Rob's Blogs

Reflective Post - Final Post

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:38:00 +1000

Well so it has come to the end of the subject, and it has come quickly. This post is to sum up about my learnings of the course and the outcome of my blog. For starters my blog is not very popular. I only have myself to blame for that. I didn’t want to share my blog post with friends, family or anyone for that matter. I guess im not confident in my writing ability and I didn’t add any random post. It was strictly business (well school work).

Creating my blog was a learning experience. I have never kept a blog or even a diary for that matter. Throughout the entire course there were no comments, however just checking I have seen 2 followers. Giddy up! I found keeping the blog was a good way to revise the information given in the lectures and in class. A place where you could access your information and reflect. It is a good way to keep in touch with the class and get an idea of how you are going among class mates.

I did add a liked post when I first started my blog. It was about an awesome project which created the chinese zodiac signs using a map of the world. It can be seen here. It was posted by hrrrthrrr. I have since visited the blog and there is some really cool stuff on there so you should check it out when you get a chance. I started following a few blogs via my RSS reader which I opened up with Google. I thought RSS readers are a great way to keep up to date with liked blogs, news and other information from various sites. It allows you to get all your information at once with the need to visiting multiplepages. All you have to do is subscribe to sites you want to stay upto date with (as long as it is RSS enabled, which most are these days)

This subject opened my eyes up to the Networked Media world and I am now more aware of the different ways to communicate with people all around the world. I have since joined up with Twitter and Google Reader.

I found this subject very interesting and useful and it showed me some cool sites along the way which were provided by the fella’s from icelab. I look forward to using this knowledge in my future endeavours.

My nominated 3 blog post are:

Datavisualisation

Multiplicity

Easter Break

Signing out……

Final Week...Almost Finished!

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 08:56:00 +1000

Well the final week is upon us, winter has hit and all assignments due. This weeks class was very short. It started with Nathan (our tutor) advising us to prepare for our exam in coming weeks. He was explaing the exam and gave us some tips on what to study. I have started by getting all the lecture notes posted on moodle. I will be reading this day in and out for the coming weeks. I need to be prepared for this! Once he went through all the notes of the class he gave us time to finish off out assignment, as I had already submitted the assignment, I decided to head off and take care of some other subjects.

I wasn’t sure if I was going to continue studying next semester as I will be heading overseas for a month and will be missing a few weeks of Uni. After speaking with the course convener he advised it should still be passable just need to work harder when I get back. So I have enrolled for next semester and everything is falling into place.

Well thats bout it for the semester. Its been fun!

2nd Last Week

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 09:31:00 +1000

Well its the 2nd last week and again no tutorials. It is all about the final assignments. I have finished my assignment now and submitted. I was very happy with the final product and hopefully I get a good grade. I put a lot of effort into it and I think it should pay off.

So with all the assignments out of the way the final school stuff is blogging and of course the end of semester exam. I have started by going through my lecture notes as well as the ones provided on moodle. Im a bit nervous about the exam since its my first one, but im sure it will be all good.

A disappointing event happened this week. The Orlando Magic took down the Cleveland Cavaliers. My team’s run to the championship has come to a end. I am quite disappointed cause I now hate both teams in the NBA Finals…Actually thats not true. I dont hate the Lakers I just hate Pau Gasol (Their Center) but oh well. Not much you can do.

Not much else to report. Just been kicking about and relaxing. Waiting for the final week oh school and start on some holidays.

Assignment 2 - Geo-Narrative Rationale

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 13:20:00 +1000

I chose the geo-narrative option for the final assignment. The reason I chose this option was so I could write a creative story and display some pictures. As soon as this option was described to us in class I already had the idea of creating a story based on my travels to America in 2007. I found this assignment very fun to do and quite enjoyable.

I started off the assignment by writing the story of my trip. This would let me decide of what I was going to use and which pictures I would need to go along with the story. My main goal was to include events on which I had images to and would be an interesting read to the reader. As there was a limit to only 12 images to be used, I found that I wanted to use more images than allowed. I overcame this problem by creating a photo montage with Photoshop. This allowed me to use multiple images to create one image. Another requirement of the assignment was that we use some photos of other people. I found a few images which suited my story perfectly. I found these by using Flickr.com with the creative commons search filters. I contacted the owners of the photo advising that I would like to use their image for a school assignment. Once approved, I added the images and linked to the original source and to their photostream.

