Drag 'n' Drop

If anyone is having trouble with the flash process of drag and drop, or just want to know a way without using it, this page is very helpful. It also shows how to do some other cool stuff. Check it out:

http://www.walterzorn.com/dragdrop/dragdrop_e.htm

For the drag and drop segment, first download the two files they give you and save both to your site root folder that holds all your .html files. Then just follow steps 1 & 2 that they provide. Make sure the div name that you make is the same as the name you enter in the "SET_DHTML" section that's pasted directly before the closing body tag.

Any trouble, send me an email.
Good luck

--Jared Reneker

Views from the Station

A collective Locative Media project by the students in Web Art and Design.
Take a trip on the subway with a new perspective!

View Views from the Station in a larger map

Good Flash template site.

http://www.flashmo.com/

http://www.flashvillage.com/

This is I think great and stylish if people looking for using flash to final project.

Daisuke Ito

more CSS stuff

Hey everyone,

Here are a few links of articles and things that go over in better detail what I talked about very confusingly today. Thanks for putting up with my rambling - hopefully it was able to help someone.

These are the articles I used to get the hang of what I know so far about CSS and most are really short (like less than a page).

Divitis: What is it, and how to cure it - an article on "divitis" or using divs instead of working with the html tags that might be better for a certain purpose... this is a REALLY interesting article if you're into it and covers how i did the heading replacement for my 3rd assignment

eric meyer reset - This is the Eric Meyer Reset.css that I used on my 3rd assignment to set all the HTML to a common denominator before I set the properties that I wanted. It's not really necessary, but I did find that it helped me get a good starting point

Centering a div - here's how to center content on a page with a hack included for earlier IE versions - I would add position:relative to the wrapper if you want to absolute position things inside it.

and here are some other helpful articles for laying out things with CSS:

block versus inline elements - block and inline elements function differently and changing a div to "inline" can allow you to put another one right next to it.

the float property - the float property determines where a CSS element is in relation to other elements.... i haven't quite wrapped my head around this yet, but maybe it will help you somewhere for more complex layouts.

css media types and how to use them - If you look at the code for linking a CSS file, you may see the media="screen" attribute (you definitely will if you created it with dreamweaver). I was curious so I looked up what that does.. apparently you can have different CSS for viewing your site on your computer screen, on a phone, when you print, etc. this talks about how to use it and is pretty cool because you could have your page look totally different when printed out than how it looks when it's on the computer.

-Ed

Uni-Form

Not sure if anyone is interested, but there's a project called Uni-Form CSS that is a standards compliant CSS framework for designing and laying out forms in a modular way and styling them with CSS. I just learned about it and thought this would be a nice addendum to the forms email from the weekend if anyone else was interested in using a form on their final project.

Check it out!

Hi Everyone,

Here is a link that you might find helpful if you are trying to download videos to use on your website. http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Save_YouTube_Videos_To_Your_Hard_Drive


Chris Gladitz

Twitter Locative Media

Wow, I just found this and it's amazing:

http://twittervision.com/

Locative Media

So this has ended up being my first actual assigned blog post.

I've tried valiantly to blog about our other assignments after reading them - in many cases sitting down and writing for an hour or more. In fact, I've generated countless words - hundreds of sentences - but every time I go to click the post button I come to the inevitable realization that I'm really not saying anything at all.

I'm sure somewhere my 11th grade self is cursing me for saying this now considering how much BS writing I did in highschool. I can just hear myself saying, "JUST TURN IT IN, ED!" But as I've grown I have come to realize that writing that doesn't go anywhere or say something really substantial is just a waste of paper, ink, bytes and other people's time. That's not to say it's not useful from a writing development or brainstorming stand point, but it's definitely not appropriate for blogging IMHO. So bottom line is that I haven't posted any of my reactions thus far in the course.

FINALLY, however, I think I've connected with a topic to some greater extent than "this is cool because" or "this is dumb because". The discussions and readings surrounding Locative Media have really caught my attention because I think that we're looking at something here that is about to break in a very, very big way.

So lets get down to it: I firmly believe that Locative Media is poised to be a very influential force in the coming years and is very likely to become the primary way we experience life and physical/metaphysical spaces in the very near future. With the increasing number of web and GPS-capable mobile devices and the ever more flexible means of creation and content sharing through web 2.0 technologies, technically anything that is posted to the web could be tagged to a specific location and compiled. The technology is available and ready to go but the true power is only just starting to be realized. The few projects we looked at in class were novel in their time, but just don't really seem to really embrace the big picture. Fortunately I think a few companies are starting to get it.

Already, Google is paving the way with their mapping of... well... EVERYTHING. They're going to be the kings of Locative Media because everyone will end up having to use their data to tie anything to a specific locale. This is already happening through Google Maps and Google Earth interactions with wildlife research centers and other entities. Other recent web 2.0 startups such as Flickr and Twitter (through their flexible API) seem to be catching on as well by providing users with the ability to associate GPS coordinates with their posts. People are beginning to realize that while "content is king" without meaningful metadata that can tie the content to other relevant sources you quickly become lost in the web. We have become a world of networking and Locative Media seeks to network ideas, concepts and content (very metaphysical entities) with the physical world - essentially it is an extension of virtual reality that we recently discussed after the reading of "Connecting Bodies in Space".

