You searched the categories for: 'media',
Im back
Saturday, 06 March, 2010 - 14:58
I can’t help but say I told you so!
Sorry I just had to get that out of my system. At the start of this blog I said it wouldn’t take long before it went stale. However, after a considerable break I am back and writing another blog post. The last post left off with me [...]
The Top Ten Video Game Shopkeepers.
Monday, 02 November, 2009 - 20:21
So, I figured in a grim and lazy way of keeping me maintaining this thing, I?ve decided to go the way of all hack want to be journalists, and make a top ten list. I could quite easily make fun of lists for a significant amount of time, but I do really enjoy them myself [...]
Censorship Hand-In
Ok so it was a while ago now that the essay was handed in. Compared to my Identity essay this was definitely a last minute job and I’m not expecting great things from itrealistically. I had half the amount of resources as I did to the previous one, but hey ho. I made the word [...]
Censorship and Regulation Essay
Saturday, 02 May, 2009 - 09:26
Hmm…this seems to be a lot harder to write than it was suppose to be. The questions are too vague to choose which one to do so I don’t know what I’m actually writing. Not started writing yet, but I have started making some notes from the one book that I managed to find in [...]
Media Theory
Thursday, 30 April, 2009 - 09:29
Today is the essay hand in for Media, Identity and Diversity. My chosen essay title was; “Consider the performance of gender, and transgressive possibilities for sexual identities.”
InitiallyI started writing and really struggled to get words onto the page. I got to 600 words and decided to call it off. I arranged a chat with Chris [...]
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 [...]
Wednesday is here!
Wednesday, 12 November, 2008 - 23:45
And that means that its time for the next episode of Zero Punctuation reviewing Fable 2! The best video games review you will find on the net. As i write this i haven’t even watched it yet, but going by previous editions it will be wonderful and joyous. enjoy
did you enjoy it? well im [...]
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 [...]
start of another year
Friday, 10 October, 2008 - 19:11
Fortunately, I have passed my first year of uni. And here i am again at the uni.
The second year of my course has started now, i can imagine its gonna be another hard work time… But the good thing is that my essay is reflective essay of my production work. Its just like a diary [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
My book report!
Wednesday, 20 February, 2008 - 00:44
My book review on the great book The Long Tail by Chris Anderson can be found here!
Old Media Vs New Media. News Reporting
Wednesday, 20 February, 2008 - 00:43
For this online assignment I have been asked to compare two different news reports on the same subject from two different media outlets, so I’m comparing the Torrentfreak Blog and BBC News coverage of The Pirate Bay lawsuit.
The main difference between these two articles is the level of technical detail, this is because Torrentfreak [...]
Identity and Therapy online assignment5
Friday, 15 February, 2008 - 16:38
I have made this image that expresses something about me, the image shows that I love to travel and enjoy myself. However family and friends are still the most important to me.
The key points that have arisen for me over the previous lectures were the topics on:
*Copyright, it surprised me how hard it actually was [...]
media theory online assignment1
Friday, 15 February, 2008 - 16:25
Media artifact outside the mainstream.
I have chosen a video that is far from the media mainstream it is a video made by my friend Ryan who lives in Canada the video is of him and his mates skiing and performing tricks at his local ski resort.
I really enjoy this video I can just watch it [...]
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 [...]
What kind of media did you like as a child? In what ways do you think these media shaped your gendered self?
Thursday, 17 January, 2008 - 00:10
Looking back i watched a lot of very strange things, for example i just remembered i used to watch a show called ‘SWAT Cats’ which is about cats who fight dinosaurs that came through a time portal or something. I personally hope this kind of media didn’t have a profound part to play in the [...]
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
last munite again
Tuesday, 04 December, 2007 - 23:15
sorry have registered on CEMP but, as Jo explaned, my account has not been processed yet.
my media artefact is the altternate reality game www.perplexcity.com it has been one of the most popular alternate reality games. the first of the “sieries” finished in February 2007 where “The Cube” was found in a wood in Northamptonshire. The [...]
Red Riding Hood, An Interactive Approach.
Sunday, 02 December, 2007 - 21:18
Last week, I was set the task of (in a group of 4) devising away of presenting an interpretation of Red Riding Hood in an interactive format.
Our group after relatively little discussion chose the first image. We then set about devising a way to present the story in an interactive fashion. I proposed that we [...]
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
A Break From Immaturity
Tuesday, 23 October, 2007 - 01:21
And so here it is, a post of some actual, dare I say it, substance?
Apparetly I do. Well, here’s the incomplete mess that I made for my one day project. I call it an incomplete mess mostly because of my neurotic need for it to be finished; which it is not. But partially because it’s [...]
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.
The First
Friday, 12 October, 2007 - 20:35
So, here it is. My first blog on this the world wide web. I’m not afraid to tell you that I dreaded the concept of blogging, much like I dread writing a personal statement or walking around in public naked.
There’s something about it all, the concept of placing your personal life on the web for [...]
Adaptation of ?Never Seek to tell thy Love?!
Thursday, 15 March, 2007 - 22:34
My Adaptation of the poem is as follows. I?m am going to adapt the poem into a game or interactive narrative. The game starts with a male character loosing the love of his life. After this event the male character meets a stranger who says he can help him regain his girlfriends love. As a result of this the character must undertake a number of challenges, puzzles and conflicts in order to prove and regain the trust and love of his love. The stranger character that the male meets a the beginning of the narrative Acts as a wise guide and aid to the male (like a yoda figure), and offers advice during the many challengers the main character has to complete.
The main character of the game must complete challenges, defeat enemies and solve puzzles on his way to regain his love. Challenges may include fighting of foes who are trying to steal or harm his love, as well as solving puzzles like identifying the location of his lost love.
Narrative of Game in more detail: The name of the hero of the character of the game is “James” who has just returned from the marines when he scares of the love of his life “Rachael”, who runs away to an unknown location. After Rachael runs away, James meets “Quentin” a dark stranger of whom he relectantly enlists the help and advice of. Quentin informs James of ways in which he can save the love of his life: Rachael! From thereon, both James and Quentin set out on a quest to find Rachael and on the way over coming a number of different challenges and adversaries.
My Game idea in more detail: The style of the game is very much a puzzle (problem solving game) aimed at a target audience of 16 - 24 year olds. The game would be appealing however primarily to a female audience as the romantic narrative would appeal more so to an adolecent female late teen.
