiming towards as semantic markup as possible. Some of the reasons are ?over HTML”, some ?over Flash full monty? and some over both.”
Read the 55 reasons hereÂ
First version of the site online
Wednesday, 12 April, 2006 - 17:02
Finally the first version of the site went online today as planned and within the deadline of my client. There will be some minor bug fixes the next days as we find bugs and more. The site will be presented to the Italian region in the end of April.
Visit the site
Learning alot for W3C Validation for XHTML
Wednesday, 12 April, 2006 - 16:04
Ok today is the big validation day for all my webpages for the photogallery site.
Till now the following pages are validated: index, about me, contact me, ecard, gallery
Missing still is demo (will do it once I optimise the video).
But I have learnt alot from the errors that came out in the validation like for instance, [...]
Register the domain
Wednesday, 12 April, 2006 - 12:53
As i talked to my client, we need a domain for our site to be web based. Then we discussed about the domain name, but some of names we liked had been used. Finally we make it a name not short but easy to understand: 'chineseinbournemouth'.
Then i register the domain as 'chineseinbournemouth.com', so from now, we can use our own domain: http://www.chineseinbournemouth.com
Soon release..
Tuesday, 11 April, 2006 - 10:01
The deadline for my project is getting closer. Yesterday we got the domainname and hosting up and running successfully and the site will be released in its first version within days. I’m still working on translating everything to English so Claudia and other markers can read and see what the site is really about. There’s a lot of text so it takes more time than I thought to translate everything.
Ecard php problems finally resolved once and for all!
Monday, 10 April, 2006 - 23:47
Almost had a heart attack….yesterday when i was testing the ecard it didnt work…had another panic attack, checked the php script for the ecard over and over again…I receive the email but still had the following problems:
no image and no body text.
Met with Mark today at uni and found out the problem was that part [...]
Contact me form script solved
Monday, 10 April, 2006 - 23:38
These past weeks…I have been working around solving the coding puzzles. First it was the contact me form the script was from (www.daniweb.com/tutorials/tutorial38784.html). After two days of work…it was solved ofcourse with the help and consultance of my new skype friend Robert Keech:
bubbles0673: 19:40:54: i have a submit email form…it works but when [...]
Most pages done, open for testing!!!!
Monday, 10 April, 2006 - 20:08
I've done most of the pages for Color4u.net apart from dynamic parts:article&gallery.
You are very welcome to leave your comments here!!!
Colourblind Test Done in Javascript!
Sunday, 09 April, 2006 - 23:54
Since Flash is not suitble to do this test ,I had to find another way.Then it came Javascript.
A small gallery JS can do a BIG job, sometimes.
Wanna try?
httP://www.colour4u.net/issues/test/index.htm
Defining my project
Sunday, 09 April, 2006 - 13:37
Although my client and i had already begun with the project, suddenly I found i forgot to define the topic and key points in this conceptual developing blog, so here i repeat these points.
My project is about the chinese's life in Bournemouth, as i have done some research in this area, i find there isn't a website introducing the necessary and useful information about living here for chinese. There are oringially lots of chinese in Bournemouth and the amout is getting more. For Chinese people living here, although they had been here for more or less time, they are still lack of some particular information and resources, and they are not related to each other much. So one of the key point of this site is offering them a connection and medium for communication; For Chinese strangers, this site is offering all kinds of useful information and tips for them to get used to settling here. Also before they arrive here, they can get a basic understanding of the environment.
As i explained the idea to my client the first time, she thought this site would be really helpful cause she could not find these kinds of information easily before she came here, and had experienced some problems like confusion and worry at the beginning days. As Chinese she would like to help me with this project, she agreed to be my client and always gave me some good feedback and suggestion for the site.
Structure of the site
Sunday, 09 April, 2006 - 11:29
Here i improved the structure of the site, with the help and suggestion from my client.
Structure:
* About the site
* Environment
-UK
-Bournemouth
* Daily Life
-Accommodation
-Food
-Transport
-Leisure
-Health and Safety
* Studying
-Language School
-Undergradaute
-Postgraduate
-Others
* Working
-Regulation
-Preparation
-Getting jobs
* Travel
-Bournemouth
-Surrounding attractions
* Culture
-Cultural adaptation
-Emotional issues
-Getting help
* Visual resources
-Photos
-Videos
* Interaction (Extra Page)
-Message Board
-Forum
* Getting help (Contacting)
* Links
Met my client
Saturday, 08 April, 2006 - 19:07
Due to some reasons, i didn't contact my client for long time, so i came to meet her today. I explained what happened last month, i said sorry that i had dalayed all the jobs. She understood and accepted my appologize in the end.
Then we had a half hour meeting for the project, i explained our working process to her, she reminded me to hurry up with the project cause i had been late for the schedule for too much. I showed her my basic structure of the site and sketching, she gave me some suggestion, especially she told me about her own experience when she arrived here and knew nothing, how she felt and what kinds of information she wanted to know as a stranger. This part was quite important for the project. Then later on, we discussed more about the content, finally it seemed not bad meeting after long time's stop.
Later on i improved my structure, and trying to work it out!
Meeting with my client - usability test.
Friday, 07 April, 2006 - 22:16
Since most of the pages haven been done, I met my client today to have a usability test. The aim of this test was to find out how the navigation system works and is there any confusing colours used in the site.
The test lasted about 10 minutes. I just give the first page of the site and sat behind him watching. During the test ,he did not meet any point that stopped him exploring. In the page of article, he had a little bit confussion because the ASP part has not been done. But ,without explaination ,he understood it in about half a minute. I am thinking of giving another usability test to more people later on when the ASP parts is done.
It was satisfying that my client was happy with site so far. And he also gave some advices to me . I will improve the site tomorrow.
Flash vs W3C
Thursday, 06 April, 2006 - 07:20
I was planning doing colour blind test in flash game. But since all my pages done so far can pass W3C standard , if i put a flash game in the site ,how will it be like? No more W3C?
No idea…Any help?
Testing: email me, ecard and web site browswers
Wednesday, 05 April, 2006 - 15:12
Yesterday we tested the send me email page and it worked. Please confirm.
Now I am working with the ecard page and most probably will be able to finish it by tonight and will ask you to please test it and again send me your confirmation.
Finally I need you to confirm that you are able to [...]
It is working: E-card
Wednesday, 05 April, 2006 - 15:08
FINALLY the Ecard function is resolved. After two days of struggling with php script.
I met with Mark today and I showed him the script that
I had and the interface…. in the beginning he was not able to find a solution for my problem becuase it involved PERL and he is not really familiar with it, [...]
