, yo!
Is it better to use the SPAN tag and not the FONT tag when formatting text? I had a problem when adding lines of text under a different formatting class for my Research Essay Conclusion. Using the DIV tag made a line break. I was afraid to use the FONT tag because (I think) it may no longer be recommended as proper code. SPAN did not change the line spacing and worked just fine.
Has Professor Taciuch read the N. Katherine Hayles book How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics? When we discussed her essay in the Digital Dialectic how much did our talk relate to this book of hers? I was thinking of this because I was going through old email and found a mention of her book. I should read it although I think that would be a large task given her dense writing.
My Creative Commons project is coming along. The difficult part is organization of the information and script. It is not just an artistic exercise but an instructional exercise as well. I also realize the irony off making an educational film out of older educational films.
Last night I was paging through the DHTML and CSS class book when I found a short primer on GoLive. It showed how GoLive could move objects. I could set a path and GoLive could write a script to have the text travel along this to its destination. This would have been the preferable way to move the anagram letters in my textual effect project. Instead I used an animated GIF. This made the action choppy, which impaired the illusion of movement. So, I am learning, and that is the point.
"If there had been no railway to conquer distances, my child would never have left his native town and I should need no telephone to hear his voice; if traveling across the ocean by ship had not been introduced, my friend would not have embarked on his sea-voyage and I should not need a cable to relieve my anxiety about him. What is the use of reducing infantile mortality when it is precisely that reduction which imposes the greatest restraint on us in the begetting of children, so that, taken all round, we nevertheless rear no more children that in the days before the reign of hygiene, while at the same time we have created difficult conditions for our sexual life in marriage... And, finally, what good to us is a long life if it is difficult and barren of joys, and if it is so full of misery that we can only welcome death as a deliverer?" - Sigmund Freud
I like technology best when it integrates with nature. This involves flowing design and conscience implementation. Freud's quote interests me because it was made around the turn of the 20th century. Regardless of how far technology may come along, we might not be able to change our basic humanity. If we do find a way to change our humanity I predict that we won't be very good at it. The Perlinger Archives are a reflection of ourselves with the hindsight of the present. Sometimes we look pretty silly.
I can hardly watch TV anymore. It is so terrible as to be insulting. As if the show's creators are saying, "Watch this, we think you are dumb enough to like it." Or maybe they are simply untalented or mismanaged. I think I'll amuse myself back to health with the outdoors and quality books and movies.
I haven't got an email for my grade on my Meaning Making Textual Effect yet. I don't think it is that bad.
Are we still supposed to write in these journals? I think so. I like writing in it anyway. I hope I don't sound weird or unintentionally offend anybody though.
Like I said, my final project is going to be a collage of old and new material. I am planning a Creative Commons icon to be the guide through the process of creating a license for your personal site and what other content can be found under the Creative Commons license. I will edit the video with Photoshop and Final Cut Pro. Over the winter break I plan on learning Flash and Dreamweaver. Who knows Flash, Dreamweaver, Mac OS X, Photoshop, Final Cut Pro, HTML, CSS, and C++? I know half and hope to know all eventually. I would like to apply this towards a career.
If anyone wonders what I'm doing on the computers during class time I am usually finding online materials related to the current class topic. I am still intently listening. Sometimes, if I find something interesting I email the link to myself for later review. That's how I remembered to write this in my journal. One can only guess what others are doing.
Last week on November 12th the class went over our completed Meaning Making Textual Effects. My project was complete but not compatible with Netscape or Explorer. The transparent PNG did not render well in IE and Netscape confused the order of some elements. I am going to leave it this way because I occasionally come across browser specific code that doesn't render properly on my screen. The Internet would be a hassle if I had to switch browsers from site to site. The following of web standards is an important thing for web designers and browser programmers. That being said, I am keeping my project just the way it is. I am following web standards anyway. My code is specific to non browser specific browsers. It is sort of ironic.
I received the Total Training programs for Adobe Photoshop CS and some older VHS tapes for learning the older Adobe GoLive 5. I'll have to view these over the winter break. I'll hopefully learn some Dreamweaver in English 505 this coming spring.
