reinvention

from blogger:reinvention

Tried to change the template again on this blog.

from bramilo.weblogs.com

Manila, the blogger, is a good thing. I’ve set up two “real” Manila sites, one is this one and the other is for the cida project (http://cida.weblogger.com). While setting up the cida site I realised that while www.weblogger.com and www.weblogs.com were both Manila service providers, not all themes behaved similarly on either server. The theme I’m using for this blog is Aqua and it seems to be have more or less well on the www.weblogs.com server. I tried using the same theme for the cida log at www.weblogger.com but it wouldn’t work properly — the Create New Topic command misbehaves in particular.

So I spent a lot of time trying out the various themes to find one that would work well for cida. I eventually settled for Grid 1.2 but changed it (using HTML in the provided editing area in Prefs). Still, the cida blog misbehaves on Macs I found.

Oh, well.

from bramilo.weblogs.com

What I did during my summer vacation: Progress Report to QANTM, 4 January 2001

To Graeme Sawyer and Trevor van Weeren:

Post cards, Perl, and other Problems

I spent a lot of time (too much perhaps) in the last few weeks trying to learn about Perl (and other scripting things) as well as about Linux. This foray into these things was sparked by the post cards project that Trevor and I worked on last year. After messing around with Webstar at QANTM and at home (I installed it on my Mac and have been reading the manual), I concluded that it may be easier to learn Apache and Linux which I thought would allow us to run the various post card (and other scripts) almost directly as most of these scripts that we’ve found were written principally for Unix. Also, Anne Coleman was interested in the idea of running a Linux server (on an old Pentium of hers) from QANTM.

So I bought the latest Linux Pocketbook with the latest distributions, installed it on my PC at home, and proceeded to spend hours and hours trying to learn how Linux works. I tried this months ago but gave up for lack of time and space on my machine. This time (with more space on my machine) I have managed to get a desktop system running sort of; it doesn’t behave as the manual says its should but I’m getting there. I still need to sort out Apache and Internet stuff, though.

I’ve been reading two Perl books and while I have a basic idea of how it works, I am still a long way from being to script adequately with it and I’m still not confident that I can modify scripts we get off the web to make them run as QANTM scripts (as Anne suggested). I even reviewed Userland Frontier, which Felino Molina taught me the basics of two years ago (Frontier runs on MacOS and Windows and is what Octa4 uses on some of its servers). I am also a long way from being competent in scripting with Frontier.

So, after hours and hours of this stuff, I have concluded that I should leave this area for my residency with Octa4 (which starts April or May this year). While I still believe that knowing scripting and Linux and web server systems are good in the long-term, I should spend more time on multimedia things and other QANTM projects that don’t rely too much on the server-side stuff. If I do need to learn scripting/programming, maybe I should learn Director 8 stuff instead as this will be directly multimedia-related.

I also messed around with Windows Me and Windows 2000 Professional, by the way, as part of exploring platforms for web serving, scripting, etc. I don’t like Windows Me as its more sluggish than Windows98 and Windows 2000. I like 2000 but it doesn’t support some of the hardware (soundcard, web cam) I have yet. I even tried installing BeOS on my PC but it didn’t work the first time so I gave up immediately. After all this OS messing around, I have decided that I still like MacOS and I’m looking forward to trialling OS X as Graeme suggested (when do I get to do this?).

Web logging (blogging)
I got into web logging, or “blogging” as it is popularly known, in the last few weeks. As I mentioned in my last email, I set up a web blog at http://bramilo.weblogs.com to document my Fellowship activities. I also set up a personal one with Blogger.com for miscellaneous musings.

I like blogging. It can be “push button publishing,” as Blogger.com describes it; blog sites can be very simple template and menu/click driven applications: you go into the input area, type your content (or select your images/video/etc.), click the post/publish button, and the application publishes it to your site. You can have more complex and sophisticated blogs, however, as Blogger and other web log service providers have powerful scripting and design facilities for customising sites. Blogs are basic “content management systems” where users can focus on creating content and leave the technical aspects of web site design/scipting to the supplied templates or to boffins who want to customise the form — content management systems “separate form from substance,” according to Userland, so that content creators can quickly publish content without knowing HTML, scripting, web editors, and other applications. Also, good discussion group facilities are built-in and so is email delivery of postings and notifications. Site creation and management are browser-based so all one needs to blog basically is a browser.

