So finally my project has been defined.

…let me say that again, - Finally! -

But of course, not everything is alegria and felicidad. The project as it is defined at the moment is technically challenging. VERY technically challenging. This means that the things I’ve been focusing on lately is on how to make this bit less challenging, good news is , I think I found a way.

I know im not giving all the details about the project right now, but I want to polish the rough edges a bit before taking all the fire and the questions I’m going to take, specially at the presentation. I want to try to cover my bases if not totally, at least properly. By this I mean being aware of the possible main shortcomings of the project and possible solutions to go around them.

The project is going to be a bit about who do we trust our data. A bit about what we do to protect it and posing questions about if that’s enough. Hopefully this will be done in a very stylish way that will make the technical background hidden to the audience. In the same way special effects in movies are considered better when the audience can’t tell them apart from reality.

I know this all thing sounds a bit -big-. And for now I am deciding what approach to take on the technical stuff. Is the most important part of the project even if at the end is not going to be apparent to the final user. These days im going to be sinking in lots of technical stuff related to bluetooth, mobile phones, access and privacy. Hopefully by wednesday everything will be displayed on a nice presentation with something resembling a prototype working.

More later. Wish me luck.

-j

I am back after a small -break- from the blogging thing I’ve trying to do here.  And of course, I have to talk about the minor presentation which is due really, really soon.

The thing is, and this is no secret to a few of my peers, is that I’ve been struggling, a lot, with coming up with a fully formed idea. A few weeks ago I had some problems that distract me for working in either the minor/major or the dissertation, thankfully things worked out (Except one thing I am still trying to fix) and I’ve been trying to catch up with the lost time.  Well, I have to say it has not been easy. I have started to wonder why exactly is it that I haven’t been able to come up with a proper idea. I have been wondering if I am being too ambitious (I dont think so. I like simple) or if I am aiming at the wrong thing. Also, a very important thing is that I am very stuck with the premise that I have to end up doing something I WILL enjoy doing, so if an idea doesn’t click properly I tend to reject it.  Another strategy i’ve been trying with maybe not so much success is to depart from whatever initial ideas I have and try to start from scratch to come up, maybe, with something entirely differently that meets my expectations. This has not been that easy, but to some extent it has helped to view my all of my ideas from a different point of view.

Nonetheless in the last few days I have had some progress (i think) in numbers I would say my idea is now near to the 90% , but still is that 10% on how to make it work that I am struggling with right now. I’ve been asking a bit around, doing lots of research on the internet, i’ve found similar things, I have also found different things that are interesting too.

At this moment, I don’t feel like talking about the idea itself, simply because is not completed! I feel like I have done enough talking about it, and now is time to crack on it, which has been happening in the last few days, and I do feel I am very close to a “100%” idea. Which then I hope I can present properly by the deadline.

Let’s wait and see… if everything works out I will have my idea fliying on this blog very , very soon.

Right now I am proceeding to do a bit of testing, wish me luck. And let’s hope it works out.

-j 

As you may, or may not, be aware, these days I’ve been dealing with coming up with the definitive purpose of my major project.

Tomorrow at uni we are having this activity, in which Jon Wardle suggests we will have a much clearer idea about our projects by the end of the day. In any case all this got me thinking, and one of the things in the brief we received for tomorrow’s activity was this link. This bloke Bruce Mau wrote it a few years ago and I have to say I agree with most of what is written there.

The third point in that manifesto is one that got my attention because I feel I can relate to it. It’s title “Process is more important than the outcome” I think represents one of my aims for this major project. How is this possible? well, we have to go back to about a year ago, when I was doing my Authorship project here at uni, also known as the PHP Project. I had this idea for this site called locofoto.net for which I would have to work my ass off. It consisted on a kind-of photo-sharing site in which people would be able to edit their pictures, but no on a contrast/brightness/crop/levels way, but in a funny way. They would be able to put funny stuff on people’s faces, speech balloons and different sort of things. Of course, to begin with I had NO IDEA on how to do this, but that would not stop me.

The first thing I did was to find out if my initial idea of mixing PHP/MySql with flash was possible, and it was, but all the tutorials I found were very, very, very simple and what I was doing required a bit more complicated coding. Still I got into it and in the few weeks I worked on that I managed to pull it off… I managed to do this very basic system where people was able to upload their pictures, edit them, save what they edited and in a very primitive way, share them with their friends. I was quite impressed with the feat, since it wasn’t easy (to me at least).

But that is NOT the whole story. The system -to get to- the part where you edited your picture was not very friendly and it was a bit confusing. Besides that the uni server was basically crap when it came to MySql and all that. Everything worked wonders on my test-bed but on the uni servers it didn’t work all the time, even if I didn’t change anything. Still the time to hand it in came, and I duly did. Then a few weeks later I got my mark back, only to find out that I got a third, which I was obviously not expecting. I then found out that the marking lecturer never got to the thick of my project because of the log-in system and all that that I didn’t had time to work on, so he never saw the “editing suite” as I called it where you could do the fun stuff I was aiming for.

