Category Archives: Personal Projects – not AD

Internet Service, the New York Times and Choice in the World of Mono-Duo-poly Capitalism

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What Planet is the Times Orbiting?

Today’s New York Times editorial page included a piece titled “How Fast Is Your Broadband?“. It provides a reasonable review of the sad performance of the Internet service providers in the US. It is widely known that Internet service providers like Comcast, Time-Warner and locally Mid-Hudson Cable chronically provide significantly less than their advertising claims. Here in Hudson, NY Mid-Hudson claims “blazing speeds” of 5 MB/sec (download). Repeated measurements, now numbering over 280 in the last six months prove that they provide speeds 30% less than this mark. Service technicians from M-H have acknowledged that this is the typical service they provide.

Worse is that the latency frequently reaches 2 seconds instead of being under the 100 milliseconds that is commonly accepted as OK latency on the Internet.. This means that after your click your mouse on a link in a browser, you can literally count “1 Mississippi 2 Mississippi” before you get any response to your query. This latency disables common communications tools like VOIP telephone services and audio and video services via Skype or Google. Continue reading →

Getting Started – a progressive call to action

Thursday, September 23, 2004

Getting Started – a progressive call to action

The politics and cultural life of the US has increasingly been dominated by “the vast right-wing conspiracy” – the Bush Presidency is the culmination of formal processes underway for several decades and historical phenomena rooted in the earliest moments of the country.

These are difficult times for those of us who believe:

  • the separation of church and state (one of America’s great gifts to humanity) is fundamental to the health of our society and religious groups within it
  • our economy should produce jobs that pay a living family wage for everyone
  • health care and housing are rights for everyone
  • providing for the health and education of all children is an important duty of society as a whole and an investment in the future
  • the total costs of private enterprise activities must be kept private (for example, pollution, waste management, workforce health and injuries, etc.)
  • costs of public life should be shouldered fairly by all parties (including the rich and corporations)
  • the role of the US on the world stage is best served by a clearer focus on multilateralism, disconnecting from the neo-imperialist policies currently guided by the needs of corporate interests

We need a long-term program and platform to reenergize the progressive elements of our society. The present Democratic Party is not structured to capture the interests of the large majority of Americans who could support, out of their own self-interest, a more progressive vision.

Just as the right-wing elements have coalesced around the Republican Party and made it their vehicle over the last two-to-three decades, we need a long-term program and a platform to change the terms of the debate and move public processes in our direction to achieve our objectives.

This raise all sorts of questions. In the next few entries here I will tackle some of them.

BLOG MANUFACTURING NOTES

Monday 7/21/03: I have begun the second half of the 2003 YIP Project using some new software, NoteTaker (1.5.4 from Aquaminds)

I actually began using this application to help organize all of the materials, projects, and wanderings on my laptop. I noticed that it publishes the ntoebooks quite effectively in a web version. So, I began to experiment with using it for the YIP Project.

I like the simple intuitive interface of the tabbed notebook. Although NoteTaker’s handling of images is rudimentary in terms of controlling their positions on pages, the rest of the application is very much more flexible and satisfying than my earlier iView Media produced YIP project.

Aquaminds has been responsive to my inquiries and I am hoping that future releases will improve the flexibility of the web exports.

Thursday 05/08/03: I have experimented with the iBlog application, but have found it unstable and a bit cranky to deal with. The developers in Hyderabad, India at Lifli, Ltd. have been helpful, but the troubles with the FTP function and tracking of rev’s is too much for me now. They seem focused on Apple’s .Mac service which I can’t use because it is to small and inflexible in its offerings and architecture, though it is rather elegantly integrated with the Mac operating environment.

I have also looked at the standard blogging solution at Moveable Type but this very elegant and flexible solution will require too much effort on my part to dig through the MySQL database and PHP scripting. I am more focused on the photoblog as output than the manufacturing process.

So, for the moment, I continue to use the HTML Gallery function in iView MediaPro. I’ve made some modifications to the templates that make it look like it fits into the clunky appearance of the rest of my site.

Thursday 02/24/2003: Today’s New York Times contained a story about “photobloggers”! Turns out that there are already people doing exactly the same thing as my YIP project and variations thereon. Once again, I am proven to be hopelessly behind the sheek curve.

