Networked Media Production Week 11

This week was all about datavisualitsation- lots of different and cool ways to present data. I have a few ideas on what data I want to present, so far I am considering looking at UFO sightings from around the world. Maybe have light dots on every location of UFO sightings, or have the globe rotating but that would be a little too advanced.

In the lecture Michael was talking about how it's important to present the data in a way where the viewer can acquire useful information, to learn or come to a conclusion about the topic based on the way the data is presented. Which is why I want to sort of focus on a more analytical approach to this assignment rather than present statistics in an attractive way. Except I'm not sure how I will achieve this with UFO sightings. Maybe analyse where most UFO sightings occur to maybe come to the conclusion along these lines:

- If you directly relate UFO's to aliens, then maybe look at the location with the most UFO sightings and see why UFO sightings are occurring more in this region rather than other regions.

- Is it because of useful material that these locations offer, or is it a cultural sort of construct, where there are stronger believers in UFO's and aliens in this particular region, that these people are made to believe that anything peculiar moving in the sky is most likely a UFO.

In my opinion this is an interesting assignment, I think datavisualisation is an important and more attractive way to educate.

Networked Media Production Week 10

This week in our tutorial we had to come up with an idea of an online service that makes use of collective intelligence.

Our idea is based off the same sort of concept that amazon offers. Keeping in mind this idea is pretty futuristic.

Idea – Online, multiplicity, collective intelligence.

Extensive online 20 page personality report, based on the report it creates an application for smart phones, apple product etc that categorises all your interests, sort of like a personal tag cloud. It connects with all major stores, grocery, clothing even car dealerships (assuming that these major companies have geo-tagged products – so the application can direct to you to certain items in the store based on your personal preference). It also takes your bank balance, and weekly income into consideration. It’s function is, when entering the store, e.g. Clothing store, you can go to a rack of t-shirts, tag the shirt and it comes up with other suggestions of other clothing in the store, sort of like when you get a book from amazon, it comes up with suggestions based on your previous purchases. Based on your income, it will also suggest items that you will like as well as within your price range.

The application is free thanks to multiple sponsors who pay money to advertise their business e.g. if you usually get hungry at a certain time, it comes up with suggestions based on your regular food choices e.g. 1pm - 2 dollar slushies at Maccy D’s.

Networked Media Production Week 9

This week Michael talked about how various sources (especially on the internet) can retrieve information about specific events and viewed by users before being released by the media. Now, the internet can provide more information one would need/want to acquire rather than purchase books at a book store, read the newspaper or watch TV etc. Data created by people from around the world, collected and harnessed by various users - Wikipedia is the first place people look to gain basic knowledge on a topic they're interested in, anyone can contribute to articles, information gathered and expressed by many sources and put into the one article. Michael also talked about how people can get information about recent events from Twitter before seeing it on television.

Information can be retrieved and provided in a variety of forms. In the lecture Michael also talked about AJAX, to make web applications more dynamic. - Flickr, Google Trends, Google Maps etc. This site talks about Asynchronous JavaScript and XML and offers techniques to help improve web applications - http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/J2EE/AJAX/

Web 2.0 is also affiliated with web applications, e.g. Tag clouds - key words that link directly to other sources of information which is a technique used to primarily foster collective intelligence on the web. Tim O'Reilly defines Web 2.0 in his article - http://oreilly.com/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html - it includes tables that compare applications from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0, simple directories on the internet (taxonomy) evolving into tags (folksonomy) being one of the comparisons.

And that's my blog for this week.

Rationale for Networked Media Production Project A

My online exhibition focuses primarily on the top ten players in the English Premier League that best contribute to their teams. I used a black background to draw attention to the content, I tried other colours, I even tried to incorporate grid elements for the background, but because I wanted most of the attention to be drawn to the videos and image gallery, I found the black background to be most effective. The headers are red and the text for the paragraphs are yellow because they stand out the best with a black background. The letters 'EPL' are automatically recognised by football fanatics all around the world as the 'English Premier League', and I decided to keep it that way to encourage those who are unfamiliar with those three letters to learn and be apart of the culture of football, the EPL being a perfect place to start. The three letters are blue because the EPL official logo and the EPL official website are both very blue. The layout of the page was all accomplished with html, and I styled it with css using Dreamweaver on a Mac computer.