The style of the game would be similar to ‘Prince of Persia’ (pictured below) however without the action and violent aspect however the puzzle aspects of this game would be very similar. Rather than the common main stream computer games, this paticular adaptation would be firmly based around the narrative as apposed to the game play aspects.
Interpretation of ?Never Seek to Tell Thy Love?.
Monday, 05 March, 2007 - 22:22
My interpretation of William Blake’s ‘Never Seek to Tell Thy Love’, is: that the male character of the poem has expressed his love for a female friend or companion and poured his heart out to her, however the female character doesnt share the same feelings for the male character and leaves as a result of of the male expressing his love and fondness for her.
In the final paragraph of the poem; the male character is left alone, and another female approaches the male and he takes her reluctantly as a fall back from the previous female who was the love of his life. ‘He took her with a sigh’ shows that the male has lost his one love and settles for someone else.
transmediale.07: Technocalyps: Frank Theys Interview
Wednesday, 07 February, 2007 - 16:19
Having now returned and recovered from our intense 4 day coverage of transmediale.07, I figured it was about time I posted some of my thoughts.
There were several pieces that impressed me whilst I was there, and Technocalyps by Frank Theys was definitely one of them. A three piece documentary that deals with Transhumanism. I managed to see the first and the last of these, since the second documentary tape had apparently become damaged and the back up copy was Dutch spoken with French subtitles.
Of the two that I saw, I was most intrigued by the first, as it dealt with the development and ultimate transition of the human species into beings that incorporate technology into their very being. The idea of humans becoming 'Borg', a very Star Trek idea, was covered well. It was amasing to see what areas had already been reached by science so far. From keeping the brain alive after it had been removed from the body to grafting neurones onto silicon chips to form neural networks. Most angles seemed to be covered, even the slightly disturbing video footage of a monkey's head being transplanted onto another body.
The premise that one day we could design our own bodies to out-perform existing physiological boundaries was both powerful and frightening.
You can watch an interview with the director Frank Theys on his own thoughts on Transhumanism and his production... Click here to watch>
Frank Theys talks to Claudia
Still image captured from Technocalyps
To view and listen to IPE's other videos and podcasts of transmediale.07...Click here>
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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 exhibition - Podcast 3
Sunday, 04 February, 2007 - 19:42
Our third podcast from Transmediale.07 in Berlin. On the eve of leaving we wrap up some of the video installations and keynotes from the art and digital culture festival.
Proof of Life, Herman Asselberghs
Roots, Roman Kirschner
Against God By Water Pistol, Moon Na
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.
Transmediale 07, Berlin: Unfinish: Roots
Sunday, 04 February, 2007 - 00:14
Roots
Roman Kirschner
'Roots' is based on the model of a chemical computer coneived by Gordon Pask in the early 1950s.
View our video of 'Roots'...View>
Transmediale 07, Berlin: Unfinish: Against God By Water Pistol
Sunday, 04 February, 2007 - 00:10
Against God By Water Pistol
Moon Na
'Against God By Water Pistol' is a strong statement about not accepting given values, including the force of gravity, and a poetical defiance concerning one's place in the world.
View our video of 'Against God By Water Pistol'...View>
Transmediale 07, Berlin: Unfinish: Proof of Life
Sunday, 04 February, 2007 - 00:04
Proof Of Life
Herman Asselberghs
'Proof of Life' is a sound movie with empty images which testify to their own, problematic redundancy.
View our video of 'Proof of Life'...View>
Unfinished Cities: Transmediale.07, Berlin
Saturday, 03 February, 2007 - 23:01
Unfinished Cities: a keynote with presentations from Orhan Esen, author of Self-Service Cities: Istanbul and AbduoMaliq Simone, Professor of Sociology at Goldsmiths College. In keeping with the premise of this year's Transmediale theme of Unfinish they discussed aspects of the modern city and the tensions between formal and informal space, cities as works in progress or as 'finished' environments, and contrasts between urban cultures in Europe, the near East and Africa.
Orhan Esen presented a history he had constructed about the development of gated communities in Istanbul - specifically the North-Western development at Gokturk. Not only have gated communities arisen as a form of pre-built (and hence pre-finished) environment as a bulwark against the ephemeral nature of the city, but they arise as part of a substitution for failed ideologies. The informal city is rejected by middle classes who wish to aspire, and yet in places like Gokturk, members of gated community nevertheless are forced into contact with the 'old villagers' in order to engage in commerce. Places in gated communities are aggressively marketed using discourses of inner peace and a return to nature to attract those alienated from modernity; meanwhile applicants undergo a mutual interview process - it is not possible just to purchase apartments and houses in these communities - you must be 'negotiated into' the culture of the community you wish to enter, ensuring you find yourself among people who share your values, tastes and aspirations. The "excluding city" is a neo-liberal ideal.
AbdouMaliq Simone did not dwell on detail as did Esen, but spoke rather poetically, in the context of Urban Europe and Urban Africa, about the necessary hybridity of the city, pointing out that people will live anywhere regardless of risk if they have to in a post-colonial world... but against this is the very colonial sense of urban intensification and non-integration. The mobile and the immigrant populations enter into wilful anonymities, where 'misrecognition' is desirable, rather than to be avoided. "The poor and the strange must never stop proving their innocence". Simone talks about the technologies which turn every shop-front into a monument, and which introduce heterogenities into the urban spaces, but which also destabilise the environemnt and the social relationships within. There is a constant process of change, in which temporaneities and instability dominate. We must see possibilities, rather than simply condemn cities for their problems.
Transmediale.07 Jan-Peter Sonntag - Borders and the Infinite
Saturday, 03 February, 2007 - 21:42
Jan-Peter E. R. Sonntag's presentation, Borders and the Infinite, was unusual in that he sat, mostly motionless on stage, and did not speak until the end of the session. Sonntag is an artist and composer, whose recent work concentrates on electricity research, video, installations and performance, but his presentation was profoundly about the sound as a form, phenomenon and 'fluid' medium.
His presentation began with a prerecorded female voice reading, we assume, Sonntag's own words, acknowledging that those words, written one month before, served to draw attention to the gaps in space and time that media open up and close down. Interstices remained a constant theme in a presentation which touched on the relation of sound to the body, Einsteinian relativity (again), and misapprehensions of Walter Benjamin and the Aura, and an acknowledgement of John Cage's attention to the musical pause.