PS: if anyone knows of good photoblogging software, send me an email.

3/25/2003 – CyberArts Presentation and Resources

March 2003 – Presentation Announcement

I will be presenting two Flash movies of artists’ books and a brief technical discussion on Wednesday April 30, 2003. Time and location details below.

I have been interested for some time now in how to make artists’ books and other three-dimensional art forms more accessible. Paintings and photographs generally hang on walls and you can readily view them as closely as you’d like. Generally larger sculpture is similarly accessible; you can simply walk around it, crouch down and peer up, or otherwise examine sculpture.

However, when you see artists’ books in a museum or even in an art gallery, generally you can’t pick them up and manipulate them at all. They tend to be exhibited under/behind glass. And, since Karen has been making artist books and boxes with structured collections of objects (her Aidila project for her mother is an example), I have become more familiar with the form and all of the interesting facets built in, but normally quite inaccessible in a museum or gallery.

So,how did I get to Flash movies from that question? Last spring I attended the final presentation by students in Karen and Miriam Goodman’s RADCLIFFE SEMINARS Course, “Word & Image: Making Art in Two Languages”, and saw Pamela Worden give a performance of her book, “Letters to Andrew: the house book“. This immediately struck me as a terrific starting point for really doing something about my question.

One thing lead to another (partly through the intervention of Miriam Goodman) and I found myself with an additional project of working on a piece done by Dot Krause, “Vengeance Is Mine“.

Pamela Worden’s book is currently in the Book Arts show at the Cambridge Artists’ Cooperative. The movie is on display also.

My ultimate objective is to put this type of work on the web.

For the moment, if you want to see both of these movies come to the presentation.

 

Boston University – Photographic Resource Center
“Printmaking, Artist’s books, and the Digital Age”

As a part of the jointly sponsored New England School of Photography and the BU Photographic Resource Center “Word and Image” series, Dorothy Simpson Krause, a painter, collage artist and printmaker who incorporates digital mixed media into her art, will talk about her work and Mark Orton, software entrepreneur, will show virtual artist books, he has translated into Flash. Orton has been working with Krause on an electronic representation of her artist’s book, “Vengeance is Mine”, and with artist Pamela Worden to create an electronic representation of her book, “Letters to Andrew: The House Book.”


Wed, April 30, 7:30pm. Boston University, The Photonics Center, Rm 206, 8 St. Mary’s St, Boston. Free! For more info contact Miriam Goodman, 617.868.5215, mirgoodman@attbi.com , or Ingrid Trinkunis (PRC), 617.353.0700, itrinkun@bu.edu . Wheelchair accessible.

One of over one hundred events in the 2003 Boston Cyberarts Festival . For more information go to: www.bostoncyberarts.org or call 617 524-8495.

 

When you find other interesting sites or resources about Book Arts and the Web, please send me an email.

Flash Resources for the Boston Cyberarts Festival Presentation April 30, 2003

This information was gathered on 04/25/03 from the various web sites. Thanks to Karen Davis and Miriam Goodman for assembling this list.

CHECK FOR CURRENT STATUS OF INFORMATION

Books

Macromedia Flash MX Hands-On-Training
By Kymberlee Weil, Lynda Weinman; Paperback
Paperback: 803 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.23 x 9.56 x 7.38
Publisher: Peachpit Press; Book and CD-ROM edition (September 24, 2002)
ISBN: 0321112725 From Book News, Inc.

This beginner’s guide offers a series of tutorials on using Flash to create graphics and animation for web sites. Step-by-step instructions accompanied by screenshots are provided for performing such procedures as creating graphic symbols, motion tweening, importing bitmaps, attaching sound to buttons, adding ActionScript to objects and frames, working with text, and applying effects to video. The CD-ROM contains exercise files and a trial version of Flash.Book News, Inc.®, Portland, OR

Macromedia Flash MX for Windows and Macintosh – A Visual Quickstart Guide
by Katherine Ulrich, ,
Publisher: Peachpit Press.
Flash MX Savvy (With CD-ROM)
by Ethan Watrall, Norbert Herber
Paperback: 784 pages ; Dimensions (in inches):
Publisher: Sybex; Book and CD-ROM edition
(May 15, 2002) ISBN: 0782141080

