What Next

So after getting a not to bad mark what will I be doing next...More studying that's what so out with some more books and hopefully next test I can get even better and prove to everyone I can do it when I put my head to it but for now its films time - hey I need to relax sometime.

How to get there

After having a good think on what we might do, We have decided that one of the main packages we would possibly use would be Adobe Aftereffects this is due to us taking an image of an existing building and then manipulating it to create our desired effects. So start to gt our hands dirty and start learning Aftereffect.

Going Ahead

Well after thinking about the new Idea me and Kathleen have decided to go ahead with the new Idea for our projection. So just to recap the Idea for the projection that we are going to do is the one where we take information such as traffic sound levels and surrounding pub sound levels and then project this back into the Grand Theatre (Opposite Aldi) as sound waves eating away at the built up grime and then revealing the way the Grand Theatre looked like (to certain extent) and in a way bringing life back into something that is run down and disused. so the next step is to find out what it might of looked like.

Possible new Idea

Just been having a think about the old Idea and to be honest I feel it may be a bit childish. So after listening to some more of Shaun's discussions I have come up with the idea of using both mine and Kathleen's ideas of using sound from both the pubs and traffic and then illustrating this as sound waves eating into a building and over a short period of time chipping away the out building skin and showing something new still building on the projecting life into a derelict building.

Just a bit more on this after discussing it with Kathleen we have decided to use the traffic noise and use the ambiance of the surrounding pubs and the Idea is to illustrate my traffic sounds chipping away the past whilst Kathleen's ambiance data is been inserted into the derelict building and we feel this would be achieved by both been run at the same time and the finished product should show a vibrant new interior of a derelict building.

Digital Signature Results

Well got my results for the digital signature, I wasn't to pleased with it as I have only got 50 out of 100 not to good but suppose I should reflect on what I have produced and maybe I should of taken the elements parts out of the digital signature. But I suppose i should look on the bright side of it in that I only had 2 weeks to do it in as I started the unit late so if I had as long as the rest maybe I might of got a better result.

Test Results

Just got my results for the programming test, I didn't do to bad would of been happier if I had more time to prepare but I suppose coming from a programming background (C, Java, VB) it wasn't to hard just couldn't remember the syntax of some of the coding also a bit weird writing it out on paper would of been better on computer.

Results:

Presentation - not so good

Today was our groups presentation for Joassia, I thought it went pretty bad considering we had an extra week to prepare for it. Today I couldn't get thinking what I was going to say but then again that's no excuse but all I can do is improve for the next presentation and hopefully get a bit more confidence in doing them.

Presentation

Just got an email through stating that we have got a presentation to do over the following weeks (mines in 3 weeks time 15-12-2009). The presentation is to be based on the PechaKucha Night,
presentations. We have to contextualise our blogs for the presentation and show it in 20 images that last for 20 seconds (if I'm understanding it correctly) so should be good fun maybe do some on psycho cat.

Bad Location - Maybe

After actually going down and starting to take some more notes on the Grand Theatre we have again decided that this is not the correct location as previously mentioned the main road restricts our possibilities of projecting the image across the road (unless we can get a road closure all in the name of education:-)). We are again back to the drawing board for finding a location but least now it will be a bit easier as we know roughly what we want to project.

Website Evolution

Hello all, I think my website was OK, wish I had more time to do more on it but then again if it was perfect to start with I wouldn't have anything else to build on so this is where the fun starts and the trial and errors. I still want to flow with the web 2.0 styling but maybe add a bit of old school styling into it, well if you keep a watch on my website It will hopefully start becoming more like what I visualised... That's me over and done with for know so keep a watch out for my new ideas.

Moans

Just some moans about validation. Firstly I liked how in FireFox I could create some rounded corners in CSS but the validator wouldn't pass it so had to take it out (maybe I will learn the old way of using images), Secondly I liked the Opacity features but again the validator wouldn't validate the CSS file as 2.1 but it did pass the CSS 3 validation but as I wasn't sure if we were been tested for 2.1 or 3 I chose to take the code out maybe I should of just commented it out but hey never mind.

Dooms day

Well today is hand in day, I am hoping that Chris wont slate my site to much as it still is not finished as I will be continuing to build on it but for now it will do for the assignment.

Location Continued

After been in Shaun's lesson today I feel the location we have decided on may not be too good as we are restricted to having a big white transit to haul around the equipment (in need of some Sherpas) we will have to go down at a given time and see what the location is like then we can decide whether or not to continue with our location.