Attaching the metadata to the content and opening up databases with API integrations are really the only missing links here, but they're developing every day. The functionality exists already, but privacy, Intellectual property concerns, and widespread adoption are the only barriers to enabling this rich and vibrant experience.

We talked in class a bit about how Locative Media is a lot like a tour. The more I think about it the more I come to realize it really is a tour in the fullest sense - basically it's what a real tour should be - going to a place and being able to know anything about it or related to it with the touch of a button. Every day places have countless thoughts, ideas, images, states of motion attached to them every instant that goes by. Locative media keys into the idea that these aspects can be captured and recalled at will to create a unique experience and understanding of a physical space that can span ideologies, senses, and time. This is the best kind of tour - you don't just get told about it, you can experience it to a greater degree.

A few newspapers have already opened their archives up with APIs allowing programmers and developers to manipulate and mashup their articles and research in new ways and experience the idea of Newspaper as a Platform. This is the next step towards advancing locative media, which essentially is just a small aspect of what I like to think of as Media Universiality. Everything is connected and Locative Media is just one way of connecting two or more seeming separate things through the use of the web.

It's not that the idea of Locative Media is brilliantly unexpected or earth shattering in it's concept - but the results definitely have the potential to be groundbreaking.

psychogeogaphy

The reading on psychogeography is good in that it is a break down of our current assignment. If you are having some trouble getting going on this project you might want to read the article. It gives a list of questions to ask yourself about the neighborhood you are observing and also a list of things/places/ideas to consider as possible topics. The article also brings up a good point that the idea of locative art and psychogeography can be used to not only educate but to improve the neighborhood or city that you are in. It is also interesting to think about the mental effects of living in a certain area/neighborhood. I think delving into how an area's geography affects the psyche of the people who live there would be an interesting idea for a locative art web page.

Chris Gladitz

"Mapping"

Hey everybody.

After hearing about the new assignment on Thursday, I thought of an episode of the radio show This American Life on NPR. It's called "Mapping," and in it they try to map the world in five different ways, according to the five senses. It's pretty interesting, and I don't know - maybe it could help some people think of different ways to go about this next assignment.

You can stream the episode here:
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1211

Also, this show is awesome, and you should all subscribe to the podcast. I'm just saying...

Emily Neary

Stuff I used for my project

Documentation on Simile Timeline

JQuery - Javascript library for user inerfaces and event handling

Thoughts on Views from Above

I have a couple of thoughts about the article Views from Above. While the idea of locative media is interesting it seems like this type of “Art” has been going on for years. I went to Alcatraz many years ago and even then you could take an audio tour with commentary from actual guards and prisoners. The advances in technology have now allowed us to add the visual elements. Also, like so many supposed interactive media projects the participant is still only able to experience what the creator puts in the program. You may be able to go in a different order than someone else, but in the end you will still receive the same information. I admit I can’t think of a way around this problem but until someone does I don’t feel you can call these interactive projects they are just tours of places. The one idea I thought was interesting was the Carrizo Parkfield, the idea that you could remix the natural functions of the earth such as the tectonic data, erosion patterns, and water movements opens up some interesting possibilities.


Chris Gladitz

Bodies In Space-Yusef Dingle

While the Cyborg Manifesto was interesting, it was also very long and confusing. I sort of got lost along the way. The article did make some good points. The next article, Connecting Bodies In Space, gave some interesting and good ideas on different ways humans can connect through a virtual world. I enjoyed reading it, and plan to look more into it.

Yusef Dingle

Another Smashing Magazine Article

Here is an article from smashing magazine on how to improve your interfaces. It has some nice CSS tips built in as well - I've been playing with their tips a bit and it really makes a difference!

10 Useful Techniques To Improve Your Interface Designs

Website

Here's one that's full of tutorials on how to make cool video effects in Adobe After Effects, it plays mini-videos when you mouse over the tutorials...

videocopilot.net

Here's a good one for up and coming technology and gadgets...

http://gizmodo.com/

-Wayne

Website Layouts I like

Here's a Few:

Kotaku
(Drop Down Menus on menu bar across the top of the screen, comments section with expandable comment trees, and multiple versions of the front page (condensed vs. expanded)

Rockstar Games
Interesting and highly stylized layout.

Let it Burn
(Though I liked their last version better, this site still looks nice.)

YTMND


-Richard Trevisani

Interface

Clark and Michael

I like the interface of this site cause it's simple but there is a lot to look at and there isn't empty space. On the homepage alone there is a scroll bar, animated buttons, a video, pictures, and a lot of links.