The bramilo.weblogs.com blog is a Manila site. Manila is a content management system developed by Userland (the makers of Frontier). While Blogger is simpler but probably more extensible (according to the Firmware December 2000 newsletter). Manila sites come with a structure (templates) that I think are more immediately useable for discussion groups and collaborative writing/editing.

In my last email, I suggested we look at blogging as an application for the online delivery of QANTM courses. After using it for some weeks, I am more convinced it can a very good tool for online education, particularly the Manila version of blogging. I suggest we look at the possibilities and trial the thing with Rosemary soon (that is, before I go overseas).

Virtual Garma

I had a couple of good talks with Michael Christie about his concept and paper on Virtual Garma before he went o New Zealand to deliver his paper last month. I believe he had discussions with Trevor as well. Michael reckons some of the stuff I mentioned to him (findings from my previous and current research) were useful for the development of his concept/paper and has made him rethink some of his ideas fundamentally. My recent readings have added to my appreciation of the issues Michael raises in his paper and I am keen to resume discussions with him when he returns and I’m happy to spend more time on this in the coming weeks/months.

I’ve set up two blogs for Michael as well, the main one being http://virtualgarma.manilasites.com, that will be used for further discussion on ideas, possibilities, and practical activities related to the Virtual Garma idea.

Michael has also recommended to Barbara White of the Interactive Learning Division at the NTU that I talk to them about blogs and other collaboration technologies that can be used for discussing Virtual Garma and other ideas/projects at NTU. They haven’t contacted me to set a meeting yet; I’m very interested in talking to them and will let you know if anything comes out of it (if t happens).

Reading about Cyberspace and related stuff

I devoured Rob Kitchin’s Cyberspace: The World in the Wires over the holidays. This book is the main text for the Internet Studies course (at Curtin Uni) I intend to enrol in this year as part of my Fellowship. I should have read this book months ago as it would have informed much of my planning and explorations. Anyway, reading it has confirmed many of my theses as well as challenged some of them. At any rate, I feel I am more equipped to tackle issues and projects I posed as part of my Felowship, particularly issues of identity, community, and democracy online.

I’ve also been reading and re-reading issues of Fast Company. Great magazine, big and fat (about an inch thick), not too expensive, and full of interesting ideas. In fact, “the social enterprise” aspects of my Fellowship were inspired initially by reading Fast Company (and Red Herring). In the November Fast Company, there’s an article about the Foundation for New York City, a social enterprise, that uses new technologies to build (and rebuild) “real” communities (or neighburhoods); it was good reading this particularly after reading Kitchin’s summation about online communities being “pseudo-communities” at best and that cyberspatial communities don’t really contribute to the development of offline communities.

I continue to read computer magazines and manuals (usually in the toilet).

Anyway, I’ll be posting “stories” on bramilo.weblogs.com about this stuff I’ve been reading lately.

Web cams, webcamming, webcasting

I also spent some time trying out web video. I got myself a Kensington VGA web cam (USB) and had a lot of trouble in the beginning trying to make it work properly with Spotlife — it seems my Windows system was corrupted by an earlier installtion of Logitech Quickcam stuff (which I tried before the Kensington) but after many hours and after reinstalling Windows (Me) from scratch, the camera worked fine. Its okay for iVisit and I’m about to try ICUII which supposedly works on both Windows and MacOs.

Anyway, the thing that got me into this web cam stuff was Spotlife (which I mentioned earlier) and other free web video services I learned about last year (including Lycos and a supposedly free version of a Real Networks streaming server). I thought exploring videoconferencing and free, web-based webcasting is a natural extension of my research into collaboration technologies as well as an interesting area for exploring community-based multimedia.

Spotlife (http://www.spotlife.com) is very interesting as it offers 25M of web space to store web cam images and video clips and four hours )a month) of free live webcasting time. It supports a variety of web cam brands and provides free software for capturing, editing, and FTPing images, clips, and webcasts. I’ve set up an account with it and tried webcamming (similar to the Storm Cam, with pictures updated every two minutes or whatever interval you set) and webcasting. Webcasting was a bit of a weird experience: I webcast and watched myself on the same machine and there was a delay of about a minute from the time I made a gesture to the time it got played back (through my Spotlife page) and the image was very jerky and slow — but it worked (at least at that level). Not bad, I thought, for a $99 dollar camera running on a cheap PentiumII, with free web-based space and facilities.

