the end is nigh...

and so...with the dissertation handed in on friday, and the prototype to be finished tomorrow, we come to the end of design for interactive media

the only thing which remains uni-wise is to prep for the exhibition which runs the w/c june 12th; and from there on, we're free agents in the real world...now i know how those three little pigs felt when that b*stard wolf blew down their walls: oh shit

whilst filled with heart wrenching emotion, its also pretty cool...three years of uni is ample thanks, and now the good stuff begins...hopefully, there's a potential job lined up, although i'm also debating whether to apply for dimension 10 in august; thepopcast should start taking off over the next few months, and i've still got a couple of months left at the pop factory. plus there's summer, festivals, and holidays to be enjoyed!

* * *

i spent the weekend photographing for pop factory at the full ponty festival in pontypridd, which was a pleasant mix of rain, mud, vodka and music of the indie and metal varieties...highlights were the automatic, feeder, the blackout, biffy clyro and funeral for a friend...jen got a few interviews for the show, and i've got a tonne of pictures which are begging to be photoshopped...

* * *

for the powers which will be purusing our blogs for marking...you can find my research project journal at dfimrp.blogspot.com, and the entrepreneurship and professional practice blog at dfimepp.blogspot.com; enjoy :)

and so concludes my journal for design for interactive media 2005/06!

stressed

as the perfect escape from writing dissertations, i figured the journal needed an update...

i broke my wrist 10 days ago. it could not have possibly been at a worse time. to add insult to injury it was in totally humiliating style, having gone over the handlebars on my bike. tripped up by a paving slab, dammit

writing a dissertation sucks. i've probably lost a few hours in mindless wonderings as to where the last three years have gone, i'm pretty sure the dissertation was just that thing i'd have to do in the distant future! i'm totally into the project, however its very difficult to get thoughts to keyboard, and things which make sense in my mind just don't seem to want to translate to paper. luckily, i've been given a slight extention because of my wrist; however i don't think i've ever wanted to wrap up a project so much as i do at the moment

just two weeks of pain and misery to go until freedom

in other news, thepopcast has recieved a fantastic reception in its first week online! jen managed to get plugs both on steve lamacq's show and in nme, the welsh music foundation did us a favour and promoted it through their mailing list, and we've had over 100 downloads. i spent last night flyering at the nme tour, and this morning we got three emails from bands interested in having their music played on the show. the pop factory are loving us, with the full ponty festival's organiser offering free tickets for a competition, and the md requesting the press release for wider circulation. i love being a podcaster

keep an eye on thepopcast; we're gonna take over the music industry

thepopcast!

tpf.podcast has become thepopcast, and is due to debut this sunday at noon

after a coupla days of sweat and toil, the launch site is now online at www.thepopcast.com; check it out to learn more and subscribe!

sri lanka

having spent a fantastic week in sri lanka, i got back to blightly on monday with a tan, hangover and delightful dose of delhi belhi

after spending the first few days on the beaches at unawatuna, we hired a driver for a tour of the island's interior. we visited the tea plantations and colonial railway of the hill country, learnt about ayurvedic medicine, visited the ancient sinhalese sites of kandy, sigiriya and anaradhapura, and spent our evenings drinking arrack and discussing the finer points of buddhism and the tsunami with our guides!

having not realised that our visit coincided with sinhalese new year, i couldn't have picked a worse time for conducting research, as all the schools were closed! in its place, i visited the unicef offices in galle to talk with the staff and picked up some great contacts...further details are in my research blog

windows on macs

interesting article from the unofficial apple weblog...


The Real Reason Behind Apple's Boot Camp

Posted Apr 5th 2006 1:00PM by Damien Barrett

I think I've realized the real reason why Apple has released Boot Camp, and why it'll be part of Leopard when it's released. As C.K. suggests, it's a move to be more competitive in the desktop PC market, but it's more than that. Apple's marketshare in some of their traditional strongholds (like Education) has been slipping for some time, and Boot Camp is nothing short of an all-out frontal assault to reverse that trend. Here's how it works in most schools and large organizations:

- most universities still have both PC's and Macs. Of course, some have moved entirely to Dells, but the majority still have both.
- the computers in schools and large organizations tend to be refreshed every 3-4 years as part of a refresh program. This is hardwired to the IT budget; it's scheduled to happen.
- computer labs and classrooms are designated either a Mac classroom or a Windows classroom, by necessity.

Imagine a school budget that simply replaces all the computers campus-wide with new Intel Macs that can run anything we throw at them. Need to run Windows? Image the iMac with the WinXP image. Need to run Mac OS X? Image the iMac with the Tiger (or Leopard) image. Need to run either (because it's a dual-purpose classroom)? Install both and teach the lab assistants and instructors how switch between the environments. It might even be scheduled to reboot the classroom between classes so it's transparent to the end-user.

Now imagine that you're a sysadmin and you could tell your boss that you could outfit a classroom or a lab with one model computer that could run either your Mac image or your Windows image, or even both of the images? Suddenly your rooms are dual-use rooms. The AutoCAD kids can simple boot the computer to Windows to turn their software and two hours later, the Graphic Design students can boot the computers to Mac OS X to run their design applications!