“The authors are smart and funny. The book is well organized and logical. The chapters feature a smooth transition between beginner topics and intermediate material (all of which is very detailed)

Reference Books
Macromedia Flash Documentation

Flash MX Bible
by Robert Reinhardt (Author), Snow Dowd (Author)
Paperback: 1300 pages ;
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons; Book and CD-ROM edition (July 15, 2002)

Includes enhanced coverage of using Flash with other powerful Web applications and exclusive expert tutorials from the world’s top Flash gurus. The most comprehensive Flash book on the market. Documents Flash’s integration and implementation of new technologies The accompanying CD-ROM is packed with trial software, add-ons, plug-ins.

Local Course Offerings

New England School of Art and Design/Suffolk University
http://www.suffolk.edu/nesad/ghtml/gcoursed.html

ADG S213 – Introduction to New Media, J. Fuchel
New media is design that deals with non-linear and interactive works using cutting-edge digital technologies. In this survey course, students will be introduced to the concepts of electronic presentation, interactive media authoring, animation, web site design and creation, digital photography, digital sound, and video effects and editing.
Prerequisite: ADG S219 3 credits/Offered fall semester

ADG S219 – Computer Applications in Design
In this course students will learn the major software applications used by graphic designers. Through a series of problems, students will learn how and when to use specific software to produce their solutions. 3 credits/Offered fall semester
ADG S340 – Multimedia
ADG S341 – Advanced Multimedia

Designing for Animation ADG S231 AE
Thu 6:00-9:00 L. Armstrong

Harvard Summer School
http://www.summer.harvard.edu/
CSCI S-K Introduction to Creative New Media and the World Wide Web (31439)
Jennifer Fuchel and Nita Sturiale
(8 units: UN, GR, NC) M-Th 10 am-12:30 pm. Required computer laboratories to be arranged. Prerequisite: Basic familiarity with Windows and/or Macintosh operating system. No programming experience required. Harvard College students see additional information. Tuition $3,900. Limited enrollment.

This introductory course is an intensive immersion into New Media production for beginning and intermediate students. The current state of “New Media” is the digital convergence of print, broadcast, audio, image, film, and the Internet. The course consists of lectures, demonstrations, visiting speakers, and computer lab experience.

Particular attention is placed on balancing technical skills with individual content and experimental approaches. We will explore the evolution as well as the societal and cultural context of New Media the Web. Along with weekly assignments, students will propose, design, and produce a web-based, multimedia final project using the tools of the industry. Core software includes Adobe PhotoShop, Dreamweaver, and Flash. The course will also introduce digital video applications, QuickTimeVR, sound editing, and frontline developments in web applications.

Harvard Extension
http://www.dce.harvard.edu/extension/2002-03/courses

(Last fall)
CSCI E-14 Understanding and Developing Multimedia (11200)
Scott Traylor, BA, President, 360KID.
Creating dynamic media that communicates effectively through the use of sound, images, motion, text, and interactivity is a process that involves skill, planning, and practice. In this course, students will examine the concepts and tools necessary for producing their own interactive multimedia projects. A number of professional authoring applications willbe used to create student projects including Macromedia Flash, Bias Peak, Adobe Photoshop, and Illustrator. Many development- and user-related issues will be discussed, including the definition of target audience and playback conditions, defining the user experience before building, narrowband versus broadband delivery, as well as successful interface and compression formats. Prerequisites: a solid understanding of the Macintosh and Windows operating system; basic understanding of any paint or draw program.

Cambridge Center For Adult Education
http://www.ccae.org/catalog/courses/index.php?id=150


Introduction to Macromedia Flash MX
In this introductory class, learn the fundamentals of Flash and build dynamic media for web, CD-ROMs and other on or offline deliverables. We’ll start by familiarizing ourselves with the improved Flash interface and some of the brand new features only available in MX. Topics include working with timelines, creating movie clips and button symbols, using masks and guides, and building complex animated graphics.