Use 3D images
Wednesday, 05 April, 2006 - 08:16
To create more pictures for the web was a difficult thing for me a week ago. Since most pictures I found interesting having problem of copyright. So I dicided to start my picture designing a nother time after the home page.
Ulead Cool3d is a good software to use to make simple 3D pictures. It is so easy to use that you can learn in 5 minutes.
Here is the basic graphic I did in Ulead Cool3d and then I made the icons below.
ICONS
Wednesday, 05 April, 2006 - 08:02
I finished the pages (DEMO) for Jaco to do with asp two days ago.
All the pages including interface and information for Data Base have been sent to Jaco. Hope he can finish as soon ass possible.
1st:Home Page
see post before.
2nd:Article
3rd:Gallery
4rd:Back Office
Use Javascript to help with ?menu? and ?footer?
Tuesday, 04 April, 2006 - 23:06
I have been using Java script to make 'Navigation Bar' and 'Footer' for a long time. I find it simple and brings big advantages.
The way is to put your Nav-bar and footer in a Javascript file and then call them in the pages. The good thing about it is that whenever you want to change a thing in the nav-bar or footer, just change the JS file. Then every page calls them will change at the same time. No need to change nor upload each one.
My way is to select the part of HTML code and put in a notepad file. Then just add: document.write(' at the beginning of each code and '); at the end of them. Then save it as a JS file.
Delete the code you have used in the HTML and put the folowing:
<script language="javascript" src="the path you put the JS file">
</script>
Notice:
1.If in the code you seleced there are already Javascript, you should not put 'document.write(' around it. just leave it as that. If they are mixed, you can not use this way, I think.
2. If there is link in the HTML ,you should think about if every page calls this script are in the same level? If not, you should do different Js file for different levels.
3. It is good that the code you select have a clear beginning and ending. Such as if it is better from '<table>' rather than '<tr>' or '<td>' and end with</table>, so you can put it anywhere.<p> and </p> is also a good choice.
4. In Java script, document.write(' and document.write(" are not different. but you should avoid using the same as in your HTML code.
Such as, In HTML <img src="dot.gif" alt="Title" width="15" height="15" />
Then you should put in JS file:
document.write(' <img src="dot.gif" alt="Title" width="15" height="15" /> ');
Example:
footer.js(saved in the folder 'java_sc' under YOUR WEB ROOT ):
<document.write(' <p>Copyright 2006 abc.com all rights reserved.</p> ');
In the HTML:
<script language="javascript" src="/java_sc/footer.js">
</script>
Then,if you want put your email in this footer,just add like this in the Js:
<document.write(' <p>Copyright 2006 abc.com all rights reserved.</p> ');
<document.write(' <p><a href=mailto:youremail@aol.com>youremail@aol.com</a></p> ');
Then every page calls this will change.
This is just my personal experance. If anything is not right, please point out and I would like to discuss with you.
Home page dilemma.
Tuesday, 04 April, 2006 - 22:26
Since I've put my Two home page design online, I 've got many feedback from school mates and stranger. The choices were half and half, then I decide to let my client to make the choice, and..he chose the first one I did.
Home page was not so difficult to set up, the really problem came to the article pages, which were more complex. I love CSS when it helps with the layout, but then I found there were many limits and I started to hate it. But finally, I managed to work through. Thank godness for that.
www.scherlmostagee.com
Tuesday, 04 April, 2006 - 08:56
Volker…everything is sorted out with the web hosting company. But I am still waiting to see if they can allow me to change the name to shcerlmostageer.com instead of scherlmostagee.com. They should respond by today .
So now the site is running, at www.scherlmostagee.com
I uploaded the first page and will upload the “About me”, “Contact me” [...]
MY last design.
Tuesday, 04 April, 2006 - 02:53
My client wants the look and feel of a restaurant in the site. The last one looks too graphic based, so I try putting more picture in here. And she seems to be happy.
FTP failure
Thursday, 30 March, 2006 - 16:32
Ok finally I sorted out my account for my webspace. with Streamline.com Mainly I didnt have money in my bank account. But that is solved.
So now the domain name should be www.scherlmostagee.com
and I downloaded the cyberduck to upload the site.
So I had to go back again to update my billing information on streamline.com. But still [...]
Home page redesign
Thursday, 30 March, 2006 - 10:15
According to the feedback from the classmates, the left part of the page is a bit 'SHARP',I did some change on it to make it softer. How do you think? Please help me out? which one should I use?
Before:
After:
(1) (2)
Domain/Hosting
Wednesday, 29 March, 2006 - 10:55
Two days ago I registered with two FREE domain registeration and web hosting services
The first one is: http://www.globalweb.com.ru (russian)
Features: 1 GB Monthly Data Transfer (100,000 page views)
100 MB Disk Storage
[...]
Welcome :)
Monday, 27 March, 2006 - 14:09
The Interactive Media Production Blog is a space where our BA (Hons) Interactive Media Production and MA Interactive Media students share news, ideas and their work with each other and publicly. It offers a view of what it's like to study Interactive Media at the Bournemouth Media School and keep in touch with the latest developments in the field.
AWARD-WINNING PROFICIENCY
With high quality academic courses geared specifically to the needs of Interactive Media, it's no wonder our students' projects consistently win multiple international awards.
Find out more...
EXCELLENCE IN PRACTICE
We are reaping the benefits of two top awards which have established the Bournemouth Media Bournemouth as a Centre for Excellence in Media Practice and as Skillset Screen Academy.
Find out more...
STATE-OF-THE-ART FACILITIES
"The School is now one of the leading media schools in the UK, with a Centre for Excellence and a Screen Academy, and at last we have a building which reflects this - a creative centre for collaborative work, in a lively, modern, visually interesting environment," said Chris Wensley, Director of the Centre for Excellence in Media Practice.
Find out more...
In the coming months, we hope to be able to give you an idea of what it is like to study at Bournemouth Media School and to keep you up to date with all the latest developments. Note: Lead image is from Badly Stitched Magazine: Issue I, an award winning online publication edited by BA (Hons) Interactive Media Production graduate, Ross Featherstone. The magazine focuses on design. The magazine won the Plastic Pilot Award and achieved 3rd place in the BEA Award 2004 (Online Promotion category), Las Vegas.
iCoach wins Professional category at BIMA
Monday, 27 March, 2006 - 12:43
Student beats off stiff competition from commercial giants, Orange, to scoop a top award at the British Interactive Media Association (BIMA) awards in 2006.