It was a bit of a blow to find out about my mark, but the truth is that I stop caring about it almost right way. I am, up until today, very very happy with the work I did for locofoto and hopefully I will be able to pick up on that project in the not-so-distant future. So I go back again to the beginning of this post… “Process is more important than the outcome” and is a similar experience to that I am trying to find for my major project. I want it to be cool in the same way locofoto was for me. I want to learn stuff in similar way, and for this one I have way more time that I had for locofoto so hopefully it will be fully working by the end of it. Somehow I already started that part of the process with the small camera control experiments I did last weekend here at home. Hopefully I will get the direction to start working on the prototype really soon.

There are many things on that manifesto I agree with, and some of them I directly relate to. Maybe for some people saying that I don’t care I got a third sounds like I don’t take university seriously; to those I just have to ask them to trust me I DO and very. I just think my perspective is a bit different than “usual” (whatever usual is).

Just felt like writing about this, maybe no one will read, hehe still I guess it will be good for PDP or something like that. Ha!

-j

aaaah…

I have my major project idea on about 50% now, which is good of course.  The problem is, I still need the rest, the other 50%, or -at least- 25% more or something. I still need a definitive direction to take, so I can plan my strategy on how to produce the prototype which is due in a month.

The thing is , I just realized we have this day-long activity on wednesday for which I need to have my idea properly worked out, which I don’t think I do. It is a problem. Again, is not something i’ve been putting off or anything. Is something I really want to do well, in the sense that it must be something I would enjoy doing it even if it comes with a headache or two.

I’ve gotten suggestions coming from different directions (friends, uni staff, web) but still I haven’t foudn something that just clicks. Still I am taking all the suggestions into the thinking process I am trying to complete… bits from here and bits from there will definetly help.

As soon as I come up with something I will probably write it here… otherwise I might forget about it

oh, and my dissertation is getting a bit in the way a too… not nice.

 -j

As a follow up to my previous post I wanted to comment a little bit on the camera and computer thing.

Just yesterday I tried a camera control software for my D40. The thing is I was looking for free (open source) software for this. A friend pointed me to this gPhoto program, but it only runs on linux, which of course made the whole thing quite interested. I had some problems installing it, but at the end I made it work. The program is command line based, which -could- mean more flexibility if used properly. I think I would like to explore the php/mySql - Flash integration that I dealt with for my 2nd year authorship project. Maybe there is even a way to control an usb connected camera with a web-based flash application or something. I don’t know yet!!

I am just throwing ideas to see which ones could make sense in a project.

For some reason I found the possibility of controling the camera remotely from the computer quite interesting. Still I haven’t found anything interesting yet to do with this. Maybe nothing will came out of this, maybe something will.

The other thing that can be interesting is giving users the possibility of doing the interaction with something else than a mouse/keyboard/touchscreen combination. Maybe explore some alternatives interaction options. Maybe position, or sounds. or something like that.

I am still trying to figure this one out. hopefully I will soon.

Is not a secret at this stage, but I still don’t know what my major project is going to be about. I am a bit worried about that, because is not something I’ve been putting off, I have actually been trying to come up with something for the past two weeks. I decided to write about this to see if from the chaos in my head comes some order which could help me find something interesting I can work on with.

-The Premises-

1) I am aware I don’t have to do something groundbreaking. But it definitely have to be something that interest me, that way I am sure I’ll keep working on it as much as I can.

2) I am aware originality is actually quite difficult, but you can definitely get inspiration from other works, or simply try to re-do something with you own spin on it.

3) In my search from inspiration I’ve come across something I was not considering before. I think I want to do an installation and not a website or application. This is not written in stone, but is something I am definitely exploring and I think it would be something very interesting for me to do. I also like the fact that it ends up being something more tangible than a website.

4) One of the things I’ve been researching is using computers and photographic cameras. This, I am very interested in.

5) I’d like for the user to be able to interact in a more natural way with whatever piece I do. Maybe voice, maybe gestures… basically anything out of mouse/keyboard or a touchscreen would be very interest to explore. Still, I can’t decide on this

-The Idea?-

I think I better break this post into two or threee. . . more to come in a bit.

I actually have the direction of I want to take for the dissertation. Last year i’ve read a few books about things that interest me.

On one side there is the copyright issue and how the changes in the last few years could hurt innovation as Lawrence Lessig proposes in his books. In the same vein there is also the issue with the new media and how the consumption of media as a whole have changed dramatically.

Expanding a bit on the last idea is also what can be called a sort of economic model “the long tail” which I find quite interesting. Especially because the internet has made it very easy to “see” but is not neccesarily a new concept.

Mixed in all these subjects I found radiohead’s last week announcement about the release of their latest album “In Rainbows” to be extremely interesting, and a potential source of inspiration for a dissertation . The announcement has caused a lot of reactions from all the corners of the music industry (just a few here). Just yesterday I was discussing with a friend and one of the questions I proposed was about what kind of licensing this disc will have when you buy it online (which I already duly did) , especially because there is no record company involved. A quick check to the faqs and conditions of the sale said nothing about the license (like the ones you find on most cd’s you buy) so I’ll wait until tomorrow when I will get on the email the code and the url to download the album to see if it says anything especific.