Once the story was written and pictures sorted, I then moved onto creating the map using Google maps. This was a new learning curve for me as I have never used it before. Nathan (our tutor) was able to assist with this and showed everyone how to use it. I was amazed at how easy it was. When creating the maps I decided to use different colours to explain different modes of transport. For example; When I was traveling in a car I would use a black line, when I was walking I would use a green line. I would also use different icons on the map to give a easier explanation on where I was. I used a plane symbol for the airport, house symbol for the hotel, and so on. Once the map was created, I then added the text of the story.

Next step was to add the pictures to the story. I first had to upload the images. I chose Flickr to upload my images. Once uploaded I then added the images to the corresponding storyline. The geo-narrative was near complete. Some final touch ups were needed with the image size, I was able to adjust the size of the image by using the HTML feature in the Google map text entries.

Before I submitted my map I decided to get some friends to read the story to get some feedback. I wanted to make sure that the story was enjoyable for a stranger and not just me as I was the one to experience the trip first hand. After a few friends read the story, they assured me that it was enjoyable from a stranger’s perspective. With that completed I decided to submit. Overall I was happy with the final product.

Click here to see my Geo-Narrative.

Count Down To End Of Semester

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 08:41:06 +1000

Well the countdown is on. 3 weeks to go and assignment due date closing in. I was able to get most of it done. I was doing the final touches completed and now its all about the rationale. I used photoshop to incorporate a few pictures into 1 as we have a set limit of upto 12 images total for the geo-narrative. I have used 2 images which I have found on Creative Commons. I was unable to find some images of my own which I was happy with to go along with the story. All in all its looking good and maybe even better than what I imagined. Im pretty confident about it.

On some stuff outside of school. I bought a new camera this week. I finally bought a digital SLR. I bought the Nikon D60 twin Lens Kit. At the moment Im very happy with it. Im rookie when it comes to photography but now I have a decent camera I have taken a strong interest in it and reading more and more about it on the internet to find out some tips and tricks. I have played around with it and have taken some cool pics. The main reason for the purchase was for my travels later in the year. Looking forward to see what pics I can get overseas with it.

Not much else to report. Still keeping an eye on the NBA Playoffs. Definately has been one of the best playoffs I have seen in a long time!! Cavs still going strong!!

Datavisualisation

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 08:10:00 +1000

This was the final lecture of the semester. It was on Datavisualisation. Michael Honey gave this presentation and as the subject indicates, it was about how to show data and all the different possibilties that it can be done. It was an interesting lecture, however I believe it was more aimed at the students who selected to do the data visualisation option for the final assessment. I had already opted for the geo-narrative option, so it was unable to help with my final assignment. It was an interesting lecture though. He showed some interesting sites which included:

The Feltron Annual Reports - This site is quite cool. Its about a guy who documents his life for a year and presents it in a annual report.

Visualising The Bible - This site was showing the links in the bible. Pretty crazy looking visualisation. Very indepth!

Here is an example of datavisualisation:

There was also some videos he showed with some absolutely amazing data visualisations. My favourite video was of Hans Rosling giving a presentation on the Developing World. If you have a spare 20minutes you should really watch this clip.

Now to my geo-narrative. I started my assignment a couple weeks ago. I went for the geo-narrative so I could write a creative story about my trip overseas in 2007. I went for a 3rd person type story so it could be more enjoyable to the reader. To add to the assignment I went photo looking today. I narrowed it down to the certain pictures I want to use and now it is a matter of putting it all together. Im pretty excited about this one and I hope it comes out just the way I want it.

Multiplicity

Thu, 14 May 2009 15:20:00 +1000

Well 2nd week back..and routine is back to normal. This week was all about multiplicity.

Unfortunately I wasnt able to follow too well during the lecture as I had a rough night sleeping and early morning start for work. However I found when Nathan went over the topic again in class I was able to understand better.

Nathan showed some cool sites which was really helpful to follow and understand multiplicity.

My favourite site he showed was of an photographer Peter Funch. This site

displayed some of Funch’s work. He would set up a tripod and take numerous pictures and then use seperate peices from each photo to create 1 image with a certain theme. This explained how multiplicity can be used from many different images to create a 1 simple image.