Find out more…
The Centre for Excellence in Media Practice & The Bournemouth Screen Academy
Monday, 27 March, 2006 - 11:52
The Bournemouth Media School has been recognised as the country's only Centre for Excellence in Media Practice (CEMP), bringing in more than £3.5 million of extra government funding. We have also been awarded £1.0 million as a Skillset Screen Academy in a joint venture with our neighbours the Arts Institute at Bournemouth.
The Centre for Excellence (CEMP) aims to ensure the Bournemouth Media School leads the field in innovative teaching and learning, while the Screen Academy is a bold new venture to foster talent in the British film industry, including interactive film projects.
Leading figures in the media and creative industries regularly visit the school to give guest lectures. Recently, these have included:
The playwright and film director Anthony Minghella launches the Screen Academy.
Renowned screenwriter and BAFTA winner Alan Plater discusses his craft.
Mal Duffin, co-founder of CanDo Interactive, a 3-D games design company, talks about producing games for the likes of Xbox and Playstation including, State of the Union.
How to upload my site online?
Monday, 27 March, 2006 - 10:43
The programmer who was supposed to teach me how to create a functional e-card on my site but he disappeared on me again, for the past three days I have sent him emails, called, smsed him but no response It’s really dissapointing to see how people can be very unreliable, I never [...]
Finally a name!
Wednesday, 22 March, 2006 - 14:22
Together with my client, my marketing expert and the Italians we have finally been able to find a name that seems to suit the site and not allready being registered. The name is not Norwegian so it will be possible to make the site international in the future, as my client might do if they get the funding from Italy.
The domain name is a .info domain, which I feel fits quite well with the content on the site - information. It has been more than 2 months with discussions over the name, so I’m quite happy that it finally is ready.
BA (Hons) Interactive Media Production Showcase
Tuesday, 21 March, 2006 - 12:43
With high quality academic courses geared specifically to the needs of Interactive Media, we have a strong track-record of placements at top companies during undergraduate courses; and almost 80% of new graduates find a job within 6 months of leaving.
Some of our graduates have also had student entries in Computer Arts Magazine, May 2005.
In Sept 2004, Digital Creative Arts Magazine honoured us with a double-page spread about the BA (Hons) Interactive Media Production and our London degree show exhibition.
We were also amongst the Top Ten "Graduate Showcase" for Digital and Media Arts in another double-page spread in Computer Arts Magazine, May 2004.
View our winners and other outstanding student work on the BA (Hons) Interactive Media Production by clicking the link below.
Interactive Media Production Student Showcase
Team meeting online- Colourblind project
Sunday, 19 March, 2006 - 23:48
Friday 17th March
Meeting with Jaco and Chao the same time Online. It has been nice to have a chat with both of them together, we discussed about the structure of the site and information going into it. Both of them gave advice to the interface design.
We are agreed with this BLACK version and change need to be made to eiher the left BLOCK parts or the top-right parts since they are fighting…
Most updating issues
For Dong:
1.Jaco warned the deadline of site DEMO for dynamic parts.(05/04/2006)
2.Need to consider the feedback from the last presetation and the meeting today to complete the final verson of interface design.
For Jaco:
1. starting setup datebase and test
2.Help Dong with the copywrite issue.
For Chao:
1. keep on collect useful information
2. Give advice to colourblind test and Game
3.Write One review of Colorblind reading
Â
Â
More pages detail
Sunday, 19 March, 2006 - 23:33
Too busy to post these days
This is just some more page design done.
   
  Â
The photos I have till now
Sunday, 19 March, 2006 - 15:04
Volker in total you have sent me 65 photos:
People (39 photos)
Sunset (6 photos)
Transportation (15 photos)
Siwa (5 photos)
We need to select 6 photos that will be used for e-card I would like to suggest two very nice ones The sandune in Siwa and The Milkman..what do you think?
Photos
Sunday, 19 March, 2006 - 09:36
This week Volker sent me photos for the following categories:
1-People
2-Transportation.
I am now working on optimising them and making copies for thumbnails.
Volker one question I need six photos for the e-card section, do you have any photos in mind or should I just go ahead and choose them for you?
Hosting
Tuesday, 07 March, 2006 - 11:23
Still no sign of a programmer to help me with the E-card am still looking for help.
Next point we will have to really finalize is purchasing a domain name and web hosting (which has the following features php , at least 100 MB of web space, FTP, CGI/Perl Script enabled as [...]
Music and first page modification
Tuesday, 07 March, 2006 - 10:57
Volker this week had some good news….My flatemate, Titas, composed an excellent piece of music for your website, he was inspired by your photos…i will send you the piece this week to you this week.
And I have attached is another design for the first page (becasue the first one was too dark and I [...]
New menu in place
Sunday, 05 March, 2006 - 02:13
I’ve been working to get my meniu/navigation cross-browser compatible. Due to Internet Explorer’s extremely poor implemention of CSS (Yes, I do reccomend you use Firefox, Safari) my menu was not working properly. Now I’ve had to redesign the whole menu, but finally it works on all modern browsers, including the ancient and dated Internet Explorer. Sadly 85% of the Internet users still use this browser.
The new menu is even a bit more userfriendly! So the 12 hours that went into perfecting it didn’t go into wain 
FTP test OK!
Friday, 03 March, 2006 - 09:57
Thank you Jaco for preparing the web space and working at FTP for the website. I had an FTP test just now and sent a ‘Coming soon page’ to the site.
what we are going to do is to ‘test ASP’
Good luck to the site !
FTP problem? Language problem
Thursday, 02 March, 2006 - 21:20
I just got an emial from Jaco saying that he has done the DNS for my domain. It sounds nice thought but ….but he also writes there is on problem: the webmaster had made a mistake that he put ‘color4u.net’ as the domain name which should be’colour4u.net’. He questioned me’have you made a mistake?’
Well, we all know it’s the difference between British English and Amarican English, and in China we use US one.
Hopefully it will be fine in couple of days….eventhough I can still FTP things, nobody is able to see them.
Never FLASHED Away
Wednesday, 01 March, 2006 - 21:59
Oh my God…check out these two mind blowing FLASH sites….
http://leoburnett.ca/ (make sure to click on the apples)
http://www.kamikadze.sk/flash.html (Deisgned by a Slovakian web designer)
Just when one seems to settle on the idea that Xhtml and CSS is the in-thing nowadays…here comes web designs such as the ones above to restore all Flash web deisgners their [...]