Boot Camp is a bombshell change in the PC desktop marketplace. Suddenly, there will be options available to us sysadmins that we've never had before. This development is going to allow an organization to achieve the holy grail in computer workstation management--complete standardization on one model computer (e.g. the new Intel iMac). I'm so excited about this possibility that my workchair is spinning. Certainly, I'm not alone

assembly job

a letter from the welsh assembly arrived this morning telling me that i'm not eligible for the placement, as it's intended as an industrial placement for undergraduates. i'd been a bit disillusioned with it after the interview anyway, so the job hunt continues...

welsh assembly interview

a few weeks ago i applied to the welsh assembly for a placement as a research officer in their members research department. the job involves researching information for assembly members, spending a lot of time in their library faculty. however, what interested me in particular was their specification for development of their intranet, revamping their public-facing website, and developing a weekly web-based communications system

the interview was this morning at the bay, so i got suited up and got a cab down. i met alun richards, who showed me around his department before taking me to the interview. i think it went pretty well, and i described my interest in applying information architecture theory to their web services. unfortunately, they explained that their website is part of the overall assembly site, and that there's little scope for anything but slight modifications :(

despite that disappointment, i found the interview experience invaluable in preparation for further job interviews this summer; and i got take a tour round the new assembly building, which is very very cool!

easter!

we had the final set of research project presentations with stuart and debbie this morning, with some really interesting ideas being discussed; and as of 1.30 it is officially the easter holidays for 4 weeks!

tpf.podcast

had a great day at pop factory!...my proposal for a podcast for tpf records was approved last week, and this morning huw (my new boss), jen long (xpress radio station manager) and myself had a meeting to discuss the in's and out's of content, distribution and technical wotnots

the idea is to launch a fortnightly 45-minute fanzine-format show for the welsh music scene, covering everything from the established acts to emerging groups in the indie/alternative/rock scene, with track playbacks, interviews and competitions

with the tragic demise of soundnation magazine a few months ago, there's a gap in the market begging to be filled. considering that huw was instrumental in the creation of the welsh music foundation and soundnation, we're in a unique position to develop something that has good chances of success. part of the reasoning behind soundnation's downfall was rising costs, so what better than a virtually production-cost free audio show to take it's place?

fingers and toes crossed

as a director for tpf records, huw will provide branding and industry contacts; jen's experience at xpress and love for radio and music has effectively landed her her own show straight out of uni; and me? i get to play techie and general dogsbod...uh, web evangelist....

i'm also developing a site for tpf records, getting to do the information architect bit, with pretty much a free reign to coordinate the project over the next few months

i'm *really* looking forward to working on this. we plan to launch april 24th. 4 weeks time. watch this space!!

www.tpfrecords.co.uk
www.xpressradio.co.uk

design for change complete!

we gave our design for change presentations today, and rather than spread them across two days as originally planned, we crammed them all into one session. i didnt enjoy this presentation too much, due to a bad powerpoint on my part, and i don't think i did a very good job of explaining the concept. as i discussed my research, i think i lost most people through too much technobabble

carol won 'best dfc concept', which was thoroughly deserved not just for a super presentation, but for actually mocking up her entire system, and to a really high standard - well done!

its a good day today. this was our final piece of coursework to hand in - from now on, all attention goes to our research projects, and i'm looking forward to getting stuck in to it!

you can download my dfc report and presentation from the submissions dropmenu

dfc report

i've almost completed my design for change proposal report; i just have to review my pest analysis and put together my conclusions

for my prototype, i decided to draw an a3 representation of the finished product, making use of all those things i learnt on product design. unfortunately, i'd lost my graphix pens, so had to use damn pencil crayons. once i'd sketched it out, i scanned it into photoshop, cleaned it up and printed it back out. i then added colour, before scanning it back in, adjusting the brightness & contrast, and adding a pretty reflection a'la apple-style

i also need to build a powerpoint for the presentations. i'm not quite sure how to explain my concept without everyone falling asleep - in my head it all makes sense, but i'm not too good at explaining it in layman's terms! i think some pretty graphics are in order

dfc primary research

a few days ago i emailed a US company called sunbeam, regarding a product line they launched in 2000 which pushed the idea of devices around the home all connected by wireless communications. the product line failed to become established in the marketplace, so i enquired into what went wrong, and outlined my concept to garner their impressions of it

their feedback was positive; they explained that their product line failed as it was a few years ahead of its time, relying on as-then unestablished technologies, and that they feel that current web technologies would allow my updated concept to prove successful

dfc secondary research

i've finished my secondary research for design for change; i've looked at wireless internet technologies, existing products (both digital alarm clocks and products similar to my concept), rss & podcasting, how the product will communicate with the internet, and data mashups

i believe that my concept is feasible using existing technologies, and have even come across a few suggestions for similar ideas on the bbc's developers network and idea-a-day.com

media careers fayre

today was the media careers fayre at city hall, organised by cardiff university. lou, steve, liz, jack, joe, raymond, alicks, james and myself went down to see what was on offer, and to check out the interactive media presentation at the end of the day

i spent a bit of time wandering around the stalls, caught up with kirsten from buzz magazine, and spoke to the bbc about their new media placements. ray pointed out bournemouth university's selection of MA courses, of which the interactive media MA particularly caught my attention

am i up to an MA though? computer says hahaha

for the presentation, we were treated to speeches from grahame davies (head of welsh language new media for the bbc) and simon someoneorother from the cardiff uni journalism school. while giving entertaining testimonies, i think everyone was a little disappointed: too much self-history and not enough substance. i did take a few notes for cv enhancement however, as follows:


if possible, do a charitable work placement: demonstrate community spirit

list skills, e.g. familiarity with blogging, podcasting, cms's, php/mysql, html, photoshop, dreamweaver, wiki's, rss, social software/networking, and so on

list experience, e.g. cisco experience, ctc+ (rolls royce, bbc, electric december, nesta), work experience, what you've actually done (research project, freelance work), ideas you have, career philosophy, etc

produce two cv's: a brief paper-based one, and a detailed interactive one


after the presentation, lou and i decided to do a bit of brown nosing with grahame, laying some groundwork for applying for bbc placements in the summer. lou had met him before through dimension 10 and made short work of whoring herself and her golden pixl award; and i'm pretty sure he won't forget my piercings...although i'm not sure if he was staring out of disbelief or jealousy. i reckon the latter

rp literature review

i've just uploaded an updated version of my literature review following marking. click the image below to download it as a pdf

dfc tutorial with stuart

i had a dfc tutorial with stuart this morning, concentrating on deliverables for the report and presentation. notes are as follows:

rationale/feasability
primary - interviews/email feedback/quotes
secondary - journals/blogosphere/google
DUE analysis, where appropriate

research
define market
bluetooth/wireless/rfid, home entertainment systems, intelligence
link to/extention of mobile device/home entertainment system > both? either?

concept
how does it improve on the existing situation?
why buy it?
how does it change your life?
why this product? low cost / high concept

report
history of product/evolution?
background/market research
identify market gap
technology available
PEST

presentation
overview report
audience = layman
selling points (humanistic terms)
prototypes - high concept/impact; why it should work

all updated!

finally shook off the post-christmas haze and got round to bringing the blog to up date. lots of posts covering the last few weeks, as well as two new blogs for your reading pleasure; you can find permanent linx to them underneath my profile in the sidepanel

the first blog is for simon's entrepreneurship and professional practice module

http://dfimepp.blogspot.com

the second one is for my research project

http://dfimrp.blogspot.com


if you want to track the updates to any blog, you can find the rss feed at http://blogname.blogspot.com/atom.xml. what is rss?

design for change workflow

my proposed project management for this module is as follows:

design for change proposal

original concept

an alarm clock which scans local radio traffic and weather announcements and adjusts the morning alarm accordingly, e.g. if there were hold-ups that would affect the owner, the alarm would sound an hour early


my original idea is conceptual, and assumes too much intelligence from the device, especially considering current technological capabilities. for a home electronics market, a device that worked as above would be too expensive. the following is a more pragmatic approach to realising the proposed device:

revised concept

a bedside device functioning primarily as an alarm clock, inheriting many attributes already associated with alarms: such as shape, size, interface, and large LCD/LED display. in addition, this device can communicate with a home network/computer and access information from the internet

the primary notion is still that it monitors weather and traffic conditions (in user determined localities) and adjusts an alarm accordingly; achieving this using RSS feeds downloaded to a home computer that are then transferred via bluetooth, RFID or WAN to the clock, which is pre-programmed to interpret XML code

e.g. the device would ship with computer software which when installed allows the device to subscribe to relevant bbc weather and traffic feeds, or feeds from the met office or local radio stations etc

additional proposed features:

• ability to download and play podcasts instead of an alarm or radio
• streaming radio from the internet, allowing almost any radio station to be played through the device
• and/or DAB radio capabilities
• ability to monitor temperature conditions
• device activation when a connected smoke alarm is set off, plus displaying which alarm is in question
• connection to a coffee pot enabling fresh coffee by the time a user wakes
• ability to download and display or play news and weather, perhaps on screen or projected onto a vertical surface
• connection to the World Clock enabling automatic synchronisation after power cuts and seasonal time changes
• link to a users electronic calendar announcing the day’s notes
• connection to in-car device for podcasts to be transferred for commuters
  

this device takes advantage of RSS feed technology, especially relating to the availability of the bbc’s weather and traffic information via feeds. potentially, other software such as itunes or limewire could also be linked

new module: design for change

we recieved the design for change brief today; to identify key changes in the social, ecomomic, cultural or technological environments, and to propose a product to address those change(s) for a hypothetical client

i've decided to run with an idea i've been thinking about for a little while, a web-enabled alarm clock. the idea is to link a digital alarm clock so the internet so that it can recieve web content; this reflects sunstantial developments on the web in the last few years, and will try to take advantages of advancements in web-content syndication

we also split into research clusters for the duration of the project, and i'm in with ray, steve, liz, lou, james, and ciara


brief

Your client, who you can assume is a community, charitable, public or business organization, has commissioned you to help identify key changes in the social, economic, cultural or technological environment and to suggest concepts for products and initiatives which can address those changes

For example, you may consider how people are using technology in their everyday lives, in their own ways and for their own needs. How does choice impact on how everyday thing are used or are likely to be used in the future?