Sonntag's sat for 55 minutes during his presentation, isolated on the panel, occasionally showing his enjoyment of the malaprops his voice artists committed, and which he evidently left in as a pleasure of the nature of human sound and breath, rather than deliver a sanitised production. Significantly his presentation argued that art need have no purpose - has no purpose - can be meant not to mean. An interesting performance.
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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Arthur Kroker - Born Again Ideology
Saturday, 03 February, 2007 - 01:02
Arthur Kroker is Canada Research Chair in Technology, Culture and Theory and Professor of Political Science at the University of Victoria, Canada. Co-editor of CTheory and Director of the Pacific Centre for Technology and Culture (www.pactac.net).
Today he gave a keynote lecture at Transmediale.07 in Berlin based on his latest book, Born Again Ideology. His talk examined the rise of the technocratic society, and its intersection with the rise of religion and the resurgence of God, notwithstanding His long-proclaimed death.
This podcast records the fascinating talk he gave.
We also managed to interview him after his keynote speech. To hear the podcast of our interview with Kroker...Click here>
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.
Fornicate with your actual genitals
Tuesday, 23 January, 2007 - 11:34
Following the enormous success of Second Life which creates such an uncanny sense of the virtually real, now comes the successor - the uncannily really real. Check out first life. "What's this body thing, and what do I do with the dangly bits?"
Aside from that, this seems to have been the week that everyone wanted to know, now that the 'user-generated-content honeymoon' is over, how media participation is going to legitimise itself by monetising. It's the law, you see. None of us, of course, would do anything except for a profit motive. I mean, surely when you're talking to your friends, you always have in the back of your mind, "what's in it for me? Where's the payback?" When you go for a stroll in the sunshine, don't you just wish someone would pay you to do it? And of course, all of us secretly want to be porn-stars, don't we? Fornicating with our actual genitals for hard cash.
media space
Tuesday, 12 December, 2006 - 17:39
Before lecture 3 on ?Citizenship?, identify a media space (traditional or new) which allows members of the public to participate in political debate, and explain the extent to which you believe that space empowers people / influences decisions or fails to do so.
Being lazy and not wanting to stray, even conceptually, away from the radiant glow of my monitor I threw the phrase “political debate” into google and clicked on the link at the top f the list.
Taking me to : http://www.debatepolitics.com/
I decided to take a poke before spouting prejudices that I have about forums. The first post I came to was in the thread ‘Death Penalty’, under the topic America ‘NEEDS the death penalty!!’. It was this:
People who don’t support the death penalty should be put to death themselves! The death penalty has done so much good that why don’t we use it for other crimes? for example:
Homosexuality
Drug use
Stealing
Premarital sexual intercourse
Abortion
Having no income
etc.
I bet all these crimes disappear in 3 weeks!
The website is simply a vBulletin forum for political debate.
Now for the prejudices and generalisations.
First of all, the post. It’s the beginning of the only thread I bothered to read. A classic little bit of trolling. At this point I’m determined to try and get a link to encyclopedia dramatica in each of these online assignment pieces.
Now. The online forum, how does it empower people?
The main thing with the internet is the power of anonymity. This could empower people by giving them the freedom to express their true opinions without fear of recompense. However the exact same is true for pretty much any expression, including those that undermine the validity of the entire space and so takes away the empowerment and the credibility that would usually be required to influence decisions.
It is a widely accessible space though, and has the capacity for community and like in any community influence can be spread. The fact that marketers hire people to effectively troll forums and promote their products after gaining the trust of the people is evidence towards this. If there wasn’t enough influence there, they wouldn’t pay the money for people to do this job. For interesting detail on this, see this article: I’m Evil: Confessions Of An Online Guerilla Marketer.
Pretty much for most of the points that you bring up for the internet discussion area, they are both the things that make it ‘better’ and ‘worse’ for public debate.
I think that the internet forum is mostly used by people to express their views, and contest them against others. I don’t imagine that much absorption of ideas goes on, at least not in a greatly conscious deliberate way. I think that people still like a good authoritarian source for that kind of thing, like the BBC.
online assignment number 1!
Tuesday, 12 December, 2006 - 16:42
Week 2: How has your childhood affected you gendered/sexual self?
In your student blogs, write a brief summary of a key moment (or moments) in your childhood that informed/affected the ways in which you have constructed you gendered and sexual self (approx. 300-400 words).
I hate talking about things like this, writing on my blog is even harder. It is so hard to say why any one is like they are. So many things influence people - no matter how much you try to avoid it there is no escaping. Especially with something like sexuality.
I can?t remember any significant moment that has influenced my sexuality.
When I was younger I played with Barbies, thought that boys were smelly and would have much rather watch My Little Pony then The Ninga Turtles. I do have a brother two years older then me, so there were boys toys around, but I really cant ever remember playing or wanting to play with them unless it was marrying Action Man to Barbie . I even refused to use Action Man?s Car because it wasn?t pink.
I think as a child I spent a lot more time with my mother then with my Dad, she must have influenced how I behaved. But why did my brother not turn out more feminine?
I have no idea why I was attracted to these girly toys. I must have been influenced by something or someone but its really hard to say what. As a child I didn?t always feel like I fitted in at school. I was over weight and really unconfident (Photos of me at around the age of 12 have been compared to Princess Fiona From Shrek!) therefore I did watch a lot of TV. I really looked up to TV characters and let my imagination run wild. I used to love Sabrina the Teenage Witch and envied that she lived with her cool aunts and had cool friends and a cool boyfriend.
I was really nervous around boys and still am to certain extent, but my confidence has increased. The more I wactched adult relationships develop on tv and read magazines aimed at older girls such as Just17 the more I saw boys in a different light. Suddenly I couldn?t wait to get involved.
The media must have played a huge influence on my choosen sexuality.
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…
media artefact
Monday, 04 December, 2006 - 22:55
Before lecture 2 on ?Quality?, identify a media artefact produced outside the traditional mainstream media and explain what ?qualities? it has / does not have.
My selection is an image taken from a b3ta image challenge ‘Selling Celibacy’
The image is featured on page 6. Check that link if you want to see it in the context I found it.
Qualities it has:
Qualities it does not have (a.k.a. things that I don’t value as much as the previous list):
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.
Portland School Interactive Narrative Project
Thursday, 08 June, 2006 - 00:52
Our BA (Hons) Interactive Media Production students recently lead a Centre for Excellence in Media Practice initiative, collaborating with a local school on an Interactive Narrative Project.