This was one of my favourite images from Peter Funch:

Other sites included one called Bicycle Built for Two Thousand. This was a project created by Aaron Koblin & Daniel Alfonso. This project used multiplicity to recreate a song “Daisy Bell” with thousands of samples submitted by internet uses. Bicycle Built for 2000 gathered 2,088 voice recordings via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk web service. The participants were given a sound sample and they had to replicate that sound themselves and submit it. Aaron Koblin & Daniel Alfonso then used these samples to recreate the song.

And the last site that I really enjoyed was a video created by a video game. It is called The 1k Project II. This video shows a car going through the a track 1000 times. This is similar to Peter Funch’s work, were the creator has used many images to display at once.

That is pretty much it for this week. I kept chipping away at my assignment which is due in another 4 weeks. All the content is pretty much done. Now its just a matter of proof reading and making it fun for the teacher to read in the end.

Next week is the final lecture, its called Data Everywhere. Will let you know about it next week.

Welcome back...2nd Half

Thu, 07 May 2009 11:09:00 +1000

Well holidays are over and so quickly they went past. Getting back into routine was a little tough but getting there. Lets see how the 2nd half started.

A lecture was given by Nathan about Web 2.0. Web 2.0 is changing the way we use the internet today. It is allowing us to not just retrieve information of the internet but is allowing users to interact with the information. Examples of these sites include Wiki’s (Wikipedia - Online encyclopedia which is built up and maintained by internet users), Youtube - Online video sharing website. Allows users to post videos and comment on media.

Class time was used to go further into details about the web 2.0 world and we were shown some cool sites that incorporate it. One of my favourites was the Tampa Bay Mugshots. A site which is updated when a new arrest has been made within the Tampa Bay region. This site was shown as a example how web 2.0 as great as it is, it also raises a huge concern about privacy issues. Tampa Bay mugshots allows everyone with internet access to open the website and view the latest arrest. It shows information including the persons, name, D.O.B, Address and What they were arrested for.

Assignment one marks were given out as well this week and I passed..woohoo!! very happy with the result and I have already started with assignment 2. I have gone the Geo-Narrative idea. I will be using Google Maps to tell a story….More about that at a later post.

Also an update on the Twitter race. Results were in and Ashton Kutcher won the race to become the first user on Twitter with over 1,000,000 followers.

Well that will do for this week…Hope you have been following the NBA playoffs..Lebron James was crowned MVP of the season!! No surprise there!! Go Cavs!!

Easter Break - Assignment 1 complete!

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 10:26:00 +1000

Hey all…final post till the easter break..Lets review what happened this week.

Well with being close to holidays there was no lecture..which means just a class on Thursday which was also the day to submit the assignment.

The class was to be used to work on the final bits and peices of the first assignment, I had already completed this however I needed to submit via URL. I created an account at Getdropbox (a site used to store data online) I used this site to upload my assignment as it was submitted in PDF format. We then blogged our rationale and linked to the URL where our assignment was located.

Once that was all done..it was all over for 2 weeks…to enjoy some time off and eat chocolate. However my holidays have been filled with full-time work which is killing me..would’ve loved to have some time off but gotta make that money!

Also NBA playoffs are starting soon. The final games and been played and the schedule has been released. My team the New Orleans Hornets finished in #7 seed so they have a bit of a up hill battle to try and win that championship but I got faith in the in fellas. However I do think its Cleveland’s year! (You heard it here first) Lebron will definately be MVP! Follow the NBA playoffs here.

Also been using Twitter quite a bit these days. Getting a bit addicted. Found a few cool people to follow as well..Got my favourite NBA player’s Tyson Chandler, Shaq, Steve Buscemi and Hugh Jackman…I also started following Ashton Kutcher to try and get him to the first person on twitter to 1 million. He was coming 2nd to CNN. Stay in touch to see who wins :)

YouTube Flow Chart - Assignment 1

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 13:07:00 +1000

RATIONALE

Well I chose project Option 1. This was to take an existing website and diagram the information flow. This also required me to explain how it handles the information and compare with similar sites. I chose the video sharing website YouTube. I started this project from scratch and I decided to look at specific parts of the site rather than as a whole, as it would’ve been way too massive. I decided to look at the main components of YouTube which is uploading and creating an account. They both go hand in hand as you are unable to upload unless you have an account. So I had to start my project with opening an account with YouTube.

