what my killer (app) idea actually was!

I’ve realised that I haven’t actually posted what my killer app idea was! Here is a brief summary of the kind of thing we’re aiming for…

Myplace.com; basically users have the ability to tag specific locations through gps/gprs technologies such as their phones.

A picture is taken, and the program takes a data feed from the phone, as well as an optional description from the user and adds this to an xml database. the database is available online, with each user having their own profile page detailing what locations they’ve tagged. A Google map type application is displayed on the profile page, with areas that the owner has been being revealed, and the rest of the world is darkened out, such as in popluar games like Command and Conquer. Upon the displayed sections of the map are all the locations that the user has been. The user has the option of networking with other mplace members to find locations of interest or to get additional information regarding their current myplaces.

The application generates a sense of discovery, due to the fact that the user’s map is mostly darkened to start with, and the more they travel, tag and network; the greater their world grows. The user also has the option of tagging information and opinions to other existing locations. The outcome of myplace is to create a massive xml database, that would enable the correct technologies, the ability to suggest ideas upon request of the kinds of places that the user may want to visit. Through user expression, the technologies would understand and group places via a series of criteria.

So in a nutshell, that’s what we’re trying to do!

brain fire

my head hurts. Ajax is eeeevvvviiillllllllll. I’ve got it working a bit more now though, which is nice… there’s a couple more bits n bobs that we’ve to sort out, but so far, so good. I’ve sorted the layout now, so it’s not only working nicely, but looking pretty too! I’m going to lay down and try and stop my head spinning; wondering about why some things work, and others don’t.

Huzzah!

the seeds of Ajax have been sown, and it’s starting to grow!

I’ve managed to upload some code to Si’s web space (I’m still debating who to go with), and it works! Ok, so it’s not the most advanced in the world, but n ow that I can see if what I’m doing will work or not, I’ll get a better idea of how to evolve it.

killer app

not too sure if I’ve posted much about this one so far… basically Simon and I are going to execute a ‘myplace’ application. It’s going to have all sorts of funky things in it… if only I could get Ajax to work. I’m running XP Home on this machine and as such, can’t get it to run as a server, so I’ve put Visual Studio 2005 on it, to emulate a server, but still can’t get the code to work… not only my code, but example code that I know works. Grr. So far though, we’ve got a running site up, that’s got some basic layout to it, and Simon’s done a really cool mapping feature using the Google Map technology… it looks pretty sweet. We need to get some xml features in there though, as the whole project should be underpinned it. That should have been taken care of with the Ajax, but it I can’t test it to see if the code I’ve written will run. I’ve already made a couple of xml pages that owrk on their own, and I know that some of my asp works as I’ve used some if it before, and the stuff I’m experimanting with seems like it should work… I’ve been looking inot getting some web space, but need to make sure that any host I choose can support the technical features associated with our work. If only we were still in the days of making simple html sites, with no Javascript, xml, css, asp, etc etc!! tut, we’re victims of our own doings! 

more updates?

well, I’ve changed my password to something I can (hopefully remeber now… before, it was an odd combo of characters and letters generated by the site, and I could only update it from my machine, where I’d saved the password, now that it’s changed though, I should be able to update it from anywhere that I can get net access. go me.

a meeting… of opinions!

So we had our meeting with Joasia again today… for some reason I thought I was in at 10 and not 11, and so turned-up a little bit ealry, but it was ok, as the other half of the year had their meeting then, so I joined in there… the groups aren’t that formal, I don’t think anyway. We had to pitch our ideas for the big essay coming-up. I’ve decided to do digital photography; regarding its roots, current artistic processes and how its regarded in both fields that it spans – digital art, and photography. It was at this point that Joasia and I hit a sticking point! As it turns out, it was a good thing that I turned-up early as we had a bit of a long discussion about our opinions! I am of the belief that it covers both aspects of the artistic mediums, however Joasia pointed out the fact that the computers were being used as tools to output a photograph, and that the digital element was not infact the medium. She reffered me to a book called Digital Art by Christaine Paul which I promptly went out and bought. Although I didn’t have time to read the book properly, I asked to see Joasia later on to further discuss the topic, and its validity concerning the essay. I decided to stick to my guns and tried to explain that digital photography is not physically possible without a computer, and to compound this fact, it’s not simply the fact that an actual photograph has been scanned and stored, then printed using a computer, but that the digital camera itself (on fully automatic mode) defines how it should best capture an image, then it is tranferred digitally to the computer, which then again decides how to display it on the screen using various algorithms. We still didn’t reach a mutual understanding, but came to an amacable agreement!