-Brian

Website Design

I don't know many interestingly designed websites, but here's a try...

http://www.drukqs.net/

Alex Schmoyer

Website Design

Principals of Design

Unrelated to the interface examples, I thought i'd post this set of articles on principals of effective design that i found today. They're pretty easy reads and are very informative:

Design in Theory and Practice

2 Sites

Here are two websites that I thought have a good design to them:

http://www.carsandcars.pt/ - (in spanish, but you can still appreciate the work that went into it)
http://www.burton.com/ - an american snowboard company with a great looking website

-Orry

website.

I just  like Adidas website every time. I actually big fun of them, they are really cool this time using flash and videos.

http://www.adidas.com/us/homepage.asp

http://www.adidas.com/campaigns/originalsss2009/content/#/lifestyle/party

Daisuke Ito

A site I found with a cool interface:

http://www.dontclick.it/

It's sort of weird, and I don't really get the point of it, but it's fun to fool around on.

Emily Neary

Interesting Interfaces

Since there are many different types of interfaces on the web, I thought I'd post two that I feel are really great examples of one of my favorite types of interface. What I like to call "The scrolling interface" (maybe that is the technical name, maybe not... I don't really know). Usually, sites with only one type of content or a single subject matter work well for this style of interface (i.e. portfolio sites - which was why I chose it for this class). These interfaces are effective because they keep the user interested by creating a playful, dynamic way of interacting with the content without a whole lot of clicking (which nobody likes doing). Oh, and the greatest part about these sites.... NO FLASH! So here we go...


Sursly.com - online portfolio of Tyler Finck, Webdesigner

I've been a fan of the design of this site for awhile. It features a very simple linear design but is very effective at keeping the user interested with a normally dry subject (portfolio) through it's use of "analog" transitions: http://www.sursly.com/


Nile Inside - Some sort of russian art site i think?

I can't read russian, but I'm still a fan of dynamic scrolling interfaces and i like the expandable items: http://inside.nile.ru/#years-2008/

Interesting Web site's

Here are some site's that I thought were simply yet fun. Take a look.

http://www.deathonline.net/movies/mm/autopsy.cfm

http://snowflakes.barkleyus.com/

Chris Gladitz

Reaction to the Rhizone

First, the language used in this chapter is, well, sophisticated, perspicacious jargon (pun intended). That is not to say that the language takes away from the intent, just the understanding at times. I am one to explain things as straight-forward as I can, so when someone is describing the internet having "rhizomatic, arborescent inclinations," I tend to drift off. Again though, I do not mean to diminish the integrity of the chapter, I just had to get that out of the way (this is my first blog so I'm guessing that just means I'm writing my thoughts down)...
Anyway, there are two main things I had a reaction to with this chapter. This Rhizone these two men speak of is something that I have always had a lingering thought, just could never ascribe a word to. I mainly had a philosophical vantage point of this rhizomatic web. Philosophy, to me, is so full of similar ideas that for me, or anyone for that matter, to wholly subscribe to just Existentialism, just Descartes, just Buddhism, just Taoism, just Objectivism, just this or that is ridiculous. So many different philosophers have similar ideas or thoughts that there has to be a web of connections, heterogeneity, etc. This thought though is such an undertaking. Imagine trying to actually become knowledgeable of so many philosphies and then be able to tie them together into one web. It's almost impossible. That's where the multiplicity and "assigning rupture" play into this idea. Multiplicity is pretty self-explanatory, even in this regard: there is a multiplicity of knowledge, ideas, information, etc. This mulitiplicity is intrinsically inclined to multiply itself, which then amounts to a philosophic web that is almost never going to end. That is not to say that I can't connect certain ideas and begin my web, it just means that it is never going to end as long as new ideas emerge.
The second thing I thought about was exactly the topic of the chapter: how easily this idea relates to the Internet. I want to know when this was written. By the use of borrowed sentences. I'm guessing it was written in the mid-to-late 90's, which means these two men who coined this idea were definitely on the right track as to the destination of the Internet. It is a web. And our first assignment is most likely a manifestation of this idea; a way to get us to make use of the rhizomatic Internet.
Lastly, attacking Noahm Chomsky eh?

Alex Schmoyer

85% off Adobe products for Temple students

Not sure if anyone is interested in buying Dreamweaver or Photoshop, but here's a link for discounted student licenses of Adobe products for Temple students/staff/faculty:

JourneyED.com

Response to Conceptual Art Readings

Digital art has historical roots in visual art and shares many characteristics with the Dada, Fluxus, and Conceptual Art movements. Digital art places an emphasis on controlled randomness, open structure, appropriation, manipulation of found images, interaction and re-contextualization. Other characteristics that could be considered shared between conceptual art and digital art are the use of formal or informal instructions, priority given to the concept of the work, event and audience participation and juxtaposition of components that blur traditional art making practices.

~Lisa Marie Patzer

Digital Art Museum

To see some examples of early digital art works mentioned in the Paul Christiane book, Digital Art check out this website: Digital Art Museum.

Welcome to Web Art and Design/Multimedia Production

This blog will be used to respond to class readings and generate further discussion on topics covered in class. We will also post links to resources such as technical tools, theoretical topics and examples of inspirational web art and design.

Please check back on this blog regularly for new content!