However, before jumping into opening an account I decided I would find some websites which are similar to YouTube which I could compare with. After some researching on the internet I found two suitable sites. Which were Metacafe.com and Blip.Tv. Both video sharing websites which require account creation for uploading.

As I started the process to sign up for YouTube I decided to get screen shots which would allow me to look back and confirm notes I took when signing up. I originally thought I could’ve used the screen shots for the Flow Chart, however later on in the project I soon realized that wasn’t going to happen.

After the account was created my next step was to find out how the upload function works with YouTube. I followed the steps thoroughly and took more screen shots of every phase in the process. I created a test video so I could follow the procedure all the way through. My next hurdle was the webcam option available on YouTube. Unfortunately I did not have a webcam available so I had to locate a computer which did. I finally managed to locate a computer with a webcam and was able to get screen shots of all the steps of uploading for both Video File and Quick Capture.

Once all the data was put together, I drafted my flowchart just on paper. Finally getting it sorted I used a flowchart program to create the final product. I used a series of different colours to help diagram the steps and make it easier to follow. Once completed, I then moved onto the explanation of the chart. I decided I would use the screen shots here to help explain. I edited the images to concentrate on the topic I was discussing. I felt this would give the reader an easier understanding of the text written as he would be able to see visually what it looks like on the website.

It was time to compare the websites. In order to compare them properly I did the exact steps as I used for YouTube. I created an account for both sites and took notes and screen shots. I then looked at all the options and features available for uploading content and noted down differences whether good or bad. I decided not to add the screen shots of the compared websites as my main focus was on YouTube.

I then got my notes from the account creation process of all sites and compared them against each other. I found the sites used very similar account creation steps. The next step was to compare the uploading stages. To do this successfully I had to get my test video and try and upload on all sites. This allowed me to see the process all the way to the end. Once the videos were uploaded and I had completed comparing I deleted the files.

I have submitted my assignment in PDF format. Please find the PDF file at the following link. http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/907442/YouTube.pdf

Carving Up The World

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 10:22:00 +1000

Hello all,

Well lets start the blog with the lecture that was given for the week. This weeks lecture topic was Carving Up The World which was given by Michael Honey from icelab. I haven’t seen Michael since his introduction of the course in the first week.

This lecture was interesting, a little hard to follow but still interesting. He was explaining how everything in the world can be categorised and sorted. He was also talking about design patterns. His example given was a book. The design patterns are:

Opens with a verticle spine
Title on Front Cover - Gives a insight of the book
The spine also includes title of book and author - Easy to find when stored
Contents - Shows the reader what is included in the book
Page Numbering - Able to find the information quicker
Index - Gives a list of everything inside the book

These are design patterns which have evolved over time and which are now used as a kind of default for books.

There was a lot more information through the duration of the lecture, however I dont think I would be able to explain it better than Michael.

Now I would like to talk about the assignment which is due week 7 (This week). I had a slow start to the topic as my ideas were changing as explained in my blog last week. However after speaking to Nathan (Class lecturer) and he confirmed my idea was a valid idea I set on my way to get the project done. I left class early and went straight to work. After long days and nights I have finished my assignment. I must say I am quite pleased with it.

Well thats me done for another week…Not long till holidays!! Giddy up!

No Lecture = Free week :)

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 22:31:00 +1100

Well this week we did not have a lecture to attend to and it was a nice little break. Although I must say I enjoy the lectures, it was nice not having to travel from work to uni back to work.

Even though there was no lecture there was still project A’s due date approaching and approaching fast. I went to class with the intention of doing a online exhibition about the NBA, however after speaking with the lecturer (Max) he suggested I go with option 3 which is a reference page about a current affair and find some affairs which are currently going on with the NBA. I originally liked the idea, however trying to find some interesting sites about current NBA affairs seemed to be a bit harder then first expected and with the limited time frame I put on myself it didn’t seem like the smart choice.