In response to this you are required to identify, describe and evaluate what you believe to be the key changes and possible evolutions in these environments, with a particular emphasis on opportunities for the design of new interactive tasks, systems or products

From this initial audit you must then consider a new or novel task, system or product that you would like to investigate and further develop to concept prototype stage and offer researched evidence in support of your proposal. Evaluate and specify design concepts to capture this opportunity

live brief

we handed in our live brief submissions this afternoon, and i only just met the deadline! in worse fashion than usual, i left starting this project way too late... although i'm very pleased with what i ended up with. this was a great brief, and it was satisfying to have a graphics/conceptual project after the past few months of essays and presentations

i chose one of the d&ad briefs: develop a new media-based marketing campaign for parlophone records to use at outdoor music festivals. parlophone are one of the uk's biggest labels, and the open brief allowed us to explore any solution we wished. steve and lou also took on this brief, and we collaborated on ideas to ensure they were compatable with each other

delivered concept

download quicktime presentation

Location independent, interactive competition invisibly promoting Parlophone artists and sales through SMS-based communications, exclusive prizes and post-festival online content

Parlophone is a marketing campaign integrating SMS messaging, a Parlophone iTunes store, email mailshots, and real-world interaction between Parlophone, artists and fans

• Promote Parlophone label and artists covertly, pushing traffic for online sales after an event
• Easily harvest consumer’s email and mobile details for future communications
• Adaptable concept for any outdoor event or national promotion, with unlimited scalablity
• Minimal setup and running costs, with no limit on the number of entrants

rationale

The Parlophone Game is a unique concept, spanning SMS, email, web and digital music technologies to invisibly promote Parlophone artists and product sales in a festival environment

A festival-goer registers for the competition by texting ‘parlophone’ to 60300, and each day they recieve an anagram of a famous Parlophone artist by text message. They text back the solution, and all correct entrants win a discount code to redeem at the Parlophonte iTunes store (see presentation disc), and are entered into a prizedraw to win two tickets to an exclusive backstage performance and meet ‘n’ greet with a Parlophone artist. Incorrect entrants are notified and encouraged to play again the next day

This generic concept can be adapted to suit any genre, size and length of festival, with no limits on the number of entrants

After the event, successful entrants are emailled the code to spend at the Parlophone iTunes store (one track costs ~79p), thus advertising the new iTunes store, and encouraging further purchases, as well as promoting legal downloads. The email and mobile details collected at an event can then be used for future communications from Parlophone to a growing list of recipients

nyc pix competition

having submitted some of my photos from the new york trip to ken's competition, i won a grand £13 for this exclusive shot of king kong...

evolution of website design

i've just been sent an interesting research report from my chum at cardiff uni. its a study into the evolution of website design, looking at trends and adherence to various web standards. its a pretty heavy read, but for those of you interested in the web side of things, it highlights some really useful points for website development

read it as a pdf

checking in

well once again, its been a really busy week since i last posted - it's been non stop from one project to another...

had a couple of lectures with debbie and wendy yesterday, preparing us for the personal project: looking at research methods and report writing techniques; fairly useful stuff. we've also had another literature review set *stares blankly*

following on from the production processes brief, lou and steve went to visit the bbc wales online education department in llandaff on friday, and all of team:win went up to the pop factory the following monday. we got a tonne of notes, paperwork and concepts for differing production processes - which only left the problem of turning it all into a presentation

we spent most of tuesday in uni sorting our research out, check out our mindmap:

we got into uni about nine on wednesday to add the final touches to our powerpoint, and get all our notes sorted. then came the first presentation. damn, it was good. we got on with ours, which we somehow dragged out for twenty minutes. what a relief it's out of the way

the brief and presentation can be downloaded from the projects dropmenu in the sidebar


it was the pop factory music awards last weekend, and i spent the thursday, friday and saturday up in porth helping to finalise things for the ceremony

thursday i was working on the awards website, sorting out the poll results, and basically getting it ready for the weekend. tpf has been running a feeder meet'n'greet competition over the last few weeks, soi went down to the CIA in the afternoon to photograph the competition winners with the band, and managed to blag a photopass for the show - very chuffed, it was the first time i've got to shoot in the CIA; check out the photos

saturday and sunday were much more hands-on, i was arranging their loft room for the press area, which was great - i got to bang nails and put up fairy lights

cherie had asked me to do photos during the evening - which was pretty cool - i was one of two photographers allowed in, you can check out the final pix on flickr. the aftershow party involved lots of beautiful people and free alcohol. damn

this week, i've been fiddling with the awards site now that the event is over, and setting it up so it can be left until next year when it'll get updated. i had some difficulties setting up a gallery, so in the end i had to make it manually out of (bad) html and tables :(

only a week til we're done for christmas now - can't wait

production processes brief [i]

today's production processes lecture was pretty interesting; stuart addressed various concepts of project procedure and management - which is useful stuff. we've split into research clusters to investigate a couple of businesses and their particular project cycles: ray, steve, lou, liz and myself are going to address bbc wales' online department, and the pop factory's production department.

i've just uploaded my report for production processes [i], it's under the submissions dropmenu. this was a great brief; i analysed www.thepopfactory.com as it's going to be pretty relevant when i get my hands on redeveloping the site early next year. i've been pretty critical of it, but i guess thats what comes of working with it for the last three months... *must get out more*

skype callto:

skype is the VoIP software that, amongst others, is currently giving the telecoms giants a bit of a headache. it allows you to call any other skype user in the world for free, or any offline phone number for the price of a local call; all via the wonderful internet. skype recently added a new feature to their website, giving you the code to place a link on a webpage so people (who have skype installed) can call you directly from your site.

it seems to be a twist on the original icq webpage icons that would indicate if a user was currently online; and you can even get droplists giving people the option to call you, IM you, leave an answerphone message, or send you a file - all from the webpage. it's a great way to advertise that you are available on skype, and connect with other users.

long live the internet revolution - give it a click!

golden pixil awards

www.goldenpixilawards.co.uk

this is the website of the welsh "new media" awards; and oh god, i can't believe that archaic flash intro page - shouldn't it belong in the museum of twentieth-century internet mistakes? combined with a poor standard of writing style and lack of...well, anything in terms of valid content, this site is more reminisent of someone's first attempts at flash than anything else.

note: never make entire websites from flash. please.

if this is the award's official website, i'm not sure what to expect of the standard of work that'll be submitted; so i've applied for some tickets so we can find out - will keep you updated :)

its good to see that taxpayer money is being spent well

scripting...