 It can be argued that digital photography only exists because of the detailed, and varied systems in place that the mdeium uses. The fact that an analogous image, of what we believe we see in real life, appears on the screen is what makes many people believe that digital photography is simply the same as photography. I’ve studied both. They’re not. Let me introduce these definitions of photography:

An image, especially a positive print, recorded by a camera and reproduced on a photosensitive surface.

a representation of a person or scene in the form of a print or transparent slide; recorded by a camera on light-sensitive material.

A digital photograph by its very definition is screen based. When an image is printed, it is no longer a digital photograph, but a print. I know that I can pick-up a proccessed negative strip, hold it up to the light, and see a photograph. I can hold the raw data in my hand and see the picture. I don’t know if I’m going blind, but can you see the picture here…

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I can’t. Mind you that’s only a small section… maybe I’d have to have a really big monitor to see the whole thing, then it might be apparent… but I doubt it. That’s part of a small jpeg that was opened in Word. I rather foolishly opened a RAW format picture from my EOS 350D in word… it was over 3,000 pages long! My point being that software and hardware are as much as a fundamental core of digital phototography, as much as the captured analogous image is. The fact that digital ‘photography’ is named as it is, is because it’s the closest parrallel to an understandable notion of data manipulation that we can understand.

I may explain this further in another meeting, but at the moment Joasia and I have come to an agreement that I shall read the book, and some other potentially useful referances, and whilst doing so, I shall concentrate on notions of authorship, curation and reliance upon the internet. Right, I’m off to read a little more of the book! 

ps. as a note to myself, I must remember to exaplify the fact that digital artists, work in an rgb environment, and graphic designers who intend to output their work to print work in a cmyk colour envirnment. I’ll leave that for another day though.

The light and the end of the tunnel!

ok, so I’ve got the edit together now. Gonna put a little intro screen and end screen as well… sort of a beginning and end to it… then hand it in… then go home and sleep. trying to get the audio sorted was a nightmare, getting anything useful off the net, then trying to edit it, and getting it in sync with the vid took a lot longer than I was planning. Well, I think I’ve got something to hand-in now, which is the main thing.  A lot of things on it could have been better, but I’m not that skilled in 3d, and have had a few glitches along the way. Methinks from now on, I’m going to try and aim for well before the deadline to have things completed, as I’ve put myself through a lot of difficulty by leaving this project for so long before really engaging with it, to the extent that I should have. 

a bomb’s hit!

ok,well not a real one, but it looks like my flat’s been hit by one… due to another metaphorical bomb. I’ve lost my sound editing program.  I’ve torn my flat apart lloking for the cd with it on, but it’s no-where to be found. I’ve looked in all the places it should have been, then in all the places it might have been, then in all the places could have been… and then everywhere else. This is not good timing. I can use that program fluently, and could have had all my sound done in an hour or so – it’s that good. with the re-format I’ve not got it on either of my machines, and I’m going to have to try to use the sound mixer in premiere… something I’ve not done before… I’ve always done my sound in a seperate dedicated program. And to boot, I can’t find any of the sounds that I made in it before, that I was going to re-use in this piece. I think I must have lost them somewhere in the cross-over. How come is it you don’t realise what you’ve not got til you really depend on it? Right, I’m off to wrestle with premiere’s sound editing thing. wish me luck. I’ll need it.

drawing near

Ok well rendering, avi output, and video clip merging complete. time to start seeming it all together… The animation isn’t spectacular… all that wheels do is spin round… and round… and round, but it is 3d animation, and it’s readyto get thrown together.

presumtion is the mother of all…

ok, so maybe I shouldn’t presume so much… premiere doesn’t like flv files! I rather hastily found some free software that converts various types of media for you though. It’s a program called Prism, made by nch software. It was the only one I could find for free on the net – I’m skint, and don’t like buying things over the net yet anyways. The thing is… it all seemed to be going so well, but it doesn’t like converting the files very well.
Right enough, the little windows movie clip thing comes up and you can play the files… but the video and sound aren’t synced…This wouldn’t have been an issue though, as I was thinking about taking the sound out anyway (now I’ll have to!).  This wasn’t an obvious problem at first though, as playing them through  the system’s video player, it simply played the vid correctly at the speed it thought that should go, and the sound continued on after the video had stopped. Premiere however decides to try and sync them back together, and in doing so, jumping and repeating of the video to try and stretch it to the same length as the audio. I thought it may have been a problem converting from flv to avi, I tried outputting to mp4, (to then convert again if Premiere doesn’t like them either) but this had the same problem. Grr. I’ve now got to go through all the clips I’ve got, take the sound out and then go through them frame by frame, find the jumps, find out where they start and stop, and edit each video back together as seamlessly as possible.

When I’ve got all the videos back to the way they’re supposed to be, I’ll then have to look at time scaling and importance of the clip, and edit them all to fit within the piece’s timescale. Just when I thought the end of the woods were in sight as well!