Struggling

After investing 2-3weeks of time into it I decided to get some advice from my tutors. It turned out to be that none of them use asp.net and was advised to look into PHP. Asp.net runs on a local machine and not all web-hosting companies support it so there wasn’t a way for me to submit my work at the end of the term as well.

I don’t think it’s the right time for me to switch over to PHP now as I have left it to too late. I tried my best to make things work but I didn’t have enough knowledge and a skill to make things work and above all, time keeping.

Errors

Layout

Choosing a programming language

I started to look into asp.net and how similar dynamic websites are created. There was no reason why I decided to follow the asp.net route rather than PHP as I’m totally new to both and have no background knowledge in programming. Asp.net is by Microsoft for window’s user however there is a Mac version of it called Mono Develop.

I started by following the forums on asp.net main website and video tutorials available on YouTube. In order to make visual studio work (program that runs asp.net) I installed IIS7 and Xampp. Xampp is a package that installs Apache, PHP and MySQL together rather than individual packages. I do feel that my settings for IIS7 weren’t quite right as every time I entered localhost under web address bar IIS7 default webpage would turn up and once Xampp was installed the homepage of Xampp appeared. Though it seemed like it was detecting where the localhost was it still felt as if something was wrong or missing.

When I changed the setting of IIS7 it created a folder on my C drive called inetpub, which contained subfolders and one of them was called wwwroot. According to some articles if my asp.net files were inside the wwwroot folder it would run but in my case it wasn’t true. The only asp.net that actually worked were the once I created in Visual Studio through video tutorials, apart from that nothing worked. I managed to get hold of some asp.net projects from web, simply to see how other people have worked and find a way out for myself. Allow browsing other projects I couldn’t even open them. I don’t think I know how to import a project in Visual Studio because every time I did, it gave me errors. I tried number of time and with different file extensions such as asp/ asp.net/ asp.net and Ajax.

Change of Ideas

While researching into pachube, Arduino and Yahoo pipes I was stressing myself out way more than enjoying the project. The manipulation of applications is new to me and going through forums and discussions; scared me. I tried to push myself into my proposed project but it was getting nowhere so I decided to take a fresh start. I realize it’s a bit too late to change however there is no point of me sticking to something I no longer desired to do.

At this point I decided to separate Experimental media and Designing social software and write individual proposals for both.

Pachube

http://www.haque.co.uk/eeml.php
http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/tools-and-tips/how-to-create-a-mashup-by-combining-3-different-apis/
http://apps.pachube.com/
http://community.pachube.com/
http://jtlog.wordpress.com/2008/12/05/pachube-and-yahoo-pipes-part-1-show-me-the-data/
http://community.pachube.com/?q=node/13
http://community.pachube.com/?q=node/12
http://community.pachube.com/node/390
http://apps.pachube.com/alert/
http://dailyduino.com/archives/616

Research - Pachube

I would say I’m weak when it comes to do the coding and this was one of the reasons why I wanted to avoid Arduino but on the other side pachube is new and I wanted to experiment with it. I am not expecting things to go right for me although the project holds a big value towards my degree.

Areas of Research:
http://community.pachube.com/?q=node/12
http://community.pachube.com/?q=node/13
http://community.pachube.com/node/390
http://apps.pachube.com/alert/
http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/tools-and-tips/how-to-create-a-mashup-by-combining-3-different-apis/

Social Networking

Why Social Networking?
Social networking, allows people to stay in touch with current friends, reconnect with old ones or create friends through similar interests or groups.
Most social networking websites offer features like blogs, forums, customizing profile page to reflect user’s personality in addition to include music and video sections.
Social networking can also help members find a job or set up business contacts.

What to Look For in Social Networking
Profiles
Security (Privacy) Networking Features (Additional Features)
Search
Help/Support
Legitimate Friend Focus

Facebook
According to Social Media Revolution
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIFYPQjYhv8)

1 out of 8 couples married in the U.S last year met via social media
Years it took different Medias to reach 50 million users
38 years for Radio
13 years for TV
4 years for Internet
3 years for iPod
Facebook added 100 million users in less than 9 months
More than 1.5 million pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc) are shared on Facebook daily.

Facebook is the world’s largest social network, with over 400 million users.
Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg in February 2004, initially as an exclusive network for Harvard students.

