Showing posts with label creative. Show all posts
Showing posts with label creative. Show all posts

Monday, 24 October 2011

DAT204: Assignment 1: Semantic 'Killer' Application (20% of the module)

For our first project of DAT204, we have to create a 'killer' web application based on the latest web standards (HTML5 etc.) and semantics, that will be very useful for a given task (e.g. a portfolio that is easy to use, graphically attractive and descriptive, hence the usage of semantics).

Semantics are used to make data more descriptive, because, in contrast to humans, computers need to interpret the meaning of data, and in its plain form, the computer doesn't understand straight away. In HTML5, semantics are used to describe the elements and layout, and in contrast to past versions of HTML, HTML5 does not require certain attributes, such as declaring JavaScript in the <script> tag (as JavaScript, by default, is the standard scripting language in the HTML5 platform), and mentioning the XML namespace in the <html> tag.

My initial idea is to create a 'killer' portfolio platform that is very intuitive, simple and easy to use, yet at the same time, is powerful and graphically attractive. My portfolio application is going to be 'the ultimate CV', which will be integrating a workbook, a gallery of practical work, a personal profile and SEO to make the website the first destination for any potential employer, especially those that are in the creative industries, in which this application is aimed at.

Mock-up 1: the workbook page

Mock-up 2: the cover page (i.e. the first page the user sees before proceeding to other pages, as per Mock-up 1)

Although the idea of portfolio websites aren't new, and have already been done, my semantic application is going to take it one step further, and become the CV of a potential employee, replacing the traditional paper format, and also being optimised, so in case the employee is 'Googled', the SEO used in this 'killer' semantic application will be optimised, so then the problem of being faced with an unwarranted social media presence (where it would be bombarded with personal opinions and photographs that, depending on the situation, can make or break one's opportunities) will be eliminated, so then the more professional side of the person takes precedence over one's personal side, especially since, even with, for example, your Facebook profile is set to private, friends may not be bothered to set their profiles to private, and anything unwarranted (e.g. unusual photos of nights-out) tagged with your name can cause problems.
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Thursday, 6 October 2011

Apple: remembering my first Mac, and the long legacy the Mac started

When I first saw the Macintosh, I've seen how simple and easy it was to use, despite being born to a family that adopted an IBM compatible PC for their home computer. After I first saw the iMac back in primary school in 1998, I then thought to myself: because I got so assimilated into Microsoft, I don't know if there'll ever be a chance that I'll have a Mac. Then, I proved myself wrong, but it took almost 9 years until I then finally got my first Mac (a white mid 2007-revision MacBook from brand new), having got an iPod Nano a few years before then. The tiresome Blue Screens of Death and meaningless errors, as well as a rather confusing infrastructure lured me to the Macintosh platform. Having learnt about the legacy the Mac created, I then realised that it was Apple's magnum opus, the platform that started the whole GUI craze back in the 1980s, well before my time. After my first Apple product, I then fell in love with Apple and as a result, joined the thousands that became part of a legacy that forever continued, like Steve Jobs when he was first diagnosed with pancreatic cancer during what was year 7 or 8 in secondary school. In terms of competition in the computing market, the Mac was to David what the PC was to Goliath, but then eventually, the differences became blurred when one then became the other, but nonetheless, had it not been for the IBM PC, where would industry standards be now, and had it not been for the Mac, where would the GUI operating system be now, and where would the industries that both created be? It was all thanks to both competing platforms that helped the Mac get to where it is now, but competition from smartphones and tablets are starting to eat into the market, but after all, it was Apple that kickstarted the revolution, and perfected both at the same time. The same rhetoric applies to the founding of Apple; where would Apple be had it not been for Steve Jobs founding the company and then returning to it after he left? Apple did, however, had its dark years when Jobs first departed in 1985, but even so, it still helped an industry long confined to physical media to become part of the whole computing boom, and Adobe's first products were launched on the Mac during his absence. However, the early to mid 90s were a dark era for Apple as consumers were confused about the profusion of Macintosh computers and the confusing specifications they had, and the many flops that came out of Apple's first diversification. Even in the dark ages came innovation: the Newton PDA would then give way to the iPhone about a decade later, and would later provide inspiration for the Palm Pilot. Steve Jobs' return to Apple in 1996 brought along with him new ideas from his old company he also founded that would help evolve the Mac OS operating system into something more advanced than the platform that was based on the original from 1984. When he once again became CEO, Jobs simplfied the range of Mac models, then later launched the Mac that started off a whole new revolution in design, the iMac, in 1998. My current Mac was based on the successor to the PowerBook series that revolutionised laptop computers forever, but my current Mac is one of the last to be seen under his power before he left for good in August 2011, and his subsequent death later. 