This course is intended for new Flash users, but a working knowledge of Flash 5, Adobe
Photoshop/Imageready, and the Macintosh operating system is helpful. Limited to 12.
Sec. 01: 8 Tuesdays, 8:00-10:00 pm. Begins Jun. 17, 1 Story St. | $266
Term: SUMMER TERM Code: FLSX Section: 1

Flash Without the Cash

Term: SUMMER TERM
Sec. 01: 1 Wednesday, 6:30-8:30 pm. Jul. 16, 1 Story St. | $47
Instructor: Michael Mahoney

This course is designed to demonstrate alternatives to using Macromedia Flash to achieve the same results at 1/10th of the cost in 1/10th of the time. Limited to 12.

Boston Center for Adult Education

Boston Resources

Introduction to Flash 5.0
Flash 5.0 is a powerful motion graphics tool offering unique solutions to Web design, animation, games, and other interactive media. Get an introduction to Flash’s capabilities through a series of projects that explore its most powerful features. Projects focus on creating animation, enhancing that animation with interactivity, and adding
sound and dynamic media. This course is designed for the novice; however, a working knowledge of the PC is helpful. The tuition includes a materials fee for a CD containing the lessons as well as useful links, resources for, and examples of more advanced projects.

Member: $179.00 Non-member: $198.00
Mondays: Time: 6:00pm – 9:00pm Begins: 05/05/2003 Session(s): 4 Ends: 06/02/2003 Class does not meet May 26.
Meets at: Technology Learning Center Instructors: Museum of Science, Gary Tucker

Art Institute of Boston/Lesley University
http://www.lesley.edu/aib/EXTRA/courses.html

The Web Design Trio: Macromedia MX Suite (Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash)
Matthew Nash July 14 – August 20, M, W @ 6 pm – 9:30 pm
1 Credit/$960, includes fees, or Non-credit/$900

Macromedia, the leader in web design and animation tools, recently released their MX package, a fully integrated web design suite. Create complicated and complex websites with Flash animations, graphics rollovers and great design with the tools of MX. This class will cover the basics of each program, look at how they are integrated when they are used to support each other, and how they form the best web design package on the market. We will use Flash to create amazing animations, Fireworks to create intricate and beautiful graphics, and Dreamweaver to combine them all into complete websites.

Massachusetts College of Art
http://www.massart.edu/indexF6.html
http://www.massart.edu/at_massart/academic_prgms/continuing/

Summer 2003
Flash

Animation is about telling a story through images that move. Macromedia Flash is so popular on the web because of its varied abilities to entertain, and communicate. In this workshop, students explore Flash’s unique drawing capabilities, animation
techniques, symbol creation and interactivity. We will create shapes and movement, make buttons, understand the concept of timelines, incorporate sound, and tell 7 stories that excite, entertain, and inspire us.

Prerequisites: Experience with computer graphics, strong comfort with Macintosh.
Workshop Code: NC517 Instructor: Margie Mintz
Schedule: Fri, 6-10pm. June 6-20 Cost: $275

School of Museum of Fine Arts
http://www.smfa.edu/default.asp?bhcp=1

Summer Program
Internet Animation / CMP 2015 S1

Steve Gildea
MTWR 9:00AM – 5:00PM Jun 10 2003 – Jun 26 2003 , Location: MAIN
1.50 Credits / Tuition: $620.00

The Web has become the new venue for animation, from avant-garde experimentation to commercial application. In this course we will take a hands-on approach to creating vector-based animations using the popular multimedia program Macromedia Flash. Flash allows the development of full-screen, streaming graphics, high-quality MP3 audio, as well as interaction. In a series of projects, we will learn to make use of vector graphics, key frames, and “inbetweening.” We will work with transparency, especially with text effects, and learn how to use raster graphics and audio. Upon the successful completion of this course, students will have a portfolio of Web-based animation that can be posted on a Web site or distributed on a CD-ROM. Prerequisite: Students should be familiar with Web page design techniques and editing tools and capable of working with Photoshop.

Introduction to Macromedia Flash / CMP 2017 S1

Lisa Berelson
TR 9:00AM – 5:00PM Jul 22 2003 – Aug 7 2003 , Location: MAIN
1.50 Credits / Tuition: $620.00

Flash technology has freed Web designers from the constraints of HTML programming. It melds the possibilities of unbounded design and creativity with a technology that allows graphics to be quickly downloaded over the Internet. This class will introduce Flash techniques and tools, such as drawing, layers, and working with scenes. Through hands-on exercises and projects you will learn how to create motion, shape “tweens,” design and edit symbols, and add interactivity using action scripts. We will also explore plug-in options, browser detection issues, and publishing and optimization techniques. Students will be expected to develop individual projects. Prerequisite: Students must have previous experience in basic Web development using Dreamweaver and HTML as well as experience with imaging software such as Freehand or Illustrator and Photoshop.