View the highlights of the project on the CEMP website by clicking here >>>
Opposing new laws mandating Net neutrality
A bill that seeks to prevent broadband providers from offering an exclusive high-speed lane for video and other services has taken a step closer to becoming law.
Many Network operators from the telephone and cable industries, now allied with some of the nation's largest hardware makers, have said repeatedly that they have no intention of blocking, degrading or impairing content. They say they're protecting their right to manage their networks as they see fit, which could mean charging extra to heavy bandwidth users, such as video providers, that expect to have their content shuttled at priority speeds.
My comments is NO REGULATION..PLEASE!!
http://news.com.com/House+panel+votes+for+Net+neutrality/2100-1028_3-6077007.html
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.
We Media and the great blogging hoax
Thursday, 04 May, 2006 - 23:38
I'm gutted because I can't make it to Helen Boaden's guest lecture at BU. Earlier this week she was at the We Media conference in London, which I've read about from the following (blog) sources:
Jeff Jarvis' Buzzmachine
Bobbie Johnson
Rachel from North London
PaidContent
Strange Attractor
- all these sources paint a slightly different picture than that found at the BBC's blog about the event
The bloggers (my, um... news source for this event) complain that the event emanated a silo, us-vs-them atmosphere. They wonder why Helen only reads the blogs of professional journalists. They report that Helen expects a big blogging hoax to upset what she calls the bloggers' 'steamrolling'.
This sounds kind of similar to The Guardian piece a couple of weeks ago, in which they happily reported that the blogosphere exerts 'a disproportionate influence'. Disproportionate to what? A publication produced by a small bunch of 'professionals'?
The BBC blogger reports, however, that Helen's contribution was about objectivity:
“Witness accounts do not necessary give you an objective factual picture. They give you the truth as I see it,” she said.
“The role of journalism is to sift facts and give you a truthful and factual picture.”
This sounds to me like another way of saying the job of a journalist is to intermediate many different viewpoints - unless she really believes that objectivity is something that really exists?
Which brings me to the crux: isn't the rise of citizen journalism, participatory media and blogging about disintermediation, and isn't that the real reason that the mainstream media are so threatened? I can do my own intermediation now, thanks very much. Which means that rather than 'objectivity', the only benefit mainstream media give me now is convenience?
Here's some intermediation for you: this week BBC News online has been reporting the results of a survey it commissioned which show that a) people trust the media more than governments, b) people may or may not trust blogs, and c) young people trust internet sources.
So here's the ground-breaking news: people trust the media more than professional equivocators; mainstream media sources are unable to evaluate blogs 'objectively'; and future generations will be wired, not couched.
As I've said before, the BBC says nice things about networked participatory media; but as Suw Charman says: "Citizen journalism is not just about a few comments and a few photos from Buncefield."
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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|
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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 here
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
Just a Reference
Tuesday, 21 March, 2006 - 01:34
I found this web site has a lot of information about internet:
http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/digital-imprimatur/
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
More pages detail
Sunday, 19 March, 2006 - 23:33
Too busy to post these days
This is just some more page design done.
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 
The Premier Chat Room Sexual Predator Eradication Tool - Launched Today
Saturday, 04 March, 2006 - 14:37
Unlike many other services that offer qualitative advice on how to avoid chat room traps set by sex offenders, Secure Chat Now delivers a proactive, tangible, tool that helps chatters of all ages to eradicate the criminals who hide behind the veil of anonymity provided by a free, Web-based, email address.
Man abused girl he met in chat room, police say
Saturday, 04 March, 2006 - 14:27
Man abused girl he met in chat room, police say
Published March 1, 2006
John Benedict Jr., 22, of the 900 block of North Stratford Road, faces two counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse for a weekend encounter with a girl, 13, in his home, and a Feb. 3 incident in her Hoffman Estates home, Arlington Heights Police Capt. Jerry Lambert said Tuesday.
Benedict is free on $80,000 bail, which he posted Monday, and is due back in court April 24, officials said.
The two communicated online after meeting in a chat room Jan. 10 and met in person three times, Lambert said.
The girl’s father called police Saturday after his daughter, who he thought was asleep, was locked out of the house about 4 a.m. and would not tell him where she had been, Lambert said.
The girl told police Benedict picked her up in his truck, and they went to his house and had sex, Lambert said.
chat room lured?
Saturday, 04 March, 2006 - 14:24
People really can use online chat room to do a nasty things. Sometimes, I
would ask myself that are they very clever or are they very naughty??
“Chat room lured men to robbers, court told”
This week: Noah, The Logo Weenie
Friday, 03 March, 2006 - 19:19
This article's name is brought to you by the word 'news' and the Nerd Name Generator.
In 1988 Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman published their withering analysis of how media-content gets made: The Propaganda Model. The kinds of things that 'can be said' in the media are determined through 5 filters: who owns the media; which sponsors subsidise the producers; the kind of sources that can be regarded as 'authoritative'; the 'flak' that content may attract; and finally, the kind of ideological winds that are blowing at any given time.
It has mostly been sidelined and criticised since then; people arguing that it's just a 'conspiracy theory' (though the authors never claim a conscious effort at deceit), that it's too deterministic (so that's any logical theories ever proposed out of the window then), that it's unscientific (like, yeah, mainstream media theory is the very model of scientific enquiry), or it's just written off as the polemic of 'activists' (rather like how people who think the status quo is crap get conveniently labelled as anarchists, as though that somehow dispenses with their arguments).
On BBC Newsnight, 24 Feb, a package was aired in which file-sharing was described as theft, and use of Bittorrent lumped in with paedophilia and terrorism. Adam Livingstone, Producer of BBC Newsnight, in a prickly, snide little column on the BBC News website (I guess he considers it as an apology), has retracted the claim, and hinted at the idea that mainstream media are scared of the internet and so consistently attempt to demonise it. It would have been more persuasive if his column hadn't been dripping with sarcasm and obvious irritation at the, erm, 'torrent' of criticism the BBC's internet presence has exposed him to.
Meanwhile, news broadcasts covering Daniel Gonzales, the guy currently accused of murdering 4 people in his desire to become a Freddie-Krueger type serial killer, have not failed to report the prosecutions' characterisation of Gonzales as someone who spent a lot of time playing video games - couched amongst other labels such as 'loner', 'no friends', 'no girlfriend', 'isolated'.
And they wonder why 'fewer young people are watching TV' I guess they're all on the internet planning 'paedo-terror' and contemplating their next series of murders as they gaze moronically into video games.
Whose Propaganda Model looks stupid now?
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.