Searchengine submission
Wednesday, 01 March, 2006 - 16:36
Just a few links regarding searchengine submissions. These sites will help you to get your site listed in most of the large searchengines. Works ok, but don’t forget to read more on my Searchengine Optimizing Tips I’ve posted earlier.
TrafficZap -Â http://www.trafficzap.com
WebAnnouncer - http://weballey.net/webannouncer/
FreeWebSubmissions - http://www.freewebsubmission.com/
Might come in handy when your sites are online
I?ve got a reply from Dr. Terrace L. Waggoner :)
Monday, 27 February, 2006 - 20:58
I have been looking for an expert for my ‘COLOURBLIND’ website. After sending about 12 emails I got one letter from Dr. Terrace L. Waggoner who is form FL USA.
Anyone interested in ‘colorblindness’(are there any here?) can visit his website and he answers all the questions in FAQ part of the site.
Thank you very much Dr. Terrace L. Waggoner !!
And here is the email conversation between us.
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Homepage Design
Monday, 27 February, 2006 - 01:01
This is just an idea of homepage of my ‘colourblind site’
I feel a bit lost…
    
The progress
Sunday, 26 February, 2006 - 15:20
The site is moving forward. I have been in touch with my client again and I’ve recieved a lot of text material for the site. I’m now in the process of sorting all the information out and contacting my marketing expert for some good ideas regarding presentation, what of the text to emphasize and what to drop.
I’ve also worked a lot on the navigation and browser compability. My design so far did not work as intended in Internet Explorer, due to its very poor implementation of CSS, PNG and other webstandards. I’ve had to turn to several CSS hacks to make it look and work as originally planned.
The site is as of now divided into the following parts:
- The Golf courses
- Golf & Food
- Golf & Culture
- Golf & Spa
- Golf & Shopping
- Golf & Cars
- How to get there..
Structure of Colorblind site
Sunday, 26 February, 2006 - 00:36
I’ve just done a rough structure of my ‘colourblind site’, need to be confirmed by my client and Jaco.(Still waiting for reply from some sites and experts)
Structure for ‘Colour4u.net’(unconfirmed)
- About the site
- General Knowledges
- Books
–About the book, Understanding and Coping with Achromatopsia
–About the book, Living with Achromatopsia - Articles(dynamic)
–Job
–web design
–life
–academic
–other - visual gallery
- products(links)
- web design for colourblind disability
- Colour Blind Test(not given verdict)
–Html test
–Simple colorblind(red-green) test game - Ask an Expert (contacting)
Index page Oked!
Saturday, 25 February, 2006 - 21:26
Today had a very successful converstaion with my client. here is a summary of what we agreed on.
1-the first page and the look of the website…
2-Volker will ask a programmer if he can help.
3-I will send Volker the function I need to be scripted so that he send them to his programmer friend.
4-Volker agreed to [...]
Programmer?Disappeared
Saturday, 25 February, 2006 - 21:06
Bad news …Steve the programmer who promised to help me disappeared.
He has not been answering my emails I am kind of in big trouble. So I am basically asking anyone I meet online (not really successful) and offline for help.
I have received positive feedback from my [...]
Link about website?s accessibilities.
Thursday, 23 February, 2006 - 11:34
And also websites’ laws inThe UK.
http://www.bwdma.co.uk/BWDMA+News
Site map and Schedule
Thursday, 23 February, 2006 - 05:30
Site map and Schedule
Thursday, 23 February, 2006 - 05:30
Domain registered
Thursday, 23 February, 2006 - 00:56
After discussing with my client and Jaco, we dicide to register the domain:
COLOUR4U.NET
It means we are now keen on providing a world with ‘colour’ for color blind people.
Project Schedule has been sent to them to check. I know it is a bit late cos we have experanced project revolution and client changing.
Meeting Client 1
Wednesday, 22 February, 2006 - 23:58
Today i had the first meeting with my client Golden. Basicly i had done some user testings, sign-off the ‘client-centred project questionaire’ form, also i showed her some typical sites about overseas students studying in UK. I took ‘Education UK’ as an example to explain her what navigation, interface design, interactive facility are, cause it seemed that she didn’t have much experience in this area. Then we discussed about the content and information about our project, she had given me a really good feedback, finally i worked out a basic structure of the website with her help. I will draw some diagrams or sketching and think about the navigation for the next few days, hopefully i can finish those things in this week.
Good restaurant websites.
Tuesday, 21 February, 2006 - 20:43
If the frst impression doesn?t look nice, who would want to get in.
A splash page is acceptable since it?s an advertising site rather than information site.
Most restaurants websites are flash based.
To be fair with accessible issue, the compromise could be an html site with a flash intro .
here are some examples;
http://www.menupalace.com/menupalace/internetservices/portfolio_websiteshtml.asp
Remind Accessibility
Tuesday, 21 February, 2006 - 03:24
The links in the Quick Tips below mostly go to the techniques documents that provide implementation guidance - including explanations, strategies, and detailed markup examples.
- Images & animations: Use the alt attribute to describe the function of each visual.
- Image maps. Use the client-side map and text for hotspots.
- Multimedia. Provide captioning and transcripts of audio, and descriptions of video.
- Hypertext links. Use text that makes sense when read out of context. For example, avoid "click here."
- Page organization. Use headings, lists, and consistent structure. Use CSS for layout and style where possible.
- Graphs & charts. Summarize or use the longdesc attribute.
- Scripts, applets, & plug-ins. Provide alternative content in case active features are inaccessible or unsupported.
- Frames. Use the noframes element and meaningful titles.
- Tables. Make line-by-line reading sensible. Summarize.
- Check your work. Validate. Use tools, checklist, and guidelines at http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG
© W3C (MIT, INRIA, Keio) 2001/01
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Therefore these 10 aspects is being dicussed with my client now. My client said in China he hasn't hear about these before. But now he think it is reall important. and we agreed that we will concentrate on it.
Remind Accessibility
Tuesday, 21 February, 2006 - 03:24
The links in the Quick Tips below mostly go to the techniques documents that provide implementation guidance - including explanations, strategies, and detailed markup examples.
- Images & animations: Use the alt attribute to describe the function of each visual.
- Image maps. Use the client-side map and text for hotspots.
- Multimedia. Provide captioning and transcripts of audio, and descriptions of video.
- Hypertext links. Use text that makes sense when read out of context. For example, avoid "click here."
- Page organization. Use headings, lists, and consistent structure. Use CSS for layout and style where possible.
- Graphs & charts. Summarize or use the longdesc attribute.