I then looked over the other options and I have now decided on doing option 1 (create a information flow). Now I have been working on this constantly over the last few days and have come up with a lot of information. I have decided on the website Youtube (now I’m sure everyone has heard of this site). This is a video sharing website used by millions around the world. I’m going down the path of showing how to join the site, upload and search. I need to talk to the lecturer tomorrow to see if im taking on too much of a load or not enough. Once I speak to him I should be on the way to completion and handing in my first University project.

Well thats about it for this week…Here are some funny videos from youtube…Enjoy!

Demon Cat

Urban Ninja 2

Sleep Walking Dog

Mascot Bloopers (This one isn’t from youtube but it will certainly make you laugh)

Week 3 - API's

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 22:58:00 +1100

Hello again peoples and welcome to this weeks post. This week was about API’s (Application Program Interface). Now although I didn’t really understand how they are created I do understand the concept of why they are created. The way they are changing the world and how we access data online is amazing.

Max from icelab was our lecturer for the week and he showed some really cool sites during our time. A couple of my favourite were:

Twistori - Api for twitter to gather all tweets consisting of certain words.

Twittervision - Mashup of Twitter and Google Map to show geographically where Tweets are coming from.

WolfenFlickr 3D - Funny search option for Flickr, using the old classic game Wolfenstein 3D to view searched images on the walls.

Retrievr - This allows you to sketch a picture using colours and the Retrievr api searches images in Flickr that resemble your sketch.

I have been meaning to search for a few more to see other examples however has been a busy week with other school work and my Bday week.

Another thing I have been concerntrating on for this class is our assignment which is due soon. I have decided on a Online Presentation on the NBA (National Basketball Association). Im a massive basketball fan and I feel I should be able to create a good informative presentation. My biggest challenge so far is the whole copyright factor with images, video. We were advised to use a site called Creative Commons. This is a site which has licenses for copyrighted material and explains what can be used and how it can be used. A very handy site however I still seem to be having a bit of trouble finding some good stuff. Will be sure to ask the teacher tomorrow for some more help…

Thanks for reading…another post coming soon!!

Week 2 Review

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 16:57:00 +1100

HTML (HyperText Markup Language) & CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)

Well this week was all about HTML and CSS. The week started with a lecture which touched on the basis of HTML and CSS. I had learnt some HTML back in the day when I was in Highschool, however that knowledge was no longer existent after the long nights and alcohol abuse over the college period. So it was good to refresh the memory and get back into it.

Heading into class on Thursday I was looking forward to testing out HTML and CSS. Nathan was head of the class this time round and he was very clear in his instructions and showed good knowledge in HTML. He had us re-create a page which was prepared by the fellas from icelab (design studio company in Canberra which our lecturers work). Once we created the html page in TextWrangler (nice text software for MAC’s) we then added some styling to it with CSS. Styling sheet was supplied by the generous guys from icelab. Although we didn’t have that much of a play with CSS it was still fun to see how it all came together.

Before I knew it class was over and it was time to head out of there. While class gave me a taste for HTML again I decided to go home and try and create a dummy website for fun. However, it wasn’t as easy in class since everything had to be created from scratch. Not to mention using notepad to create a website was a little frustrating and not as enjoyable as TextWrangler. Although I did some research on the internet to find out some more tips and tricks to help me a long the way and I found a site Learn HTML to be quite handy. After reading it for a while it was kind of the same stuff Nathan had gone over previously in class, but it was good to be able to go back and reflect on what was said earlier.

I eventually put a page together with a few working links and with minimal content. Next step is to create some stylesheets and see how we go from there….

And so it begins....

Thu, 05 Mar 2009 14:15:00 +1100

Well hello peeps,

This week I have started my University Course - Bachelor of Media Arts & Production. Here is the link to the course outline.

As I’m new to this blogging stuff I’m a little rough around the edges.

Today in our workshop we were learning about RSS Feeds. Quite a neat little bit of technology. I have created a google account and have already got some feeds coming through!! Mostly consist of sport and news. Will add some more exciting ones as time goes on. However, did you see in the news today that Robin Williams is in intensive care. Although I’m not a big fan will be good to see him come out alright.

Also in class we were looking up blogging sites and search engines for blog’s. We were using a site called Technorati. Honestly I didn’t realise how big the blogging world was. I recommend if you have some spare time to kill jump on and search up some blogs that would interest you.

Well that is my first post…more to come…