I think I would like to study this radical idea, or maybe use it as an example at some point of the dissertation. Obviously there are considerations, since not any band could neccesarily pull this off succesfully since not any band has such a loyal fanbase as Radiohead’s .

Well… hopefully my disseration will take me somewhere into that direction, I still don’t know what to question. I have another alternative which is to take these discussions and localize it somewhere more especific, like my home country, or maybe even England.

That’s for now. Im sure this time tomorrow I’ll be a bit more clear about this whole thing.

-j

ps. As I was about to click the publish button for this post, I got an email about In Rainbows, it specifies that the download will consist on 10 DRM-free MP3 tracks at 160kbps. I should get the code/url tomorrow morning it says. sweeeeeet

Ok.

Locofoto.net , authorship-project version is done.

Is decent (me thinks). It has a lot of php going on, with a crazy amount of loops and stuff. BUT it does have room for improvement. I should have put a list of users where people can simply click and see their pictures (if the owner allows them). Maybe a little friends network, which makes perfect sense for a site like this.

I would like to improve the site. Now without the pressure I might be able to keep adding bits here and there to make it a bit more friendly. The loading of saving pictures for further editing is not happening at the moment. I need to work on the flash bit for that, and if I do that I should use some sort of switch for the php to recognize if the picture has been edited before or not and act accordingly. For now I am going to rest a bit and try to do the essay on time

Anyways, I am happy with it. Let’s see what the mark says afterwards.

blah blah blah blah.

I thought my project would be in better shape by this stage… hey, don’t get me wrong , I think is looking nice.

the problem is , as usual, the code syntax.. action script for some reason is not doing what I want it to do… which basically sucks… big time.

Anyways… I’m going to get it working I’m sure… and when I do that everything is downhill from there, and the site will be usable.

While doing the great amount of testing i’ve been doing on my laptop-server and on the uni server, I found out yet more areas that need to be improved… but then, the whole site is a big thing waiting to be improved… I reckon i’ve learned a lot about how php handle things and its possibilities, and same with flash. I’ve always known flash is powerful, but is still so annoying to work with it that sometimes it just kills me.

I’ve already asked for some help with the flash bit, and I am going to try to make the whole site a bit more user friendly by adding a couple of graphics and simplifying the process, cos right now you have to click “continue” like a zillion times. to see anything… but again, that was part of the developing stage where I am still.

Hopefully the site will be usable by tomorrow in the afternoon. The problem is that the mySQL uni server is a total disaster and when everybody is working it just dies, and as most of everybody’s pages the first thing they load is the connection to it, means that pages don’t work cos they can’t connect to the mySQL server. Which is already a HUGE problem while we try to test our sites in the impserver.

Our demonstrators never told us, but I am wondering if we should have used the…

msql_close();

…command at the end of our pages, since that may close the connections and open a new one on the next page, instead of leaving many connections open… but I am no expert and I have no idea if what I am saying makes any sense. joe? matt?

anyhow… wish me luck.. I really think my site have some sort of potential but for the hand in I wanted to prove that I can use and make something useful out of php and mySQL… while providing a website that people can, somehow, USE for themselves…. considering i’ve never used either before this project and think i’ve done aright… but at this stage I already realize how I could have done things a bit different to make it even better… but that’s part of the learning , isn’t?

-j

Ok.

My project have moved on at an amazingly steady pace… which is good I think.

small update: the uploaded files now resize *almost* properly, the script I am using maintains aspect ratio which is good, the problem is with images that are a bit wider than the usual 4:3 ratio…

Also, the website now have a more self explanatory text in english, which is going to be useful, since I pretend to go on a first public-beta release soon… Besides that now there are 5 usable graphics and in general is very nice. I would like to post the address, but so far the website is residing on my computer and although I have done some testing on my server with people checking the site from the internet, I rather wait until I move it to university server, hopefully I will do this week.

My dilemma now is about the “sharing” bit. There are two solutions. The first one (and the most unlikely to implement) is using flash to take an snapshot, then generate an jpeg.. the problem is this technique is not very practical,consumes a LOT of cpu and the process is slow in general… and this has a shortcoming that is that the user wont be able to “edit later” in case they want to save their progress and continue later…. the other option and more related to the technical skills required for this project is to use a “live” system… how live? well, all the positions of each used object are written in a table that holds them for further use. If you are the original editor, you will be able to move them around on a later stage, if you are not you will be able to see everything, but no editing… that is a first stage, I would like in the future to let other people edit the pictures if the original editor allows them too, or maybe allow SOME people, like his friends or something. Right now im working on that system and I already got some ActionScript to get the information, now I need to find the way to send it to PHP on the server, so it can be written on a given table.

Wish me luck, I think is not impossible and I am slowly getting grips with ActionScript.

 -j