Finally?I ?chat? on my reserach project.
Thursday, 02 March, 2006 - 12:02
Yesterday, I met Joe regarding on my reserch project. I have decided to do my research - “online chat rooms issue”. I guess everyone knows what’s online chat rooms. What’s the first thing in your mind when you are thinking of online chat rooms? Dating? Online sex? Meet “new” friends? or talk to “weirdos”?? Well, I spoke to few people about this issue. The first impression of some people about online chat rooms are only for dating. Why? Is it true? Do you think that traditional media such as newspaper always against the online chat room?? (Many newspapers always publish negative side of the internet) Why?
If you have any comments about this issue. Please write it down in my blog.
Cheers!
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 - 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.
|
|
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..
Online chat rooms - ?Shut up?
Sunday, 26 February, 2006 - 02:35
Sep 25th 2003
From The Economist print edition
What is the real reason Microsoft is planning to close its free chat rooms?
INTERNET chat rooms, always garrulous, are even more abuzz than usual. Microsoft’s MSN online service plans to close its free chat rooms in over 25 countries next month due to problems caused by spam and paedophiles, keeping open only those in America, Canada, Australasia, Japan and Brazil. Most users will have to subscribe to an MSN service?and so be traceable via billing details?to participate. Elsewhere, the decision to close the real-time text-discussion forums will affect millions of users.This being Microsoft, pundits raced to find ulterior motives for the software company’s actions. In some cases, the move requires users to become MSN customers in order to participate in what is now free, giving rise to speculation that Microsoft is using the cloak of corporate citizenship to hide its financial motives. The chat rooms never generated a profit from user fees or advertising revenue.
Though Microsoft’s finances may benefit, this misses the bigger issue?and bigger danger. Microsoft has launched a ?trustworthy computing? crusade to protect intellectual property, is scrambling to patch software code that is vulnerable to viruses, and is working with industry and government to find ways to reduce spam. Closing the chat rooms is in line with the firm’s goals of making the internet safe for commerce and friendly for kids. By shifting users into its online service, it raises the height of the gate to its walled garden.
This comes at a price. Protecting minors from online dangers is necessary. But Microsoft’s approach goes against fundamental aspects of the internet, notably its openness and anonymity, that have helped it to thrive as an instrument for free expression. Many industry experts think that the firm could have found other solutions to chat-room problems than eliminating them altogether.
Yet the move has a degree of inevitability about it. When the internet first went mainstream, it seemed to be beyond the jurisdiction of governments. That view is now acknowledged as folly. But a question remains over what legal authority can make internet rules that will actually work, and then enforce them. In this case, the private sector is pursuing policies to uphold what it thinks is the public interest. Ultimately, on the internet, freedom of assembly depends on who owns the meeting hall.
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
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
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?
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 |
| 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 |
| 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.
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.
Is Pornography Just Harmless Fun?
Monday, 13 February, 2006 - 17:01
bbc.co.uk
Wednesday 29 October 2003
No longer confined to the top shelf, pornography’s increasingly found its way into the mainstream.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/2003_43_wed_02.shtml
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2277116.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3095271.stm
Last decision...
Monday, 13 February, 2006 - 02:22
Last decision...
Monday, 13 February, 2006 - 02:22
The .xxx web domain
Saturday, 11 February, 2006 - 22:14
Internet governance
Jun 9th 2005
From The Economist print edition
The .xxx web domain raises questions about internet rules
IT IS the fantasy of every purveyor of porn?and every censor of cyberspace: a way to tag web content to find it easily, or just as easily to block it. On June 1st, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the private-sector group that manages the domain-name system, approved .xxx as a web suffix. After ICANN agrees on contract terms with ICM Registry, an American company that will handle the back-end registrations, .xxx sites will sprout on the global internet.
The idea is controversial. It was made with little public discussion, leaving some to wonder about the way ICANN doles out names. Though the domain is voluntary, there will be a temptation for governments to make it mandatory. It creates a virtual red-light district, and is another step towards zoning of the web. But what constitutes adult material in Saudi Arabia differs from that in Sweden. Some countries may object to it as an example of libertine western values imposed on the global web, justifying their complaints that they lack influence over how internet policies develop?at a time when they are using a United Nations initiative to gain more say.
ICANN argues it is only a technical body, and must set aside value judgments. ICM believes it is a way for the online porn industry, worth some $5 billion annually, to identify their content to help users to find or block it. The firm expects to register 100,000 domains in its first year. Yet .xxx may not be as useful as its backers hope. Lots of porn merchants are likely to stick with their existing domain names, even if they buy .xxx in addition, to avoid blocking by some nations and most schools, libraries and offices. Meanwhile, the move has already inflamed the passions of many social conservatives.
The name game
Saturday, 11 February, 2006 - 22:02
Internet addresses
Apr 14th 2005
From The Economist print edition
An online power struggle
IT IS not easy running the internet’s address system. Since it was founded in 1998, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a self-regulatory body, has been under constant fire from critics on all sides. As it held a public board meeting last week in Argentina, it found itself grappling controversially with two new disputes.The first concerns a new domain called .pro?a rival to .com and others, intended for professionals, such as lawyers and doctors. Registrants are supposed to show professional credentials. But soon after last June’s launch of .pro, a firm handling registrations exploited a loophole to ?lease? names to otherwise unqualified people. Thus, sex.pro?and every imaginable sex-inspired term?is alive on the web.
ICANN has complained to the firm, and says it will inspect the contractual agreements to see what it can do to enforce compliance. How ICANN exercises such powers will be closely scrutinised in light of two new domains that it authorised at last week’s board meeting, .jobs and .travel.
The second dispute is about .net, which accounts for around 5.5m domain names (see chart) and around 30% of webpage views. The contract with VeriSign, the firm that administers .net, expires in June and is out to tender. ICANN used an independent examiner to evaluate the bids, and ranked VeriSign’s the best. Yet the examiner, Telcordia, has disclosed financial ties to, and rivalries with, some bidders, prompting questions about its fairness. ICANN says it will examine these complaints as it negotiates with VeriSign.
The two controversies call into question whether ICANN, as a private-sector body with only light governmental representation, is up to the task of managing the internet’s domain name system and whether the United Nations (UN) should take over?which it wants to do. The UN has set up a working group, due to report this summer, on the role that nations ought to play in managing the internet.