My meaning making textual effect was originally going to contain extensive use of rollovers but I couldn't find a way to integrate meaning. My new idea uses a script to animate a transparent PNG over a background. Overtop this is an animated gif of an anagram. I wanted to have each individual letter in the anagram move independently. This would be easier in another program but for some reason I insist on hand coding. I will be doing some copying and pasting of legally available code. Unlike my other projects I will not be considering the accessibility of the user as much as I would like to. This is my first time making some sort of animation and integrating photos to an English 343 piece and I will have to be focusing on my own creation process. Now I better understand why many sites don't incorporate as many user interface allowances as are recommended.
I'm having trouble finding an alternative to the font tag to change font colors. Is there an alternative? I though it wasn't recommended to use font anymore?
In case of any unforeseen problems I now am backing up my Documents folder to a server 40 minutes away. This is the same server that holds aaronsnitzer.com.
"The Twilight Zone" is wonderful. "Third from the Sun" is one of my favorites so far. On the same disk is "To Serve Man" which is equally great, just in different ways. You may notice that the spaceship in both these episodes is the same prop. I think the early 60's campiness is part of the appeal to the series. Some of the science fiction themes remind me of the readings and in-class discussions for English 343.
For fun I used a style sheet from the CSS Zen Garden on some of my own pages and it was nice to see. They didn't exactly work in the context but it illustrated one of the ability of CSS to set the format of a page.
I upgraded my Powerbook's OS to 10.3. I like the little refinements overall. I check Mac OS X Hints quite often.
A Meaning-Making Textual Effect idea that I have is inspired by css/edge. One of the examples on the site involves the use of many thin slices of an image in order to make the effect of a curve. My thought would be to make these slices into rollovers in order to bring some form of meaning to a text. I'll look into it.
This journal has been a bit difficult to write for at times but I have found it helpful to chart my progress. Things always seem more difficult to learn before you learn them. Programming languages I haven't learned but want to checkout are: Cocoa, XML, Applescript. I don't think Applescript is too difficult to learn so I should start there.
I will attempt to win the Creative Commons moving image contest. The G5 is a great prize.
I update this journal more often than my personal journal. Maybe because this is for a class or maybe because I still find it strange to tell everyone what I am up to. Some things are interesting to me because I am the one doing them. I only read one weblog weekly. Some of my friends post on live journal or other forms but I wouldn't want to be part of that kind of online community. I am more successful talking with people in real life, even if there are more people I can meet online.
What's wrong with me? With the exception of the Hypertext Metalogue, every page on this site was hand coded. I am making it too hard on myself. I am learning the nitty gritty of CSS and HTML, though. I will learn GoLive and Dreamweaver. I could start over the winter or summer break. Last winter break I watched a box set of learning Photoshop for eight or more hours a day until it was finished. I don't think that's weird.
I listen to Postal Service while creating my web-pages and whenever I feel like something electronic.
Now I'm working on my research essay draft. I have chosen to investigate the interaction between site design and accessibility. Is it possible to create an innovative site in the artistic sense while still ensuring compatibility with browsers, ease of navigation, and most importantly, is this content readable by people with disabilities. I will go further in depth in my essay.
I am still unsure as to the layout of my essay. It could contain examples of good and bad design and explanations as to why one is better than the other. Due to its subject matter it would be best if the site were readable by as many people as possible.
In response to the online works the poems that go site crashed by browser (Omniweb) with "The Intruder." It worked under Camino. I didn't like these games as much as I liked the work on other sites. I especially liked the material at artport.whitney.org. It had a good grasp on visual appeal. My Mac's browsers had trouble with most of the projects from any site. Things worked better on a PC when I tried them. Martin Wattenberg's Idea Line is an innovative use of Java. The pieces from this website relate to my research essay because they integrate innovative design with the presentation of useful information. But I had display problems with Idea Line, I can't print it, and I couldn't use a voice reader on it if I were visually impaired. Is this the best way to present information? What about other forms of distributing information, such as newspapers or radio? These works give only one form of their information and this can inhibit people with disability. Why should the Internet be different? Is the Internet inherently off limits to someone with disability? I will try to explore these things in my essay.