Manifesto of a Psycho Cat

I couldn't really decide on what to do my manifesto on, so what I decided was to do a manifesto on our stray cat friend that wanders through our back door and reeks havoc through out the house and especially on our house mate Scatt aka Scott. Well hope you enjoy the Psycho Cat Manifesto.

Psycho Cat Manifesto

1. All Cats no matter how tamed or wild will be considered to be a psycho
2. All psycho cats will live their lives with one goal in mind, to terrorise the human race
3. All psycho cats will wreak havoc throughout the neighbourhood and taunt humans with acts of aggression
4. All psycho will not be held responsible for their aggressive nature
5. All psycho cats will live their lives in hope that one day all slaves will cease to exist and in doing so this planet will be left for the true rulers - The Psycho Cats
6. All psycho cats will at least once a day shit in their slaves house
7. All psycho cats will shred up slaves and slaves friends carpets
8. All psycho cats will exact revenge upon those who do not feed them
9. All psycho cats will continue to disrupt their slaves lives at least once a week
10. All cats that uphold the 9 previous rules will go to catty heaven and have their feast of seven virgin pussies

Psycho Cat

Projection Idea

We have decided to run with the idea of combining two elements together i.e. the flow of traffic and sound it produces and the flow of people and the ambiance a pub generates.
So the next thing on the list is deciding what to project, We have come up with the idea of creating a sort of disco that can be projected into a derelict building (we have an idea of what building but not sure if it will be possible).

The part that I will be concentrating on will be obviously converting the data I have collected and then representing this in a visual way, I have decided to use something like beat bars (bars that rise and fall depending on Decibels) to represent the sound levels and maybe (not fully decided yet) illustrate the flow of traffic by using images (stick men) obvisouly the more the cars at a given time the more the people.

The part that Kathleen will be concentrating on will be the noise levels surrounding the pubs, and this will be projected as the flashing lights (for the disco) and also the number of people in a pub will possibly be represented using stick women, This can be illustrated in the image bellow.

Stonehouse Disco:

Deadline upon us

Tick Tock Tick Tock that the sound of my bloody clock, still on with the site... still changing little things here and there but then decide it just doesn't look how I want it to look so go back to the old design. I think now that the dead line is coming up quickly I just have to finished what I have and then build on it when I have some free time.

My PDP

So you might be looking at this post and thinking what the hell is a PDP well its my Personal Development Plan. I havnt really gone to far ahead as I feal that if you plan to far ahead it can cloud what you need to do to get there. Well here is my PDP.

Validation of sites

Just checked my Validation for my XHTML and CSS both passed so pleased with that just finish tarting up the site a bit more and then validate again.

The site...

Hi again, well hopefully today we (our group) will decide where we want to project our finished project, we did have a walk around Stonehouse last week and can prove that with the soggy clothes, we saw three sites that looked promising but still couldn't decide which one to go with so today before lesson is decision time and then I believe as Shaun stated last week we will be going to our sites and taking measurements so we can get the images exactly the right sizes for what we need to do... ooh getting exciting now.

Javascript validation

Hi, in our website we have been asked to add some validation to a form so I have been looking in to this and have managed to get the validation for the email address working (thanks to Microsoft and their email string validation), the string is fairly complex when you first look at it but when you break it down its not to hard to decipher it. I have attached a link to the info as I think it is a good bit of resource.

Email String explanation:

Presentation

Hello and welcome to my second installment for this module. Today was suppose to be our groups presentation but unfortunately Joasia was not in today, so this means that we will probably have to do it next week I suppose in one sense it gives us more time to do so more stuff for it but then again if we did it today we would of had it over and done with. I suppose we should look at this with a chance to make things a bit better.

CSS Coding

Well what can I say about CSS... Only that's its bloody complicated at times but after a few hours of trial and error I got my website to look a little bit like I imagined it. The CSS was a bit confusing for the body tag in that I had to put body *{margin:0;} and body{margin:0;} to make the whole website move to the top of the page and let the site flow a bit better, the code worked but still not a hundred percent sure what the * is used for (Chris if your reading this and know why the * is needed please leave me a comment to let me know).

Freedom of Information: Manifesto

This is a manifesto for the freedom of information. I chose to do this manifesto in that I think it’s kind of funny how there is a freedom of information act and basically it tells you how you are not allowed information from given sources but I feel that maybe if information was widely distributed and free then there would possibly be a breakthrough in how computer programs are created and even system and maybe we as a human race might evolve and better ourselves.

1. Information Will be Free
All Information will be considered free, No person or Persons will be held responsible for their actions in gaining unlawfully restricted information.