- Scripts, applets, & plug-ins. Provide alternative content in case active features are inaccessible or unsupported.
- Frames. Use the noframes element and meaningful titles.
- Tables. Make line-by-line reading sensible. Summarize.
- Check your work. Validate. Use tools, checklist, and guidelines at http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG
© W3C (MIT, INRIA, Keio) 2001/01
Â
Therefore these 10 aspects is being dicussed with my client now. My client said in China he hasn't hear about these before. But now he think it is reall important. and we agreed that we will concentrate on it.
some sites
Monday, 20 February, 2006 - 21:55
Here i found some sites which might be useful for my project, i can talk about these sites with my client.
Chinese:
http://www.educationuk.org.cn/news/index.jsp?cat_id=27
 http://www.tigtag.com/community/overseas/area_3_1.asp
http://www.21abroad.net/abroadnews/studyabroad_uk.html
English:
http://www.bournemouth.gov.uk/visitors/
http://www.ukstudentlife.com/Links/China.htm
 Lastly, two useful linking sites:
http://www.studyabroaddirectory.com/search.cfm
Time schedule
Monday, 20 February, 2006 - 21:35
Week 16(2.13-2.19), Ensure the project topic, take basic research of that subject, find suitable clients and colleagues, finish the schedule.
Week 17(2.20-2.26), Meeting with client,finish basic user testing,also doing further research; Start making storyboard, doing some interface design and also navigation.
Week 18(2.27-3.5), Finish user testing and intermediate research; Make the site structure and template; Design the interface and navigation;
Week 19(3.6-3.12), Complete the site designing,including the interface and navigation, web accessbility; Finish the final product and get some user feedback.
Week 20(3.13-3.20), Present the product via peer evaluation, then finish the contextual analysis during the easter.
First layout draft
Monday, 20 February, 2006 - 08:18
First layout draft
Monday, 20 February, 2006 - 08:18
New client
Saturday, 18 February, 2006 - 20:38
Today i was lucky enough to get my new client (user), her name is Golden, she was actually my classmate in high school. She arrived here just a few weeks ago, so she doesn’t know this place so well. I do believe my site is really helpful for her to getting used to here, and hopefully she will give my some useful suggestion and comments. She agreed to be my client and i planned to have meeting about the project regularly. Also i introduced my general thinking about my project and told her a little about the accessibility, what she knew little about. This seemed to be a good beginning of my new idea. Looking forward to more.
Play with your eyes?
Saturday, 18 February, 2006 - 00:37
When I was doing my ‘issue’ project research,I found some pictures that can play with your eyes …
1.Look at this pictures for a while,then move your head further or nearer to the screen,what can you see?
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2,Look at this one, you can see the borders between two colours are very clear and the colours next to each other are so different. Then put one pencil on one of the borders,see the two blocks next to the pencil, are the colours the same?
Notes for accessibility
Friday, 17 February, 2006 - 11:32
Although i had known this word ‘accessibility’ for a long time, but i didn’t pay much attention to it. Until today when i was doing my issues project,(it is really like a ‘project’ for me) i noticed that i must consider this issue seriously.
So far i am lack of the knowledge and experience of web accessibility. I have done some research today, i found that accessibility is easy to understand, but hard to do. Especially when you are defining a project, there are so many features you should consider for the accessibility.
Here i found some basic tips of accessibility web design, from WAI http://www.w3.org/WAI/References/QuickTips/Overview.php
Let me begin with these basic concepts for designing web accessibility.
10 Quick Tips
- Images & animations: Use the alt attribute to describe the function of each visual.
- Image maps. Use the client-side map and text for hotspots.
- Multimedia. Provide captioning and transcripts of audio, and descriptions of video.
- Hypertext links. Use text that makes sense when read out of context. For example, avoid “click here.”
- Page organization. Use headings, lists, and consistent structure. Use CSS for layout and style where possible.
- Graphs & charts. Summarize or use the longdesc attribute.
- Scripts, applets, & plug-ins. Provide alternative content in case active features are inaccessible or unsupported.
- Frames. Use the noframes element and meaningful titles.
- Tables. Make line-by-line reading sensible. Summarize.
- Check your work. Validate. Use tools, checklist, and guidelines at http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG
© W3C (MIT, INRIA, Keio) 2001/01
My thinking of the strcuture
Friday, 17 February, 2006 - 03:16
My thinking of the strcuture
Friday, 17 February, 2006 - 03:16
My new client
Wednesday, 15 February, 2006 - 23:46
There were bad news and good news together.
Bad news was my ex-client, my good friend left Bournemouth. It was unexpected as dreadful news came yesterday that his beloved aunt had passed away. He was not intend of coming back again and I have been feeling empty for the rest of the day.
Good news was I found another client who is my friend I work with. We discover that he is red-green colour blind when I persuaded him do my test as I do for everyone I know.It was funny that he did not know it until tonight, so good news for me,bad news for him maybe.
It also told me a fact that being colour blind is not as horrible as we normally think.
As in Joe’s comment:
‘I think what non-colourblind people don?t realise is that colorblindness doesn?t mean you can?t see colours - it?s just that sometimes when they?re placed next to each other, they become indistinct. So I can see red, and I can see green, but if you put certain shades of red and green next to each other, I have difficulty telling them apart.’
More research need to be done,though.
Idea changed
Wednesday, 15 February, 2006 - 15:53
Monday i had tutorial with Claudia, and i didn’t do well. For last couple weeks, i had only done some research on my two ideas: Anti-art and Cantonese culture. Althought i felt interested in them, but i found these two projects are hard to access for me. Because now i am in UK, all material i use should be original,like sound, pictures, video clips. So i can’t get those related material here. And there are lots of wonderful sites about art or culture things, so i don’t know what i can do to make my project even better or more special. So i am considering giving up these two ideas.
Luckily this morning i had a new idea after talking to my friend(Rakesh). What about making a site to introduce local chinese or chinese students’ lives in Bournemouth? This will be realistic, it can help those chinese who are planning to study or live here, also i take research on how chinsese live here, i plan to put more point at cultural comparism, like how they adjust their habits and lifestyles, how they meet culture shock and overcome it. Moreover, i will introduce the general information of this city and the living environment.
For accessing this idea, i think myself can take pictures of those target people, i can interview them, then i will ask Abi(animaiton) or Rakesh(Jouralism) to help me with video things and Tony(Sound) to help me with interview sounding. So i can make most of the materials myself or from my colleagues’ help. Also i have some chinese friends in China who can be my clients or users.