The size of my collection is pretty large, and scrolls pretty far down the page. So Ben helped me with putting the list of the ten players just under the main description at the top of the page. I linked each name using the 'a href' tag with the"#player's name" so that when you click on it, it directs you straight to the player on the page.

The main elements of the web page are of course the videos and images. I used an API to feed directly to the flickr site by using yahoo pipes. After the pipe saved, I chose 'run pipe', then 'get as badge' and embedded the code into my html for an image gallery for each player. The images were chosen for me by flickr, some photos are unrelated to the player but are still related to football. Most images are of the player which is what I intended. For the videos I chose each one carefully as I only wanted one for each player. I achieved this by embedding the code from youtube into my html as that is where each video is from, and I feel that each video describes the player perfectly. I used the 'div' tag with a new id for the title of each player, I did this because I wanted to create a background for the title that relates to the player, but I didn't find it very effective so I decided to leave that idea out. For each section, the player's name is linked to the Premier League website that has detailed information for each player, again I used 'a href' tag then the player name and the link from the premier league site.

There are many sites that relate to football in general, but all of the sites that I have visited mainly discusses recent results for games as well as highlights on each result. It seems that if you want to compare players you just go on youtube and watch compilations for favourite players. Top ten lists are in other websites, but don't really detail on each player let alone have an image gallery and a video. So I felt that creating this web page will not only give people an indication of the top ten players to look out for, but also get to know them on my website. The main idea for my web page is to introduce the English Premier League (as a starting point) to those unfamiliar with the sport, and what better way to introduce them than showing them the top ten players. I also feel that people who are familiar with football will enjoy my web page even though there are always going to be people out there that disagree with who should be in the top ten. With this in mind I stated that the list can change based on player performance, so for people that are not seeing their favourite players on the list, better hope their players perform well to get on the list.

Networked Media Production week 6

This week Michael talked about how being in one place at one time is a physical limitation, and how the internet can defy these physical limitations. For example: Using the internet to email, sending information to more than one place at the same time, which is considered a physical limitation especially if each recipient is in different locations around the world. Talking about how a book; hundreds of years ago was seen as an advanced piece of technology. But today is not really seen as technology that would be considered as somewhat advanced. Which brings me to ask, what can be considered as advanced technology? Is it the technology that we have now? A mobile phone nowadays has become so accustomed to our everyday belongings, something that we find useful, is not really seen as advanced technology when comparing it to the latest rocket ship or outer space satellite, but if you were to send a phone 200 years in the past, the reaction would be different. So is technology only advanced if we are not familiar with it? Or is it only advanced if it doesn't exist 'yet'? Sure NASA uses probably the most advanced equipment on the planet, but in 50-100 years, perhaps the technology they use can be modified and used by everyday people within their own backyards, where every kid on the block can build their own spaceship. When we talk about reality, yes the way we perceive it is heavily influenced by our culture, but 300 years ago, the internet let alone a mobile phone, is something that did not exist, therefore would not be seen as something you would consider to be real. Instead nature and physical surroundings would be the elements of reality. But what about today? It seems that the internet has it's own reality, and the reality in the outside world, is becoming less real than that of the internet (technology). Teenagers that get trapped in the reality of video games, this culture can influence how differently they would perceive what everyone else considers reality. To me the internet is a useful way to take advantage of the technology that has been founded 'for us'. Perhaps it's a world within reality, and the reality of it is, most of the time, depending on what it is you want to search, you're gonna find things on the internet that are useful, things you want, even things that you don't want. Internet being not so much a reality, but a useful piece of technology that can be used to defy physical limitations. If the internet and technology are playing bigger and bigger parts in our lives everyday, I wonder how beneficial it's going to be in many years to come. Watch Wall-E and you'll see where I'm coming from. Also have a look at this site - http://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/cats320.htm - it's all about Ontology and Predication, two interesting topics that were raised in the lecture and sort of what I based my blog on for this week.