The original idea for the term Facebook came from Zuckerberg’s high school (Phillips Exeter Academy). The Exeter Face Book was passed around to every student as a way for students to get to know their classmates for the following year. It was a physical paper book until Zuckerberg brought it to the internet.

Facebook users’ addiction, to the site is unmatched: more than half use the product every single day and users spend an average of 19 minutes a day on Facebook. Facebook is 6th most trafficked site in the US and top photo sharing site with 4.1 billion photos uploaded.

References:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIFYPQjYhv8
http://social-networking-websites-review.toptenreviews.com/
http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/social-networking-websites
http://www.crunchbase.com/company/facebook
http://ezinearticles.com/?Top-Reasons-Why-Facebook-is-So-Popular&id=1089087
http://www.surfnetkids.com/safety/a_simple_comparison_of_myspace_and_facebook-18958.htm
http://social-networking-websites-review.toptenreviews.com/facebook-review.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook

Ideas

While researching and browsing the net I came across the site called Pacube http://www.pachube.com/. According to the information on web it works well with Arduino and there were a few projects published. I looked into the existing application Pachube is being used for and created my own pachube interacting with yahoo pipes. I didn’t add the Arduino, just was testing how it may work for me. There are several ways to use pachube with work and output can be in different forms. One may receive the results through the mobile phone application, blog, text and many more. http://apps.pachube.com/ .

I was advised to look at http://www.haque.co.uk/eeml.php. A project based on pachube. The project is called Extended Environments Markup Language – EEML.

Information about EEML = Designers feel architecture is not considered as something static instead it is thought to be dynamic and up to date. The project is revolved around the same terrain.

Usman Haque, director Haque Design + Research Ltd, founder of Pachube.com and CEO of Connected Environments Ltd has created responsive environments, interactive installations, digital interface devices and mass-participation performances. His skills include the design and engineering of both physical spaces and the software and systems that bring them to life. [1]

After looking into Pachube, Arduino and Yahoo Pipes I decided to take it further, I wrote a proposal and started to do my research.

[1] http://www.haque.co.uk/info.php

Jaron Lanier‘s point of view

Jaron Lanier‘s point of view with Technological determinism

Technological determinism = According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_determinism Technological determinism is a reductionist theory that presumes that a society's technology drives the development of its social structure and cultural values. The term is believed to have been coined by Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929), an American sociologist.

Most interpretations of technological determinism share two general ideas:

- that the development of technology itself follows a predictable, traceable path largely beyond cultural or political influence, and
- that technology in turn has "effects" on societies that are inherent, rather than socially conditioned or produced because that society organizes itself to support and further develop a technology once it has been introduced.

Understanding API

What is API?
API stands for Application Programming Interface
How to Design a Good API and Why it Matters- An article written by Joshua Bloch – Principal Software Engineer, Google.
http://lcsd05.cs.tamu.edu/slides/keynote.pdf

Web 2.0

What Is Web 2.0 http://oreilly.com/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html
Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software - by Tim O'Reilly (09/30/2005)
Web 1.0 --- Web 2.0
DoubleClick --- Google AdSense
Ofoto --- Flickr
Akamai --- BitTorrent
mp3.com --- Napster
Britannica Online --- Wikipedia
personal websites --- Blogging
page views --- cost per click
screen scraping --- web services
publishing --- participation
content management systems --- wikis
directories (taxonomy) --- tagging ("folksonomy")
stickiness --- syndication

http://oreilly.com/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html
I feel that O’Reilly has helped many people like me in understanding what web 2.0 is and how it differs from web 1.0.

I browsed through number of sites to understand the term Web2.0 better and below are the results of what I found and thought was relevant
According to http://www.designlaw.org/ Web 2.0 generally refers to a second generation of services available on the World Wide Web that lets people collaborate, and share information online. In contrast to the first generation, Web 2.0 gives users an experience closer to desktop applications than the traditional static Web pages. The term was popularized by O'Reilly Media and MediaLive International as the name for a series of web development conferences that started in October 2004. Web 2.0 applications often use a combination of techniques devised in the late 1990s, including public web service APIs (dating from 1998), Ajax (1998), and web syndication (1997). They often allow for mass publishing (web-based social software). The term may include blogs and wikis. To some extent Web 2.0 is a buzzword, incorporating whatever is newly popular on the Web (such as tags and podcasts), and its meaning is still in flux.