Although this project seems quite simple, i think it will be qutie useful, also the task is suitable and not so difficult for me, it would be like a little project, but more pratical for me to learn about project management.
Feedback of my clinet and my suggestion
Tuesday, 14 February, 2006 - 15:40
|  | From: "hemfon hemfon" <hemfon@hotmail.com> To: jemee219@hotmail.com Subject: RE: hello: hemfon, Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2006 14:07:31 +0000 hello,jemee: I'm glad to hear from you. I think the logo is great. But i have some quastions , fist, the girl in the logo is copied from others or your original idea ? If it is copied from others . I'm afraid i can not use it. Secondly, the logo may be printed , so i want to know the color mode of the logo(C, M, Y, K). Thank you for your help                                          hemfon |
| Â | Â | From: ? ?? <jemee219@hotmail.com> To: hemfon@hotmail.com Subject: RE: hello: hemfon, Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2006 14:16:55 +0000 Hello Hemfon: Alright. First answer is the logo i just change the style of the girl from a japanese website. but personally, your company is a multimedia one, so how about we change it more digital. and now i give the CMYK of the color.all the color are useing yours. Orange: C:5 M:68 Y:98 K:0, Blue: C:100 M:93 Y:39 K:38 check it Jemee |
I need a business website,so it should be simple and clear and the color should be active and modern,orange or something like that.My website is face to the Chinese customers,so the main language is Chinese.I want to add two special channels in the web, one is multimedia and animation for wedding celebration activies, the other is domonstration multimedia for city planning companies and architecture design companies.That's the main idea of my website.
Thank you!
hemfon
Feedback of my clinet and my suggestion
Tuesday, 14 February, 2006 - 15:40
|  | From: "hemfon hemfon" <hemfon@hotmail.com> To: jemee219@hotmail.com Subject: RE: hello: hemfon, Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2006 14:07:31 +0000 hello,jemee: I'm glad to hear from you. I think the logo is great. But i have some quastions , fist, the girl in the logo is copied from others or your original idea ? If it is copied from others . I'm afraid i can not use it. Secondly, the logo may be printed , so i want to know the color mode of the logo(C, M, Y, K). Thank you for your help                                          hemfon |
| Â | Â | From: ? ?? <jemee219@hotmail.com> To: hemfon@hotmail.com Subject: RE: hello: hemfon, Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2006 14:16:55 +0000 Hello Hemfon: Alright. First answer is the logo i just change the style of the girl from a japanese website. but personally, your company is a multimedia one, so how about we change it more digital. and now i give the CMYK of the color.all the color are useing yours. Orange: C:5 M:68 Y:98 K:0, Blue: C:100 M:93 Y:39 K:38 check it Jemee |
I need a business website,so it should be simple and clear and the color should be active and modern,orange or something like that.My website is face to the Chinese customers,so the main language is Chinese.I want to add two special channels in the web, one is multimedia and animation for wedding celebration activies, the other is domonstration multimedia for city planning companies and architecture design companies.That's the main idea of my website.
Thank you!
hemfon
Printpage Script
Tuesday, 14 February, 2006 - 12:53
For my Issues in Interactive Media client I’m in need of a JavaScript that makes it possible to create a button that tells the printer to print the page. I’ve found this great JavaScript over at Javascript-Page.com and it does exactly what I’m looking for. Perhaps something that can be usefull to others as well.
Brand Discusion
Tuesday, 14 February, 2006 - 05:05
  how are you? i have done the brand of your co. it uses two main colors, blue (R:241,G115,B:30) and orange(R:16,G:34,B:80). and combines with a little farmer girl to be your logo. Personally, your brand should give your audience two impression: First is your work is more interesting. Secondly, is you looks as a work harder person. and also as the charater of your company's chinese name is :?. Therefore, that's why i use this little girl.
  so tomorrow i want to decide the aim and audience of your co. and the sturcture as well.
Jemee.Â
Brand Discusion
Tuesday, 14 February, 2006 - 05:05
  how are you? i have done the brand of your co. it uses two main colors, blue (R:241,G115,B:30) and orange(R:16,G:34,B:80). and combines with a little farmer girl to be your logo. Personally, your brand should give your audience two impression: First is your work is more interesting. Secondly, is you looks as a work harder person. and also as the charater of your company's chinese name is :?. Therefore, that's why i use this little girl.
  so tomorrow i want to decide the aim and audience of your co. and the sturcture as well.
Jemee.Â
Last decision...
Monday, 13 February, 2006 - 02:22
Last decision...
Monday, 13 February, 2006 - 02:22
Talking with my client
Saturday, 11 February, 2006 - 12:01
Yesterday I talked with my client again. I told him about my ideas and we did also talk about accessability. He was not sure what accessability actually was, but when I gave him a brief introduction he was convinced that the site had to be accessible. He was very interested in having a function where you could change the textsize on the site, very usefull if you have trouble reading the content.
To this I would need a JavaScript to change between different CSS stylesheets. Most modern browser do have the option to change font sizes inside the browser, but few people actually use this function (or know of it). Thats why I think a button where you can change the font size would be quite a smart feature.
Scriptlance
Saturday, 11 February, 2006 - 11:43
As I mentioned over lunch the other day, Scriptlance is a site for freelancers. If your client need some coding for your website that you can’t do yourself, you could put your project up for grab at Scriptlance and someone will bid on your project.
Scriptlance is a great site if you have some spare time and are in the need for some money as well. There’s always someone looking for graphics, new logos, accessability etc. but the site is mainly focused on scripting and programming, hence the name Scriptlance.
A useful website for userbility test!
Friday, 10 February, 2006 - 22:37
I happened to catch this site when doing my Colourblind site. This site shows the coverage filters of your website so you can use it to test userbility for colourblind people.
Colorblind Web Page Filter
 
And now you can use the pictures below to test(use my adress).
Choose—Deutanopa (red/green colour blindness no green cones)
See the diffrences!
Search Engine Optimization - A must read
Friday, 10 February, 2006 - 17:19
Most of us will set up an website for our Issues in Interactive Media assignement, and I guess most of the websites will go live when the assignement is handed in. Since they are going live, it would be rather important for our clients that the websites have a good ranking in Google and other searchengines. I’ve been doing research into SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and I’ll share some of my findings with you all here.
What is Search Engine Optimization, or SEO?
It’s basicly making sure your page recieves a good ranking on Google and more hits. There are a lot of different ways to do this, some are exellent and some are plain bad. As you might have read, BMW recently used some “blackhat” tricks and got banned by Google. Not a smart move. So, the tips I’ll give you are all safe to use.