Last year, VeriSign unilaterally sought to commercialise a technical process related to .com that created problems for some users. ICANN ordered VeriSign to stop. In turn, the firm sued ICANN, questioning its authority. Letting VeriSign continue to run .net may allow ICANN to turn an enemy into an ally at a time when it faces challenges to its power.
In the end, although no one is particularly satisfied with the job being done by ICANN, its best defence is that the main alternative?handing over the internet’s critical infrastructure to an intergovernmental cacophony?would surely be worse.
Tremble, everyone
Saturday, 11 February, 2006 - 21:53
SURVEY: ELECTRONIC COMMERCE
Tremble, everyone
May 8th 1997
From The Economist print edition
Whatever industry you are in, electronic commerce will shake you up
EVER thought of your Web browser as an instrument of egalitarianism? In the physical world, banks come in massive, marble-fronted edifices; sex shops have low, dingy shopfronts with blacked-out windows and neon lighting. Yet viewed through your browser, both are reduced to just a screen with some pictures and text. This may be worrying for the banks (how do you convey trustworthiness without the aid of marble?), but it does point to something they have in common.
The Internet is affecting all businesses in similar ways. Every industry, for example, has suddenly become part of a global network where all companies are equally easy to reach. Information, once closely hoarded in many industries, is becoming a commodity. A few years ago, you might have had to pay a company such as Reuters a small fortune for a constant feed of stock quotes. Now practically all financial Web sites give them out (albeit delayed by a few minutes) free. As a result of these changes, many businesses that survived mainly because they were conveniently placed, or because they provided information that was hard to find, will soon have to find some other raison d?être.
But even though the forces affecting them are the same, the consequences for each industry are very different. Some are made for life online: computer equipment, for example, is a natural. Big companies have been ordering PCs online for years, using proprietary systems; now the Internet has extended that convenience to the consumer market. Leading PC vendors such as Gateway 2000 and Dell see online sales approaching 10% of their business. Last year Forrester calculated that PCs, porn, CDs?things the consultancy calls ?boy-toys??and gift items such as flowers made up a little over half of all online consumer revenues.
Consumers seem to have an open mind: in a recent survey by Yankelovich Partners, a consultancy, between 65% and 75% of people using the Internet who had not yet bought anything online said they would consider this method for making hotel reservations, paying for online subscriptions, and buying computer software, airline tickets, records, tapes, CDs and videos.
Where it matters
Outside the technology sector, the effects of electronic commerce are being felt most keenly?for good or ill?in the following industries:
? Financial services. Universal access to information is hitting hard here. This is a classic example of how the Internet can open up an existing infrastructure?the financial markets? computerised information feeds?to all comers and thus transform an industry. In the past, brokers have justified their high fees by pointing to the quality of their advice. But now knowledgeable amateurs and industry experts can trade stock tips for no charge in popular personal investing sites such as the Motley Fool. Are they sometimes biased, and often wrong? Yes, just like the pros.
Now that investors can get advice and market information from many sources other than full-service brokers, they are less willing to pay a premium just to trade. Discount online brokers such as e.Schwab are booming; in March the San Francisco-based firm said that about 700,000 of its accounts (one-sixth of the total) had conducted at least one online trade during the past year. Forrester estimates that assets worth $111 billion are already managed online, and that the figure will rise to $474 billion by 2000. But anything as popular as that risks being commoditised. Already more than 30 discount brokers are offering online trading accounts at rates that match or undercut e.Schwab, according to CS First Boston, an investment bank. The challenge is already clear: survive on razor-thin margins, or find some way to add value.
? Sex. Virtually every modern personal media technology, from photography to the videotape, has won many of its first converts from among the grubby-mac set. The big selling point is usually privacy. The Internet, which in effect brings the world?s adult bookstores and video shops to home computers, is following the same pattern. Forrester reckons that erotic content accounted for sales of $52m on the Internet last year, one-tenth of all retail business on the Web. Others think it may be three times that. One sex firm, the Internet Entertainment Group, based in Seattle, claims to have 50,000 paying subscribers online, nearly as many as the Wall Street Journal.
The sex industry?s typical consumers tend to be avid, savvy and well-wired young men?much like tomorrow?s shopper for less spicy online fare. They have become expert at hunting out the best material at the lowest price from the thousands of sex sites online. Porn purveyors, therefore, have to push Internet technology harder than almost any other industry, with video clips, customisable service, and even live video conferencing (for lack of a better term) to raise their site?s profile. Their lessons for other industries? Give away lots of samples, promote your service wherever possible, and aim for international markets from the beginning.
? Travel. Travel agents are another group that has survived on exclusive access to information. By knowing their way around ticket prices, schedules and flight availability, they have been able to hold their own, despite the airlines? efforts to sell straight to consumers and avoid paying the agents? 10% commission. Most travellers prefer using travel agents to calling every airline themselves or figuring out how to work the flight-booking services on commercial online services, especially since using an agent costs them no more.
But the Internet, by providing an easy-to-use direct link to consumers, is giving the airlines an opportunity to erode the place of the middleman. They are doing this in two ways. The first is by selling seats on their own Web sites and together on Sabre?s Travelocity, American Airlines? booking service. The second, led by Northwest and Continental, is by cutting the fees they pay to online travel agencies to 5%, on the ground that costs are far lower than in the physical world because customers find and book the flights themselves.
Yet the airlines may face an uphill struggle. Although top online travel sites such as Expedia sell more than $1m of tickets a week, online sales still make up less than 1% of total airline ticket sales. Forrester Research estimates that this year the figure may creep up to about 1.5%. But as long as the airlines are prohibited by law from offering online bookers?or anyone else?a price advantage, most independent travellers will still prefer a quick call to their travel agent.
? Retailing. It is easy to see why the mall was the first image that sprang to mind when people started to think about electronic commerce on the Internet. The most obvious advantages of online shops are that their costs are lower and they are less constrained for space than their physical counterparts. Yet today less than a third of online marketers are making money, according to Activmedia, a New Hampshire consultancy.
The reason is that most of their offerings are distinctly unimpressive. Even big mail-order retailers such as J.C. Penney and J. Crew offer only a small fraction of their print catalogue online. Even those items are hard to find, slow to download, and hard to see on-screen. Where are the innovative marketing techniques, harnessing both the power of the Web and the legendary ?data warehouses? of these consumer giants? Still being developed, they explain: building an online shopping site that is attractive to buyers takes longer and costs more than most of them had reckoned.