Another thought. Would it be better to have many elements of the web vector based? This would result in less jaggies when printing and a more scalable page. Things like vector based buttons would look the same no matter what their size. This could also improve the speed of page rendering. What about variable resolution photos? A webpage could sense the amount of pixels it needs to send the user based on that user's resolution. Is this coming in CSS 3?
I was reminded of this satire because of the in class discussions about digital cameras, their advantages, and their disadvantages. In time, digital will be able to surpass film in overall image quality. Digital is also easier to edit and has the advantage of going through less transfer processes than film. I have worked at a photo lab for some years and because of this I am concerned with the consumer's side of this technology. For most customers, a computer is a powerful tool that is used to 5% of its capacity. While the ability of the consumer to manipulate and print their own photos sounds good a first, these things should usually be left to someone at a lab who has greater knowledge. I say this without giving thought to any economical motivations. I am also worried about the ability to archive computer files. Files are easy to misplace because they do not occupy a traditional physical space. And again, lack of consumer knowledge in the unfamiliar world of computers can lead to loss of data. When in doubt, it is best to make a quality print from a photo lab to be sure that there will be some physical human readable form of the image available in the future. The newer digital photo printers use fine lasers to project an image onto true photo paper and then develop this paper using traditional chemical processing. These papers have been better established archival properties compaired to a CD burned at home or a print made on an inkjet printer. A typical photo lab printer costs about $199,500 more than a high quality home printer.
While searching for CSS techniques I came across some interesting websites. Positioniseverything.net be sure to checkout http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/css/edge/ as it has some neat tricks. In class it was recommended I go to dynamicdrive.com and useit.com.
I should take Cyberpunk next semester if it is available.
I did manage to obtain the permission of Stuart Moulthrop to use his VR image. After being given his somewhat difficult to find email address I asked for his permission. I sent things late at night and the next morning I got an email back saying "Permission happily granted." I then added in the appropriate caption beneath the VR to say that I was allowed use of his image.
A call from my mom said that she is proud of my work. But she followed a link in my Critical Analysis to a "Reagan Library" page and thought it was my own work. My uncle also saw the page and brought attention to the opening line "I have to begin you at the end." He is an English teacher and thought it was OK after he decided that the choice of language was appropriate enough.
The grade I received for my Hypertext Analysis was an 'A-.' How did I manage to call Stuart Moulthrop just by his first name? Silly mistake.
I am still overwhelmed by the prospect of web design. Even a small site like my Mason cluster account is stressful. I should have made my English 343 site in a folder in the site and not as the index. If I choose to move it in the future I will break any outside link. Perusing W3.org I came across guidelines for the directory structure of a website. I should just forget the W3 as that would make things less difficult. Forget the users too.
It is important to give concepts, even simple ones, names. My concept is the motivation loss effect, or MLE for short. This happens when something is created for a specific purpose but over time the purpose is forgotten. When this occurs masses of people could be engaging in something that they would otherwise object to if they took on an outsider's perspective. This is what happens in Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery." If computers evolve into soul sucking objects of virtual insanity what good will that bring? But then again the computer to do this has not been made yet, I shouldn't knock in until I tried it. Maybe I'll just make a copy of myself for the computer and not leave my body entirely, just to be on the safe side. Immortality through a computer version of my mind scares me too. Dying makes life worthwhile.
Web design is nerve-wracking because I get overwhelmed with a website when I start thinking of its entire workings and how it will evolve through time. For example, a website should be easily navigated, compatible with as many browsers as possible, avoid creating dead links over time, and be easily changed as technology advances. To me it is difficult to do all of these and I don't know many other websites that meet each of the previous qualifications. To prevent being overwhelmed, I have to think of a site in smaller pieces. As a side thought, I wonder what configuration assembles huge sites like Amazon.com or eBay.