Had it not been for the Mac, where would my career choice be? How would I have continued under the same platform I lived under since 1994? And how simple would my life be? Thanks to the Mac, I am now where I am, and my dreams shall forever be pursued after falsely believing that I'll never have a Mac, but it's all down to personal preference. No matter if you're a Mac or a PC, both has had their finest hours, and still will do, but most of all, it was Apple that perfected the idea of the GUI from Xerox, and then later provided inspiration, despite the many legal battles that were fought against them. All I can say to you is thank you Apple, for getting me to where I am now, and thank you to Steve Jobs, who started it all. Rest in peace, the dear leader of a technological revolution that perfected many technologies, started off new competition and most of, inspired me greatly, with ideology and motivation.
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Tuesday, 22 March 2011

IDAT 102: Arch-OS bouncing ball visualisation

For my visualisation, I have decided to do a bouncing ball, which is influenced by the values of the first digit of the data captured from Arch-OS's Atrium A Heat Flow sensor in the Portland Square Building of the University. Because I wanted the illustration to represent the flow of the heat (hence the name of the sensor that I chose to use in my visualisation), I looked into pre-existing examples of data visualisations (http://vimeo.com/15088939) before deciding to go down the simpler route for my visualisation.

The data is first taken from the RSS feed using XMLElement in Processing, then the value of the data is taken from the 'description' child of the RSS using "value = xml.getChildren("channel/item/description");". The term 'child' in this context refers to a subsection within a 'parent', which in turn refers to the root of the RSS. The colour also varies according to the values of the RSS data, which varies between darker shades of red and grey depending on how high or how low either values are in each of the RGB attributes of the circle colour property.

The values are then parsed as floating-point integers, which is then used to create values which will be used for the random positioning and the colour properties by getting the content from value and then using charAt to obtain the indexes of the digits:

    float v = int(value[i].getContent().charAt(1));
    float v2 = int(value[i].getContent().charAt(2));
    float v3 = int(value[i].getContent().charAt(3));
    float v4 = int(value[i].getContent().charAt(4));

Then, the values are added to the attributes:

   fill(v,v2,v3);

   ellipse(ceil(random(0,v)) * 8, height/2 + 20, 50,50);

Note that the ellipse uses 'ceil' to round up a random number and the number obtained from the first index of the value (v) to the nearest whole integer, then it is multiplied by 8 to create the X value, and then the Y value is created by dividing the height by 2 and adding that by 20. The result, depending on the RSS value on a given day, is a ball that bounces left and right in rapid motions.

This is the entire source code of the project:


import processing.xml.*;

XMLElement xml;
XMLElement[] title;
XMLElement[] pubDate;
XMLElement[] value;

void setup(){
  size(600,100);
  background(0);
  smooth();
  String url = "http://x2.i-dat.org/archos/archive.rss?source=.AtriumA_heating_flow";
  XMLElement xml = new XMLElement(this, url);
  title = xml.getChildren("channel/item/title");
  pubDate = xml.getChildren("channel/item/pubDate");
  value = xml.getChildren("channel/item/description");

}

void draw(){
  background(255);
  for(int i=1; i<value.length; i++){
    float v = int(value[i].getContent().charAt(1));
    float v2 = int(value[i].getContent().charAt(2));
    float v3 = int(value[i].getContent().charAt(3));
    float v4 = int(value[i].getContent().charAt(4));
    fill(v,v2,v3);
   ellipse(ceil(random(0,v)) * 8, height/2 + 20, 50,50);
 }
}
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