? Music. When Amazon?s Jeff Bezos was first scouting for retail sectors in which to work his online magic, he considered music, but decided against it. Whereas the book industry had thousands of publishers, the music industry was controlled by just a few labels. He was afraid they would have the power to stifle any online venture that offered serious competition. And indeed, several online music stores that have the makings of a site as useful as Amazon?s have had trouble getting record companies? permission to offer album samples, and their prices are typically little lower than those of physical music stores.
Most are losing money: online sales reached a mere $20m last year, and industry-wide gross profits were just $200,000, according to the Red Herring, a technology magazine. MCI, an American telephone company, last year closed its 1-800-Music-Now site after spending nearly $40m promoting it: its top CD sold only 400 units. Still, as Firefly is showing with its BigNote site built around a thriving community of music fans, good online music stores have the potential to outdo their physical competitors just as Amazon bests its book-trade rivals. But it could be slow going: Jupiter Communications, a New York consultancy, predicts that online music sales will increase to $186m by 2000, still less than 2% of all recordings sold.
? Books. This market is no longer a one-horse race now that America?s two largest booksellers, Barnes & Noble and Borders, have gone online, along with such international competitors as Britain?s Internet Bookshop and a host of smaller outfits. Optimists think online book sales will reach 8% of the market by 2000. Pessimists reckon there will be a bloody battle for just the bottom 1-2%.
? Cars. A few years ago most people would have laughed at the idea of buying a car online. Now those who try it are more likely to sigh with relief. Instead of spending a loathsome afternoon with a salesman, customers of Auto-by-Tel, the leading Internet car-buying service, simply tell the service what kind of car they want, and wait for nearby dealerships to make their best offer. Customers report prices up to 10% lower than their best face-to-face haggling efforts could achieve, without having to step into a dealership until it is time to pay and pick up the car. The reason: it costs a dealer only about $25 to respond to an Auto-By-Tel lead, instead of hundreds of dollars to advertise and sell a car the conventional way.
Last year 2m of the 15.1m cars sold in America went to customers who set foot in the dealership only to pick up the car. Chrysler, which put its Internet sales last year at just 1.5% of the total, reckons that in four years? time the figure will be 25%. Manufacturers are thrilled by this trend; they generally consider dealers a necessary evil, just as airlines do travel agents. But a creative dealership, which can set up its own Web site, can also use the Internet to expand its franchise.
? Advertising and marketing. These two industries, although not strictly in the category of electronic commerce themselves, are being profoundly changed by it. This is because the Internet, unlike any advertising vehicle before it, is an interactive medium, completely customisable for each viewer. The implications of this are just starting to sink in. Where they will be felt most is in the target market known as the ?hard middle?. Amazon?s Mr Bezos defines it like this: ?In today?s world, if you want to reach 12 people, that?s easy: you use the phone. If you want to reach 12m people, it?s easy: you take out an ad during the Superbowl. But if you want to pitch something to 10,000 people?the hard middle?that?s really hard.?
Today?s answer to the hard middle is direct mail, which is expensive and inefficient. The Internet makes it easier both to target potentially interested consumers and to communicate with them. Search services such as InfoSeek, for example, sell keywords: search for ?airline tickets?, and an ad banner for American Express?s travel service shows up on top of the resulting list. Call it advertising or direct marketing?the distinctions are blurring. Indeed, First Virtual, an Internet commerce firm, has developed an advertisement that can act as a tiny shopfront (imagine a Nike ad that would let you order a pair of shoes from within the banner), merging advertising and direct commerce.
An Internet ad banner provides a direct link to the advertiser?s site, offering interested consumers an easy way to go there for more information or an opportunity to buy. Compare that with a television ad, which has to create such an impression that you remember it days later when you are shopping. Because online advertising offers the capacity for an immediate response, it challenges the old saw that merchants know that only half of their advertising works, but not which half. On the Internet it is easy to know which half: just count the ?click-throughs?. Indeed, last year Procter & Gamble refused to pay for ads that people did not click on. Web sites were outraged (what if it was just a lame ad?), but one way or another advertisers will demand more evidence of effectiveness in future.
Total Internet advertising revenues last year were just $267m (see chart 6), compared with $33 billion spent on television advertising in America alone?even though top Internet sites have television-sized audiences of a million viewers a day. America Online, with 8m subscribers the biggest Internet service provider, has more viewers than any cable television network or newspaper, and all but the world?s two most popular magazines. So where is the big advertising money Internet media companies are expecting? Waiting and seeing: the market is too new for advertisers to be sure they will get their money?s worth.
In the shaky business of online marketing?
Saturday, 11 February, 2006 - 21:40
Sep 10th 1998
From The Economist print edition
In the shaky business of online marketing, Web pornographers have several tricks to teach mainstream providers
THE story of ?Mike? and ?Diane?, two out-of-work actors who in July fooled the world into thinking they were virgins about to share that first special moment with an Internet audience of millions holds no end of lessons. People are suckers. Anything with the word ?Internet? attached is automatically news. Editors love putting sex on the front page. And the cleverest online marketing is to be found in Internet porn.
Sex sells. But as any pornographer?or economist?will tell you, it would sell far better if there were less of it about. With literally billions of body parts around and a significant fraction of their owners prepared to display them for money, the market is glutted. In the old days it was not so easy to get into the porn business: one needed a printing press, a video production house or a least a storefront. Not any more. A website and a cheap CD-ROM?s worth of the usual couplings is enough, as thousands of entreporneurs have demonstrated. But getting people to pay is another story. The most obvious selling techniques are digital variations of the old marketing chestnuts?free samples in the form of hardcore pictures sent to hundreds of Internet ?newsgroups?, divided by erotic subspeciality. These were once places where connoisseurs could discuss the topics such as ?restraint? (nothing to do with moderation in this context), but are now largely catalogues of wares available at for-pay websites. This kind of distribution costs the vendors nothing, so they blanket the netways with explicit e-flyers or send junk-mail (?spam?) to millions of individual e-mail addresses, again at little cost.
Another marketing trick is the bait and switch. ?Mike and Diane? was a classic: the pair promised to consummate their love in public view, but actually intended to charge $5 a person at the last minute and then, adding insult to injury, just offer up some safe sex tips and scamper off, still clothed. Their ploy was more audacious than most, but false advertising is the rule, not the exception, online.
With hundreds of new pictures added to the more popular newsgroups daily, each taking as much as a minute to download, the need for one-line image descriptions puts even the most inventive caption-writers under strain. One variation is to suggest something illicit with the words ?Is this legal?? Another is to use words like ?teeny? and ?tiny? to keep hopeful perverts clicking.