2. Intellectual Property
Information that is created on or after November 30th 2009 will fall under the New Freedom of Information Act 2009 and therefore there will be no cost to be expected from the person or persons within the general public domain that wish to obtain the desired information.

3. Governing bodies
Governing bodies will place down guide lines for individuals or companies to conform to the New Freedom of Information act 2009. Whereas there will be no governing bodies regulating information that is considered to be out of the public view and therefore in breach of the New Freedom Of information Act 2009.

4. No Boundaries
There will be no boundaries that a person or persons will encounter whilst trying to source the information they desire, if any boundaries are encountered then the individual or companies that hold the desired information will be held accountable in a court of law.

5. The Cost
Any individual or companies that do not adhere to these rules will be in breach of the New Freedom of Information Act 2009, in doing so they will also be held accountable in a court of law and will pay a minimum of £100,000 to the person or persons involved.


Well I hope you enjoyed my little manifesto and if you thought it was a bit to deep then maybe you might want to look at my Psycho Cat manifesto under my general tag.

Collecting Data - Ideas

We as a group have been thinking what information we should collect and then deciding how to project that information back into Stonehouse.
We have come up with a few ideas, so we narrowed the ideas down and have chosen one we think is possible.The idea is to collect information on both the flow of traffic i.e. how many cars roughly pass through a given area at a given time also recording the sound levels of the vehicles. the next part is to collect data such as the number people and the ambiance of a few selected pubs. After we have collected this information we are then wanting to illustrate this as a sort of disco (Stonehouse Disco) and projecting this back into a derelict building and in the way bringing life back into something that is dead.

Location Location Location

We have finally decided where to project our ideas, we think the little run down pub called the Grand Theatre on Union street would be good as it has a quaint appearance, that we feel needs bringing back into the 21st century.

The main task is projecting it across the main road so we need to find out what equipment we will be using.

The Grand Theatre:

The Grand Theatre how things are added but nothing of the actual building changes:

Design Image

Forgot to upload the image of my design so here goes, I know not the best looking picture but oh well here it is hopefully you can tell I tried and keep my site similar to my design (I know lack of design).

The joys of creating...

Hello I decided to use what I believe is an elastic layout (I think)... The user can re size his/her screen and the design will stretch a shrink to a certain extent, I have added a restriction to the width when the user re sizes his/her screen so that if the area goes below 800px it will not shrink any more I think this is OK as most people use higher resolution screens that 800px but for those who still have the smaller resolution the site will still be readable (hopefully).

So how did i get to this, well to be honest I kinda done something similar before but now with a little bit more knowledge I think I have managed to create something that flows nicely for the user the only hardest bit about this is actually knowing what you want the finished product to look like so many ideas but I suppose I can always do more to it after the hand in date.

Manifesto Continued:

Hello again - I know been a long time since I've been on here but I have been so busy lately with so many things to do and not enough time in the day. Well I have been giving this some more thought and I have decided to go ahead with my manifesto on Freedom of Information as like the lecturer said its something that would happen in an idyllic world, So off to work I go with a very strong coffee.

Stonehouse - Location

Hi, We as a group have decided to do Union street as our location as we feel this is where most of the ambiance of Stonehouse is collated.

Choice Of Location:

Website Plan

Hi Again... I have been constantly changing my mind about this website and how it will look, so to keep my self focused I have been doing some quick sketches for the site and have come up with one design that I think I will be able to build upon in time but for now my plan is to get it working the more creative stuff can come latter (with more experiance and a lot more coffee) well running short on coffee now so im going to go get some rest.

Virgin

Virgin yeah like the name suggest they are not very overly experienced... with sorting things out. Was supposed to come and put my broadband in but guess what nothing yup not even a bloody phone call so yet again I'm piggy backing on someones Else's Internet (sorry Belkin-G owner) but it just annoys me how companies promise you the earth and give you will nothing.

BT Strike again

This is just a rant on how CRAP BT are, I have ordered myself a web hosting package from BT over a week ago now and I still havnt had my account activated so I can not do anything on my site arrrr. I contacted BT today and after a bloody hour I finaly got through to someone that actually sounded like they knew what they were doing but me been the lucky one I have to go to Uni so still havnt got my Web hosting sorted.

Web site brief

Hi all, For one of our assignments we have been asked to create a web site that has 3-4 pages. I have spent sometime on the design but just keep changing my mind so I'm now creating the content of the site and then I will create the imagery to tart the site up and use CSS and Javascript to make it (hopefully) look a bit better than it does now.