I will explore more of this stuff when I’m overseas (15 January-14 February). I’ll be attending my High School Class’s 25th Anniversary Homecoming and some of my old (and fat) mates and I intend to webcast the event. I also intend to run an iVisit or ICUII session from the event to get videochats happening as well as the webcast. Arrangements are still being finalised for net access and other things so I don’t know if it will happen at all; if it is set up, I’ll let you know where to watch if you’re interested.

Maybe we should discuss other possibilities of web video, especially in relation to projects such as Young IDEA 2001 (Liz Pearse’s project that QANTM supports), and maybe some things with Corrugated Iron. I also know someone who is keen to webcast from Casuarina Square — like a shopping cam — as a public relations exercise for his company. Felino also agreed (months ago) to let me set up a Stuart Highway Cam from their offices but I might wait until I work there to do it.

Let’s talk about web video soon.

Digital Video

I bought a Sony TRV6 miniDV camera last month. It is like Col’s camera except it doesn’t have the still camera and memory stick things. It is a nice, small camera. The video quality is very good; I’ve captured footage — analog only as I don’t have DV capture facilties — and edited with Avid Cinema 1.1.5 on my Mac and it looks good. I tried using Premiere 5.1c again but I still have problems with it — I struggled with it months ago then stopped because of mounting frustration. With the miniDV, my frustration with Premiere has resurrected and is mounting. I may stick with Avid or get a DV card for my PC and do the DV things under Windows, or just save DV editing for when I’m at the Uni, Corrugated Iron, or QANTM. I don’t have big video projects in the pipeline anayway.

What I am working towards, however, is the production of “little movies,” maybe 3-second or one-minutes clips on a variety of topics. The idea’s based partly on newspoetry, where the clips will be about everyday events but very compressed time-wise, like TV ads. I’ve done one clip for Octa4 — on a Filipino senior citizens event — that I believe they will post on a “community events” page. At any rate, I’m thinking of these clips are video-haikus, or as “social marketing” bites. The gear I have at the moment is adequate for little movies.

Corrugated Iron

I talked to Susan Ditter last month about Corrugated Iron’s multimedia plans for this year, particularly as I need to service them (as a QANTM project) as part of my Fellowship. They don’t have specific plans yet but they do have additional machines (Macs and laser printers) that they bought very cheaply from Bacthelor College in December. So, the immediate plan is to set up these machines to complement facilities in the Hub and in their office; I’ll do that hopefully before I go overseas. Also, it would be good to get a briefing beforehand about the setup at Corrugated Iron so I don’t go messing about with the network there.

We do need to talk more about youth multimedia projects.

Brushing up on Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and Fireworks

I’ve been working on the cida website and the Katherine West Health Board site (which I started a year ago). I’m also working on bits of the Lipalipa CDROM for Michael Christie. So I’ve been exercising some Photoshop, Fireworks, and Dreamweaver chop through these projects. I should explore Director and Flash more.

All for now. I’ll visit QANTM next week to catch up.

Bong

from bramilo.weblogs.com

Browser versions and multiple standards on the web can be frustrating.

I tested a web site I did for Katherine West Health Board on a Windows machine running Explorer 5.5 and Netscape 6 and on a Mac running Explorer 5; the site was okay. Then someone tried accessing it with Netscape 4 and it didn’t work. I tried changing the behaviours on the buttons from onMouseDown to onClick, then it worked on Netrscape 4. I must remember that.

Bad buggers sometimes, various browsers versions.

I must say that I’m not overly keen on building web sites these days; I prefer bloggers.

from bramilo.weblogs.com

Second day of the new year/millenium. Started work early, around 8:00 am. Been trying to sort of Linux again on the Aptiva and I’m getting really tired of it.

Didn’t go online yesterday; spent most of the day at Malak for Diday’s family New Year’s day lunch and snacks and dinner. I did, however, turn the laptop on there to do some Frontier things (which didn’t work as it crashed a lot). Finished Kitchin’s book (Cyberspace) and read about social entrepreneurs in November Fast Company; made a connection between Kitchin and an article about the Foundation for New York (in Fast Company) about the relation between online and offline communities, which I’ll need to write on for the Fellowship blog. Read a bit about Perl last night, but mainly watched The Matrix — I liked it very much.