Networked Media Production week 5

Ok, my web page is coming along alright, I'm starting to become more familiar with html and css the more i use it. This weeks analogy for HTML and CSS - Say you are managing a cat walk show, you are at rehearsal where you have to instruct one of the models (web page) to what she will be wearing as well as any touch ups necessary, however the model doesn't speak the same language as you. You have two other associates, the translator (HTML) and hair, makeup and clothe designer (CSS). You use your translator to get your message across to the model, how you want her to walk, what way she should turn, the expression on her face, the theme of what she will be wearing. You've then got your designer that will dress her, style her hair and make up etc. The better you use your associates to communicate with the model, the better the outcome of her performance. This is absolutely ridiculous, but again I find these analogies a good way of understanding the concept from another perspective.

Anyway, when talking about semantic markup, it's all about understanding the meaning of each tag. HTML tags are like a language, a communicating tool that represents certain content. While certain tags might not mean anything at first, its the type of content that it represents which makes understanding the concept of semantic markup so valuable. Here's a link to a short and simple little post describing semantic markup - http://www.tyssendesign.com.au/articles/faqs/what-is-semantic-mark-up/ Non-semantic markup i guess can be useful in some areas, when you want to edit your website from a front on visual perspective, but the process can take so long, its much easier to make big changes in less time when editing semantically, as well as fine tuning the little details, it's a better way of communicating with your web page in my opinion.

Networked Media Production week 4

Ok, Mashups and API's. This week Michael mainly talked about how software on the internet interacts with other software (Application Programming Interface) and how programmers use API to connect with other software, and in turn provide a bridge or access to it's own software for others to connect with. Now it's time for my ridiculous analogy for API's that may help better understand how API's work even though my knowledge is pretty limited. When building applications, 'API's' are like sports agents, and 'software' are like teams that have an underground science lab that clones it's players to share with other teams (software). Programmers are like the general managers that build a team using specific players that they find useful. The team (software) releases it's sports agent (API) , and the agent then provides access between the general managers (programmers) and the players, the general manager then uses these players to build a team of it's own. API's can also be used to connect information from one source to another, so pretty much an API is the bridge connecting to it's own software, and is used to gain and also provide access to other software. Wolfenflickr was a good example which was shown in the lecture, how it uses API to connect with flickr. If I have completely lost the plot in trying to express my knowledge on API's so far, then there are these two websites that helped me understand the basics on how API's work - http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/43487/Application_Programming_Interface and also - http://communication.howstuffworks.com/how-to-leverage-an-api-for-conferencing1.htm

When building an application or service that combines multiple services from multiple software to create a new service or application, it is known as a Mashup. - This link gives a pretty basic and useful explanation on Mashups - http://askbobrankin.com/what_is_a_mashup.html . A good example was the website Ben showed us in my tutorial - http://oakland.crimespotting.org/#types=AA,Mu,Ro,SA,DP,Na,Al,Pr,Th,VT,Va,Bu,Ar&lat=37.798&zoom=14&dtstart=2010-02-27T23:59:59-07:00&lon=-122.273&dtend=2010-03-06T23:59:59-07:00&hours=0-23 - It shows the map of Oakland, California, and has the location of recent crime as well as a list of the types of crime committed. How it works is that it receives crime data reported by Oakland Police and published on the map for people to locate. Can be quite useful for people who plan on living in Oakland to locate where most crime is committed so that they can move into an area of Oakland where crime is rarely committed. But looking at the map myself I can say now that Oakland doesn't look like the safest place in the world.