TV Session

Well after just watching The Net for nearly two hours I thaught I would write a little about it - The Net is a documentry illustrating the start of the computer revolution as we know it today i.e. the net and also about Theodore (Ted) Kaczynski aka UnaBomber who was sentenced for bombings that he carried out over a period of 17 years. I found the film to be very informative and actually enjoyed it, I believe I got the connections that we were asked to identify. Well thats enough for me now as I have other things to do. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Kaczynski

Manifesto

We have been asked to write a manifesto of something that we believe in, I didn't realise just how hard it can be to find something you are passionate about me its been computers but then I have to ask myself what within computers. I started to think about freedom of information and in a idyllic word all information would be free but then you look at the flip side and if all information is free then what about the value of intellectual property and if information is free then where is the incentive for people to create the information? well I suppose it is one I am going to have to think a bit more on.

Programming Exam

Hi all, I did a programming test yesterday on Javascript and HTML - think I did ok but not sure as I think I got a few things mixed up with me nowing Java and C all didferent ways of doing things but hey only time will tell.

Rhetoric

Didn't really know what Rhetoric meant, I have heard it so many times before but like most things in life you just disregard it. So I did some research into what was Rhetoric and have included some info about what Rhetoric is, and hopefully to shed some light.

Rhetoric is the study of effective speaking and writing. And the art of persuasion. And many other things.

In its long and vigorous history rhetoric has enjoyed many definitions, accommodated differing purposes, and varied widely in what it included. And yet, for most of its history it has maintained its fundamental character as a discipline for training students to perceive how language is at work orally and in writing, and to become proficient in applying the resources of language in their own speaking and writing.

Discerning how language is working in others' or one's own writing and speaking, one must (artificially) divide form and content, what is being said and how this is said. Because rhetoric examines so attentively the how of language, the methods and means of communication, it has sometimes been discounted as something only concerned with style or appearances, and not with the quality or content of communication. For many (such as Plato) rhetoric deals with the superficial at best, the deceptive at worst ("mere rhetoric"), when one might better attend to matters of substance, truth, or reason as attempted in dialectic or philosophy or religion.

Rhetoric has sometimes lived down to its critics, but as set forth from antiquity, rhetoric was a comprehensive art just as much concerned with what one could say as how one might say it. Indeed, a basic premise for rhetoric is the indivisibility of means from meaning; how one says something conveys meaning as much as what one says. Rhetoric studies the effectiveness of language comprehensively, including its emotional impact, as much as its propositional content. To see how language and thought worked together, however, it has first been necessary to artificially divide content and form.

Least now I have a better understanding what it means.

Postcard Completed

Well , I completed my postcard for Shaun and posted it yesterday (Hopefully he should get for today if not I will take in a copy). The psotcard is a representation of Stonehouse and how people have different choices in life and these choices are illustrated within the postcard as a path which splits into two directions the new vision of Stonehouse and the old vision of Stonehouse. The new vision of Stonehouse is a more futuristic vision i.e it has an arena and the old vision is more about the way in which I vision Stonehouse now as a place in desperation and in need of a face lift, I have illustrated this as a soldier at his most vulnerable. Well hope it makes some sense to whoever reads this.

Biographical statements with links

My full name is Thomas Kenneth Smith, I was born on the 7th of July 1979 which makes me old 30 to be precised. I was born in Huddersfield and lived there until I was about 28, I went to Royds Hall School and finished there in 1995 which then I went straight into work starting as an apprentice mechanic which I did for a couple of years, I then went on to do work on to do bigger and better things well OK went to work on bigger machines as a service engineer I did this for a number of years working in different companies until the point I decided it wasn't really for me and went back to night college to do a HNC/HND in computer Software Engineering and then well as you can probably tell I am upto the point where I am today in Plymouth Uni I know not a lot can be said in one paragraph.

Dreamweaver Contd.

Hi again, I have been learning my self a bit of Dreamweaver and to be honest im not actualy minding it. Chris has shown us how to use some Java script within our web pages that I found very usefull and will definatly be adding some to my finished website, just hope Chris isnt to hard on the marking side (were all learning still lol).

Postcard

Well, we have been asked by Shaun to do a postcard and to post it to him. The postcard has to be somthing about Stonehouse set in the future and it has to entice people to want to come and view Stonehouse. I am finding this one kinda hard as I have a lot of ideas but not realy shure how to et to the finished product, maybe if I leave it long enough the magical fairys will do it for me... wishfull thinking well I better go get something done for now as if I dont I might be in a bit of bother.