DAT201: Artefact: using interventions as a way to spread the magic of friendship

As unconventional as it may seem, interventions are a great way to get the message out there. From urinating on sculptures resembling urinals to wrapping up statues in red tape, the best intervention involves an easily-tangible interactive installation; whilst travelling to Berlin on a field trip to Transmediale 2012, back in February, an interactive installation caught my attention. The 'procrastinating machine', which is just simply a Linux computer that is modified with a script, in which after a period of inactivity, the computer takes over and opens up new tabs in the web browser.

Seeing that it is a perfect opportunity to seize, I got it out of procrastination mode, opened up a new tab in the browser and got on to Equestria Daily, of which is a website of importance to the brony community. Once the computer went back into procrastination mode, more My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic-related websites opened up, tab-by-tab. The intervention was a success. As part of my artefact, I noted that example in the manual, and then suggested others as a way of spreading the message of love and tolerance within a public space.

On another note, whilst I was in the lecture about Anonymous, there were a few fellow bronies on the IRC, which was displayed on the right of the main projected screen. I wonder if they have noticed my little intervention I did?

DAT204: Application complete!

After 3 nights dedicating the whole weekend to the assignment, I have finally completed my semantic application. Since the proposal back in November, the project has come a long way, and with a design change occurring half-way, the result looks very promising, and does hold a lot of potential as to how this application can change the world.

The Introduction page is dominated with a profile picture and a brief introduction underneath it; the rest of the introduction is done in the Personal Profile. The content is marked up using XML in a polyglot environment (except for the addresses in the Contact page, where there is already a HTML5 semantic tag associated with it), and the content have CSS3 background transition effects to provide emphasis, which helps employers to easily read the content, especially in environments where processing of applications in a swift and timely fashion are required. The content box is styled natively using CSS3, as is the text in the AJAX tabs, and in terms of AJAX, it is used (with JQuery magic) to display the content in the same page from separate HTML files without having to go to another page.

Adding to the easy-to-use nature of the application, the content pages are formatted in a way that even the less-experienced users can easily populate the pages, provided that they have at least a plain-text editor and some knowledge of HTML (the custom XML tags are already provided for the user), because the main CSS file already provides the styling for the content, so whenever it appears unformatted in a WYSIWYG editor, the content becomes styled once it is loaded up in the application.

Overall, I've managed to produce an application that has a lot of potential, and even though I've already seen many examples of online portfolio websites, this semantic application has a lot of potential to impress employers in the professional world...

To view the application, click here: http://www.elnormo91.co.uk/semanticapp/semanticapp.html

DAT204: Evolution of the design

After trying to make the website work with the originally-proposed design, I've then decided to take a different approach. Whilst trying to implement as many CSS3 features as possible, I've then discovered something that can make the website very lightweight yet powerful; in addition to the existing polyglot markup approach, I've also discovered the wonders of JQuery and AJAX.

The JQuery will be used to make the Edit dialogue hidden until the user clicks on it, and the AJAX will be used to paste the content from separate HTML documents making up the pages into the same website, via the use of tabs, without having to go to a separate page, replacing the need to press backwards whenever the user wants to go back to the previous page.

In terms of interface, I've decided to change it to one that can relate to businesses very well, with the content of the eCV centralised, so then more emphasis can be placed on the content, and with the tabs linking to the different sections coloured in a rainbow-style scheme, in a similar fashion to how Filofaxes are sectioned by colour code, or how some documents are bookmarked, to make the sections easier to remember. The goal that was envisioned in my specifications was to create something similar to Zerply, with a more business-oriented interface and a standardised layout.