1. Sumbit you site
If you have a brand new site, you should submit it to Google or else they might not find it. If you submit it, they will index it the next time they crawl the web. You should also submit your site to human indexes such as Dmoz. Content in Dmoz are used in Google and other large searchengines and it is considered very important.
2. Keywords
When you search Google you search with keywords. You will need to determine and identify which keywords that fits your webpage. NicheBot is an online tool that can help you find the correct keywords for your website. When you type in your main keywords, it will return the 15 most popular related keywords. The more keyword optimized your webpage is, the more likely you are to get hits from Google.*
3. Accessability
Accessability is very very important. Google reads your webpage as a screenreader, and following the webstandards set by W3C guarantees better performance with Google. You’ll also have happier users since the webpage would work better for disabled people, as well as people using other browsers than Internet Explorer and Firefox. Accessify provides tools to test whether or not your site is accessible.
4. Metatags
Metatags used to be the main thing that searchengines used prior to Google to rank and index webpages. Metatags became less important after Google reinvented the internet search as we know it, but it still counts. Metatags are basicly hidden tags written into the head section of an HTML page and convey different kinds of information, but don’t actually show on the page as text. For example the title, description and keywords for the page. Your website should in other words have Metatags. There are a lot of metataggenerators that creates the tags for you.
5. Links
Links does matter. PageRank is one of the methods Google uses to determine the relevance or importance of a Web page. PageRank is a vote, by all the other Web pages on the Internet, about how important a Web page is. A link to a Web page counts as a vote of support. If there are no incoming links to a Web page then there is no support. As you can imagine, links to your website is very important. So how do you get inbound links? Join discussionforums on the topic and post your link, get other similar sites to link to you, post your links in blogs etc. Only your imagination can stop you and the more inbound links you have, the more visits you’ll get. You can check your Google PageRank here.
Thats my tips so far.. I hope you found it worthwhile reading
A panda?s complain
Thursday, 09 February, 2006 - 20:41
As we all know that colourblind people don’t see colours or some of the colours. The world must be completely defferent from what we see. I am not colourblind so I can not even imagin. Is it like the black and white movies we have seen or ,maybe, it is a good idea to carry a video camera with B&W LCD screen and walk through the town.
A panda complains ‘Can I have a colour picture of myself?’ Maybe it sounds more like a joke than something like truth and maybe someone else has the same to say:zebra, cow,dalmation,pie…
This gives me an idea of my Colourblind site.
Colourblind website on process
Wednesday, 08 February, 2006 - 22:06
Just got Jaco’s email saying we are going to have an ASP space FREE from a server in China…I am now stugling with the domain ,Any suggestions?
Idea break down....Idea reload and in progress...
Tuesday, 07 February, 2006 - 02:47
Idea break down....Idea reload and in progress...
Tuesday, 07 February, 2006 - 02:47
Chinese questionnaires coming back!
Saturday, 04 February, 2006 - 22:05
It wasn’t a good time to send questionnaires during Chinese New Year. Fortunately my friends were so nice to send them forward to their manages in Emails.
They are coming back soon….
Have to start now…
Egyptian Women change the mood in soccer matches.
Saturday, 04 February, 2006 - 17:21
A new trend is sweeping acrosss the 25th African Cup of Nations held in Egypt this year. For the first time, Egyptian women are supporting Egyptian national team, this time not through watching the matches on tv but actually attending the matches.
Source Al Ahram Weekly
Wednesday, 01 February, 2006 - 12:39
Here is the restaurant I am making a website for. It’s called “The Thai” restaurant.
It’s located in Wandsworth London.
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Meeting Laura
Monday, 30 January, 2006 - 19:49
I arranged a meeting with Laura today, we are meeting Wednesday afternoon in Salisbury to catch up and discuss the project. I’ve also given her my blog address and login details so she can have a look at some of my ideas so far and allowing her to add to it as she pleases!
Domainname
Monday, 30 January, 2006 - 14:52
I have discussed possible domainnames with my client, but we have still not decided what the site should be called.We are buying the domainname from Domeneshop, a norwegian domainnameprovider that I have used several times before. They let us point the domainname to any server.
The issues we have to think about with the domainname is quite simply that if the site in the future would expand and include more languages than norwegian, we can not choose a norwegian sounding domainname. It would possibly not be a good solution to choose a norwegian top-level domain (.no) either, as this indicates that the site is norwegian.
We have been looking at .com and .info domains, but alot of relevant domainnames are of course taken.
Photos
Monday, 30 January, 2006 - 13:43
I have been talking with my client today, and I’ve been promised a couple of CDs with high resolution photos of golfcourses in the region. I have also been informed that we have been cleared to use these images on a webpage by the copyright owner.
Since these photos might not be enough, I’ve done some research of stockphoto sites and I’m going to use iStockphoto.com - which provides high quality, royality free stock photos for 1$ each. I have been using this service prior to this project, and the quality is outstanding. I will wait and see wether or not I will have to use external stockphotos, when I get the CDs in the mail.
I’ve also been promised a decent ammount of brochures regarding golfclubs in the region.
The progress..
Monday, 30 January, 2006 - 13:33
I have now recieved a confirmation on which project I will be working on from my client (MMS Scandinavia). I will be creating a website promoting golfplaying in the Italian region Emilia Romagna. The site will initially be available in Norwegian and English, and its main focus will be to inform potential norwegian golfers about the possibilities of playing golf in the italian region Emilia Romagna.
I have been emailing back and forth with my client regarding what kind of information the site will contain, and so far the brief is to include the following information:
- Why should you travel to Italy to play golf?
- What is the golf offer in Parma, Piacenza and Modena (presentations of the golf clubs and their facilities)
- The possibilites of combining a golf holiday with other activities (golf+spa, golf+food, golf+shopping etc.)
- How do I get there? Who do I travel with? Links to convinient flight connections from Norway both with low cost airlines and network airlines with links to the airlines reservation sites
Nature
Sunday, 29 January, 2006 - 19:33
So a possible theme could be the environment/wildlife, two subjects I also hold an interest for. With Laura’s expertise in film-making there leaves possible scope to introduce a documentary aspect creating more of an educational piece. A product in which an environment could be created where the user can explore and learn about that particular setting, nature for example. The imagery would be beautiful around this subject area, full of colour, texture, movement, and detail. Looking at creatures, plants, flowers etc, perfect for my previous idea of interactive photographs.Â
So pondering around this idea of interactive imagery, which would be more of a visual piece and one of a possible informative based product?! But I’m still not entirely sure which just yet!Â
Say happy new year to everyone....