Yet a third way to find online porn is to seek it out, using the Internet?s usual search engines such as AltaVista. But type in ?sex? and you will get more than 10m matches. Even something relatively specific, such as ?foot fetish?, generates an unmanageable 10,000. Most people just click on the first one or two, so the secret of successful skin selling is to ensure that you are listed ahead of your competition by either paying for the privilege or blanketing your site with obvious keywords.
Once a punter has landed on a website, the trick is to keep him long enough for the credit card to come out: offer lots of teasers and promise that harder, uncensored stuff lies within. But with an estimated 30,000 such sites claiming the same, the jaundiced consumer is rightly sceptical. Many sites claim to be 100% free, with just one hitch. Supposedly to protect young eyes from seeing the sizzling wares within, these sites require that you prove that you are over 18 by entering a password from one of several ?age verification? services. In reality, these services are just clever ways to spread the wealth. For a fee of $20 a year or so, they allow access to many porn sites, thus minimising the consumer?s risk of disappointment, and then give the referring sites a cut of the proceeds. The only verification these sites do is of a credit card number?claiming that the American courts have ruled possession of a credit card to be sufficient proof of adulthood.
Another way to keep a surfer at a site is essentially to take over their screen. Porn sites often do this by launching a blizzard of windows, advertising banners and other on-screen clutter, multiplying the temptations to click for more. Even sneakier, if surfers do in fact click on one of the advertising banners hoping to go to that site, they are sometimes returned to the original site instead. The site owner not only keeps the surfer but picks up a bit of advertising revenue from the banner owner whom he has also duped.
One might think all this frustration would be a quick turn-off, but surfers do occasionally conclude that the best way to reach sanctuary is to pony up a credit card number. Once they have signed up, unsubscribing can be virtually impossible without legal threats.
All these marketing tricks may work fine in the seedy world of online porn, but how many are useful in more conventional commerce? Surprisingly many. Try to find the ?unsubscribe? instruction on your Internet service provider?s site. Count the number of unsolicited e-mails you have received in the past month from even reputable merchants. Marvel at the pet accessory ads that pollute the cat-and-dog newsgroups. And observe the behaviour of even the mighty Microsoft. Try to leave Hotmail, an e-mail service Microsoft recently bought, and you are taken to ?Start?, Microsoft?s main marketing site. Butts-N-Sluts.com did it first.
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
Research Area
Friday, 03 February, 2006 - 00:14
Today we had seminar for Joe,we had talked about our chosen area for the research project. So i just put my point here.
From the research i had done for Media Theory essay, i felt quite interested in people’s identity and lifestyle, how do people develop or explore their identity from the cyberspace. So for this research project, i also want to find out how interactive media affect people’s behavior or their normal life, but this time, i will choose online community as a subject. I know that for our generation, more people choose online community to know friends, to communicate with the outside world, even to fall in love with somebody. I have to say, in this way, online community affect people ’s social life a lot, it helps people to know more friends, to present themselves better, to get happy, to get more freedom to talk or to receive comments. Sometimes we can say online community change people’s character or behavior more or less in some ways.
Also i found some negative influence of online community. At present, so many teenagers were lost in the online game, we could say that they were lost in the online game community, they choose that vitual community as their society, they choose that vitual world as their real home, seems like they got addicted of those online games, but the truth is they got lost in online community. Personally, sometimes the result will be like, they failed to face this real world, they failed to present themselves in this real community, which are really negative.
In conclusion, my topic area will be like: How does online community affect people(teenager)’s social behavior or communication? But still, i found ’social behavior’ or ‘communication’ these words are a little bit confused for myself, but i can’t find a better word for my subject, so can someboday suggest me some words if you do understand what i was talking about? Any comments will be appriciated.
e-commerce research and information
Thursday, 02 February, 2006 - 22:25
These all facts are from The Economist print edition, in 2000. Five years old information from now…maybe a lot of things have changed already. My question is : Did British government make Britain the best place in the world for e-commerce? Obviously, many governments concern about e-commerce..Why?
” The government wants to make Britain the best place in the world for e-commerce. It still has some problems to fix.”
“Britain is already one of the world?s most wired countries ”
“But what role should the government play in all this? Surely the purpose of the Internet is to transcend both national boundaries and state interference.”
“Patricia Hewitt, Britain?s first ?e-minister?, the most crucial objective is she wants to underpin a market for e-commerce. Parliament is debating an Electronic Commerce Bill which will give legal force to electronic signatures: there are even rumours that the queen will herself sign the bill electronically”.
“But the single most important factor in the growth of e-commerce is the cost of being online. Across the world, the higher the cost of using the Internet, the less people use it.”
“But whereas in much of America users get free local calls included in their standing charge, in Britain, the cost of local calls, particularly in the daytime, is high. Sure enough, fewer small businesses, the group most affected by this policy, are wired in Britain than overseas.”
“A new technology, the asymmetrical digital subscriber link (ADSL), will enable data to be downloaded over normal telephone wires up to 180 times as fast.”
“In the borderless world of e-commerce, there is a tension between safeguarding tax revenues and helping new business. The Americans have come down firmly on the side of the latter, putting a moratorium on new e-commerce taxes, even though sales of goods over the Internet are haemorrhaging revenues from state sales taxes. Britain, however, leans the other way. Mr Brown?s vaunted tax breaks are hedged around with conditions which make them hard to use and of limited value. And the emphasis in the government?s own report is on preventing tax avoidance rather than promoting new business.”
(Feb 17th 2000/ From The Economist print edition)
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.
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.
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!
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 BROWN http://www.play-create.com
HAN HOOGERBRUGGE http://www.hoogerbrugge.com
LECIELESTBLEU http://www.lecielestbleu.com
YUGO NAKAMURA http://www.yugop.com
SHINYA YAMAMOTO 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
Dealing with censorship
Tuesday, 24 January, 2006 - 11:29
During the mediatheory classes I’ve had with Joe, some of my classmates have told me about censorship on the Internet in countries such as Egypt, Thailand and China. I feel that the Internet should be a media that everyone has access to without any form of censorship or blocking of sites. In my sparetime I have lately been working on setting up a site together with a friend of mine in Norway. This site is an easy, good looking and ad-free proxysite which lets users surf to sites they normally are blocked from surfing to. Does your country block certain sites? Try to surf trough Proxypop, the new site I’ve setup - it might do magic.
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 introduc