...i had some problems with the blog yesterday: having messed around with it too much, the formatting fell apart and all my posts vanished! i finally figured out i'd not closed some of the comments tags properly, so the browser wouldn't display anything inbetween them...*moron*

btw, the blog totally screws up in IE; i'm not that bothered for now, to be honest: you shouldn't be using that browser anyway! i also wanted to add a google search for my posts, but it wouldn't return any results, so i gave up after fiddling for an hour. i'll have to come back to it another time.

more successfully, i've added some scripting for peek-a-boo comments on my posts. its pretty funky, instead of the comments appearing in a popup, they *magically* appear below the relevant post when you click the comments link, and then disappear again with a second click. check 'em out...

tinkering again

this is turning into a rather dangerous obsession...i think i must have spent around 12hrs this week on either posting or tinkering with the html - although once i'm finished, i'll be content for a while :)

after the brainwave of posting projects as .zip downloads in the sidepanel, i visited lou's blog this morning to find she'd gone one better and slapped them into a dropmenu. bitch. so, i figured i'd steal the code for myself.

except i've got two. so there

busy busy busy

things are getting busy at the pop factory: it's little over a week until the 2005 music awards. i spent this morning checking out the stats on the public votes, checking which nominee's had posted notices on their websites, collating the txtmsg competition entries and on lots of other routine stuff. this afternoon was a lot more hectic, sorting out goodie bags, decorations for the various rooms, electrics and catering. i need to speak with stuart about next week, as they want me up there for a few extra days to help out, on top of all the uni stuff i need to do. it's going to be a long and tiring week.....

on the bright side though, i managed to blag a photopass for feeder's show at the CIA. tpf are running a text competition to meet'n'greet the band as well, which means i get to do shots of that too! forwardrussia are playing barfly tomorrow night, and shaped by fate, johnny truant and dignity dies first all have shows next week too. dammit.

i've just taken on another website project as well: *stupid*; i really shouldn't have, but the guy is offering £200, and i've got a christmas and holidays to finance! its only a five page site, so hopefully it shouldn't a hassle.

anyway, i'm off to watch hitchhikers guide to the galaxy before bed...

creative commons

i've just added a creativecommons.com license, and somehow managed to spend an hour playing with the html code for it - which isn't so bad, as all this fiddling with the source code is helping a treat with getting used to xhtml. such a nerd. or is it a geek? which is the cool one...

catching up...

whoohoo! i've just got everything up to date from the past few weeks. you leave these things for a couple of days, and it all goes to pot!
note to self: remember to update more often.

i've been fiddling with the html template as well, tidying up the code and rearranging the archive sidepanel. previous posts and post archives, as well as a link to the blog's rss feed are now all under the archives section. there's also a new sidepanel for briefs and coursework submissions called projects, all submissions will be posted there as winzip downloads.

i also came across statcounter, who offer a free webtracker service, ideal if you wanna keep an eye on how busy your blog is...and it's free! although i can't understand why blogger don't offer this service already?

finally, if you like photos, and you like cool websites which do cool things: go and get yourself a flickr account - it's free and it has to be the best way to share your pictures online!

the most powerful man in the world

i love blogging. i'd been meaning to get one together for like a year, but until it was a requisite for uni, i didn't have anything interesting to write - and probably still don't. anyways, the great thing about blogging is how information can spread: one user will post an article, and then a reader may like the post so much that they decide to syndicate it on their own blog, and so on...

i've just recieved a comment from rj, so i went to check out her blog and found an interesting post from a couple of days ago about mr bush being foiled by a locked door; there's something viciously entertaining about watching the most powerful man on the planet (on paper, at least) embarrass himself once again

i <3 firefox

what napster did for filesharing, i believe mozilla is doing for the web. napster brought p2p and filesharing to the attention of the masses, and massively improved the user experience. mozilla's firefox browser is a result of the browser wars of the nineties, and makes browsing the internet easier, faster and more secure than ever before. its tabbed browsing beats down explorer's clunky one-window-per-webpage, and the program is lightweight and fast, without any unnecesary baggage like explorer: if you want an additional feature, you simply download it...

best of all, its free!

and i've just come across a great plugin called sessionsaver, which restores any webpages you were viewing whenever you last used firefox: even after crashes or powercuts!

for those of you who haven't yet tried firefox, click the logo in the sidepanel to download it - you'll never go back to internet explorer

new york new york, so good i'll visit it twice

presentation days seem to be coming around a bit too often for my liking at the moment. steve, lou and i gave our presentation on locative media this morning, as part of simon's ccs module. it went pretty well, although i'd had a hard time researching the background and history of the discipline, as its so new various bodies are still defining the standards! i guess simon enjoyed it, by all accounts he's a bit of a locative media don, so the subject's pretty close to his heart.