Saturday, 28 January, 2006 - 16:42
Group Work
Saturday, 28 January, 2006 - 01:46
One day before, i decided to work with Kevin to do our DAP project, cause we both are interested in photographs and nonlinear film edit. So we think we could do some thing differently. We also had exchanged some ideas about the modern art and digital art, and mostly we had common opinions on it, that?s a good news. we had a same aim to our project...
Also we plan to meet at Sunday and next Monday to talk more about the group project, hopefully we can get our idea. i am reading some stuff for further research, such as The New Media Reader, there are lots of good examples in it...
How our work roles have changed.
Friday, 27 January, 2006 - 21:41
As we all know, there are so many kind of professional these days. If you are a teacher, can you only say you are a teacher. Are you a maths teacher? What kind of maths do you teach?
We used to have only teachers in the old days.
Imagine, how a table was made 200 years ago? You only need a carpenter. But look what we need now? A designer, a carpenter, an engineer and etc. It’s become so hard for us to acheive somthing alone we try to work less but more effective. So we ended up working as a furniture factory but could not make a table. We work in the kitchen but can’t cook.
What have we lost?
Idea developing
Friday, 27 January, 2006 - 10:05
Today i got some ideas from my friend in China, for my project.
She was talking about the fashion things, actually she showed strong negetive feelings about the fashion and technology. She said that our society was developing so fast, the same time new technologies and fashion comes to us, the same time we are losing the traditions and memories of the times. She hated that people are fashion-oriented, she hated those people who are always after new technologies or styles, and meanwhile they are getting lost. She missed those traditional things, and tried to make sure herself she was living her own way, not narrow-minded, but keeping certain distance from those new things.
I felt quite strongly agree with her, so i got my idea. I was born in 1980’s in Guangdong of China, for our generation, we have our own things, we remember the growing steps of ourselves and our times. So, why not making something related to our own times, own lifestyles, own local culture(i think it is different from those official or formal sites of showing Chinese culture). I feel quite interested in this, i will do some research in this area and then decide i will do it or not. That’s it!!
have some products
Wednesday, 25 January, 2006 - 23:53
Introducing Laura
Wednesday, 25 January, 2006 - 22:00
PROFILE:
Name: Laura Portnall
‘I am an artist working mostly within the mediums of photography and
film, as well as fine art. In all mediums colour and composition are
the two major factors of my work.
As a photographer i work with wildlife as my primary subject. Here i
focus on colour and composition in order to capture vibrant images of
wildlife and the environment around me.
These ideas spread into my work as a filmmaker where i use landscape
as a major part of my work. The environment my characters live in
becomes another character that influnces the understanding of the
story. This is evident in my graduation film ‘identical i’, a film
about identical twins in which the landscape served to denote the
relationship between two brothers.
My influnces range over many different mediums, from photographer
Heather Angel, filmmaker Niki Caro, director of Whale Rider, to the
artist Chuck Close for his striking use of colour.
My inspriation comes from the natural world that surrounds me, whether
in film, photography or fine art. My work always start from the
personal, from ideas and themes that are important to me.’
Fantasty sites
Wednesday, 25 January, 2006 - 16:39
Check out these wonderful sites and their designers:
DANIEL BROWNÂ http://www.play-create.com
HAN HOOGERBRUGGEÂ http://www.hoogerbrugge.com
LECIELESTBLEUÂ http://www.lecielestbleu.com
YUGO NAKAMURAÂ http://www.yugop.com
SHINYA YAMAMOTOÂ http://www.sinplex.com
Resource from Design Museum: http://www.designmuseum.org/digital/
Design of Apple
Wednesday, 25 January, 2006 - 14:53
The design of Apple really attracts me. Here i found some introduction to the design of Apple.
“Jonathan Ive,head of design at Apple,discuss the development of the iMac,iPod and other products.”
http://www.designmuseum.org/digital/index.php?id=1&pt=1
Art Mus..
Wednesday, 25 January, 2006 - 03:00
Brainstorming
Tuesday, 24 January, 2006 - 11:29
Just to make some brainstorming for my projects. As my presentation showed, mainly i got two ideas for my project, one is making a Cantonese local culture website to introduce it to foreigners; the other site is art related, might be a anti-art, might be a introduction to modern art, might be just like a community talk about art.
The second idea came to me after the trip to London, when i had seen so much modern art. I just feel like, the more contact i make with the modern art, the more i feel confused and dispointed. I would say the reason is, some kinds of those modern art don’t fit my understanding of modern art, sometimes i disagreed totally, personally i argue that some of them are rubbish, but still, they are awarded as so called ‘great modern art’. I just feel like crazy and angry about those products ,about which i don’t understand but i had to learn. I think for this point, i had a very serious and sometimes negative attitude, so i must do something to correct it. Mightbe i should learn and know more until one day i can understand them, mightbe i should discuss with those who got the same attutide with me. Anyway, i will be with modern art all this term however i like it or not, but just work hard for my studying.Â
A Piece Of Art
Sunday, 22 January, 2006 - 22:54
I managed to get hold of an old friend, Laura, who I met while studying my foundation BTEC Diploma in Art and Design nearly 4 years ago. We had talked a while back about me producing a website for exhibiting her photography. The site would be an online gallery/portfolio for potential clients to visit and view her work. Initially I considered creating the site for this project but I have decided that I would rather produce a ?piece of art? rather than a commercial product. So, I?m going to leave the promotional website as a separate project to do in my own time but would like Laura involved in my project working with me as a ?subject specialist?. I?ll be picking her brains for ideas, advice and use her skills as a photographer and artist.
An initial idea I have is to take her photography and turn her photographs into interactive photographs! Images that can be manipulated by the movement of the mouse or touch of the keyboard. Sound could be added certain things could be affected by the users interaction with the photograph; colours could changed, move objects, facial expressions change in portraits, the weather could change in landscape scenes etc
I want to create something visually interactive. Stanza :: Soundscraper and Luc Courchesne?s ?Landscape One? are pieces that particularly stand out for me from the session last week. The use of colour, shapes and patterns to express movement created by the user and the level of interaction that recreates an environment around the user as if they are really there.
My second collaborator I have still to find, until I know what I intend to create I can?t yet decide what kind of media specialist I will need whether it be someone from Sound, TV, Animation, etc.
I have sent Laura a copy of the project brief and schedule to give her an indication of what I have been asked to do and the time I have to do it. I aim to meet with her hopefully sometime this week if not the week after to explore ideas!
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