According to http://www.sitepronews.com/archives/2006/july/5.html
- Layout- Old HTML sites were assembled in square tables and were full of boxes whereas, the new sites are more about rounded corners and curves.
- Bold Text- Important words/messages are oversized (I adopted the same idea for my personal site http://www.nimrajavaid.com/about.html. I feel highlighting/enlarging some words give an idea of what the paragraph/story is about and if user is interested they will stay on the site to read it fully.)
- Gradient- Web 2.0 sites usually have a gradient background rather than one bold colour background
- Colour- There isn’t must I think I can write about when it comes to colour; old sites also used bright and bold colours. I think the difference is of addition of reflections, drop shadows, effects and harmonies of colours

Google Wave

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_UyVmITiYQ 1:20hr video

A Google wave is a new way of keeping in touch through manipulating other applications available on net. According to the two brothers Lars Rasmussen and Jens Rasmussen who also created Google Map, along with a team describe Google Wave as a new generation E-mail system. Google Wave has number of features introducing, allowing user to make 100% use of their time.

Google wave is best for online group meetings, discussions, sharing blogs/images, exchanging ideas and editing as you go along.

The spell check is a wonderful auto correction tool they have introduced which I feel is very accurate after watching the video. (Mac’s pointed out the words that weren’t spelt right in hotmail but didn’t auto correct them).

I yet don’t quite know how waves can be added to our personal websites but the link to blog seems time saving. I find editing tool the best out of all, it allows the user to edit old and new posts, allowing recipients to join at any point and be able to read all the previous posts in order, using the playback option. Wave’s works pretty well for images. Images can be dropped into the mailing system which updates the linked blog (such as blogger), users linked to the specific mail can edit simultaneously.

The good news is that its open source and Google wants users to develop it further by experimenting with it. I have an inviting for Google Wave and will start using it to see how I can develop it for my personal use. I will be blogging my experimental stages as I go along.

Projects

Dead media project – http://www.deadmedia.org/ Temporary offline.

Mehmet (aka Memo) Akten an artist / visualist / musician / engineer / toy maker / mad scientist based in London, UK. - www.memo.tv

While browsing through Akten’s site I came across a post named ‘Imogen Heap "Twitdress" for Grammys 2010’ a dress with real time data displayer. The dress was attached to an iPod which was displaying tweets and photos from net. This reminded me of Hussein Chalayan’s work http://www.husseinchalayan.com/#/home/. Hussein Chalayan designed a series of laser LED dresses in early 2008, in collaboration with Swarovski which was showcased in Tokyo.

Some websites lead an idea like the following link --> http://makezine.com/projects/. I have great interest in Photography however as it’s not a subject I study I never mange to take time out to work around it, but there is a project on the same page called ‘Flashback: Caught in the Act’ which had me thinking about it.

A similar project by Maurice Ribble ‘Triggering a Camera’s Flash with sound and light’ (http://www.glacialwanderer.com/hobbyrobotics/?p=11). The title explains the project.
I personally would have enjoyed creating a system for my Nikon camera for personal use but it doesn’t seem enough as a project for Masters Level and even if I had manipulated more into this idea, I had no answer of is there a need of such a system to be introduced where there are many triggering off button cables available in market.

Research

Wagner Virtual reality - www.w2vr.com

Site created in 2000 holds a great timeline from 15,000BC to 20th Century.

I looked into some of the latest work updated on the site, a piece called ‘Virtual World’ by Jenny Holzer (1993). It featured a cavernous world in which souls alternately flee from and engage the viewer. If you catch them they speak one of Holzer's trademark truism phrases. (http://www.w2vr.com/timeline/Holzer.html)

Another project I read about is called ‘Beyond Interface’ by Jodi (1995). According to Jodi Net art captured the imagination of artists in 1990s and thinks net art is a threat to paradigm (a pattern in any scientific discipline)

Jodi forces us to question the representation of data, its translation, its mapping, its conventional application for visualizing and decoding the language of programming into metaphors and signs we can interpret and utilize. (http://www.w2vr.com/timeline/Jodi.html)

Blogging

This module seems like working with the technical side of digital arts. Previously I have worked with Arduino and RFID cards although wouldn’t call myself an experienced person as my understanding of programming language is very minor.

This blog will consist of my research, ideas, and changes along the way, references/influences as well as a record of all the development stages.

I’m thinking of combining designing for social software with experimental media as I feel it can work well together. Because we are taught both the modules together my initial research and notes will be same whereas, detailed research related to module with be made clearer later on.