I read the N. Katherine Hayles essay "The Condition of Virtuality" over the weekend. I like the introduction that mentioned living things as computers running DNA's program. It made me consider for the millionth time what separates the organic from the digital or virtual. It was dense reading but I think I got most of it, I'll see in class. I remember playing Myst on an old Mac. It is a great game and it ran on Hypercard, which I used play with. I also enjoyed Cosmic Osmo, which was by the same creators as Myst.
The essay had me considering how physical books themselves were once in a sort of early stage before the invention of the printing press. Without printing presses mass distribution of reading material was impractical. Using the model of the printing press, it seems that mass distribution of ideas is key to the technical advancement and education of the public. This is an obvious statement now that I read the last sentence back. I could also say: "The mass distribution of knowledge to the masses educates the masses," and I would be saying the same thing. Before the availability of reading materials, most were illiterate. Before the Internet became the greatest single resource of information ever, more people were computer illiterate. I hold myself to the theory that the more knowledgeable a society, the better its living conditions will be. Therefore I defend unfettered speech and individual rights. The further development of the Internet or some new undiscovered technology could lead us to what N. Katherine Hayles describes on page 75, "If we can become the information we have constructed, we, too, can soar free, immortal like the gods." This is an optimistic view of mankind reaching a higher state through its own mind power. But evolution is a journey and not a destination, one that may go on forever. We may not become the star child in Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey but we can have a good trip.
It is difficult to criticize such a new media. I am more grateful than critical. This is because Stuart Moulthrop has taken a chance with a new medium. I give him credit for putting so much work into something so unproven.
There is a great deal of text here. I tried to leave the window of "Hejirascope" open for a few hours to see if it ended. It ended up stopping on a page of black on black links. I clicked one and I was sent back again to paging text.
Now I have somehow been placed in Hejirascope v.2. It is similar to the first version but has different text. This is pretty out there stuff, it borders on the surreal. Salvador Dali would have loved the Internet.
While reviewing "The Cyberspace Dialectic" I was reminded of the newness of the web and how much I took it for granted. I also noted that I should read Voltaire.
And finally, Brian Orban's writing is good enough to make me look bad. But I would have to say in response to his September 10th journal entry that I personally want one path in writing. The reader should add their personal interpretations of writing but not participate in the creation of the story. This limits the possible creative devises but like Brian said, "We're always defined by our limitations." I hope to elaborate in our Hypertext Metalogue.
The Internet at Mason was down for about three days. It was an inconvenience and illustrated people's dependence on computers. Email was the biggest problem. Email had been slow since school started and now it had come to a halt. How was I going to get any work done in my Textual Media class? I did work offline and uploaded everything when the Internet finally came back up. The outage relates to my manifesto because that work emphasizes the dependability of computers and other man-made things. Like most manifestos, mine is somewhat over the top. But is it possible to make things 100% reliable? How about close to 100% reliable? Realistically, because technology is always changing and complex, it may be difficult to make anything perfectly reliable.
Because it is the first week of school I feel a bit rusty. The manifesto was exceedingly difficult to write because I didn't feel restricted enough. Being unrestricted is a gift and a curse. Something assigned for the web could range from a simple few pages and links created in Netscape or it could be an animated and interactive project of massive proportions. I liked the idea as I have been forming my own mental manifesto my whole life.
I plan to make changes to the manifesto after seeing other students' work and getting advice from the instructor. Slowly over time my English 343 site should build on itself more and more. At the end of the year I should be able to look back at what I have done and see a site with a good deal of content. I am also curious as to how I will improve in my design. I need to check how to format web text in order to have its margins be the same on any size monitor.
I cannot tell if my largest problem is real or imagined. I am constantly looking for ways to work faster. I believe that I can work over twice as fast as I currently do. Maybe I need a bigger monitor, but I don't want to buy one. I was thinking that I could use massive macros and other automated devices to increase my speed. What I feel could be faster is the relation between different programs on my computer. I need a way to coordinate web, photo, and FTP programs. I also need a way to control the macro programs and key combinations. I was thinking along the lines of a special input device. I'll look into it. Like I said, maybe I am working as fast as anybody.