Consultants/Developers

Lenni Armstrong
http://www.informmotion.biz
informmotion@attbi.com
(617) 764-1682


Leigh Clark
Site includes lecture notes on interactive design as well as design and
production using Flash, available to the public for reference.
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~lclark
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~lclark/resume
lclark@fas.harvard.edu


Steve Hoey
steve@stevehoey.com.

Sites of Interest to Book Artists

http://lab.dce.harvard.edu/summer/cscisk/creatnewmedia/
extensive resources list

Book Arts Sites

http://www.thesecretbooks.com/sitelink.html Artist Book using Flash (also published book)
http://www.seankernan.com/

http://www.colophon.com/
modern illustrated and fine press books

http://www.bostonbookarts.org/
excellent site resources, links, individual artists

http://www.philobiblon.com/
extensive resources, gallery

http://www.colum.edu/centers/bpa/links.html

adaptable
http://www.artmonster.com/flash/flashexamples/silverbearintro.htm

 

When you find other interesting sites or resources about Book Arts and the Web, please send me an email

What is the Year-In-Pictures Project?

I have been troubled for most of my life by an almost comprehensive lack of memories of the day-to-day events in my life. So, this year I started with the notion that I would keep a diary, rudimentary to be sure, in which I would note significant events.

This I have done since the beginning of the year.

Recently I was trying to organize my photos and it struck me that these photos are, to an extent, a record of many important events over the last 6 or 7 years.

Why not add to my written diary a picture taken every day? Not necessarily a picture of anything literally reportorial, although this would not be excluded, rather at times just something I noticed during the day.

I have now armed myself with an older point-and-shoot camera that fits easily into a pocket or my computer bag. These pages in the web site are the results.

02122002 – Short Words

Short Words

“Short words”

(stolen from the Economist Style Guide (021202)

Use them. They are often Anglo-Saxon rather than Latin in origin. They are easy to spell and easy to understand. Thus prefer about to approximately, after to following, let to permit, but to however, use to utilise, make to manufacture, plant to facility, take part to participate, set up to establish, enough to sufficient, show to demonstrate and so on. Underdeveloped countries are often better described as poor. Substantive often means real or big.

“Short words are best and the old words when short are best of all.” (Winston Churchill)

Whose Opinion (Advice) Is This?

Whose Opinion (Advice) Is This?

The Problem

At a time when we are quite aware of the need for and value of transparency in the reporting of the activities of corporations (thanks most recently to the Enron affair), we could quite usefully extend this transparency metaphor to other parts of day-to-day life. The print press, TV, radio, and internet are filled with opinions and advice from all sorts of people. Many of these pass for expert status just based on affiliation with universities, institutes, and think tanks.

Increasingly we must ask ourselves, “whose opinion is this?” Who is being served by the expertise?

Although many in the academic and chic cultural world (not to mention the various right-wing types in political and religious quarters) may think that relativism is the creation of post-WWII French philosophy, most of the rest of the world knows full well that “truth” is in fact relative, that is, relative to who is paying. No surprise, the “experts” know this too, and regularly seek to hide or obscure who is paying. Now, even the pinnacle of prestige in the medical world, The New England Journal of Medicine, has had to strengthen its guidelines that seek to separate research performed at arms length from the pharmaceutical/medical industrial complex from that more directly controlled.

A Step Towards a Solution

What can we do to provide a substantial increase in the transparency of our information sources while keeping things simple?

We should begin to demand that every expert, commentator, think tank institute, or university laboratory reveal the sources of 80% of the funds supporting its research/organizational activities. In the vast majority of case the list of sources will not exceed three or four. This protocol will provide a revealing base of background information without substantial burdens.

A Caveat

Although the protocol proposed here will increase the transparency of our sources of information, it will not relieve us of the work of making sense out of the data and theories presented in any given situation. Just because a given piece of research is funded by “bad people” does not mean that the data is not meaningful and the analysis correct.