locative media refers to location-specific digital content, and is very interesting from a practical perspective, with current applications including: google maps, geojogging, locative-txtmsg content and WAP; however the academic aspect of it barely exists, let alone offers anything of interest. so instead i'm going to write my contemporary and contextual studies essay on possibly the best website in the world: flickr. i've used the site for almost a year now, and am fascinated on how it manages to combine photo-sharing, social networking, tagging, web applications, flash, AJAX, email, blogging, moblogging, photoblogging and a billion other cool technologies that are revolutionising the internet at the moment.

and now, the grandest of news:

we're going to new york city baby, yeh! i've visited nyc once before, but only for 12hrs during a stopover, so the chance to go for a week for £450 is awesome! there's eight of us going: moi, ray, jack, joe, steve, alicks, lou and liz - its soo exciting! hopefully, we'll be flying out of bristol too - which means drinks & munchies at my house the night before ;)

an aspect of social networking websites which fascinates me is real-world meetups: combining virtual friendships and shared interests with physical reality. so i reckon it would be pretty cool to meet up with some nyc-based music photographers from flickr while i'm out there :)

ucd brief [iii] - presentation

another presentation! this week we had to present our research and evaluations from the last two briefs for the rest of the group. i feel a lot more confident presenting my own work, rather than something i've had to research, as its much more personal and there's a tendancy to know the subject matter in a lot more detail. over the last few weeks, i've also rediscovered how much i love creating presentations with powerpoint - although i guess i should pay more attention to the content rather than how pretty it looks.

the presentation and notes are under ucd[iii] in the projects sidepanel

ucd brief [ii] - DUE report

following on from the report for brief 1, the second report was based around nielson's discount usability evaluation (DUE) method, and included aspects of data collection, scenario analysis and heuristic evaluation. learning from the troubles i had with the late submission on the last brief, i made sure i started this one plenty in advance, and considering it was an extention of the previous report, found it pretty easy; although it was quite time consuming. jakob nielson's site, useit.com, is very comprehensive and offers online access to the majority of his published work - an essential stop for anything usability-related.

you can find the report under ucd[ii] in the projects sidepanel.

on another note, useit.com also includes a recent paper on blog usability guidelines, which is well worth a look

ucd brief [i] - product redesign report

user centred design is very much a conceptual module, covering various aspects of product development, user testing and evaluation. i thought that i had escaped this stuff after two years of it during product design, however it turns out that the topics which apply to interactive media are much more accessible (and enjoyable?) than those we covered for 3d products. the first brief required an understanding of requirements specifications, usability specifications, cognitive processes, low fidelity prototyping and how to apply norman's design principles.

because of all hours i've been putting into the pop factory website over the last couple of weeks, i didn't get down to starting the report until monday night - but once i'd got into it, is was fairly enjoyable: i found that a lot of the theory which i'd picked up from product design was also pretty relevant here, which was a big help.

you can download the report from the projects listing on the sidepanel

ccs mindmapping

following simon's mindmapping session on some of the subjects we've been investigating, these are the key themes which alicks, joe, steve and myself came up with...

artstation
• group collaboration
• interactive exploration
• rural issues
• education
• corporate sponsorship
• contextual meanings – representation
• locative media
• local mapping
• local knowledge
• survival of artists – decreasing funds – leading to creative industries
• wireless/GPS
• power shifting – localities
• exploring new media possibilities
• enhance LandMAP – raise awareness
• 3D mapping

farenheit451
• entertainment industry dominance
• renegades
• ownership
• political control/correctness/ownership
• ‘ignorance is bliss’
• media control
• loss of knowledge
• information formats
• reflect modern society trends?
• orwellian society – utilitarian
• control
• knowledge is power. power is knowledge
• copyright/control

creative archive
• peer to peer distribution
• on demand content
• online communities
• information distribution
• manipulation
• future technologies
• non commercial
• utilising broadband capabilities
• public cccess to BBC Archives – free!
• enhance social fabric
• copying & reuse
• freedom
• UK only – locative?
• user centred reporting
• file sharing
• transference of media control from corporate to localised individuals

thepopfactorymusicawards.com

i finally launched thepopfactorymusicawards.com last night - it's been a struggle to get it done on time, as well as deliver something which wasn't completely shite. originally, i was going to sub it out to my man over at blinksworld, as dave has a tendancy to deliver kickin' sites very quickly; however, he's pretty snowed under at work at the moment - so i've had to build it myself. it only took about half a day to draw and a day to code, but its been a few years since i last built a site from scratch and to get it done in time i've coded with html4.0: my xhtml/css is no where near par yet. and there's been so many little alterations to make over the last week, its taken ages having to alter every page indivudually.

i'd forgotten what a pain dreamweaver is as well - i prefer to handcode html, and its very frustrating when dreamweaver decides to alter table widths etc of its own accord - although i've never learned the program in much depth, so i'm probably just using it wrong.

i also got to play with text messaging domains, which is sooo cool! i'd read about these when they were launched a few years ago, and it was great to finally get to experiment with one. we bought the keyword 'tpf' from itagg.com, which means any that texts sent to 60300, with tpf as the first letters gets forwarded to our inbox. they're suprisingly accessible too, anyone can set an account up. we're even earning from it - which should pay for the aftershow drinx ;)

but its been a good experience, and reminded me how much i love developing sites. its also shown me that i need to pull my finger out and learn xhtml and css properly - i never want to build a site without proper separation of code, style and content ever again!

on that note: i've sent my xmas list to santa:

• Photoshop CS2 for Digital Photographers - Scott Kelby
• Designing with Web Standards - Jeffery Zeldman
  
• Eric Meyer on CSS - Eric Meyer
  
• The Design of Everyday Things - Donald Norman
  

and finally...

it was the 2005 awards press launch this morning, at the hard rock cafe in the centre. cherie asked me to go along to take pix, which of course i was more than happy to oblige. the automatic played a short set too - check out the whole photoset on flickr

graduations, websites and caffeine

it was my graduation today! ok, so its only my hnd (or have|no|degree, as my housemate kindly pointed out) for multimedia product design, but i thought it would be cool to have two graduations ;) the ceremony was at st david's hall, and it was pretty nerve racking walking up on stage in front of sooo many people, especially when there wasn't anyone else there i knew. but best of all were the robes: they're so....so cool! i can't wait for real graduation day! say 'cheeeeese'...

on another note, it was placement day yesterday - and i've got a busy busy busy weekend ahead of me. i need to complete the website for the pop factory music awards by monday, as well as the ucd brief for debbie. on top of that i'm shooting the bloodhound gang tommorrow night (oh yeh!), and i'm doing some shots for robots talk in two's on sunday afternoon.

think i'm probably gonna o/d on caffeine and nicotine

googlezon 2014

a must-see movie for anyone interested in the evolution of the internet, and where we might be headed: googlezon 2014

soda visit

matt gould, of soda.co.uk fame, visited us this morning and gave a presentation on a couple of their recent projects. the main focus was on sodaconstructor, at sodaplay.com; an experimental program that began life as a little project by one of soda's team. a groundbreaking concept and word of mouth has earned it a huge following (250,000+ users!), and even spawned it's own fansite.

there's no set goals, instead users construct shapes from lines and dots, and then apply mathetmatical rules (such as elasticity and gravity) to allow them to move. you can also save your creation and share it with other users.

i had a little chat with matt afterwards, and it seems they're investigating commercial and educational possibilities for the applet, as well as allowing third parties to develop api's for it. exciting stuff... go play!

it was pretty cool to get an insight to the history of the product and company, i just wish i wasn't so damn tired after last night

up to date!

it's 5am, and i've just finished bringing my journal up to date. i missed yesterday's critique with stuart (do i even need to mention i overslept?), which is kinda lucky because its given me a chance to get the backlog of work online, and fiddle with the template. i think i've covered most of the important stuff from the last month or so, and now thats done, i can concentrate on posting more frequently :)

may you live in interesting times

this weekend saw cardiff's inaugral digital arts festival, may you live in interesting times. co-developed by chapter arts and bloc, the festival also coincides with cardiff's centenary celebrations. across three days, the programme included conferences, artist residencies, exhibitions, interactive multimedia displays, film screenings and social gatherings.

thinking that it would be far more fun to be a part of the festival rather than just visit it, i had emailed chapter applying for a job as a guide. they offered me a job as the festival's photographer. cool.

the past four days have been pretty hectic: running all around the city trying to shoot the different events and going's on - mixed up with a healthy dose of socialising for good measure.

thursday saw the official launch with a film screening at the millennium stadium, and a party at the big sleep hotel. it was awesome to see the stadium empty, and in complete darkness, and i don't recall much about the party except for the free champagne and a fella playing the spoons...then waking up friday morning on alicks' sofa...

friday was nonstop, and i got to photograph the blast theory guys in action, the txtmsg board in the hayes, various street performers, and a couple of the exhibitions at chapter. i also got a free boat trip round the bay, which would have been great had i not fallen asleep. just to make sure i was extra tired for saturday, it seemed wholly appropriate to then go out with joe, liz & lou, dammit.

saturday i spent trying to catch the other major displays, including the festival hubs at g39 and chapter, tenantspin, one of michelle teran's cctv performances, the cardiff constellation display, and of course the festival's party climax at the point. with performances from scanner, the durango's, symbian, and some crazy little frenchman singing about cherry pies, chicken legs and flying rodents; it was a great night to mark the success of the weekend.

and today was spent curing another hangover, catching a few of the smaller displays i hadn't had a chance to shoot earlier, and editing hundreds of bloody photos.

i may not be an art affectionado, and there was a severe bias of the art over the actual technology for my liking, but what fun it's all been! i've met some great people, visited to otherwise restricted events, and got to ponce about with my camera - all whilst being paid to do so!

check out mpeg movieclips of the stadium (11mb) and the point (30mb), and the final photoset on flickr

welsh club

i came across these pix from a few weeks ago, enjoy :)

dfi brief [v] - research presentation

today was the dreaded first presentation of the year.

third year students should be the shizzle at delivering presentations, but seeing as we've all started a new course, its a little unnerving to present in front of people you've only known a month! all the same, i had great fun putting it together last night, and it was good to refamiliarise myself with powerpoint - i love all those animation effects!

i spent a few hours creating the slideshow, and then figured it would be a good idea to hash together some notes to make sure i didn't forget anything. however, seeing as i was one of the first to present and pretty nervous, i totally forgot about them. i think i managed to get through the presentation ok, although stuart hasn't given us the marks back yet - so who knows?

if you're using dirty internet explorer, you can view the presentation online, or if you've ascended to browsing nervana with mozilla or similar, you can download it here

dfi brief [iv] - research review

this brief required a critique of a research paper from HCI2005; this year's human-computer interaction (hci) conference. i chose to study the usability of digital ink technologies for children and teenagers, by janet read; which is an empirical investigation into the usefulness and relevance of digital ink products (digital pens, graphics tablets, tablet pcs etc) as classroom learning resources.

i'm not really sure why i picked this subject, as it isn't something i'm particularly interested in...but all the same, once i'd got my head around the academic language, it turned out to be quite interesting. janet is a senior lecturer in hci for children, and has a thorough background in that aspect of usability. her research concluded that these technologies have great potential to aid children with learning or handwriting difficulties (such as dyslexia, motor function disabilities, or poor presentation), as well as reducing risks of rsi-related injuries. she also commented that the exising products could benefit from ergonomic redesigns for this new target market.

read the full review in all its glory here

dfi brief [iii] - games arcade

uni can be really hard work sometimes. fieldtrips to games arcades are a real chore. and dammit, when you have to get hands on with the machines for, uhh, usability assessment purposes, well then that just sucks.

we went down to the bay for this brief, and the better part of a tenner later, i decided to complete my report on wartran; a four person shoot-em-up based in a military bootcamp. this was a pretty easy assignment, and required a report and poster of our findings. i used alun's wolvesinthewalls blog from last year's dfim group to get an idea of what aspects i should cover, and that was a great help.

click here for the report, and click the thumbnail below for the poster

dfi brief [ii] - techniquest

techniquest is a science discovery centre in cardiff bay offering over 150 hands-on displays, designed to engage people of all ages in science through interactive exhibits and live demonstrations

this was a great assignment, and an even better fieldtrip! i haven't been to a science museum since primary school, and techniquest more than lives up to it's reputation for being fantastic fun. this was also our first outing as a group, and i think it did well to smash some ice, and certainly got people to relax and enjoy themselves. we must have spent a good few hours in there, and attracted more than a few odd glances for getting more excited than the kids. although i suspect stuart took us there for malicious reasons, as he seemed to find it hilarious that numerous degree students couldn't figure out how to open a garden gate (one of the brainteaser exhibits!), and even funnier when he called his dfim group to packed lunch in the canteen.

i went for an exhibit demonstrating the interesting principles of electric motors and dynamos, which had absolutely nothing to do with the display being a scalectrix course. read the assignment here

www.tquest.org.uk

dfi brief [i] - yp-u1 review

first assignment proper. as an introduction to the design for interaction module, we had to do an critique of the usability of a piece of technology from home. i analysed my mp3 player, a lovely little ishuffle ripoff from samsung. ironically, this model has had better reviews than the ishuffle, but there was still a few areas that are open to improvement. my product design background from the last two year's came in pretty useful, but then we still haven't had back the marks yet(!) read it here

top trumps

during fresher's week, we were tasked to create a set of top trumps cards. an odd way to begin your final year of university, but none the less, lighthearted and sociable. we split into groups of five, and each group produced five cards. i decided to play around with the template we'd been given, and put these together in photoshop...

the pop factory

over the summer, i got wind that the pop factory in porth were offering a year's placement to one lucky applicant. thinking what the hell, i applied for the placement, and was offered an interview. i produced a gig review, a promo flyer and a critique of their website, doned shirt and tie, and headed off. i was pretty chuffed when they offered me a second interview, and quite suprised when they offered me the placement! i go up every thursday, and until the new year should be working on their website, and putting together a proposal for a new one. i'm also helping out on the pop factory music awards, coming up in december. it's really exciting up there, and i'm having a great time on the project's i've got. its the first time i've had a real outlet for the things i seem to potter about with at home :)

hopefully it shouldn't clash with the course, and i'm hoping it'll be a great piece of experience ready for when i graduate next summer! x

summer project

before the course kicked in, we were set two briefs to complete over the summer. the first being to write a short article based on the question 'are tools and toys or film and television new media's closest living relations?', and the second was to produce three postcards inspired by our adventures over the holidays.

my article is intended for publication on the technology section of the bbc's news website, and a copy along with a critique can be downloaded in pdf format from here.

following my travels through cambodia in august, i decided that i wanted to use some of the photographs which i took for the postcards. i wanted the three to be connected with a common theme, and chose the ‘tuol sleng’ series as i found the place deeply profound. tuol sleng is a former cambodia school, in the capital of phnom penh. it was converted into an interrogation and death camp by the khmer rouge “government”, and since cambodia’s recovery just a few decades ago, has been converted into a genocide museum and national memorial.

the khmer rouge, or ‘red khmer’, was a communist regime that arose during the cold war, at the same time as neighbouring vietnam was deeply buried in conflict. they believed in a classless, aggregarian society, where all were required to til the land, and took control of the capital city in 1975. the khmer rouge regime is remembered mainly for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people, through execution, starvation and forced labour. it was one of the most violent regimes of the 20th century, often compared with the regimes of hitler, stalin and mao tse tong. in terms of the number of people killed as a proportion of the population of the country it ruled and time in power, it was probably the most lethal regime of the 20th century.

i wanted the words on the rear of the postcards to tell a story, but one which is merely stating facts and not revealing the whole picture. i wanted the photographs to then show the reality of the subject matter.

• postcard 1 | tuolsleng – verbal communication


• postcard 2 | internment – symbolic communication


• postcard 3 | torture – visual communication

tap tap...is this thing on?

this is the home of my journal for the next nine months, as i stumble my way through Design for Interactive Media (BA)

big up to stuart for the extra work ;)